as an abridged dictionary of
names and dates. Nor is there any logical pertinence in clustering
contemporary names about a principal author, however illustrious he may
be. The object of this work is to present prominently the historic
connections and teachings of English literature; to place great authors in
immediate relations with great events in history; and thus to propose an
important principle to students in all their reading. Thus it is that
Literature and History are reciprocal: they combine to make eras.

Merely to establish this historic principle, it would have been sufficient
to consider the greatest authors, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare,
Milton, Dryden, and Pope; but it occurred to me, while keeping this
principle before me, to give also a connected view of the course of
English literature, which might, in an academic curriculum, show students
how and what to read for themselves. Any attempt beyond this in so
condensed a work must prove a failure, and so it may well happen that some
readers will fail to find a full notice, or even a mention, of some
favorite author.

English literature can only be studied in the writings of the authors here
only mentioned; but I hope that the work will be found to contain
suggestions for making such extended reading profitable; and that teachers
will find it valuable as a syllabus for fuller courses of lectures.

To those who would like to find information as to the best editions of the
authors mentioned, I can only say that I at first intended and began to
note editions: I soon saw that I could not do this with any degree of
uniformity, and therefore determined to refer all who desire this
bibliographic assistance, to _The Dictionary of Authors_, by my friend S.
Austin Allibone, LL.D., in which bibliography is a strong feature. I am
not called upon to eulogize that noble work, but I cannot help saying that
I have found it invaluable, and that whether mentioned or not, no writer
can treat of English authors without constant recurrence to its accurate
columns: it is a literary marvel of our age.

It will be observed that the remoter periods of the literature are those
in which the historic teachings are the most distinctly visible; we see
them from a vantage ground, in their full scope, and in the interrelations
of their parts. Although in the more modern periods the number of writers
is greatly increased, we are too near to discern the entire period, and
are in d