PREFACE TO THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND
Reading edition
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The favour with which this book has been received, alike in Great Britain and America, is thought to warrant a reproduction of it with pictorial embellishment, and accordingly it is offered in the present form. I have revised the text for this reprint, and my friend Mr. George P. Brett, of the house of Messrs. Macmillan and Company,—at whose suggestion the pictorial edition was undertaken,—has supervised the choice of pictures for its adornment. The approval that the work has elicited is a source of deep gratification. It signifies that my endeavour to reflect the gentle sentiment of English landscape and the romantic character of English rural life has not proved altogether in vain. It also shows that an appeal may confidently be made,—irrespective of transitory literary fashions and of popular caprice,—to the love of the ideal, the taste for simplicity, and the sentiment of veneration. In these writings there is, I hope, a profound practical deference to the perfect standard of style that is represented by such illustrious exemplars as Addison, Goldsmith, Sterne, and Gray. This frail fabric may perish: that standard is immortal; and whatever merit this book may possess is due to an instinctive and passionate devotion to the ideal denoted by those shining names. These sketches were written out of love for the subject. The first book of them, called The Trip to England, reprinted, with changes, from the New York Tribune, was made for me, at the De Vinne Press. The subsequent growth of the work is traced in the earlier Preface, herewith reprinted. The title of Shakespeare's England was given to it when the first English edition was published, by Mr. David Douglas, of Edinburgh. It has been my privilege to make various tours of the British islands, since those of 1877 and 1882, recorded here; and my later books, Gray Days and Gold, and Old Shrines and Ivy, should be read in association with this one, by those persons who care for a wider glimpse of the same delightful field, in the same companionship, and especially by those who like to follow the record of exploration and change in Shakespeare's home. As to the question of accuracy,—and indeed, as to all other questions,—it is my wish that this book may be judged by the text of the present edition, which is the latest and the best.
W. W. June 6, 1893.
