Its debts are many, its chief creditors two teachers, Professor
Grierson at Aberdeen University and Sir Walter Raleigh at Oxford, to the
stimulation of whose books and teaching my pleasure in English
literature and any understanding I have of it are due. To them and to
the other writers (chief of them Professor Herford) whose ideas I have
wittingly or unwittingly incorporated in it, as well as to the kindness
and patience of Professor Gilbert Murray, I wish here to express my
indebtedness.

G.H.M.
MANCHESTER,
_August_, 1911.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

PREFACE

I THE RENAISSANCE

II ELIZABETHAN POETRY AND PROSE

III THE DRAMA