the pupil realises the conditions under which it was written. To this end I have added, to the notes on the 66 artistic" poems, short accounts of their respective authors, and have elaborated the notes on the traditional and "popular" poems and ballads. Proper handling of certain ballads will arouse interest in the methods of oral tradition. In the note to King John and the Abbot of Canterbury a hint, easily expanded, is given of the vogue which such folk-tales may enjoy. The poems by Hawker and Wolfe have interesting literary histories, which serve to demonstrate that "artistic poems may occasionally undergo experiences similar to those of "popular" verse. The best method of expounding each poem, according as it narrates, disguises, or illustrates history, will be easily decided by the teacher, who will find that the fulness or paucity of the notes is in inverse ratio to the amount of information ordinarily accessible in historybooks. Etymological notes are almost entirely omitted, in the belief that interest in the growth of a language is of later development than that interest in the growth of a nation and its literature which this book endeavours to stimulate. F. S. January 1907. When the British warrior Queen, Sage beneath a spreading oak, "Princess! if our aged eyes Weep upon thy matchless wrongs, "Tis because resentment ties All the terrors of our tongues. "Rome shall perish-write that word. |