o enter upon disputed literary questions, however tempting they
may be. On such points as the relations of Northern to Provencal poetry,
the origin of the Chansons and the Arthurian romances, the successive
versions of Froissart, the authenticity of the last book of Rabelais, it
is only possible here to indicate the most probable conclusions.
Generally speaking, the scale of treatment will be found to be adjusted
to the system of division already stated. In the middle ages, where the
importance of the general form surpasses that of the individual
practitioners, comparatively small space is given to these individuals,
and little attempt is made to follow up the scanty and often conjectural
particulars of their lives. In the later books I have endeavoured
(departing in this respect from the system of my two former sketches of
the subject, the article on 'French Literature' in the ninth edition of
the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ and the _Primer_ which has preceded this
work in the Clarendon Press Series) to deal more fully with the greater
names whose work is most instructive, and as to whom most curiosity is
likely to be felt.

If, as seems very likely, these explanations should not content some of
my critics, I can only say that the passages which they may miss here
would have been far easier and far pleasanter for me to write than the
passages which they will here find. This volume attempts to be, not a
series of _causeries_ on the literary history of France, but a Short
History of French Literature. Two things only I have uniformly aimed at,
accuracy as absolute as I could secure, and completeness as thorough as
space would allow. In the pursuit of the former object I have thought it
well to take no fact or opinion at second-hand where the originals were
accessible to me. Manuscript sources I do not pretend to have
consulted; but any judgment which is passed in this book may be taken
as founded on personal acquaintance with the book or author unless the
contrary be stated. Some familiarity with the subject has convinced me
that nowhere are opinions of doubtful accuracy more frequently adopted
and handed on without enquiry than in the history of literature.

Those who read this book for purposes of study will, it is hoped, be
already acquainted with the _Primer_, which is, in effect, an
introduction to it, and which contains what may be called a bird's-eye
view of the subject. But, lest the wood should be lost sight of f