DE LA LITTÉRATURE FRANÇAISE, OU MORCEAUX CHOISIS DES MEILLEURS ÉCRIVAINS FRANÇAIS (Poètes, Historiens, Orateurs, Naturalistes, Philosophes, Littérateurs, &c.) DEPUIS 1520 JUSQU'EN 1845, AVEC 176 NOTICES BIOGRAPHIQUES, LITTÉRAIRES ET BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES, LE TOUT DISPOSE DANS L'ORDRE DES DATES ET PRÉSENTANT UN TABLEAU CHRONOLOGIQUE DE L'HISTOIRE LITTÉRAIRE DE PQ 1109 L2 1854 321470 GIFT ENTERED According to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, BY W. E. DEAN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. REMARKS. A WORK of this kind requires no preface for those who are conversant with the French language, they will judge for themselves. Thus we shall only make a few remarks for the satisfaction of such persons as must necessarily feel interested in a school book, and yet are unable to judge of its merit or demerit for want of a sufficient knowledge of a foreign tongue. In his well known "Répertoire de Littérature Française," the author had comprised the French writers only of the four last centuries, his object being at that time, as announced in the preface to it, to publish another volume which was to be devoted to the writers of the present age. That second volume was ready for the press about fifteen months ago, but the edition of the first one happening to be nearly all out then, and the demands for it being daily fast increasing, it was deemed necessary to prepare a new edition of the same, with some intended improvements in it, before printing the latter part of the work, in order to publish the whole at the same time. Yet, after preparing a sufficient quantity of valuable matter to make two volumes, which were to comprise above four hundred writers, it was suggested that such a work would be by far too extensive for the use of schools, and this was probably true. that, painful as it was for the author to sacrifice so much labor, a change of plan having become unavoidable, he has come to the conclusion to make a compendium of the whole, to be published in one volume, and such is the work now offered to the public under this new title. This change of title has become necessary to make it correspond with the entirely new character of the work. So We have been compelled to leave out 75 of the authors comprised in the former publication, in order to make room for 86 new ones, but care has been taken not to omit any of the most eminent, either ancient or modern, and especially those whom public judgment has pronounced to be the most perfect models in the language in all respects. Thus, although reduced to a small compass, this publication |