P. 477.--In the original preface I apologised--not in the idle hope of conciliating one kind of critic, but out of respect for a very different class--for slips due to the loss of my own library, and to the difficulty (a difficulty which has now increased owing to circumstances of no public interest, in respect of the present volume) of consulting others in regard to small matters of fact. I have very gratefully to acknowledge that I found the latter class very much larger than the former. Such a note as that at Vol. I. p. xiii, will show that I have not spared trouble to ensure accuracy. The charge of _in_accuracy can always be made by anybody who cares to take "the other authority." This has been done in reference to the dates of Prevost's books. But I may perhaps say, without _outrecuidance_, that there is an _Art de negliger les dates_ as well as one _de les verifier_. For the purposes of such a history as this it is very rarely of the slightest importance, whether a book was published in the year one or the year three: though the importance of course increases when units pass into decades, and becomes grave where decades pass into half-centuries. Unless you can collate actual first editions in every case (and sometimes even then) dates of books as given are always second-hand. In reference to the same subject I have also been rebuked for not taking account of M. Harrisse's correction of the legend of Prevost's death. As a matter of fact I knew but had forgotten it, and it has not the slightest importance in connection with Prevost's work. Besides, somebody will probably, sooner or later, correct M. Harrisse. These things pass: _Manon Lescaut_ remains. ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA FOR VOL. II