As in Volume I, footnotes have been kept to a minimum, being normally biographies of thinkers mentioned in the text and being designed to illustrate the length and range of their literary lives rather than to provide bibliographical comprehensiveness. Where necessary, in order to keep tenses consistent or sentences in shape but without alteration of the meaning, alterations have been made in quotations which appear in the body of the text. The endnotes indicate the locations of all quotations as well as the sources from which the book has been constructed. There is no other bibliography since Volume III will include a bibliographical discussion of the subjects discussed in all three volumes.

For help in tracing articles and books or in checking references and proof-reading, the author is indebted to Mr Alun Vaughan and to librarians in the Cambridge University Library (especially Mr Nigel Hancock and Miss J. Fairholm). He is indebted to Mrs J. G. W. Davies and Mrs Pamela Stockham for typing, and to the Cambridge History Faculty and the British Academy for grants from their funds. Mr W. J. Davies, Mr Richard Fisher and Ms Linda Randall of the Cambridge University Press have helped in preparing the book for publication. The index has been prepared by Mrs I. K. McLean. Mrs H. M. Dunn, the Fellows' Secretary at Peterhouse, has given invaluable and unstinted help throughout.