Prqface. 
ix 
cumfcances. 
To 
trace 
all 
thcfe 
variations 
in 
literature 
conneited With fociety, to defcribe the influences of 
fociety upon literature and of literature upon fOCi6tY, 
during the progrefs of the latter, appears to me t0 be 
the true meaning of the Word hiftory, and it is in this 
fenfe that I take it. 
This will explain why my hillory of the different 
branches of popular literature and art ends at very 
different periods. The grotefque and fatirical fculpture, 
which adorned the ecclefiaftical buildings, ceafed With 
the middle ages. The ftory-books, as a part of this 
iocial literature, came down to the fixteenth century, 
and the hiftory of the jefc-books which arofe out of 
them cannot be confidered to extend further than the 
beginning of the feventeenth; for, to give a lift of jePt- 
books flnce that time would be to compile a catalogue 
of books made by bookfellers for fale, copied from 
one another, and, till recently, each more contemptible 
than its predeceflor. The fchool of fatirical literature 
in France, at all events as far as it had any influence in 
England, lafted no longer than the earlier part of the 
feventeenth century. England can hardly be faid to 
have had a fchool of fatirical literature, with the ex- 
ception 
of 
its 
comedy, 
which 
6 
belongs 
properly to the 
feventeenth