PREFACE Probably no one will undertake to controvert the statement that a definition of the essay has not yet been made both inclusive enough to cover all the different kinds of prose to which the name has been given and still sufficiently restrictive to mark out any particular qualities which distinguish the essay from any other comparatively brief composition. An attempt to discover the characteristics common to Locke's " Essay on the Human Understanding," Lamb's " Dissertation on Roast Pig," Macaulay's "Warren Hastings," Carlyle's "Essay on Burns," and Arnold's "Sweetness and Light" would pretty surely demonstrate that these various pieces of literature do not belong to any single, unified genre. There are, however, a large number of writings commonly called "essays" which have traditionally been felt to constitute a distinct type. These are characterized by a personal, confidential attitude of the writers toward their subjects and their readers, by an informal, familiar style, and by a concern with everyday manners and morals or with individual emotions and experiences rather than with public affairs or the material of systematic thinking. It is with the essay of this more narrowly limited type - perhaps best called the Familiar Essay - that the present volume is exclusively concerned. In treating the Familiar Essay the editors have designed not to furnish models for a course in English composition or to compile an anthology, but to present such a selection of texts as will exhibit clearly the development of the genre in England. The complete accomplishment of this purpose has made it necessary, of course, to begin outside of England with Montaigne, the originator of the type, and to include specimens of his essays. A similar consideration has led to the inclusion of a brief extract from La Bruyère. But with these exceptions only British writers are represented. However delightful or stimulating are the essays of Irving and Emerson and Lowell, they have not affected the development of the type; and regard for unity of purpose, combined with lack of space, compels their exclusion. Further, instead of presenting one or two essays each by a great |