Читать книгу A Glossary of Stuart and Tudor Words especially from the dramatists онлайн

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If I may be allowed I would end on a personal note. I have thought it a great privilege to have been invited to complete the work of one held in such honour and esteem as Professor Skeat. And it has been a great pleasure to do something which might show, however inadequately, my gratitude for a friendship of nearly forty years. I wish the work that has been done on his book had been better done; I wish that it could have been undertaken by some one better equipped for the task, by one who had a more intimate acquaintance with the literature of the period dealt with. I hope that the imperfections of the book as it leaves my hands will be treated leniently. No one can be more conscious of them than he who is now bidding farewell to the task.

I have been fortunate in obtaining the help of two scholars who are masters of their subjects. My friend of many years, Dr. Henry Bradley, one of the Editors of The New English Dictionary, has taken an interest in the work from the first, which has been most encouraging. His views of what had to be done with the material I found, after I had made some progress in my task, coincided with those I had independently formed. He has most kindly read the proof-sheets throughout, and has made many valuable suggestions which I have gladly adopted. Mr. Percy Simpson, who has made a special study of the dramatists of the period treated, and particularly of Ben Jonson, has also kindly read the proof-sheets, and from his familiarity with the textual criticism of these authors has been able to correct some errors in the texts cited. I cannot conclude without expressing my thanks to the ‘reader’ for the accuracy with which the proof-sheets represented the MS., as well as for his judicious and conscientious use of the blue pencil.