ELEMENTS OF GENERAL KNOWLEDGE, INTRODUCTORY TO USEFUL BOOKS IN THE PRINCIPAL BRANCHES OF LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. DESIGNED CHIEFLY FOR THE JUNIOR STUDENTS IN CLASSES IN SCHOOLS. BY HENRY KETT, B. D. TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. VOL. I. BALTIMORE: P. BYRNE, PHILADELPHIA. gür Tappan Puerb, arme, 3-1-33 PREFACE. THE following work contains the substance of a Course of Lectures, which I have occasionally read to my pupils, during the last twelve years. The satisfaction which they expressed on hearing them has encouraged me to hope, that they will not prove unacceptable to those, for whose use they are now made public. To assert a claim to originality in such a work as this would perhaps only be equivalent to a confession of its demerit. My pretensions to public regard must depend in no small degree upon the manner in which I have clothed old ideas in a new dress, and upon my skill in compressing within a moderate compass the substance of large and voluminous works. Upon all my subjects I have endeavoured to reflect light from every quarter which my reading would afford. My references will show the sources from which I have derived my principal information ; but it would be almost an endless, and perhaps a very ostentatious task, to enumerate all my literary obligations. There are a few topics indeed, with respect to which I think I may be allowed to assert some claims to novelty. For many of my remarks on the Greek Lan- . guage I am indebted principally to my own observations upon its nature and comparative merits ; the History of Chivalry, important as the influence of that remarkable institution has been upon manners, is a subject upon which I have not been able to collect much information from English authors; and the History of the Revival of Classical Learning, although a topic of the strongest interest to every man of letters, has never been fully treated by any writer, with whose works I am acquainted. Many of my Quotations are selected from such works, as, either from their size, number of volumes, 3-49-96 giet Tappan Puerb, Ave, 3-1-33 PREFACE. a THE following work contains the substance of a Course of Lectures, which I have occasionally read to my pupils, during the last twelve years. The satisfaction which they expressed on hearing them has encouraged me to hope, that they will not prove unacceptable to those, for whose use they are now made public. To assert a claim to originality in such a work as this would perhaps only be equivalent to a confession of its demerit. My pretensions to public regard must depend in no small degree upon the manner in which I have clothed old ideas in a new dress, and upon my skill in compressing within a moderate compass the substance of large and voluminous works. Upon all my subjects I have endeavoured to reflect light from every quarter which my reading would afford. My references will show the sources from which I have derived my principal information ; but it would be almost an endless, and perhaps a very ostentatious task, to enumerate all my literary obligations. There are a few topics indeed, with respect to which I think I may be allowed to assert some claims to novelty. For many of my remarks on the Greek Lan. guage I am indebted principally to my own observations upon its nature and comparative merits ; the History of Chivalry, important as the influence of that remarkable institution has been upon manners, is a subject upon which I have not been able to collect much information from English authors; and the History of the Revival of Classical Learning, although a topic of the strongest interest to every man of letters, has never been fully treated by any writer, with whose works I am acquainted. Many of my Quotations are selected from such works, as, either from their size, number of volumes, 3-1-36 |
