our understanding of history shall not be impaired by our study of Shakespeare.

The Outline of Prosody, again, aims at emphasizing the distinction, likewise often overlooked, between those qualities of verse which belong to the speech, its material, and those which belong to its metrical form. The exemplary treatment of Chaucer's verse by Ten Brink (Chaucers Sprache und Verskunst) has here served as model. A small but needful step has also been taken towards the phonetic handling of Elizabethan verse by the use of a special symbol for the syllabic value of 'vowel-likes'—a symbol already made familiar to the philological reader by Mr. Sweet's History of English Sounds and Brugmann's Grundriss.

One other symbol used throughout may also require a word of explanation,—perhaps of defence. The early Modern English of the Elizabethans is no doubt connected by continuous development with the English of our own time, and, though the divergences are more palpable, with Middle English. Yet, the comparative slightness of the differences between our tongue and theirs makes it the more needful to insist-not for the cultivated reader, but for the average student and the average schoolboy-upon the fact that theirs is a tongue, with its own laws, idioms and grammar; and not merely a more or less 'ungrammatical' variation of the English we speak. It has therefore throughout been referred to as Elizabethan English (E. E.). The wonderful ease and pliancy of Elizabethan English will never be brought home to the learner until historical grammar has been transferred from the patronage of logic to that of psychology; in other words, until it has been recognized that each language becomes an instrument of thought by means of a host of adaptations and transfers which depend, not on the laws of right thinking, but on the special instincts and experiences of the speaking race; that Use is founded upon Abuse, and that Correctness is only a name for Anomaly grown habitual.

The Glossary is intended to include all words at which the reader is likely to stumble; while those of more elusive difficulty, which he is liable rather to glide innocently over, are

brought directly before him in the Notes. The articles seek not merely to state the Shakespearian meaning of each word, but to give some clue to its history. The etymological dictionaries of Skeat and Kluge have here naturally been of service; but the Editor has endeavoured to exercise an independent criticism. On the other hand, for the relatively few words already handled in the New English Dictionary, he has been content to draw freely upon that great treasury of concrete Anglistic. Dr. Murray has, so far as the present generation is concerned, done his work once for all, and it would be affectation to pretend to revise results built up with so sound and so subtle an intelligence upon so catholic a basis. The Editor is also indebted to Dr. Murray's kindness for the loan of the yet unpublished quotations upon the words pelting, pelt, pelter. In the article upon the first-named word, these have been freely used. For the arrangement and conclusions of that article, however, the Editor is alone responsible.

Finally, the Editor desires to thank his valued friend and colleague, Professor Hales, for most kindly reading the whole of the proof-sheets. The book has in many places benefited materially by his exact scholarship, wide reading, and fine

taste.

C. H. H.