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PREFACE.

BASIL VALENTINE said, in his Triumphant Chariot of Antimony, "The shortness of life makes it impossible for one man thoroughly to learn Antimony, in which every day something of new is discovered." What shall we say then of all the best thought of the best men of our nation in all times? Let no beginner think that when he has read this book, or any book, or any number of books for any number of years, he will have thoroughly learned English Literature. We can but study faithfully and work on from little to more, never to much. Basil Valentine felt in his own way with that teacher of the highest truth who wrote, "If any man think he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know."

This book is but a first sketch of what in "English Writers" it is the chief work of my life to tell as fully and as truly as I can. But no labour of this kind is intended to save any one the pains of reading good books for himself. It is useful only when it quickens the desire to come into real contact with great minds of the past, and gives the kind of knowledge that will lessen distance between us and them. As far as our wit serves, we understand the books of our own day because we live with them. Knowledge common to us as the air we breathe will hereafter be a part of the detail necessary to make that

fresh and pleasant to a student in the future, which the idler may enjoy now without trouble.

Together with a first outline of our literature, some account of the political and social history of England should be read; and while each period is being studied, direct acquaintance should be made with one or two of its best books. Whatever examples may be chosen should be complete pieces, however short, not extracts, for we must learn from the first to recognise the unity of a true work of genius. A short Appendix gives the names and prices of a few of the books suitable for use in this way, and contains a page to be read with the chapter upon Chaucer and his time.

University College, London.

H. M.

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A FIRST SKETCH

OF

ENGLISH LITERATURE.

CHAPTER I.

THE FORMING OF THE PEOPLE: CELTS.

I. THE Literature of a People tells its life. History records its deeds; but Literature brings to us, yet warm with their first heat, the appetites and passions, the keen intellectual debate, the higher promptings of the soul, whose blended energies produced the substance of the record. We see some part of a man's outward life and guess his character, but do not know it as we should if we heard also the debate within, loud under outward silence, and could be spectators of each conflict for which lists are set within the soul. Such witnesses we are, through English Literature, of the life of our own country. Let us not begin the study with a dull belief that it is but a bewilderment of names, dates, and short summaries of conventional opinion, which must be learnt by rote. As soon as we can feel that we belong to a free country with a noble past, let us begin to learn through what endeavours and to what end it is free. Liberty as an abstraction is not worth a song. It is precious only for that which it enables us to be and do. our hearts, then, to the study which we here begin, and seek through it accord with that true soul of our country by which we may be encouraged to maintain in our own day the best work of our forefathers.

Let us bring

The literature of this country has for its most distinctive mark the religious sense of duty. It represents a people striving through successive generations to find out the right and do it, to root out the wrong, and labour ever onward for the

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