fessor Morley in his "First Sketch; and in my revision of that book, I began with the purpose of transforming all titles according to a fixed standard of precise and full citation. I was, however, soon forced to give up the attempt, as involving an amount of labor that I could not bestow upon the book; and I have contented myself with verifying every title which I had the means of verifying at all - with respect to its accordance with the sense of the original.

In passing from the substance of this Manual to its construction, my task of explanation is made easy. For this portion of the work, I alone am responsible. Any one who will take the "First Sketch" and compare it with this Manual, with reference to the arrangement of materials into literary epochs, into chapters, into subordinate topics under chapters, and even in many cases into paragraphs under subordinate topics, will see that in all these particulars the Manual is a new book.

The disadvantages that I have observed as attending the use of the First Sketch" as a text book seemed to me largely to grow out of peculiarities in its construction. It is a mass of rich and various learning upon English literature, but densely packed together in small uniform type, with chapters very few and very long, with meagre indication at the head of each chapter respecting its contents, with no charts of periods and of the authors belonging to each period, with no analytic table of contents at the beginning, and with no analytic index at the end. It is lacking in perspective; in sharp and obvious divisions of the great departments of the subject; in such an adjustment of materials under these departments as to separate the essential from the non-essential, the more important from the less important; in paragraphs of transition that may give to the student, in the right places, a clew to the spirit and drift of what is coming, and to its relations with what has just gone. Further

more, the narrative of English authors which it presents is told synchronistically and in fragments, each of the principal authors being dealt with for a single stage of his career, then giving way to some contemporary author, and to another, and another, the first one then returning, and again giving way, and again returning, and so on, until the end of his career is reached. For the general reader, provided that he is already acquainted with the principal personages in English literature, and can thus witness, without forgetfulness or confusion, this flitting appearance and disappearance and re-appearance of names along the pages, such a method of narrating literary history is both interesting and helpful; it especially gives him a vivid sense of the actual contemporaneousness of authors in each group, and of the mutual entanglements and reciprocations of their lives. But for the average college-student, even though tolerably advanced in literary knowledge, the case is very different the vast majority of these once famous names are new and strange to him; their separate individuality cannot easily be grasped and remembered by him; and after some scores of them have flitted in and out before his vision, he finds it hard to collect around each name the facts pertaining to it as they lie dispersed over so many pages; he begins to get the wrong man into the right place, or the right man into the wrong place; and finally, unless supported by uncommon help from his teacher, he is in danger of surrendering to discouragement and disgust.

It is perhaps needless to say that all these disadvantages in the construction of the original work, I have endeavored to remove by an entirely new combination both of the old and of the new materials that have gone into the present work. Instead of the presentation of the careers of authors synchronistically and in fragments, they are, with the exception of two or

three names, here presented in wholes, contemporary authors being carefully grouped together, but each author having the privilege of telling his whole story through before another one gets the floor. Moreover, the twelve centuries of English literature are here broken into natural and manageable periods, as explained in the Introduction; each of these periods is boldly marked off from the others by subordinate title-pages and by conspicuous charts of names; in the exposition of each period, authors are grouped together in such manner as to give most prominence to those who are most important; and by the familiar device of using type of different sizes, the student is easily guided to those portions of the narrative which, for the immediate purpose of the recitation, deserve his chief attention, while, also, space is thus gained for materials that will be valuable to him for illustration and for subsequent reference.

With respect to the proportion of parts in this work, there is one peculiarity about which I venture to offer a suggestion, especially to my fellow-teachers. Here are twelve centuries of English literature to be dealt with. In any proper account of these twelve centuries, how much space should be given to each century? Nothing can be plainer than that, in a wise and helpful treatment of such a subject, some centuries should be unfolded with greater detail than others; and that the most help should be given to the student upon just those centuries on which the most help is needed, that is, upon those centuries respecting which the materials within his reach are likely to be the most scanty, as well as the most difficult to handle. It will be safe to say, I suppose, that, wherever this Manual shall be used, there will be sufficient materials for studying the literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; namely, the works of the leading authors of those times, together with many periodicals and books in review of them. But for the

ten centuries of English literature prior to the eighteenth, the materials in most American libraries are far less abundant, and from many of them are to a lamentable extent wanting.

Accordingly, in this Manual - which herein retains the general plan adopted in the "First Sketch - the first ten centuries are treated with the greater fulness of detail; while, beginning with the eighteenth century, and coming down to the very border of the present year, the narrative, though embracing a still larger throng of names, grows less and less minute, and becomes finally a mere outline, guiding the student, indeed, to all the great forms of recent English literature, and to the names of the chief writers who have illustrated each form, but leaving to the student the pleasure and the gain of filling in the sketch by studies which he can easily make for himself, and in which he will be sure to reap an ample reward both in knowledge and in delight.

It is of the utmost importance, even in the use of a textbook on English literature, that students should be saved from lapsing into a passive and listless attitude toward the subject, and should be so skilfully steered in their work that they may come to know for themselves the exhilaration of original research. If I may refer to my own experience as a teacher, I would say that in my introductory course upon English literature in which course only do I use a text-book - I have found it a great advantage, while my pupils were engaged in reciting from the text-book upon the earlier periods of English literature, to parcel out among them, for direct study in the library, the most celebrated works in prose and poetry belonging to the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries; with the understanding that each student, in his turn, is to have the opportunity of reporting upon the topic assigned to him, as it shall be reached by the class in the regular process

of the work. For some such method, this Manual is particu

larly adapted.

It is my earnest hope that this book may prove to be the means among others developed originally in this country, as well as drawn hither from England, France, and Germany of giving a healthy impulse and guidance to the study of English literature in America; and it has occurred to me that many readers of the present volume may be glad to have here a few words respecting the noble-minded English scholar and writer to whom they are chiefly indebted for it.

Henry Morley was born in London in 1822, and received his education at the Moravian school of Neuwied-on-the-Rhine, and at King's College, London. In 1844, at Madeley, in Shropshire, he began professional life as a physician. After four years of medical practice, he yielded to the strong bent of his nature toward educational work, and established near Liverpool a school to be conducted on an original method, which proved very successful, and of which he subsequently published a description. In 1851, he reluctantly abandoned this school, in order to enter upon an active literary career in London. He at once became associated with Charles Dickens in the editorial management of "Household Words," and so continued for six years. Near the end of that time, he joined the staff of "The Examiner," of which he was the editor-in-chief from 1859 to 1864. Two years before he attained the latter position, he also became lecturer on English literature in King's College. In 1865, he was made professor of English literature in University College, London, his immediate predecessors in that office being David Masson and Arthur Hugh Clough. He still retains his professorship in University College; but, in 1870, he added to its duties those of examiner in English language, literature, and history, to the University of London.