THE AGE OF SPENSER.—A CORRECTION.
ITo TIDO EDITOR ON EPROTATOR:._1 S111,—Referring to your highly interesting review (March 23rd) of M. Jusserand's "Literary History of the English People: from the Renaissance to the Civil War," of which I am the publisher, will you allow me to comment on one or two points ? The first point is that your reviewer appears to have regarded the work as a section of a history of English literature, whereas it is a section ota "literary history of the English people," which • being so, the approach to the subject is quite altered. Had this . work been a history of literature, then the treatment of Donne, for . instance, might have been on the lines your reviewer suggests ; but • ,when the author approaches his subject from the point of view of a literary history his business is not in the first place, I take it, - to deal with literary form in itself, but only with that form as an index, if it be such; of the general tendency of the time. Your reviewer is inclined to complain of Marlowe not being more fully dealt with ; but as the title indicates, the work is to be continued to the Civil War, whereas the present volume brings it only to the period of the Elizabethan novel. I may add that in the next volume Marlowe comes in for his full share of treatment. Had H. Jusserand been on the spot instead of attending to his Ambassadorial duties at Washington, he would doubtless have thought it desirable to call your attention to the two points noted above. I hope that in now writing to you thus I am not unduly stepping into my friend M. Junerand's shoes.—I am, Sir, &c., T. Pisa= I:limns. 1 Adelphi Terrace, London, W.C.
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