Those who study the book should study the small print as carefully as the other.
After a somewhat elaborate exposition of English literature, I could not induce myself to tack on an inadequate chapter on American literature; and, besides, I think that to treat the two subjects in one volume would be as incongruous as to write a joint biography of Marlborough and Washington.

American literature is too great and noble, and has had too marvelous a development to be made an appendix to English literature.
If time shall serve, I hope to prepare a separate volume, exhibiting the stages of our literature in the Colonial period, the Revolutionary epoch, the time of Constitutional establishment, and the present period.

It will be found to illustrate these historical divisions in a remarkable manner.
H.C.
The Lehigh University, _October_, 1872.
CONTENTS.