It is not the purpose of the author to add another to the many volumes
containing a chronological list of English authors, with brief comments
upon each. Such a statement of works, arranged according to periods, or
reigns of English monarchs, is valuable only as an abridged dictionary of
names and dates. Nor is there any logical pertinence in clustering
contemporary names about a principal author, however illustrious he may
be. The object of this work is to present prominently the historic
connections and teachings of English literature; to place great authors in
immediate relations with great events in history; and thus to propose an
important principle to students in all their reading. Thus it is that
Literature and History are reciprocal: they combine to make eras.

Merely to establish this historic principle, it would have been sufficient
to consider the greatest authors, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare,
Milton, Dryden, and Pope; but it occurred to me, while keeping this
principle before me, to give also a connected view of the course of
English literature, which might, in an academic curriculum, show students
how and what to read for themselves. Any attempt beyond this in so
condensed a work must prove a failure, and so it may well happen that some
readers will fail to find a full notice, or even a mention, of some
favorite author.

English literature can only be studied in the writings of the authors here
only mentioned; but I hope that the work will be found to contain
suggestions for making such extended reading profitable; and that teachers
will find it valuable as a syllabus for fuller courses of lectures.

To those who would like to find information as to the best editions of the
authors mentioned, I can only say that I at first intended and began to