PREFACE.


In editing an English classic for use in the secondary schools, there
is always opportunity for the expression of personal convictions and
personal taste; nevertheless, where one has predecessors in the task
of preparing such a text, it is difficult always, occasionally
impossible, to avoid treading on their heels. The present editor,
therefore, hastens to acknowledge his indebtedness to the various
school editions of the _Revolt of the Tartars_, already in existence.
The notes by Masson are so authoritative and so essential that their
quotation needs no comment. De Quincey's footnotes are retained in
their original form and appear embodied in the text. The other
annotations suggest the method which the editor would follow in
class-room work upon this essay.

The student's attention is called frequently to the _form_ of
expression; the discriminating use of epithets, the employment of
foreign phrases, the allusions to Milton and the Bible, the structure
of paragraphs, the treatment of incident, the development of feeling,
the impressiveness of a present personality; all this, however, is
with the purpose, not of mechanic exercise, nor merely to illustrate
"rhetoric," but to illuminate _De Quincey_. It is with this intention,
presumably, that the text is prescribed. There is little
attractiveness, after all, in the idea of a style so colorless and so