GEORGE G. GREENWOOD. _The Shakespeare Problem Restated._ This work gives a trustworthy appraisal of many modern works on Shakespeare. (See page 166 of this Guide.) JOHN CHURTON COLLINS. _Studies in Shakespeare._ EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE. _Jacobean Poets._ _From Shakespeare to Pope._ _A History of Eighteenth Century Literature._ FRANCIS B. GUMMERE. _Handbook of Poetics._ THOMAS SECCOMBE. _The Age of Johnson._ WALTER BAGEHOT. _Literary Studies._ CHARLES FRANCIS RICHARDSON. _American Literature._ In one volume, in the popular edition. THEODORE STANTON (and others). _Manual of American Literature._ EDWARD DOWDEN. _History of French Literature._ FERDINAND BRUNETIÈRE. _Manual of the History of French Literature._ In the English translation. DELPHINE DUVAL. _Petite Histoire de la Littérature Française._ In Heath’s _Modern Language Series_. PETIT DE JULLEVILLE. _Littérature Française._ Both the foregoing works are in easy French. RENÉ DOUMIC. _Contemporary French Novelists._ In the English translation. HENRY JAMES. _French Poets and Novelists._ KUNO FRANCKE. _History of German Literature._ GILBERT MURRAY. _History of Ancient Greek Literature._ JOHN PENTLAND MAHAFFY. _History of Classical Greek Literature._ JOHN WILLIAM MACKAIL. _Latin Literature._ CHAPTER XIII SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY If there is one central idea which it is hoped a young reader might find in the foregoing pages, it is this: that literature is for everyone, young or old, who has the capacity to enjoy it, that no special fitness is required but the gift of a little imagination, that no particular training can prepare us for the reading of books except the very act of reading. For literature is addressed to the imagination; that is, a work which touches the imagination becomes Literature as distinguished from all other printed things. By virtue of its imagination it becomes permanent, it remains intelligible to the human being of every race and age, the only conditions of intelligibility being that the reader shall be literate and that the book shall be in the language in which the reader has been brought up or in a foreign tongue which he has learned to read. We have insisted on a kind of liberty, equality, and union in the world of writers and readers, and have, perhaps needlessly, made a declaration of independence against all scholars, philosophers, and theorists who try to put obstacles in our way and arrogate to themselves exclusive rights and privileges, special understandings of the world’s literature. We believe that literature is intended for everybody and that it is addressed to everybody by the creative mind of art. We believe that all readers are equal in the presence of a book or work of art, but we hastily qualify this, as we must qualify the political doctrine of equality. No two men are really equal, no two persons will get the same pleasure and benefit from any book. But the inequalities are