67c COLLEGE HARVARD LIBRARY Purchased frona the Society BHT VRABELI-MOT808 PREFACE. THIS Manual was first issued in 1874 as one of a series intended primarily to assist candidates in preparing for the Civil Service examinations. But in these examinations English literature has never proved a particularly attractive subject; and in the second edition of 1880 an attempt was made to extend the utility of the book as a work of reference. In this character it achieved a certain success, and went out of print. In 1895 the publishers decided to reissue it with such revision and supplement as might serve to bring it down to the present date. This task, rendered more formidable by two-and-twenty years of dictionaries, biographies, histories, and special monographs,' the original compiler had neither the leisure nor the inclination to undertake; and with his entire concurrence, it was entrusted to the capable and experienced hands of Mr. W. Hall Griffin, Professor of English Language and Literature at Queen's College, London. Professor Hall Griffin has revised the volume throughout in the light of the most recent authori |