But the work could not easily have been done at all without the facilities offered by the Harvard Library.

When I came to Cambridge to enjoy the riches of this storehouse, I found the great university not less hospitable to the stranger within her gates than she is prolific in great sons.
After I was already deep in debt to the librarian, Mr.W.C.Lane, and to many of the professors, a short period in the service of Harvard, as lecturer in history, has made me feel that I am no longer a stranger, but that I can count myself, in some sort, one of her citizens and foster sons, at least a dimidiatus alumnus.
This book owes more to my wife than even she perhaps quite realizes.
Not only has it been her study, since our marriage, to give me freedom for my work, but her literary advice, founded on her own experience as writer and critic, has been of the highest value, and she has carefully read the proofs.
PRESERVED SMITH.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 16, 1920.
CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I.

THE OLD AND THE NEW.

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