PREFACE.

This little book is made up from the opening series of a considerable range of “talks,” with which—during the past few years—I have undertaken to entertain, and (if it might be) instruct a bevy of friends; and the interest of a few outsiders who have come to the hearings has induced me to put the matter in type. I feel somewhat awkwardly in obtruding upon the public any such panoramic view of British writers, in these days of specialists—when students devote half a lifetime to the analysis of the works of a single author, and to the proper study of a single period.

I have tried, however, to avoid bad mistakes and misleading ones, and shall reckon my commentary only so far forth good—as it may familiarize the average reader with the salient characteristics of the writers brought under notice, and shall put these writers into such a swathing of historic and geographic enwrapments as shall keep them better in mind.

When I consider the large number of books recently issued on similar topics, and the scholarly acuteness, and the great range belonging to so many of them, I am not a little discomforted at thought of my bold scurry over so wide reach of ground. Indeed, I have the figure before me now—as I hint an apology—of an old-time country doctor who has ventured with his saddle-bags and spicy nostrums into competition with a half score of special practitioners—with their microscopy and their granules dosimetriques; but I think, consolingly, that possibly the old-time mediciner—if not able to cure, can at the least induce a pleasurable slumber.

Edgewood, 1889.