This valuable work has now become so generally known and appreciated, that there need scarcely be any thing said in commendation, except to those who have not yet seen it.
The work embraces about One Thousand Authors, chronologically arranged and classed as Poets, Historians, Dramatists, Philosophers, Metaphysicians, Divines, etc., with choice selections from their writings, connected by a Biographical, Historical, and Critical Narrative; thus presenting a complete view of English Literature, from the earliest to the present time. Let the reader open where he will, he cannot fail to find matter for profit and delight, which, for the most part, too, repeated perusals will only serve to make him enjoy the more. We have indeed infinite riches in a little room. No one, who has a taste for literature, should allow himself, for a trifling consideration, to be without a work which throws so much light upon the progress of the English language. The selections are gems—a mass of valuable information in a condensed and elegant form.
EXTRACTS FROM COMMENDATORY NOTICES.
From W. H. Prescott, Author of "Ferdinand and Isabella." "The plan of the work is very judicious. * * * It will put the reader in the proper point of view, for surveying the whole ground over which he is travelling. * * * Such readers cannot fail to profit largely by the labors of the critic who has the talent and taste to separate what is really beautiful and worthy of their study from what is superfluous."
"I concur in the foregoing opinion of Mr. Prescott."—Edward Everett.
"It will be a useful and popular work, indispensable to the library of a student of English literature."—Francis Wayland.
"We hail with peculiar pleasure the appearance of this work, and more especially its republication in this country at a price which places it within the reach of a great number of readers."—North American Review.
"This is the most valuable and magnificent contribution to a sound popular literature that this century has brought forth. It fills a place which was before a blank. Without it, English literature, to almost all of our countrymen, educated or uneducated, is an imperfect, broken, disjointed mass. Much that is beautiful—the most perfect and graceful portions, undoubtedly—was already possessed; but it was not a whole. Every intelligent man, every inquiring mind, every scholar, felt that the foundation was missing. Chambers's Cyclopædia supplies this radical defect. It begins with the beginning; and, step by step, gives to every one who has the intellect or taste to enjoy it a view of English literature in all its complete, beautiful, and perfect proportions."—Onondaga Democrat, N. Y.
"We hope that teachers will avail themselves of an early opportunity to obtain a work so well calculated to impart useful knowledge, with the pleasures and ornaments of the English classics. The work will undoubtedly find a place in our district and other public libraries; yet it should be the 'vade mecum' of every scholar."—Teachers' Advocate, Syracuse, N. Y.