greater part of the student's time, in class and without, may be left free
for the study of the literature itself. 

I hope that the book may prove adaptable to various methods and conditions
of work.  Experience has suggested the brief introductory statement of main
literary principles, too often taken for granted by teachers, with much
resulting haziness in the student's mind.  The list of assignments and
questions at the end is intended, of course, to be freely treated.  I hope
that the list of available inexpensive editions of the chief authors may
suggest a practical method of providing the material, especially for
colleges which can provide enough copies for class use.  Poets, of course,
may be satisfactorily read in volumes of, selections; but to me, at least,
a book of brief extracts from twenty or a hundred prose authors is an
absurdity.  Perhaps I may venture to add that personally I find it advisable
to pass hastily over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and so gain
as much time as possible for the nineteenth. 

R.  H.  F. 

_August, 1916._