THE ENGLISH READER: OR, PIECES IN PROSE AND POETRY, SELECTED FROM THE BEST WRITERS. Designed to assist young Persons TO READ WITH PROPRIETY AND EFFECT; TO IMPROVE THEIR LANGUAGE AND SENTIMENTS; AND TO INCULCATE SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES OF PIETY AND VIRTUE. With a few preliminary Obfervations ON THE PRINCIPLES OF GOOD READING. By LINDLEY MURRAY, AUTHOR OF "ENGLISH GRAMMAR ADAPTED TO THE BRARY NEW-YORE PRINTED FOR LONGMAN AND REES, NO. 39, PATERNOSTER. SPENCE, AND MAWMAN, YORK. 1799. PREFACE. MANY selections of excellent matter have lately Per been made for the benefit of young persons. formances of this kind are of so great utility, that fresh productions of them, and new attempts to improve the young mind, will scarcely be deemed fuperfluous, if the writer make his compilation instructive and interesting, and sufficiently distinct from others. THE present work, as the title expresses, aims at the attainment of three objects: to improve youth in the art of reading; to meliorate their language and sentiments; and to inculcate fome of the most important principles of piety and virtue. THE pieces selected, not only give exercise to a great variety of emotions, and the correspondent tones and variations of voice, but contain sentences and members of fentences, which are diverfified, proportioned, and pointed with accuracy. Exercises of this nature are, it is presumed, well calculated to teach youth to read with propriety and effect. A felection of fentences, in which variety and proportion, with exact punctuation, have been carefully observed, in all their parts as well as with respect to one another, will probably have a much greater effect, in properly teaching the art of reading, than is commonly imagined. |