RELFE BROTHERS' MODEL READING-BOOKS, Narrative and Descriptive, IN PROSE AND VERSE, FOR USE IN SCHOOLS. EDITED, WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTION, BY R. F. CHARLES, M.A., ASSISTANT-MASTER IN THE CITY OF LONDON SCHOOL. NO, VI-FOR ADVANCED CLASSES. LONDON: PUBLISHED BY RELFE BROTHERS, PREFACE, THE object of the graduated series of English Reading-books, of which this is the concluding volume, is to give a series of extracts in prose and verse from the best authors of a character likely to interest young people, and to encourage in them a taste for the higher forms of literature while giving them varied material for practice. This reading-book is considerably more advanced in character than any other of the series. In it an attempt is made to supply a want often felt by Teachers of a selection of passages long enough and important enough to form the material of continuous study, but not so long as to preclude the variety of subject-matter desirable in a class of those beginning the study of our Literature. It is hoped, too, that this volume may serve as a storehouse of materials to help those who are engaged in teaching Composition. With this object in view the book is divided into several parts. The earlier and larger part consists of passages chiefly of a Descriptive character, and here extracts dealing with the same subject by different authors, are, in several cases, printed side by side for the convenience of comparison. Part II. deals with passages of an Ex Narrative; and Part III. with pository or Reflective character. So far the extracts are in prose and verse alternately, or nearly so. Part IV. consists of Dramatic scenes, and Part v. of Letters. At the end of the volume a few prose passages suitable for learning by heart are added, and it is to be hoped that these may be found useful as models in composition. A few hints to young readers on the right method of studying an English author are given by way of Introduction; and, in order to make these clear, the first extract of the volume is treated as a model lesson. In the Notes, at the end of the volume, an attempt is made to meet the principal difficulties and to direct the attention of the young reader to the sort of questions that arise in the study of extracts such as those before him. It is, of course, impossible in a book that is primarily a Reading-book, to annotate each extract fully. In four of the extracts-those from Spenser, Latimer, Milton's Areopagitica, and the Percy Ballads-the archaic spelling has been preserved. The Editor has to thank Professor Hales and Mr. Furnivall for permission to print the ballad of Chevy Chase from their edition of Bishop Percy's folio Mss., and the Delegates of the Clarendon Press for permission to use extracts from The Norman Conquest and The Dialogues of Plato. |