to learn more. Quotation, in many cases copious, illustrates the sketch of each author. The book being addressed to young readers, or to those who have made no exhaustive study of literature, presumes the need for a good deal of explanation. But it also presumes that certain authors will be familiar to everyone; for instance, in the chapter on Shakespeare no descriptive account of any play is attempted, and quotation is employed only to illustrate critical observations. On the other hand, with authors like Pope, perhaps oftener named than read, an attempt has been made to give some adequate specimen of their work. The literature of the Victorian period, as more familiar, has been dismissed with very summary treatment. Generally speaking, the more quotable an author, the more he has been quoted; and poetry therefore much more than prose. Also, since it was necessary in all ways to limit the task, those authors have been somewhat neglected who owe their importance to matter rather than to manner; who, whether as divines, historians, and philosophers, have a place in science no less than in pure literature. To this explanation must be added an apology. How imperfect is the execution of this text-book, no one knows better than its author. But a book of the kind seemed to be needed, and his attempt to carry out what he conceived has been at least conscientiously made, with a true desire to quicken that love for the literature of the English tongue which is to them who feel it so deep a source of pleasure and advantage. Since in a brief historical summary of this kind, the entire structure rests on other men's work, acknowledgments cannot be adequately made. Special indebtedness has generally been made clear in passing—and notably, among living critics, to Professor Raleigh. But it will appear sufficiently that great reliance has been placed on the "English Men of Letters" series; and in that series two should be particularised. The late Mark Pattison's Milton is a superb example of biographical criticism ; while the intelligent student who wishes to learn what can be taught about the art of poetry will find perhaps more instruction in Mr. Colvin's monograph on Keats than in any other English book. |