Both in _Bohn’s Library_ and in _Everyman’s Library_. Coleridge’s detached opinions on books are golden fragments of criticism. His “Lectures on Shakespeare” are, for a reader with imagination, the most inspiring notes on Shakespeare that we have, though the many and patent inaccuracies make his comments distasteful to modern scholars, who prefer to commit their own inaccuracies. WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800). _Letters._ In the _Golden Treasury Series_. DANIEL DEFOE (1661-1731). _Essay on Projects._ _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters._ Defoe was a journalist and pamphleteer who lacked the charm of the true essayist, but whose prose in essay form is worth reading for its vigor and variety of idea. THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859). _Selections._ In one volume, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. “The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater” is in _Everyman’s Library_, and also the “Reminiscences of the Lake Poets.” De Quincey’s beautiful poetic prose is unlike anything before or since. The “Opium-Eater” belongs perhaps under “Biography,” but may stand here. Its somewhat sensational subject has secured for it, fortunately, a wide reading and so kept De Quincey from passing into the shadowy company of distinguished writers known only to the few. His essays fill many volumes. Those in the inexpensive volume in the _Camelot Series_, published by Walter Scott, include some of the best and should be read, perhaps, before the “Opium-Eater.” JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700). There are collections of Dryden’s prose, but the best way to become acquainted with “the father of modern English prose” is to run through his complete works and read the remarkable prefaces to his plays and poems. In them English criticism, for all the merit of some essays earlier in the seventeenth century, really begins. [Illustration: EMERSON] FINLEY PETER DUNNE. _Mr. Dooley in Peace and War._ _Mr. Dooley in the Hearts of His Countrymen._ _Mr. Dooley’s Philosophy._ RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-82). _Essays._ _Representative Men._ _The Conduct of Life._ _Society and Solitude._ Emerson’s essays, including “The American Scholar” (which is as fresh and pertinent to our time as if written yesterday), have been printed in inexpensive editions by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The volumes named above should be owned in American households. More than Carlyle or Ruskin or any other of the preaching essayists of the nineteenth century, Emerson emerges as the prophetic, visionary spirit who seized and phrased the best moral and spiritual ideas that his time had to offer to future times. JOHN FLORIO (1550-1625). _Translation of Montaigne’s Essays._ There are several handy editions, notably the pocket edition, published by Dent, of this famous translation whereby Montaigne became an English classic. OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-74). _The Citizen of the World._