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EDITED BY HENRY MORLEY, LL.D.

EMERITUS Professor of english language and literature, universITY college, London.

Published in a Series of Monthly Volumes, printed with red lines, on Bible paper, size 6 inches by 3 inches; price is. each; also an Édition de luxe, limited to 500 copies.

HE BEST COMPANY is that of friends who share with us their changing moods, speak as they really think and feel, are not afraid to be in earnest, and have a ready wit that breeds good-humour without hurt to the higher aims of life. The best Companions, in this sense, are the Poets who bring flesh and blood into their books, whose genius rests upon their sympathetic insight into human motives and desires, and whose lives are poured out into music by which other lives are helped and cheered. In a Series of Monthly Shilling Volumes shaped for easiest familiarity of use, indoors and out of doors, some such COMPANION POETS now come out and look for friends. Some may be old lifelong companions, welcome at all times and in every dress. Some may, at first, seem to be strangers bringing out of the far past or the near present half-forgotten strains of the right music of life in one or other of its thousand forms. Sir Gorgius Midas sniffs the air and says that he can read no poetry except the best. Whoever says that does not read the best, or if he read he does not understand it. Will he eat no fruit but pine-apples and peaches? His the loss, if it be so. For our Companions we will take all Poets who are good after their kind. We have a welcome for the gooseberries and currants, and may now and then pick blackberries, content with them if they be sound and sweet. The one principle of selection in this series of COMPANION POETS will be that each little book shall be a true book in its way, with kindly touch upon the lives of men. Poets of all kinds, great or little, grave or gay, shall meet here upon common ground; there shall be room found in our pleasaunce for herbs, shrubs, and trees. A short Introduction to each book, and sometimes a few notes upon the text, will attempt no more than to bring it or its writer nearer to the Reader's knowledge as Companion and Friend. HENRY MORLEY.

LONDON: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED,

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL.

GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK.

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THE

CARISBROOKE

LIBRARY

Complete in Fourteen Volumes, price 3s. 6d. each in cloth.

(Also in Roxburghe binding, gilt top, price 5s.)

VOL.

I. The Tale of a Tub, and other Works, by JONATHAN Swift. II. Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, being the "Confessio Amantis" of JOHN GOWER.

III. The Earlier Life and the Chief Earlier Works of Daniel DEFOE.

IV. Early Prose Romances.

V. English Prose Writings of John Milton.

VI. Parodies and other Burlesque Pieces, by George Canning, GEORGE ELLIS, and JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE, with the whole Poetry of the Antijacobin.

VII. Jerusalem Delivered: A Poem by Torquato Tasso, translated by EDWARD FAIRFAX.

VIII. London under Elizabeth: A Survey of London, containing the Originall, Antiquity, Increase, Moderne Estate, and Description of that Citie, written in the year 1598, by JOHN STOW, Citizen of London.

IX. Masques and Entertainments, by BEN JONSON.

X. Ireland under Elizabeth and James the First, described by EDMUND SPENSER, by Sir JOHN DAVIES, Attorney-General for Ireland under James the First, and by FYNES MORYSON, Secretary to the Lord Mountjoy, Lord-Deputy.

XI. Gulliver's Travels, exactly reprinted from the First Edition; and other Works, by JONATHAN SWIFT.

XII. Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, Written by Himself, and a Selection from his Letters, with Occasional Notes and Narrative by John, Lord Sheffield.

XIII. The History of Florence, by NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI.

From

the Translation of "The Works of the Famous Nicholas Machiavel,” published in 1675.

XIV. Character Writings of the Seventeenth Century, including those of Sir Thomas Overbury, Dr. John Earle, Dr. Joseph Hall, Nicholas Breton, and Samuel Butler.

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EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL

GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK

1891

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