THE POETRY OF ASTRONOMY,'
""OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS," ""THE INFINITIES
AROUND US," "FAMILIAR SCIENCE STUDIES,'
""HOW TO PLAY WHIST,
"CHANCE AND LUCK,' "THE GREAT PYRAMID,'
""OTHER SUNS

THAN OURS," AND THE ARTICLES ON ASTRONOMY IN
THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA' AND
THE "AMERICAN CYCLOPÆDIA."

"The rest is silence."-Shakespeare.

LONDON:

W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE,

PALL MALL. S.W.

1887.

(All rights reserved.)

LONDON

PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL.

S.W.

Entered according to Act of Congress in the Year 1887,
By RICHARD A. PROCTOR,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

010-6-36

PREFACE.

THE " Mystery of Edwin Drood" is regarded by many as the least interesting of Dickens's works. The present work is based on the opinion expressed by Longfellow that the story, though unfinished, is "certainly one of Dickens's most beautiful works, if not the most beautiful of all."

I do not know whether Longfellow ever gave his reasons for thinking thus of Edwin Drood; but I have little doubt that the poet admired what many critics contemned, because his true ear enabled him to interpret the tones in which Dickens unconsciously revealed the real interpretation of the Mystery.