Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/487

 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS.

LITERATURES OF THE WORLD.

by EDMUND GOSSE,

Hon. M. A. of Trinity College, Cambridge.

FRENCH LITERATURE. By, D. Litt., LL. D., D. C. L., Professor of English Literature in the University of Dublin. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.

"Certainly the best history of French literature in the English language."—London Athenæum.

"This is a history of literature as histories of literature should be written. ... A living voice, speaking to us with gravity and enthusiasm about the writers of many ages, and of being a human voice always. Hence this book can be read with pleasure even by those for whom a history has in itself little attraction."—London Saturday Review.

"The book is excellently well done; accurate in facts and dates, just in criticism, well arranged in method. . . . The excellent bibliography with which it concludes will be invaluable to those who wish to pursue the study further on their own lines."—London Spectator.

"Remarkable for its fullness of information and frequent brilliancy. ... A book which both the student of French literature and the stranger to it will, in different ways, find eminently useful, and in many parts of it thoroughly enjoyable as well."—London Literary World.

"Professor Dowden is both trustworthy and brilliant; he writes from a full knowledge and a full sympathy. Master of a style rather correct than charming for its adornments, he can still enliven his pages with telling epigram and pretty phrase. Above all things, the book is not eccentric, not unmethodical, not of a wayward brilliance; and this is especially commendable and fortunate in the case of an English critic writing upon French literature."—London Daily Chronicle.

"A book readable, graphic, not overloaded with detail, not bristling with dates. . . . It is a book that can be held in the hand and read aloud with pleasure as a literary treat by an expert in style, master of charming words that come and go easily, and of other literatures that serve for illustrations."—The Critic.

"His methods afford an admirable example of compressing an immense amount of information and criticism in a sentence or paragraph, and his survey of a vast field is both comprehensive and interesting. As an introduction for the student of literature the work is most excellent, and for the casual reader it will serve as a compendium of one of the richest literatures of the world."—Philadelphia Public Ledger.

"Thorough without being diffuse. The author is in love with his subject, has made it a study for years, and therefore produced an entertaining volume. Of the scholarship shown it is needless to speak. ... It is more than a cyclopædia. It is a brilliant talk by one who is loaded with the lively ammunition of French prose and verse. He talks of the pulpit, the stage, the Senate, and the salon, until the preachers, dramatists, orators, and philosophers seem to be speaking for themselves."—Boston Globe.

"Professor Dowden's book is more interesting than we ever supposed a brief history of a literature could be. His characterizations are most admirable in their conciseness and brilliancy. He has given in one volume a very thorough review of French literature."—The Interior, Chicago.

"The book will be especially valuable to the student as a safe and intelligible index to a course of reading."—The Independent.