The Students' Series of English Classics. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner A Ballad Book Edited by KATHarine Lee Bates, Wellesley College. Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration Edited by MARY HARRIOTT NORRIS, Instructor, New York. Edited by W. W. CURTIS, High School, Pawtucket, R.I. Macaulay's Second Essay on the Earl of Chatham 42.. Edited by FRED N. SCOTT, University of Michigan. Joan of Arc and Other Selections from De Quincey 42.. Edited by HENry H. Belfield, Chicago Manual Training School. Carlyle's The Diamond Necklace 42 .. Edited by W. F. MOZIER, High School, Ottawa, Ill. Macaulay's Essays on Milton and Addison 42.. Edited by VIOLA V. PRICE, Southwest Kansas College. Selections from the Speeches of Henry Clay . [Nearly ready] Edited by JAMES Arthur TUFTS, Phillips Exeter Academy. Charles Sumner's True Grandeur of Nations. [Nearly ready] Edited by GEO. L. MARIS, Friends' Central School, Philadelphia. Several others are in preparation, and all are substantially bound in cloth. LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN, Publishers, The Students' Series of English Classics. COLERIDGE'S ANCIENT MARINER. EDITED BY KATHARINE LEE BATES. WELLESLEY COLLEGE. "Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It is as true as sunbeams." LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN, BOSTON, NEW YORK, CHICAGO. PREFACE. On the list of entrance requirements in English literature, as recently adopted by the Association of New England Colleges, stands Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." The selection is a happy one, for the reason that the poem, exquisite in melody and imagery, and abounding in nature-pictures equally remarkable for wide range and delicate accuracy, nevertheless produces at first so vivid an impression of spectral horror as to blind the casual reader to its rare poetic grace and charm. But as the poem is dwelt upon in the class-room, the student being brought to realize the marvellous succession of moonlight, ocean scenes, then the agonies of that disordered soul and the frightfulness of the images reflected from its guilty consciousness will but serve to throw into fairer contrast the blessedness of the spirit restored to the life of love, and the peaceful beauty of the universe as beheld by eyes purged from selfishness and sin. Coleridge at his best is so purely poetical that he is an especially valuable author for class-room use, his mastery of diction, melody and figure tending to culti |