BY
GEORGE SAINTSBURY
M.A. AND HON. D.LITT. OXON.
HON. LL.D. ABERD.; HON. D.LITT. DURH.; FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD; LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC
AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1919
COPYRIGHT
First Edition 1910
Reprinted 1914, 1919
[PREFACE]
The reception of the first two volumes of a larger work (since completed) on English Prosody suggested, to the author and to the publishers, that there might be room for a more compressed dealing with the subject, possessing more introductory character, and attempting the functions of a manual as well as those of a history. It did not, however, seem that the matter could be satisfactorily treated in extremely brief form, as a primer or elementary school-book. The subject is one not very well suited for elementary instruction; and in endeavouring to shape it for that use there is a particular danger of too positive and peremptory statement in reference to matters of the most contentious kind. Catechetical instruction has to be categorical; if you set hypotheses, or alternative systems, before young scholars, they are apt either to distrust the whole thing or to become hopelessly muddled. And the opposite danger—of unhesitating adoption of positive statements on doubtful points—must have been found to be only too real by any one who has had to do with education. Schoolboys cannot be too early, or too plentifully, or too variously supplied with good examples of verse; but they should be thoroughly familiar with the practice before they come to the principles.