PREFACE

The style of those compositions which form our flrst study in learning a language, becomes firmly impressecl u]3on the memory, and supplies, as it were, the moulds or forms into which thought afterwards runs when it is attempted to be expressed. * Les choses quon apprend par cœur" says Rollin, u s impriment dans la mémoire, et sont comme des moules ou des formes que les pensées prennent lorsqu'on les veut exprimer" Henee the importance of selecting from the literature of the language to which we dévote our attention, the compositions of those writers who offer the purest models for imitation. By this means we are habituated to a correct and élégant phraseology, and at the same time enrich our minds with just and noble sentiments.

Under the influence of this conviction, my object in the Répertoire is ^to présent a séries of extracts from the works of Fénelon, Pascal, Massillon, Bossuet, La Bruyère, Buffon, Bernardin de St.-Pierre, Barthélémy, and other illustrious writers who hâve adorned the literature of France from the Augustan âge of Louis XIV. to the présent day. The compilation exhibits also the variety and peculiar characteristics of the new school, the Romantique, developed in a succession of éloquent tableaux, from the récent and celebrated productions of Chateaubriand,