fDINB URGH SCOTSMAN, Scot 



land : 



" There can be no donbt of Grant 

 Allen's competence as a writer on nat- 

 ural history subjects." 



NEW YORK HERALD: 



" A book that lovers of natural history 

 il. read with delight. The author is 

 euch a -worshipper of mature that he 

 gains onr sympathy at once." 



THE ACADEMY, London : 



" The point in which Mr Grant Allen 

 is beyond rivalry is in his command of 

 language. By this we do not mean only 

 his rich vocabulary, but include also his 

 arrangement of thought and his manip- 

 ulation of sentences. We could imagine 

 few better lessons to a pupil of Eng- 

 lish than to be set to analyze and explain 

 the charm of Mr. Grant Allen's style." 



CANADIAN BAPTIST, Toronto : 

 "Mr. Grant Allen is one of the few 

 scientific men who can invest common 

 natural objects and processes with poeti- 

 cal beauty and make them attractive to 

 ordinary readers." 



HERALD, Monmouth, Oregon : 



" A wonderful book by a charming 

 naturalist. Lovers of flowers, birds, 

 plants, etc., will prize this volume high- 

 ly." 



NEW YORK JOURNAL OF 

 COMMERCE: 



" A charming volume, free from the 

 taint of exaggeration and sensational- 

 ism." 



INDIANAPOLIS SEKTINEL: 



' He is as keen an observer as Thoreau 

 or Burroughs." 



CHRISTIAN STANDARD, Cin- 

 cinnati : 



"They are written in a pleasant and 

 captivating style, and contain much valu- 

 able information.' ' 



METHODIST PROTESTANT. 

 BiUimore. 



"One of the finest productions of 

 modern times." 

 GOOD LITERATURE, New York 



" A trustworthy guide in natural his- 

 tory, as well as a delightful, entertaining 

 writer.!' 



VIII. 



George Eliot's Essays. 



THE CRITIC, New York : 



" Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls have done 

 a real service to George Eliot's innumer- 

 able admirers by reprinting in their 

 popular STANDARD LIBRARY the great 

 novelist's occasional contributions to the 

 periodical press." 

 NEW YORK SUN: 



"In the case of George Eliot espe- 

 cially, whose reviews were anonymous, 

 and who could never have supposed that 

 such fugitive ventures would ever be 

 widely associated with the Lame of a 

 diffident and obscure young woman, we 

 ain access iu her early essays, as in no 

 other of her published writing?, to the 

 eanctuary of her deepest convictions, and 

 to the intellectual workshop in which 



literary methods and processes were 

 tested, discarded, or approved, and liter- 

 ary tools fashioned and manipulated 

 long before the author had discerned the 

 large purposes to which they were to be 

 applied. . . . Looking back over the 

 whole ground covered by these admira- 

 ble papers, we are at no loss to under- 

 stand why George Eliot should have 

 made it a rule to read no criticisms on 

 her own stories. She had nothing to 

 learn from critics. She was ji^tifled in 

 assuming that not one (if th.se who took 

 upon themselves to r.ppraise her :. 

 ments had given half of the time or a 

 tithe of the intellect, to the determina- 

 tion of the right aims and processes of 

 the English novel which as these re- 



