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
note editions: I soon saw that I could not do this with any degree of
uniformity, and therefore determined to refer all who desire this
bibliographic assistance, to _The Dictionary of Authors_, by my friend S.
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