TO THE YOUNG STUDENTS OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE, This Work, WITH THE MOST SINCERE DESIRE THAT, IN PROMOTING THEIR PROGRESS, IT MAY ALSO CONDUCE TO THEIR INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL IMPROVEMENT, Es respectfully Bedicated BY THEIR MOST DEVOTED SERVANT, DE LA CLAVERIE. PREFACE. QUINTILIAN among the ancients, and of the moderns, Dumarsais, d'Olivet, and more particularly Rollin, in his excellent "Traité des Études," repeatedly recommend, for the use of young students of languages, a judicious compilation of extracts from the best authors, in preference to any single or entire work. The authority of these sagacious counsellors, did it require further support, might be strengthened by the recorded opinions of Bossuet, Fénelon, and Nicole, who have all concurred in similar advice. In obedience to the recommendation of these consummate judges, the present collection, the object of which is to facilitate to English readers the study of French authors, has been prepared. The Editor is aware that in England there already exist several works similar to that which he now offers to the public but those which have hitherto appeared, besides their being arranged on a defective plan, having for years been composed almost wholly from the contents of their predecessors, are remarkably incomplete, and do not, in all cases, indicate that either good taste or judgment was possessed by their compilers. Such collections are principally formed of passages from the writings of the age of Louis XIV, and contain few or none from modern or contemporary works: a principle of selection-if principle it may be called-peculiarly partial and unsatisfactory in the case of a literature like the French, which has undergone such marked and characteristic changes of late years. In the hope, therefore, of being enabled to supply, in some degree, the deficiencies of these collections, and of producing one more varied, and for that reason, more useful, the Editor has chosen his extracts, not only from the classical authors of the two last centuries, but also from the most distinguished writers of the present day. He thus presents to the reader, the celebrated minds of a former period, attended by their successors;—the monuments of departed, together with the triumphs of living genius. In the prosecution of this object, he has been compelled to undertake a long and extended course of reading. Much of what is excellent must have escaped him, both from the richness of the materials, and the limits of his work ;-yet, he may venture to aver, that the present collection, generally speaking, contains a tolerably fair sketch of the respective features of ancient and modern French literature, although displayed, of course, in a very abridged form :-so that, while the reader may probably discover several passages with which he is already acquainted, he will |