It was the rare fortune of Professor McLaughlin that he solved this problem, presented to every instructor in English, with a felicity that does not fall often to the lot of those engaged in the same occupation. It was not so much in imparting knowledge that his peculiar distinction lay; it was in his success in inspiring interest in the subject and zeal for its prosecution. It is, therefore, more especially to those who have been under his teaching that this little volume is addressed as a memorial of one to whom many will acknowledge is due the first bent their minds received to the study and appreciation of what is best and highest in literature. What its author would have accomplished with his remarkable powers of acquisition and assimilation, had he lived to carry out and perfect plans which he had in contemplation, it is idle to conjecture; and the world, which cares but little for what is actually done in the field in which he was largely working, cannot be expected to concern itself with that which was never more than projected. But there are some to whom the result of his labors, shown in this volume, will prove of interest for what it is; while to those who have known him personally, it will, even in its comparatively imperfect state, furnish a suggestive intimation of what might have been.
T. R. Lounsbury
Yale University,
March 22, 1894.
MEDIÆVAL LIFE AND LITERATURE
THE MEDIÆVAL FEELING FOR NATURE.
On the 26th April, 1335, Mt. Ventoux, near Avignon, was the scene of a remarkable occurrence. Petrarch was the hero, and on the evening of that day, while the impression was yet strong upon him, he wrote an account of it to a friend. The incident was nothing less than climbing a mountain for æsthetic gratification. That he cared to do it showed that Petrarch was on the outskirts of mediævalism.