Essential studies in English and American literature; with questions and exercises, selected readings and references, numerous biographical notes, etc., etc. for school and college use

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 Excerpt: ...old man suffering imprisonment in the Tower of London, produced the first part of a great work entitled The History of the World. This part, which is only a small portion of the entire history planned by the author, fills a ponderous folio volume, and narrates the story of mankind from the creation of Adam to the death of Alexander the Great. Raleigh never completed the work, and it is probably well that he wrote no more, for the style of the narrative is not such as would be very interesting to readers; and the story is so interlarded with tedious disquisitions on all manner of theological and philosophical questions that its perusal would be, to most persons, an irksome task. The following short extract from his account of the creation of Adam will illustrate the character of these digressions:, The Fall of Adam. What means did Satan find out, or what instruments did his subtlety present him as fittest and aptest to work his mischief by? Even the unquiet vanity of woman, so as by Adam's hearkening to the voice of his wife, contrary to the express commandment of the living God, mankind by that her incantation, became the subject of labor, sorrow, and death; the woman being given to man for a comforter and companion, but not for a counselor. But if Adam in the state of perfection, and Solomon the son of David, God's chosen servant, and himself a man endued with the greatest wisdom, did both of them disobey their Creator by the persuasion and for the love they bare to a woman, it is not so wonderful as lamentable that other men in succeeding ages have been allured to so many inconvenient and wicked practices by the persuasions of their wives, or other beloved darlings, who cover over and shadow many malicious purposes with a counterfeit passion of dissimulat...