The Project Gutenberg EBook of Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations, by Charles W. Eliot

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Title: Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations

Author: Charles W. Eliot

Release Date: August 15, 2004 [EBook #13182]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PREFACES AND PROLOGUES ***

Produced by Leah Moser and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team from images provided by the Million Book Project,

[Illustration: Hippolyte Adolphe Taine From the etching by Asher B.
Durand]

THE HARVARD CLASSICS EDITED BY CHARLES W. ELIOT LL.D.

PREFACES AND PROLOGUES TO FAMOUS BOOKS

WITH INTRODUCTIONS, NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

[Illustration]

"DR. ELIOT'S FIVE-FOOT SHELF OF BOOKS"

P.F. COLLIER & SON

NEW YORK

1909 BY LITTLE BROWN & COMPANY

1910 BY P.F. COLLIER & SON

CONTENTS

TITLE, PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUES TO THE RECUYELL OF THE HISTORIES OF TROY WILLIAM CAXTON

EPILOGUE TO DICTES AND SAYINGS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS WILLIAM CAXTON

PROLOGUE TO GOLDEN LEGEND WILLIAM CAXTON PROLOGUE TO CATON WILLIAM CAXTON EPILOGUE TO AESOP WILLIAM CAXTON PROEM TO CHAUCER'S CANTERBURY TALES WILLIAM CAXTON PROLOGUE TO MALORY'S KING ARTHUR WILLIAM CAXTON PROLOGUE TO VIRGIL'S ENEYDOS WILLIAM CAXTON

DEDICATION OF THE INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION JOHN CALVIN TRANSLATED BY JOHN ALLEN

DEDICATION OF THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES NICOLAUS COPERNICUS

PREFACE TO THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND JOHN KNOX

PREFATORY LETTER TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH ON THE FAERIE QUEENE EDMUND SPENSER

PREFACE TO THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD SIR WALTER RALEIGH

PROOEMIUM, EPISTLE DEDICATORY, PREFACE, AND PLAN OF THE INSTAURATIO MAGNA, ETC. FRANCIS BACON TRANSLATION EDITED BY J. SPEDDING

PREFACE TO THE NOVUM ORGANUM FRANCIS BACON

PREFACE TO THE FIRST FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS HEMINGE AND CONDELL

PREFACE TO THE PHILOSOPHIAE NATURALIS PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA SIR ISAAC NEWTON TRANSLATED BY ANDREW MOTTE

PREFACE TO FABLES, ANCIENT AND MODERN JOHN DRYDEN

PREFACE TO JOSEPH ANDREWS HENRY FIELDING PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY SAMUEL JOHNSON PREFACE TO SHAKESPEARE SAMUEL JOHNSON INTRODUCTION TO THE PROPYLÄEN J.W. VON GOETHE

PREFACES TO VARIOUS VOLUMES OF POEMS WILLIAM WORDSWORTH APPENDIX TO LYRICAL BALLADS WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ESSAY SUPPLEMENTARY TO PREFACE WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

PREFACE TO CROMWELL VICTOR HUGO PREFACE TO LEAVES OF GRASS WALT WHITMAN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE H.A. TAINE

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

_No part of a book is so intimate as the Preface. Here, after the long labor of the work is over, the author descends from his platform, and speaks with his reader as man to man, disclosing his hopes and fears, seeking sympathy for his difficulties, offering defence or defiance, according to his temper, against the criticisms which he anticipates. It thus happens that a personality which has been veiled by a formal method throughout many chapters, is suddenly seen face to face in the Preface; and this alone, if there were no other reason, would justify a volume of Prefaces.

But there are other reasons why a Preface may be presented apart from its parent work, and may, indeed, be expected sometimes to survive it. The Prologues and Epilogues of Caxton were chiefly prefixed to translations which have long been superseded; but the comments of this frank and enthusiastic pioneer of the art of printing in England not only tell us of his personal tastes, but are in a high degree illuminative of the literary habits and standards of western Europe in the fifteenth century. Again, modern research has long ago put Raleigh's "History of the World" out of date; but his eloquent Preface still gives us a rare picture of the attitude of an intelligent Elizabethan, of the generation which colonised America, toward the past, the present, and the future worlds. Bacon's "Great Restoration" is no longer a guide to scientific method; but his prefatory statements as to his objects and hopes still offer a lofty inspiration.

And so with the documents here drawn from the folios of Copernicus and Calvin, with the criticism of Dryden and Wordsworth and Hugo, with Dr. Johnson's Preface to his great Dictionary, with the astounding manifesto of a new poetry from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"—each of them has a value and significance independent now of the work which it originally introduced, and each of them presents to us a man._

PREFACES AND EPILOGUES

BY WILLIAM CAXTON[A]

THE RECUYELL OF THE HISTORIES OF TROY

TITLE AND PROLOGUE TO BOOK I

Here beginneth the volume entitled and named the Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, composed and drawn out of divers books of Latin into French by the right venerable person and worshipful man, Raoul le Feure, priest and chaplain unto the right noble, glorious, and mighty prince in his time, Philip, Duke of Burgundy, of Brabant, etc. in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord God a thousand four hundred sixty and four, and translated and drawn out of French into English by William Caxton, mercer, of the city of London, at the commandment of the right high, mighty, and virtuous Princess, his redoubted Lady, Margaret, by the grace of God Duchess of Burgundy, of Lotrylk, of Brabant, etc.; which said translation and work was begun in Bruges in the County of Flanders, the first day of March, the year of the Incarnation of our said Lord God a thousand four hundred sixty and eight, and ended and finished in the holy city of Cologne the 19th day of September, the year of our said Lord God a thousand four hundred sixty and eleven, etc.

And on that other side of this leaf followeth the prologue.

When I remember that every man is bounden by the commandment and counsel of the wise man to eschew sloth and idleness, which is mother and nourisher of vices, and ought to put myself unto virtuous