OF PROSE AND POETRY SHEWING THE MAIN STREAM LONDON & TORONTO J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. Seiberan 2.85 PREFACE THE plan of this book is simple, but it is believed to be new. My object has been not to supply one more portable collection of gems, but to show the progress of the English language and literature as the gradual gathering of many tributaries into one stream, or of many characters and influences into one great national concourse. In attempting this I found at once that three conditions imposed themselves. The selection must include both prose and verse: and it must treat upon the same footing all printed work of interest, whether scientific, philosophical, political or creative. But thirdly, an arrangement must be devised by which the reader should be enabled to follow the stream continuously, to trace without confusion the entrance and effect of the gathering influences. It has generally been the custom in making a volume of selections to place the authors according to their dates of birth: but from my point of view this was too mechanical an arrangement and would often introduce confusion where it was a chief object to be clear. The moment of birth is not the moment of a great writer's entry into the world of thought: nor is it possible to fix any age at which genius or literary influence may be said in general to take effect. I will give a simple illustration: Peacock was seven years V MAY 13 * older than his friend Shelley, but the best of his books were not published for years after Shelley's death. His influence on England and on literature is in fact much. later, and his work must be placed in the array much later, because it was not present to the mind of that generation. I was compelled then to make a new order for myself and my readers: the order in which the great writers of English made their decisive appearance. This is not so easy a matter, for it involves in many cases a personal judgment and as only a few illustrations can be given of even a great writer's work, the gradual growth of his influence, and its possible changes, cannot be adequately shown. Moreover he may have one or more contemporaries of exactly his own date, and mutual influences may be at work. In the case of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton I have endeavoured to lessen the difficulties by dividing their work into two and three separate periods. This makes it possible (e.g.) to take account of the political storms which racked Milton's spirit, and to put in its proper place the estimate of Shakespeare formed by a younger contemporary who died in 1592-that is, before the Shakespeare we know had really come into existence. But whether the work is well or ill done, whether the pieces selected do sufficiently represent in every case the nature of the new influence and the hour of its arrival, I do not doubt that this is the method for my purpose. The idea of the book is that wherever the reader chooses to open it, he shall have (in abridgement) upon the left hand all the effective content of the literary mind at that date and upon the right hand, all that was still to come. |