VI. LITERARY CRITICISM,

The Publication of Books. 1875,

A Mistaken Review. 1875,

The Position of Critics. 1875,

Coventry Patmore's "Faithful for Ever." 1860,

LETTER TO THE AUTHOR OF A REVIEW. 1872,

AN OXFORD PROTEST. 1874,

MR. RUSKIN AND MR. LOWE. 1877,

364

• 365

DRAMATIC REFORM. 1880. (Two Letters),

THE LORD RECTORSHIP OF GLASGOW UNIVERSITY. 1880. (Five

367

368

"I never wrote a letter in my life which all the world are not welcome to

read if they will."-FORS CLAVIGERA, Letter lix., 1875.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

My good Editor insists that this book must have an Author's Preface; and insists further that it shall not contain compliments to him on the editorship. I must leave, therefore, any readers who care for the book, and comprehend the trouble that has been spent on it, to pay him their own compliments, as the successive service of his notes may call for them but my obedience to his order, not in itself easy to me, doubles the difficulty I have in doing what nevertheless. I am resolved to do-pay, that is to say, several extremely fine compliments to myself, upon the quality of the text.

For of course I have read none of these letters since they were first printed of half of them I had forgotten the contents, of some, the existence; all come fresh to me; and here in Rouen, where I thought nothing could possibly have kept me from drawing all I could of the remnants of the old town, I find myself, instead, lying in bed in the morning, reading these remnants of my old self-and that with much contentment and thankful applause.

For here are a series of letters ranging over a period of, broadly, forty years of my life; most of them written hastily, and all in hours snatched from heavier work and in the entire mass of them there is not a word I wish to change, not a statement I have to retract, and, I believe, few pieces of advice, which the reader will not find it for his good to act upon.