or chooses is the wrong one. And I have in the main
adjusted the dates in this book (where necessary) accordingly. The
bibliographical additions which have been made to the Index will be found
not inconsiderable.

I believe that, in my present plan, there is no author of importance
omitted (there were not many even in the first edition), and that I have
been able somewhat to improve the book from the results of twenty years'
additional study, twelve of which have been mainly devoted to English
literature. How far it must still be from being worthy of its subject,
nobody can know better than I do. But I know also, and I am very happy to
know, that, as an Elizabethan himself might have said, my unworthiness has
guided many worthy ones to something like knowledge, and to what is more
important than knowledge, love, of a subject so fascinating and so
magnificent. And that the book may still have the chance of doing this, I
hope to spare no trouble upon it as often as the opportunity presents
itself.[1]

EDINBURGH, _January_ 30, 1907.

[1] In the last (eleventh) re-impression no alterations seemed necessary.
In this, one or two bibliographical matters may call for notice. Every
student of Donne should now consult Professor Grierson's edition of the
_Poems_ (2 vols., Oxford, 1912), and as inquiries have been made as to the
third volume of my own _Caroline Poets_ (see Index), containing Cleveland,
King, Stanley, and some less known authors, I may be permitted to say that
it has been in the press for years, and a large part of it is completed.
But various stoppages, in no case due to neglect, and latterly made
absolute by the war, have prevented its appearance.--BATH, October 8, 1918.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

FROM TOTTEL'S MISCELLANY TO SPENSER

The starting-point--Tottel's _Miscellany_--Its method and authorship--The
characteristics of its poetry--Wyatt--Surrey--Grimald--Their metres
--The stuff of their poems--_The Mirror for Magistrates_--Sackville
--His contributions and their characteristics--Remarks on the formal
criticism of poetry--Gascoigne--Churchyard--Tusser--Turberville--
Googe--The translators--Classical metres--Stanyhurst--Other
miscellanies Pages 1-27

CHAPTER II

EARLY ELIZABETHAN PROSE

Outlines of Early Elizabethan Prose--Its origins--Cheke and his
contemporaries--Ascham--His style--Miscella