After a period of relative obscurity, Sir William Temple (1628-99) has emerged as one of the catalytic intellects of 7th-century England. Here in this volume are his most important essays. They deal with such exotic subjects as Chinese landscape gardens, ancient Peru, origins of national cultures — especially national literatures — and the poetry and superstitions of the primitive Gothic North. Included are the essays that inspired Jonathan Swift to write his brilliant satires, The Battle of the Books and A Tale of a Tub. Rational and tolerant in spirit, Temple was not only Swift's patron and discoverer but influenced such later writers as Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, and James Boswell. In his extensive introduction Samuel Holt Monk presents a new and concise reappraisal of Temple's life and writings. He writes of a man whose essays "can please and instruct twentieth-century readers, not only because of the charm of their style, but because of the charm of their style, but because they reveal the temperament of a very human writer." Temple was also a wise — but unheeded — adviser to a Charles II and a close personal friend William III. He lived during an era in which the political and intellectual foundations of modern life were developed, and he himself anticipated our strong interest in the cultural and social origins of man. The five essays in this book contain the essence of Temple's contibution to 17th-century thought.