Each volume is complete in itself, and preceded by an Essay illustrative of the qualities respectively exemplified in the selections; the best passages are marked and commented upon by Mr. Leigh Hunt, who also characterizes each author. Bound in cloth, with gilt edges, price 10s. 6d. each.
Opinions of the Press, on Wit and Humour.
“The design of this delightful series extends beyond a collection of elegant extracts, while it combines the best features of such collections. The two volumes already published are precisely the books one would wish to carry for companionship on a journey, or to have at hand when tired of work, or at a loss what to do for want of it. They are selections of some of the best things some of our best authors have said, accompanied with short but delicate expositions and enforcements of their beauties. They are truly most genial, agreeable, and social books.”—Examiner.
“This is really a delightful volume, forming a proper complement and companion to its predecessor on ‘Imagination and Fancy.’ Each of them gives us the best passages of the best writers, in their respective kinds, illustrated by one who will himself leave no mean remembrance to posterity, in the spirit of genial criticism, informed by a delicate faculty of discrimination. What more could literary epicures desire?”—Morning Chronicle.
“If we were to choose the subject and the author of a fireside book for the long winter evenings, we should certainly call some such volume as this into existence. The reader will look for exquisite things in this book, and he will find a great deal more than he looks for in the prodigal resources opened up in its pages. It is the very essence of the sunniest qualities from English poets.”—Atlas.
“There is something genial in the very title of this volume; and it does not belie its title. ‘Wit and Humour,’ forms a pendant to ‘Imagination and Fancy,’ by the same author. A like design is embodied in both works. The book is at once exhilarating and suggestive: it may charm frivolous minds into wisdom, and austere ones into mirth.”—Athenæum.
A NARRATIVE OF THE RECOVERY OF H. M. S. GORGON.
(Charles Hotham, Esq., Captain), Stranded in the Bay of Monte Video, May 10, 1844. By Astley Cooper Key, Commander, R.N., (late Lieut, of H. M. S. Gorgon). 1 vol. 8vo. with numerous Plates. Price 7s. 6d. cloth.
“MODERN PAINTERS.”
Volume the First. By A Graduate of Oxford. A New Edition, revised by the Author, being the Third. In imperial 8vo., uniform with Vol. II.