EDWARD JRDER, F.Si., Professor of English Language and Literature, Sir Josiah Jason's College, Birmingham. 1 January 1868. No. 1. 11 July 1637. Star-Chamber Decree, 29 January 1642. Order of the House of Commons, 9 March 1643. Order of the House of Commons, 14 June 1643. Order of the Lords and Commons, ARGUMENT. Introduction, \Vhat books are ? cing, 2. What is to be thought in general of reading books, 3. The Order [of 14 June 1643] conduces nothing to the end for which it was framed, 4. The manifest hurt it causes :- (1) It is the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offered to learning and to learned (2) It is an undervaluing and vilifying of the (3) It brings disrepute upon the Ministers, the home of licencing, may prove a nursing mother to sects, 6. It will be the step-dame to Truth :- is already known, the search after new Truth, Description of the English nation, An appeal for toleration, spiritual unity and peace, INTRODUCTION. HAT half-living thing—a book : may be re. garded in many ways. It may be considered in connection with the circumstances which led to its conception and creation; and in he midst of which it appeared. It may be studied, s exhibiting the moral intent, the mental power of is author. Its contents may be analysed as to their atrinsic truthfulness or falsity. We may trace and dentify its influence upon its own age and on succeedag generations. This is an apprehension of the mind If a book. More than this. We may examine its style, its lower and manner of expressing that mind. The inging collocation of its words, the harmonious acience of its sentences, the flashing gem-like beauty of isolated passages, the just mapping out of the eneral argument, the due subordination of its several arts, their final inweaving into one overpowering onclusion: these are the features, discovering, illumiating, enforcing the mind of a book. Much of what is in books is false, much only half rue, much true. It is impossible to separate the tares om the wheat. Every one, therefore-of necessity-. aust read discriminatively; often fifting and searching pr first principles, often testing the catenation of an rgument, often treasuring up incidental truths for iture use; enjoying—as delights by the way-whatver felicity of expression, gorgeousness of imagination, ividness of description, or aptness of illustration may lance, like sunshine, athwart the path : the journey's nd being Truth. The purpose through these English Reprints is to ring this modern age face to face with the works of lir forefathers. The Editor and his clumsy framework |