This, however, is only a small part of its task. A mere list of authors, taken separately, and of their books, does not constitute a history of literature, for literature as a whole grows and changes from generation to generation, and in tracing this growth, history must show the place which each writer occupies in it, and his relations with those who went before, and with those who came after him. A writer of exceptionally powerful personality is certain to stamp has impress upon his age, and amongst those who follow him many will always be found who, whether they are conscious of it or not, reveal his influence in their thought and style. Moreover, the popularity obtained by any writer with a particular kind of work will naturally breed imitations, and what has once been done successfully will for a time be done again and again, in this way ‘schools’ are formed and ‘movements’ initiated, which last for a while, and then, when tastes presently change, and other ‘school’ and ‘movements’ arise, disappear. Thus we speak of the ‘school’ of pope, earning the whole succession of poets who wrote in the particular style which he had brought to perfection and made current; of the ‘classic’ movement in verse which, following his lead, these writers carried on; of the ‘classic’ movement in verse fiction which owed its principal impulse to Scott’s historical novels; and so on. Such schools and movements always play a large part in the development of literature, and are often as important to the student as that even the most original men-the men who are most completely themselves have their intellectual ancestry, and are often deeply indebted to others for inspiration and example. I have just spoken of Pope’s particular style; but this was not his own independent creation; and while it assumed perfection in his hands it was really the final result of a ling ‘movement’ in verse, which had already found one great representative in his immediate predecessor, Dryden. Scott was educated in a ‘romantic’ school before he became in his turn a supreme master in that school. We frequently think of Shakespeare as if he stood altogether apart in the literature of his day. But in fact, he took the drama up at the point, which it had reached when he began to write for the stage, and followed the lines, which his forerunners had laid down. The history of literature, then, must take account of all these things. It must bring out the relationships between writer and writer and group and group; it must trace the rise, growth, and decline of ‘school’ and ‘movements’; and whenever any given writer had been especially prominent in their evolution, it must consider the influence he exerted in making literature either by keeping it in the old channels or in directing it into new.