Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

INTR OD UCTION,XIthan these, the * Faerie Queene/ Venus and Adonis/ Lucrece/and several of the best of Shakespeare's Plays. It* 'seems as if the comparatively unproductive period of ourliterature then suddenly ceased, and we begin to meet withwritings that are to be read at length, and of which shortspecimens will no longer suffice.§ 3. A great deal of the supposed difficulty of EarlyEnglish, and much of the curious awe with which manyEnglishmen regard it (as if it were a study much beyondthem, and in which they can have little interest), has beenthe indirect result of the injudicious way in which editorshave been accustomed to tamper with their texts. Readersare so used to having their extracts from older authorsmodified or modernized, that they find themselves thrown outwhen actually meeting with a genuine old book, and are discouragedat the outset from attempting to peruse it. Inthe present volume, all the pieces have been printed withoutalteration, with the exact spelling which occurs in the MS.or old black-letter book from which it is taken ; and theearliest MS. copies, or first editions of printed works, havebeen resorted to, as being, in general, the most correct.The student who masters the contents of it will thereforemake a real advance, and will be pleased to find himselfable to read with considerable ease every English printedbook in existence, with the exception of those which arecopied from MSS. older than the time of Chaucer. He willalso find that he has acquired much that will assist him inthe reading of early MSS.§4. There are ^ few difficulties that ought to be reso-