THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON READING BOOK LONDON: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS, 198, STRAND. 1851. THIRD EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS * * * * * [Illustration: PRINCE ALBERT IN HIS ROBES AS CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.] * * * * * INTRODUCTION. [Illustration: INTRODUCTION.] To read and speak with elegance and ease, Are arts polite that never fail to please; Yet in those arts how very few excel! Ten thousand men may read--not one read well. Though all mankind are speakers in a sense, How few can soar to heights of eloquence! The sweet melodious singer trills her lays, And listening crowds go frantic in her praise; But he who reads or speaks with feeling true, Charms and delights, instructs, and moves us too. Browne. To deprive Instruction of the terrors with which the young but too often regard it, and strew flowers upon the pathways that lead to Knowledge, is to confer a benefit upon all who are interested in the cause of Education, either as Teachers or Pupils. The design of the following pages is not merely to present to the youthful reader some of the masterpieces of English literature in prose and verse, arranged and selected in such a manner as to please as well as instruct, but to render them more agreeable to the eye and the imagination by Pictorial Representations, in illustration of the subjects. It is hoped that this design has not been altogether unsuccessful, and that the ILLUSTRATED LONDON READING BOOK will recommend itself both to old and young by the appropriateness of the selections, their progressive arrangement, the fidelity of their Illustrations, and the very moderate price at which it is offered to the public. It has not been thought necessary to prefix to the present Volume any instructions in the art of Elocution, or to direct the accent or intonation of the student by the abundant use of italics or of large capitals. The principal, if not the only secrets of good reading are, to speak slowly, to articulate distinctly, to pause judiciously, and to feel the subject so as, if possible, "to make all that passed in the mind of the Author to be felt by the Auditor," Good oral example upon these points is far better for the young Student than the most elaborate written system.