will perhaps make himself useful, if, while diminishing
somewhat in his book the part usually allowed to technicalities and
aesthetic problems, he increases the part allotted to the people and to
the nation: a most difficult task assuredly; but, whatever be his too
legitimate apprehensions, he must attempt it, having no other chance,
when so much has been done already, to be of any use. The work in such a
case will not be, properly speaking, a "History of English Literature,"
but rather a "Literary History of the English People."

Not only will the part allotted to the nation itself be greater in such
a book than habitually happens, but several manifestations of its
genius, generally passed over in silence, will have to be studied. The
ages during which the national thought expressed itself in languages
which were not the national one, will not be allowed to remain blank, as
if, for complete periods, the inhabitants of the island had ceased to
think at all. The growing into shape of the people's genius will have to
be studied with particular attention. The Chapter House of Westminster
will be entered, and there will be seen how the nation, such as it was
then represented, became conscious, even under the Plantagenets, of its
existence, rights and power. Philosophers and reformers must be
questioned concerning the theories which they spread: and not without
some purely literary advantage. Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke are the
ancestors of many poets who have never read their works, but who have
breathed an air impregnated with their thought. Dreamers will be
followed, singers, tale-tellers, and preachers, wherever it pleases them
to lead us: to the Walhalla of the north, to the green dales of Erin,
to the Saxon church of Bradford-on-Avon, to Blackheath, to the "Tabard"
and the "Mermaid," to the "Globe," to "Will's" coffee house, among
ruined fortresses, to cloud-reaching steeples, or along the furrow sown
to good intent by Piers the honest Plowman.

The work, the first part of which is now published, is meant to be
divided into three volumes; but as "surface as small as possible must be
offered to the shafts of Fortune," each volume will make a complete
whole in itself, the first telling the literary story of the English up
to the Renaissance, the second up to the accession of King Pope, the
last up to our own day. The present version has been prepared with the
help of M. E. R., who have once more lent me their most kind and