ered in respect
of the present volume. The _Essays on French Novelists_, to which I
there referred, contain a larger number of such studies appertaining to
the present division--studies busied with Charles de Bernard, Gautier,
Murger, Flaubert, Dumas, Sandeau, Cherbuliez, Feuillet. On Balzac I have
previously written two papers of some length, one as an Introduction to
Messrs. Dent's almost complete translation of the _Comedie_, with
shorter sequels for each book, the other an article in the _Quarterly
Review_ for 1907. Some dozen or more years ago I contributed to an
American edition[1] of translations of Merimee by various hands, a long
"Introduction" to that most remarkable writer, and I had, somewhat
earlier, written on Maupassant for the _Fortnightly Review_. One or two
additional dealings of some substance with the subject might be
mentioned, such as another Introduction to _Corinne_, but not to
_Delphine_. These, however, and passages in more general _Histories_,
hardly need specification.

On the other hand, I have never dealt, substantively and in detail, with
Chateaubriand, Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, Beyle, George Sand, or Zola[2]
as novelists, nor with any of the very large number of minors not
already mentioned, including some, such as Nodier and Gerard de Nerval,
whom, for one thing or another, I should myself very decidedly put above
minority. And, further, my former dealings with the authors in the first
list given above having been undertaken without any view to a general
history of the French novel, it became not merely proper but easy for me
to "triangulate" them anew. So that though there may be more previous
work of mine in print on the subjects of the present volume than on
those of the last, there will, I hope, be found here actually less, and
very considerably less, _rechauffe_--hardly any, in fact (save a few
translations[3] and some passages on Gautier and Maupassant)--of the
amount and character which seemed excusable, and more than excusable, in
the case of the "Sensibility" chapter there. The book, if not actually a
"Pisgah-sight reversed," taken from Lebanon instead of Pisgah after
more than forty years' journey, not in the wilderness, but in the
Promised Land itself, attempts to be so; and uses no more than fairly
"reminiscential" (as Sir Thomas Browne would say) notes, taken on that
journey itself.

It was very naturally, and by persons of weight, put to me whether I
could not extend thi