Amongst the poets the highest place is usually awarded to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82), though the simplicity of his work which charms one critic causes others to hesitate to put him in the company of the greater poets. There is, naturally, more fire in the verse of J. G. Whittier (1807-92) who became a passionate prophet of the Abolitionist party (especially in _Voices of Freedom_). I prefer some of the short poems--one might almost say hymns--of Whittier and of James Russell Lowell (1818-91) to anything of Longfellow’s; though Lowell is very unequal as a poet and is, perhaps (after his historic _Bigelow Papers_), best known as a literary essayist. Of the novelists of the time Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) and W. D. Howells (1837-1920) are confessedly the greatest. Hawthorne’s _Scarlet Letter_ is a classic of American fiction. Dr. O. W. Holmes (1809-94) was not a brilliant success as a novelist, but the general thought and excellent writing of his _Autocrat_, _Poet_ and _Professor at the Breakfast Table_ keep his work on the shelves of every book-lover. Of the great orators, from Webster to Ingersoll, and the scientific and philosophical writers, we cannot give any account here. And into the merits of more recent and living writers I, as in other sections, decline to enter. Taste changes so rapidly in our time that already our critics seem to believe that no classic was written before the twentieth century. H. G. Wells once in a conversation with me ridiculed the idea that the style of the historian Gibbon was superior to the English we write today. There is much to be said for the directness and flexibility of the modern style, when a master writes it, but on those tests few of the great works I have recorded would maintain their high positions. There are, however, objective standards of art and I have given some idea of the world’s masterpieces in all ages which rank highest by those standards. Transcriber's Notes: Italics are shown thus: _sloping_. Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained. Perceived typographical errors have been changed.