into the middle of the Seventeenth Century; where they fill a
languid interval between two winds of inspiration--the Italian
dying down with Milton and the French following at the heels of
the restored Royalists. For convenience, again, I have set myself
certain rules of spelling. In the very earliest poems inflection
and spelling are structural, and to modernize is to destroy. But
as old inflections fade into modern the old spelling becomes less
and less vital, and has been brought (not, I hope, too abruptly)
into line with that sanctioned by use and familiar. To do this
seemed wiser than to discourage many readers for the sake of
diverting others by a scent of antiquity which--to be essential--
should breathe of something rarer than an odd arrangement of type.
But there are scholars whom I cannot expect to agree with me; and
to conciliate them I have excepted Spenser and Milton from the
rule.

Glosses of archaic and otherwise difficult words are given at
the foot of the page: but the text has not been disfigured with
reference-marks. And rather than make the book unwieldy I have
eschewed notes--reluctantly when some obscure passage or allusion
seemed to ask for a timely word; with more equanimity when the
temptation was to criticize or 'appreciate.' For the function of
the anthologist includes criticizing in silence.

Care has been taken with the texts. But I have sometimes thought
it consistent with the aim of the book to prefer the more
beautiful to the better attested reading. I have often excised
weak or superfluous stanzas when sure that excision would improve;
and have not hesitated to extract a few stanzas from a long poem
when persuaded that they could stand alone as a lyric. The apology