T PREFACE. HIS volume contains some of the occasional relaxations of a professional life, and a few papers written before that life was fully entered upon. They extend over many years and wide intervals, and, perhaps, there may be found in the earlier writings some expressions which the writer might now, if treating the same subject, make a little less forcible, but which, having been written, it is only proper to leave as they came forth, and he is unaware that he would make even now any radical change in the matter expressed. The name of St. Mary's Hall Lectures is given to the book because many of the papers were delivered as lectures in the school-room of St. Mary's Hall, Burlington, New Jersey, to an audience consisting mainly of teachers and pupils of that time-honored institution, of which the writer has been for many years a trustee. He hopes that he is doing no wrong to a school whose interests are dear to him by connecting its name with this work (if work it may be called), although not all, even of the papers read before the school, were originally written for it. "La Vendée" and the "Contrast of the Ancient and Modern Drama" were originally written for St. Mary's; "Norse Mythology" was begun many years ago, and, having been thrown aside, was taken up again and finished for the Hall. "The Chevalier Bayard" and "The Use of a Jury" were written for the Northeastern Workingmen's Club, of Philadelphia, a workingmen's club under church auspices. The former was delivered before that institution in 1873; the latter in 1874. The Chevalier was repeated on several occasions and in several places, including St. Mary's school-room in 1893. "The Ground Work of English Literature" was first read in 1871 before the Spring Garden Institute, of Philadelphia, and then slept until it was introduced at St. Mary's in 1892. "Venice" was originally written for the Church of the Good Shepherd, Kensington, Philadelphia, but was materially altered and practically rewritten in 1898 for St. Mary's Hall. The two essays on Massinger were written about 1870, but did not appear in print until 1881, when they were published in the Penn Monthly. The essay on De Quincey was written in 1870, and appeared in that year in the now defunct National Quarterly Review, with some editorial emendations, of which the writer did not approve. It now appears with some parts restored. The address upon Jefferson was delivered before the Jefferson Literary Association, of Chester, Pennsylvania, on the occasion of one of its celebrations. The last paper in the book, a lecture on Sir Edward Coke, was read to the class of the Philadelphia Law School of Temple College, the writer having been asked by an excellent friend, a member of the faculty of the school, to give one of a series of addresses and lectures to the students. It is with some hesitation that these papers are submitted to the public. They represent to the writer a great deal of pleasure, and he cannot hope that the readers can have a tithe of the enjoyment from their perusal that he has had, from time to time, in working them up, and he is aware that his action in publishing may appear to some presumptuous. His hesitation, in fact, was so great that but for the opinion of his wife that they should be published, these papers might have lain much longer in their retirement before the writer would have ventured to bring them to the test of cold type; but the Rubicon is passed, and this book is sent forth in the hope that it may give some pleasure, and perhaps be of some benefit, to those who may deign to read it. PHILADELPHIA, September 1st, 1898. |