The Glory of English Prose Letters to my Grandson [Illustration: STEPHEN COLERIDGE FROM THE PORTRAIT BY BERNARD PARTRIDGE IN THE POSSESSION OF THE MESS OF THE SOUTH WALES CIRCUIT] The Glory of English Prose Letters to My Grandson By The Hon. Stephen Coleridge "The chief glory of every people arises from its authors" _Dr. Johnson_ G.P. Putnam's Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1922 1922 by Stephen Coleridge Made in the United States of America PREFACE If you have read, gentle reader, the earlier series of _Letters to my Grandson on the World about Him_, you are to understand that in the interval between those letters and these, Antony has grown to be a boy in the sixth form of his public school. It has not been any longer necessary therefore to study an extreme simplicity of diction in these letters. My desire has been to lead him into the most glorious company in the world, in the hope that, having early made friends with the noblest of human aristocracy, he will never afterwards admit to his affection and intimacy anything mean or vulgar. Many young people who, like Antony, are not at all averse from the study of English writers, stand aghast at the vastness of the what seems so gigantic an enterprise. In these letters I have acted as pilot for a first voyage through what is to a boy an uncharted sea, after which I hope and believe he will have learned happily to steer for himself among the islands of the blest. S.C. THE FORD, CHOBHAM. CONTENTS 1. ON GOOD AND BAD STYLE IN PROSE 2. ON THE GLORY OF THE BIBLE 3. SIR WALTER RALEIGH 4. ACT OF PARLIAMENT, 1532 5. THE JUDICIOUS HOOKER AND SHAKESPEARE 6. LORD CHIEF JUSTICE CREWE 7. SIR THOMAS BROWNE AND MILTON 8. JEREMY TAYLOR 9. EVELYN'S DIARY 10. JOHN BUNYAN 11. DR. JOHNSON 12. EDMUND BURKE 13. GIBBON 14. HENRY GRATTAN AND MACAULAY 15. LORD ERSKINE 16. ROBERT HALL 17. LORD PLUNKET 18. ROBERT SOUTHEY 19. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 20. LORD BROUGHAM 21. SIR WILLIAM NAPIER 22. RICHARD SHEIL 23. THOMAS CARLYLE 24. HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE 25. CARDINAL NEWMAN 26. LORD MACAULAY AGAIN 27. PRESIDENT LINCOLN 28. JOHN RUSKIN 29. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 30. MATTHEW ARNOLD 31. SIR WILLIAM BUTLER 32. LORD MORLEY 33. HILAIRE BELLOC 34. KING GEORGE THE FIFTH 35. CONCLUSION LETTERS TO MY GRANDSON 1 MY DEAR ANTONY, The letters which I wrote "On the world about you" having shown you that throughout all the universe, from the blazing orbs in infinite space to the tiny muscles of an insect's wing, perfect design is everywhere manifest, I hope and trust that you will never believe that so magnificent a process and order can be without a Mind of which it is the visible expression.