Mr. Lanier combats vigorously the false methods which have become traditional in English prosody, and exposes them in a study of our older poetry which, with all the peculiar charm of Mr. Lanier's clear style, is not less attractive to the general reader than valuable for its results. But the most striking and interesting portion of the book to every student of letters is the author's presentation of his own suggestions for a truer method; his treatment of verse almost entirely as analogous with music--and this not figuratively, but as really governed by the same laws, little modified. His forcible and very skillful use of the most modern investigations in acoustics in supporting this position, makes the book not only a contribution to literature, but, in the best sense, to physical science; and it is in this union of elements that the work shows an altogether new direction of thought. [**asterism] _This book is for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent post-paid upon receipt of price, by_ CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, 743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. * * * * * End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The English Novel, by Sidney Lanier