N preparing this selection from Hazlitt's many essays I have had in View the possible needs of students ln Training Colleges, candidates for the Board of Education's Certificate examination, pupils in the highest forms of schools, and even those general readers who may care to have certain fine prose pieces extra — illustrated, as it were, by appropriate anno tation. My actual teaching experience with the second of these groups has shown me that one can take nothing for granted in the students' general knowledge. I have found that even the simplest allusions need elucidation and the simplest foreign phrases translation. If therefore some of the notes seem unnecessary, readers should remember that what is unnecessary to them may be useful to others.