In 3 Vols., uniform with the present Work,

MISCELLANIES OF LITERATURE.

"This work puts us at once into fellowship with the master spirits of the past, and brings up the scenes and events of other days with life-like freshness: -supplying us with what has been long needed, -a home description of literature and the master-builders of it; their difficulties, hardships, dispositions, social wants and pleasures. It is a good counterpart to the Curiosities of Literature,' and like that rare work will abundantly amuse and instruct." — Cincinnati Republican.

"The writings of D'Israeli belong to a class no less peculiar in their character, than they are valuable in their kind. Few authors have labored so assiduously, or rendered such efficient service to the interests of literature. His style is pre-eminent for its nervousness and classic beauty, and it is doubtless to this cause no less than to the immense collection of amusing and characteristic anecdote which he has supplied that we are to ascribe the high estimation with which his former writings have been received. We cordially recommend these delightful volumes to all who can appreciate the pleasing combination of the utile et dulce in books." - New World "Take up either of the volumes, and open where you please, the reader will at once find his attention chained by something curious and new, though very old: in deed for casual and curious reading D'Israeli is incomparable."— N. Y. American. "The three volumes before us, have not an uninteresting line from title-page to finis." Tattler.

"The immense collection of historical and characteristic anecdote, comprised in these delightful volumes, could only have been the product of a mind deeply imbued with an ardent passion for literature, and if one who must in an extraordinary degree have given diligent investigation of the past. In a word it is a work that enchains you from beginning to end, in the perusal of which you feel reluctant to pause till you find yourself compelled by the unwelcome 'finis.'" — Merchant's Magazine.

"Had this popular author now for the first time appeared before the reading world, these volumes would be amply sufficient to ensure him a proud rank among the first writers of the age. The work abounds in entertaining anecdotes, pertinent quotations, and philosophical reflections; there is a power of thought and patient research manifested throughout which has rarely if ever been equalled." -The Classic.

PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION,

In 2 Vols., 12mo.,

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

OF THE LATE

WILLIAM HAZLITT, ESQ.,

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR,
BY SIR E. L. BULWER, BT.

J. & H. G. LANGLEY, 57 CHATHAM ST.

OF

LITERATURE,

CONSISTING OF

SKETCHES AND CHARACTERS OF ENGLISH
LITERATURE.

BY I. D'ISRAELI,

D.C.L. F.S.A.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

NEW YORK:

J. & H. G. LANGLEY, 57 CHATHAM STREET.

PREFACE.

A HISTORY of our vernacular literature has occupied my studies for many years. It was my design not to furnish an arid narrative of books or of authors, but following the steps of the human mind through the wide track of time, to trace from their beginnings the rise, the progress, and the decline of public opinions, and to illustrate, as the objects presented themselves, the great incidents in our national annals.

In the progress of these researches many topics presented themselves, some of which, from their novelty and curiosity, courted investigation. Literary history, in this enlarged circuit, becomes not merely a philological history of critical erudition, but ascends into a philosophy of books, where their subjects, their tendency, and their immediate or gradual influence over the people discover their actual condition.

Authors are the creators or the creatures of opinion; the great form an epoch, the many reflect their age.