Excerpt from Prize Essays: Chiefly Shaksperean Studies It is generally understood that if a reader is to have a thorough appreciation of a writer's thoughts, he cannot do better than put himself somewhat into the position of the writer when such thoughts were transmitted to paper. I have little apprehension that anything in these essays will not be thoroughly understood nor have I any extraordinary statement to make in connection with the writing of them - as, for instance, Swift, who, to assist the reader in so delicate an affair as the proper appreciation of all that is sublime and witty in him, thinks it his duty to say that the shrewdest pieces of his treatise were conceived in bed in a garret at other times he had thought fit to sharpen his intention with hunger, and in general the whole work was begun, continued, and ended under a long course of physic, and a great want of money - though 1 can heartily apply this last remark; yet, I think it necessary to explain the circumstances under which these Essays were written, together with some justifica tion for publishing them. Some of them have appeared elsewhere, and I reprint them here with little or no alteration, though not without some reluctance; but to reconstruct them entirely would entail too much labour. The short Essays on Style and Thought and The Decline of the Drama must necessarily be looked upon as meagre and unfinished. Being first efforts in collegiate competition, but since they were awarded first place in the class lists, I am led to include them. In the first mentioned the remarks will no doubt appear dogmatic and paradoxical, but it must be borne in mind that this is simply an attempt to prove that there is truth in Buffon's famous aphorism, The style is the man. A rejoinder and some remarks thereon have now been added. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.