his independent researches on points which I have touched but slightly;
and particularly of his very full treatment of the Spenserian imitations.

I had at first intended to entitle the book "Chapters toward a History of
English Romanticism, etc."; for, though fairly complete in treatment, it
makes no claim to being exhaustive. By no means every eighteenth-century
writer whose work exhibits romantic motives is here passed in review.
That very singular genius William Blake, _e.g._, in whom the influence of
"Ossian," among other things, is so strongly apparent, I leave untouched;
because his writings--partly by reason of their strange manner of
publication--were without effect upon their generation and do not form a
link in the chain of literary tendency.

If this volume should be favorably received, I hope before very long to
publish a companion study of English romanticism in the nineteenth
century.

H.A.B.


_October, 1898._




CONTENTS

Chapter

I. The Subject Defined