ETHICA: OR, CHARACTERISTICS OF MEN, MANNERS, AND BOOKS. BY ARTHUR LLOYD WINDSOR. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. M.DCCC.LX. PREFACE. THE literary life of the past two centuries, like the social, has a large element of anecdote in it, by the contemplation of which alone it can be fully realized. Stray waifs-straws in the intellectual atmosphere-not infrequently afford material for the most efficacious mental characterization, where the formal facts of biography proper, though at first sight more imposing, give a less authentic portraiture. To arrest these motes of intelligence, now fast eluding the ken of the present generation, and to winnow them on the threshing-floor of biological criticism, is my object. The title of the Work sufficiently interprets its aim; but it is fair to add, that the titles attached to the several chapters give a very far from adequate idea of their actual contents. It should be stated that Chapters I., IV., and VII., are reprinted, with considerable additions, from the "British Quarterly Review;" to whose editor the author desires to make his cordial acknowledgment. |