rer mistakes
facts or mistakes me. I need hardly say that I have made no alterations
in criticism, and that the passage referring to M. Scherer himself (with
the exception of a superfluous accent) stands precisely as it did.

Some additions have been made to the latter part of the book, but not
very many: for the attempt to 'write up' such a history to date every
few years can only lead to confusion and disproportion. I have had,
during the decade which has passed since the book was first planned,
rather unusual opportunities of acquainting myself with all new French
books of any importance, but a history is not a periodical, and I have
thought it best to give rather grudging than free admittance to
new-comers. On the other hand, I have endeavoured, as far as possible,
to obliterate chronological references which the effluxion of time has
rendered, or may render, misleading. The notes to which it seemed most
important to attract attention, as modifying or enlarging some statement
in the text, are specially headed 'Notes to Third Edition': but they
represent only a small part of the labour which has been expended on the
text. I have also again overhauled and very considerably enlarged the
index; while the amplification of the 'Contents' by subjoining to each
chapter-heading a list of the side-headings of the paragraphs it
contains, will, I think, be found an advantage. And so I commend the
book once more to readers and to students[4].

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Note to Third Edition._--M. Gaston Paris expresses some surprise at
my saying 'one of the authors,' and attributes both versions to the
Troyes clerk (see pp. 52, 53). I can only say that so long as _Renart le
Contrefait_ is unpublished, if not longer, such a question is difficult
to decide: and that the accepted monograph on the subject (that of Wolf)
left on my mind the impression of plural authorship as probable.

[2] _La Litterature Francaise du Moyen Age_ (Paris, 1888).

[3] A preface is but an ill place for controversy. As however M.
Scherer, thanks chiefly to the late Mr. Matthew Arnold, enjoys some
repute in England, I may give an example of his censure. He accuses me
roundly of giving in my thirty dates of Corneille's plays 'une dizaine
de fausses,' and he quotes (as I do) M. Marty-Laveaux. As since the
beginning, years ago, of my Cornelian studies, I have constantly used
that excellent edition, though, now as always, reserving my own judgment
on points of opi