somewhat less defective than at its first appearance. I have therefore in a great measure re-written it, beside filling in a gap here and there with an additional essay. Perhaps some critics will call it a new book with an old title. If they do, they will I trust allow that the new book has at least two merits which went far to secure the success of the old, 1st, a good title, and 2nd, a good plan. My plan in both editions has been to select a few people who seemed specially worth knowing about, and to tell concerning them in some detail just that which seemed to me specially worth knowing. So I have given what I thought very valuable or very interesting, and everything I thought not particularly valuable or interesting I have ruthlessly omitted. I have not attempted a _complete_ account of anybody or anything; and as for what the examiner may “set,” I have not once given his questions a thought. As the book is likely to have more readers in the country of its adoption than in the country of its birth, I have persuaded my friend Dr. William T. Harris, the United States Commissioner of Education, to put it into “The International Education Series” which he edits. So the only authorized editions of the book are the English edition, and the American edition published by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. R. H. Q. EARLSWOOD COTTAGE, REDHILL, SURREY, ENGLAND, _28th July, 1890_. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE =Chapter I.—Effects of the Renascence= 1-21 No escape from the Past 2 “Discovery” of the Classics 3 Mark Pattison’s account of Renascence 4 Revival of taste for beauty in Literature 5 What is Literature? 6 Renascence loved beauty of expression 7 No translations. The “educated” 8 Spread of literature by printing 9 School course settled before Bacon 10 First defect: Learner above Doer 11 Second: Over-estimate of literature 12 Literary taste not common 13 Third: Literature banished from school 14 Translations would be literature 15 The classics not written for children 16 Language _versus_ Literature 17 Fourth: “Miss as good as a mile” 18