Excerpt from The English Lyric IN the following account of the English Lyric, its origin in early times and its progress through the ages to our day, I have endeavored to write always from impressions, renewed, direct, and made at first hand. But it would be madness in these days of commentary not to know as much as possible of the wise and the unwise things that have been said by those who have traversed this fascinat ing path before me. Independence of judgment, even though it lead to singularity at times, is the most precious right of criticism; but a becoming respect for fellow workers is alike courteous and judicious. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.