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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10609 ***
+
+ENGLISH LITERATURE
+
+ITS HISTORY AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE
+FOR THE LIFE OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING
+WORLD
+
+A TEXT-BOOK FOR SCHOOLS
+
+BY
+WILLIAM J. LONG, PH.D. (Heidelberg)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO
+MY FRIEND
+C H T
+IN GRATITUDE FOR
+HIS CONTINUED HELP IN THE
+PREPARATION OF
+THIS BOOK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PREFACE
+
+This book, which presents the whole splendid history of English literature
+from Anglo-Saxon times to the close of the Victorian Era, has three
+specific aims. The first is to create or to encourage in every student the
+desire to read the best books, and to know literature itself rather than
+what has been written about literature. The second is to interpret
+literature both personally and historically, that is, to show how a great
+book generally reflects not only the author's life and thought but also the
+spirit of the age and the ideals of the nation's history. The third aim is
+to show, by a study of each successive period, how our literature has
+steadily developed from its first simple songs and stories to its present
+complexity in prose and poetry.
+
+To carry out these aims we have introduced the following features:
+
+(1) A brief, accurate summary of historical events and social conditions in
+each period, and a consideration of the ideals which stirred the whole
+nation, as in the days of Elizabeth, before they found expression in
+literature.
+
+(2) A study of the various literary epochs in turn, showing what each
+gained from the epoch preceding, and how each aided in the development of a
+national literature.
+
+(3) A readable biography of every important writer, showing how he lived
+and worked, how he met success or failure, how he influenced his age, and
+how his age influenced him.
+
+(4) A study and analysis of every author's best works, and of many of the
+books required for college-entrance examinations.
+
+(5) Selections enough--especially from earlier writers, and from writers
+not likely to be found in the home or school library--to indicate the
+spirit of each author's work; and directions as to the best works to read,
+and where such works may be found in inexpensive editions.
+
+(6) A frank, untechnical discussion of each great writer's work as a whole,
+and a critical estimate of his relative place and influence in our
+literature.
+
+(7) A series of helps to students and teachers at the end of each chapter,
+including summaries, selections for reading, bibliographies, a list of
+suggestive questions, and a chronological table of important events in the
+history and literature of each period.
+
+(8) Throughout this book we have remembered Roger Ascham's suggestion, made
+over three centuries ago and still pertinent, that "'tis a poor way to make
+a child love study by beginning with the things which he naturally
+dislikes." We have laid emphasis upon the delights of literature; we have
+treated books not as mere instruments of research--which is the danger in
+most of our studies--but rather as instruments of enjoyment and of
+inspiration; and by making our study as attractive as possible we have
+sought to encourage the student to read widely for himself, to choose the
+best books, and to form his own judgment about what our first Anglo-Saxon
+writers called "the things worthy to be remembered."
+
+To those who may use this book in their homes or in their class rooms, the
+writer ventures to offer one or two friendly suggestions out of his own
+experience as a teacher of young people. First, the amount of space here
+given to different periods and authors is not an index of the relative
+amount of time to be spent upon the different subjects. Thus, to tell the
+story of Spenser's life and ideals requires as much space as to tell the
+story of Tennyson; but the average class will spend its time more
+pleasantly and profitably with the latter poet than with the former.
+Second, many authors who are and ought to be included in this history need
+not be studied in the class room. A text-book is not a catechism but a
+storehouse, in which one finds what he wants, and some good things beside.
+Few classes will find time to study Blake or Newman, for instance; but in
+nearly every class there will be found one or two students who are
+attracted by the mysticism of Blake or by the profound spirituality of
+Newman. Such students should be encouraged to follow their own spirits, and
+to share with their classmates the joy of their discoveries. And they
+should find in their text-book the material for their own study and
+reading.
+
+A third suggestion relates to the method of teaching literature; and here
+it might be well to consider the word of a great poet,--that if you would
+know where the ripest cherries are, ask the boys and the blackbirds. It is
+surprising how much a young person will get out of the _Merchant of
+Venice_, and somehow arrive at Shakespeare's opinion of Shylock and Portia,
+if we do not bother him too much with notes and critical directions as to
+what he ought to seek and find. Turn a child and a donkey loose in the same
+field, and the child heads straight for the beautiful spots where brooks
+are running and birds singing, while the donkey turns as naturally to weeds
+and thistles. In our study of literature we have perhaps too much sympathy
+with the latter, and we even insist that the child come back from his own
+quest of the ideal to join us in our critical companionship. In reading
+many text-books of late, and in visiting many class rooms, the writer has
+received the impression that we lay too much stress on second-hand
+criticism, passed down from book to book; and we set our pupils to
+searching for figures of speech and elements of style, as if the great
+books of the world were subject to chemical analysis. This seems to be a
+mistake, for two reasons: first, the average young person has no natural
+interest in such matters; and second, he is unable to appreciate them. He
+feels unconsciously with Chaucer:
+
+    And as for me, though that my wit be lytë,
+    On bookës for to rede I me delytë.
+
+Indeed, many mature persons (including the writer of this history) are
+often unable to explain at first the charm or the style of an author who
+pleases them; and the more profound the impression made by a book, the more
+difficult it is to give expression to our thought and feeling. To read and
+enjoy good books is with us, as with Chaucer, the main thing; to analyze
+the author's style or explain our own enjoyment seems of secondary and
+small importance. However that may be, we state frankly our own conviction
+that the detailed study and analysis of a few standard works--which is the
+only literary pabulum given to many young people in our schools--bears the
+same relation to true literature that theology bears to religion, or
+psychology to friendship. One is a more or less unwelcome mental
+discipline; the other is the joy of life.
+
+The writer ventures to suggest, therefore, that, since literature is our
+subject, we begin and end with good books; and that we stand aside while
+the great writers speak their own message to our pupils. In studying each
+successive period, let the student begin by reading the best that the age
+produced; let him feel in his own way the power and mystery of _Beowulf_,
+the broad charity of Shakespeare, the sublimity of Milton, the romantic
+enthusiasm of Scott; and then, when his own taste is pleased and satisfied,
+a new one will arise,--to know something about the author, the times in
+which he lived, and finally of criticism, which, in its simplicity, is the
+discovery that the men and women of other ages were very much like
+ourselves, loving as we love, bearing the same burdens, and following the
+same ideals:
+
+    Lo, with the ancient
+    Roots of man's nature
+    Twines the eternal
+    Passion of song.
+    Ever Love fans it;
+    Ever Life feeds it;
+    Time cannot age it;
+    Death cannot slay.
+
+To answer the questions which arise naturally between teacher and pupil
+concerning the books that they read, is one object of this volume. It aims
+not simply to instruct but also to inspire; to trace the historical
+development of English literature, and at the same time to allure its
+readers to the best books and the best writers. And from beginning to end
+it is written upon the assumption that the first virtue of such a work is
+to be accurate, and the second to be interesting.
+
+The author acknowledges, with gratitude and appreciation, his indebtedness
+to Professor William Lyon Phelps for the use of his literary map of
+England, and to the keen critics, teachers of literature and history, who
+have read the proofs of this book, and have improved it by their good
+suggestions.
+
+WILLIAM J. LONG STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION--THE MEANING OF LITERATURE
+
+The Shell and the Book. Qualities of Literature. Tests of Literature. The
+Object in studying Literature. Importance of Literature. Summary of the
+Subject. Bibliography.
+
+CHAPTER II. THE ANGLO-SAXON OR OLD-ENGLISH PERIOD
+
+Our First Poetry. "Beowulf." "Widsith." "Deor's Lament." "The Seafarer."
+"The Fight at Finnsburgh." "Waldere." Anglo-Saxon Life. Our First Speech.
+Christian Writers. Northumbrian Literature. Bede. Cædmon. Cynewulf. Decline
+of Northumbrian Literature. Alfred. Summary. Bibliography. Questions.
+Chronology.
+
+CHAPTER III. THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD
+
+The Normans. The Conquest. Literary Ideals of the Normans. Geoffrey of
+Monmouth. Work of the French Writers. Layamon's "Brut." Metrical Romances.
+The Pearl. Miscellaneous Literature of the Norman Period. Summary.
+Bibliography. Questions. Chronology.
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF CHAUCER
+
+History of the Period. Five Writers of the Age. Chaucer. Langland. "Piers
+Plowman." John Wyclif. John Mandeville. Summary. Bibliography. Questions.
+Chronology.
+
+CHAPTER V. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING
+
+Political Changes. Literature of the Revival. Wyatt and Surrey. Malory's
+"Morte d'Arthur." Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology.
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE AGE OF ELIZABETH
+
+Political Summary. Characteristics of the Elizabethan Age. The Non-Dramatic
+Poets. Edmund Spenser. Minor Poets. Thomas Sackville. Philip Sidney. George
+Chapman. Michael Drayton. The Origin of the Drama. The Religious Period of
+the Drama. Miracle and Mystery Plays. The Moral Period of the Drama. The
+Interludes. The Artistic Period of the Drama. Classical Influence upon the
+Drama. Shakespeare's Predecessors in the Drama. Christopher Marlowe.
+Shakespeare. Decline of the Drama. Shakespeare's Contemporaries and
+Successors. Ben Jonson. Beaumont and Fletcher. John Webster. Thomas
+Middleton. Thomas Heywood. Thomas Dekker. Massinger, Ford, Shirley. Prose
+Writers. Francis Bacon. Richard Hooker. Sidney and Raleigh. John Foxe.
+Camden and Knox. Hakluyt and Purchas. Thomas North. Summary. Bibliography.
+Questions. Chronology.
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE PURITAN AGE
+
+The Puritan Movement. Changing Ideals. Literary Characteristics. The
+Transition Poets. Samuel Daniel. The Song Writers. The Spenserian Poets.
+The Metaphysical Poets. John Donne. George Herbert. The Cavalier Poets.
+Thomas Carew. Robert Herrick. Suckling and Lovelace. John Milton. The Prose
+Writers. John Bunyan. Robert Burton. Thomas Browne. Thomas Fuller. Jeremy
+Taylor. Richard Baxter. Izaak Walton. Summary. Bibliography. Questions.
+Chronology.
+
+CHAPTER VIII. PERIOD OF THE RESTORATION
+
+History of the Period. Literary Characteristics. John Dryden. Samuel
+Butler. Hobbes and Locke. Evelyn and Pepys. Summary. Bibliography.
+Questions. Chronology.
+
+CHAPTER IX. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE
+
+History of the Period. Literary Characteristics. The Classic Age. Alexander
+Pope. Jonathan Swift. Joseph Addison. "The Tatler" and "The Spectator."
+Samuel Johnson. Boswell's "Life of Johnson." Later Augustan Writers. Edmund
+Burke. Edward Gibbon. The Revival of Romantic Poetry. Thomas Gray. Oliver
+Goldsmith. William Cowper. Robert Burns. William Blake. The Minor Poets of
+the Romantic Revival. James Thomson. William Collins. George Crabbe. James
+Macpherson. Thomas Chatterton. Thomas Percy. The First English Novelists.
+Meaning of the Novel. Precursors of the Novel. Discovery of the Modern
+Novel. Daniel Defoe. Samuel Richardson. Henry Fielding. Smollett and
+Sterne. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology.
+
+CHAPTER X. THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM
+
+Historical Summary. Literary Characteristics of the Age. The Poets of
+Romanticism. William Wordsworth. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Robert Southey.
+Walter Scott. Byron. Percy Bysshe Shelley. John Keats. Prose Writers of the
+Romantic Period. Charles Lamb. Thomas De Quincey. Jane Austen. Walter
+Savage Landor. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology.
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE VICTORIAN AGE
+
+Historical Summary. Literary Characteristics. Poets of the Victorian Age.
+Alfred Tennyson. Robert Browning. Minor Poets of the Victorian Age.
+Elizabeth Barrett. Rossetti. Morris. Swinburne. Novelists of the Victorian
+Age. Charles Dickens. William Makepeace Thackeray. George Eliot. Minor
+Novelists of the Victorian Age. Charles Reade. Anthony Trollope. Charlotte
+Brontë. Bulwer Lytton. Charles Kingsley. Mrs. Gaskell. Blackmore. Meredith.
+Hardy. Stevenson. Essayists of the Victorian Age. Macaulay. Carlyle.
+Ruskin. Matthew Arnold. Newman. The Spirit of Modern Literature. Summary.
+Bibliography. Questions. Chronology.
+
+GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+INDEX
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTION--THE MEANING OF LITERATURE
+
+    Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede.
+          Chaucer's _Truth_
+      On, on, you noblest English, ...
+      Follow your spirit.
+            Shakespeare's _Henry V_
+
+
+THE SHELL AND THE BOOK. A child and a man were one day walking on the
+seashore when the child found a little shell and held it to his ear.
+Suddenly he heard sounds,--strange, low, melodious sounds, as if the shell
+were remembering and repeating to itself the murmurs of its ocean home. The
+child's face filled with wonder as he listened. Here in the little shell,
+apparently, was a voice from another world, and he listened with delight to
+its mystery and music. Then came the man, explaining that the child heard
+nothing strange; that the pearly curves of the shell simply caught a
+multitude of sounds too faint for human ears, and filled the glimmering
+hollows with the murmur of innumerable echoes. It was not a new world, but
+only the unnoticed harmony of the old that had aroused the child's wonder.
+
+Some such experience as this awaits us when we begin the study of
+literature, which has always two aspects, one of simple enjoyment and
+appreciation, the other of analysis and exact description. Let a little
+song appeal to the ear, or a noble book to the heart, and for the moment,
+at least, we discover a new world, a world so different from our own that
+it seems a place of dreams and magic. To enter and enjoy this new world, to
+love good books for their own sake, is the chief thing; to analyze and
+explain them is a less joyous but still an important matter. Behind every
+book is a man; behind the man is the race; and behind the race are the
+natural and social environments whose influence is unconsciously reflected.
+These also we must know, if the book is to speak its whole message. In a
+word, we have now reached a point where we wish to understand as well as to
+enjoy literature; and the first step, since exact definition is impossible,
+is to determine some of its essential qualities.
+
+QUALITIES OF LITERATURE. The first significant thing is the essentially
+artistic quality of all literature. All art is the expression of life in
+forms of truth and beauty; or rather, it is the reflection of some truth
+and beauty which are in the world, but which remain unnoticed until brought
+to our attention by some sensitive human soul, just as the delicate curves
+of the shell reflect sounds and harmonies too faint to be otherwise
+noticed. A hundred men may pass a hayfield and see only the sweaty toil and
+the windrows of dried grass; but here is one who pauses by a Roumanian
+meadow, where girls are making hay and singing as they work. He looks
+deeper, sees truth and beauty where we see only dead grass, and he reflects
+what he sees in a little poem in which the hay tells its own story:
+
+      Yesterday's flowers am I,
+    And I have drunk my last sweet draught of dew.
+    Young maidens came and sang me to my death;
+    The moon looks down and sees me in my shroud,
+      The shroud of my last dew.
+    Yesterday's flowers that are yet in me
+    Must needs make way for all to-morrow's flowers.
+    The maidens, too, that sang me to my death
+    Must even so make way for all the maids
+      That are to come.
+    And as my soul, so too their soul will be
+    Laden with fragrance of the days gone by.
+    The maidens that to-morrow come this way
+    Will not remember that I once did bloom,
+    For they will only see the new-born flowers.
+    Yet will my perfume-laden soul bring back,
+    As a sweet memory, to women's hearts
+        Their days of maidenhood.
+    And then they will be sorry that they came
+        To sing me to my death;
+    And all the butterflies will mourn for me.
+        I bear away with me
+    The sunshine's dear remembrance, and the low
+        Soft murmurs of the spring.
+    My breath is sweet as children's prattle is;
+    I drank in all the whole earth's fruitfulness,
+    To make of it the fragrance of my soul
+      That shall outlive my death.[1]
+
+One who reads only that first exquisite line, "Yesterday's flowers am I,"
+can never again see hay without recalling the beauty that was hidden from
+his eyes until the poet found it.
+
+In the same pleasing, surprising way, all artistic work must be a kind of
+revelation. Thus architecture is probably the oldest of the arts; yet we
+still have many builders but few architects, that is, men whose work in
+wood or stone suggests some hidden truth and beauty to the human senses. So
+in literature, which is the art that expresses life in words that appeal to
+our own sense of the beautiful, we have many writers but few artists. In
+the broadest sense, perhaps, literature means simply the written records of
+the race, including all its history and sciences, as well as its poems and
+novels; in the narrower sense literature is the artistic record of life,
+and most of our writing is excluded from it, just as the mass of our
+buildings, mere shelters from storm and from cold, are excluded from
+architecture. A history or a work of science may be and sometimes is
+literature, but only as we forget the subject-matter and the presentation
+of facts in the simple beauty of its expression.
+
+The second quality of literature is its suggestiveness, its appeal to our
+emotions and imagination rather than to our intellect. It is not so much
+what it says as what it awakens in us that constitutes its charm. When
+Milton makes Satan say, "Myself am Hell," he does not state any fact, but
+rather opens up in these three tremendous words a whole world of
+speculation and imagination. When Faustus in the presence of Helen asks,
+"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" he does not state a
+fact or expect an answer. He opens a door through which our imagination
+enters a new world, a world of music, love, beauty, heroism,--the whole
+splendid world of Greek literature. Such magic is in words. When
+Shakespeare describes the young Biron as speaking
+
+        In such apt and gracious words
+    That aged ears play truant at his tales,
+
+he has unconsciously given not only an excellent description of himself,
+but the measure of all literature, which makes us play truant with the
+present world and run away to live awhile in the pleasant realm of fancy.
+The province of all art is not to instruct but to delight; and only as
+literature delights us, causing each reader to build in his own soul that
+"lordly pleasure house" of which Tennyson dreamed in his "Palace of Art,"
+is it worthy of its name.
+
+The third characteristic of literature, arising directly from the other
+two, is its permanence. The world does not live by bread alone.
+Notwithstanding its hurry and bustle and apparent absorption in material
+things, it does not willingly let any beautiful thing perish. This is even
+more true of its songs than of its painting and sculpture; though
+permanence is a quality we should hardly expect in the present deluge of
+books and magazines pouring day and night from our presses in the name of
+literature. But this problem of too many books is not modern, as we
+suppose. It has been a problem ever since Caxton brought the first printing
+press from Flanders, four hundred years ago, and in the shadow of
+Westminster Abbey opened his little shop and advertised his wares as "good
+and chepe." Even earlier, a thousand years before Caxton and his printing
+press, the busy scholars of the great library of Alexandria found that the
+number of parchments was much too great for them to handle; and now, when
+we print more in a week than all the Alexandrian scholars could copy in a
+century, it would seem impossible that any production could be permanent;
+that any song or story could live to give delight in future ages. But
+literature is like a river in flood, which gradually purifies itself in two
+ways,--the mud settles to the bottom, and the scum rises to the top. When
+we examine the writings that by common consent constitute our literature,
+the clear stream purified of its dross, we find at least two more
+qualities, which we call the tests of literature, and which determine its
+permanence.
+
+TESTS OF LITERATURE. The first of these is universality, that is, the
+appeal to the widest human interests and the simplest human emotions.
+Though we speak of national and race literatures, like the Greek or
+Teutonic, and though each has certain superficial marks arising out of the
+peculiarities of its own people, it is nevertheless true that good
+literature knows no nationality, nor any bounds save those of humanity. It
+is occupied chiefly with elementary passions and emotions,--love and hate,
+joy and sorrow, fear and faith,--which are an essential part of our human
+nature; and the more it reflects these emotions the more surely does it
+awaken a response in men of every race. Every father must respond to the
+parable of the prodigal son; wherever men are heroic, they will acknowledge
+the mastery of Homer; wherever a man thinks on the strange phenomenon of
+evil in the world, he will find his own thoughts in the Book of Job; in
+whatever place men love their children, their hearts must be stirred by the
+tragic sorrow of _Oedipus_ and _King Lear_. All these are but shining
+examples of the law that only as a book or a little song appeals to
+universal human interest does it become permanent.
+
+The second test is a purely personal one, and may be expressed in the
+indefinite word "style." It is only in a mechanical sense that style is
+"the adequate expression of thought," or "the peculiar manner of expressing
+thought," or any other of the definitions that are found in the rhetorics.
+In a deeper sense, style is the man, that is, the unconscious expression of
+the writer's own personality. It is the very soul of one man reflecting, as
+in a glass, the thoughts and feelings of humanity. As no glass is
+colorless, but tinges more or less deeply the reflections from its surface,
+so no author can interpret human life without unconsciously giving to it
+the native hue of his own soul. It is this intensely personal element that
+constitutes style. Every permanent book has more or less of these two
+elements, the objective and the subjective, the universal and the personal,
+the deep thought and feeling of the race reflected and colored by the
+writer's own life and experience.
+
+THE OBJECT IN STUDYING LITERATURE. Aside from the pleasure of reading, of
+entering into a new world and having our imagination quickened, the study
+of literature has one definite object, and that is to know men. Now man is
+ever a dual creature; he has an outward and an inner nature; he is not only
+a doer of deeds, but a dreamer of dreams; and to know him, the man of any
+age, we must search deeper than his history. History records his deeds, his
+outward acts largely; but every great act springs from an ideal, and to
+understand this we must read his literature, where we find his ideals
+recorded. When we read a history of the Anglo-Saxons, for instance, we
+learn that they were sea rovers, pirates, explorers, great eaters and
+drinkers; and we know something of their hovels and habits, and the lands
+which they harried and plundered. All that is interesting; but it does not
+tell us what most we want to know about these old ancestors of ours,--not
+only what they did, but what they thought and felt; how they looked on life
+and death; what they loved, what they feared, and what they reverenced in
+God and man. Then we turn from history to the literature which they
+themselves produced, and instantly we become acquainted. These hardy people
+were not simply fighters and freebooters; they were men like ourselves;
+their emotions awaken instant response in the souls of their descendants.
+At the words of their gleemen we thrill again to their wild love of freedom
+and the open sea; we grow tender at their love of home, and patriotic at
+their deathless loyalty to their chief, whom they chose for themselves and
+hoisted on their shields in symbol of his leadership. Once more we grow
+respectful in the presence of pure womanhood, or melancholy before the
+sorrows and problems of life, or humbly confident, looking up to the God
+whom they dared to call the Allfather. All these and many more intensely
+real emotions pass through our souls as we read the few shining fragments
+of verses that the jealous ages have left us.
+
+It is so with any age or people. To understand them we must read not simply
+their history, which records their deeds, but their literature, which
+records the dreams that made their deeds possible. So Aristotle was
+profoundly right when he said that "poetry is more serious and
+philosophical than history"; and Goethe, when he explained literature as
+"the humanization of the whole world."
+
+IMPORTANCE OF LITERATURE. It is a curious and prevalent opinion that
+literature, like all art, is a mere play of imagination, pleasing enough,
+like a new novel, but without any serious or practical importance. Nothing
+could be farther from the truth. Literature preserves the ideals of a
+people; and ideals--love, faith, duty, friendship, freedom, reverence--are
+the part of human life most worthy of preservation. The Greeks were a
+marvelous people; yet of all their mighty works we cherish only a few
+ideals,--ideals of beauty in perishable stone, and ideals of truth in
+imperishable prose and poetry. It was simply the ideals of the Greeks and
+Hebrews and Romans, preserved in their literature, which made them what
+they were, and which determined their value to future generations. Our
+democracy, the boast of all English-speaking nations, is a dream; not the
+doubtful and sometimes disheartening spectacle presented in our legislative
+halls, but the lovely and immortal ideal of a free and equal manhood,
+preserved as a most precious heritage in every great literature from the
+Greeks to the Anglo-Saxons. All our arts, our sciences, even our inventions
+are founded squarely upon ideals; for under every invention is still the
+dream of _Beowulf_, that man may overcome the forces of nature; and the
+foundation of all our sciences and discoveries is the immortal dream that
+men "shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
+
+In a word, our whole civilization, our freedom, our progress, our homes,
+our religion, rest solidly upon ideals for their foundation. Nothing but an
+ideal ever endures upon earth. It is therefore impossible to overestimate
+the practical importance of literature, which preserves these ideals from
+fathers to sons, while men, cities, governments, civilizations, vanish from
+the face of the earth. It is only when we remember this that we appreciate
+the action of the devout Mussulman, who picks up and carefully preserves
+every scrap of paper on which words are written, because the scrap may
+perchance contain the name of Allah, and the ideal is too enormously
+important to be neglected or lost.
+
+SUMMARY OF THE SUBJECT. We are now ready, if not to define, at least to
+understand a little more clearly the object of our present study.
+Literature is the expression of life in words of truth and beauty; it is
+the written record of man's spirit, of his thoughts, emotions, aspirations;
+it is the history, and the only history, of the human soul. It is
+characterized by its artistic, its suggestive, its permanent qualities. Its
+two tests are its universal interest and its personal style. Its object,
+aside from the delight it gives us, is to know man, that is, the soul of
+man rather than his actions; and since it preserves to the race the ideals
+upon which all our civilization is founded, it is one of the most important
+and delightful subjects that can occupy the human mind.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY. (NOTE. Each chapter in this book includes a special
+bibliography of historical and literary works, selections for reading,
+chronology, etc.; and a general bibliography of texts, helps, and reference
+books will be found at the end. The following books, which are among the
+best of their kind, are intended to help the student to a better
+appreciation of literature and to a better knowledge of literary
+criticism.)
+
+_GENERAL WORKS_. Woodberry's Appreciation of Literature (Baker & Taylor
+Co.); Gates's Studies in Appreciation (Macmillan); Bates's Talks on the
+Study of Literature (Houghton, Mifflin); Worsfold's On the Exercise of
+Judgment in Literature (Dent); Harrison's The Choice of Books (Macmillan);
+Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, Part I; Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism.
+
+_ESSAYS_. Emerson's Books, in Society and Solitude; Dowden's The
+Interpretation of Literature, in Transcripts and Studies (Kegan Paul &
+Co.), and The Teaching of English Literature, in New Studies in Literature
+(Houghton, Mifflin); The Study of Literature, Essays by Morley, Nicolls,
+and L. Stephen, edited by A.F. Blaisdell (Willard Small).
+
+_CRITICISM_. Gayley and Scott's An Introduction to the Methods and
+Materials of Literary Criticism (Ginn and Company); Winchester's Principles
+of Literary Criticism (Macmillan); Worsfold's Principles of Criticism
+(Longmans); Johnson's Elements of Literary Criticism (American Book
+Company); Saintsbury's History of Criticism (Dodd, Mead).
+
+_POETRY_. Gummere's Handbook of Poetics (Ginn and Company); Stedman's The
+Nature and Elements of Poetry (Houghton, Mifflin); Johnson's The Forms of
+English Poetry (American Book Company); Alden's Specimens of English Verse
+(Holt); Gummere's The Beginnings of Poetry (Macmillan); Saintsbury's
+History of English Prosody (Macmillan).
+
+_THE DRAMA_. Caffin's Appreciation of the Drama (Baker & Taylor Co.).
+
+_THE NOVEL_. Raleigh's The English Novel (Scribner); Hamilton's The
+Materials and Methods of Fiction (Baker & Taylor Co.).
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE ANGLO-SAXON OR OLD-ENGLISH PERIOD (450-1050)
+
+I. OUR FIRST POETRY
+
+BEOWULF. Here is the story of Beowulf, the earliest and the greatest epic,
+or heroic poem, in our literature. It begins with a prologue, which is not
+an essential part of the story, but which we review gladly for the sake of
+the splendid poetical conception that produced Scyld, king of the Spear
+Danes.[2]
+
+At a time when the Spear Danes were without a king, a ship came sailing
+into their harbor. It was filled with treasures and weapons of war; and in
+the midst of these warlike things was a baby sleeping. No man sailed the
+ship; it came of itself, bringing the child, whose name was Scyld.
+
+Now Scyld grew and became a mighty warrior, and led the Spear Danes for
+many years, and was their king. When his son Beowulf[3] had become strong
+and wise enough to rule, then Wyrd (Fate), who speaks but once to any man,
+came and stood at hand; and it was time for Scyld to go. This is how they
+buried him:
+
+    Then Scyld departed, at word of Wyrd spoken,
+    The hero to go to the home of the gods.
+    Sadly they bore him to brink of the ocean,
+    Comrades, still heeding his word of command.
+    There rode in the harbor the prince's ship, ready,
+    With prow curving proudly and shining sails set.
+    Shipward they bore him, their hero beloved;
+    The mighty they laid at the foot of the mast.
+    Treasures were there from far and near gathered,
+    Byrnies of battle, armor and swords;
+    Never a keel sailed out of a harbor
+    So splendidly tricked with the trappings of war.
+    They heaped on his bosom a hoard of bright jewels
+    To fare with him forth on the flood's great breast.
+    No less gift they gave than the Unknown provided,
+    When alone, as a child, he came in from the mere.
+    High o'er his head waved a bright golden standard--
+    Now let the waves bear their wealth to the holm.
+    Sad-souled they gave back its gift to the ocean,
+    Mournful their mood as he sailed out to sea.[4]
+
+"And no man," says the poet, "neither counselor nor hero, can tell who
+received that lading."
+
+One of Scyld's descendants was Hrothgar, king of the Danes; and with him
+the story of our Beowulf begins. Hrothgar in his old age had built near the
+sea a mead hall called Heorot, the most splendid hall in the whole world,
+where the king and his thanes gathered nightly to feast and to listen to
+the songs of his gleemen. One night, as they were all sleeping, a frightful
+monster, Grendel, broke into the hall, killed thirty of the sleeping
+warriors, and carried off their bodies to devour them in his lair under the
+sea. The appalling visit was speedily repeated, and fear and death reigned
+in the great hall. The warriors fought at first; but fled when they
+discovered that no weapon could harm the monster. Heorot was left deserted
+and silent. For twelve winters Grendel's horrible raids continued, and joy
+was changed to mourning among the Spear Danes.
+
+At last the rumor of Grendel crossed over the sea to the land of the Geats,
+where a young hero dwelt in the house of his uncle, King Hygelac. Beowulf
+was his name, a man of immense strength and courage, and a mighty swimmer
+who had developed his powers fighting the "nickers," whales, walruses and
+seals, in the icebound northern ocean. When he heard the story, Beowulf was
+stirred to go and fight the monster and free the Danes, who were his
+father's friends.
+
+With fourteen companions he crosses the sea. There is an excellent bit of
+ocean poetry here (ll. 210-224), and we get a vivid idea of the hospitality
+of a brave people by following the poet's description of Beowulf's meeting
+with King Hrothgar and Queen Wealhtheow, and of the joy and feasting and
+story-telling in Heorot. The picture of Wealhtheow passing the mead cup to
+the warriors with her own hand is a noble one, and plainly indicates the
+reverence paid by these strong men to their wives and mothers. Night comes
+on; the fear of Grendel is again upon the Danes, and all withdraw after the
+king has warned Beowulf of the frightful danger of sleeping in the hall.
+But Beowulf lies down with his warriors, saying proudly that, since weapons
+will not avail against the monster, he will grapple with him bare handed
+and trust to a warrior's strength.
+
+    Forth from the fens, from the misty moorlands,
+    Grendel came gliding--God's wrath[5] he bore--
+    Came under clouds, until he saw clearly,
+    Glittering with gold plates, the mead hall of men.
+    Down fell the door, though fastened with fire bands;
+    Open it sprang at the stroke of his paw.
+    Swollen with rage burst in the bale-bringer;
+    Flamed in his eyes a fierce light, likest fire.[6]
+
+At the sight of men again sleeping in the hall, Grendel laughs in his
+heart, thinking of his feast. He seizes the nearest sleeper, crushes his
+"bone case" with a bite, tears him limb from limb, and swallows him. Then
+he creeps to the couch of Beowulf and stretches out a claw, only to find it
+clutched in a grip of steel. A sudden terror strikes the monster's heart.
+He roars, struggles, tries to jerk his arm free; but Beowulf leaps to his
+feet and grapples his enemy bare handed. To and fro they surge. Tables are
+overturned; golden benches ripped from their fastenings; the whole building
+quakes, and only its iron bands keep it from falling to pieces. Beowulf's
+companions are on their feet now, hacking vainly at the monster with swords
+and battle-axes, adding their shouts to the crashing of furniture and the
+howling "war song" of Grendel. Outside in the town the Danes stand
+shivering at the uproar. Slowly the monster struggles to the door, dragging
+Beowulf, whose fingers crack with the strain, but who never relaxes his
+first grip. Suddenly a wide wound opens in the monster's side; the sinews
+snap; the whole arm is wrenched off at the shoulder; and Grendel escapes
+shrieking across the moor, and plunges into the sea to die.
+
+Beowulf first exults in his night's work; then he hangs the huge arm with
+its terrible claws from a cross-beam over the king's seat, as one would
+hang up a bear's skin after a hunt. At daylight came the Danes; and all day
+long, in the intervals of singing, story-telling, speech making, and gift
+giving, they return to wonder at the mighty "grip of Grendel" and to
+rejoice in Beowulf's victory.
+
+When night falls a great feast is spread in Heorot, and the Danes sleep
+once more in the great hall. At midnight comes another monster, a horrible,
+half-human creature,[7] mother of Grendel, raging to avenge her offspring.
+She thunders at the door; the Danes leap up and grasp their weapons; but
+the monster enters, seizes Aeschere, who is friend and adviser of the king,
+and rushes away with him over the fens.
+
+The old scenes of sorrow are reviewed in the morning; but Beowulf says
+simply:
+
+    Sorrow not, wise man. It is better for each
+    That his friend he avenge than that he mourn much.
+    Each of us shall the end await
+    Of worldly life: let him who may gain
+    Honor ere death. That is for a warrior,
+    When he is dead, afterwards best.
+    Arise, kingdom's guardian! Let us quickly go
+    To view the track of Grendel's kinsman.
+    I promise it thee: he will not escape,
+    Nor in earth's bosom, nor in mountain-wood,
+    Nor in ocean's depths, go where he will.[8]
+
+Then he girds himself for the new fight and follows the track of the second
+enemy across the fens. Here is Hrothgar's description of the place where
+live the monsters, "spirits of elsewhere," as he calls them:
+
+                    They inhabit
+    The dim land that gives shelter to the wolf,
+    The windy headlands, perilous fen paths,
+    Where, under mountain mist, the stream flows down
+    And floods the ground. Not far hence, but a mile,
+    The mere stands, over which hang death-chill groves,
+    A wood fast-rooted overshades the flood;
+    There every night a ghastly miracle
+    Is seen, fire in the water. No man knows,
+    Not the most wise, the bottom of that mere.
+    The firm-horned heath-stalker, the hart, when pressed,
+    Wearied by hounds, and hunted from afar,
+    Will rather die of thirst upon its bank
+    Than bend his head to it. It is unholy.
+    Dark to the clouds its yeasty waves mount up
+    When wind stirs hateful tempest, till the air
+    Grows dreary, and the heavens pour down tears.[9]
+
+Beowulf plunges into the horrible place, while his companions wait for him
+oh the shore. For a long time he sinks through the flood; then, as he
+reaches bottom, Grendel's mother rushes out upon him and drags him into a
+cave, where sea monsters swarm at him from behind and gnash his armor with
+their tusks. The edge of his sword is turned with the mighty blow he deals
+the _merewif_; but it harms not the monster. Casting the weapon aside, he
+grips her and tries to hurl her down, while her claws and teeth clash upon
+his corslet but cannot penetrate the steel rings. She throws her bulk upon
+him, crushes him down, draws a short sword and plunges it at him; but again
+his splendid byrnie saves him. He is wearied now, and oppressed. Suddenly,
+as his eye sweeps the cave, he catches sight of a magic sword, made by the
+giants long ago, too heavy for warriors to wield. Struggling up he seizes
+the weapon, whirls it and brings down a crashing blow upon the monster's
+neck. It smashes through the ring bones; the _merewif_ falls, and the fight
+is won.
+
+The cave is full of treasures; but Beowulf heeds them not, for near him
+lies Grendel, dead from the wound received the previous night. Again
+Beowulf swings the great sword and strikes off his enemy's head; and lo, as
+the venomous blood touches the sword blade, the steel melts like ice before
+the fire, and only the hilt is left in Beowulf's hand. Taking the hilt and
+the head, the hero enters the ocean and mounts up to the shore.
+
+Only his own faithful band were waiting there; for the Danes, seeing the
+ocean bubble with fresh blood, thought it was all over with the hero and
+had gone home. And there they were, mourning in Heorot, when Beowulf
+returned with the monstrous head of Grendel carried on a spear shaft by
+four of his stoutest followers.
+
+In the last part of the poem there is another great fight. Beowulf is now
+an old man; he has reigned for fifty years, beloved by all his people. He
+has overcome every enemy but one, a fire dragon keeping watch over an
+enormous treasure hidden among the mountains. One day a wanderer stumbles
+upon the enchanted cave and, entering, takes a jeweled cup while the
+firedrake sleeps heavily. That same night the dragon, in a frightful rage,
+belching forth fire and smoke, rushes down upon the nearest villages,
+leaving a trail of death and terror behind him.
+
+Again Beowulf goes forth to champion his people. As he approaches the
+dragon's cave, he has a presentiment that death lurks within:
+
+    Sat on the headland there the warrior king;
+    Farewell he said to hearth-companions true,
+    The gold-friend of the Geats; his mind was sad,
+    Death-ready, restless. And Wyrd was drawing nigh,
+    Who now must meet and touch the aged man,
+    To seek the treasure that his soul had saved
+    And separate his body from his life.[10]
+
+There is a flash of illumination, like that which comes to a dying man, in
+which his mind runs back over his long life and sees something of profound
+meaning in the elemental sorrow moving side by side with magnificent
+courage. Then follows the fight with the firedrake, in which Beowulf,
+wrapped in fire and smoke, is helped by the heroism of Wiglaf, one of his
+companions. The dragon is slain, but the fire has entered Beowulf's lungs
+and he knows that Wyrd is at hand. This is his thought, while Wiglaf
+removes his battered armor:
+
+    "One deep regret I have: that to a son
+    I may not give the armor I have worn,
+    To bear it after me. For fifty years
+    I ruled these people well, and not a king
+    Of those who dwell around me, dared oppress
+    Or meet me with his hosts. At home I waited
+    For the time that Wyrd controls. Mine own I kept,
+    Nor quarrels sought, nor ever falsely swore.
+    Now, wounded sore, I wait for joy to come."[11]
+
+He sends Wiglaf into the firedrake's cave, who finds it filled with rare
+treasures and, most wonderful of all, a golden banner from which light
+proceeds and illumines all the darkness. But Wiglaf cares little for the
+treasures; his mind is full of his dying chief. He fills his hands with
+costly ornaments and hurries to throw them at his hero's feet. The old man
+looks with sorrow at the gold, thanks the "Lord of all" that by death he
+has gained more riches for his people, and tells his faithful thane how his
+body shall be burned on the Whale ness, or headland:
+
+    "My life is well paid for this hoard; and now
+    Care for the people's needs. I may no more
+    Be with them. Bid the warriors raise a barrow
+    After the burning, on the ness by the sea,
+    On Hronesness, which shall rise high and be
+    For a remembrance to my people. Seafarers
+    Who from afar over the mists of waters
+    Drive foamy keels may call it Beowulf's Mount
+    Hereafter." Then the hero from his neck
+    Put off a golden collar; to his thane,
+    To the young warrior, gave it with his helm,
+    Armlet and corslet; bade him use them well.
+    "Thou art the last Waegmunding of our race,
+    For fate has swept my kinsmen all away.
+    Earls in their strength are to their Maker gone,
+    And I must follow them."[12]
+
+Beowulf was still living when Wiglaf sent a messenger hurriedly to his
+people; when they came they found him dead, and the huge dragon dead on the
+sand beside him.
+
+    Then the Goth's people reared a mighty pile
+    With shields and armour hung, as he had asked,
+    And in the midst the warriors laid their lord,
+    Lamenting. Then the warriors on the mount
+    Kindled a mighty bale fire; the smoke rose
+    Black from the Swedish pine, the sound of flame
+    Mingled with sound of weeping; ... while smoke
+    Spread over heaven. Then upon the hill
+    The people of the Weders wrought a mound,
+    High, broad, and to be seen far out at sea.
+    In ten days they had built and walled it in
+    As the wise thought most worthy; placed in it
+    Rings, jewels, other treasures from the hoard.
+    They left the riches, golden joy of earls,
+    In dust, for earth to hold; where yet it lies,
+    Useless as ever. Then about the mound
+    The warriors rode, and raised a mournful song
+    For their dead king; exalted his brave deeds,
+    Holding it fit men honour their liege lord,
+    Praise him and love him when his soul is fled.
+    Thus the [Geat's] people, sharers of his hearth,
+    Mourned their chief's fall, praised him, of kings, of men
+    The mildest and the kindest, and to all
+    His people gentlest, yearning for their praise.[13]
+
+One is tempted to linger over the details of the magnificent ending: the
+unselfish heroism of Beowulf, the great prototype of King Alfred; the
+generous grief of his people, ignoring gold and jewels in the thought of
+the greater treasure they had lost; the memorial mound on the low cliff,
+which would cause every returning mariner to steer a straight course to
+harbor in the remembrance of his dead hero; and the pure poetry which marks
+every noble line. But the epic is great enough and simple enough to speak
+for itself. Search the literatures of the world, and you will find no other
+such picture of a brave man's death.
+
+Concerning the history of _Beowulf_ a whole library has been written, and
+scholars still differ too radically for us to express a positive judgment.
+This much, however, is clear,--that there existed, at the time the poem was
+composed, various northern legends of Beowa, a half-divine hero, and the
+monster Grendel. The latter has been interpreted in various
+ways,--sometimes as a bear, and again as the malaria of the marsh lands.
+For those interested in symbols the simplest interpretation of these myths
+is to regard Beowulf's successive fights with the three dragons as the
+overcoming, first, of the overwhelming danger of the sea, which was beaten
+back by the dykes; second, the conquering of the sea itself, when men
+learned to sail upon it; and third, the conflict with the hostile forces of
+nature, which are overcome at last by man's indomitable will and
+perseverance.
+
+All this is purely mythical; but there are historical incidents to reckon
+with. About the year 520 a certain northern chief, called by the chronicler
+Chochilaicus (who is generally identified with the Hygelac of the epic),
+led a huge plundering expedition up the Rhine. After a succession of
+battles he was overcome by the Franks, but--and now we enter a legendary
+region once more--not until a gigantic nephew of Hygelac had performed
+heroic feats of valor, and had saved the remnants of the host by a
+marvelous feat of swimming. The majority of scholars now hold that these
+historical events and personages were celebrated in the epic; but some
+still assert that the events which gave a foundation for _Beowulf_ occurred
+wholly on English soil, where the poem itself was undoubtedly written.
+
+The rhythm of _Beowulf_ and indeed of all our earliest poetry depended upon
+accent and alliteration; that is, the beginning of two or more words in the
+same line with the same sound or letter. The lines were made up of two
+short halves, separated by a pause. No rime was used; but a musical effect
+was produced by giving each half line two strongly accented syllables. Each
+full line, therefore, had four accents, three of which (i.e. two in the
+first half, and one in the second) usually began with the same sound or
+letter. The musical effect was heightened by the harp with which the
+gleeman accompanied his singing.. The poetical form will be seen clearly in
+the following selection from the wonderfully realistic description of the
+fens haunted by Grendel. It will need only one or two readings aloud to
+show that many of these strange-looking words are practically the same as
+those we still use, though many of the vowel sounds were pronounced
+differently by our ancestors.
+
+                              ... Hie dygel lond
+    Warigeath, wulf-hleothu,     windige næssas,
+      Frecne fen-gelad,      thær fyrgen-stream
+    Under næssa genipu     nither gewiteth,
+    Flod under foldan.     Nis thæt feor heonon,
+    Mil-gemearces,     thaet se mere standeth,
+    Ofer thæm hongiath     hrinde bearwas
+                     ... They (a) darksome land
+    Ward (inhabit), wolf cliffs,     windy nesses,
+    Frightful fen paths     where mountain stream
+    Under nesses' mists     nether (downward) wanders,
+    A flood under earth.     It is not far hence,
+    By mile measure,     that the mere stands,
+    Over which hang     rimy groves.
+
+WIDSITH. The poem "Widsith," the wide goer or wanderer, is in part, at
+least, probably the oldest in our language. The author and the date of its
+composition are unknown; but the personal account of the minstrel's life
+belongs to the time before the Saxons first came to England.[14] It
+expresses the wandering life of the gleeman, who goes forth into the world
+to abide here or there, according as he is rewarded for his singing. From
+the numerous references to rings and rewards, and from the praise given to
+generous givers, it would seem that literature as a paying profession began
+very early in our history, and also that the pay was barely sufficient to
+hold soul and body together. Of all our modern poets, Goldsmith wandering
+over Europe paying for his lodging with his songs is most suggestive of
+this first recorded singer of our race. His last lines read:
+
+    Thus wandering, they who shape songs for men
+    Pass over many lands, and tell their need,
+    And speak their thanks, and ever, south or north,
+    Meet someone skilled in songs and free in gifts,
+    Who would be raised among his friends to fame
+    And do brave deeds till light and life are gone.
+    He who has thus wrought himself praise shall have
+    A settled glory underneath the stars.[15]
+
+DEOR'S LAMENT. In "Deor" we have another picture of the Saxon scop, or
+minstrel, not in glad wandering, but in manly sorrow. It seems that the
+scop's living depended entirely upon his power to please his chief, and
+that at any time he might be supplanted by a better poet. Deor had this
+experience, and comforts himself in a grim way by recalling various
+examples of men who have suffered more than himself. The poem is arranged
+in strophes, each one telling of some afflicted hero and ending with the
+same refrain: _His sorrow passed away; so will mine_. "Deor" is much more
+poetic than "Widsith," and is the one perfect lyric[16] of the Anglo-Saxon
+period.
+
+    Weland for a woman knew too well exile.
+    Strong of soul that earl, sorrow sharp he bore;
+    To companionship he had care and weary longing,
+    Winter-freezing wretchedness. Woe he found again, again,
+    After that Nithhad in a need had laid him--
+    Staggering sinew-wounds--sorrow-smitten man!
+    _That he overwent; this also may I_.[17]
+
+THE SEAFARER. The wonderful poem of "The Seafarer" seems to be in two
+distinct parts. The first shows the hardships of ocean life; but stronger
+than hardships is the subtle call of the sea. The second part is an
+allegory, in which the troubles of the seaman are symbols of the troubles
+of this life, and the call of the ocean is the call in the soul to be up
+and away to its true home with God. Whether the last was added by some monk
+who saw the allegorical possibilities of the first part, or whether some
+sea-loving Christian scop wrote both, is uncertain. Following are a few
+selected lines to show the spirit of the poem:
+
+    The hail flew in showers about me; and there I heard only
+    The roar of the sea, ice-cold waves, and the song of the swan;
+    For pastime the gannets' cry served me; the kittiwakes' chatter
+    For laughter of men; and for mead drink the call of the sea mews.
+    When storms on the rocky cliffs beat, then the terns, icy-feathered,
+    Made answer; full oft the sea eagle forebodingly screamed,
+    The eagle with pinions wave-wet....
+    The shadows of night became darker, it snowed from the north;
+    The world was enchained by the frost; hail fell upon earth;
+    'T was the coldest of grain. Yet the thoughts of my heart now are throbbing
+    To test the high streams, the salt waves in tumultuous play.
+    Desire in my heart ever urges my spirit to wander,
+    To seek out the home of the stranger in lands afar off.
+      There is no one that dwells upon earth, so exalted in mind,
+    But that he has always a longing, a sea-faring passion
+    For what the Lord God shall bestow, be it honor or death.
+    No heart for the harp has he, nor for acceptance of treasure,
+    No pleasure has he in a wife, no delight in the world,
+    Nor in aught save the roll of the billows; but always a longing,
+    A yearning uneasiness, hastens him on to the sea.
+      The woodlands are captured by blossoms, the hamlets grow fair,
+    Broad meadows are beautiful, earth again bursts into life,
+    And all stir the heart of the wanderer eager to journey,
+    So he meditates going afar on the pathway of tides.
+    The cuckoo, moreover, gives warning with sorrowful note,
+    Summer's harbinger sings, and forebodes to the heart bitter sorrow.
+      Now my spirit uneasily turns in the heart's narrow chamber,
+    Now wanders forth over the tide, o'er the home of the whale,
+    To the ends of the earth--and comes back to me.
+      Eager and greedy,
+    The lone wanderer screams, and resistlessly drives my soul onward,
+    Over the whale-path, over the tracts of the sea.[18]
+
+THE FIGHT AT FINNSBURGH AND WALDERE. Two other of our oldest poems well
+deserve mention. The "Fight at Finnsburgh" is a fragment of fifty lines,
+discovered on the inside of a piece of parchment drawn over the wooden
+covers of a book of homilies. It is a magnificent war song, describing with
+Homeric power the defense of a hall by Hnæf[19] with sixty warriors,
+against the attack of Finn and his army. At midnight, when Hnæf and his men
+are sleeping, they are surrounded by an army rushing in with fire and
+sword. Hnæf springs to his feet at the first alarm and wakens his warriors
+with a call to action that rings like a bugle blast:
+
+    This no eastward dawning is, nor is here a dragon flying,
+    Nor of this high hall are the horns a burning;
+    But they rush upon us here--now the ravens sing,
+    Growling is the gray wolf, grim the war-wood rattles,
+    Shield to shaft is answering.[20]
+
+The fight lasts five days, but the fragment ends before we learn the
+outcome: The same fight is celebrated by Hrothgar's gleeman at the feast in
+Heorot, after the slaying of Grendel.
+
+"Waldere" is a fragment of two leaves, from which we get only a glimpse of
+the story of Waldere (Walter of Aquitaine) and his betrothed bride
+Hildgund, who were hostages at the court of Attila. They escaped with a
+great treasure, and in crossing the mountains were attacked by Gunther and
+his warriors, among whom was Walter's former comrade, Hagen. Walter fights
+them all and escapes. The same story was written in Latin in the tenth
+century, and is also part of the old German _Nibelungenlied_. Though the
+saga did not originate with the Anglo-Saxons, their version of it is the
+oldest that has come down to us. The chief significance of these "Waldere"
+fragments lies in the evidence they afford that our ancestors were familiar
+with the legends and poetry of other Germanic peoples.
+
+
+II. ANGLO-SAXON LIFE
+
+We have now read some of our earliest records, and have been surprised,
+perhaps, that men who are generally described in the histories as savage
+fighters and freebooters could produce such excellent poetry. It is the
+object of the study of all literature to make us better acquainted with
+men,--not simply with their deeds, which is the function of history, but
+with the dreams and ideals which underlie all their actions. So a reading
+of this early Anglo-Saxon poetry not only makes us acquainted, but also
+leads to a profound respect for the men who were our ancestors. Before we
+study more of their literature it is well to glance briefly at their life
+and language.
+
+THE NAME Originally the name Anglo-Saxon denotes two of the three Germanic
+tribes,--Jutes, Angles, and Saxons,--who in the middle of the fifth
+century left their homes on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic to
+conquer and colonize distant Britain. Angeln was the home of one tribe, and
+the name still clings to the spot whence some of our forefathers sailed on
+their momentous voyage. The old Saxon word _angul_ or _ongul_ means a hook,
+and the English verb _angle_ is used invariably by Walton and older writers
+in the sense of fishing. We may still think, therefore, of the first Angles
+as hook-men, possibly because of their fishing, more probably because the
+shore where they lived, at the foot of the peninsula of Jutland, was bent
+in the shape of a fishhook. The name Saxon from _seax, sax_, a short sword,
+means the sword-man, and from the name we may judge something of the temper
+of the hardy fighters who preceded the Angles into Britain. The Angles were
+the most numerous of the conquering tribes, and from them the new home was
+called Anglalond. By gradual changes this became first Englelond and then
+England.
+
+More than five hundred years after the landing of these tribes, and while
+they called themselves Englishmen, we find the Latin writers of the Middle
+Ages speaking of the inhabitants of Britain as _Anglisaxones_,--that is,
+Saxons of England,--to distinguish them from the Saxons of the Continent.
+In the Latin charters of King Alfred the same name appears; but it is never
+seen or heard in his native speech. There he always speaks of his beloved
+"Englelond" and of his brave "Englisc" people. In the sixteenth century,
+when the old name of Englishmen clung to the new people resulting from the
+union of Saxon and Norman, the name Anglo-Saxon was first used in the
+national sense by the scholar Camden[21] in his _History of Britain_; and
+since then it has been in general use among English writers. In recent
+years the name has gained a wider significance, until it is now used to
+denote a spirit rather than a nation, the brave, vigorous, enlarging spirit
+that characterizes the English-speaking races everywhere, and that has
+already put a broad belt of English law and English liberty around the
+whole world.
+
+THE LIFE. If the literature of a people springs directly out of its life,
+then the stern, barbarous life of our Saxon forefathers would seem, at
+first glance, to promise little of good literature. Outwardly their life
+was a constant hardship, a perpetual struggle against savage nature and
+savage men. Behind them were gloomy forests inhabited by wild beasts and
+still wilder men, and peopled in their imagination with dragons and evil
+shapes. In front of them, thundering at the very dikes for entrance, was
+the treacherous North Sea, with its fogs and storms and ice, but with that
+indefinable call of the deep that all men hear who live long beneath its
+influence. Here they lived, a big, blond, powerful race, and hunted and
+fought and sailed, and drank and feasted when their labor was done. Almost
+the first thing we notice about these big, fearless, childish men is that
+they love the sea; and because they love it they hear and answer its call:
+
+    ... No delight has he in the world,
+    Nor in aught save the roll of the billows; but always a longing,
+    A yearning uneasiness, hastens him on to the sea.[22]
+
+As might be expected, this love of the ocean finds expression in all their
+poetry. In _Beowulf_ alone there are fifteen names for the sea, from the
+_holm_, that is, the horizon sea, the "upmounding," to the _brim_, which is
+the ocean flinging its welter of sand and creamy foam upon the beach at
+your feet. And the figures used to describe or glorify it--"the swan road,
+the whale path, the heaving battle plain"--are almost as numerous. In all
+their poetry there is a magnificent sense of lordship over the wild sea
+even in its hour of tempest and fury:
+
+    Often it befalls us, on the ocean's highways,
+    In the boats our boatmen, when the storm is roaring,
+    Leap the billows over, on our stallions of the foam.[23]
+
+THE INNER LIFE. A man's life is more than his work; his dream is ever
+greater than his achievement; and literature reflects not so much man's
+deed as the spirit which animates him; not the poor thing that he does, but
+rather the splendid thing that he ever hopes to do. In no place is this
+more evident than in the age we are now studying. Those early sea kings
+were a marvelous mixture of savagery and sentiment, of rough living and of
+deep feeling, of splendid courage and the deep melancholy of men who know
+their limitations and have faced the unanswered problem of death. They were
+not simply fearless freebooters who harried every coast in their war
+galleys. If that were all, they would have no more history or literature
+than the Barbary pirates, of whom the same thing could be said. These
+strong fathers of ours were men of profound emotions. In all their fighting
+the love of an untarnished glory was uppermost; and under the warrior's
+savage exterior was hidden a great love of home and homely virtues, and a
+reverence for the one woman to whom he would presently return in triumph.
+So when the wolf hunt was over, or the desperate fight was won, these
+mighty men would gather in the banquet hall, and lay their weapons aside
+where the open fire would flash upon them, and there listen to the songs of
+Scop and Gleeman,--men who could put into adequate words the emotions and
+aspirations that all men feel but that only a few can ever express:
+
+    Music and song where the heroes sat--
+    The glee-wood rang, a song uprose
+    When Hrothgar's scop gave the hall good cheer.[24]
+
+It is this great and hidden life of the Anglo-Saxons that finds expression
+in all their literature. Briefly, it is summed up in five great
+principles,--their love of personal freedom, their responsiveness to
+nature, their religion, their reverence for womanhood, and their struggle
+for glory as a ruling motive in every noble life.
+
+In reading Anglo-Saxon poetry it is well to remember these five principles,
+for they are like the little springs at the head of a great river,--clear,
+pure springs of poetry, and out of them the best of our literature has
+always flowed. Thus when we read,
+
+    Blast of the tempest--it aids our oars;
+    Rolling of thunder--it hurts us not;
+    Rush of the hurricane--bending its neck
+    To speed us whither our wills are bent,
+
+we realize that these sea rovers had the spirit of kinship with the mighty
+life of nature; and kinship with nature invariably expresses itself in
+poetry. Again, when we read,
+
+    Now hath the man
+    O'ercome his troubles. No pleasure does he lack,
+    Nor steeds, nor jewels, nor the joys of mead,
+    Nor any treasure that the earth can give,
+    O royal woman, if he have but thee,[25]
+
+we know we are dealing with an essentially noble man, not a savage; we are
+face to face with that profound reverence for womanhood which inspires the
+greater part of all good poetry, and we begin to honor as well as
+understand our ancestors. So in the matter of glory or honor; it was,
+apparently, not the love of fighting, but rather the love of honor
+resulting from fighting well, which animated our forefathers in every
+campaign. "He was a man deserving of remembrance" was the highest thing
+that could be said of a dead warrior; and "He is a man deserving of praise"
+was the highest tribute to the living. The whole secret of Beowulf's mighty
+life is summed up in the last line, "Ever yearning for his people's
+praise." So every tribe had its scop, or poet, more important than any
+warrior, who put the deeds of its heroes into the expressive words that
+constitute literature; and every banquet hall had its gleeman, who sang the
+scop's poetry in order that the deed and the man might be remembered.
+Oriental peoples built monuments to perpetuate the memory of their dead;
+but our ancestors made poems, which should live and stir men's souls long
+after monuments of brick and stone had crumbled away. It is to this intense
+love of glory and the desire to be remembered that we are indebted for
+Anglo-Saxon literature.
+
+OUR FIRST SPEECH. Our first recorded speech begins with the songs of
+Widsith and Deor, which the Anglo-Saxons may have brought with them when
+they first conquered Britain. At first glance these songs in their native
+dress look strange as a foreign tongue; but when we examine them carefully
+we find many words that have been familiar since childhood. We have seen
+this in _Beowulf_; but in prose the resemblance of this old speech to our
+own is even more striking. Here, for instance, is a fragment of the simple
+story of the conquest of Britain by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors:
+
+Her Hengest and Æsc his sunu gefuhton with Bryttas, on thaere
+stowe the is gecweden Creccanford, and thær ofslogon feower thusenda wera.
+And tha Bryttas tha forleton Cent-lond, and mid myclum ege flugon to
+Lundenbyrig. (At this time Hengest and Aesc, his son, fought against the
+Britons at the place which is called Crayford and there slew four thousand
+men. And then the Britons forsook Kentland, and with much fear fled to
+London town.)[26]
+
+The reader who utters these words aloud a few times will speedily recognize
+his own tongue, not simply in the words but also in the whole structure of
+the sentences.
+
+From such records we see that our speech is Teutonic in its origin; and
+when we examine any Teutonic language we learn that it is only a branch of
+the great Aryan or Indo-European family of languages. In life and language,
+therefore, we are related first to the Teutonic races, and through them to
+all the nations of this Indo-European family, which, starting with enormous
+vigor from their original home (probably in central Europe)[27] spread
+southward and westward, driving out the native tribes and slowly developing
+the mighty civilizations of India, Persia, Greece, Rome, and the wilder but
+more vigorous life of the Celts and Teutons. In all these
+languages--Sanskrit, Iranian, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Teutonic--we recognize
+the same root words for father and mother, for God and man, for the common
+needs and the common relations of life; and since words are windows through
+which we see the soul of this old people, we find certain ideals of love,
+home, faith, heroism, liberty, which seem to have been the very life of our
+forefathers, and which were inherited by them from their old heroic and
+conquering ancestors. It was on the borders of the North Sea that our
+fathers halted for unnumbered centuries on their westward journey, and
+slowly developed the national life and language which we now call Anglo-
+Saxon.
+
+It is this old vigorous Anglo-Saxon language which forms the basis of our
+modern English. If we read a paragraph from any good English book, and then
+analyze it, as we would a flower, to see what it contains, we find two
+distinct classes of words. The first class, containing simple words
+expressing the common things of life, makes up the strong framework of our
+language. These words are like the stem and bare branches of a mighty oak,
+and if we look them up in the dictionary we find that almost invariably
+they come to us from our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. The second and larger class
+of words is made up of those that give grace, variety, ornament, to our
+speech. They are like the leaves and blossoms of the same tree, and when we
+examine their history we find that they come to us from the Celts, Romans,
+Normans, and other peoples with whom we have been in contact in the long
+years of our development. The most prominent characteristic of our present
+language, therefore, is its dual character. Its best qualities--strength,
+simplicity, directness--come from Anglo-Saxon sources; its enormous added
+wealth of expression, its comprehensiveness, its plastic adaptability to
+new conditions and ideas, are largely the result of additions from other
+languages, and especially of its gradual absorption of the French language
+after the Norman Conquest. It is this dual character, this combination of
+native and foreign, of innate and exotic elements, which accounts for the
+wealth of our English language and literature. To see it in concrete form,
+we should read in succession _Beowulf_ and _Paradise Lost_, the two great
+epics which show the root and the flower of our literary development.
+
+
+III. CHRISTIAN WRITERS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD
+
+The literature of this period falls naturally into two divisions,--pagan
+and Christian. The former represents the poetry which the Anglo-Saxons
+probably brought with them in the form of oral sagas,--the crude material
+out of which literature was slowly developed on English soil; the latter
+represents the writings developed under teaching of the monks, after the
+old pagan religion had vanished, but while it still retained its hold on
+the life and language of the people. In reading our earliest poetry it is
+well to remember that all of it was copied by the monks, and seems to have
+been more or less altered to give it a religious coloring.
+
+The coming of Christianity meant not simply a new life and leader for
+England; it meant also the wealth of a new language. The scop is now
+replaced by the literary monk; and that monk, though he lives among common
+people and speaks with the English tongue, has behind him all the culture
+and literary resources of the Latin language. The effect is seen instantly
+in our early prose and poetry.
+
+NORTHUMBRIAN LITERATURE. In general, two great schools of Christian
+influence came into England, and speedily put an end to the frightful wars
+that had waged continually among the various petty kingdoms of the
+Anglo-Saxons. The first of these, under the leadership of Augustine, came
+from Rome. It spread in the south and center of England, especially in the
+kingdom of Essex. It founded schools and partially educated the rough
+people, but it produced no lasting literature. The other, under the
+leadership of the saintly Aidan, came from Ireland, which country had been
+for centuries a center of religion and education for all western Europe.
+The monks of this school labored chiefly in Northumbria, and to their
+influence we owe all that is best in Anglo-Saxon literature. It is called
+the Northumbrian School; its center was the monasteries and abbeys, such as
+Jarrow and Whitby, and its three greatest names are Bede, Cædmon, and
+Cynewulf.
+
+
+BEDE (673-735)
+
+The Venerable Bede, as he is generally called, our first great scholar and
+"the father of our English learning," wrote almost exclusively in Latin,
+his last work, the translation of the Gospel of John into Anglo-Saxon,
+having been unfortunately lost. Much to our regret, therefore, his books
+and the story of his gentle, heroic life must be excluded from this history
+of our literature. His works, over forty in number, covered the whole field
+of human knowledge in his day, and were so admirably written that they were
+widely copied as text-books, or rather manuscripts, in nearly all the
+monastery schools of Europe.
+
+The work most important to us is the _Ecclesiastical History of the English
+People_. It is a fascinating history to read even now, with its curious
+combination of accurate scholarship and immense credulity. In all strictly
+historical matters Bede is a model. Every known authority on the subject,
+from Pliny to Gildas, was carefully considered; every learned pilgrim to
+Rome was commissioned by Bede to ransack the archives and to make copies of
+papal decrees and royal letters; and to these were added the testimony of
+abbots who could speak from personal knowledge of events or repeat the
+traditions of their several monasteries.
+
+Side by side with this historical exactness are marvelous stories of saints
+and missionaries. It was an age of credulity, and miracles were in men's
+minds continually. The men of whom he wrote lived lives more wonderful than
+any romance, and their courage and gentleness made a tremendous impression
+on the rough, warlike people to whom they came with open hands and hearts.
+It is the natural way of all primitive peoples to magnify the works of
+their heroes, and so deeds of heroism and kindness, which were part of the
+daily life of the Irish missionaries, were soon transformed into the
+miracles of the saints. Bede believed these things, as all other men did,
+and records them with charming simplicity, just as he received them from
+bishop or abbot. Notwithstanding its errors, we owe to this work nearly all
+our knowledge of the eight centuries of our history following the landing
+of Cæsar in Britain.
+
+CÆDMON (Seventh Century)
+
+    Now must we hymn the Master of heaven,
+    The might of the Maker, the deeds of the Father,
+    The thought of His heart. He, Lord everlasting,
+    Established of old the source of all wonders:
+    Creator all-holy, He hung the bright heaven,
+    A roof high upreared, o'er the children of men;
+    The King of mankind then created for mortals
+    The world in its beauty, the earth spread beneath them,
+    He, Lord everlasting, omnipotent God.[28]
+
+If _Beowulf_ and the fragments of our earliest poetry were brought into
+England, then the hymn given above is the first verse of all native English
+song that has come down to us, and Cædmon is the first poet to whom we can
+give a definite name and date. The words were written about 665 A.D. and
+are found copied at the end of a manuscript of Bede's _Ecclesiastical
+History_.
+
+LIFE OF CæDMON. What little we know of Cædmon, the Anglo-Saxon Milton, as
+he is properly called, is taken from Bede's account[29] of the Abbess Hilda
+and of her monastery at Whitby. Here is a free and condensed translation of
+Bede's story:
+
+There was, in the monastery of the Abbess Hilda, a brother distinguished by
+the grace of God, for that he could make poems treating of goodness and
+religion. Whatever was translated to him (for he could not read) of Sacred
+Scripture he shortly reproduced in poetic form of great sweetness and
+beauty. None of all the English poets could equal him, for he learned not
+the art of song from men, nor sang by the arts of men. Rather did he
+receive all his poetry as a free gift from God, and for this reason he did
+never compose poetry of a vain or worldly kind.
+
+Until of mature age he lived as a layman and had never learned any poetry.
+Indeed, so ignorant of singing was he that sometimes, at a feast, where it
+was the custom that for the pleasure of all each guest should sing in turn,
+he would rise from the table when he saw the harp coming to him and go home
+ashamed. Now it happened once that he did this thing at a certain
+festivity, and went out to the stall to care for the horses, this duty
+being assigned to him for that night. As he slept at the usual time, one
+stood by him saying: "Cædmon, sing me something." "I cannot sing," he
+answered, "and that is why I came hither from the feast." But he who spake
+unto him said again, "Cædmon, sing to me." And he said, "What shall I
+sing?" and he said, "Sing the beginning of created things." Thereupon
+Cædmon began to sing verses that he had never heard before, of this import:
+"Now should we praise the power and wisdom of the Creator, the works of the
+Father." This is the sense but not the form of the hymn that he sang while
+sleeping.
+
+When he awakened, Cædmon remembered the words of the hymn and added to them
+many more. In the morning he went to the steward of the monastery lands and
+showed him the gift he had received in sleep. The steward brought him to
+Hilda, who made him repeat to the monks the hymn he had composed, and all
+agreed that the grace of God was upon Cædmon. To test him they expounded to
+him a bit of Scripture from the Latin and bade him, if he could, to turn it
+into poetry. He went away humbly and returned in the morning with an
+excellent poem. Thereupon Hilda received him and his family into the
+monastery, made him one of the brethren, and commanded that the whole
+course of Bible history be expounded to him. He in turn, reflecting upon
+what he had heard, transformed it into most delightful poetry, and by
+echoing it back to the monks in more melodious sounds made his teachers his
+listeners. In all this his aim was to turn men from wickedness and to help
+them to the love and practice of well doing.
+
+[Then follows a brief record of Cædmon's life and an exquisite picture of
+his death amidst the brethren.] And so it came to pass [says the simple
+record] that as he served God while living in purity of mind and serenity
+of spirit, so by a peaceful death he left the world and went to look upon
+His face.
+
+CæDMON'S WORKS. The greatest work attributed to Cædmon is the so-called
+_Paraphrase_. It is the story of Genesis, Exodus, and a part of Daniel,
+told in glowing, poetic language, with a power of insight and imagination
+which often raises it from paraphrase into the realm of true poetry. Though
+we have Bede's assurance that Cædmon "transformed the whole course of Bible
+history into most delightful poetry," no work known certainly to have been
+composed by him has come down to us. In the seventeenth century this
+Anglo-Saxon _Paraphrase_ was discovered and attributed to Cædmon, and his
+name is still associated with it, though it is now almost certain that the
+_Paraphrase_ is the work of more than one writer.
+
+Aside from the doubtful question of authorship, even a casual reading of
+the poem brings us into the presence of a poet rude indeed, but with a
+genius strongly suggestive at times of the matchless Milton. The book opens
+with a hymn of praise, and then tells of the fall of Satan and his rebel
+angels from heaven, which is familiar to us in Milton's _Paradise Lost_.
+Then follows the creation of the world, and the _Paraphrase_ begins to
+thrill with the old Anglo-Saxon love of nature.
+
+    Here first the Eternal Father, guard of all,
+    Of heaven and earth, raisèd up the firmament,
+    The Almighty Lord set firm by His strong power
+    This roomy land; grass greened not yet the plain,
+    Ocean far spread hid the wan ways in gloom.
+    Then was the Spirit gloriously bright
+    Of Heaven's Keeper borne over the deep
+    Swiftly. The Life-giver, the Angel's Lord,
+    Over the ample ground bade come forth Light.
+    Quickly the High King's bidding was obeyed,
+    Over the waste there shone light's holy ray.
+    Then parted He, Lord of triumphant might,
+    Shadow from shining, darkness from the light.
+    Light, by the Word of God, was first named day.[30]
+
+After recounting the story of Paradise, the Fall, and the Deluge, the
+_Paraphrase_ is continued in the Exodus, of which the poet makes a noble
+epic, rushing on with the sweep of a Saxon army to battle. A single
+selection is given here to show how the poet adapted the story to his
+hearers:
+
+                        Then they saw,
+    Forth and forward faring, Pharaoh's war array
+    Gliding on, a grove of spears;--glittering the hosts!
+    Fluttered there the banners, there the folk the march trod.
+    Onwards surged the war, strode the spears along,
+    Blickered the broad shields; blew aloud the trumpets....
+    Wheeling round in gyres, yelled the fowls of war,
+    Of the battle greedy; hoarsely barked the raven,
+    Dew upon his feathers, o'er the fallen corpses--
+    Swart that chooser of the slain! Sang aloud the wolves
+    At eve their horrid song, hoping for the carrion.[31]
+
+Besides the _Paraphrase_ we have a few fragments of the same general
+character which are attributed to the school of Cædmon. The longest of
+these is _Judith_, in which the story of an apocryphal book of the Old
+Testament is done into vigorous poetry. Holofernes is represented as a
+savage and cruel Viking, reveling in his mead hall; and when the heroic
+Judith cuts off his head with his own sword and throws it down before the
+warriors of her people, rousing them to battle and victory, we reach
+perhaps the most dramatic and brilliant point of Anglo-Saxon literature.
+
+
+CYNEWULF (Eighth Century)
+
+Of Cynewulf, greatest of the Anglo-Saxon poets, excepting only the unknown
+author of _Beowulf_, we know very little. Indeed, it was not till 1840,
+more than a thousand years after his death, that even his name became
+known. Though he is the only one of our early poets who signed his works,
+the name was never plainly written, but woven into the verses in the form
+of secret runes,[32] suggesting a modern charade, but more difficult of
+interpretation until one has found the key to the poet's signature.
+
+WORKS OF CYNEWULF. The only signed poems of Cynewulf are _The Christ,
+Juliana, The Fates of the Apostles_, and _Elene_. Unsigned poems attributed
+to him or his school are _Andreas_, the _Phoenix_, the _Dream of the Rood_,
+the _Descent into Hell_, _Guthlac_, the _Wanderer_, and some of the
+Riddles. The last are simply literary conundrums in which some well-known
+object, like the bow or drinking horn, is described in poetic language, and
+the hearer must guess the name. Some of them, like "The Swan"[33] and "The
+Storm Spirit," are unusually beautiful.
+
+Of all these works the most characteristic is undoubtedly _The Christ_, a
+didactic poem in three parts: the first celebrating the Nativity; the
+second, the Ascension; and the third, "Doomsday," telling the torments of
+the wicked and the unending joy of the redeemed. Cynewulf takes his
+subject-matter partly from the Church liturgy, but more largely from the
+homilies of Gregory the Great. The whole is well woven together, and
+contains some hymns of great beauty and many passages of intense dramatic
+force. Throughout the poem a deep love for Christ and a reverence for the
+Virgin Mary are manifest. More than any other poem in any language, _The
+Christ_ reflects the spirit of early Latin Christianity.
+
+Here is a fragment comparing life to a sea voyage,--a comparison which
+occurs sooner or later to every thoughtful person, and which finds perfect
+expression in Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar."
+
+    Now 'tis most like as if we fare in ships
+    On the ocean flood, over the water cold,
+    Driving our vessels through the spacious seas
+    With horses of the deep. A perilous way is this
+    Of boundless waves, and there are stormy seas
+    On which we toss here in this (reeling) world
+    O'er the deep paths. Ours was a sorry plight
+    Until at last we sailed unto the land,
+    Over the troubled main. Help came to us
+    That brought us to the haven of salvation,
+    God's Spirit-Son, and granted grace to us
+    That we might know e'en from the vessel's deck
+    Where we must bind with anchorage secure
+    Our ocean steeds, old stallions of the waves.
+
+In the two epic poems of _Andreas_ and _Elene_ Cynewulf (if he be the
+author) reaches the very summit of his poetical art. _Andreas_, an unsigned
+poem, records the story of St. Andrew, who crosses the sea to rescue his
+comrade St. Matthew from the cannibals. A young ship-master who sails the
+boat turns out to be Christ in disguise, Matthew is set free, and the
+savages are converted by a miracle.[34] It is a spirited poem, full of rush
+and incident, and the descriptions of the sea are the best in Anglo-Saxon
+poetry.
+
+_Elene_ has for its subject-matter the finding of the true cross. It tells
+of Constantine's vision of the Rood, on the eve of battle. After his
+victory under the new emblem he sends his mother Helena (Elene) to
+Jerusalem in search of the original cross and the nails. The poem, which is
+of very uneven quality, might properly be put at the end of Cynewulf's
+works. He adds to the poem a personal note, signing his name in runes; and,
+if we accept the wonderful "Vision of the Rood" as Cynewulf's work, we
+learn how he found the cross at last in his own heart. There is a
+suggestion here of the future Sir Launfal and the search for the Holy
+Grail.
+
+DECLINE OF NORTHUMBRIAN LITERATURE. The same northern energy which had
+built up learning and literature so rapidly in Northumbria was instrumental
+in pulling it down again. Toward the end of the century in which Cynewulf
+lived, the Danes swept down on the English coasts and overwhelmed
+Northumbria. Monasteries and schools were destroyed; scholars and teachers
+alike were put to the sword, and libraries that had been gathered leaf by
+leaf with the toil of centuries were scattered to the four winds. So all
+true Northumbrian literature perished, with the exception of a few
+fragments, and that which we now possess[35] is largely a translation in
+the dialect of the West Saxons. This translation was made by Alfred's
+scholars, after he had driven back the Danes in an effort to preserve the
+ideals and the civilization that had been so hardly won. With the conquest
+of Northumbria ends the poetic period of Anglo-Saxon literature. With
+Alfred the Great of Wessex our prose literature makes a beginning.
+
+
+ALFRED (848-901)
+
+    "Every craft and every power soon grows
+    old and is passed over and forgotten, if it
+    be without wisdom.... This is now to be
+    said, that whilst I live I wish to live nobly,
+    and after life to leave to the men who come
+    after me a memory of good works."[36]
+
+So wrote the great Alfred, looking back over his heroic life. That he lived
+nobly none can doubt who reads the history of the greatest of Anglo-Saxon
+kings; and his good works include, among others, the education of half a
+country, the salvage of a noble native literature, and the creation of the
+first English prose.
+
+LIFE AND TIMES OF ALFRED. For the history of Alfred's times, and details of
+the terrific struggle with the Northmen, the reader must be referred to the
+histories. The struggle ended with the Treaty of Wedmore, in 878, with the
+establishment of Alfred not only as king of Wessex, but as overlord of the
+whole northern country. Then the hero laid down his sword, and set himself
+as a little child to learn to read and write Latin, so that he might lead
+his people in peace as he had led them in war. It is then that Alfred began
+to be the heroic figure in literature that he had formerly been in the wars
+against the Northmen.
+
+With the same patience and heroism that had marked the long struggle for
+freedom, Alfred set himself to the task of educating his people. First he
+gave them laws, beginning with the Ten Commandments and ending with the
+Golden Rule, and then established courts where laws could be faithfully
+administered. Safe from the Danes by land, he created a navy, almost the
+first of the English fleets, to drive them from the coast. Then, with peace
+and justice established within his borders, he sent to Europe for scholars
+and teachers, and set them over schools that he established. Hitherto all
+education had been in Latin; now he set himself the task, first, of
+teaching every free-born Englishman to read and write his own language, and
+second, of translating into English the best books for their instruction.
+Every poor scholar was honored at his court and was speedily set to work at
+teaching or translating; every wanderer bringing a book or a leaf of
+manuscript from the pillaged monasteries of Northumbria was sure of his
+reward. In this way the few fragments of native Northumbrian literature,
+which we have been studying, were saved to the world. Alfred and his
+scholars treasured the rare fragments and copied them in the West-Saxon
+dialect. With the exception of Cædmon's Hymn, we have hardly a single leaf
+from the great literature of Northumbria in the dialect in which it was
+first written.
+
+WORKS OF ALFRED. Aside from his educational work, Alfred is known chiefly
+as a translator. After fighting his country's battles, and at a time when
+most men were content with military honor, he began to learn Latin, that he
+might translate the works that would be most helpful to his people. His
+important translations are four in number: Orosius's _Universal History and
+Geography_, the leading work in general history for several centuries;
+Bede's _History_,[37] the first great historical work written on English
+soil; Pope Gregory's _Shepherds' Book_, intended especially for the clergy;
+and Boethius's _Consolations of Philosophy_, the favorite philosophical
+work of the Middle Ages.
+
+More important than any translation is the _English_ or _Saxon Chronicle_.
+This was probably at first a dry record, especially of important births and
+deaths in the West-Saxon kingdom. Alfred enlarged this scant record,
+beginning the story with Cæsar's conquest. When it touches his own reign
+the dry chronicle becomes an interesting and connected story, the oldest
+history belonging to any modern nation in its own language. The record of
+Alfred's reign, probably by himself, is a splendid bit of writing and shows
+clearly his claim to a place in literature as well as in history. The
+_Chronicle_ was continued after Alfred's death, and is the best monument of
+early English prose that is left to us. Here and there stirring songs are
+included in the narrative, like "The Battle of Brunanburh" and "The Battle
+of Maldon."[38] The last, entered 991, seventy-five years before the Norman
+Conquest, is the swan song of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The _Chronicle_ was
+continued for a century after the Norman Conquest, and is extremely
+valuable not only as a record of events but as a literary monument showing
+the development of our language.
+
+CLOSE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. After Alfred's death there is little to
+record, except the loss of the two supreme objects of his heroic struggle,
+namely, a national life and a national literature. It was at once the
+strength and the weakness of the Saxon that he lived apart as a free man
+and never joined efforts willingly with any large body of his fellows. The
+tribe was his largest idea of nationality, and, with all our admiration, we
+must confess as we first meet him that he has not enough sense of unity to
+make a great nation, nor enough culture to produce a great literature. A
+few noble political ideals repeated in a score of petty kingdoms, and a few
+literary ideals copied but never increased,--that is the summary of his
+literary history. For a full century after Alfred literature was
+practically at a standstill, having produced the best of which it was
+capable, and England waited for the national impulse and for the culture
+necessary for a new and greater art. Both of these came speedily, by way of
+the sea, in the Norman Conquest.
+
+SUMMARY OF ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. Our literature begins with songs and stories
+of a time when our Teutonic ancestors were living on the borders of the
+North Sea. Three tribes of these ancestors, the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons,
+conquered Britain in the latter half of the fifth century, and laid the
+foundation of the English nation. The first landing was probably by a tribe
+of Jutes, under chiefs called by the chronicle Hengist and Horsa. The date
+is doubtful; but the year 449 is accepted by most historians.
+
+These old ancestors were hardy warriors and sea rovers, yet were capable of
+profound and noble emotions. Their poetry reflects this double nature. Its
+subjects were chiefly the sea and the plunging boats, battles, adventure,
+brave deeds, the glory of warriors, and the love of home. Accent,
+alliteration, and an abrupt break in the middle of each line gave their
+poetry a kind of martial rhythm. In general the poetry is earnest and
+somber, and pervaded by fatalism and religious feeling. A careful reading
+of the few remaining fragments of Anglo-Saxon literature reveals five
+striking characteristics: the love of freedom; responsiveness to nature,
+especially in her sterner moods; strong religious convictions, and a belief
+in Wyrd, or Fate; reverence for womanhood; and a devotion to glory as the
+ruling motive in every warrior's life.
+
+In our study we have noted: (1) the great epic or heroic poem _Beowulf_,
+and a few fragments of our first poetry, such as "Widsith," "Deor's
+Lament," and "The Seafarer." (2) Characteristics of Anglo-Saxon life; the
+form of our first speech. (3) The Northumbrian school of writers. Bede, our
+first historian, belongs to this school; but all his extant works are in
+Latin. The two great poets are Cædmon and Cynewulf. Northumbrian literature
+flourished between 650 and 850. In the year 867 Northumbria was conquered
+by the Danes, who destroyed the monasteries and the libraries containing
+our earliest literature. (4) The beginnings of English prose writing under
+Alfred (848-901). Our most important prose work of this age is the
+Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was revised and enlarged by Alfred, and which
+was continued for more than two centuries. It is the oldest historical
+record known to any European nation in its own tongue.
+
+SELECTIONS FOR READING. _Miscellaneous Poetry_. The Seafarer, Love Letter
+(Husband's Message), Battle of Brunanburh, Deor's Lament, Riddles, Exodus,
+The Christ, Andreas, Dream of the Rood, extracts in Cook and Tinker's
+Translations from Old English Poetry[39] (Ginn and Company); Judith,
+translation by A.S. Cook. Good selections are found also in Brooke's
+History of Early English Literature, and Morley's English Writers, vols. 1
+and 2.
+
+_Beowulf_. J.R.C. Hall's prose translation; Child's Beowulf (Riverside
+Literature Series); Morris and Wyatt's The Tale of Beowulf; Earle's The
+Deeds of Beowulf; Metrical versions by Garnett, J.L. Hall, Lumsden, etc.
+
+_Prose_. A few paragraphs of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in Manly's English
+Prose; translations in Cook and Tinker's Old English Prose.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.[40]
+
+_HISTORY_. For the facts of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England consult
+first a good text-book: Montgomery, pp. 31--57, or Cheyney, pp. 36-84. For
+fuller treatment see Green, ch. 1; Traill, vol. 1; Ramsey's Foundations of
+England; Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons; Freeman's Old English
+History; Allen's Anglo-Saxon England; Cook's Life of Alfred; Asser's Life
+of King Alfred, edited by W.H. Stevenson; C. Plummer's Life and Times of
+Alfred the Great; E. Dale's National Life and Character in the Mirror of
+Early English Literature; Rhys's Celtic Britain.
+
+_LITERATURE. Anglo-Saxon Texts_. Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, and Albion
+Series of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English Poetry (Ginn and Company); Belles
+Lettres Series of English Classics, sec. 1 (Heath & Co.); J.W. Bright's
+Anglo-Saxon Reader; Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer, and Anglo-Saxon Reader.
+
+_General Works_. Jusserand, Ten Brink, Cambridge History, Morley (full
+titles and publishers in General Bibliography).
+
+_Special Works_. Brooke's History of Early English Literature; Earle's
+Anglo-Saxon Literature; Lewis's Beginnings of English Literature; Arnold's
+Celtic Literature (for relations of Saxon and Celt); Longfellow's Poets and
+Poetry of Europe; Hall's Old English Idyls; Gayley's Classic Myths, or
+Guerber's Myths of the Northlands (for Norse Mythology); Brother Azarias's
+Development of Old English Thought.
+
+Beowulf, prose translations by Tinker, Hall, Earle, Morris and Wyatt;
+metrical versions by Garnett, J.L. Hall, Lumsden, etc. The Exeter Book (a
+collection of Anglo-Saxon texts), edited and translated by Gollancz. The
+Christ of Cynewulf, prose translation by Whitman; the same poem, text and
+translation, by Gollancz; text by Cook. Cædmon's Paraphrase, text and
+translation, by Thorpe. Garnett's Elene, Judith, and other Anglo-Saxon
+Poems. Translations of Andreas and the Phoenix, in Gollancz's Exeter Book.
+Bede's History, in Temple Classics; the same with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
+(one volume) in Bohn's Antiquarian Library.
+
+
+SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.[41]
+
+1. What is the relation of history and literature? Why should both subjects
+be studied together? Explain the qualities that characterize all great
+literature. Has any text-book in history ever appealed to you as a work of
+literature? What literary qualities have you noticed in standard historical
+works, such as those of Macaulay, Prescott, Gibbon, Green, Motley, Parkman,
+and John Fiske?
+
+2. Why did the Anglo-Saxons come to England? What induced them to remain?
+Did any change occur in their ideals, or in their manner of life? Do you
+know any social or political institutions which they brought, and which, we
+still cherish?
+
+3. From the literature you have read, what do you know about our Anglo-
+Saxon ancestors? What virtues did they admire in men? How was woman
+regarded? Can you compare the Anglo-Saxon ideal of woman with that of other
+nations, the Romans for instance?
+
+4. Tell in your own words the general qualities of Anglo-Saxon poetry. How
+did it differ in its metrical form from modern poetry? What passages seem
+to you worth learning and remembering? Can you explain why poetry is more
+abundant and more interesting than prose in the earliest literature of all
+nations?
+
+5. Tell the story of _Beowulf_. What appeals to you most in the poem? Why
+is it a work for all time, or, as the Anglo-Saxons would say, why is it
+worthy to be remembered? Note the permanent quality of literature, and the
+ideals and emotions which are emphasized in _Beowulf_. Describe the burials
+of Scyld and of Beowulf. Does the poem teach any moral lesson? Explain the
+Christian elements in this pagan epic.
+
+6. Name some other of our earliest poems, and describe the one you like
+best. How does the sea figure in our first poetry? How is nature regarded?
+What poem reveals the life of the scop or poet? How do you account for the
+serious character of Anglo-Saxon poetry? Compare the Saxon and the Celt
+with regard to the gladsomeness of life as shown in their literature.
+
+7. What useful purpose did poetry serve among our ancestors? What purpose
+did the harp serve in reciting their poems? Would the harp add anything to
+our modern poetry?
+
+8. What is meant by Northumbrian literature? Who are the great Northumbrian
+writers? What besides the Danish conquest caused the decline of
+Northumbrian literature?
+
+9. For what is Bede worthy to be remembered? Tell the story of Cædmon, as
+recorded in Bede's History. What new element is introduced in Cædmon's
+poems? What effect did Christianity have upon Anglo-Saxon literature? Can
+you quote any passages from Cædmon to show that Anglo-Saxon character was
+not changed but given a new direction? If you have read Milton's _Paradise
+Lost_, what resemblances are there between that poem and Cædmon's
+_Paraphrase?_
+
+10. What are the Cynewulf poems? Describe any that you have read. How do
+they compare in spirit and in expression with _Beowulf_? with Cædmon? Read
+_The Phoenix_ (which is a translation from the Latin) in Brooke's History
+of Early English Literature, or in Gollancz's Exeter Book, or in Cook's
+Translations from Old English Poetry, and tell what elements you find to
+show that the poem is not of Anglo-Saxon origin. Compare the views of
+nature in Beowulf and in the Cynewulf poems.
+
+11. Describe the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. What is its value in our language,
+literature, and history? Give an account of Alfred's life and of his work
+for literature. How does Anglo-Saxon prose compare in interest with the
+poetry?
+
+
+                              CHRONOLOGY
+=====================================================================
+  HISTORY                          |  LITERATURE
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+                                   |
+449(?). Landing of Hengist and     |
+        Horsa in Britain           |
+                                   |
+477. Landing of South Saxons       |
+                                   |
+547. Angles settle Northumbria     | 547. Gildas's History
+                                   |
+597. Landing of Augustine and his  |
+      monks. Conversion of Kent    |
+                                   |
+617. Eadwine, king of Northumbria  |
+                                   |
+635-665. Coming of St. Aidan.      |
+      Conversion of Northumbria    | 664. Cædmon at Whitby
+                                   |
+                                   | 673-735. Bede
+                                   |
+                                   | 750 (_cir_.). Cynewulf
+                                   |   poems
+867. Danes conquer Northumbria     |
+                                   |
+871. Alfred, king of Wessex        | 860. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle begun
+                                   |
+878. Defeat of Danes. Peace of     |
+       Wedmore                     |
+                                   |
+901. Death of Alfred               | 991. Last known poem of the
+                                   |        Anglo-Saxon
+                                   |        period, The Battle of
+                                   |        Maldon, otherwise called
+                                   |        Byrhtnoth's Death
+1013-1042. Danish period           |
+                                   |
+1016. Cnut, king                   |
+                                   |
+1042. Edward the Confessor. Saxon  |
+        period restored            |
+                                   |
+1049. Westminster Abbey begun      |
+                                   |
+1066. Harold, last of Saxon kings. |
+        Norman Conquest            |
+=====================================================================
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1350)
+
+I. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
+
+THE NORMANS. The name Norman, which is a softened form of Northman, tells
+its own story. The men who bore the name came originally from
+Scandinavia,--bands of big, blond, fearless men cruising after plunder and
+adventure in their Viking ships, and bringing terror wherever they
+appeared. It was these same "Children of Woden" who, under the Danes' raven
+flag, had blotted out Northumbrian civilization in the ninth century. Later
+the same race of men came plundering along the French coast and conquered
+the whole northern country; but here the results were altogether different.
+Instead of blotting out a superior civilization, as the Danes had done,
+they promptly abandoned their own. Their name of Normandy still clings to
+the new home; but all else that was Norse disappeared as the conquerors
+intermarried with the native Franks and accepted French ideals and spoke
+the French language. So rapidly did they adopt and improve the Roman
+civilization of the natives that, from a rude tribe of heathen Vikings,
+they had developed within a single century into the most polished and
+intellectual people in all Europe. The union of Norse and French (i.e.
+Roman-Gallic) blood had here produced a race having the best qualities of
+both,--the will power and energy of the one, the eager curiosity and vivid
+imagination of the other. When these Norman-French people appeared in
+Anglo-Saxon England they brought with them three noteworthy things: a
+lively Celtic disposition, a vigorous and progressive Latin civilization,
+and a Romance language.[42] We are to think of the conquerors, therefore,
+as they thought and spoke of themselves in the Domesday Book and all their
+contemporary literature, not as Normans but as _Franci_, that is,
+Frenchmen.
+
+THE CONQUEST. At the battle of Hastings (1066) the power of Harold, last of
+the Saxon kings, was broken, and William, duke of Normandy, became master
+of England. Of the completion of that stupendous Conquest which began at
+Hastings, and which changed the civilization of a whole nation, this is not
+the place to speak. We simply point out three great results of the Conquest
+which have a direct bearing on our literature. First, notwithstanding
+Cæsar's legions and Augustine's monks, the Normans were the first to bring
+the culture and the practical ideals of Roman civilization home to the
+English people; and this at a critical time, when England had produced her
+best, and her own literature and civilization had already begun to decay.
+Second, they forced upon England the national idea, that is, a strong,
+centralized government to replace the loose authority of a Saxon chief over
+his tribesmen. And the world's history shows that without a great
+nationality a great literature is impossible. Third, they brought to
+England the wealth of a new language and literature, and our English
+gradually absorbed both. For three centuries after Hastings French was the
+language of the upper classes, of courts and schools and literature; yet so
+tenaciously did the common people cling to their own strong speech that in
+the end English absorbed almost the whole body of French words and became
+the language of the land. It was the welding of Saxon and French into one
+speech that produced the wealth of our modern English.
+
+Naturally such momentous changes in a nation were not brought about
+suddenly. At first Normans and Saxons lived apart in the relation of
+masters and servants, with more or less contempt on one side and hatred on
+the other; but in an astonishingly short time these two races were drawn
+powerfully together, like two men of different dispositions who are often
+led into a steadfast friendship by the attraction of opposite qualities,
+each supplying what the other lacks. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which was
+continued for a century after Hastings, finds much to praise in the
+conquerors; on the other hand the Normans, even before the Conquest, had no
+great love for the French nation. After conquering England they began to
+regard it as home and speedily developed a new sense of nationality.
+Geoffrey's popular _History_,[43] written less than a century after the
+Conquest, made conquerors and conquered alike proud of their country by its
+stories of heroes who, curiously enough, were neither Norman nor Saxon, but
+creations of the native Celts. Thus does literature, whether in a battle
+song or a history, often play the chief role in the development of
+nationality.[44] Once the mutual distrust was overcome the two races
+gradually united, and out of this union of Saxons and Normans came the new
+English life and literature.
+
+LITERARY IDEALS OF THE NORMANS. The change in the life of the conquerors
+from Norsemen to Normans, from Vikings to Frenchmen, is shown most clearly
+in the literature which they brought with them to England. The old Norse
+strength and grandeur, the magnificent sagas telling of the tragic
+struggles of men and gods, which still stir us profoundly,--these have all
+disappeared. In their place is a bright, varied, talkative literature,
+which runs to endless verses, and which makes a wonderful romance out of
+every subject it touches. The theme may be religion or love or chivalry or
+history, the deeds of Alexander or the misdeeds of a monk; but the author's
+purpose never varies. He must tell a romantic story and amuse his audience;
+and the more wonders and impossibilities he relates, the more surely is he
+believed. We are reminded, in reading, of the native Gauls, who would stop
+every traveler and compel him to tell a story ere he passed on. There was
+more of the Gaul than of the Norseman in the conquerors, and far more of
+fancy than of thought or feeling in their literature. If you would see this
+in concrete form, read the _Chanson de Roland_, the French national epic
+(which the Normans first put into literary form), in contrast with
+_Beowulf_, which voices the Saxon's thought and feeling before the profound
+mystery of human life. It is not our purpose to discuss the evident merits
+or the serious defects of Norman-French literature, but only to point out
+two facts which impress the student, namely, that Anglo-Saxon literature
+was at one time enormously superior to the French, and that the latter,
+with its evident inferiority, absolutely replaced the former. "The fact is
+too often ignored," says Professor Schofield,[45] "that before 1066 the
+Anglo-Saxons had a body of native literature distinctly superior to any
+which the Normans or French could boast at that time; their prose
+especially was unparalleled for extent and power in any European
+vernacular." Why, then, does this superior literature disappear and for
+nearly three centuries French remain supreme, so much so that writers on
+English soil, even when they do not use the French language, still
+slavishly copy the French models?
+
+To understand this curious phenomenon it is necessary only to remember the
+relative conditions of the two races who lived side by side in England. On
+the one hand the Anglo-Saxons were a conquered people, and without liberty
+a great literature is impossible. The inroads of the Danes and their own
+tribal wars had already destroyed much of their writings, and in their new
+condition of servitude they could hardly preserve what remained. The
+conquering Normans, on the other hand, represented the civilization of
+France, which country, during the early Middle Ages, was the literary and
+educational center of all Europe. They came to England at a time when the
+idea of nationality was dead, when culture had almost vanished, when
+Englishmen lived apart in narrow isolation; and they brought with them law,
+culture, the prestige of success, and above all the strong impulse to share
+in the great world's work and to join in the moving currents of the world's
+history. Small wonder, then, that the young Anglo-Saxons felt the
+quickening of this new life and turned naturally to the cultured and
+progressive Normans as their literary models.
+
+
+II. LITERATURE OF THE NORMAN PERIOD
+
+In the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh there is a beautifully illuminated
+manuscript, written about 1330, which gives us an excellent picture of the
+literature of the Norman period. In examining it we are to remember that
+literature was in the hands of the clergy and nobles; that the common
+people could not read, and had only a few songs and ballads for their
+literary portion. We are to remember also that parchments were scarce and
+very expensive, and that a single manuscript often contained all the
+reading matter of a castle or a village. Hence this old manuscript is as
+suggestive as a modern library. It contains over forty distinct works, the
+great bulk of them being romances. There are metrical or verse romances of
+French and Celtic and English heroes, like Roland, Arthur and Tristram, and
+Bevis of Hampton. There are stories of Alexander, the Greek romance of
+"Flores and Blanchefleur," and a collection of Oriental tales called "The
+Seven Wise Masters." There are legends of the Virgin and the saints, a
+paraphrase of Scripture, a treatise on the seven deadly sins, some Bible
+history, a dispute among birds concerning women, a love song or two, a
+vision of Purgatory, a vulgar story with a Gallic flavor, a chronicle of
+English kings and Norman barons, and a political satire. There are a few
+other works, similarly incongruous, crowded together in this typical
+manuscript, which now gives mute testimony to the literary taste of the
+times.
+
+Obviously it is impossible to classify such a variety. We note simply that
+it is mediæval in spirit, and French in style and expression; and that sums
+up the age. All the scholarly works of the period, like William of
+Malmesbury's _History_, and Anselm's[46] _Cur Deus Homo_, and Roger Bacon's
+_Opus Majus_, the beginning of modern experimental science, were written in
+Latin; while nearly all other works were written in French, or else were
+English copies or translations of French originals. Except for the advanced
+student, therefore, they hardly belong to the story of English literature.
+We shall note here only one or two marked literary types, like the Riming
+Chronicle (or verse history) and the Metrical Romance, and a few writers
+whose work has especial significance.
+
+GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH. (d. 1154). Geoffrey's _Historia Regum Britanniae_ is
+noteworthy, not as literature, but rather as a source book from which many
+later writers drew their literary materials. Among the native Celtic tribes
+an immense number of legends, many of them of exquisite beauty, had been
+preserved through four successive conquests of Britain. Geoffrey, a Welsh
+monk, collected some of these legends and, aided chiefly by his
+imagination, wrote a complete history of the Britons. His alleged authority
+was an ancient manuscript in the native Welsh tongue containing the lives
+and deeds of all their kings, from Brutus, the alleged founder of Britain,
+down to the coming of Julius Cæsar.[47] From this Geoffrey wrote his
+history, down to the death of Cadwalader in 689.
+
+The "History" is a curious medley of pagan and Christian legends, of
+chronicle, comment, and pure invention,--all recorded in minute detail and
+with a gravity which makes it clear that Geoffrey had no conscience, or
+else was a great joker. As history the whole thing is rubbish; but it was
+extraordinarily successful at the time and made all who heard it, whether
+Normans or Saxons, proud of their own country. It is interesting to us
+because it gave a new direction to the literature of England by showing the
+wealth of poetry and romance that lay in its own traditions of Arthur and
+his knights. Shakespeare's _King Lear_, Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, and
+Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_ were founded on the work of this monk, who
+had the genius to put unwritten Celtic tradition in the enduring form of
+Latin prose.
+
+WORK OF THE FRENCH WRITERS. The French literature of the Norman period is
+interesting chiefly because of the avidity with which foreign writers
+seized upon the native legends and made them popular in England. Until
+Geoffrey's preposterous chronicle appeared, these legends had not been used
+to any extent as literary material. Indeed, they were scarcely known in
+England, though familiar to French and Italian minstrels. Legends of Arthur
+and his court were probably first taken to Brittany by Welsh emigrants in
+the fifth and sixth centuries. They became immensely popular wherever they
+were told, and they were slowly carried by minstrels and story-tellers all
+over Europe. That they had never received literary form or recognition was
+due to a peculiarity of mediæval literature, which required that every tale
+should have some ancient authority behind it. Geoffrey met this demand by
+creating an historical manuscript of Welsh history. That was enough for the
+age. With Geoffrey and his alleged manuscript to rest upon, the Norman-
+French writers were free to use the fascinating stories which had been-for
+centuries in the possession of their wandering minstrels. Geoffrey's Latin
+history was put into French verse by Gaimar _(c_. 1150) and by Wace (_c_.
+1155), and from these French versions the work was first translated into
+English. From about 1200 onward Arthur and Guinevere and the matchless band
+of Celtic heroes that we meet later (1470) in Malory's _Morte d' Arthur_
+became the permanent possession of our literature.
+
+LAYAMON'S BRUT (_c_. 1200). This is the most important of the English
+riming chronicles, that is, history related in the form of doggerel verse,
+probably because poetry is more easily memorized than prose. We give here a
+free rendering of selected lines at the beginning of the poem, which tell
+us all we know of Layamon, the first who ever wrote as an Englishman for
+Englishmen, including in the term all who loved England and called it home,
+no matter where their ancestors were born.
+
+Now there was a priest in the land named Layamon. He was son of Leovenath
+--may God be gracious unto him. He dwelt at Ernley, at a noble church on
+Severn's bank. He read many books, and it came to his mind to tell the
+noble deeds of the English. Then he began to journey far and wide over the
+land to procure noble books for authority. He took the English book that
+Saint Bede made, another in Latin that Saint Albin made,[48] and a third
+book that a French clerk made, named Wace.[49] Layamon laid these works
+before him and turned the leaves; lovingly he beheld them. Pen he took, and
+wrote on book-skin, and made the three books into one.
+
+The poem begins with the destruction of Troy and the flight of "Æneas the
+duke" into Italy. Brutus, a great-grandson of Æneas, gathers his people and
+sets out to find a new land in the West. Then follows the founding of the
+Briton kingdom, and the last third of the poem, which is over thirty
+thousand lines in length, is taken up with the history of Arthur and his
+knights. If the _Brut_ had no merits of its own, it would still interest
+us, for it marks the first appearance of the Arthurian legends in our own
+tongue. A single selection is given here from Arthur's dying speech,
+familiar to us in Tennyson's _Morte d'Arthur_. The reader will notice here
+two things: first, that though the poem is almost pure Anglo-Saxon,[50] our
+first speech has already dropped many inflections and is more easily read
+than _Beowulf_; second, that French influence is already at work in
+Layamon's rimes and assonances, that is, the harmony resulting from using
+the same vowel sound in several successive lines:
+
+    And ich wulle varen to Avalun:  And I will fare to Avalun,
+    To vairest alre maidene,        To fairest of all maidens,
+    To Argante there quene,         To Argante the queen,
+    Alven swithe sceone.            An elf very beautiful.
+    And heo seal mine wunden        And she shall my wounds
+    Makien alle isunde,             Make all sound;
+    Al hal me makien                All whole me make
+    Mid haleweiye drenchen.         With healing drinks.
+    And seothe ich cumen wulle      And again will I come
+    To mine kiueriche               To my kingdom
+    And wunien mid Brutten          And dwell with Britons
+    Mid muchelere wunne.            With mickle joy.
+    Aefne than worden               Even (with) these words
+    Ther com of se wenden           There came from the sea
+    That wes an sceort bat lithen,  A short little boat gliding,
+    Sceoven mid uthen,              Shoved by the waves;
+    And twa wimmen ther inne,       And two women therein,
+    Wunderliche idihte.             Wondrously attired.
+    And heo nomen Arthur anan       And they took Arthur anon
+    And an eovste hine vereden      And bore him hurriedly,
+    And softe hine adun leiden,     And softly laid him down,
+    And forth gunnen lithen.        And forth gan glide.
+
+METRICAL ROMANCES. Love, chivalry, and religion, all pervaded by the spirit
+of romance,--these are the three great literary ideals which find
+expression in the metrical romances. Read these romances now, with their
+knights and fair ladies, their perilous adventures and tender love-making,
+their minstrelsy and tournaments and gorgeous cavalcades,--as if humanity
+were on parade, and life itself were one tumultuous holiday in the open
+air,--and you have an epitome of the whole childish, credulous soul of the
+Middle Ages. The Normans first brought this type of romance into England,
+and so popular did it become, so thoroughly did it express the romantic
+spirit of the time, that it speedily overshadowed all other forms of
+literary expression.
+
+Though the metrical romances varied much in form and subject-matter, the
+general type remains the same,--a long rambling poem or series of poems
+treating of love or knightly adventure or both. Its hero is a knight; its
+characters are fair ladies in distress, warriors in armor, giants, dragons,
+enchanters, and various enemies of Church and State; and its emphasis is
+almost invariably on love, religion, and duty as defined by chivalry. In
+the French originals of these romances the lines were a definite length,
+the meter exact, and rimes and assonances were both used to give melody. In
+England this metrical system came in contact with the uneven lines, the
+strong accent and alliteration of the native songs; and it is due to the
+gradual union of the two systems, French and Saxon, that our English became
+capable of the melody and amazing variety of verse forms which first find
+expression in Chaucer's poetry.
+
+In the enormous number of these verse romances we note three main
+divisions, according to subject, into the romances (or the so-called
+matter) of France, Rome, and Britain.[51] The matter of France deals
+largely with the exploits of Charlemagne and his peers, and the chief of
+these Carlovingian cycles is the _Chanson de Roland_, the national epic,
+which celebrates the heroism of Roland in his last fight against the
+Saracens at Ronceval. Originally these romances were called _Chansons de
+Geste_; and the name is significant as indicating that the poems were
+originally short songs[52] celebrating the deeds _(gesta)_ of well-known
+heroes. Later the various songs concerning one hero were gathered together
+and the _Geste_ became an epic, like the _Chanson de Roland_, or a kind of
+continued ballad story, hardly deserving the name of epic, like the _Geste
+of Robin Hood_.[53]
+
+The matter of Rome consisted largely of tales from Greek and Roman sources;
+and the two great cycles of these romances deal with the deeds of
+Alexander, a favorite hero, and the siege of Troy, with which the Britons
+thought they had some historic connection. To these were added a large
+number of tales from Oriental sources; and in the exuberant imagination of
+the latter we see the influence which the Saracens--those nimble wits who
+gave us our first modern sciences and who still reveled in the _Arabian
+Nights_--had begun to exercise on the literature of Europe.
+
+To the English reader, at least, the most interesting of the romances are
+those which deal with the exploits of Arthur and his Knights of the Round
+Table,--the richest storehouse of romance which our literature has ever
+found. There were many cycles of Arthurian romances, chief of which are
+those of Gawain, Launcelot, Merlin, the Quest of the Holy Grail, and the
+Death of Arthur. In preceding sections we have seen how these fascinating
+romances were used by Geoffrey and the French writers, and how, through the
+French, they found their way into English, appearing first in our speech in
+Layamon's _Brut_. The point to remember is that, while the legends are
+Celtic in origin, their literary form is due to French poets, who
+originated the metrical romance. All our early English romances are either
+copies or translations of the French; and this is true not only of the
+matter of France and Rome, but of Celtic heroes like Arthur, and English
+heroes like Guy of Warwick and Robin Hood.
+
+The most interesting of all Arthurian romances are those of the Gawain
+cycle,[54] and of these the story of _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ is
+best worth reading, for many reasons. First, though the material is taken
+from French sources,[55] the English workmanship is the finest of our early
+romances. Second, the unknown author of this romance probably wrote also
+"The Pearl," and is the greatest English poet of the Norman period. Third,
+the poem itself with its dramatic interest, its vivid descriptions, and its
+moral purity, is one of the most delightful old romances in any language.
+
+In form _Sir Gawain_ is an interesting combination of French and Saxon
+elements. It is written in an elaborate stanza combining meter and
+alliteration. At the end of each stanza is a rimed refrain, called by the
+French a "tail rime." We give here a brief outline of the story; but if the
+reader desires the poem itself, he is advised to begin with a modern
+version, as the original is in the West Midland dialect and is exceedingly
+difficult to follow.
+
+On New Year's day, while Arthur and his knights are keeping the Yuletide
+feast at Camelot, a gigantic knight in green enters the banquet hall on
+horseback and challenges the bravest knight present to an exchange of
+blows; that is, he will expose his neck to a blow of his own big battle-ax,
+if any knight will agree to abide a blow in return. After some natural
+consternation and a fine speech by Arthur, Gawain accepts the challenge,
+takes the battle-ax, and with one blow sends the giant's head rolling
+through the hall. The Green Knight, who is evidently a terrible magician,
+picks up his head and mounts his horse. He holds out his head and the
+ghastly lips speak, warning Gawain to be faithful to his promise and to
+seek through the world till he finds the Green Chapel. There, on next New
+Year's day, the Green Knight will meet him and return the blow.
+
+The second canto of the poem describes Gawain's long journey through the
+wilderness on his steed Gringolet, and his adventures with storm and cold,
+with, wild beasts and monsters, as he seeks in vain for the Green Chapel.
+On Christmas eve, in the midst of a vast forest, he offers a prayer to
+"Mary, mildest mother so dear," and is rewarded by sight of a great castle.
+He enters and is royally entertained by the host, an aged hero, and by his
+wife, who is the most beautiful woman the knight ever beheld. Gawain learns
+that he is at last near the Green Chapel, and settles down for a little
+comfort after his long quest.
+
+The next canto shows the life in the castle, and describes a curious
+compact between the host, who goes hunting daily, and the knight, who
+remains in the castle to entertain the young wife. The compact is that at
+night each man shall give the other whatever good thing he obtains during
+the day. While the host is hunting, the young woman tries in vain to induce
+Gawain to make love to her, and ends by giving him a kiss. When the host
+returns and gives his guest the game he has killed Gawain returns the kiss.
+On the third day, her temptations having twice failed, the lady offers
+Gawain a ring, which he refuses; but when she offers a magic green girdle
+that will preserve the wearer from death, Gawain, who remembers the giant's
+ax so soon to fall on his neck, accepts the girdle as a "jewel for the
+jeopardy" and promises the lady to keep the gift secret. Here, then, are
+two conflicting compacts. When the host returns and offers his game, Gawain
+returns the kiss but says nothing of the green girdle.
+
+The last canto brings our knight to the Green Chapel, after he is
+repeatedly warned to turn back in the face of certain death. The Chapel is
+a terrible place in the midst of desolation; and as Gawain approaches he
+hears a terrifying sound, the grating of steel on stone, where the giant is
+sharpening a new battle-ax. The Green Knight appears, and Gawain, true to
+his compact, offers his neck for the blow. Twice the ax swings harmlessly;
+the third time it falls on his shoulder and wounds him. Whereupon Gawain
+jumps for his armor, draws his sword, and warns the giant that the compact
+calls for only one blow, and that, if another is offered, he will defend
+himself.
+
+Then the Green Knight explains things. He is lord of the castle where
+Gawain has been entertained for days past. The first two swings of the ax
+were harmless because Gawain had been true to his compact and twice
+returned the kiss. The last blow had wounded him because he concealed the
+gift of the green girdle, which belongs to the Green Knight and was woven
+by his wife. Moreover, the whole thing has been arranged by Morgain the
+fay-woman (an enemy of Queen Guinevere, who appears often in the Arthurian
+romances). Full of shame, Gawain throws back the gift and is ready to atone
+for his deception; but the Green Knight thinks he has already atoned, and
+presents the green girdle as a free gift. Gawain returns to Arthur's court,
+tells the whole story frankly, and ever after that the knights of the Round
+Table wear a green girdle in his honor.[56]
+
+THE PEARL. In the same manuscript with "Sir Gawain" are found three other
+remarkable poems, written about 1350, and known to us, in order, as "The
+Pearl," "Cleanness," and "Patience." The first is the most beautiful, and
+received its name from the translator and editor, Richard Morris, in 1864.
+"Patience" is a paraphrase of the book of Jonah; "Cleanness" moralizes on
+the basis of Bible stories; but "The Pearl" is an intensely human and
+realistic picture of a father's grief for his little daughter Margaret, "My
+precious perle wythouten spot." It is the saddest of all our early poems.
+
+On the grave of his little one, covered over with flowers, the father pours
+out his love and grief till, in the summer stillness, he falls asleep,
+while we hear in the sunshine the drowsy hum of insects and the faraway
+sound of the reapers' sickles. He dreams there, and the dream grows into a
+vision beautiful. His body lies still upon the grave while his spirit goes
+to a land, exquisite beyond all words, where he comes suddenly upon a
+stream that he cannot cross. As he wanders along the bank, seeking in vain
+for a ford, a marvel rises before his eyes, a crystal cliff, and seated
+beneath it a little maiden who raises a happy, shining face,--the face of
+his little Margaret.
+
+    More then me lyste my drede aros,
+    I stod full stylle and dorste not calle;
+    Wyth yghen open and mouth ful clos,
+    I stod as hende as hawk in halle.
+
+He dares not speak for fear of breaking the spell; but sweet as a lily she
+comes down the crystal stream's bank to meet and speak with him, and tell
+him of the happy life of heaven and how to live to be worthy of it. In his
+joy he listens, forgetting all his grief; then the heart of the man cries
+out for its own, and he struggles to cross the stream to join her. In the
+struggle the dream vanishes; he wakens to find his eyes wet and his head on
+the little mound that marks the spot where his heart is buried.
+
+From the ideals of these three poems, and from peculiarities of style and
+meter, it is probable that their author wrote also _Sir Gawain and the
+Green Knight_. If so, the unknown author is the one genius of the age whose
+poetry of itself has power to interest us, and who stands between Cynewulf
+and Chaucer as a worthy follower of the one and forerunner of the other.
+
+MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE OF THE NORMAN PERIOD. It is well-nigh impossible
+to classify the remaining literature of this period, and very little of it
+is now read, except by advanced students. Those interested in the
+development of "transition" English will find in _the Ancren Riwle_, i.e.
+"Rule of the Anchoresses" (_c_. 1225), the most beautiful bit of old
+English prose ever written. It is a book of excellent religious advice and
+comfort, written for three ladies who wished to live a religious life,
+without, however, becoming nuns or entering any religious orders. The
+author was Bishop Poore of Salisbury, according to Morton, who first edited
+this old classic in 1853. Orm's _Ormulum_, written soon after the _Brut_,
+is a paraphrase of the gospel lessons for the year, somewhat after the
+manner of Cædmon's _Paraphrase_, but without any of Cædmon's poetic fire
+and originality. _Cursor Mundi_ (_c_. 1320) is a very long poem which makes
+a kind of metrical romance out of Bible history and shows the whole dealing
+of God with man from Creation to Domesday. It is interesting as showing a
+parallel to the cycles of miracle plays, which attempt to cover the same
+vast ground. They were forming in this age; but we will study them later,
+when we try to understand the rise of the drama in England.
+
+Besides these greater works, an enormous number of fables and satires
+appeared in this age, copied or translated from the French, like the
+metrical romances. The most famous of these are "The Owl and the
+Nightingale,"--a long debate between the two birds, one representing the
+gay side of life, the other the sterner side of law and morals,--and "Land
+of Cockaygne," i.e. "Luxury Land," a keen satire on monks and monastic
+religion.[57]
+
+While most of the literature of the time was a copy of the French and was
+intended only for the upper classes, here and there were singers who made
+ballads for the common people; and these, next to the metrical romances,
+are the most interesting and significant of all the works of the Norman
+period. On account of its obscure origin and its oral transmission, the
+ballad is always the most difficult of literary subjects.[58] We make here
+only three suggestions, which may well be borne in mind: that ballads were
+produced continually in England from Anglo-Saxon times until the
+seventeenth century; that for centuries they were the only really popular
+literature; and that in the ballads alone one is able to understand the
+common people. Read, for instance, the ballads of the "merrie greenwood
+men," which gradually collected into the _Geste of Robin Hood_, and you
+will understand better, perhaps, than from reading many histories what the
+common people of England felt and thought while their lords and masters
+were busy with impossible metrical romances.
+
+In these songs speaks the heart of the English folk. There is lawlessness
+indeed; but this seems justified by the oppression of the times and by the
+barbarous severity of the game laws. An intense hatred of shams and
+injustice lurks in every song; but the hatred is saved from bitterness by
+the humor with which captives, especially rich churchmen, are solemnly
+lectured by the bandits, while they squirm at sight of devilish tortures
+prepared before their eyes in order to make them give up their golden
+purses; and the scene generally ends in a bit of wild horse-play. There is
+fighting enough, and ambush and sudden death lurk at every turn of the
+lonely roads; but there is also a rough, honest chivalry for women, and a
+generous sharing of plunder with the poor and needy. All literature is but
+a dream expressed, and "Robin Hood" is the dream of an ignorant and
+oppressed but essentially noble people, struggling and determined to be
+free.
+
+Far more poetical than the ballads, and more interesting even than the
+romances, are the little lyrics of the period,--those tears and smiles of
+long ago that crystallized into poems, to tell us that the hearts of men
+are alike in all ages. Of these, the best known are the "Luve Ron" (love
+rune or letter) of Thomas de Hales _(c_. 1250); "Springtime" _(c_. 1300),
+beginning "Lenten (spring) ys come with luve to toune"; and the melodious
+love song "Alysoun," written at the end of the thirteenth century by some
+unknown poet who heralds the coming of Chaucer:
+
+    Bytuene Mersh and Averil,
+    When spray biginneth to springe
+    The lutel foul[59] hath hire wyl
+    On hyre lud[60] to synge.
+    Ich libbe[61] in love longinge
+    For semlokest[62] of all thinge.
+    She may me blisse bringe;
+    Icham[63] in hire baundoun.[64]
+        An hendy hap ichabbe yhent,[65]
+        Ichot[66] from hevene it is me sent,
+        From alle wymmen mi love is lent[67]
+        And lyht[68] on Alysoun.
+
+SUMMARY OF THE NORMAN PERIOD. The Normans were originally a hardy race of
+sea rovers inhabiting Scandinavia. In the tenth century they conquered a
+part of northern France, which is still called Normandy, and rapidly
+adopted French civilization and the French language. Their conquest of
+Anglo-Saxon England under William, Duke of Normandy, began with the battle
+of Hastings in 1066. The literature which they brought to England is
+remarkable for its bright, romantic tales of love and adventure, in marked
+contrast with the strength and somberness of Anglo-Saxon poetry. During the
+three centuries following Hastings, Normans and Saxons gradually united.
+The Anglo-Saxon speech simplified itself by dropping most of its Teutonic
+inflections, absorbed eventually a large part of the French vocabulary, and
+became our English language. English literature is also a combination of
+French and Saxon elements. The three chief effects of the conquest were
+_(1)_ the bringing of Roman civilization to England; _(2)_ the growth of
+nationality, i.e. a strong centralized government, instead of the loose
+union of Saxon tribes; _(3)_ the new language and literature, which were
+proclaimed in Chaucer.
+
+At first the new literature was remarkably varied, but of small intrinsic
+worth; and very little of it is now read. In our study we have noted: (1)
+Geoffrey's History, which is valuable as a source book of literature, since
+it contains the native Celtic legends of Arthur. (2) The work of the French
+writers, who made the Arthurian legends popular. (3) Riming Chronicles,
+i.e. history in doggerel verse, like Layamon's _Brut_. (4) Metrical
+Romances, or tales in verse. These were numerous, and of four classes: (a)
+the Matter of France, tales centering about Charlemagne and his peers,
+chief of which is the Chanson de Roland; (b) Matter of Greece and Rome, an
+endless series of fabulous tales about Alexander, and about the Fall of
+Troy; (c) Matter of England, stories of Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick,
+Robin Hood, etc.; (d) Matter of Britain, tales having for their heroes
+Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. The best of these romances is
+Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (5) Miscellaneous literature,--the Ancren
+Riwle, our best piece of early English prose; Orm's Ormulum; Cursor Mundi,
+with its suggestive parallel to the Miracle plays; and ballads, like King
+Horn and the Robin Hood songs, which were the only poetry of the common
+people.
+
+
+SELECTIONS FOR READING. For advanced students, and as a study of language,
+a few selections as given in Manly's English Poetry and in Manly's English
+Prose; or selections from the Ormulum, Brut, Ancren Riwle, and King Horn,
+etc., in Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English. The ordinary
+student will get a better idea of the literature of the period by using the
+following: Sir Gawain, modernized by J. L. Weston, in Arthurian Romances
+Series (Nutt); The Nun's Rule (Ancren Riwle), modern version by J. Morton,
+in King's Classics; Aucassin and Nicolete, translated by A. Lang (Crowell &
+Co.); Tristan and Iseult, in Arthurian Romances; Evans's The High History
+of the Holy Grail, in Temple Classics; The Pearl, various modern versions
+in prose and verse; one of the best is Jewett's metrical version (Crowell &
+Co.); The Song of Roland, in King's Classics, and in Riverside Literature
+Series; Evans's translation of Geoffrey's History, in Temple Classics;
+Guest's The Mabinogion, in Everyman's Library, or S. Lanier's Boy's
+Mabinogion (i.e. Welsh fairy tales and romances); Selected Ballads, in
+Athenæum Press Series, and in Pocket Classics; Gayley and Flaherty's Poetry
+of the People; Bates's A Ballad Book.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.[69]
+
+_HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 58-86, or Cheyney, pp. 88-144. For
+fuller treatment, Green, ch. 2; Traill; Gardiner, etc. Jewett's Story of
+the Normans (Stories of the Nations Series); Freeman's Short History of the
+Norman Conquest; Hutton's King and Baronage (Oxford Manuals of English
+History).
+
+_LITERATURE. General Works_. Jusserand; Ten Brink; Mitchell, vol. I, From
+Celt to Tudor; The Cambridge History of English Literature.
+
+_Special Works_. Schofield's English Literature from the Norman Conquest to
+Chaucer; Lewis's Beginnings of English Literature; Ker's Epic and Romance;
+Saintsbury's The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory; Newell's
+King Arthur and the Round Table; Maynadier, The Arthur of the English
+Poets; Rhys's Studies in the Arthurian Legends.
+
+_Ballads_. Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads; Gummere's Old
+English Ballads (one volume); Hazlitt's Early Popular Poetry of England;
+Gayley and Flaherty's Poetry of the People; Percy's Reliques of Ancient
+English Poetry, in Everyman's Library.
+
+_Texts, Translations, etc_. Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English;
+Morris's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in Early English Text Series;
+Madden's Layamon's Brut, text and translation (a standard work, but rare);
+The Pearl, text and translation, by Gollancz; the same poem, prose version,
+by Osgood, metrical versions by Jewett, Weir Mitchell, and Mead; Geoffrey's
+History, translation, in Giles's Six Old English Chronicles (Bohn's
+Antiquarian Library); Morley's Early English Prose Romances; Joyce's Old
+Celtic Romances; Guest's The Mabinogion; Lanier's Boy's Mabinogion;
+Arthurian Romances Series (translations). The Belles Lettres Series, sec. 2
+(announced), will contain the texts of a large number of works of this
+period, with notes and introductions.
+
+_Language_. Marsh's Lectures on the English Language; Bradley's Making of
+English; Lounsbury's History of the English Language; Emerson's Brief
+History of the English Language; Greenough and Kittredge's Words and their
+Ways in English Speech; Welsh's Development of English Literature and
+Language.
+
+
+SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What did the Northmen originally have in common
+with the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes? What brought about the remarkable
+change from Northmen to Normans? Tell briefly the story of the Norman
+Conquest. How did the Conquest affect the life and literature of England?
+
+2. What types of literature were produced after the Conquest? How do they
+compare with Anglo-Saxon literature? What works of this period are
+considered worthy of a permanent place in our literature?
+
+3. What is meant by the Riming Chronicles? What part did they play in
+developing the idea of nationality? What led historians of this period to
+write in verse? Describe Geoffrey's History. What was its most valuable
+element from the view point of literature?
+
+4. What is Layamon's _Brut?_ Why did Layamon choose this name for his
+Chronicle? What special literary interest attaches to the poem?
+
+5. What were the Metrical Romances? What reasons led to the great interest
+in three classes of romances, i.e. Matters of France, Rome, and Britain?
+What new and important element enters our literature in this type? Read one
+of the Metrical Romances in English and comment freely upon it, as to
+interest, structure, ideas, and literary quality.
+
+6. Tell the story of _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_. What French and
+what Saxon elements are found in the poem? Compare it with _Beowulf_ to
+show the points of inferiority and superiority. Compare Beowulf's fight
+with Grendel or the Fire Drake and Sir Gawain's encounter with the Green
+Knight, having in mind (1) the virtues of the hero, (2) the qualities of
+the enemy, (3) the methods of warfare, (4) the purpose of the struggle.
+Read selections from _The Pearl_ and compare with _Dear's Lament_. What are
+the personal and the universal interests in each poem?
+
+7. Tell some typical story from the Mabinogion. Where did the Arthurian
+legends originate, and how did they become known to English readers? What
+modern writers have used these legends? What fine elements do you find in
+them that are not found in Anglo-Saxon poetry?
+
+8. What part did Arthur play in the early history of Britain? How long did
+the struggle between Britons and Saxons last? What Celtic names and
+elements entered into English language and literature?
+
+9. What is a ballad, and what distinguishes it from other forms of poetry?
+Describe the ballad which you like best. Why did the ballad, more than any
+other form of literature, appeal to the common people? What modern poems
+suggest the old popular ballad? How do these compare in form and subject
+matter with the Robin Hood ballads?
+
+                                  CHRONOLOGY
+=============================================================================
+  HISTORY                              |  LITERATURE
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ 912. Northmen settle in Normandy      |
+1066. Battle of Hastings. William,     |
+      king of England                  |
+                                       | 1086. Domesday Book completed
+1087. William Rufus                    |
+1093. Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury |
+                                       | 1094(_cir._). Anselem's Cur Deus Homo
+1096. First Crusade                    |
+1100. Henry I                          |
+                                       | 1110. First recorded Miracle play in
+                                       |       England (see chapter on the
+                                       |       Drama)
+1135. Stephen                          |
+                                       | 1137(_cir_.). Geoffrey's History
+1147. Second Crusade                   |
+1154. Henry II                         |
+1189. Richard I. Third Crusade         |
+1199. John                             |
+                                       | 1200 (_cir_.). Layamon's Brut
+1215. Magna Charta                     |
+1216. Henry III                        |
+                                       | 1225 (_cir_.). Ancren Riwle
+1230 (_cir._). University of Cambridge |
+      chartered                        |
+1265. Beginning of House of Commons.   |
+      Simon de Montfort                |
+                                       | 1267. Roger Bacon's Opus Majus
+1272. Edward I                         |
+1295. First complete Parliament        |
+                                       | 1300-1400. York and Wakefield.
+                                       |       Miracle plays
+1307. Edward II                        |
+                                       | 1320 (_cir_.). Cursor Mundi
+1327. Edward III                       |
+1338. Beginning of Hundred Years' War  |
+      with France                      |
+                                       | 1340 (?). Birth of Chaucer
+                                       | 1350 (_cir_.). Sir Gawain. The Pearl
+=======================================+====================================
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1350-1400)
+
+THE NEW NATIONAL LIFE AND LITERATURE
+
+HISTORY OF THE PERIOD. Two great movements may be noted in the complex life
+of England during the fourteenth century. The first is political, and
+culminates in the reign of Edward III. It shows the growth of the English
+national spirit following the victories of Edward and the Black Prince on
+French soil, during the Hundred Years' War. In the rush of this great
+national movement, separating England from the political ties of France
+and, to a less degree, from ecclesiastical bondage to Rome, the mutual
+distrust and jealousy which had divided nobles and commons were momentarily
+swept aside by a wave of patriotic enthusiasm. The French language lost its
+official prestige, and English became the speech not only of the common
+people but of courts and Parliament as well.
+
+The second movement is social; it falls largely within the reign of
+Edward's successor, Richard II, and marks the growing discontent with the
+contrast between luxury and poverty, between the idle wealthy classes and
+the overtaxed peasants. Sometimes this movement is quiet and strong, as
+when Wyclif arouses the conscience of England; again it has the portentous
+rumble of an approaching tempest, as when John Ball harangues a multitude
+of discontented peasants on Black Heath commons, using the famous text:
+
+    When Adam delved and Eve span
+    Who was then the gentleman?
+
+and again it breaks out into the violent rebellion of Wat Tyler. All these
+things show the same Saxon spirit that had won its freedom in a thousand
+years' struggle against foreign enemies, and that now felt itself oppressed
+by a social and industrial tyranny in its own midst.
+
+Aside from these two movements, the age was one of unusual stir and
+progress. Chivalry, that mediæval institution of mixed good and evil, was
+in its Indian summer,--a sentiment rather than a practical system. Trade,
+and its resultant wealth and luxury, were increasing enormously. Following
+trade, as the Vikings had followed glory, the English began to be a
+conquering and colonizing people, like the Anglo-Saxons. The native shed
+something of his insularity and became a traveler, going first to view the
+places where trade had opened the way, and returning with wider interests
+and a larger horizon. Above all, the first dawn of the Renaissance is
+heralded in England, as in Spain and Italy, by the appearance of a national
+literature.
+
+FIVE WRITERS OF THE AGE. The literary movement of the age clearly reflects
+the stirring life of the times. There is Langland, voicing the social
+discontent, preaching the equality of men and the dignity of labor; Wyclif,
+greatest of English religious reformers, giving the Gospel to the people in
+their own tongue, and the freedom of the Gospel in unnumbered tracts and
+addresses; Gower, the scholar and literary man, criticising this vigorous
+life and plainly afraid of its consequences; and Mandeville, the traveler,
+romancing about the wonders to be seen abroad. Above all there is
+Chaucer,--scholar, traveler, business man, courtier, sharing in all the
+stirring life of his times, and reflecting it in literature as no other but
+Shakespeare has ever done. Outside of England the greatest literary
+influence of the age was that of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, whose
+works, then at the summit of their influence in Italy, profoundly affected
+the literature of all Europe.
+
+CHAUCER (1340?-1400)
+
+                     'What man artow?' quod he;
+    'Thou lokest as thou woldest finde an hare,
+    For ever upon the ground I see thee stare.
+    Approchë neer, and loke up merily....
+    He semeth elvish by his contenaunce.'
+                 (The Host's description of Chaucer,
+                             Prologue, _Sir Thopas_)
+
+ON READING CHAUCER. The difficulties of reading Chaucer are more apparent
+than real, being due largely to obsolete spelling, and there is small
+necessity for using any modern versions of the poet's work, which seem to
+miss the quiet charm and dry humor of the original. If the reader will
+observe the following general rules (which of necessity ignore many
+differences in pronunciation of fourteenth-century English), he may, in an
+hour or two, learn to read Chaucer almost as easily as Shakespeare: (1) Get
+the lilt of the lines, and let the meter itself decide how final syllables
+are to be pronounced. Remember that Chaucer is among the most musical of
+poets, and that there is melody in nearly every line. If the verse seems
+rough, it is because we do not read it correctly. (2) Vowels in Chaucer
+have much the same value as in modern German; consonants are practically
+the same as in modern English. (3) Pronounce aloud any strange-looking
+words. Where the eye fails, the ear will often recognize the meaning. If
+eye and ear both fail, then consult the glossary found in every good
+edition of the poet's works. (4) Final _e_ is usually sounded (like _a_ in
+Virginia) except where the following word begins with a vowel or with _h_.
+In the latter case the final syllable of one word and the first of the word
+following are run together, as in reading Virgil. At the end of a line the
+_e_, if lightly pronounced, adds melody to the verse.[70]
+
+In dealing with Chaucer's masterpiece, the reader is urged to read widely
+at first, for the simple pleasure of the stories, and to remember that
+poetry and romance are more interesting and important than Middle English.
+When we like and appreciate Chaucer--his poetry, his humor, his good
+stories, his kind heart---it will be time enough to study his language.
+
+LIFE OF CHAUCER. For our convenience the life of Chaucer is divided into
+three periods. The first, of thirty years, includes his youth and early
+manhood, in which time he was influenced almost exclusively by French
+literary models. The second period, of fifteen years, covers Chaucer's
+active life as diplomat and man of affairs; and in this the Italian
+influence seems stronger than the French. The third, of fifteen years,
+generally known as the English period, is the time of Chaucer's richest
+development. He lives at home, observes life closely but kindly, and while
+the French influence is still strong, as shown in the _Canterbury Tales_,
+he seems to grow more independent of foreign models and is dominated
+chiefly by the vigorous life of his own English people.
+
+Chaucer's boyhood was spent in London, on Thames Street near the river,
+where the world's commerce was continually coming and going. There he saw
+daily the shipman of the _Canterbury Tales_ just home in his good ship
+Maudelayne, with the fascination of unknown lands in his clothes and
+conversation. Of his education we know nothing, except that he was a great
+reader. His father was a wine merchant, purveyor to the royal household,
+and from this accidental relation between trade and royalty may have arisen
+the fact that at seventeen years Chaucer was made page to the Princess
+Elizabeth. This was the beginning of his connection with the brilliant
+court, which in the next forty years, under three kings, he was to know so
+intimately.
+
+At nineteen he went with the king on one of the many expeditions of the
+Hundred Years' War, and here he saw chivalry and all the pageantry of
+mediæval war at the height of their outward splendor. Taken prisoner at the
+unsuccessful siege of Rheims, he is said to have been ransomed by money out
+of the royal purse. Returning to England, he became after a few years
+squire of the royal household, the personal attendant and confidant of the
+king. It was during this first period that he married a maid of honor to
+the queen. This was probably Philippa Roet, sister to the wife of John of
+Gaunt, the famous Duke of Lancaster. From numerous whimsical references in
+his early poems, it has been thought that this marriage into a noble family
+was not a happy one; but this is purely a matter of supposition or of
+doubtful inference.
+
+In 1370 Chaucer was sent abroad on the first of those diplomatic missions
+that were to occupy the greater part of the next fifteen years. Two years
+later he made his first official visit to Italy, to arrange a commercial
+treaty with Genoa, and from this time is noticeable a rapid development in
+his literary powers and the prominence of Italian literary influences.
+During the intervals between his different missions he filled various
+offices at home, chief of which was Comptroller of Customs at the port of
+London. An enormous amount of personal labor was involved; but Chaucer
+seems to have found time to follow his spirit into the new fields of
+Italian literature:
+
+    For whan thy labour doon al is,
+    And hast y-maad thy rekeninges,
+    In stede of reste and newe thinges,
+    Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon,
+    And, also domb as any stoon,
+    Thou sittest at another boke
+    Til fully daswed is thy loke,
+    And livest thus as an hermyte.[71]
+
+In 1386 Chaucer was elected member of Parliament from Kent, and the
+distinctly English period of his life and work begins. Though exceedingly
+busy in public affairs and as receiver of customs, his heart was still with
+his books, from which only nature could win him:
+
+    And as for me, though that my wit be lyte,
+    On bokes for to rede I me delyte,
+    And to hem yeve I feyth and ful credence,
+    And in myn herte have hem in reverence
+    So hertely, that ther is game noon
+    That fro my bokes maketh me to goon,
+    But hit be seldom, on the holyday;
+    Save, certeynly, whan that the month of May
+    Is comen, and that I here the foules singe,
+    And that the floures ginnen for to springe--
+    Farwel my book and my devocioun![72]
+
+In the fourteenth century politics seems to have been, for honest men, a
+very uncertain business. Chaucer naturally adhered to the party of John of
+Gaunt, and his fortunes rose or fell with those of his leader. From this
+time until his death he is up and down on the political ladder; to-day with
+money and good prospects, to-morrow in poverty and neglect, writing his
+"Complaint to His Empty Purs," which he humorously calls his "saveour doun
+in this werlde here." This poem called the king's attention to the poet's
+need and increased his pension; but he had but few months to enjoy the
+effect of this unusual "Complaint." For he died the next year, 1400, and
+was buried with honor in Westminster Abbey. The last period of his life,
+though outwardly most troubled, was the most fruitful of all. His "Truth,"
+or "Good Counsel," reveals the quiet, beautiful spirit of his life,
+unspoiled either by the greed of trade or the trickery of politics:
+
+    Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse,
+    Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal;
+    For hord[73] hath hate, and climbing tikelnesse,
+    Prees[74] hath envye, and wele[75] blent[76] overal;
+    Savour no more than thee bihovë shal;
+    Werk[77] wel thyself, that other folk canst rede;
+    And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.
+    Tempest[78] thee noght al croked to redresse,
+    In trust of hir[79] that turneth as a bal:
+    Gret reste stant in litel besinesse;
+    And eek be war to sporne[80] ageyn an al[81];
+    Stryve noght, as doth the crokke with the wal.
+    Daunte[82] thyself, that dauntest otheres dede;
+    And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.
+    That thee is sent, receyve in buxumnesse,
+    The wrastling for this worlde axeth a fal.
+    Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse:
+    Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stall,
+    Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al;
+    Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede:
+    And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.
+
+WORKS OF CHAUCER, FIRST PERIOD. The works of Chaucer are roughly divided
+into three classes, corresponding to the three periods of his life. It
+should be remembered, however, that it is impossible to fix exact dates for
+most of his works. Some of his _Canterbury Tales_ were written earlier than
+the English period, and were only grouped with the others in his final
+arrangement.
+
+The best known, though not the best, poem of the first period is the
+_Romaunt of the Rose_,[83] a translation from the French _Roman de la
+Rose_, the most popular poem of the Middle Ages,--a graceful but
+exceedingly tiresome allegory of the whole course of love. The Rose growing
+in its mystic garden is typical of the lady Beauty. Gathering the Rose
+represents the lover's attempt to win his lady's favor; and the different
+feelings aroused--Love, Hate, Envy, Jealousy, Idleness, Sweet Looks--are
+the allegorical persons of the poet's drama. Chaucer translated this
+universal favorite, putting in some original English touches; but of the
+present _Romaunt_ only the first seventeen hundred lines are believed to be
+Chaucer's own work.
+
+Perhaps the best poem of this period is the "Dethe of Blanche the
+Duchesse," better known, as the "Boke of the Duchesse," a poem of
+considerable dramatic and emotional power, written after the death of
+Blanche, wife of Chaucer's patron, John of Gaunt. Additional poems are the
+"Compleynte to Pite," a graceful love poem; the "A B C," a prayer to the
+Virgin, translated from the French of a Cistercian monk, its verses
+beginning with the successive letters of the alphabet; and a number of what
+Chaucer calls "ballads, roundels, and virelays," with which, says his
+friend Gower, "the land was filled." The latter were imitations of the
+prevailing French love ditties.
+
+SECOND PERIOD. The chief work of the second or Italian period is _Troilus
+and Criseyde_, a poem of eight thousand lines. The original story was a
+favorite of many authors during the Middle Ages, and Shakespeare makes use
+of it in his _Troilus and Cressida_. The immediate source of Chaucer's poem
+is Boccaccio's _Il Filostrato,_ "the love-smitten one"; but he uses his
+material very freely, to reflect the ideals of his own age and society, and
+so gives to the whole story a dramatic force and beauty which it had never
+known before.
+
+The "Hous of Fame" is one of Chaucer's unfinished poems, having the rare
+combination of lofty thought and simple, homely language, showing the
+influence of the great Italian master. In the poem the author is carried
+away in a dream by a great eagle from the brittle temple of Venus, in a
+sandy wilderness, up to the hall of fame. To this house come all rumors of
+earth, as the sparks fly upward. The house stands on a rock of ice
+
+                writen ful of names
+    Of folk that hadden grete fames.
+
+Many of these have disappeared as the ice melted; but the older names are
+clear as when first written. For many of his ideas Chaucer is indebted to
+Dante, Ovid, and Virgil; but the unusual conception and the splendid
+workmanship are all his own.
+
+The third great poem of the period is the _Legende of Goode Wimmen_. As he
+is resting in the fields among the daisies, he falls asleep and a gay
+procession draws near. First comes the love god, leading by the hand
+Alcestis, model of all wifely virtues, whose emblem is the daisy; and
+behind them follow a troup of glorious women, all of whom have been
+faithful in love. They gather about the poet; the god upbraids him for
+having translated the _Romance of the Rose_, and for his early poems
+reflecting on the vanity and fickleness of women. Alcestis intercedes for
+him, and offers pardon if he will atone for his errors by writing a
+"glorious legend of good women." Chaucer promises, and as soon as he awakes
+sets himself to the task. Nine legends were written, of which "Thisbe" is
+perhaps the best. It is probable that Chaucer intended to make this his
+masterpiece, devoting many years to stories of famous women who were true
+to love; but either because he wearied of his theme, or because the plan of
+the _Canterbury Tales_ was growing in his mind, he abandoned the task in
+the middle of his ninth legend,--fortunately, perhaps, for the reader will
+find the Prologue more interesting than any of the legends.
+
+THIRD PERIOD. Chaucer's masterpiece, the _Canterbury Tales_, one of the
+most famous works in all literature, fills the third or English period of
+his life. The plan of the work is magnificent: to represent the wide sweep
+of English life by gathering a motley company together and letting each
+class of society tell its own favorite stories. Though the great work was
+never finished, Chaucer succeeded in his purpose so well that in the
+_Canterbury Tales_ he has given us a picture of contemporary English life,
+its work and play, its deeds and dreams, its fun and sympathy and hearty
+joy of living, such as no other single work of literature has ever equaled.
+
+PLAN OF THE CANTERBURY TALES. Opposite old London, at the southern end of
+London Bridge, once stood the Tabard Inn of Southwark, a quarter made
+famous not only by the _Canterbury Tales_, but also by the first playhouses
+where Shakespeare had his training. This Southwark was the point of
+departure of all travel to the south of England, especially of those
+mediæval pilgrimages to the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. On a
+spring evening, at the inspiring time of the year when "longen folk to goon
+on pilgrimages," Chaucer alights at the Tabard Inn, and finds it occupied
+by a various company of people bent on a pilgrimage. Chance alone had
+brought them together; for it was the custom of pilgrims to wait at some
+friendly inn until a sufficient company were gathered to make the journey
+pleasant and safe from robbers that might be encountered on the way.
+Chaucer joins this company, which includes all classes of English society,
+from the Oxford scholar to the drunken miller, and accepts gladly their
+invitation to go with them on the morrow.
+
+At supper the jovial host of the Tabard Inn suggests that, to enliven the
+journey, each of the company shall tell four tales, two going and two
+coming, on whatever subject shall suit him best. The host will travel with
+them as master of ceremonies, and whoever tells the best story shall be
+given a fine supper at the general expense when they all come back
+again,--a shrewd bit of business and a fine idea, as the pilgrims all
+agree.
+
+When they draw lots for the first story the chance falls to the Knight, who
+tells one of the best of the _Canterbury Tales_, the chivalric story of
+"Palamon and Arcite." Then the tales follow rapidly, each with its prologue
+and epilogue, telling how the story came about, and its effects on the
+merry company. Interruptions are numerous; the narrative is full of life
+and movement, as when the miller gets drunk and insists on telling his tale
+out of season, or when they stop at a friendly inn for the night, or when
+the poet with sly humor starts his story of "Sir Thopas," in dreary
+imitation of the metrical romances of the day, and is roared at by the host
+for his "drasty ryming." With Chaucer we laugh at his own expense, and are
+ready for the next tale.
+
+From the number of persons in the company, thirty-two in all, it is evident
+that Chaucer meditated an immense work of one hundred and twenty-eight
+tales, which should cover the whole life of England. Only twenty-four were
+written; some of these are incomplete, and others are taken from his
+earlier work to fill out the general plan of the _Canterbury Tales_.
+Incomplete as they are, they cover a wide range, including stories of love
+and chivalry, of saints and legends, travels, adventures, animal fables,
+allegory, satires, and the coarse humor of the common people. Though all
+but two are written in verse and abound in exquisite poetical touches, they
+are stories as well as poems, and Chaucer is to be regarded as our first
+short-story teller as well as our first modern poet. The work ends with a
+kindly farewell from the poet to his reader, and so "here taketh the makere
+of this book his leve."
+
+PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES. In the famous "Prologue" the poet makes
+us acquainted with the various characters of his drama. Until Chaucer's day
+popular literature had been busy chiefly with the gods and heroes of a
+golden age; it had been essentially romantic, and so had never attempted to
+study men and women as they are, or to describe them so that the reader
+recognizes them, not as ideal heroes, but as his own neighbors. Chaucer not
+only attempted this new realistic task, but accomplished it so well that
+his characters were instantly recognized as true to life, and they have
+since become the permanent possession of our literature. Beowulf and Roland
+are ideal heroes, essentially creatures of the imagination; but the merry
+host of the Tabard Inn, Madame Eglantyne, the fat monk, the parish priest,
+the kindly plowman, the poor scholar with his "bookës black and red,"--all
+seem more like personal acquaintances than characters in a book. Says
+Dryden: "I see all the pilgrims, their humours, their features and their
+very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in
+Southwark." Chaucer is the first English writer to bring the atmosphere of
+romantic interest about the men and women and the daily work of one's own
+world,--which is the aim of nearly all modern literature.
+
+The historian of our literature is tempted to linger over this "Prologue"
+and to quote from it passage after passage to show how keenly and yet
+kindly our first modern poet observed his fellow-men. The characters, too,
+attract one like a good play: the "verray parfit gentil knight" and his
+manly son, the modest prioress, model of sweet piety and society manners,
+the sporting monk and the fat friar, the discreet man of law, the well-fed
+country squire, the sailor just home from sea, the canny doctor, the
+lovable parish priest who taught true religion to his flock, but "first he
+folwed it himselve"; the coarse but good-hearted Wyf of Bath, the thieving
+miller leading the pilgrims to the music of his bagpipe,--all these and
+many others from every walk of English life, and all described with a
+quiet, kindly humor which seeks instinctively the best in human nature, and
+which has an ample garment of charity to cover even its faults and
+failings. "Here," indeed, as Dryden says, "is God's plenty." Probably no
+keener or kinder critic ever described his fellows; and in this immortal
+"Prologue" Chaucer is a model for all those who would put our human life
+into writing. The student should read it entire, as an introduction not
+only to the poet but to all our modern literature.
+
+THE KNIGHT'S TALE. As a story, "Palamon and Arcite" is, in many respects,
+the best of the _Canterbury Tales_, reflecting as it does the ideals of the
+time in regard to romantic love and knightly duty. Though its dialogues and
+descriptions are somewhat too long and interrupt the story, yet it shows
+Chaucer at his best in his dramatic power, his exquisite appreciation of
+nature, and his tender yet profound philosophy of living, which could
+overlook much of human frailty in the thought that
+
+    Infinite been the sorwes and the teres
+    Of oldë folk, and folk of tendre yeres.
+
+The idea of the story was borrowed from Boccaccio; but parts of the
+original tale were much older and belonged to the common literary stock of
+the Middle Ages. Like Shakespeare, Chaucer took the material for his poems
+wherever he found it, and his originality consists in giving to an old
+story some present human interest, making it express the life and ideals of
+his own age. In this respect the "Knight's Tale" is remarkable. Its names
+are those of an ancient civilization, but its characters are men and women
+of the English nobility as Chaucer knew them. In consequence the story has
+many anachronisms, such as the mediæval tournament before the temple of
+Mars; but the reader scarcely notices these things, being absorbed in the
+dramatic interest of the narrative.
+
+Briefly, the "Knight's Tale" is the story of two young men, fast friends,
+who are found wounded on the battlefield and taken prisoners to Athens.
+There from their dungeon window they behold the fair maid Emily; both fall
+desperately in love with her, and their friendship turns to strenuous
+rivalry. One is pardoned; the other escapes; and then knights, empires,
+nature,--the whole universe follows their desperate efforts to win one
+small maiden, who prays meanwhile to be delivered from both her bothersome
+suitors. As the best of the _Canterbury Tales_ are now easily accessible,
+we omit here all quotations. The story must be read entire, with the
+Prioress' tale of Hugh of Lincoln, the Clerk's tale of Patient Griselda,
+and the Nun's Priest's merry tale of Chanticleer and the Fox, if the reader
+would appreciate the variety and charm of our first modern poet and
+story-teller.
+
+FORM OF CHAUCER'S POETRY. There are three principal meters to be found in
+Chaucer's verse. In the _Canterbury Tales_ he uses lines of ten syllables
+and five accents each, and the lines run in couplets:
+
+    His eyen twinkled in his heed aright
+    As doon the sterres in the frosty night.
+
+The same musical measure, arranged in seven-line stanzas, but with a
+different rime, called the Rime Royal, is found in its most perfect form in
+_Troilus_.
+
+    O blisful light, of whiche the bemes clere
+    Adorneth al the thridde hevene faire!
+    O sonnes leef, O Joves doughter dere,
+    Plesaunce of love, O goodly debonaire,
+    In gentil hertes ay redy to repaire!
+    O verray cause of hele and of gladnesse,
+    Y-heried be thy might and thy goodnesse!
+    In hevene and helle, in erthe and salte see
+    Is felt thy might, if that I wel descerne;
+    As man, brid, best, fish, herbe and grene tree
+    Thee fele in tymes with vapour eterne.
+    God loveth, and to love wol nought werne;
+    And in this world no lyves creature,
+    With-outen love, is worth, or may endure.[84]
+
+The third meter is the eight-syllable line with four accents, the lines
+riming in couplets, as in the "Boke of the Duchesse":
+
+    Thereto she coude so wel pleye,
+    Whan that hir liste, that I dar seye
+    That she was lyk to torche bright,
+    That every man may take-of light
+    Ynough, and hit hath never the lesse.
+
+Besides these principal meters, Chaucer in his short poems used many other
+poetical forms modeled after the French, who in the fourteenth century were
+cunning workers in every form of verse. Chief among these are the difficult
+but exquisite rondel, "Now welcom Somer with thy sonne softe," which closes
+the "Parliament of Fowls," and the ballad, "Flee fro the prees," which has
+been already quoted. In the "Monk's Tale" there is a melodious measure
+which may have furnished the model for Spenser's famous stanza.[85]
+Chaucer's poetry is extremely musical and must be judged by the ear rather
+than by the eye. To the modern reader the lines appear broken and uneven;
+but if one reads them over a few times, he soon catches the perfect swing
+of the measure, and finds that he is in the hands of a master whose ear is
+delicately sensitive to the smallest accent. There is a lilt in all his
+lines which is marvelous when we consider that he is the first to show us
+the poetic possibilities of the language. His claim upon our gratitude is
+twofold:[86] first, for discovering the music that is in our English
+speech; and second, for his influence in fixing the Midland dialect as the
+literary language of England.
+
+
+CHAUCER'S CONTEMPORARIES
+
+WILLIAM LANGLAND (1332? ....?)
+
+LIFE. Very little is known of Langland. He was born probably near Malvern,
+in Worcestershire, the son of a poor freeman, and in his early life lived
+in the fields as a shepherd. Later he went to London with his wife and
+children, getting a hungry living as clerk in the church. His real life
+meanwhile was that of a seer, a prophet after Isaiah's own heart, if we may
+judge by the prophecy which soon found a voice in _Piers Plowman_. In 1399,
+after the success of his great work, he was possibly writing another poem
+called _Richard the Redeless_, a protest against Richard II; but we are not
+certain of the authorship of this poem, which was left unfinished by the
+assassination of the king. After 1399 Langland disappears utterly, and the
+date of his death is unknown.
+
+PIERS PLOWMAN. "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye
+the way of the Lord," might well be written at the beginning of this
+remarkable poem. Truth, sincerity, a direct and practical appeal to
+conscience, and a vision of right triumphant over wrong,--these are the
+elements of all prophecy; and it was undoubtedly these elements in _Piers
+Plowman_ that produced such an impression on the people of England. For
+centuries literature had been busy in pleasing the upper classes chiefly;
+but here at last was a great poem which appealed directly to the common
+people, and its success was enormous. The whole poem is traditionally
+attributed to Langland; but it is now known to be the work of several
+different writers. It first appeared in 1362 as a poem of eighteen hundred
+lines, and this may have been Langland's work. In the next thirty years,
+during the desperate social conditions which led to Tyler's Rebellion, it
+was repeatedly revised and enlarged by different hands till it reached its
+final form of about fifteen thousand lines.
+
+The poem as we read it now is in two distinct parts, the first containing
+the vision of Piers, the second a series of visions called "The Search for
+Dowel, Dobet, Dobest" (do well, better, best). The entire poem is in
+strongly accented, alliterative lines, something like _Beowulf_, and its
+immense popularity shows that the common people still cherished this easily
+memorized form of Saxon poetry. Its tremendous appeal to justice and common
+honesty, its clarion call to every man, whether king, priest, noble, or
+laborer, to do his Christian duty, takes from it any trace of prejudice or
+bigotry with which such works usually abound. Its loyalty to the Church,
+while denouncing abuses that had crept into it in that period, was one of
+the great influences which led to the Reformation in England. Its two great
+principles, the equality of men before God and the dignity of honest labor,
+roused a whole nation of freemen. Altogether it is one of the world's great
+works, partly because of its national influence, partly because it is the
+very best picture we possess of the social life of the fourteenth century:
+
+Briefly, _Piers Plowman_ is an allegory of life. In the first vision, that
+of the "Field Full of Folk," the poet lies down on the Malvern Hills on a
+May morning, and a vision comes to him in sleep. On the plain beneath him
+gather a multitude of folk, a vast crowd expressing the varied life of the
+world. All classes and conditions are there; workingmen are toiling that
+others may seize all the first fruits of their labor and live high on the
+proceeds; and the genius of the throng is Lady Bribery, a powerfully drawn
+figure, expressing the corrupt social life of the times.
+
+The next visions are those of the Seven Deadly Sins, allegorical figures,
+but powerful as those of _Pilgrim's Progress_, making the allegories of the
+_Romaunt of the Rose_ seem like shadows in comparison. These all came to
+Piers asking the way to Truth; but Piers is plowing his half acre and
+refuses to leave his work and lead them. He sets them all to honest toil as
+the best possible remedy for their vices, and preaches the gospel of work
+as a preparation for salvation. Throughout the poem Piers bears strong
+resemblance to John Baptist preaching to the crowds in the wilderness. The
+later visions are proclamations of the moral and spiritual life of man. The
+poem grows dramatic in its intensity, rising to its highest power in
+Piers's triumph over Death. And then the poet wakes from his vision with
+the sound of Easter bells ringing in his ears.
+
+Here are a few lines to illustrate the style and language; but the whole
+poem must be read if one is to understand its crude strength and prophetic
+spirit:
+
+    In a somer sesun, whon softe was the sonne,
+    I schop[87] me into a shroud, as I a scheep were,
+    In habite as an heremite, unholy of werkes,
+    Went wyde in this world, wondres to here.
+    Bote in a Mayes mornynge, on Malverne hulles,
+    Me byfel a ferly,[88] of fairie me thoughte.
+    I was wery, forwandred, and went me to reste
+    Undur a brod banke, bi a bourne[89] side;
+    And as I lay and lened, and loked on the watres,
+    I slumbred in a slepyng---hit swyed[90] so murie....
+
+
+JOHN WYCLIF (1324?-1384)
+
+Wyclif, as a man, is by far the most powerful English figure of the
+fourteenth century. The immense influence of his preaching in the native
+tongue, and the power of his Lollards to stir the souls of the common folk,
+are too well known historically to need repetition. Though a university man
+and a profound scholar, he sides with Langland, and his interests are with
+the people rather than with the privileged classes, for whom Chaucer
+writes. His great work, which earned him his title of "father of English
+prose," is the translation of the Bible. Wyclif himself translated the
+gospels, and much more of the New Testament; the rest was finished by his
+followers, especially by Nicholas of Hereford. These translations were made
+from the Latin Vulgate, not from the original Greek and Hebrew, and the
+whole work was revised in 1388 by John Purvey, a disciple of Wyclif. It is
+impossible to overestimate the influence of this work, both on our English
+prose and on the lives of the English people.
+
+Though Wyclif's works are now unread, except by occasional scholars, he
+still occupies a very high place in our literature. His translation of the
+Bible was slowly copied all over England, and so fixed a national standard
+of English prose to replace the various dialects. Portions of this
+translation, in the form of favorite passages from Scripture, were copied
+by thousands, and for the first time in our history a standard of pure
+English was established in the homes of the common people.
+
+As a suggestion of the language of that day, we quote a few familiar
+sentences from the Sermon on the Mount, as given in the later version of
+Wyclif's Gospel:
+
+And he openyde his mouth, and taughte hem, and seide, Blessid ben pore men
+in spirit, for the kyngdom of hevenes is herne.[91] Blessid ben mylde men,
+for thei schulen welde[92] the erthe. Blessid ben thei that mornen, for
+thei schulen be coumfortid. Blessid ben thei that hungren and thristen
+rightwisnesse,[93] for thei schulen be fulfillid. Blessid ben merciful men,
+for thei schulen gete merci. Blessid ben thei that ben of clene herte, for
+thei schulen se God. Blessid ben pesible men, for thei schulen be
+clepid[94] Goddis children. Blessid ben thei that suffren persecusioun for
+rightfulnesse, for the kyngdom of hevenes is herne.[95] ...
+
+Eftsoone ye han herd, that it was seid to elde men, Thou schalt not
+forswere, but thou schalt yelde[96] thin othis to the Lord. But Y seie[97]
+to you, that ye swere not for ony thing;... but be youre worde, yhe, yhe;
+nay, nay; and that that is more than these, is of yvel....
+
+Ye han herd that it was seid, Thou schalt love thi neighbore, and hate thin
+enemye. But Y seie to you, love ye youre enemyes, do ye wel to hem[98] that
+hatiden[99] you, and preye ye for hem that pursuen[100] and sclaundren[101]
+you; that ye be the sones of youre Fadir that is in hevenes, that makith
+his sunne to rise upon goode and yvele men, and reyneth[102] on just men
+and unjuste.... Therefore be ye parfit, as youre hevenli Fadir is parfit.
+
+
+JOHN MANDEVILLE
+
+About the year 1356 there appeared in England an extraordinary book called
+the _Voyage and Travail of Sir John Maundeville_, written in excellent
+style in the Midland dialect, which was then becoming the literary language
+of England. For years this interesting work and its unknown author were
+subjects of endless dispute; but it is now fairly certain that this
+collection of travelers' tales is simply a compilation from Odoric, Marco
+Polo, and various other sources. The original work was probably in French,
+which was speedily translated into Latin, then into English and other
+languages; and wherever it appeared it became extremely popular, its
+marvelous stories of foreign lands being exactly suited to the credulous
+spirit of the age.[103] At the present time there are said to be three
+hundred copied manuscripts of "Mandeville" in various languages,--more,
+probably, than of any other work save the gospels. In the prologue of the
+English version the author calls himself John Maundeville and gives an
+outline of his wide travels during thirty years; but the name is probably a
+"blind," the prologue more or less spurious, and the real compiler is still
+to be discovered.
+
+The modern reader may spend an hour or two very pleasantly in this old
+wonderland. On its literary side the book is remarkable, though a
+translation, as being the first prose work in modern English having a
+distinctly literary style and flavor. Otherwise it is a most interesting
+commentary on the general culture and credulity of the fourteenth century.
+
+
+SUMMARY OF THE AGE OF CHAUCER. The fourteenth century is remarkable
+historically for the decline of feudalism (organized by the Normans), for
+the growth of the English national spirit during the wars with France, for
+the prominence of the House of Commons, and for the growing power of the
+laboring classes, who had heretofore been in a condition hardly above that
+of slavery.
+
+The age produced five writers of note, one of whom, Geoffrey Chaucer, is
+one of the greatest of English writers. His poetry is remarkable for its
+variety, its story interest, and its wonderful melody. Chaucer's work and
+Wyclif's translation of the Bible developed the Midland dialect into the
+national language of England.
+
+In our study we have noted: (1) Chaucer, his life and work; his early or
+French period, in which he translated "The Romance of the Rose" and wrote
+many minor poems; his middle or Italian period, of which the chief poems
+are "Troilus and Cressida" and "The Legend of Good Women"; his late or
+English period, in which he worked at his masterpiece, the famous
+_Canterbury Tales_. (2) Langland, the poet and prophet of social reforms.
+His chief work is _Piers Plowman_. (3) Wyclif, the religious reformer, who
+first translated the gospels into English, and by his translation fixed a
+common standard of English speech. (4) Mandeville, the alleged traveler,
+who represents the new English interest in distant lands following the
+development of foreign trade. He is famous for _Mandeville's Travels_, a
+book which romances about the wonders to be seen abroad. The fifth writer
+of the age is Gower, who wrote in three languages, French, Latin, and
+English. His chief English work is the _Confessio Amantis_, a long poem
+containing one hundred and twelve tales. Of these only the "Knight Florent"
+and two or three others are interesting to a modern reader.
+
+SELECTIONS FOR READING. Chaucer's Prologue, the Knight's Tale, Nun's
+Priest's Tale, Prioress' Tale, Clerk's Tale. These are found, more or less
+complete, in Standard English Classics, King's Classics, Riverside
+Literature Series, etc. Skeat's school edition of the Prologue, Knight's
+Tale, etc., is especially good, and includes a study of fourteenth-century
+English. Miscellaneous poems of Chaucer in Manly's English Poetry or Ward's
+English Poets. Piers Plowman, in King's Classics. Mandeville's Travels,
+modernized, in English Classics, and in Cassell's National Library.
+
+For the advanced student, and as a study of language, compare selections
+from Wyclif, Chaucer's prose work, Mandeville, etc., in Manly's English
+Prose, or Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English, or Craik's English
+Prose Selections. Selections from Wyclif's Bible in English Classics
+Series.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.[104]
+
+_HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 115-149, or Cheyney, pp. 186-263. For
+fuller treatment, Green, ch. 5; Traill; Gardiner.
+
+_Special Works_. Hutton's King and Baronage (Oxford Manuals); Jusserand's
+Wayfaring Life in the Fourteenth Century; Coulton's Chaucer and his
+England; Pauli's Pictures from Old England; Wright's History of Domestic
+Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages; Trevelyan's
+England in the Age of Wyclif; Jenks's In the Days of Chaucer; Froissart's
+Chronicle, in Everyman's Library; the same, new edition, 1895 (Macmillan);
+Lanier's Boys' Froissart (i.e. Froissart's Chronicle of Historical Events,
+1325-1400); Newbolt's Stories from Froissart; Bulfinch's Age of Chivalry
+may be read in connection with this and the preceding periods.
+
+_LITERATURE. General Works_. Jusserand; Ten Brink; Mitchell; Minto's
+Characteristics of English Poets; Courthope's History of English Poetry.
+
+_Chaucer_, (1) Life: by Lounsbury, in Studies in Chaucer, vol. I; by Ward,
+in English Men of Letters Series; Pollard's Chaucer Primer. (2) Aids to
+study: F.J. Snell's The Age of Chaucer; Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer (3
+vols.); Root's The Poetry of Chaucer; Lowell's Essay, in My Study Windows;
+Hammond's Chaucer: a Biographical Manual; Hempl's Chaucer's Pronunciation;
+Introductions to school editions of Chaucer, by Skeat, Liddell, and Mather.
+(3) Texts and selections: The Oxford Chaucer, 6 vols., edited by Skeat, is
+the standard; Skeat's Student's Chaucer; The Globe Chaucer (Macmillan);
+Works of Chaucer, edited by Lounsbury (Crowell); Pollard's The Canterbury
+Tales, Eversley edition; Skeat's Selections from Chaucer (Clarendon Press);
+Chaucer's Prologue, and various tales, in Standard English Classics (Ginn
+and Company), and in other school series.
+
+_Minor Writers_. Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English Prose.
+Jusserand's Piers Plowman; Skeat's Piers Plowman (text, glossary and
+notes); Warren's Piers Plowman in Modern Prose. Arnold's Wyclif's Select
+English Works; Sergeant's Wyclif (Heroes of the Nation Series); Le Bas's
+Life of John Wyclif. Travels of Sir John Mandeville (modern spelling), in
+Library of English Classics; Macaulay's Gower's English Works.
+
+SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What are the chief historical events of the
+fourteenth century? What social movement is noticeable? What writers
+reflect political and social conditions?
+
+2. Tell briefly the story of Chaucer's life. What foreign influences are
+noticeable? Name a few poems illustrating his three periods of work. What
+qualities have you noticed in his poetry? Why is he called our first
+national poet?
+
+3. Give the plan of the _Canterbury Tales_. For what is the Prologue
+remarkable? What light does it throw upon English life of the fourteenth
+century? Quote or read some passages that have impressed you. Which
+character do you like best? Are any of the characters like certain men and
+women whom you know? What classes of society are introduced? Is Chaucer's
+attitude sympathetic or merely critical?
+
+4. Tell in your own words the tale you like best. Which tale seems truest
+to life as you know it? Mention any other poets who tell stories in verse.
+
+5. Quote or read passages which show Chaucer's keenness of observation, his
+humor, his kindness in judgment, his delight in nature. What side of human
+nature does he emphasize? Make a little comparison between Chaucer and
+Shakespeare, having in mind (1) the characters described by both poets, (2)
+their knowledge of human nature, (3) the sources of their plots, (4) the
+interest of their works.
+
+6. Describe briefly _Piers Plowman_ and its author. Why is the poem called
+"the gospel of the poor"? What message does it contain for daily labor?
+Does it apply to any modern conditions? Note any resemblance in ideas
+between _Piers Plowman_ and such modern works as Carlyle's _Past and
+Present_, Kingsley's _Alton Locke_, Morris's _Dream of John Ball_, etc.
+
+7. For what is Wyclif remarkable in literature? How did his work affect our
+language? Note resemblances and differences between Wyclif and the
+Puritans.
+
+8. What is _Mandeville's Travels_? What light does it throw on the mental
+condition of the age? What essential difference do you note between this
+book and _Gulliver's Travels_?
+
+
+                    CHRONOLOGY, FOURTEENTH CENTURY
+=======================================================================
+  HISTORY                          |  LITERATURE
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+1327. Edward III                   |
+                                   |
+1338. Beginning of Hundred Years'  |
+      War with France              |  1340(?). Birth of Chaucer
+                                   |
+1347. Capture of Calais            |
+                                   |
+1348-1349. Black Death             |  1356. Mandeville's Travels
+                                   |
+                                   |  1359. Chaucer in French War
+                                   |
+                                   |  1360-1370. Chaucer's early
+                                   |     or French period
+                                   |
+1373. Winchester College, first    |
+      great public school          |  1370-1385. Chaucer's Middle or
+                                   |     Italian period
+1377. Richard II. Wyclif and the   |
+      Lollards begin Reformation   |  1362-1395. Piers Plowman
+      in England                   |
+                                   |
+1381. Peasant Rebellion. Wat Tyler |  1385-1400. Canterbury Tales
+                                   |
+                                   |  1382. First complete Bible in
+                                   |     English
+                                   |
+1399. Deposition of Richard II.    |  1400. Death of Chaucer
+      Henry IV chosen by Parliament|     (Dante's Divina Commedia,
+                                   |     _c_. 1310; Petrarch's
+                                   |     sonnets and poems, 1325-1374;
+                                   |     Boccaccio's tales, _c_.
+                                   |     1350.)
+========================================================================
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING (1400-1550)
+
+I. HISTORY OF THE PERIOD
+
+POLITICAL CHANGES. The century and a half following the death of Chaucer
+(1400-1550) is the most volcanic period of English history. The land is
+swept by vast changes, inseparable from the rapid accumulation of national
+power; but since power is the most dangerous of gifts until men have
+learned to control it, these changes seem at first to have no specific aim
+or direction. Henry V--whose erratic yet vigorous life, as depicted by
+Shakespeare, was typical of the life of his times--first let Europe feel
+the might of the new national spirit. To divert that growing and unruly
+spirit from rebellion at home, Henry led his army abroad, in the apparently
+impossible attempt to gain for himself three things: a French wife, a
+French revenue, and the French crown itself. The battle of Agincourt was
+fought in 1415, and five years later, by the Treaty of Troyes, France
+acknowledged his right to all his outrageous demands.
+
+The uselessness of the terrific struggle on French soil is shown by the
+rapidity with which all its results were swept away. When Henry died in
+1422, leaving his son heir to the crowns of France and England, a
+magnificent recumbent statue with head of pure silver was placed in
+Westminster Abbey to commemorate his victories. The silver head was
+presently stolen, and the loss is typical of all that he had struggled for.
+His son, Henry VI, was but the shadow of a king, a puppet in the hands of
+powerful nobles, who seized the power of England and turned it to self-
+destruction. Meanwhile all his foreign possessions were won back by the
+French under the magic leadership of Joan of Arc. Cade's Rebellion (1450)
+and the bloody Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) are names to show how the
+energy of England was violently destroying itself, like a great engine that
+has lost its balance wheel. The frightful reign of Richard III followed,
+which had, however, this redeeming quality, that it marked the end of civil
+wars and the self-destruction of feudalism, and made possible a new growth
+of English national sentiment under the popular Tudors.
+
+In the long reign of Henry VIII the changes are less violent, but have more
+purpose and significance. His age is marked by a steady increase in the
+national power at home and abroad, by the entrance of the Reformation "by a
+side door," and by the final separation of England from all ecclesiastical
+bondage in Parliament's famous Act of Supremacy. In previous reigns
+chivalry and the old feudal system had practically been banished; now
+monasticism, the third mediæval institution with its mixed evil and good,
+received its death-blow in the wholesale suppression of the monasteries and
+the removal of abbots from the House of Lords. Notwithstanding the evil
+character of the king and the hypocrisy of proclaiming such a creature the
+head of any church or the defender of any faith, we acquiesce silently in
+Stubb's declaration[105] that "the world owes some of its greatest debts to
+men from whose memory the world recoils."
+
+While England during this period was in constant political strife, yet
+rising slowly, like the spiral flight of an eagle, to heights of national
+greatness, intellectually it moved forward with bewildering rapidity.
+Printing was brought to England by Caxton (_c_. 1476), and for the first
+time in history it was possible for a book or an idea to reach the whole
+nation. Schools and universities were established in place of the old
+monasteries; Greek ideas and Greek culture came to England in the
+Renaissance, and man's spiritual freedom was proclaimed in the Reformation.
+The great names of the period are numerous and significant, but literature
+is strangely silent. Probably the very turmoil of the age prevented any
+literary development, for literature is one of the arts of peace; it
+requires quiet and meditation rather than activity, and the stirring life
+of the Renaissance had first to be lived before it could express itself in
+the new literature of the Elizabethan period.
+
+THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING. The Revival of Learning denotes, in its broadest
+sense, that gradual enlightenment of the human mind after the darkness of
+the Middle Ages. The names Renaissance and Humanism, which are often
+applied to the same movement, have properly a narrower significance. The
+term Renaissance, though used by many writers "to denote the whole
+transition from the Middle Ages to the modern world,"[106] is more
+correctly applied to the revival of art resulting from the discovery and
+imitation of classic models in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
+Humanism applies to the revival of classic literature, and was so called by
+its leaders, following the example of Petrarch, because they held that the
+study of the classics, _literae humaniores_,--i.e. the "more human
+writings," rather than the old theology,--was the best means of promoting
+the largest human interests. We use the term Revival of Learning to cover
+the whole movement, whose essence was, according to Lamartine, that "man
+discovered himself and the universe," and, according to Taine, that man, so
+long blinded, "had suddenly opened his eyes and seen."
+
+We shall understand this better if we remember that in the Middle Ages
+man's whole world consisted of the narrow Mediterranean and the nations
+that clustered about it; and that this little world seemed bounded by
+impassable barriers, as if God had said to their sailors, "Hitherto shalt
+thou come, but no farther." Man's mind also was bounded by the same narrow
+lines. His culture as measured by the great deductive system of
+Scholasticism consisted not in discovery, but rather in accepting certain
+principles and traditions established by divine and ecclesiastical
+authority as the basis of all truth. These were his Pillars of Hercules,
+his mental and spiritual bounds that he must not pass, and within these,
+like a child playing with lettered blocks, he proceeded to build his
+intellectual system. Only as we remember their limitations can we
+appreciate the heroism of these toilers of the Middle Ages, giants in
+intellect, yet playing with children's toys; ignorant of the laws and
+forces of the universe, while debating the essence and locomotion of
+angels; eager to learn, yet forbidden to enter fresh fields in the right of
+free exploration and the joy of individual discovery.
+
+The Revival stirred these men as the voyages of Da Gama and Columbus
+stirred the mariners of the Mediterranean. First came the sciences and
+inventions of the Arabs, making their way slowly against the prejudice of
+the authorities, and opening men's eyes to the unexplored realms of nature.
+Then came the flood of Greek literature which the new art of printing
+carried swiftly to every school in Europe, revealing a new world of poetry
+and philosophy. Scholars flocked to the universities, as adventurers to the
+new world of America, and there the old authority received a deathblow.
+Truth only was authority; to search for truth everywhere, as men sought for
+new lands and gold and the fountain of youth,--that was the new spirit
+which awoke in Europe with the Revival of Learning.
+
+
+II. LITERATURE OF THE REVIVAL
+
+The hundred and fifty years of the Revival period are singularly destitute
+of good literature. Men's minds were too much occupied with religious and
+political changes and with the rapid enlargement of the mental horizon to
+find time for that peace and leisure which are essential for literary
+results. Perhaps, also, the floods of newly discovered classics, which
+occupied scholars and the new printing presses alike, were by their very
+power and abundance a discouragement of native talent. Roger Ascham
+(1515-1568), a famous classical scholar, who published a book called
+_Toxophilus_ (School of Shooting) in 1545, expresses in his preface, or
+"apology," a very widespread dissatisfaction over the neglect of native
+literature when he says, "And as for ye Latin or greke tongue, every thing
+is so excellently done in them, that none can do better: In the Englysh
+tonge contrary, every thinge in a maner so meanly, both for the matter and
+handelynge, that no man can do worse."
+
+On the Continent, also, this new interest in the classics served to check
+the growth of native literatures. In Italy especially, for a full century
+after the brilliant age of Dante and Petrarch, no great literature was
+produced, and the Italian language itself seemed to go backward.[107] The
+truth is that these great writers were, like Chaucer, far in advance of
+their age, and that the mediæval mind was too narrow, too scantily
+furnished with ideas to produce a varied literature. The fifteenth century
+was an age of preparation, of learning the beginnings of science, and of
+getting acquainted with the great ideals,--the stern law, the profound
+philosophy, the suggestive mythology, and the noble poetry of the Greeks
+and Romans. So the mind was furnished with ideas for a new literature.
+
+With the exception of Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_ (which is still mediæval in
+spirit) the student will find little of interest in the literature of this
+period. We give here a brief summary of the men and the books most "worthy
+of remembrance"; but for the real literature of the Renaissance one must go
+forward a century and a half to the age of Elizabeth.
+
+The two greatest books which appeared in England during this period are
+undoubtedly Erasmus's[108] _Praise of Folly_ (_Encomium Moriae_) and More's
+_Utopia_, the famous "Kingdom of Nowhere." Both were written in Latin, but
+were speedily translated into all European languages. The _Praise of Folly_
+is like a song of victory for the New Learning, which had driven away vice,
+ignorance, and superstition, the three foes of humanity. It was published
+in 1511 after the accession of Henry VIII. Folly is represented as donning
+cap and bells and mounting a pulpit, where the vice and cruelty of kings,
+the selfishness and ignorance of the clergy, and the foolish standards of
+education are satirized without mercy.
+
+More's _Utopia_, published in 1516, is a powerful and original study of
+social conditions, unlike anything which had ever appeared in any
+literature.[109] In our own day we have seen its influence in Bellamy's
+_Looking Backward_, an enormously successful book, which recently set
+people to thinking of the unnecessary cruelty of modern social conditions.
+More learns from a sailor, one of Amerigo Vespucci's companions, of a
+wonderful Kingdom of Nowhere, in which all questions of labor, government,
+society, and religion have been easily settled by simple justice and common
+sense. In this _Utopia_ we find for the first time, as the foundations of
+civilized society, the three great words, Liberty, Fraternity, Equality,
+which retained their inspiration through all the violence of the French
+Revolution and which are still the unrealized ideal of every free
+government. As he hears of this wonderful country More wonders why, after
+fifteen centuries of Christianity, his own land is so little civilized; and
+as we read the book to-day we ask ourselves the same question. The splendid
+dream is still far from being realized; yet it seems as if any nation could
+become Utopia in a single generation, so simple and just are the
+requirements.
+
+Greater than either of these books, in its influence upon the common
+people, is Tyndale's translation of the New Testament (1525), which fixed a
+standard of good English, and at the same time brought that standard not
+only to scholars but to the homes of the common people. Tyndale made his
+translation from the original Greek, and later translated parts of the Old
+Testament from the Hebrew. Much of Tyndale's work was included in Cranmer's
+Bible, known also as the Great Bible, in 1539, and was read in every parish
+church in England. It was the foundation for the Authorized Version, which
+appeared nearly a century later and became the standard for the whole
+English-speaking race.
+
+WYATT AND SURREY. In 1557 appeared probably the first printed collection of
+miscellaneous English poems, known as _Tottel's Miscellany_. It contained
+the work of the so-called courtly makers, or poets, which had hitherto
+circulated in manuscript form for the benefit of the court. About half of
+these poems were the work of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?-1542) and of Henry
+Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517?-1547). Both together wrote amorous sonnets
+modeled after the Italians, introducing a new verse form which, although
+very difficult, has been a favorite ever since with our English poets.[110]
+Surrey is noted, not for any especial worth or originality of his own
+poems, but rather for his translation of two books of Virgil "in strange
+meter." The strange meter was the blank verse, which had never before
+appeared in English. The chief literary work of these two men, therefore,
+is to introduce the sonnet and the blank verse,--one the most dainty, the
+other the most flexible and characteristic form of English poetry,--which
+in the hands of Shakespeare and Milton were used to make the world's
+masterpieces.
+
+MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR. The greatest English work of this period, measured
+by its effect on subsequent literature, is undoubtedly the _Morte
+d'Arthur_, a collection of the Arthurian romances told in simple and vivid
+prose. Of Sir Thomas Malory, the author, Caxton[111] in his introduction
+says that he was a knight, and completed his work in 1470, fifteen years
+before Caxton printed it. The record adds that "he was the servant of Jesu
+both by day and night." Beyond that we know little[112] except what may be
+inferred from the splendid work itself.
+
+Malory groups the legends about the central idea of the search for the Holy
+Grail. Though many of the stories, like Tristram and Isolde, are purely
+pagan, Malory treats them all in such a way as to preserve the whole spirit
+of mediæval Christianity as it has been preserved in no other work. It was
+to Malory rather than to Layamon or to the early French writers that
+Shakespeare and his contemporaries turned for their material; and in our
+own age he has supplied Tennyson and Matthew Arnold and Swinburne and
+Morris with the inspiration for the "Idylls of the King" and the "Death of
+Tristram" and the other exquisite poems which center about Arthur and the
+knights of his Round Table.
+
+In subject-matter the book belongs to the mediæval age; but Malory himself,
+with his desire to preserve the literary monuments of the past, belongs to
+the Renaissance; and he deserves our lasting gratitude for attempting to
+preserve the legends and poetry of Britain at a time when scholars were
+chiefly busy with the classics of Greece and Rome. As the Arthurian legends
+are one of the great recurring motives of English literature, Malory's work
+should be better known. His stories may be and should be told to every
+child as part of his literary inheritance. Then Malory may be read for his
+style and his English prose and his expression of the mediæval spirit. And
+then the stories may be read again, in Tennyson's "Idylls," to show how
+those exquisite old fancies appeal to the minds of our modern poets.
+
+
+SUMMARY OF THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING PERIOD. This transition period is at
+first one of decline from the Age of Chaucer, and then of intellectual
+preparation for the Age of Elizabeth. For a century and a half after
+Chaucer not a single great English work appeared, and the general standard
+of literature was very low. There are three chief causes to account for
+this: (1) the long war with France and the civil Wars of the Roses
+distracted attention from books and poetry, and destroyed of ruined many
+noble English families who had been friends and patrons of literature; (2)
+the Reformation in the latter part of the period filled men's minds with
+religious questions; (3) the Revival of Learning set scholars and literary
+men to an eager study of the classics, rather than to the creation of
+native literature. Historically the age is noticeable for its intellectual
+progress, for the introduction of printing, for the discovery of America,
+for the beginning of the Reformation, and for the growth of political power
+among the common people.
+
+In our study we have noted: (1) the Revival of Learning, what it was, and
+the significance of the terms Humanism and Renaissance; (2) three
+influential literary works,--Erasmus's _Praise of Folly_, More's _Utopia_,
+and Tyndale's translation of the New Testament; (3) Wyatt and Surrey, and
+the so-called courtly makers or poets; (4) Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, a
+collection of the Arthurian legends in English prose. The Miracle and
+Mystery Plays were the most popular form of entertainment in this age; but
+we have reserved them for special study in connection with the Rise of the
+Drama, in the following chapter.
+
+SELECTIONS FOR READING. Malory's Morte d'Arthur, selections, in Athenaeum
+Press Series, etc. (It is interesting to read Tennyson's Passing of Arthur
+in connection with Malory's account.) Utopia, in Arber's Reprints, Temple
+Classics, King's Classics, etc. Selections from Wyatt, Surrey, etc., in
+Manly's English Poetry or Ward's English Poets; Tottel's Miscellany, in
+Arber's Reprints. Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English, vol. 3,
+has good selections from this period.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.[113]
+
+_HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 150-208, or Cheyney, pp. 264-328.
+Greene, ch. 6; Traill; Gardiner; Froude; etc.
+
+_Special Works_. Denton's England in the Fifteenth Century; Flower's The
+Century of Sir Thomas More; The Household of Sir Thomas More, in King's
+Classics; Green's Town Life in the Fifteenth Century; Field's Introduction
+to the Study of the Renaissance; Einstein's The Italian Renaissance in
+England; Seebohm's The Oxford Reformers (Erasmus, More, etc.).
+
+_LITERATURE. General Works_. Jusserand; Ten Brink; Minto's Characteristics
+of English Poets.
+
+_Special Works_. Saintsbury's Elizabethan Literature; Malory's Morte
+d'Arthur, edited by Sommer; the same by Gollancz (Temple Classics);
+Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur; More's Utopia, in Temple Classics, King's
+Classics, etc.; Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More, in King's Classics, Temple
+Classics, etc.; Ascham's Schoolmaster, in Arber's English Reprints; Poems
+of Wyatt and Surrey, in English Reprints and Bell's Aldine Poets; Simonds's
+Sir Thomas Wyatt and His Poems; Allen's Selections from Erasmus;
+Jusserand's Romance of a King's Life (James I of Scotland) contains
+extracts and an admirable criticism of the King's Quair.
+
+SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. The fifteenth century in English literature is
+sometimes called "the age of arrest." Can you explain why? What causes
+account for the lack of great literature in this period? Why should the
+ruin of noble families at this time seriously affect our literature? Can
+you recall anything from the Anglo-Saxon period to justify your opinion?
+
+2. What is meant by Humanism? What was the first effect of the study of
+Greek and Latin classics upon our literature? What excellent literary
+purposes did the classics serve in later periods?
+
+3. What are the chief benefits to literature of the discovery of printing?
+What effect on civilization has the multiplication of books?
+
+4. Describe More's _Utopia_. Do you know any modern books like it? Why
+should any impractical scheme of progress be still called Utopian?
+
+5. What work of this period had the greatest effect on the English
+language? Explain why.
+
+6. What was the chief literary influence exerted by Wyatt and Surrey? Do
+you know any later poets who made use of the verse forms which they
+introduced?
+
+7. Which of Malory's stories do you like best? Where did these stories
+originate? Have they any historical foundation? What two great elements did
+Malory combine in his work? What is the importance of his book to later
+English literature? Compare Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" and Malory's
+stories with regard to material, expression, and interest. Note the marked
+resemblances and differences between the _Morte d'Arthur_ and the
+_Nibelungen Lied_.
+
+                               CHRONOLOGY
+===========================================================================
+  HISTORY                           |  LITERATURE
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+1413. Henry V                       |
+1415. Battle of Agincourt           |
+1422. Henry VI                      | 1470. Malory's Morte d' Arthur
+1428. Siege of Orleans. Joan of Arc | 1474(c). Caxton, at Bruges,
+1453. End of Hundred Year's War     |       prints the first book in
+1455-1485. War of Roses             |       English, the Recuyell of the
+1461. Edward IV                     |       Histories of Troye
+1483. Richard III                   | 1477. First book printed in
+                                    |       England
+1485. Henry VII                     | 1485. Morte d'Arthur printed
+                                    |       by Caxton
+1492. Columbus discovers America    | 1499. Colet, Erasmus, and More
+1509. Henry VIII                    |       bring the New Learning to
+                                    |       Oxford
+                                    | 1509. Erasmus's Praise of
+                                    |       Folly
+                                    | 1516. More's Utopia
+                                    | 1525. Tydale's New Testament
+1534. Act of Supremacy. The         | 1530(c). Introduction of the
+      Reformation accomplished      |       sonnet and blank verse by
+                                    |       Wyatt and Surrey
+                                    | 1539. The Great Bible
+1547. Edward VI                     |
+1553. Mary                          | 1557. Tottel's Miscellany
+1558. Elizabeth                     |
+===========================================================================
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE AGE OF ELIZABETH (1550-1620)
+
+I. HISTORY OF THE PERIOD
+
+POLITICAL SUMMARY. In the Age of Elizabeth all doubt seems to vanish from
+English history. After the reigns of Edward and Mary, with defeat and
+humiliation abroad and persecutions and rebellion at home, the accession of
+a popular sovereign was like the sunrise after a long night, and, in
+Milton's words, we suddenly see England, "a noble and puissant nation,
+rousing herself, like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible
+locks." With the queen's character, a strange mingling of frivolity and
+strength which reminds one of that iron image with feet of clay, we have
+nothing whatever to do. It is the national life that concerns the literary
+student, since even a beginner must notice that any great development of
+the national life is invariably associated with a development of the
+national literature. It is enough for our purpose, therefore, to point out
+two facts: that Elizabeth, with all her vanity and inconsistency, steadily
+loved England and England's greatness; and that she inspired all her people
+with the unbounded patriotism which exults in Shakespeare, and with the
+personal devotion which finds a voice in the _Faery Queen_. Under her
+administration the English national life progressed by gigantic leaps
+rather than by slow historical process, and English literature reached the
+very highest point of its development. It is possible to indicate only a
+few general characteristics of this great age which had a direct bearing
+upon its literature.
+
+CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. The most characteristic feature of
+the age was the comparative religious tolerance, which was due largely to
+the queen's influence. The frightful excesses of the religious war known as
+the Thirty Years' War on the Continent found no parallel in England. Upon
+her accession Elizabeth found the whole kingdom divided against itself; the
+North was largely Catholic, while the southern counties were as strongly
+Protestant. Scotland had followed the Reformation in its own intense way,
+while Ireland remained true to its old religious traditions, and both
+countries were openly rebellious. The court, made up of both parties,
+witnessed the rival intrigues of those who sought to gain the royal favor.
+It was due partly to the intense absorption of men's minds in religious
+questions that the preceding century, though an age of advancing learning,
+produced scarcely any literature worthy of the name. Elizabeth favored both
+religious parties, and presently the world saw with amazement Catholics and
+Protestants acting together as trusted counselors of a great sovereign. The
+defeat of the Spanish Armada established the Reformation as a fact in
+England, and at the same time united all Englishmen in a magnificent
+national enthusiasm. For the first time since the Reformation began, the
+fundamental question of religious toleration seemed to be settled, and the
+mind of man, freed from religious fears and persecutions, turned with a
+great creative impulse to other forms of activity. It is partly from this
+new freedom of the mind that the Age of Elizabeth received its great
+literary stimulus.
+
+2. It was an age of comparative social contentment, in strong contrast with
+the days of Langland. The rapid increase of manufacturing towns gave
+employment to thousands who had before been idle and discontented.
+Increasing trade brought enormous wealth to England, and this wealth was
+shared to this extent, at least, that for the first time some systematic
+care for the needy was attempted. Parishes were made responsible for their
+own poor, and the wealthy were taxed to support them or give them
+employment. The increase of wealth, the improvement in living, the
+opportunities for labor, the new social content--these also are factors
+which help to account for the new literary activity.
+
+3. It is an age of dreams, of adventure, of unbounded enthusiasm springing
+from the new lands of fabulous riches revealed by English explorers. Drake
+sails around the world, shaping the mighty course which English colonizers
+shall follow through the centuries; and presently the young philosopher
+Bacon is saying confidently, "I have taken all knowledge for my province."
+The mind must search farther than the eye; with new, rich lands opened to
+the sight, the imagination must create new forms to people the new worlds.
+Hakluyt's famous _Collection of Voyages_, and _Purchas, His Pilgrimage_,
+were even more stimulating to the English imagination than to the English
+acquisitiveness. While her explorers search the new world for the Fountain
+of Youth, her poets are creating literary works that are young forever.
+Marston writes:[114] "Why, man, all their dripping pans are pure gold. The
+prisoners they take are fettered in gold; and as for rubies and diamonds,
+they goe forth on holydayes and gather 'hem by the seashore to hang on
+their children's coates." This comes nearer to being a description of
+Shakespeare's poetry than of the Indians in Virginia. Prospero, in _The
+Tempest_, with his control over the mighty powers and harmonies of nature,
+is only the literary dream of that science which had just begun to grapple
+with the forces of the universe. Cabot, Drake, Frobisher, Gilbert, Raleigh,
+Willoughby, Hawkins,--a score of explorers reveal a new earth to men's
+eyes, and instantly literature creates a new heaven to match it. So dreams
+and deeds increase side by side, and the dream is ever greater than the
+deed. That is the meaning of literature.
+
+4. To sum up, the Age of Elizabeth was a time of intellectual liberty, of
+growing intelligence and comfort among all classes, of unbounded
+patriotism, and of peace at home and abroad. For a parallel we must go back
+to the Age of Pericles in Athens, or of Augustus in Rome, or go forward a
+little to the magnificent court of Louis XIV, when Corneille, Racine, and
+Molière brought the drama in France to the point where Marlowe,
+Shakespeare, and Jonson had left it in England half a century earlier. Such
+an age of great thought and great action, appealing to the eyes as well as
+to the imagination and intellect, finds but one adequate literary
+expression; neither poetry nor the story can express the whole man,--his
+thought, feeling, action, and the resulting character; hence in the Age of
+Elizabeth literature turned instinctively to the drama and brought it
+rapidly to the highest stage of its development.
+
+
+II. THE NON-DRAMATIC POETS OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE
+
+EDMUND SPENSER (1552-1599)
+
+    _(Cuddie)_
+        "Piers, I have pipéd erst so long with pain
+        That all mine oaten reeds been rent and wore,
+        And my poor Muse hath spent her sparéd store,
+        Yet little good hath got, and much less gain.
+        Such pleasaunce makes the grasshopper so poor,
+        And ligge so layd[115] when winter doth her strain.
+        The dapper ditties that I wont devise,
+        To feed youth's fancy, and the flocking fry
+        Delghten much--what I the bet forthy?
+        They han the pleasure, I a slender prize:
+        I beat the bush, the birds to them do fly:
+        What good thereof to Cuddie can arise?
+    (_Piers_)
+        Cuddie, the praise is better than the price,
+        The glory eke much greater than the gain:..."
+                _Shepherd's Calendar_, October
+
+In these words, with their sorrowful suggestion of Deor, Spenser reveals
+his own heart, unconsciously perhaps, as no biographer could possibly do.
+His life and work seem to center about three great influences, summed up in
+three names: Cambridge, where he grew acquainted with the classics and the
+Italian poets; London, where he experienced the glamour and the
+disappointment of court life; and Ireland, which steeped him in the beauty
+and imagery of old Celtic poetry and first gave him leisure to write his
+masterpiece.
+
+LIFE. Of Spenser's early life and parentage we know little, except that he
+was born in East Smithfield, near the Tower of London, and was poor. His
+education began at the Merchant Tailors' School in London and was continued
+in Cambridge, where as a poor sizar and fag for wealthy students he earned
+a scant living. Here in the glorious world that only a poor scholar knows
+how to create for himself he read the classics, made acquaintance with the
+great Italian poets, and wrote numberless little poems of his own. Though
+Chaucer was his beloved master, his ambition was not to rival the
+_Canterbury Tales_, but rather to express the dream of English chivalry,
+much as Ariosto had done for Italy in _Orlando Furioso_.
+
+After leaving Cambridge (1576) Spenser went to the north of England, on
+some unknown work or quest. Here his chief occupation was to fall in love
+and to record his melancholy over the lost Rosalind in the _Shepherd's
+Calendar_. Upon his friend Harvey's advice he came to London, bringing his
+poems; and here he met Leicester, then at the height of royal favor, and
+the latter took him to live at Leicester House. Here he finished the
+_Shepherd's Calendar_, and here he met Sidney and all the queen's
+favorites. The court was full of intrigues, lying and flattery, and
+Spenser's opinion of his own uncomfortable position is best expressed in a
+few lines from "Mother Hubbard's Tale":
+
+    Full little knowest thou, that has not tried,
+    What hell it is, in suing long to bide:
+    To lose good days, that might be better spent;
+    To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
+           *       *       *       *       *
+    To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
+    To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
+    To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
+    To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
+
+In 1580, through Leicester's influence, Spenser, who was utterly weary of
+his dependent position, was made secretary to Lord Grey, the queen's deputy
+in Ireland, and the third period of his life began. He accompanied his
+chief through one campaign of savage brutality in putting down an Irish
+rebellion, and was given an immense estate with the castle of Kilcolman, in
+Munster, which had been confiscated from Earl Desmond, one of the Irish
+leaders. His life here, where according to the terms of his grant he must
+reside as an English settler, he regarded as lonely exile:
+
+    My luckless lot,
+    That banished had myself, like wight forlore,
+    Into that waste, where I was quite forgot.
+
+It is interesting to note here a gentle poet's view of the "unhappy
+island." After nearly sixteen years' residence he wrote his _View of the
+State of Ireland_ (1596),[116] his only prose work, in which he submits a
+plan for "pacifying the oppressed and rebellious people." This was to bring
+a huge force of cavalry and infantry into the country, give the Irish a
+brief time to submit, and after that to hunt them down like wild beasts. He
+calculated that cold, famine, and sickness would help the work of the
+sword, and that after the rebels had been well hounded for two winters the
+following summer would find the country peaceful. This plan, from the poet
+of harmony and beauty, was somewhat milder than the usual treatment of a
+brave people whose offense was that they loved liberty and religion.
+Strange as it may seem, the _View_ was considered most statesmanlike, and
+was excellently well received in England.
+
+In Kilcolman, surrounded by great natural beauty, Spenser finished the
+first three books of the _Faery Queen_. In 1589 Raleigh visited him, heard
+the poem with enthusiasm, hurried the poet off to London, and presented him
+to Elizabeth. The first three books met with instant success when published
+and were acclaimed as the greatest work in the English language. A yearly
+pension of fifty pounds was conferred by Elizabeth, but rarely paid, and
+the poet turned back to exile, that is, to Ireland again.
+
+Soon after his return, Spenser fell in love with his beautiful Elizabeth,
+an Irish girl; wrote his _Amoretti_, or sonnets, in her honor; and
+afterwards represented her, in the _Faery Queen_, as the beautiful woman
+dancing among the Graces. In 1594 he married Elizabeth, celebrating his
+wedding with his "Epithalamion," one of the most beautiful wedding hymns in
+any language.
+
+Spenser's next visit to London was in 1595, when he published "Astrophel,"
+an elegy on the death of his friend Sidney, and three more books of the
+_Faery Queen_. On this visit he lived again at Leicester House, now
+occupied by the new favorite Essex, where he probably met Shakespeare and
+the other literary lights of the Elizabethan Age. Soon after his return to
+Ireland, Spenser was appointed Sheriff of Cork, a queer office for a poet,
+which probably brought about his undoing. The same year Tyrone's Rebellion
+broke out in Munster. Kilcolman, the ancient house of Desmond, was one of
+the first places attacked by the rebels, and Spenser barely escaped with
+his wife and two children. It is supposed that some unfinished parts of the
+_Faery Queen_ were burned in the castle.
+
+From the shock of this frightful experience Spenser never recovered. He
+returned to England heartbroken, and in the following year (1599) he died
+in an inn at Westminster. According to Ben Jonson he died "for want of
+bread"; but whether that is a poetic way of saying that he had lost his
+property or that he actually died of destitution, will probably never be
+known. He was buried beside his master Chaucer in Westminster Abbey, the
+poets of that age thronging to his funeral and, according to Camden,
+"casting their elegies and the pens that had written them into his tomb."
+
+SPENSER'S WORKS. _The Faery Queen_ is the great work upon which the poet's
+fame chiefly rests. The original plan of the poem included twenty-four
+books, each of which was to recount the adventure and triumph of a knight
+who represented a moral virtue. Spenser's purpose, as indicated in a letter
+to Raleigh which introduces the poem, is as follows:
+
+To pourtraict in Arthure, before he was king, the image of a brave Knight,
+perfected in the twelve private Morall Vertues, as Aristotle hath devised;
+which is the purpose of these first twelve bookes: which if I finde to be
+well accepted, I may be perhaps encoraged to frame the other part of
+Polliticke Vertues in his person, after that hee came to be king.
+
+Each of the Virtues appears as a knight, fighting his opposing Vice, and
+the poem tells the story of the conflicts. It is therefore purely
+allegorical, not only in its personified virtues but also in its
+representation of life as a struggle between good and evil. In its strong
+moral element the poem differs radically from _Orlando Furioso_, upon which
+it was modeled. Spenser completed only six books, celebrating Holiness,
+Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. We have also a
+fragment of the seventh, treating of Constancy; but the rest of this book
+was not written, or else was lost in the fire at Kilcolman. The first three
+books are by far the best; and judging by the way the interest lags and the
+allegory grows incomprehensible, it is perhaps as well for Spenser's
+reputation that the other eighteen books remained a dream.
+
+ARGUMENT OF THE FAERY QUEEN. From the introductory letter we learn that the
+hero visits the queen's court in Fairy Land, while she is holding a
+twelve-days festival. On each day some distressed person appears
+unexpectedly, tells a woful story of dragons, of enchantresses, or of
+distressed beauty or virtue, and asks for a champion to right the wrong and
+to let the oppressed go free. Sometimes a knight volunteers or begs for the
+dangerous mission; again the duty is assigned by the queen; and the
+journeys and adventures of these knights are the subjects of the several
+books. The first recounts the adventures of the Redcross Knight,
+representing Holiness, and the lady Una, representing Religion. Their
+contests are symbolical of the world-wide struggle between virtue and faith
+on the one hand, and sin and heresy on the other. The second book tells the
+story of Sir Guyon, or Temperance; the third, of Britomartis, representing
+Chastity; the fourth, fifth, and sixth, of Cambel and Triamond
+(Friendship), Artegall (Justice), and Sir Calidore (Courtesy). Spenser's
+plan was a very elastic one and he filled up the measure of his narrative
+with everything that caught his fancy,--historical events and personages
+under allegorical masks, beautiful ladies, chivalrous knights, giants,
+monsters, dragons, sirens, enchanters, and adventures enough to stock a
+library of fiction. If you read Homer or Virgil, you know his subject in
+the first strong line; if you read Cædmon's _Paraphrase_ or Milton's epic,
+the introduction gives you the theme; but Spenser's great poem--with the
+exception of a single line in the prologue, "Fierce warres and faithfull
+loves shall moralize my song"--gives hardly a hint of what is coming.
+
+As to the meaning of the allegorical figures, one is generally in doubt. In
+the first three books the shadowy Faery Queen sometimes represents the
+glory of God and sometimes Elizabeth, who was naturally flattered by the
+parallel. Britomartis is also Elizabeth. The Redcross Knight is Sidney, the
+model Englishman. Arthur, who always appears to rescue the oppressed, is
+Leicester, which is another outrageous flattery. Una is sometimes religion
+and sometimes the Protestant Church; while Duessa represents Mary Queen of
+Scots, or general Catholicism. In the last three books Elizabeth appears
+again as Mercilla; Henry IV of France as Bourbon; the war in the
+Netherlands as the story of Lady Belge; Raleigh as Timias; the earls of
+Northumberland and Westmoreland (lovers of Mary or Duessa) as Blandamour
+and Paridell; and so on through the wide range of contemporary characters
+and events, till the allegory becomes as difficult to follow as the second
+part of Goethe's _Faust_.
+
+POETICAL FORM. For the _Faery Queen_ Spenser invented a new verse form,
+which has been called since his day the Spenserian stanza. Because of its
+rare beauty it has been much used by nearly all our poets in their best
+work. The new stanza was an improved form of Ariosto's _ottava rima_ (i.e.
+eight-line stanza) and bears a close resemblance to one of Chaucer's most
+musical verse forms in the "Monk's Tale." Spenser's stanza is in nine
+lines, eight of five feet each and the last of six feet, riming
+_ababbcbcc_. A few selections from the first book, which is best worth
+reading, are reproduced here to show the style and melody of the verse.
+
+      A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,
+      Ycladd[117] in mightie armes and silver shielde,
+      Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine
+      The cruell markes of many a bloody fielde;
+      Yet armes till that time did he never wield:
+      His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,
+      As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:
+      Full iolly[118] knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,
+    As one for knightly giusts[119] and fierce encounters fitt.
+      And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore,
+      The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,
+      For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,
+      And dead, as living ever, him ador'd:
+      Upon his shield the like was also scor'd,
+      For soveraine hope, which in his helpe he had,
+      Right faithfull true he was in deede and word;
+      But of his cheere[120] did seeme too solemne sad;
+    Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.[121]
+
+This sleepy bit, from the dwelling of Morpheus, invites us to linger:
+
+      And, more to lulle him in his slumber soft,
+      A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe,
+      And ever-drizling raine upon the loft,
+      Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne
+      Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne.
+      No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,
+      As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne,
+      Might there be heard: but carelesse Quiet lyes,
+      Wrapt in eternal silence farre from enimyes.
+
+The description of Una shows the poet's sense of ideal beauty:
+
+      One day, nigh wearie of the yrkesome way,
+      From her unhastie beast she did alight;
+      And on the grasse her dainty limbs did lay
+      In secrete shadow, far from all mens sight;
+      From her fayre head her fillet she undight,[122]
+      And layd her stole aside; Her angels face,
+      As the great eye of heaven, shynéd bright,
+      And made a sunshine in the shady place;
+    Did never mortall eye behold such heavenly grace.
+      It fortunéd, out of the thickest wood
+      A ramping lyon rushéd suddeinly,
+      Hunting full greedy after salvage blood:
+      Soone as the royall Virgin he did spy,
+      With gaping mouth at her ran greedily,
+      To have at once devourd her tender corse:
+      But to the pray whenas he drew more ny,
+      His bloody rage aswaged with remorse,[123]
+    And, with the sight amazd, forgat his furious forse.
+      Instead thereof he kist her wearie feet,
+      And lickt her lilly hands with fawning tong;
+      As he her wrongéd innocence did weet.[124]
+      O how can beautie maister the most strong,
+      And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!
+
+MINOR POEMS. Next to his masterpiece, the _Shepherd's Calendar_ (1579) is
+the best known of Spenser's poems; though, as his first work, it is below
+many others in melody. It consists of twelve pastoral poems, or eclogues,
+one for each month of the year. The themes are generally rural life,
+nature, love in the fields; and the speakers are shepherds and
+shepherdesses. To increase the rustic effect Spenser uses strange forms of
+speech and obsolete words, to such an extent that Jonson complained his
+works are not English or any other language. Some are melancholy poems on
+his lost Rosalind; some are satires on the clergy; one, "The Briar and the
+Oak," is an allegory; one flatters Elizabeth, and others are pure fables
+touched with the Puritan spirit. They are written in various styles and
+meters, and show plainly that Spenser was practicing and preparing himself
+for greater work.
+
+Other noteworthy poems are "Mother Hubbard's Tale," a satire on society;
+"Astrophel," an elegy on the death of Sidney; _Amoretti_, or sonnets, to
+his Elizabeth; the marriage hymn, "Epithalamion," and four "Hymns," on
+Love, Beauty, Heavenly Love, and Heavenly Beauty. There are numerous other
+poems and collections of poems, but these show the scope of his work and
+are best worth reading.
+
+IMPORTANCE OF THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR. The publication of this work, in
+1579, by an unknown writer who signed himself modestly "Immerito," marks an
+important epoch in our literature. We shall appreciate this better if we
+remember the long years during which England had been without a great poet.
+Chaucer and Spenser are often studied together as poets of the Renaissance
+period, and the idea prevails that they were almost contemporary. In fact,
+nearly two centuries passed after Chaucer's death,--years of enormous
+political and intellectual development,--and not only did Chaucer have no
+successor but our language had changed so rapidly that Englishmen had lost
+the ability to read his lines correctly.[125]
+
+This first published work of Spenser is noteworthy in at least four
+respects: first, it marks the appearance of the first national poet in two
+centuries; second, it shows again the variety and melody of English verse,
+which had been largely a tradition since Chaucer; third, it was our first
+pastoral, the beginning of a long series of English pastoral compositions
+modeled on Spenser, and as such exerted a strong influence on subsequent
+literature; and fourth, it marks the real beginning of the outburst of
+great Elizabethan poetry.
+
+CHARACTERISTICS OF SPENSER'S POETRY. The five main qualities of Spenser's
+poetry are (1) a perfect melody; (2) a rare sense of beauty; (3) a splendid
+imagination, which could gather into one poem heroes, knights, ladies,
+dwarfs, demons and dragons, classic mythology, stories of chivalry, and the
+thronging ideals of the Renaissance,--all passing in gorgeous procession
+across an ever-changing and ever-beautiful landscape; (4) a lofty moral
+purity and seriousness; (5) a delicate idealism, which could make all
+nature and every common thing beautiful. In contrast with these excellent
+qualities the reader will probably note the strange appearance of his lines
+due to his fondness for obsolete words, like _eyne_ (eyes) and _shend_
+(shame), and his tendency to coin others, like _mercify_, to suit his own
+purposes.
+
+It is Spenser's idealism, his love of beauty, and his exquisite melody
+which have caused him to be known as "the poets' poet." Nearly all our
+subsequent singers acknowledge their delight in him and their indebtedness.
+Macaulay alone among critics voices a fault which all who are not poets
+quickly feel, namely that, with all Spenser's excellences, he is difficult
+to read. The modern man loses himself in the confused allegory of the
+_Faery Queen_, skips all but the marked passages, and softly closes the
+book in gentle weariness. Even the best of his longer poems, while of
+exquisite workmanship and delightfully melodious, generally fail to hold
+the reader's attention. The movement is languid; there is little dramatic
+interest, and only a suggestion of humor. The very melody of his verses
+sometimes grows monotonous, like a Strauss waltz too long continued. We
+shall best appreciate Spenser by reading at first only a few well-chosen
+selections from the _Faery Queen_ and the _Shepherd's Calendar_, and a few
+of the minor poems which exemplify his wonderful melody.
+
+COMPARISON BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER. At the outset it is well to
+remember that, though Spenser regarded Chaucer as his master, two centuries
+intervene between them, and that their writings have almost nothing in
+common. We shall appreciate this better by a brief comparison between our
+first two modern poets.
+
+Chaucer was a combined poet and man of affairs, with the latter
+predominating. Though dealing largely with ancient or mediæval material, he
+has a curiously modern way of looking at life. Indeed, he is our only
+author preceding Shakespeare with whom we feel thoroughly at home. He threw
+aside the outgrown metrical romance, which was practically the only form of
+narrative in his day, invented the art of story-telling in verse, and
+brought it to a degree of perfection which has probably never since been
+equaled. Though a student of the classics, he lived wholly in the present,
+studied the men and women of his own time, painted them as they were, but
+added always a touch of kindly humor or romance to make them more
+interesting. So his mission appears to be simply to amuse himself and his
+readers. His mastery of various and melodious verse was marvelous and has
+never been surpassed in our language; but the English of his day was
+changing rapidly, and in a very few years men were unable to appreciate his
+art, so that even to Spenser and Dryden, for example, he seemed deficient
+in metrical skill. On this account his influence on our literature has been
+much less than we should expect from the quality of his work and from his
+position as one of the greatest of English poets.
+
+Like Chaucer, Spenser was a busy man of affairs, but in him the poet and
+the scholar always predominates. He writes as the idealist, describing men
+not as they are but as he thinks they should be; he has no humor, and his
+mission is not to amuse but to reform. Like Chaucer he studies the classics
+and contemporary French and Italian writers; but instead of adapting his
+material to present-day conditions, he makes poetry, as in his Eclogues for
+instance, more artificial even than his foreign models. Where Chaucer looks
+about him and describes life as he sees it, Spenser always looks backward
+for his inspiration; he lives dreamily in the past, in a realm of purely
+imaginary emotions and adventures. His first quality is imagination, not
+observation, and he is the first of our poets to create a world of dreams,
+fancies, and illusions. His second quality is a wonderful sensitiveness to
+beauty, which shows itself not only in his subject-matter but also in the
+manner of his poetry. Like Chaucer, he is an almost perfect workman; but in
+reading Chaucer we think chiefly of his natural characters or his ideas,
+while in reading Spenser we think of the beauty of expression. The
+exquisite Spenserian stanza and the rich melody of Spenser's verse have
+made him the model of all our modern poets.
+
+
+MINOR POETS
+
+Though Spenser is the one great non-dramatic poet of the Elizabethan Age, a
+multitude of minor poets demand attention of the student who would
+understand the tremendous literary activity of the period. One needs only
+to read _The Paradyse of Daynty Devises_ (1576), or _A Gorgeous Gallery of
+Gallant Inventions_ (1578), or any other of the miscellaneous collections
+to find hundreds of songs, many of them of exquisite workmanship, by poets
+whose names now awaken no response. A glance is enough to assure one that
+over all England "the sweet spirit of song had arisen, like the first
+chirping of birds after a storm." Nearly two hundred poets are recorded in
+the short period from 1558 to 1625, and many of them were prolific writers.
+In a work like this, we can hardly do more than mention a few of the best
+known writers, and spend a moment at least with the works that suggest
+Marlowe's description of "infinite riches in a little room." The reader
+will note for himself the interesting union of action and thought in these
+men, so characteristic of the Elizabethan Age; for most of them were
+engaged chiefly in business or war or politics, and literature was to them
+a pleasant recreation rather than an absorbing profession.
+
+THOMAS SACKVILLE (1536-1608). Sir Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset and Lord
+High Treasurer of England, is generally classed with Wyatt and Surrey among
+the predecessors of the Elizabethan Age. In imitation of Dante's _Inferno_,
+Sackville formed the design of a great poem called _The Mirror for
+Magistrates_. Under guidance of an allegorical personage called Sorrow, he
+meets the spirits of all the important actors in English history. The idea
+was to follow Lydgate's _Fall of Princes_ and let each character tell his
+own story; so that the poem would be a mirror in which present rulers might
+see themselves and read this warning: "Who reckless rules right soon may
+hope to rue." Sackville finished only the "Induction" and the "Complaint of
+the Duke of Buckingham." These are written in the rime royal, and are
+marked by strong poetic feeling and expression. Unfortunately Sackville
+turned from poetry to politics, and the poem was carried on by two inferior
+poets, William Baldwin and George Ferrers.
+
+Sackville wrote also, in connection with Thomas Norton, the first English
+tragedy, _Ferrex and Porrex_, called also _Gorboduc_, which will be
+considered in the following section on the Rise of the Drama.
+
+PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-1586). Sidney, the ideal gentleman, the Sir Calidore of
+Spenser's "Legend of Courtesy," is vastly more interesting as a man than as
+a writer, and the student is recommended to read his biography rather than
+his books. His life expresses, better than any single literary work, the
+two ideals of the age,--personal honor and national greatness.
+
+As a writer he is known by three principal works, all published after his
+death, showing how little importance he attached to his own writing, even
+while he was encouraging Spenser. The _Arcadia_ is a pastoral romance,
+interspersed with eclogues, in which shepherds and shepherdesses sing of
+the delights of rural life. Though the work was taken up idly as a summer's
+pastime, it became immensely popular and was imitated by a hundred poets.
+The _Apologie for Poetrie_ (1595), generally called the _Defense of
+Poesie_, appeared in answer to a pamphlet by Stephen Gosson called _The
+School of Abuse_ (1579), in which the poetry of the age and its unbridled
+pleasure were denounced with Puritan thoroughness and conviction. The
+_Apologie_ is one of the first critical essays in English; and though its
+style now seems labored and unnatural,--the pernicious result of Euphues
+and his school,--it is still one of the best expressions of the place and
+meaning of poetry in any language. _Astrophel and Stella_ is a collection
+of songs and sonnets addressed to Lady Penelope Devereux, to whom Sidney
+had once been betrothed. They abound in exquisite lines and passages,
+containing more poetic feeling and expression than the songs of any other
+minor writer of the age.
+
+GEORGE CHAPMAN (1559?-1634). Chapman spent his long, quiet life among the
+dramatists, and wrote chiefly for the stage. His plays, which were for the
+most part merely poems in dialogue, fell far below the high dramatic
+standard of his time and are now almost unread. His most famous work is the
+metrical translation of the _Iliad_ (1611) and of the _Odyssey_ (1614).
+Chapman's _Homer_, though lacking the simplicity and dignity of the
+original, has a force and rapidity of movement which makes it superior in
+many respects to Pope's more familiar translation. Chapman is remembered
+also as the finisher of Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_, in which, apart from
+the drama, the Renaissance movement is seen at perhaps its highest point in
+English poetry. Out of scores of long poems of the period, _Hero and
+Leander_ and the _Faery Queen_ are the only two which are even slightly
+known to modern readers.
+
+MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563-1631). Drayton is the most voluminous and, to
+antiquarians at least, the most interesting of the minor poets. He is the
+Layamon of the Elizabethan Age, and vastly more scholarly than his
+predecessor. His chief work is _Polyolbion_, an enormous poem of many
+thousand couplets, describing the towns, mountains, and rivers of Britain,
+with the interesting legends connected with each. It is an extremely
+valuable work and represents a lifetime of study and research. Two other
+long works are the _Barons' Wars_ and the _Heroic Epistle of England;_ and
+besides these were many minor poems. One of the best of these is the
+"Battle of Agincourt," a ballad written in the lively meter which Tennyson
+used with some variations in the "Charge of the Light Brigade," and which
+shows the old English love of brave deeds and of the songs that stir a
+people's heart in memory of noble ancestors.
+
+
+III. THE FIRST ENGLISH DRAMATISTS
+
+THE ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA. First the deed, then the story, then the play;
+that seems to be the natural development of the drama in its simplest form.
+The great deeds of a people are treasured in its literature, and later
+generations represent in play or pantomime certain parts of the story which
+appeal most powerfully to the imagination. Among primitive races the deeds
+of their gods and heroes are often represented at the yearly festivals; and
+among children, whose instincts are not yet blunted by artificial habits,
+one sees the story that was heard at bedtime repeated next day in vigorous
+action, when our boys turn scouts and our girls princesses, precisely as
+our first dramatists turned to the old legends and heroes of Britain for
+their first stage productions. To act a part seems as natural to humanity
+as to tell a story; and originally the drama is but an old story retold to
+the eye, a story put into action by living performers, who for the moment
+"make believe" or imagine themselves to be the old heroes.
+
+To illustrate the matter simply, there was a great life lived by him who
+was called the Christ. Inevitably the life found its way into literature,
+and we have the Gospels. Around the life and literature sprang up a great
+religion. Its worship was at first simple,--the common prayer, the evening
+meal together, the remembered words of the Master, and the closing hymn.
+Gradually a ritual was established, which grew more elaborate and
+impressive as the centuries went by. Scenes from the Master's life began to
+be represented in the churches, especially at Christmas time, when the
+story of Christ's birth was made more effective, to the eyes of a people
+who could not read, by a babe in a manger surrounded by magi and shepherds,
+with a choir of angels chanting the _Gloria in Excelsis_.[126] Other
+impressive scenes from the Gospel followed; then the Old Testament was
+called upon, until a complete cycle of plays from the Creation to the Final
+Judgment was established, and we have the Mysteries and Miracle plays of
+the Middle Ages. Out of these came directly the drama of the Elizabethan
+Age.
+
+
+PERIODS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DRAMA
+
+1. THE RELIGIOUS PERIOD. In Europe, as in Greece, the drama had a
+distinctly religious origin.[127] The first characters were drawn from the
+New Testament, and the object of the first plays was to make the church
+service more impressive, or to emphasize moral lessons by showing the
+reward of the good and the punishment of the evil doer. In the latter days
+of the Roman Empire the Church found the stage possessed by frightful
+plays, which debased the morals of a people already fallen too low. Reform
+seemed impossible; the corrupt drama was driven from the stage, and plays
+of every kind were forbidden. But mankind loves a spectacle, and soon the
+Church itself provided a substitute for the forbidden plays in the famous
+Mysteries and Miracles.
+
+MIRACLE AND MYSTERY PLAYS. In France the name _miracle_ was given to any
+play representing the lives of the saints, while the _mystère_ represented
+scenes from the life of Christ or stories from the Old Testament associated
+with the coming of Messiah. In England this distinction was almost unknown;
+the name Miracle was used indiscriminately for all plays having their
+origin in the Bible or in the lives of the saints; and the name Mystery, to
+distinguish a certain class of plays, was not used until long after the
+religious drama had passed away.
+
+The earliest Miracle of which we have any record in England is the _Ludus
+de Sancta Katharina_, which was performed in Dunstable about the year
+1110.[128] It is not known who wrote the original play of St. Catherine,
+but our first version was prepared by Geoffrey of St. Albans, a French
+school-teacher of Dunstable. Whether or not the play was given in English
+is not known, but it was customary in the earliest plays for the chief
+actors to speak in Latin or French, to show their importance, while minor
+and comic parts of the same play were given in English.
+
+For four centuries after this first recorded play the Miracles increased
+steadily in number and popularity in England. They were given first very
+simply and impressively in the churches; then, as the actors increased in
+number and the plays in liveliness, they overflowed to the churchyards; but
+when fun and hilarity began to predominate even in the most sacred
+representations, the scandalized priests forbade plays altogether on church
+grounds. By the year 1300 the Miracles were out of ecclesiastical hands and
+adopted eagerly by the town guilds; and in the following two centuries we
+find the Church preaching against the abuse of the religious drama which it
+had itself introduced, and which at first had served a purely religious
+purpose.[129] But by this time the Miracles had taken strong hold upon the
+English people, and they continued to be immensely popular until, in the
+sixteenth century, they were replaced by the Elizabethan drama.
+
+The early Miracle plays of England were divided into two classes: the
+first, given at Christmas, included all plays connected with the birth of
+Christ; the second, at Easter, included the plays relating to his death and
+triumph. By the beginning of the fourteenth century all these plays were,
+in various localities, united in single cycles beginning with the Creation
+and ending with the Final Judgment. The complete cycle was presented every
+spring, beginning on Corpus Christi day; and as the presentation of so many
+plays meant a continuous outdoor festival of a week or more, this day was
+looked forward to as the happiest of the whole year.
+
+Probably every important town in England had its own cycle of plays for its
+own guilds to perform, but nearly all have been lost. At the present day
+only four cycles exist (except in the most fragmentary condition), and
+these, though they furnish an interesting commentary on the times, add very
+little to our literature. The four cycles are the Chester and York plays,
+so called from the towns in which they were given; the Towneley or
+Wakefield plays, named for the Towneley family, which for a long time owned
+the manuscript; and the Coventry plays, which on doubtful evidence have
+been associated with the Grey Friars (Franciscans) of Coventry. The Chester
+cycle has 25 plays, the Wakefield 30, the Coventry 42, and the York 48. It
+is impossible to fix either the date or the authorship of any of these
+plays; we only know certainly that they were in great favor from the
+twelfth to the sixteenth century. The York plays are generally considered
+to be the best; but those of Wakefield show more humor and variety, and
+better workmanship. The former cycle especially shows a certain unity
+resulting from its aim to represent the whole of man's life from birth to
+death. The same thing is noticeable in _Cursor Mundi_, which, with the York
+and Wakefield cycles, belongs to the fourteenth century.
+
+At first the actors as well as the authors of the Miracles were the priests
+and their chosen assistants. Later, when The town guilds took up the plays
+and each guild became responsible for one or more of the series, the actors
+were carefully selected and trained. By four o'clock on the morning of
+Corpus Christi all the players had to be in their places in the movable
+theaters, which were scattered throughout the town in the squares and open
+places. Each of these theaters consisted of a two-story platform, set on
+wheels. The lower story was a dressing room for the actors; the upper story
+was the stage proper, and was reached by a trapdoor from below. When the
+play was over the platform was dragged away, and the next play in the cycle
+took its place. So in a single square several plays would be presented in
+rapid sequence to the same audience. Meanwhile the first play moved on to
+another square, where another audience was waiting to hear it.
+
+Though the plays were distinctly religious in character, there is hardly
+one without its humorous element. In the play of Noah, for instance, Noah's
+shrewish wife makes fun for the audience by wrangling with her husband. In
+the Crucifixion play Herod is a prankish kind of tyrant who leaves the
+stage to rant among the audience; so that to "out-herod Herod" became a
+common proverb. In all the plays the devil is a favorite character and the
+butt of every joke. He also leaves the stage to play pranks or frighten the
+wondering children. On the side of the stage was often seen a huge dragon's
+head with gaping red jaws, belching forth fire and smoke, out of which
+poured a tumultuous troop of devils with clubs and pitchforks and gridirons
+to punish the wicked characters and to drag them away at last, howling and
+shrieking, into hell-mouth, as the dragon's head was called. So the fear of
+hell was ingrained into an ignorant people for four centuries. Alternating
+with these horrors were bits of rough horse-play and domestic scenes of
+peace and kindliness, representing the life of the English fields and
+homes. With these were songs and carols, like that of the Nativity, for
+instance:
+
+    As I out rode this enderes (last) night,
+    Of three jolly shepherds I saw a sight,
+    And all about their fold a star shone bright;
+         They sang _terli terlow_,
+    So merryly the shepherds their pipes can blow.
+    Down from heaven, from heaven so high,
+    Of angels there came a great companye
+    With mirth, and joy, and great solemnitye;
+         They sang _terli terlow_,
+    So merryly the shepherds their pipes can blow.
+
+Such songs were taken home by the audience and sung for a season, as a
+popular tune is now caught from the stage and sung on the streets; and at
+times the whole audience would very likely join in the chorus.
+
+After these plays were written according to the general outline of the
+Bible stories, no change was tolerated, the audience insisting, like
+children at "Punch and Judy," upon seeing the same things year after year.
+No originality in plot or treatment was possible, therefore; the only
+variety was in new songs and jokes, and in the pranks of the devil.
+Childish as such plays seem to us, they are part of the religious
+development of all uneducated people. Even now the Persian play of the
+"Martyrdom of Ali" is celebrated yearly, and the famous "Passion Play," a
+true Miracle, is given every ten years at Oberammergau.
+
+2. THE MORAL PERIOD OF THE DRAMA.[130] The second or moral period of the
+drama is shown by the increasing prevalence of the Morality plays. In these
+the characters were allegorical personages,--Life, Death, Repentance,
+Goodness, Love, Greed, and other virtues and vices. The Moralities may be
+regarded, therefore, as the dramatic counterpart of the once popular
+allegorical poetry exemplified by the _Romance of the Rose_. It did not
+occur to our first, unknown dramatists to portray men and women as they are
+until they had first made characters of abstract human qualities.
+Nevertheless, the Morality marks a distinct advance over the Miracle in
+that it gave free scope to the imagination for new plots and incidents. In
+Spain and Portugal these plays, under the name _auto_, were wonderfully
+developed by the genius of Calderon and Gil Vicente; but in England the
+Morality was a dreary kind of performance, like the allegorical poetry
+which preceded it.
+
+To enliven the audience the devil of the Miracle plays was introduced; and
+another lively personage called the Vice was the predecessor of our modern
+clown and jester. His business was to torment the "virtues" by mischievous
+pranks, and especially to make the devil's life a burden by beating him
+with a bladder or a wooden sword at every opportunity. The Morality
+generally ended in the triumph of virtue, the devil leaping into hell-mouth
+with Vice on his back.
+
+The best known of the Moralities is "Everyman," which has recently been
+revived in England and America. The subject of the play is the summoning of
+every man by Death; and the moral is that nothing can take away the terror
+of the inevitable summons but an honest life and the comforts of religion.
+In its dramatic unity it suggests the pure Greek drama; there is no change
+of time or scene, and the stage is never empty from the beginning to the
+end of the performance. Other well-known Moralities are the "Pride of
+Life," "Hyckescorner," and "Castell of Perseverance." In the latter, man is
+represented as shut up in a castle garrisoned by the virtues and besieged
+by the vices.
+
+Like the Miracle plays, most of the old Moralities are of unknown date and
+origin. Of the known authors of Moralities, two of the best are John
+Skelton, who wrote "Magnificence," and probably also "The Necromancer"; and
+Sir David Lindsay (1490-1555), "the poet of the Scotch Reformation," whose
+religious business it was to make rulers uncomfortable by telling them
+unpleasant truths in the form of poetry. With these men a new element
+enters into the Moralities. They satirize or denounce abuses of Church and
+State, and introduce living personages thinly disguised as allegories; so
+that the stage first becomes a power in shaping events and correcting
+abuses.
+
+THE INTERLUDES. It is impossible to draw any accurate line of distinction
+between the Moralities and Interludes. In general we may think of the
+latter as dramatic scenes, sometimes given by themselves (usually with
+music and singing) at banquets and entertainments where a little fun was
+wanted; and again slipped into a Miracle play to enliven the audience after
+a solemn scene. Thus on the margin of a page of one of the old Chester
+plays we read, "The boye and pigge when the kinges are gone." Certainly
+this was no part of the original scene between Herod and the three kings.
+So also the quarrel between Noah and his wife is probably a late addition
+to an old play. The Interludes originated, undoubtedly, in a sense of
+humor; and to John Heywood (1497?-1580?), a favorite retainer and jester at
+the court of Mary, is due the credit for raising the Interlude to the
+distinct dramatic form known as comedy.
+
+Heywood's Interludes were written between 1520 and 1540. His most famous is
+"The Four P's," a contest of wit between a "Pardoner, a Palmer, a Pedlar
+and a Poticary." The characters here strongly suggest those of
+Chaucer.[131] Another interesting Interlude is called "The Play of the
+Weather." In this Jupiter and the gods assemble to listen to complaints
+about the weather and to reform abuses. Naturally everybody wants his own
+kind of weather. The climax is reached by a boy who announces that a boy's
+pleasure consists in two things, catching birds and throwing snowballs, and
+begs for the weather to be such that he can always do both. Jupiter decides
+that he will do just as he pleases about the weather, and everybody goes
+home satisfied.
+
+All these early plays were written, for the most part, in a mingling of
+prose and wretched doggerel, and add nothing to our literature. Their great
+work was to train actors, to keep alive the dramatic spirit, and to prepare
+the way for the true drama.
+
+3. THE ARTISTIC PERIOD OF THE DRAMA. The artistic is the final stage in the
+development of the English drama. It differs radically from the other two
+in that its chief purpose is not to point a moral but to represent human
+life as it is. The artistic drama may have purpose, no less than the
+Miracle play, but the motive is always subordinate to the chief end of
+representing life itself.
+
+The first true play in English, with a regular plot, divided into acts and
+scenes, is probably the comedy, "Ralph Royster Doyster." It was written by
+Nicholas Udall, master of Eton, and later of Westminster school, and was
+first acted by his schoolboys some time before 1556. The story is that of a
+conceited fop in love with a widow, who is already engaged to another man.
+The play is an adaptation of the _Miles Gloriosus_, a classic comedy by
+Plautus, and the English characters are more or less artificial; but as
+furnishing a model of a clear plot and natural dialogue, the influence of
+this first comedy, with its mixture of classic and English elements, can
+hardly be overestimated.
+
+The next play, "Gammer Gurton's Needle" _(cir_. 1562), is a domestic
+comedy, a true bit of English realism, representing the life of the peasant
+class.
+
+Gammer Gurton is patching the leather breeches of her man Hodge, when Gib,
+the cat, gets into the milk pan. While Gammer chases the cat the family
+needle is lost, a veritable calamity in those days. The whole household is
+turned upside down, and the neighbors are dragged into the affair. Various
+comical situations are brought about by Diccon, a thieving vagabond, who
+tells Gammer that her neighbor, Dame Chatte, has taken her needle, and who
+then hurries to tell Dame Chatte that she is accused by Gammer of stealing
+a favorite rooster. Naturally there is a terrible row when the two irate
+old women meet and misunderstand each other. Diccon also drags Doctor Rat,
+the curate, into the quarrel by telling him that, if he will but creep into
+Dame Chatte's cottage by a hidden way, he will find her using the stolen
+needle. Then Diccon secretly warns Dame Chatte that Gammer Gurton's man
+Hodge is coming to steal her chickens; and the old woman hides in the dark
+passage and cudgels the curate soundly with the door bar. All the parties
+are finally brought before the justice, when Hodge suddenly and painfully
+finds the lost needle--which is all the while stuck in his leather
+breeches--and the scene ends uproariously for both audience and actors.
+
+This first wholly English comedy is full of fun and coarse humor, and is
+wonderfully true to the life it represents. It was long attributed to John
+Still, afterwards bishop of Bath; but the authorship is now definitely
+assigned to William Stevenson.[132] Our earliest edition of the play was
+printed in 1575; but a similar play called "Dyccon of Bedlam" was licensed
+in 1552, twelve years before Shakespeare's birth.
+
+To show the spirit and the metrical form of the play we give a fragment of
+the boy's description of the dullard Hodge trying to light a fire on the
+hearth from the cat's eyes, and another fragment of the old drinking song
+at the beginning of the second act.
+
+    At last in a dark corner two sparkes he thought he sees
+    Which were, indede, nought els but Gyb our cat's two eyes.
+    "Puffe!" quod Hodge, thinking therby to have fyre without doubt;
+    With that Gyb shut her two eyes, and so the fyre was out.
+    And by-and-by them opened, even as they were before;
+    With that the sparkes appeared, even as they had done of yore.
+    And, even as Hodge blew the fire, as he did thincke,
+    Gyb, as she felt the blast, strayght-way began to wyncke,
+    Tyll Hodge fell of swering, as came best to his turne,
+    The fier was sure bewicht, and therfore wold not burne.
+    At last Gyb up the stayers, among the old postes and pinnes,
+    And Hodge he hied him after till broke were both his shinnes,
+    Cursynge and swering othes, were never of his makyng,
+    That Gyb wold fyre the house if that shee were not taken.
+
+        _Fyrste a Songe:_
+    _Backe and syde, go bare, go bare;
+      Booth foote and hande, go colde;
+    But, bellye, God sende thee good ale ynoughe,
+      Whether it be newe or olde_!
+    I can not eate but lytle meate,
+      My stomacke is not good;
+    But sure I thinke that I can dryncke
+      With him that weares a hood.
+    Thoughe I go bare, take ye no care,
+      I am nothinge a-colde,
+    I stuffe my skyn so full within
+      Of ioly good ale and olde.
+    _Backe and syde, go bare_, etc.
+
+Our first tragedy, "Gorboduc," was written by Thomas Sackville and Thomas
+Norton, and was acted in 1562, only two years before the birth of
+Shakespeare. It is remarkable not only as our first tragedy, but as the
+first play to be written in blank verse, the latter being most significant,
+since it started the drama into the style of verse best suited to the
+genius of English playwrights.
+
+The story of "Gorboduc" is taken from the early annals of Britain and
+recalls the story used by Shakespeare in _King Lear_. Gorboduc, king of
+Britain, divides his kingdom between his sons Ferrex and Porrex. The sons
+quarrel, and Porrex, the younger, slays his brother, who is the queen's
+favorite. Videna, the queen, slays Porrex in revenge; the people rebel and
+slay Videna and Gorboduc; then the nobles kill the rebels, and in turn fall
+to fighting each other. The line of Brutus being extinct with the death of
+Gorboduc, the country falls into anarchy, with rebels, nobles, and a
+Scottish invader all fighting for the right of succession. The curtain
+falls upon a scene of bloodshed and utter confusion.
+
+The artistic finish of this first tragedy is marred by the authors' evident
+purpose to persuade Elizabeth to marry. It aims to show the danger to which
+England is exposed by the uncertainty of succession. Otherwise the plan of
+the play follows the classical rule of Seneca. There is very little action
+on the stage; bloodshed and battle are announced by a messenger; and the
+chorus, of four old men of Britain, sums up the situation with a few moral
+observations at the end of each of the first four acts.
+
+CLASSICAL INFLUENCE UPON THE DRAMA. The revival of Latin literature had a
+decided influence upon the English drama as it developed from the Miracle
+plays. In the fifteenth century English teachers, in order to increase the
+interest in Latin, began to let their boys act the plays which they had
+read as literature, precisely as our colleges now present Greek or German
+plays at the yearly festivals. Seneca was the favorite Latin author, and
+all his tragedies were translated into English between 1559 and 1581. This
+was the exact period in which the first English playwrights were shaping
+their own ideas; but the severe simplicity of the classical drama seemed at
+first only to hamper the exuberant English spirit. To understand this, one
+has only to compare a tragedy of Seneca or of Euripides with one of
+Shakespeare, and see how widely the two masters differ in methods.
+
+In the classic play the so-called dramatic unities of time, place, and
+action were strictly observed. Time and place must remain the same; the
+play could represent a period of only a few hours, and whatever action was
+introduced must take place at the spot where the play began. The
+characters, therefore, must remain unchanged throughout; there was no
+possibility of the child becoming a man, or of the man's growth with
+changing circumstances. As the play was within doors, all vigorous action
+was deemed out of place on the stage, and battles and important events were
+simply announced by a messenger. The classic drama also drew a sharp line
+between tragedy and comedy, all fun being rigorously excluded from serious
+representations.
+
+The English drama, on the other hand, strove to represent the whole sweep
+of life in a single play. The scene changed rapidly; the same actors
+appeared now at home, now at court, now on the battlefield; and vigorous
+action filled the stage before the eyes of the spectators. The child of one
+act appeared as the man of the next, and the imagination of the spectator
+was called upon to bridge the gaps from place to place and from year to
+year. So the dramatist had free scope to present all life in a single place
+and a single hour. Moreover, since the world is always laughing and always
+crying at the same moment, tragedy and comedy were presented side by side,
+as they are in life itself. As Hamlet sings, after the play that amused the
+court but struck the king with deadly fear:
+
+    Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
+    The hart ungalled play;
+    For some must watch, while some must sleep:
+    So runs the world away.
+
+Naturally, with these two ideals struggling to master the English drama,
+two schools of writers arose. The University Two Schools Wits, as men of
+learning were called, generally of Drama upheld the classical ideal, and
+ridiculed the crude-ness of the new English plays. Sackville and Norton
+were of this class, and "Gorboduc" was classic in its construction. In the
+"Defense of Poesie" Sidney upholds the classics and ridicules the too
+ambitious scope of the English drama. Against these were the popular
+playwrights, Lyly, Peele, Greene, Marlowe, and many others, who recognized
+the English love of action and disregarded the dramatic unities in their
+endeavor to present life as it is. In the end the native drama prevailed,
+aided by the popular taste which had been trained by four centuries of
+Miracles. Our first plays, especially of the romantic type, were extremely
+crude and often led to ridiculously extravagant scenes; and here is where
+the classic drama exercised an immense influence for good, by insisting
+upon beauty of form and definiteness of structure at a time when the
+tendency was to satisfy a taste for stage spectacles without regard to
+either.
+
+In the year 1574 a royal permit to Lord Leicester's actors allowed them "to
+give plays anywhere throughout our realm of England," and this must be
+regarded as the beginning of the regular drama. Two years later the first
+playhouse, known as "The Theater," was built for these actors by James
+Burbage in Finsbury Fields, just north of London. It was in this theater
+that Shakespeare probably found employment when he first came to the city.
+The success of this venture was immediate, and the next thirty years saw a
+score of theatrical companies, at least seven regular theaters, and a dozen
+or more inn yards permanently fitted for the giving of plays,--all
+established in the city and its immediate suburbs. The growth seems all the
+more remarkable when we remember that the London of those days would now be
+considered a small city, having (in 1600) only about a hundred thousand
+inhabitants.
+
+A Dutch traveler, Johannes de Witt, who visited London in 1596, has given
+us the only contemporary drawing we possess of the interior of one of these
+theaters. They were built of stone and wood, round or octagonal in shape,
+and without a roof, being simply an inclosed courtyard. At one side was the
+stage, and before it on the bare ground, or pit, stood that large part of
+the audience who could afford to pay only an admission fee. The players and
+these groundlings were exposed to the weather; those that paid for seats
+were in galleries sheltered by a narrow porch-roof projecting inwards from
+the encircling walls; while the young nobles and gallants, who came to be
+seen and who could afford the extra fee, took seats on the stage itself,
+and smoked and chaffed the actors and threw nuts at the groundlings.[133]
+The whole idea of these first theaters, according to De Witt, was like that
+of the Roman amphitheater; and the resemblance was heightened by the fact
+that, when no play was on the boards, the stage might be taken away and the
+pit given over to bull and bear baiting.
+
+In all these theaters, probably, the stage consisted of a bare platform,
+with a curtain or "traverse" across the middle, separating the front from
+the rear stage. On the latter unexpected scenes or characters were
+"discovered" by simply drawing the curtain aside. At first little or no
+scenery was used, a gilded sign being the only announcement of a change of
+scene; and this very lack of scenery led to better acting, since the actors
+must be realistic enough to make the audience forget its shabby
+surroundings.[134] By Shakespeare's day, however, painted scenery had
+appeared, first at university plays, and then in the regular theaters.[135]
+In all our first plays female parts were taken by boy actors, who evidently
+were more distressing than the crude scenery, for contemporary literature
+has many satirical references to their acting,[136] and even the tolerant
+Shakespeare writes:
+
+    Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness.
+
+However that may be, the stage was deemed unfit for women, and actresses
+were unknown in England until after the Restoration.
+
+SHAKESPEARE'S PREDECESSORS IN THE DRAMA. The English drama as it developed
+from the Miracle plays has an interesting history. It began with
+schoolmasters, like Udall, who translated and adapted Latin plays for their
+boys to act, and who were naturally governed by classic ideals. It was
+continued by the choir masters of St. Paul and the Royal and the Queen's
+Chapel, whose companies of choir-boy actors were famous in London and
+rivaled the players of the regular theaters.[137] These choir masters were
+our first stage managers. They began with masques and interludes and the
+dramatic presentation of classic myths modeled after the Italians; but some
+of them, like Richard Edwards (choir master of the Queen's Chapel in 1561),
+soon added farces from English country life and dramatized some of
+Chaucer's stories. Finally, the regular playwrights, Kyd, Nash, Lyly,
+Peele, Greene, and Marlowe, brought the English drama to the point where
+Shakespeare began to experiment upon it.
+
+Each of these playwrights added or emphasized some essential element in the
+drama, which appeared later in the work of Shakespeare. Thus John Lyly
+(1554?-1606), who is now known chiefly as having developed the pernicious
+literary style called euphuism,[138] is one of the most influential of the
+early dramatists. His court comedies are remarkable for their witty
+dialogue and for being our first plays to aim definitely at unity and
+artistic finish. Thomas Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_ (_c._ 1585) first gives us
+the drama, or rather the melodrama, of passion, copied by Marlowe and
+Shakespeare. This was the most popular of the early Elizabethan plays; it
+was revised again and again, and Ben Jonson is said to have written one
+version and to have acted the chief part of Hieronimo.[139] And Robert
+Greene (1558?-1592) plays the chief part in the early development of
+romantic comedy, and gives us some excellent scenes of English country life
+in plays like _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_.
+
+Even a brief glance at the life and work of these first playwrights shows
+three noteworthy things which have a bearing on Shakespeare's career: (1)
+These men were usually actors as well as dramatists. They knew the stage
+and the audience, and in writing their plays they remembered not only the
+actor's part but also the audience's love for stories and brave spectacles.
+"Will it act well, and will it please our audience," were the questions of
+chief concern to our early dramatists. (2) Their training began as actors;
+then they revised old plays, and finally became independent writers. In
+this their work shows an exact parallel with that of Shakespeare. (3) They
+often worked together, probably as Shakespeare worked with Marlowe and
+Fletcher, either in revising old plays or in creating new ones. They had a
+common store of material from which they derived their stories and
+characters, hence their frequent repetition of names; and they often
+produced two or more plays on the same subject. Much of Shakespeare's work
+depends, as we shall see, on previous plays; and even his _Hamlet_ uses the
+material of an earlier play of the same name, probably by Kyd, which was
+well known to the London stage in 1589, some twelve years before
+Shakespeare's great work was written.
+
+All these things are significant, if we are to understand the Elizabethan
+drama and the man who brought it to perfection. Shakespeare was not simply
+a great genius; he was also a great worker, and he developed in exactly the
+same way as did all his fellow craftsmen. And, contrary to the prevalent
+opinion, the Elizabethan drama is not a Minerva-like creation, springing
+full grown from the head of one man; it is rather an orderly though rapid
+development, in which many men bore a part. All our early dramatists are
+worthy of study for the part they played in the development of the drama;
+but we can here consider only one, the most typical of all, whose best work
+is often ranked with that of Shakespeare.
+
+
+CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-1593)
+
+Marlowe is one of the most suggestive figures of the English Renaissance,
+and the greatest of Shakespeare's predecessors. The glory of the
+Elizabethan drama dates from his _Tamburlaine_ (1587), wherein the whole
+restless temper of the age finds expression:
+
+    Nature, that framed us of four elements
+    Warring within our breasts for regiment,
+    Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:
+    Our souls--whose faculties can comprehend
+    The wondrous architecture of the world,
+    And measure every wandering planet's course,
+    Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
+    And always moving as the restless spheres--
+    Will us to wear ourselves and never rest.
+    _Tamburlaine_, Pt. I, II, vii.
+
+Life. Marlowe was born in Canterbury, only a few months before Shakespeare.
+He was the son of a poor shoemaker, but through the kindness of a patron
+was educated at the town grammar school and then at Cambridge. When he came
+to London (_c._ 1584), his soul was surging with the ideals of the
+Renaissance, which later found expression in Faustus, the scholar longing
+for unlimited knowledge and for power to grasp the universe. Unfortunately,
+Marlowe had also the unbridled passions which mark the early, or Pagan
+Renaissance, as Taine calls it, and the conceit of a young man just
+entering the realms of knowledge. He became an actor and lived in a
+low-tavern atmosphere of excess and wretchedness. In 1587, when but
+twenty-three years old, he produced _Tamburlaine_, which brought him
+instant recognition. Thereafter, notwithstanding his wretched life, he
+holds steadily to a high literary purpose. Though all his plays abound in
+violence, no doubt reflecting many of the violent scenes in which he lived,
+he develops his "mighty line" and depicts great scenes in magnificent
+bursts of poetry, such as the stage had never heard before. In five years,
+while Shakespeare was serving his apprenticeship, Marlowe produced all his
+great work. Then he was stabbed in a drunken brawl and died wretchedly, as
+he had lived. The Epilogue of _Faustus_ might be written across his
+tombstone:
+
+    Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
+    And burned is Apollo's laurel bough
+    That sometime grew within this learnéd man.
+
+MARLOWE'S WORKS. In addition to the poem "Hero and Leander," to which we
+have referred,[140] Marlowe is famous for four dramas, now known as the
+Marlowesque or one-man type of tragedy, each revolving about one central
+personality who is consumed by the lust of power. The first of these is
+_Tamburlaine_, the story of Timur the Tartar. Timur begins as a shepherd
+chief, who first rebels and then triumphs over the Persian king.
+Intoxicated by his success, Timur rushes like a tempest over the whole
+East. Seated on his chariot drawn by captive kings, with a caged emperor
+before him, he boasts of his power which overrides all things. Then,
+afflicted with disease, he raves against the gods and would overthrow them
+as he has overthrown earthly rulers. _Tamburlaine_ is an epic rather than a
+drama; but one can understand its instant success with a people only half
+civilized, fond of military glory, and the instant adoption of its "mighty
+line" as the instrument of all dramatic expression.
+
+_Faustus_, the second play, is one of the best of Marlowe's works.[141] The
+story is that of a scholar who longs for infinite knowledge, and who turns
+from Theology, Philosophy, Medicine, and Law, the four sciences of the
+time, to the study of magic, much as a child might turn from jewels to
+tinsel and colored paper. In order to learn magic he sells himself to the
+devil, on condition that he shall have twenty-four years of absolute power
+and knowledge. The play is the story of those twenty-four years. Like
+_Tamburlaine_, it is lacking in dramatic construction,[142] but has an
+unusual number of passages of rare poetic beauty. Milton's Satan suggests
+strongly that the author of _Paradise Lost_ had access to _Faustus_ and
+used it, as he may also have used _Tamburlaine_, for the magnificent
+panorama displayed by Satan in _Paradise Regained_. For instance, more than
+fifty years before Milton's hero says, "Which way I turn is hell, myself am
+hell," Marlowe had written:
+
+    _Faust_. How comes it then that thou art out of hell?
+    _Mephisto_. Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
+           *       *       *       *       *
+        Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
+        In one self place; for where we are is hell,
+        And where hell is there must we ever be.
+
+Marlowe's third play is _The Jew of Malta_, a study of the lust for wealth,
+which centers about Barabas, a terrible old money lender, strongly
+suggestive of Shylock in _The Merchant of Venice_. The first part of the
+play is well constructed, showing a decided advance, but the last part is
+an accumulation of melodramatic horrors. Barabas is checked in his
+murderous career by falling into a boiling caldron which he had prepared
+for another, and dies blaspheming, his only regret being that he has not
+done more evil in his life.
+
+Marlowe's last play is _Edward II_, a tragic study of a king's weakness and
+misery. In point of style and dramatic construction, it is by far the best
+of Marlowe's plays, and is a worthy predecessor of Shakespeare's historical
+drama.
+
+Marlowe is the only dramatist of the time who is ever compared with
+Shakespeare.[143] When we remember that he died at twenty-nine, probably
+before Shakespeare had produced a single great play, we must wonder what he
+might have done had he outlived his wretched youth and become a man. Here
+and there his work is remarkable for its splendid imagination, for the
+stateliness of its verse, and for its rare bits of poetic beauty; but in
+dramatic instinct, in wide knowledge of human life, in humor, in
+delineation of woman's character, in the delicate fancy which presents an
+Ariel as perfectly as a Macbeth,--in a word, in all that makes a dramatic
+genius, Shakespeare stands alone. Marlowe simply prepared the way for the
+master who was to follow.
+
+VARIETY OF THE EARLY DRAMA. The thirty years between our first regular
+English plays and Shakespeare's first comedy[144] witnessed a development
+of the drama which astonishes us both by its rapidity and variety. We shall
+better appreciate Shakespeare's work if we glance for a moment at the plays
+that preceded him, and note how he covers the whole field and writes almost
+every form and variety of the drama known to his age.
+
+First in importance, or at least in popular interest, are the new Chronicle
+plays, founded upon historical events and characters. They show the strong
+national spirit of the Elizabethan Age, and their popularity was due
+largely to the fact that audiences came to the theaters partly to gratify
+their awakened national spirit and to get their first knowledge of national
+history. Some of the Moralities, like Bayle's _King Johan_ (1538), are
+crude Chronicle plays, and the early Robin Hood plays and the first
+tragedy, _Gorboduc_, show the same awakened popular interest in English
+history. During the reign of Elizabeth the popular Chronicle plays
+increased till we have the record of over two hundred and twenty, half of
+which are still extant, dealing with almost every important character, real
+or legendary, in English history. Of Shakespeare's thirty-seven dramas, ten
+are true Chronicle plays of English kings; three are from the legendary
+annals of Britain; and three more are from the history of other nations.
+
+Other types of the early drama are less clearly defined, but we may sum
+them up under a few general heads: (1) The Domestic Drama began with crude
+home scenes introduced into the Miracles and developed in a score of
+different ways, from the coarse humor of _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ to the
+Comedy of Manners of Jonson and the later dramatists. Shakespeare's _Taming
+of the Shrew_ and _Merry Wives of Windsor_ belong to this class. (2) The
+so-called Court Comedy is the opposite of the former in that it represented
+a different kind of life and was intended for a different audience. It was
+marked by elaborate dialogue, by jests, retorts, and endless plays on
+words, rather than by action. It was made popular by Lyly's success, and
+was imitated in Shakespeare's first or "Lylian" comedies, such as _Love's
+Labour's Lost_, and the complicated _Two Gentlemen of Verona_. (3) Romantic
+Comedy and Romantic Tragedy suggest the most artistic and finished types of
+the drama, which were experimented upon by Peele, Greene, and Marlowe, and
+were brought to perfection in _The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet_,
+and _The Tempest_. (4) In addition to the above types were several
+others,--the Classical Plays, modeled upon Seneca and favored by cultivated
+audiences; the Melodrama, favorite of the groundlings, which depended not
+on plot or characters but upon a variety of striking scenes and incidents;
+and the Tragedy of Blood, always more or less melodramatic, like Kyd's
+_Spanish Tragedy_, which grew more blood-and-thundery in Marlowe and
+reached a climax of horrors in Shakespeare's _Titus Andronicus_. It is
+noteworthy that _Hamlet, Lear_, and _Macbeth_ all belong to this class, but
+the developed genius of the author raised them to a height such as the
+Tragedy of Blood had never known before.
+
+These varied types are quite enough to show with what doubtful and unguided
+experiments our first dramatists were engaged, like men first setting out
+in rafts and dugouts on an unknown sea. They are the more interesting when
+we remember that Shakespeare tried them all; that he is the only dramatist
+whose plays cover the whole range of the drama from its beginning to its
+decline. From the stage spectacle he developed the drama of human life; and
+instead of the doggerel and bombast of our first plays he gives us the
+poetry of _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Midsummer Night's Dream_. In a word,
+Shakespeare brought order out of dramatic chaos. In a few short years he
+raised the drama from a blundering experiment to a perfection of form and
+expression which has never since been rivaled.
+
+
+IV. SHAKESPEARE
+
+One who reads a few of Shakespeare's great plays and then the meager story
+of his life is generally filled with a vague wonder. Here is an unknown
+country boy, poor and poorly educated according to the standards of his
+age, who arrives at the great city of London and goes to work at odd jobs
+in a theater. In a year or two he is associated with scholars and
+dramatists, the masters of their age, writing plays of kings and clowns, of
+gentlemen and heroes and noble women, all of whose lives he seems to know
+by intimate association. In a few years more he leads all that brilliant
+group of poets and dramatists who have given undying glory to the Age of
+Elizabeth. Play after play runs from his pen, mighty dramas of human life
+and character following one another so rapidly that good work seems
+impossible; yet they stand the test of time, and their poetry is still
+unrivaled in any language. For all this great work the author apparently
+cares little, since he makes no attempt to collect or preserve his
+writings. A thousand scholars have ever since been busy collecting,
+identifying, classifying the works which this magnificent workman tossed
+aside so carelessly when he abandoned the drama and retired to his native
+village. He has a marvelously imaginative and creative mind; but he invents
+few, if any, new plots or stories. He simply takes an old play or an old
+poem, makes it over quickly, and lo! this old familiar material glows with
+the deepest thoughts and the tenderest feelings that ennoble our humanity;
+and each new generation of men finds it more wonderful than the last. How
+did he do it? That is still an unanswered question and the source of our
+wonder.
+
+There are, in general, two theories to account for Shakespeare. The
+romantic school of writers have always held that in him "all came from
+within"; that his genius was his sufficient guide; and that to the
+overmastering power of his genius alone we owe all his great works.
+Practical, unimaginative men, on the other hand, assert that in Shakespeare
+"all came from without," and that we must study his environment rather than
+his genius, if we are to understand him. He lived in a play-loving age; he
+studied the crowds, gave them what they wanted, and simply reflected their
+own thoughts and feelings. In reflecting the English crowd about him he
+unconsciously reflected all crowds, which are alike in all ages; hence his
+continued popularity. And in being guided by public sentiment he was not
+singular, but followed the plain path that every good dramatist has always
+followed to success.
+
+Probably the truth of the matter is to be found somewhere between these two
+extremes. Of his great genius there can be no question; but there are other
+things to consider. As we have already noticed, Shakespeare was trained,
+like his fellow workmen, first as an actor, second as a reviser of old
+plays, and last as an independent dramatist. He worked with other
+playwrights and learned their secret. Like them, he studied and followed
+the public taste, and his work indicates at least three stages, from his
+first somewhat crude experiments to his finished masterpieces. So it would
+seem that in Shakespeare we have the result of hard work and of orderly
+human development, quite as much as of transcendent genius.
+
+LIFE (1564-1616). Two outward influences were powerful in developing the
+genius of Shakespeare,--the little village of Stratford, center of the most
+beautiful and romantic district in rural England, and the great city of
+London, the center of the world's political activity. In one he learned to
+know the natural man in his natural environment; in the other, the social,
+the artificial man in the most unnatural of surroundings.
+
+From the register of the little parish church at Stratford-on-Avon we learn
+that William Shakespeare was baptized there on the twenty-sixth of April,
+1564 (old style). As it was customary to baptize children on the third day
+after birth, the twenty-third of April (May 3, according to our present
+calendar) is generally accepted as the poet's birthday.
+
+His father, John Shakespeare, was a farmer's son from the neighboring
+village of Snitterfield, who came to Stratford about 1551, and began to
+prosper as a trader in corn, meat, leather, and other agricultural
+products. His mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of a prosperous farmer,
+descended from an old Warwickshire family of mixed Anglo-Saxon and Norman
+blood. In 1559 this married couple sold a piece of land, and the document
+is signed, "The marke + of John Shacksper. The marke + of Mary Shacksper";
+and from this it has been generally inferred that, like the vast majority
+of their countrymen, neither of the poet's parents could read or write.
+This was probably true of his mother; but the evidence from Stratford
+documents now indicates that his father could write, and that he also
+audited the town accounts; though in attesting documents he sometimes made
+a mark, leaving his name to be filled in by the one who drew up the
+document.
+
+Of Shakespeare's education we know little, except that for a few years he
+probably attended the endowed grammar school at Stratford, where he picked
+up the "small Latin and less Greek" to which his learned friend Ben Jonson
+refers. His real teachers, meanwhile, were the men and women and the
+natural influences which surrounded him. Stratford is a charming little
+village in beautiful Warwickshire, and near at hand were the Forest of
+Arden, the old castles of Warwick and Kenilworth, and the old Roman camps
+and military roads, to appeal powerfully to the boy's lively imagination.
+Every phase of the natural beauty of this exquisite region is reflected in
+Shakespeare's poetry; just as his characters reflect the nobility and the
+littleness, the gossip, vices, emotions, prejudices, and traditions of the
+people about him.
+
+    I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
+    The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
+    With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
+    Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
+    Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste
+    Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,
+    Told of a many thousand warlike French
+    That were embattailed and ranked in Kent.[145]
+
+Such passages suggest not only genius but also a keen, sympathetic
+observer, whose eyes see every significant detail. So with the nurse in
+_Romeo and Juliet_, whose endless gossip and vulgarity cannot quite hide a
+kind heart. She is simply the reflection of some forgotten nurse with whom
+Shakespeare had talked by the wayside.
+
+Not only the gossip but also the dreams, the unconscious poetry that sleeps
+in the heart of the common people, appeal tremendously to Shakespeare's
+imagination and are reflected in his greatest plays. Othello tries to tell
+a curt soldier's story of his love; but the account is like a bit of
+Mandeville's famous travels, teeming with the fancies that filled men's
+heads when the great round world was first brought to their attention by
+daring explorers. Here is a bit of folklore, touched by Shakespeare's
+exquisite fancy, which shows what one boy listened to before the fire at
+Halloween:
+
+                               She comes
+    In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
+    On the fore-finger of an alderman,
+    Drawn with a team of little atomies
+    Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
+    Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,
+    The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
+    The traces of the smallest spider's web,
+    The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
+    Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
+    Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
+           *       *       *       *       *
+    Her chariot is an empty hazel nut
+    Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
+    Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
+    And in this state she gallops night by night
+    Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
+           *       *       *       *       *
+    O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
+    O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream.[146]
+
+So with Shakespeare's education at the hands of Nature, which came from
+keeping his heart as well as his eyes wide open to the beauty of the world.
+He speaks of a horse, and we know the fine points of a thoroughbred; he
+mentions the duke's hounds, and we hear them clamoring on a fox trail,
+their voices matched like bells in the frosty air; he stops for an instant
+in the sweep of a tragedy to note a flower, a star, a moonlit bank, a
+hilltop touched by the sunrise, and instantly we know what our own hearts
+felt but could not quite express when we saw the same thing. Because he
+notes and remembers every significant thing in the changing panorama of
+earth and sky, no other writer has ever approached him in the perfect
+natural setting of his characters.
+
+When Shakespeare was about fourteen years old his father lost his little
+property and fell into debt, and the boy probably left school to help
+support the family of younger children. What occupation he followed for the
+next eight years is a matter of conjecture. From evidence found in his
+plays, it is alleged with some show of authority that he was a country
+schoolmaster and a lawyer's clerk, the character of Holofernes, in _Love's
+Labour's Lost_, being the warrant for one, and Shakespeare's knowledge of
+law terms for the other. But if we take such evidence, then Shakespeare
+must have been a botanist, because of his knowledge of wild flowers; a
+sailor, because he knows the ropes; a courtier, because of his
+extraordinary facility in quips and compliments and courtly language; a
+clown, because none other is so dull and foolish; a king, because Richard
+and Henry are true to life; a woman, because he has sounded the depths of a
+woman's feelings; and surely a Roman, because in _Coriolanus_ and _Julius
+Cæsar_ he has shown us the Roman spirit better than have the Roman writers
+themselves. He was everything, in his imagination, and it is impossible
+from a study of his scenes and characters to form a definite opinion as to
+his early occupation.
+
+In 1582 Shakespeare was married to Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a peasant
+family of Shottery, who was eight years older than her boy husband. From
+numerous sarcastic references to marriage made by the characters in his
+plays, and from the fact that he soon left his wife and family and went to
+London, it is generally alleged that the marriage was a hasty and unhappy
+one; but here again the evidence is entirely untrustworthy. In many
+Miracles as well as in later plays it was customary to depict the seamy
+side of domestic life for the amusement of the crowd; and Shakespeare may
+have followed the public taste in this as he did in other things. The
+references to love and home and quiet joys in Shakespeare's plays are
+enough, if we take such evidence, to establish firmly the opposite
+supposition, that his love was a very happy one. And the fact that, after
+his enormous success in London, he retired to Stratford to live quietly
+with his wife and daughters, tends to the same conclusion.
+
+About the year 1587 Shakespeare left his family and went to London and
+joined himself to Burbage's company of players. A persistent tradition says
+that he had incurred the anger of Sir Thomas Lucy, first by poaching deer
+in that nobleman's park, and then, when haled before a magistrate, by
+writing a scurrilous ballad about Sir Thomas, which so aroused the old
+gentleman's ire that Shakespeare was obliged to flee the country. An old
+record[147] says that the poet "was much given to all unluckiness in
+stealing venison and rabbits," the unluckiness probably consisting in
+getting caught himself, and not in any lack of luck in catching the
+rabbits. The ridicule heaped upon the Lucy family in _Henry IV_ and the
+_Merry Wives of Windsor_ gives some weight to this tradition. Nicholas
+Rowe, who published the first life of Shakespeare,[148] is the authority
+for this story; but there is some reason to doubt whether, at the time when
+Shakespeare is said to have poached in the deer park of Sir Thomas Lucy at
+Charlescote, there were any deer or park at the place referred to. The
+subject is worthy of some scant attention, if only to show how worthless is
+the attempt to construct out of rumor the story of a great life which,
+fortunately perhaps, had no contemporary biographer.
+
+Of his life in London from 1587 to 1611, the period of his greatest
+literary activity, we know nothing definitely. We can judge only from his
+plays, and from these it is evident that he entered into the stirring life
+of England's capital with the same perfect sympathy and understanding that
+marked him among the plain people of his native Warwickshire. The first
+authentic reference to him is in 1592, when Greene's[149] bitter attack
+appeared, showing plainly that Shakespeare had in five years assumed an
+important position among playwrights. Then appeared the apology of the
+publishers of Greene's pamphlet, with their tribute to the poet's sterling
+character, and occasional literary references which show that he was known
+among his fellows as "the gentle Shakespeare." Ben Jonson says of him: "I
+loved the man and do honor his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as
+any. He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature." To judge from
+only three of his earliest plays[150] it would seem reasonably evident that
+in the first five years of his London life he had gained entrance to the
+society of gentlemen and scholars, had caught their characteristic
+mannerisms and expressions, and so was ready by knowledge and observation
+as well as by genius to weave into his dramas the whole stirring life of
+the English people. The plays themselves, with the testimony of
+contemporaries and his business success, are strong evidence against the
+tradition that his life in London was wild and dissolute, like that of the
+typical actor and playwright of his time.
+
+Shakespeare's first work may well have been that of a general helper, an
+odd-job man, about the theater; but he soon became an actor, and the
+records of the old London theaters show that in the next ten years he
+gained a prominent place, though there is little reason to believe that he
+was counted among the "stars." Within two years he was at work on plays,
+and his course here was exactly like that of other playwrights of his time.
+He worked with other men, and he revised old plays before writing his own,
+and so gained a practical knowledge of his art. _Henry VI _(_c_. 1590-1591)
+is an example of this tinkering work, in which, however, his native power
+is unmistakably manifest. The three parts of _Henry VI_ (and _Richard III_,
+which belongs with them) are a succession of scenes from English Chronicle
+history strung together very loosely; and only in the last is there any
+definite attempt at unity. That he soon fell under Marlowe's influence is
+evident from the atrocities and bombast of _Titus Andronicus_ and _Richard
+III_. The former may have been written by both playwrights in
+collaboration, or may be one of Marlowe's horrors left unfinished by his
+early death and brought to an end by Shakespeare. He soon broke away from
+this apprentice work, and then appeared in rapid succession _Love's
+Labour's Lost, Comedy of Errors, Two Gentlemen of Verona_, the first
+English Chronicle plays,[151] _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, and _Romeo and
+Juliet_. This order is more or less conjectural; but the wide variety of
+these plays, as well as their unevenness and frequent crudities, marks the
+first or experimental stage of Shakespeare's work. It is as if the author
+were trying his power, or more likely trying the temper of his audience.
+For it must be remembered that to please his audience was probably the
+ruling motive of Shakespeare, as of the other early dramatists, during the
+most vigorous and prolific period of his career.
+
+Shakespeare's poems, rather than his dramatic work, mark the beginning of
+his success. "Venus and Adonis" became immensely popular in London, and its
+dedication to the Earl of Southampton brought, according to tradition, a
+substantial money gift, which may have laid the foundation for
+Shakespeare's business success. He appears to have shrewdly invested his
+money, and soon became part owner of the Globe and Blackfriars theaters, in
+which his plays were presented by his own companies. His success and
+popularity grew amazingly. Within a decade of his unnoticed arrival in
+London he was one of the most famous actors and literary men in England.
+
+Following his experimental work there came a succession of wonderful
+plays,--_Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Julius Cæsar,
+Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra_. The great
+tragedies of this period are associated with a period of gloom and sorrow
+in the poet's life; but of its cause we have no knowledge. It may have been
+this unknown sorrow which turned his thoughts back to Stratford and caused,
+apparently, a dissatisfaction with his work and profession; but the latter
+is generally attributed to other causes. Actors and playwrights were in his
+day generally looked upon with suspicion or contempt; and Shakespeare, even
+in the midst of success, seems to have looked forward to the time when he
+could retire to Stratford to live the life of a farmer and country
+gentleman. His own and his father's families were first released from debt;
+then, in 1597, he bought New Place, the finest house in Stratford, and soon
+added a tract of farming land to complete his estate. His profession may
+have prevented his acquiring the title of "gentleman," or he may have only
+followed a custom of the time[152] when he applied for and obtained a coat
+of arms for his father, and so indirectly secured the title by inheritance.
+His home visits grew more and more frequent till, about the year 1611, he
+left London and retired permanently to Stratford.
+
+Though still in the prime of life, Shakespeare soon abandoned his dramatic
+work for the comfortable life of a country gentleman. Of his later plays,
+_Coriolanus, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale_, and _Pericles_ show a decided
+falling off from his previous work, and indicate another period of
+experimentation; this time not to test his own powers but to catch the
+fickle humor of the public. As is usually the case with a theater-going
+people, they soon turned from serious drama to sentimental or more
+questionable spectacles; and with Fletcher, who worked with Shakespeare and
+succeeded him as the first playwright of London, the decline of the drama
+had already begun. In 1609, however, occurred an event which gave
+Shakespeare his chance for a farewell to the public. An English ship
+disappeared, and all on board were given up for lost. A year later the
+sailors returned home, and their arrival created intense excitement. They
+had been wrecked on the unknown Bermudas, and had lived there for ten
+months, terrified by mysterious noises which they thought came from spirits
+and devils. Five different accounts of this fascinating shipwreck were
+published, and the Bermudas became known as the "Ile of Divels."
+Shakespeare took this story--which caused as much popular interest as that
+later shipwreck which gave us _Robinson Crusoe_--and wove it into _The
+Tempest_. In the same year (1611) he probably sold his interest in the
+Globe and Blackfriars theaters, and his dramatic work was ended. A few
+plays were probably left unfinished[153] and were turned over to Fletcher
+and other dramatists.
+
+That Shakespeare thought little of his success and had no idea that his
+dramas were the greatest that the world ever produced seems evident from
+the fact that he made no attempt to collect or publish his works, or even
+to save his manuscripts, which were carelessly left to stage managers of
+the theaters, and so found their way ultimately to the ragman. After a few
+years of quiet life, of which we have less record than of hundreds of
+simple country gentlemen of the time, Shakespeare died on the probable
+anniversary of his birth, April 23, 1616. He was given a tomb in the
+chancel of the parish church, not because of his preëminence in literature,
+but because of his interest in the affairs of a country village. And in the
+sad irony of fate, the broad stone that covered his tomb--now an object of
+veneration to the thousands that yearly visit the little church--was
+inscribed as follows:
+
+    Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
+    To dig the dust enclosed heare;
+    Bleste be the man that spares these stones,
+    And curst be he that moves my bones.
+
+This wretched doggerel, over the world's greatest poet, was intended, no
+doubt, as a warning to some stupid sexton, lest he should empty the grave
+and give the honored place to some amiable gentleman who had given more
+tithes to the parish.
+
+WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE. At the time of Shakespeare's death twenty-one plays
+existed in manuscripts in the various theaters. A few others had already
+been printed in quarto form, and the latter are the only publications that
+could possibly have met with the poet's own approval. More probably they
+were taken down in shorthand by some listener at the play and then
+"pirated" by some publisher for his own profit. The first printed
+collection of his plays, now called the First Folio (1623), was made by two
+actors, Heming and Condell, who asserted that they had access to the papers
+of the poet and had made a perfect edition, "in order to keep the memory of
+so worthy a friend and fellow alive." This contains thirty-six of the
+thirty-seven plays generally attributed to Shakespeare, _Pericles_ being
+omitted. This celebrated First Folio was printed from playhouse manuscripts
+and from printed quartos containing many notes and changes by individual
+actors and stage managers. Moreover, it was full of typographical errors,
+though the editors alleged great care and accuracy; and so, though it is
+the only authoritative edition we have, it is of little value in
+determining the dates, or the classification of the plays as they existed
+in Shakespeare's mind.
+
+Notwithstanding this uncertainty, a careful reading of the plays and poems
+leaves us with an impression of four different periods of work, probably
+corresponding with the growth and experience of the poet's life. These are:
+(1) a period of early experimentation. It is marked by youthfulness and
+exuberance of imagination, by extravagance of language, and by the frequent
+use of rimed couplets with his blank verse. The period dates from his
+arrival in London to 1595. Typical works of this first period are his early
+poems, _Love's Labour's Lost, Two Gentlemen of Verona_, and _Richard III_.
+(2) A period of rapid growth and development, from 1595 to 1600. Such plays
+as _The Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It_, and
+_Henry IV_, all written in this period, show more careful and artistic
+work, better plots, and a marked increase in knowledge of human nature. (3)
+A period of gloom and depression, from 1600 to 1607, which marks the full
+maturity of his powers. What caused this evident sadness is unknown; but it
+is generally attributed to some personal experience, coupled with the
+political misfortunes of his friends, Essex and Southampton. The _Sonnets_
+with their note of personal disappointment, _Twelfth Night_, which is
+Shakespeare's "farewell to mirth," and his great tragedies, _Hamlet, Lear,
+Macbeth, Othello_, and _Julius Cæsar_, belong to this period. (4) A period
+of restored serenity, of calm after storm, which marked the last years of
+the poet's literary work. _The Winter's Tale_ and _The Tempest_ are the
+best of his later plays; but they all show a falling off from his previous
+work, and indicate a second period of experimentation with the taste of a
+fickle public.
+
+To read in succession four plays, taking a typical work from each of the
+above periods, is one of the very best ways of getting quickly at the real
+life and mind of Shakespeare. Following is a complete list with the
+approximate dates of his works, classified according to the above four
+periods.
+
+First Period, Early Experiment. _Venus and Adonis, Rape of Lucrece_, 1594;
+_Titus Andronicus, Henry VI_ (three parts), 1590-1591; _Love's Labour's
+Lost_, 1590; _Comedy of Errors, Two Gentlemen of Verona_, 1591-1592;
+_Richard-III_, 1593; _Richard II, King John_, 1594-1595.
+
+Second Period, Development. _Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream_,
+1595; _Merchant of Venice, Henry IV_ (first part), 1596; _Henry IV_ (second
+part), _Merry Wives of Windsor_, 1597; _Much Ado About Nothing_, 1598; _As
+You Like It, Henry V_, 1599.
+
+Third Period, Maturity and Gloom. _Sonnets_ (1600-?), _Twelfth Night_,
+1600; _Taming of the Shrew, Julius Cæsar, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida_,
+1601-1602; _All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure_, 1603;
+_Othello_, 1604; _King Lear_, 1605; _Macbeth_, 1606; _Antony and Cleopatra,
+Timon of Athens_, 1607.
+
+Fourth Period, Late Experiment. _Coriolanus, Pericles_, 1608; _Cymbeline_,
+1609; _Winter's Tale_, 1610-1611; _The Tempest_, 1611; _Henry VIII_
+(unfinished).
+
+CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO SOURCE. In history, legend, and story,
+Shakespeare found the material for nearly all his dramas; and so they are
+often divided into three classes, called historical plays, like _Richard
+III_ and _Henry V;_ legendary or partly historical plays, like _Macbeth,
+King Lear_, and _Julius Cæsar;_ and fictional plays, like _Romeo and
+Juliet_ and _The Merchant of Venice_. Shakespeare invented few, if any, of
+the plots or stories upon which his dramas are founded, but borrowed them
+freely, after the custom of his age, wherever he found them. For his
+legendary and historical material he depended, largely on _Holinshed's
+Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland_, and on North's translation
+of Plutarch's famous _Lives_.
+
+A full half of his plays are fictional, and in these he used the most
+popular romances of the day, seeming to depend most on the Italian
+story-tellers. Only two or three of his plots, as in _Love's Labour's Lost_
+and _Merry Wives of Windsor_, are said to be original, and even these are
+doubtful. Occasionally Shakespeare made over an older play, as in _Henry
+VI, Comedy of Errors_, and _Hamlet;_ and in one instance at least he seized
+upon an incident of shipwreck in which London was greatly interested, and
+made out of it the original and fascinating play of _The Tempest_, in much
+the same spirit which leads our modern playwrights when they dramatize a
+popular novel or a war story to catch the public fancy.
+
+CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO DRAMATIC TYPE. Shakespeare's dramas are usually
+divided into three classes, called tragedies, comedies, and historical
+plays. Strictly speaking the drama has but two divisions, tragedy and
+comedy, in which are included the many subordinate forms of tragi-comedy,
+melodrama, lyric drama (opera), farce, etc. A tragedy is a drama in which
+the principal characters are involved in desperate circumstances or led by
+overwhelming passions. It is invariably serious and dignified. The movement
+is always stately, but grows more and more rapid as it approaches the
+climax; and the end is always calamitous, resulting in death or dire
+misfortune to the principals. As Chaucer's monk says, before he begins to
+"biwayle in maner of tragedie":
+
+    Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie
+    Of him that stood in great prosperitee,
+    And is y-fallen out of heigh degree
+    Into miserie, and endeth wrecchedly.
+
+A comedy, on the other hand, is a drama in which the characters are placed
+in more or less humorous situations. The movement is light and often
+mirthful, and the play ends in general good will and happiness. The
+historical drama aims to present some historical age or character, and may
+be either a comedy or a tragedy. The following list includes the best of
+Shakespeare's plays in each of the three classes; but the order indicates
+merely the author's personal opinion of the relative merits of the plays in
+each class. Thus _Merchant of Venice_ would be the first of the comedies
+for the beginner to read, and _Julius Cæsar_ is an excellent introduction
+to the historical plays and the tragedies.
+
+Comedies. _Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It,
+Winter's Tale, The Tempest, Twelfth Night_.
+
+Tragedies. _Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello_.
+
+Historical Plays. _Julius Cæsar, Richard III, Henry IV, Henry V,
+Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra_.
+
+DOUBTFUL PLAYS. It is reasonably certain that some of the plays generally
+attributed to Shakespeare are partly the work of other dramatists. The
+first of these doubtful plays, often called the Pre-Shakespearian Group,
+are _Titus Andronicus_ and the first part of _Henry VI_. Shakespeare
+probably worked with Marlowe in the two last parts of _Henry VI_ and in
+_Richard III_. The three plays, _Taming of the Shrew, Timon_, and
+_Pericles_ are only partly Shakespeare's work, but the other authors are
+unknown. _Henry VIII_ is the work of Fletcher and Shakespeare, opinion
+being divided as to whether Shakespeare helped Fletcher, or whether it was
+an unfinished work of Shakespeare which was put into Fletcher's hands for
+completion. _Two Noble Kinsmen_ is a play not ordinarily found in editions
+of Shakespeare, but it is often placed among his doubtful works. The
+greater part of the play is undoubtedly by Fletcher. _Edward III_ is one of
+several crude plays published at first anonymously and later attributed to
+Shakespeare by publishers who desired to sell their wares. It contains a
+few passages that strongly suggest Shakespeare; but the external evidence
+is all against his authorship.
+
+SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS. It is generally asserted that, if Shakespeare had
+written no plays, his poems alone would have given him a commanding place
+in the Elizabethan Age. Nevertheless, in the various histories of our
+literature there is apparent a desire to praise and pass over all but the
+_Sonnets_ as rapidly as possible; and the reason may be stated frankly. His
+two long poems, "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece," contain much
+poetic fancy; but it must be said of both that the subjects are unpleasant,
+and that they are dragged out to unnecessary length in order to show the
+play of youthful imagination. They were extremely popular in Shakespeare's
+day, but in comparison with his great dramatic works these poems are now of
+minor importance.
+
+Shakespeare's _Sonnets_, one hundred and fifty-four in number, are the only
+direct expression of the poet's own feelings that we possess; for his plays
+are the most impersonal in all literature. They were published together in
+1609; but if they had any unity in Shakespeare's mind, their plan and
+purpose are hard to discover. By some critics they are regarded as mere
+literary exercises; by others as the expression of some personal grief
+during the third period of the poet's literary career. Still others, taking
+a hint from the sonnet beginning "Two loves I have, of comfort and
+despair," divide them all into two classes, addressed to a man who was
+Shakespeare's friend, and to a woman who disdained his love. The reader may
+well avoid such classifications and read a few sonnets, like the twenty-
+ninth, for instance, and let them speak their own message. A few are
+trivial and artificial enough, suggesting the elaborate exercises of a
+piano player; but the majority are remarkable for their subtle thought and
+exquisite expression. Here and there is one, like that beginning
+
+    When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
+    I summon up remembrance of things past,
+
+which will haunt the reader long afterwards, like the remembrance of an old
+German melody.
+
+SHAKESPEARE'S PLACE AND INFLUENCE. Shakespeare holds, by general
+acclamation, the foremost place in the world's literature, and his
+overwhelming greatness renders it difficult to criticise or even to praise
+him. Two poets only, Homer and Dante, have been named with him; but each of
+these wrote within narrow limits, while Shakespeare's genius included all
+the world of nature and of men. In a word, he is the universal poet. To
+study nature in his works is like exploring a new and beautiful country; to
+study man in his works is like going into a great city, viewing the motley
+crowd as one views a great masquerade in which past and present mingle
+freely and familiarly, as if the dead were all living again. And the
+marvelous thing, in this masquerade of all sorts and conditions of men, is
+that Shakespeare lifts the mask from every face, lets us see the man as he
+is in his own soul, and shows us in each one some germ of good, some "soul
+of goodness" even in things evil. For Shakespeare strikes no uncertain
+note, and raises no doubts to add to the burden of your own. Good always
+overcomes evil in the long run; and love, faith, work, and duty are the
+four elements that in all ages make the world right. To criticise or praise
+the genius that creates these men and women is to criticise or praise
+humanity itself.
+
+Of his influence in literature it is equally difficult to speak. Goethe
+expresses the common literary judgment when he says, "I do not remember
+that any book or person or event in my life ever made so great an
+impression upon me as the plays of Shakespeare." His influence upon our own
+language and thought is beyond calculation. Shakespeare and the King James
+Bible are the two great conservators of the English speech; and one who
+habitually reads them finds himself possessed of a style and vocabulary
+that are beyond criticism. Even those who read no Shakespeare are still
+unconsciously guided by him, for his thought and expression have so
+pervaded our life and literature that it is impossible, so long as one
+speaks the English language, to escape his influence.
+
+    His life was gentle, and the elements
+    So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
+    And say to all the world, "This was a man!"
+
+
+V. SHAKESPEARE'S CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS IN THE DRAMA
+
+DECLINE OF THE DRAMA. It was inevitable that the drama should decline after
+Shakespeare, for the simple reason that there was no other great enough to
+fill his place. Aside from this, other causes were at work, and the chief
+of these was at the very source of the Elizabethan dramas. It must be
+remembered that our first playwrights wrote to please their audiences; that
+the drama rose in England because of the desire of a patriotic people to
+see something of the stirring life of the times reflected on the stage. For
+there were no papers or magazines in those days, and people came to the
+theaters not only to be amused but to be informed. Like children, they
+wanted to see a story acted; and like men, they wanted to know what it
+meant. Shakespeare fulfilled their desire. He gave them their story, and
+his genius was great enough to show in every play not only their own life
+and passions but something of the meaning of all life, and of that eternal
+justice which uses the war of human passions for its own great ends. Thus
+good and evil mingle freely in his dramas; but the evil is never
+attractive, and the good triumphs as inevitably as fate. Though his
+language is sometimes coarse, we are to remember that it was the custom of
+his age to speak somewhat coarsely, and that in language, as in thought and
+feeling, Shakespeare is far above most of his contemporaries.
+
+With his successors all this was changed. The audience itself had gradually
+changed, and in place of plain people eager for a story and for
+information, we see a larger and larger proportion of those who went to the
+play because they had nothing else to do. They wanted amusement only, and
+since they had blunted by idleness the desire for simple and wholesome
+amusement, they called for something more sensational. Shakespeare's
+successors catered to the depraved tastes of this new audience. They lacked
+not only Shakespeare's genius, but his broad charity, his moral insight
+into life. With the exception of Ben Jonson, they neglected the simple fact
+that man in his deepest nature is a moral being, and that only a play which
+satisfies the whole nature of man by showing the triumph of the moral law
+can ever wholly satisfy an audience or a people. Beaumont and Fletcher,
+forgetting the deep meaning of life, strove for effect by increasing the
+sensationalism of their plays; Webster reveled in tragedies of blood and
+thunder; Massinger and Ford made another step downward, producing evil and
+licentious scenes for their own sake, making characters and situations more
+immoral till, notwithstanding these dramatists' ability, the stage had
+become insincere, frivolous, and bad. Ben Jonson's ode, "Come Leave the
+Loathed Stage," is the judgment of a large and honest nature grown weary of
+the plays and the players of the time. We read with a sense of relief that
+in 1642, only twenty-six years after Shakespeare's death, both houses of
+Parliament voted to close the theaters as breeders of lies and immorality.
+
+
+BEN JONSON (1573?-1637)
+
+Personally Jonson is the most commanding literary figure among the
+Elizabethans. For twenty-five years he was the literary dictator of London,
+the chief of all the wits that gathered nightly at the old Devil Tavern.
+With his great learning, his ability, and his commanding position as poet
+laureate, he set himself squarely against his contemporaries and the
+romantic tendency of the age. For two things he fought bravely,--to restore
+the classic form of the drama, and to keep the stage from its downward
+course. Apparently he failed; the romantic school fixed its hold more
+strongly than ever; the stage went swiftly to an end as sad as that of the
+early dramatists. Nevertheless his influence lived and grew more powerful
+till, aided largely by French influence, it resulted in the so-called
+classicism of the eighteenth century.
+
+LIFE. Jonson was born at Westminster about the year 1573. His father, an
+educated gentleman, had his property confiscated and was himself thrown
+into prison by Queen Mary; so we infer the family was of some prominence.
+From his mother he received certain strong characteristics, and by a single
+short reference in Jonson's works we are led to see the kind of woman she
+was. It is while Jonson is telling Drummond of the occasion when he was
+thrown into prison, because some passages in the comedy of _Eastward Ho!_
+gave offense to King James, and he was in danger of a horrible death, after
+having his ears and nose cut off. He tells us how, after his pardon, he was
+banqueting with his friends, when his "old mother" came in and showed a
+paper full of "lusty strong poison," which she intended to mix with his
+drink just before the execution. And to show that she "was no churl," she
+intended first to drink of the poison herself. The incident is all the more
+suggestive from the fact that Chapman and Marston, one his friend and the
+other his enemy, were first cast into prison as the authors of _Eastward
+Ho!_ and rough Ben Jonson at once declared that he too had had a small hand
+in the writing and went to join them in prison.
+
+Jonson's father came out of prison, having given up his estate, and became
+a minister. He died just before the son's birth, and two years later the
+mother married a bricklayer of London. The boy was sent to a private
+school, and later made his own way to Westminster School, where the
+submaster, Camden, struck by the boy's ability, taught and largely
+supported him. For a short time he may have studied at the university in
+Cambridge; but his stepfather soon set him to learning the bricklayer's
+trade. He ran away from this, and went with the English army to fight
+Spaniards in the Low Countries. His best known exploit there was to fight a
+duel between the lines with one of the enemy's soldiers, while both armies
+looked on. Jonson killed his man, and took his arms, and made his way back
+to his own lines in a way to delight the old Norman troubadours. He soon
+returned to England, and married precipitately when only nineteen or twenty
+years old. Five years later we find him employed, like Shakespeare, as
+actor and reviser of old plays in the theater. Thereafter his life is a
+varied and stormy one. He killed an actor in a duel, and only escaped
+hanging by pleading "benefit of clergy";[154] but he lost all his poor
+goods and was branded for life on his left thumb. In his first great play,
+_Every Man in His Humour_ (1598), Shakespeare acted one of the parts; and
+that may have been the beginning of their long friendship. Other plays
+followed rapidly. Upon the accession of James, Jonson's masques won him
+royal favor, and he was made poet laureate. He now became undoubted leader
+of the literary men of his time, though his rough honesty and his hatred of
+the literary tendencies of the age made him quarrel with nearly all of
+them. In 1616, soon after Shakespeare's retirement, he stopped writing for
+the stage and gave himself up to study and serious work. In 1618 he
+traveled on foot to Scotland, where he visited Drummond, from whom we have
+the scant records of his varied life. His impressions of this journey,
+called _Foot Pilgrimage_, were lost in a fire before publication.
+Thereafter he produced less, and his work declined in vigor; but spite of
+growing poverty and infirmity we notice in his later work, especially in
+the unfinished _Sad Shepherd_, a certain mellowness and tender human
+sympathy which were lacking in his earlier productions. He died poverty
+stricken in 1637. Unlike Shakespeare's, his death was mourned as a national
+calamity, and he was buried with all honor in Westminster Abbey. On his
+grave was laid a marble slab, on which the words "O rare Ben Jonson" were
+his sufficient epitaph.
+
+WORKS OF BEN JONSON. Jonson's work is in strong contrast with that of
+Shakespeare and of the later Elizabethan dramatists. Alone he fought
+against the romantic tendency of the age, and to restore the classic
+standards. Thus the whole action of his drama usually covers only a few
+hours, or a single day. He never takes liberties with historical facts, as
+Shakespeare does, but is accurate to the smallest detail. His dramas abound
+in classical learning, are carefully and logically constructed, and comedy
+and tragedy are kept apart, instead of crowding each other as they do in
+Shakespeare and in life. In one respect his comedies are worthy of careful
+reading,--they are intensely realistic, presenting men and women of the
+time exactly as they were. From a few of Jonson's scenes we can
+understand--better than from all the plays of Shakespeare--how men talked
+and acted during the Age of Elizabeth.
+
+Jonson's first comedy, _Every Man in His Humour_, is a key to all his
+dramas. The word "humour" in his age stood for some characteristic whim or
+quality of society. Jonson gives to his leading character some prominent
+humor, exaggerates it, as the cartoonist enlarges the most characteristic
+feature of a face, and so holds it before our attention that all other
+qualities are lost sight of; which is the method that Dickens used later in
+many of his novels. _Every Man in His Humour_ was the first of three
+satires. Its special aim was to ridicule the humors of the city. The
+second, _Cynthia's Revels_, satirizes the humors of the court; while the
+third, _The Poetaster_, the result of a quarrel with his contemporaries,
+was leveled at the false standards of the poets of the age.
+
+The three best known of Jonson's comedies are _Volpone, or the Fox, The
+Alchemist_, and _Epicoene, or the Silent Woman. Volpone_ is a keen and
+merciless analysis of a man governed by an overwhelming love of money for
+its own sake. The first words in the first scene are a key to the whole
+comedy:
+
+    _(Volpone)_
+        Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!
+        Open the shrine that I may see my saint.
+            (_Mosca withdraws a curtain and discovers piles of
+             gold, plate, jewels, etc._)
+        Hail the world's soul, and mine!
+
+Volpone's method of increasing his wealth is to play upon the avarice of
+men. He pretends to be at the point of death, and his "suitors," who know
+his love of gain and that he has no heirs, endeavor hypocritically to
+sweeten his last moments by giving him rich presents, so that he will leave
+them all his wealth. The intrigues of these suitors furnish the story of
+the play, and show to what infamous depths avarice will lead a man.
+
+_The Alchemist_ is a study of quackery on one side and of gullibility on
+the other, founded on the mediæval idea of the philosopher's stone,[155]
+and applies as well to the patent medicines and get-rich-quick schemes of
+our day as to the peculiar forms of quackery with which Jonson was more
+familiar. In plot and artistic construction _The Alchemist_ is an almost
+perfect specimen of the best English drama. It has some remarkably good
+passages, and is the most readable of Jonson's plays.
+
+_Epicoene, or the Silent Woman_, is a prose comedy exceedingly well
+constructed, full of life, abounding in fun and unexpected situations. Here
+is a brief outline from which the reader may see of what materials Jonson
+made up his comedies.
+
+The chief character is Morose, a rich old codger whose humor is a horror of
+noise. He lives in a street so narrow that it will admit no carriages; he
+pads the doors; plugs the keyhole; puts mattresses on the stairs. He
+dismisses a servant who wears squeaky boots; makes all the rest go about in
+thick stockings; and they must answer him by signs, since he cannot bear to
+hear anybody but himself talk. He disinherits his poor nephew Eugenie, and,
+to make sure that the latter will not get any money out of him, resolves to
+marry. His confidant in this delicate matter is Cutbeard the barber, who,
+unlike his kind, never speaks unless spoken to, and does not even knick his
+scissors as he works. Cutbeard (who is secretly in league with the nephew)
+tells him of Epicoene, a rare, silent woman, and Morose is so delighted
+with her silence that he resolves to marry her on the spot. Cutbeard
+produces a parson with a bad cold, who can speak only in a whisper, to
+marry them; and when the parson coughs after the ceremony Morose demands
+back five shillings of the fee. To save it the parson coughs more, and is
+hurriedly bundled out of the house. The silent woman finds her voice
+immediately after the marriage, begins to talk loudly and to make reforms
+in the household, driving Morose to distraction. A noisy dinner party from
+a neighboring house, with drums and trumpets and a quarreling man and wife,
+is skillfully guided in at this moment to celebrate the wedding. Morose
+flees for his life, and is found perched like a monkey on a crossbeam in
+the attic, with all his nightcaps tied over his ears. He seeks a divorce,
+but is driven frantic by the loud arguments of a lawyer and a divine, who
+are no other than Cutbeard and a sea captain disguised. When Morose is past
+all hope the nephew offers to release him from his wife and her noisy
+friends if he will allow him five hundred pounds a year. Morose offers him
+anything, everything, to escape his torment, and signs a deed to that
+effect. Then comes the surprise of the play when Eugenie whips the wig from
+Epicoene and shows a boy in disguise.
+
+It will be seen that the _Silent Woman_, with its rapid action and its
+unexpected situations, offers an excellent opportunity for the actors; but
+the reading of the play, as of most of Jonson's comedies, is marred by low
+intrigues showing a sad state of morals among the upper classes.
+
+Besides these, and many other less known comedies, Jonson wrote two great
+tragedies, _Sejanus_ (1603) and _Catiline_ (1611), upon severe classical
+lines. After ceasing his work for the stage, Jonson wrote many masques in
+honor of James I and of Queen Anne, to be played amid elaborate scenery by
+the gentlemen of the court. The best of these are "The Satyr," "The
+Penates," "Masque of Blackness," "Masque of Beauty," "Hue and Cry after
+Cupid," and "The Masque of Queens." In all his plays Jonson showed a strong
+lyric gift, and some of his little poems and songs, like "The Triumph of
+Charis," "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes," and "To the Memory of my
+Beloved Mother," are now better known than his great dramatic works. A
+single volume of prose, called _Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and
+Matter_, is an interesting collection of short essays which are more like
+Bacon's than any other work of the age.
+
+BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. The work of these two men is so closely interwoven
+that, though Fletcher outlived Beaumont by nine years and the latter had no
+hand in some forty of the plays that bear their joint names, we still class
+them together, and only scholars attempt to separate their works so as to
+give each writer his due share. Unlike most of the Elizabethan dramatists,
+they both came from noble and cultured families and were university
+trained. Their work, in strong contrast with Jonson's, is intensely
+romantic, and in it all, however coarse or brutal the scene, there is
+still, as Emerson pointed out, the subtle "recognition of gentility."
+
+Beaumont (1584-1616) was the brother of Sir John Beaumont of
+Leicestershire. From Oxford he came to London to study law, but soon gave
+it up to write for the stage. Fletcher (1579-1625) was the son of the
+bishop of London, and shows in all his work the influence of his high
+social position and of his Cambridge education. The two dramatists met at
+the Mermaid tavern under Ben Jonson's leadership and soon became
+inseparable friends, living and working together. Tradition has it that
+Beaumont supplied the judgment and the solid work of the play, while
+Fletcher furnished the high-colored sentiment and the lyric poetry, without
+which an Elizabethan play would have been incomplete. Of their joint plays,
+the two best known are _Philaster_, whose old theme, like that of
+_Cymbeline_ and _Griselda_, is the jealousy of a lover and the faithfulness
+of a girl, and _The Maid's Tragedy_. Concerning Fletcher's work the most
+interesting literary question is how much did he write of Shakespeare's
+_Henry VIII_, and how much did Shakespeare help him in _The Two Noble
+Kinsmen_.
+
+JOHN WEBSTER. Of Webster's personal history we know nothing except that he
+was well known as a dramatist under James I. His extraordinary powers of
+expression rank him with Shakespeare; but his talent seems to have been
+largely devoted to the blood-and-thunder play begun by Marlowe. His two
+best known plays are _The White Devil_ (pub. 1612) and _The Duchess of
+Malfi_ (pub. 1623). The latter, spite of its horrors, ranks him as one of
+the greatest masters of English tragedy. It must be remembered that he
+sought in this play to reproduce the Italian life of the sixteenth century,
+and for this no imaginary horrors are needed. The history of any Italian
+court or city in this period furnishes more vice and violence and dishonor
+than even the gloomy imagination of Webster could conceive. All the
+so-called blood tragedies of the Elizabethan period, from Thomas Kyd's
+_Spanish Tragedy_ down, however much they may condemn the brutal taste of
+the English audiences, are still only so many search lights thrown upon a
+history of horrible darkness.
+
+THOMAS MIDDLETON (1570?-1627). Middleton is best known by two great plays,
+_The Changeling_[156] and _Women Beware Women_. In poetry and diction they
+are almost worthy at times to rank with Shakespeare's plays; otherwise, in
+their sensationalism and unnaturalness they do violence to the moral sense
+and are repulsive to the modern reader. Two earlier plays, _A Trick to
+catch the Old One_, his best comedy, and _A Fair Quarrel_, his earliest
+tragedy, are less mature in thought and expression, but more readable,
+because they seem to express Middleton's own idea of the drama rather than
+that of the corrupt court and playwrights of his later age.
+
+THOMAS HEYWOOD (1580?-1650?). Heywood's life, of which we know little in
+detail, covers the whole period of the Elizabethan drama. To the glory of
+that drama he contributed, according to his own statement, the greater
+part, at least, of nearly two hundred and twenty plays. It was an enormous
+amount of work; but he seems to have been animated by the modern literary
+spirit of following the best market and striking while the financial iron
+is hot. Naturally good work was impossible, even to genius, under such
+circumstances, and few of his plays are now known. The two best, if the
+reader would obtain his own idea of Heywood's undoubted ability, are _A
+Woman killed with Kindness_, a pathetic story of domestic life, and _The
+Fair Maid of the West_, a melodrama with plenty of fighting of the popular
+kind.
+
+THOMAS DEKKER (1570-?). Dekker is in pleasing contrast with most of the
+dramatists of the time. All we know of him must be inferred from his works,
+which show a happy and sunny nature, pleasant and good to meet. The reader
+will find the best expression of Dekker's personality and erratic genius in
+_The Shoemakers' Holiday_, a humorous study of plain working people, and
+_Old Fortunatus_, a fairy drama of the wishing hat and no end of money.
+Whether intended for children or not, it had the effect of charming the
+elders far more than the young people, and the play became immensely
+popular.
+
+MASSINGER, FORD, SHIRLEY. These three men mark the end of the Elizabethan
+drama. Their work, done largely while the struggle was on between the
+actors and the corrupt court, on one side, and the Puritans on the other,
+shows a deliberate turning away not only from Puritan standards but from
+the high ideals of their own art to pander to the corrupt taste of the
+upper classes.
+
+Philip Massinger (1584-1640) was a dramatic poet of great natural ability;
+but his plots and situations are usually so strained and artificial that
+the modern reader finds no interest in them. In his best comedy, _A New Way
+to Pay Old Debts_, he achieved great popularity and gave us one figure, Sir
+Giles Overreach, which is one of the typical characters of the English
+stage. His best plays are _The Great Duke of Florence, The Virgin Martyr_,
+and _The Maid of Honour_.
+
+John Ford (1586-1642?) and James Shirley (1596-1666) have left us little of
+permanent literary value, and their works are read only by those who wish
+to understand the whole rise and fall of the drama. An occasional scene in
+Ford's plays is as strong as anything that the Elizabethan Age produced;
+but as a whole the plays are unnatural and tiresome. Probably his best play
+is _The Broken Heart_ (1633). Shirley was given to imitation of his
+predecessors, and his very imitation is characteristic of an age which had
+lost its inspiration. A single play, _Hyde Park_, with its frivolous,
+realistic dialogue, is sometimes read for its reflection of the fashionable
+gossipy talk of the day. Long before Shirley's death the actors said,
+"Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone." Parliament voted to close the
+theaters, thereby saving the drama from a more inglorious death by
+dissipation.[157]
+
+
+VI. THE PROSE WRITERS
+
+FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)
+
+In Bacon we see one of those complex and contradictory natures which are
+the despair of the biographer. If the writer be an admirer of Bacon, he
+finds too much that he must excuse or pass over in silence; and if he takes
+his stand on the law to condemn the avarice and dishonesty of his subject,
+he finds enough moral courage and nobility to make him question the justice
+of his own judgment. On the one hand is rugged Ben Jonson's tribute to his
+power and ability, and on the other Hallam's summary that he was "a man
+who, being intrusted with the highest gifts of Heaven, habitually abused
+them for the poorest purposes of earth--hired them out for guineas,
+places, and titles in the service of injustice, covetousness, and
+oppression."
+
+Laying aside the opinions of others, and relying only upon the facts of
+Bacon's life, we find on the one side the politician, cold, calculating,
+selfish, and on the other the literary and scientific man with an
+impressive devotion to truth for its own great sake; here a man using
+questionable means to advance his own interests, and there a man seeking
+with zeal and endless labor to penetrate the secret ways of Nature, with no
+other object than to advance the interests of his fellow-men. So, in our
+ignorance of the secret motives and springs of the man's life, judgment is
+necessarily suspended. Bacon was apparently one of those double natures
+that only God is competent to judge, because of the strange mixture of
+intellectual strength and moral weakness that is in them.
+
+LIFE. Bacon was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Seal, and
+of the learned Ann Cook, sister-in-law to Lord Burleigh, greatest of the
+queen's statesmen. From these connections, as well as from native gifts, he
+was attracted to the court, and as a child was called by Elizabeth her
+"Little Lord Keeper." At twelve he went to Cambridge, but left the
+university after two years, declaring the whole plan of education to be
+radically wrong, and the system of Aristotle, which was the basis of all
+philosophy in those days, to be a childish delusion, since in the course of
+centuries it had "produced no fruit, but only a jungle of dry and useless
+branches." Strange, even for a sophomore of fourteen, thus to condemn the
+whole system of the universities; but such was the boy, and the system!
+Next year, in order to continue his education, he accompanied the English
+ambassador to France, where he is said to have busied himself chiefly with
+the practical studies of statistics and diplomacy.
+
+Two years later he was recalled to London by the death of his father.
+Without money, and naturally with expensive tastes, he applied to his Uncle
+Burleigh for a lucrative position. It was in this application that he used
+the expression, so characteristic of the Elizabethan Age, that he "had
+taken all knowledge for his province." Burleigh, who misjudged him as a
+dreamer and self-seeker, not only refused to help him at the court but
+successfully opposed his advancement by Elizabeth. Bacon then took up the
+study of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1582. That he had not lost his
+philosophy in the mazes of the law is shown by his tract, written about
+this time, "On the Greatest Birth of Time," which was a plea for his
+inductive system of philosophy, reasoning from many facts to one law,
+rather than from an assumed law to particular facts, which was the
+deductive method that had been in use for centuries. In his famous plea for
+progress Bacon demanded three things: the free investigation of nature, the
+discovery of facts instead of theories, and the verification of results by
+experiment rather than by argument. In our day these are the A, B, C of
+science, but in Bacon's time they seemed revolutionary.
+
+As a lawyer he became immediately successful; his knowledge and power of
+pleading became widely known, and it was almost at the beginning of his
+career that Jonson wrote, "The fear of every one that heard him speak was
+that he should make an end." The publication of his _Essays_ added greatly
+to his fame; but Bacon was not content. His head was buzzing with huge
+schemes,--the pacification of unhappy Ireland, the simplification of
+English law, the reform of the church, the study of nature, the
+establishment of a new philosophy. Meanwhile, sad to say, he played the
+game of politics for his personal advantage. He devoted himself to Essex,
+the young and dangerous favorite of the queen, won his friendship, and then
+used him skillfully to better his own position. When the earl was tried for
+treason it was partly, at least, through Bacon's efforts that he was
+convicted and beheaded; and though Bacon claims to have been actuated by a
+high sense of justice, we are not convinced that he understood either
+justice or friendship in appearing as queen's counsel against the man who
+had befriended him. His coldbloodedness and lack of moral sensitiveness
+appear even in his essays on "Love" and "Friendship." Indeed, we can
+understand his life only upon the theory that his intellectuality left him
+cold and dead to the higher sentiments of our humanity.
+
+During Elizabeth's reign Bacon had sought repeatedly for high office, but
+had been blocked by Burleigh and perhaps also by the queen's own shrewdness
+in judging men. With the advent of James I (1603) Bacon devoted himself to
+the new ruler and rose rapidly in favor. He was knighted, and soon
+afterwards attained another object of his ambition in marrying a rich wife.
+The appearance of his great work, the _Advancement of Learning_, in 1605,
+was largely the result of the mental stimulus produced by his change in
+fortune. In 1613 he was made attorney-general, and speedily made enemies by
+using the office to increase his personal ends. He justified himself in his
+course by his devotion to the king's cause, and by the belief that the
+higher his position and the more ample his means the more he could do for
+science. It was in this year that Bacon wrote his series of _State Papers_,
+which show a marvelous grasp of the political tendencies of his age. Had
+his advice been followed, it would have certainly averted the struggle
+between king and parliament that followed speedily. In 1617 he was
+appointed to his father's office, Lord Keeper of the Seal, and the next
+year to the high office of Lord Chancellor. With this office he received
+the title of Baron Verulam, and later of Viscount St. Alban, which he
+affixed with some vanity to his literary work. Two years later appeared his
+greatest work, the _Novum Organum_, called after Aristotle's famous
+_Organon_.
+
+Bacon did not long enjoy his political honors. The storm which had been
+long gathering against James's government broke suddenly upon Bacon's head.
+When Parliament assembled in 1621 it vented its distrust of James and his
+favorite Villiers by striking unexpectedly at their chief adviser. Bacon
+was sternly accused of accepting bribes, and the evidence was so great that
+he confessed that there was much political corruption abroad in the land,
+that he was personally guilty of some of it, and he threw himself upon the
+mercy of his judges. Parliament at that time was in no mood for mercy.
+Bacon was deprived of his office and was sentenced to pay the enormous fine
+of 40,000 pounds, to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and
+thereafter to be banished forever from Parliament and court. Though the
+imprisonment lasted only a few days and the fine was largely remitted,
+Bacon's hopes and schemes for political honors were ended; and it is at
+this point of appalling adversity that the nobility in the man's nature
+asserts itself strongly. If the reader be interested to apply a great man's
+philosophy to his own life, he will find the essay, "Of Great Place," most
+interesting in this connection.
+
+Bacon now withdrew permanently from public life, and devoted his splendid
+ability to literary and scientific work. He completed the _Essays_,
+experimented largely, wrote history, scientific articles, and one
+scientific novel, and made additions to his _Instauratio Magna_, the great
+philosophical work which was never finished. In the spring of 1626, while
+driving in a snowstorm, it occurred to him that snow might be used as a
+preservative instead of salt. True to his own method of arriving at truth,
+he stopped at the first house, bought a fowl, and proceeded to test his
+theory. The experiment chilled him, and he died soon after from the effects
+of his exposure. As Macaulay wrote, "the great apostle of experimental
+philosophy was destined to be its martyr."
+
+WORKS OF BACON. Bacon's philosophic works, _The Advancement of Learning_
+and the _Novum Organum_, will be best understood in connection with the
+_Instauratio Magna_, or _The Great Institution of True Philosophy_, of
+which they were parts. The _Instauratio_ was never completed, but the very
+idea of the work was magnificent,--to sweep away the involved philosophy of
+the schoolmen and the educational systems of the universities, and to
+substitute a single great work which should be a complete education, "a
+rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and for the relief of man's
+estate." The object of this education was to bring practical results to all
+the people, instead of a little selfish culture and much useless
+speculation, which, he conceived, were the only products of the
+universities.
+
+THE INSTAURATIO MAGNA. This was the most ambitious, though it is not the
+best known, of Bacon's works. For the insight it gives us into the author's
+mind, we note here a brief outline of his subject. It was divided into six
+parts, as follows:
+
+1. _Partitiones Scientiarum_. This was to be a classification and summary
+of all human knowledge. Philosophy and all speculation must be cast out and
+the natural sciences established as the basis of all education. The only
+part completed was _The Advancement of Learning_, which served as an
+introduction.
+
+2. _Novum Organum_, or the "new instrument," that is, the use of reason and
+experiment instead of the old Aristotelian logic. To find truth one must do
+two things: (_a_) get rid of all prejudices or idols, as Bacon called them.
+These "idols" are four: "idols of the tribe," that is, prejudices due to
+common methods of thought among all races; "idols of the cave or den," that
+is, personal peculiarities and prejudices; "idols of the market place," due
+to errors of language; and "idols of the theater," which are the unreliable
+traditions of men. (_b_) After discarding the above "idols" we must
+interrogate nature; must collect facts by means of numerous experiments,
+arrange them in order, and then determine the law that underlies them.
+
+It will be seen at a glance that the above is the most important of Bacon's
+works. The _Organum_ was to be in several books, only two of which he
+completed, and these he wrote and rewrote twelve times until they satisfied
+him.
+
+3. _Historic Naturalis et Experimentalis_, the study of all the phenomena
+of nature. Of four parts of this work which he completed, one of them at
+least, the _Sylva Sylvarum_, is decidedly at variance with his own idea of
+fact and experiment. It abounds in fanciful explanations, more worthy of
+the poetic than of the scientific mind. Nature is seen to be full of
+desires and instincts; the air "thirsts" for light and fragrance; bodies
+rise or sink because they have an "appetite" for height or depth; the
+qualities of bodies are the result of an "essence," so that when we
+discover the essences of gold and silver and diamonds it will be a simple
+matter to create as much of them as we may need.
+
+4. _Scala Intellectus_, or "Ladder of the Mind," is the rational
+application of the _Organum_ to all problems. By it the mind should ascend
+step by step from particular facts and instances to general laws and
+abstract principles.
+
+5. _Prodromi_, "Prophecies or Anticipations," is a list of discoveries that
+men shall make when they have applied Bacon's methods of study and
+experimentation.
+
+6. _Philosophia Secunda_, which was to be a record of practical results of
+the new philosophy when the succeeding ages should have applied it
+faithfully.
+
+It is impossible to regard even the outline of such a vast work without an
+involuntary thrill of admiration for the bold and original mind which
+conceived it. "We may," said Bacon, "make no despicable beginnings. The
+destinies of the human race must complete the work ... for upon this will
+depend not only a speculative good but all the fortunes of mankind and all
+their power." There is the unconscious expression of one of the great minds
+of the world. Bacon was like one of the architects of the Middle Ages, who
+drew his plans for a mighty cathedral, perfect in every detail from the
+deep foundation stone to the cross on the highest spire, and who gave over
+his plans to the builders, knowing that, in his own lifetime, only one tiny
+chapel would be completed; but knowing also that the very beauty of his
+plans would appeal to others, and that succeeding ages would finish the
+work which he dared to begin.
+
+THE ESSAYS. Bacon's famous _Essays_ is the one work which will interest all
+students of our literature. His _Instauratio_ was in Latin, written mostly
+by paid helpers from short English abstracts. He regarded Latin as the only
+language worthy of a great work; but the world neglected his Latin to seize
+upon his English,--marvelous English, terse, pithy, packed with thought, in
+an age that used endless circumlocutions. The first ten essays, published
+in 1597, were brief notebook jottings of Bacon's observations. Their
+success astonished the author, but not till fifteen years later were they
+republished and enlarged. Their charm grew upon Bacon himself, and during
+his retirement he gave more thought to the wonderful language which he had
+at first despised as much as Aristotle's philosophy. In 1612 appeared a
+second edition containing thirty-eight essays, and in 1625, the year before
+his death, he republished the _Essays_ in their present form, polishing and
+enlarging the original ten to fifty-eight, covering a wide variety of
+subjects suggested by the life of men around him.
+
+Concerning the best of these essays there are as many opinions as there are
+readers, and what one gets out of them depends largely upon his own thought
+and intelligence. In this respect they are like that Nature to which Bacon
+directed men's thoughts. The whole volume may be read through in an
+evening; but after one has read them a dozen times he still finds as many
+places to pause and reflect as at the first reading. If one must choose out
+of such a storehouse, we would suggest "Studies," "Goodness," "Riches,"
+"Atheism," "Unity in Religion," "Adversity," "Friendship," and "Great
+Place" as an introduction to Bacon's worldly-wise philosophy.
+
+MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. Other works of Bacon are interesting as a revelation
+of the Elizabethan mind, rather than because of any literary value. _The
+New Atlantis_ is a kind of scientific novel describing another Utopia as
+seen by Bacon. The inhabitants of Atlantis have banished Philosophy and
+applied Bacon's method of investigating Nature, using the results to better
+their own condition. They have a wonderful civilization, in which many of
+our later discoveries--academies of the sciences, observatories, balloons,
+submarines, the modification of species, and several others--were
+foreshadowed with a strange mixture of cold reason and poetic intuition.
+_De Sapientia Veterum_ is a fanciful attempt to show the deep meaning
+underlying ancient myths,--a meaning which would have astonished the myth
+makers themselves. The _History of Henry VII_ is a calm, dispassionate, and
+remarkably accurate history, which makes us regret that Bacon did not do
+more historical work. Besides these are metrical versions of certain
+Psalms--which are valuable, in view of the controversy anent Shakespeare's
+plays, for showing Bacon's utter inability to write poetry--and a large
+number of letters and state papers showing the range and power of his
+intellect.
+
+BACON'S PLACE AND WORK. Although Bacon was for the greater part of his life
+a busy man of affairs, one cannot read his work without becoming conscious
+of two things,--a perennial freshness, which the world insists upon in all
+literature that is to endure, and an intellectual power which marks him as
+one of the great minds of the world.
+
+Of late the general tendency is to give less and less prominence to his
+work in science and philosophy; but criticism of his _Instauratio_, in view
+of his lofty aim, is of small consequence. It is true that his "science"
+to-day seems woefully inadequate; true also that, though he sought to
+discover truth, he thought perhaps to monopolize it, and so looked with the
+same suspicion upon Copernicus as upon the philosophers. The practical man
+who despises philosophy has simply misunderstood the thing he despises. In
+being practical and experimental in a romantic age he was not unique, as is
+often alleged, but only expressed the tendency of the English mind in all
+ages. Three centuries earlier the monk Roger Bacon did more practical
+experimenting than the Elizabethan sage; and the latter's famous "idols"
+are strongly suggestive of the former's "Four Sources of Human Ignorance."
+Although Bacon did not make any of the scientific discoveries at which he
+aimed, yet the whole spirit of his work, especially of _the Organum_, has
+strongly influenced science in the direction of accurate observation and of
+carefully testing every theory by practical experiment. "He that regardeth
+the clouds shall not sow," said a wise writer of old; and Bacon turned
+men's thoughts from the heavens above, with which they had been too busy,
+to the earth beneath, which they had too much neglected. In an age when men
+were busy with romance and philosophy, he insisted that the first object of
+education is to make a man familiar with his natural environment; from
+books he turned to men, from theory to fact, from philosophy to nature,--
+and that is perhaps his greatest contribution to life and literature. Like
+Moses upon Pisgah, he stood high enough above his fellows to look out over
+a promised land, which his people would inherit, but into which he himself
+might never enter.
+
+RICHARD HOOKER (1554?-1600) In strong contrast with Bacon is Richard
+Hooker, one of the greatest prose writers of the Elizabethan Age. One must
+read the story of his life, an obscure and lowly life animated by a great
+spirit, as told by Izaak Walton, to appreciate the full force of this
+contrast. Bacon took all knowledge for his province, but mastered no single
+part of it. Hooker, taking a single theme, the law and practice of the
+English Church, so handled it that no scholar even of the present day would
+dream of superseding it or of building upon any other foundation than that
+which Hooker laid down. His one great work is _The Laws of Ecclesiastical
+Polity_,[158] a theological and argumentative book; but, entirely apart
+from its subject, it will be read wherever men desire to hear the power and
+stateliness of the English language. Here is a single sentence, remarkable
+not only for its perfect form but also for its expression of the reverence
+for law which lies at the heart of Anglo-Saxon civilization:
+
+Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of
+God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do
+her homage; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not
+exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what
+condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with
+uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.
+
+SIDNEY AND RALEIGH. Among the prose writers of this wonderful literary age
+there are many others that deserve passing notice, though they fall far
+below the standard of Bacon and Hooker. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), who
+has already been considered as a poet, is quite as well known by his prose
+works, _Arcadia_, a pastoral romance, and the _Defense of Poesie_, one of
+our earliest literary essays. Sidney, whom the poet Shelley has eulogized,
+represents the whole romantic tendency of his age; while Sir Walter Raleigh
+(1552?-1618) represents its adventurous spirit and activity. The life of
+Raleigh is an almost incomprehensible mixture of the poet, scholar, and
+adventurer; now helping the Huguenots or the struggling Dutch in Europe,
+and now leading an expedition into the unmapped wilds of the New World;
+busy here with court intrigues, and there with piratical attempts to
+capture the gold-laden Spanish galleons; one moment sailing the high seas
+in utter freedom, and the next writing history and poetry to solace his
+imprisonment. Such a life in itself is a volume far more interesting than
+anything that he wrote. He is the restless spirit of the Elizabethan Age
+personified.
+
+Raleigh's chief prose works are the _Discoverie of Guiana_, a work which
+would certainly have been interesting enough had he told simply what he
+saw, but which was filled with colonization schemes and visions of an El
+Dorado to fill the eyes and ears of the credulous; and the _History of the
+World_, written to occupy his prison hours. The history is a wholly
+untrustworthy account of events from creation to the downfall of the
+Macedonian Empire. It is interesting chiefly for its style, which is simple
+and dignified, and for the flashes of wit and poetry that break into the
+fantastic combination of miracles, traditions, hearsay, and state records
+which he called history. In the conclusion is the famous apostrophe to
+Death, which suggests what Raleigh might have done had he lived less
+strenuously and written more carefully.
+
+O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise thou hast
+persuaded; what none hath dared thou hast done; and whom all the world hath
+flattered thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast
+drawn together all the star-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty,
+and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words,
+_Hic jacet_!
+
+JOHN FOXE (1516-1587). Foxe will be remembered always for his famous _Book
+of Martyrs_, a book that our elders gave to us on Sundays when we were
+young, thinking it good discipline for us to afflict our souls when we
+wanted to be roaming the sunlit fields, or when in our enforced idleness we
+would, if our own taste in the matter had been consulted, have made good
+shift to be quiet and happy with _Robinson Crusoe_. So we have a gloomy
+memory of Foxe, and something of a grievance, which prevent a just
+appreciation of his worth.
+
+Foxe had been driven out of England by the Marian persecutions, and in a
+wandering but diligent life on the Continent he conceived the idea of
+writing a history of the persecutions of the church from the earliest days
+to his own. The part relating to England and Scotland was published, in
+Latin, in 1559 under a title as sonorous and impressive as the Roman office
+for the dead,--_Rerum in Ecclesia Gestarum Maximarumque per Europam
+Persecutionum Commentarii_. On his return to England Foxe translated this
+work, calling it the _Acts and Monuments_; but it soon became known as the
+_Book of Martyrs_, and so it will always be called. Foxe's own bitter
+experience causes him to write with more heat and indignation than his
+saintly theme would warrant, and the "holy tone" sometimes spoils a
+narrative that would be impressive in its bare simplicity. Nevertheless the
+book has made for itself a secure place in our literature. It is strongest
+in its record of humble men, like Rowland Taylor and Thomas Hawkes, whose
+sublime heroism, but for this narrative, would have been lost amid the
+great names and the great events that fill the Elizabethan Age.
+
+CAMDEN AND KNOX. Two historians, William Camden and John Knox, stand out
+prominently among the numerous historical writers of the age. Camden's
+_Britannia_ (1586) is a monumental work, which marks the beginning of true
+antiquarian research in the field of history; and his _Annals of Queen
+Elizabeth_ is worthy of a far higher place than has thus far been given it.
+John Knox, the reformer, in his _History of the Reformation in Scotland_,
+has some very vivid portraits of his helpers and enemies. The personal and
+aggressive elements enter too strongly for a work of history; but the
+autobiographical parts show rare literary power. His account of his famous
+interview with Mary Queen of Scots is clear-cut as a cameo, and shows the
+man's extraordinary power better than a whole volume of biography. Such
+scenes make one wish that more of his time had been given to literary work,
+rather than to the disputes and troubles of his own Scotch kirk.
+
+HAKLUYT AND PURCHAS. Two editors of this age have made for themselves an
+enviable place in our literature. They are Richard Hakluyt (1552?-1616) and
+Samuel Purchas (1575?-1626). Hakluyt was a clergyman who in the midst of
+his little parish set himself to achieve two great patriotic ends,--to
+promote the wealth and commerce of his country, and to preserve the memory
+of all his countrymen who added to the glory of the realm by their travels
+and explorations. To further the first object he concerned himself deeply
+with the commercial interests of the East India Company, with Raleigh's
+colonizing plans in Virginia, and with a translation of De Soto's travels
+in America. To further the second he made himself familiar with books of
+voyages in all foreign languages and with the brief reports of explorations
+of his own countrymen. His _Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries
+of the English Nation_, in three volumes, appeared first in 1589, and a
+second edition followed in 1598-1600. The first volume tells of voyages to
+the north; the second to India and the East; the third, which is as large
+as the other two, to the New World. With the exception of the very first
+voyage, that of King Arthur to Iceland in 517, which is founded on a myth,
+all the voyages are authentic accounts of the explorers themselves, and are
+immensely interesting reading even at the present day. No other book of
+travels has so well expressed the spirit and energy of the English race, or
+better deserves a place in our literature.
+
+Samuel Purchas, who was also a clergyman, continued the work of Hakluyt,
+using many of the latter's unpublished manuscripts and condensing the
+records of numerous other voyages. His first famous book, _Purchas, His
+Pilgrimage_, appeared in 1613, and was followed by _Hakluytus Posthumus, or
+Purchas His Pilgrimes_, in 1625. The very name inclines one to open the
+book with pleasure, and when one follows his inclination--which is, after
+all, one of the best guides in literature--he is rarely disappointed.
+Though it falls far below the standard of Hakluyt, both in accuracy and
+literary finish, there is still plenty to make one glad that the book was
+written and that he can now comfortably follow Purchas on his pilgrimage.
+
+THOMAS NORTH. Among the translators of the Elizabethan Age Sir Thomas North
+(1535?-1601?) is most deserving of notice because of his version of
+_Plutarch's Lives_ (1579) from which Shakespeare took the characters and
+many of the incidents for three great Roman plays. Thus in North we read:
+
+Cæsar also had Cassius in great jealousy and suspected him much: whereupon
+he said on a time to his friends: "What will Cassius do, think ye? I like
+not his pale looks." Another time when Cæsar's friends warned him of
+Antonius and Dolabella, he answered them again, "I never reckon of them;
+but these pale-visaged and carrion lean people, I fear them most," meaning
+Brutus and Cassius.
+
+Shakespeare merely touches such a scene with the magic of his genius, and
+his Cæsar speaks:
+
+    Let me have men about me that are fat:
+    Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights.
+    Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look:
+    He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
+
+A careful reading of North's _Plutarch_ and then of the famous Roman plays
+shows to how great an extent Shakespeare was dependent upon his obscure
+contemporary.
+
+North's translation, to which we owe so many heroic models in our
+literature, was probably made not from Plutarch but from Amyot's excellent
+French translation. Nevertheless he reproduces the spirit of the original,
+and notwithstanding our modern and more accurate translations, he remains
+the most inspiring interpreter of the great biographer whom Emerson calls
+"the historian of heroism."
+
+SUMMARY OF THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. This period is generally regarded as the
+greatest in the history of our literature. Historically, we note in this
+age the tremendous impetus received from the Renaissance, from the
+Reformation, and from the exploration of the New World. It was marked by a
+strong national spirit, by patriotism, by religious tolerance, by social
+content, by intellectual progress, and by unbounded enthusiasm.
+
+Such an age, of thought, feeling, and vigorous action, finds its best
+expression in the drama; and the wonderful development of the drama,
+culminating in Shakespeare, is the most significant characteristic of the
+Elizabethan period. Though the age produced some excellent prose works, it
+is essentially an age of poetry; and the poetry is remarkable for its
+variety, its freshness, its youthful and romantic feeling. Both the poetry
+and the drama were permeated by Italian influence, which was dominant in
+English literature from Chaucer to the Restoration. The literature of this
+age is often called the literature of the Renaissance, though, as we have
+seen, the Renaissance itself began much earlier, and for a century and a
+half added very little to our literary possessions.
+
+In our study of this great age we have noted (1) the Non-dramatic Poets,
+that is, poets who did not write for the stage. The center of this group is
+Edmund Spenser, whose _Shepherd's Calendar_ (1579) marked the appearance of
+the first national poet since Chaucer's death in 1400. His most famous work
+is _The Faery Queen_. Associated with Spenser are the minor poets, Thomas
+Sackville, Michael Drayton, George Chapman, and Philip Sidney. Chapman is
+noted for his completion of Marlowe's poem, _Hero and Leander_, and for his
+translation of Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. Sidney, besides his poetry,
+wrote his prose romance _Arcadia_, and _The Defense of Poesie_, one of our
+earliest critical essays.
+
+(2) The Rise of the Drama in England; the Miracle plays, Moralities, and
+Interludes; our first play, "Ralph Royster Doyster"; the first true English
+comedy, "Gammer Gurton's Needle," and the first tragedy, "Gorboduc"; the
+conflict between classic and native ideals in the English drama.
+
+(3) Shakespeare's Predecessors, Lyly, Kyd, Nash, Peele, Greene, Marlowe;
+the types of drama with which they experimented,--the Marlowesque, one-man
+type, or tragedy of passion, the popular Chronicle plays, the Domestic
+drama, the Court or Lylian comedy, Romantic comedy and tragedy, Classical
+plays, and the Melodrama. Marlowe is the greatest of Shakespeare's
+predecessors. His four plays are "Tamburlaine," "Faustus," "The Jew of
+Malta," and "Edward II."
+
+(4) Shakespeare, his life, work, and influence.
+
+(5) Shakespeare's Successors, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster,
+Middleton, Heywood, Dekker; and the rapid decline of the drama. Ben Jonson
+is the greatest of this group. His chief comedies are "Every Man in His
+Humour," "The Silent Woman," and "The Alchemist"; his two extant tragedies
+are "Sejanus" and "Catiline."
+
+(6) The Prose Writers, of whom Bacon is the most notable. His chief
+philosophical work is the _Instauratio Magna_ (incomplete), which includes
+"The Advancement of Learning" and the "Novum Organum"; but he is known to
+literary readers by his famous _Essays_. Minor prose writers are Richard
+Hooker, John Foxe, the historians Camden and Knox, the editors Hakluyt and
+Purchas, who gave us the stirring records of exploration, and Thomas North,
+the translator of Plutarch's _Lives_.
+
+SELECTIONS FOR READING. _Spenser_. Faery Queen, selections in Standard
+English Classics; Bk. I, in Riverside Literature Series, etc.; Shepherd's
+Calendar, in Cassell's National Library; Selected Poems, in Canterbury
+Poets Series; Minor Poems, in Temple Classics; Selections in Manly's
+English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets.
+
+_Minor Poets_. Drayton, Sackville, Sidney, Chapman, Selections in Manly or
+Ward; Elizabethan songs, in Schelling's Elizabethan Lyrics, and in
+Palgrave's Golden Treasury; Chapman's Homer, in Temple Classics.
+
+_The Early Drama_. Play of Noah's Flood, in Manly's Specimens of the
+Pre-Shaksperean Drama, or in Pollard's English Miracle Plays, Moralities
+and Interludes, or in Belles Lettres Series, sec. 2; L.T. Smith's The York
+Miracle Plays.
+
+_Lyly_. Endymion, in Holt's English Readings.
+
+_Marlowe_. Faustus, in Temple Dramatists, or Mermaid Series, or Morley's
+Universal Library, or Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets;
+Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets; Edward II,
+in Temple Dramatists, and in Holt's English Readings.
+
+_Shakespeare_. Merchant of Venice, Julius Cæsar, Macbeth, etc., in Standard
+English Classics (edited, with notes, with special reference to college-
+entrance requirements). Good editions of single plays are numerous and
+cheap. Hudson's and Rolfe's and the Arden Shakespeare are suggested as
+satisfactory. The Sonnets, edited by Beeching, in Athenæum Press Series.
+
+_Ben Jonson_. The Alchemist, in Canterbury Poets Series, or Morley's
+Universal Library; Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English
+Poets, or Canterbury Poets Series; Selections from Jonson's Masques, in
+Evans's English Masques; Timber, edited by Schelling, in Athenæum Press
+Series.
+
+_Bacon_. Essays, school edition (Ginn and Company); Northup's edition, in
+Riverside Literature Series (various other inexpensive editions, in the
+Pitt Press, Golden Treasury Series, etc.); Advancement of Learning, Bk. I,
+edited by Cook (Ginn and Company). Compare selections from Bacon, Hooker,
+Lyly, and Sidney, in Manly's English Prose.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.[159] _HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 208-238; Cheyney,
+pp. 330-410; Green, ch. 7; Traill, Macaulay, Froude.
+
+_Special works_. Creighton's The Age of Elizabeth; Hall's Society in the
+Elizabethan Age; Winter's Shakespeare's England; Goadby's The England of
+Shakespeare; Lee's Stratford on Avon; Harrison's Elizabethan England.
+
+_LITERATURE_. Saintsbury's History of Elizabethan Literature; Whipple's
+Literature of the Age of Elizabeth; S. Lee's Great Englishmen of the
+Sixteenth Century; Schilling's Elizabethan Lyrics, in Athenæum Press
+Series; Vernon Lee's Euphorion.
+
+_Spenser_. Texts, Cambridge, Globe, and Aldine editions; Noel's Selected
+Poems of Spenser, in Canterbury Poets; Minor Poems, in Temple Classics;
+Arber's Spenser Anthology; Church's Life of Spenser, in English Men of
+Letters Series; Lowell's Essay, in Among My Books, or in Literary Essays,
+vol. 4; Hazlitt's Chaucer and Spenser, in Lectures on the English Poets;
+Dowden's Essay, in Transcripts and Studies.
+
+_The Drama_. Texts, Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shakesperean Drama, 2
+vols., in Athenæum Press Series; Pollard's English Miracle Plays,
+Moralities and Interludes; the Temple Dramatists; Morley's Universal
+Library; Arber's English Reprints; Mermaid Series, etc.; Thayer's The Best
+Elizabethan Plays.
+
+Gayley's Plays of Our Forefathers (Miracles, Moralities, etc.); Bates's The
+English Religious Drama; Schelling's The English Chronicle Play; Lowell's
+Old English Dramatists; Boas's Shakespeare and his Predecessors; Symonds's
+Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama; Schelling's Elizabethan
+Drama; Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Introduction to Hudson's
+Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters; Ward's History of English
+Dramatic Literature; Dekker's The Gull's Hornbook, in King's Classics.
+
+_Marlowe_. Works, edited by Bullen; chief plays in Temple Dramatists,
+Mermaid Series of English Dramatists, Morley's Universal Library, etc.;
+Lowell's Old English Dramatists; Symonds's introduction, in Mermaid Series;
+Dowden's Essay, in Transcripts and Studies.
+
+_Shakespeare_. Good texts are numerous. Furness's Variorum edition is at
+present most useful for advanced work. Hudson's revised edition, each play
+in a single volume, with notes and introductions, will, when complete, be
+one of the very best for students' use.
+
+Raleigh's Shakespeare, in English Men of Letters Series; Lee's Life of
+Shakespeare; Hudson's Shakespeare: his Life, Art, and Characters;
+Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare; Fleay's
+Chronicle History of the Life and Work of Shakespeare; Dowden's
+Shakespeare, a Critical Study of his Mind and Art; Shakespeare Primer (same
+author); Baker's The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist; Lounsbury's
+Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; The Text of Shakespeare (same author);
+Wendell's William Shakespeare; Bradley's Shakesperian Tragedy; Hazlitt's
+Shakespeare and Milton, in Lectures on the English Poets; Emerson's Essay,
+Shakespeare or the Poet; Lowell's Essay, in Among My Books; Lamb's Tales
+from Shakespeare; Mrs. Jameson's Shakespeare's Female Characters (called
+also Characteristics of Women); Rolfe's Shakespeare the Boy; Brandes's
+William Shakespeare; Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; Mabie's
+William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man; The Shakespeare Apocrypha,
+edited by C. F. T. Brooke; Shakespeare's Holinshed, edited by Stone;
+Shakespeare Lexicon, by Schmidt; Concordance, by Bartlett; Grammar, by
+Abbott, or by Franz.
+
+_Ben Jonson_. Texts in Mermaid Series, Temple Dramatists, Morley's
+Universal Library, etc.; Masques and Entertainments of Ben Jonson, edited
+by Morley, in Carisbrooke Library; Timber, edited by Schelling, in Athenæum
+Press Series.
+
+_Beaumont, Fletcher, etc_. Plays in Mermaid Series, Temple Dramatists,
+etc.; Schelling's Elizabethan Drama; Lowell's Old English Dramatists;
+Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Fleay's Biographical Chronicle
+of the English Drama; Swinburne's Essays, in Essays in Prose and Poetry,
+and in Essays and Studies.
+
+_Bacon_. Texts, Essays in Everyman's Library, etc.; Advancement of Learning
+in Clarendon Press Series, Library of English Classics, etc.; Church's Life
+of Bacon, in English Men of Letters Series; Nichol's Bacon's Life and
+Philosophy; Francis Bacon, translated from the German of K. Fischer
+(excellent, but rare); Macaulay's Essay on Bacon.
+
+_Minor Prose Writers_. Sidney's Arcadia, edited by Somers; Defense of
+Poesy, edited by Cook, in Athenæum Press Series; Arber's Reprints, etc.;
+Selections from Sidney's prose and poetry in the Elizabethan Library;
+Symonds's Life of Sidney, in English Men of Letters; Bourne's Life of
+Sidney, in Heroes of the Nations; Lamb's Essay on Sidney's Sonnets, in
+Essays of Elia.
+
+Raleigh's works, published by the Oxford Press; Selections by Grosart, in
+Elizabethan Library; Raleigh's Last Fight of the _Revenge_, in Arber's
+Reprints; Life of Raleigh, by Edwards and by Gosse. Richard Hooker's works,
+edited by Keble, Oxford Press; Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, in Everyman's
+Library, and in Morley's Universal Library; Life, in Walton's Lives, in
+Morley's Universal Library; Dowden's Essay, in Puritan and Anglican.
+
+Lyly's Euphues, in Arber's Reprints; Endymion, edited by Baker; Campaspe,
+in Manly's Pre-Shaksperean Drama.
+
+North's Plutarch's Lives, edited by Wyndham, in Tudor Library; school
+edition, by Ginn and Company. Hakluyt's Voyages, in Everyman's Library;
+Jones's introduction to Hakluyt's Diverse Voyages; Payne's Voyages of
+Elizabethan Seamen; Froude's Essay, in Short Studies on Great Subjects.
+
+SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What historical conditions help to account for the
+great literature of the Elizabethan age? What are the general
+characteristics of Elizabethan literature? What type of literature
+prevailed, and why? What work seems to you to express most perfectly the
+Elizabethan spirit?
+
+2. Tell briefly the story of Spenser's life. What is the story or argument
+of the _Faery Queen_? What is meant by the Spenserian stanza? Read and
+comment upon Spenser's "Epithalamion." Why does the "Shepherd's Calendar"
+mark a literary epoch? What are the main qualities of Spenser's poetry? Can
+you quote or refer to any passages which illustrate these qualities? Why is
+he called the poets' poet?
+
+3. For what is Sackville noted? What is the most significant thing about
+his "Gorboduc"? Name other minor poets and tell what they wrote.
+
+4. Give an outline of the origin and rise of the drama in England. What is
+meant by Miracle and Mystery plays? What purposes did they serve among the
+common people? How did they help the drama? What is meant by cycles of
+Miracle plays? How did the Moralities differ from the Miracles? What was
+the chief purpose of the Interludes? What type of drama did they develop?
+Read a typical play, like "Noah's Flood" or "Everyman," and write a brief
+analysis of it.
+
+5. What were our first plays in the modern sense? What influence did the
+classics exert on the English drama? What is meant by the dramatic unities?
+In what important respect did the English differ from the classic drama?
+
+6. Name some of Shakespeare's predecessors in the drama? What types of
+drama did they develop? Name some plays of each type. Are any of these
+plays still presented on the stage?
+
+7. What are Marlowe's chief plays? What is the central motive in each? Why
+are they called one-man plays? What is meant by Marlowe's "mighty line"?
+What is the story of "Faustus"? Compare "Faustus" and Goethe's "Faust,"
+having in mind the story, the dramatic interest, and the literary value of
+each play.
+
+8. Tell briefly the story of Shakespeare's life. What fact in his life most
+impressed you? How does Shakespeare sum up the work of all his
+predecessors? What are the four periods of his work, and the chief plays of
+each? Where did he find his plots? What are his romantic plays? his
+chronicle or historical plays? What is the difference between a tragedy and
+a comedy? Name some of Shakespeare's best tragedies, comedies, and
+historical plays. Which play of Shakespeare's seems to you to give the best
+picture of human life? Why is he called the myriad-minded Shakespeare? For
+what reasons is he considered the greatest of writers? Can you explain why
+Shakespeare's plays are still acted, while other plays of his age are
+rarely seen? If you have seen any of Shakespeare's plays on the stage, how
+do they compare in interest with a modern play?
+
+9. What are Ben Jonson's chief plays? In what important respects did they
+differ from those of Shakespeare? Tell the story of "The Alchemist" or "The
+Silent Woman." Name other contemporaries and successors of Shakespeare.
+Give some reasons for the preëminence of the Elizabethan drama. What causes
+led to its decline?
+
+10. Tell briefly the story of Bacon's life. What is his chief literary
+work? his chief educational work? Why is he called a pioneer of modern
+science? Can you explain what is meant by the inductive method of learning?
+What subjects are considered in Bacon's _Essays_? What is the central idea
+of the essay you like best? What are the literary qualities of these
+essays? Do they appeal to the intellect or the emotions? What is meant by
+the word "essay," and how does Bacon illustrate the definition? Make a
+comparison between Bacon's essays and those of some more recent writer,
+such as Addison, Lamb, Carlyle, Emerson, or Stevenson, having in mind the
+subjects, style, and interest of both essayists.
+
+11. Who are the minor prose writers of the Elizabethan Age? What did they
+write? Comment upon any work of theirs which you have read. What is the
+literary value of North's Plutarch? What is the chief defect in Elizabethan
+prose as a whole? What is meant by euphuism? Explain why Elizabethan poetry
+is superior to the prose.
+
+
+                              CHRONOLOGY
+  _Last Half of the Sixteenth and First Half of the Seventeenth Centuries_
+============================================================================
+  HISTORY                           |  LITERATURE
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+                                    |
+1558. Elizabeth (_d_. 1603)         | 1559. John Knox in Edinburgh
+                                    | 1562(?). Gammer Gurton's      Needle.
+                                    |       Gorboduc
+                                    | 1564. Birth of Shakespeare
+1571. Rise of English Puritans      | 1576. First Theater
+1577. Drake's Voyage around the     | 1579. Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.
+      World                         |       Lyly's Euphues. North's Plutarch.
+                                    |
+                                    | 1587. Shakespeare in London.  Marlowe's
+                                    |       Tamburlaine
+                                    |
+1588. Defeat of the Armada          |
+                                    |
+                                    | 1590. Spenser's Faery Queen. Sidney's
+                                    |       Arcadia
+                                    |
+                                    | 1590-1595. Shakespeare's Early Plays
+                                    |
+                                    | 1597-1625. Bacon's Essays
+                                    |
+                                    | 1598-1614. Chapman's Homer
+                                    |
+                                    | 1598. Ben Jonson's Every Man in His
+                                    |       Humour
+                                    |
+                                    | 1600-1607. Shakespeare's Tragedies
+                                    |
+1603. James I (_d_. 1625)           |
+                                    |
+1604. Divine Right of Kings         | 1605. Bacon's Advancement of Learning
+      proclaimed                    |
+                                    |
+1607. Settlement at Jamestown,      | 1608. Birth of Milton
+      Virginia                      |
+                                    |
+                                    | 1611. Translation (King James Version)
+                                    |       of Bible
+                                    |
+                                    | 1614. Raleigh's History
+                                    |
+                                    | 1616. Death of Shakespeare
+                                    |
+1620. Pilgrim Fathers at            | 1620-1642. Shakespeare's successors.
+      Plymouth                      |       End of drama
+                                    |
+                                    | 1620. Bacon's Novum Organum
+                                    |
+                                    | 1622. First regular newspaper, The
+                                    |       Weekly News
+                                    |
+1625. Charles I                     | 1626. Death of Bacon
+============================================================================
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE PURITAN AGE (1620-1660)
+
+I. HISTORICAL SUMMARY
+
+THE PURITAN MOVEMENT. In its broadest sense the Puritan movement may be
+regarded as a second and greater Renaissance, a rebirth of the moral nature
+of man following the intellectual awakening of Europe in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries. In Italy, whose influence had been uppermost in
+Elizabethan literature, the Renaissance had been essentially pagan and
+sensuous. It had hardly touched the moral nature of man, and it brought
+little relief from the despotism of rulers. One can hardly read the
+horrible records of the Medici or the Borgias, or the political
+observations of Machiavelli, without marveling at the moral and political
+degradation of a cultured nation. In the North, especially among the German
+and English peoples, the Renaissance was accompanied by a moral awakening,
+and it is precisely that awakening in England, "that greatest moral and
+political reform which ever swept over a nation in the short space of half
+a century," which is meant by the Puritan movement. We shall understand it
+better if we remember that it had two chief objects: the first was personal
+righteousness; the second was civil and religious liberty. In other words,
+it aimed to make men honest and to make them free.
+
+Such a movement should be cleared of all the misconceptions which have
+clung to it since the Restoration, when the very name of Puritan was made
+ridiculous by the jeers of the gay courtiers of Charles II. Though the
+spirit of the movement was profoundly religious, the Puritans were not a
+religious sect; neither was the Puritan a narrow-minded and gloomy
+dogmatist, as he is still pictured even in the histories. Pym and Hampden
+and Eliot and Milton were Puritans; and in the long struggle for human
+liberty there are few names more honored by freemen everywhere. Cromwell
+and Thomas Hooker were Puritans; yet Cromwell stood like a rock for
+religious tolerance; and Thomas Hooker, in Connecticut, gave to the world
+the first written constitution, in which freemen, before electing their
+officers, laid down the strict limits of the offices to which they were
+elected. That is a Puritan document, and it marks one of the greatest
+achievements in the history of government.
+
+From a religious view point Puritanism included all shades of belief. The
+name was first given to those who advocated certain changes in the form of
+worship of the reformed English Church under Elizabeth; but as the ideal of
+liberty rose in men's minds, and opposed to it were the king and his evil
+counselors and the band of intolerant churchmen of whom Laud is the great
+example, then Puritanism became a great national movement. It included
+English churchmen as well as extreme Separatists, Calvinists, Covenanters,
+Catholic noblemen,--all bound together in resistance to despotism in Church
+and State, and with a passion for liberty and righteousness such as the
+world has never since seen. Naturally such a movement had its extremes and
+excesses, and it is from a few zealots and fanatics that most of our
+misconceptions about the Puritans arise. Life was stern in those days, too
+stern perhaps, and the intensity of the struggle against despotism made men
+narrow and hard. In the triumph of Puritanism under Cromwell severe laws
+were passed, many simple pleasures were forbidden, and an austere standard
+of living was forced upon an unwilling people. So the criticism is made
+that the wild outbreak of immorality which followed the restoration of
+Charles was partly due to the unnatural restrictions of the Puritan era.
+The criticism is just; but we must not forget the whole spirit of the
+movement. That the Puritan prohibited Maypole dancing and horse racing is
+of small consequence beside the fact that he fought for liberty and
+justice, that he overthrew despotism and made a man's life and property
+safe from the tyranny of rulers. A great river is not judged by the foam on
+its surface, and certain austere laws and doctrines which we have ridiculed
+are but froth on the surface of the mighty Puritan current that has flowed
+steadily, like a river of life, through English and American history since
+the Age of Elizabeth.
+
+CHANGING IDEALS. The political upheaval of the period is summed up in the
+terrible struggle between the king and Parliament, which resulted in the
+death of Charles at the block and the establishment of the Commonwealth
+under Cromwell. For centuries the English people had been wonderfully loyal
+to their sovereigns; but deeper than their loyalty to kings was the old
+Saxon love for personal liberty. At times, as in the days of Alfred and
+Elizabeth, the two ideals went hand in hand; but more often they were in
+open strife, and a final struggle for supremacy was inevitable. The crisis
+came when James I, who had received the right of royalty from an act of
+Parliament, began, by the assumption of "divine right," to ignore the
+Parliament which had created him. Of the civil war which followed in the
+reign of Charles I, and of the triumph of English freedom, it is
+unnecessary to write here. The blasphemy of a man's divine right to rule
+his fellow-men was ended. Modern England began with the charge of
+Cromwell's brigade of Puritans at Naseby.
+
+Religiously the age was one of even greater ferment than that which marked
+the beginning of the Reformation. A great ideal, the ideal of a national
+church, was pounding to pieces, like a ship in the breakers, and in the
+confusion of such an hour the action of the various sects was like that of
+frantic passengers, each striving to save his possessions from the wreck.
+The Catholic church, as its name implies, has always held true to the ideal
+of a united church, a church which, like the great Roman government of the
+early centuries, can bring the splendor and authority of Rome to bear upon
+the humblest village church to the farthest ends of the earth. For a time
+that mighty ideal dazzled the German and English reformers; but the
+possibility of a united Protestant church perished with Elizabeth. Then,
+instead of the world-wide church which was the ideal of Catholicism, came
+the ideal of a purely national Protestantism. This was the ideal of Laud
+and the reactionary bishops, no less than of the scholarly Richard Hooker,
+of the rugged Scotch Covenanters, and of the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay.
+It is intensely interesting to note that Charles called Irish rebels and
+Scotch Highlanders to his aid by promising to restore their national
+religions; and that the English Puritans, turning to Scotland for help,
+entered into the solemn Covenant of 1643, establishing a national
+Presbyterianism, whose object was:
+
+To bring the churches of God in the three kingdoms to uniformity in
+religion and government, to preserve the rights of Parliament and the
+liberties of the Kingdom; ... that we and our posterity may as brethren
+live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to live in the midst of
+us.
+
+In this famous Covenant we see the national, the ecclesiastical, and the
+personal dream of Puritanism, side by side, in all their grandeur and
+simplicity.
+
+Years passed, years of bitter struggle and heartache, before the
+impossibility of uniting the various Protestant sects was generally
+recognized. The ideal of a national church died hard, and to its death is
+due all the religious unrest of the period. Only as we remember the
+national ideal, and the struggle which it caused, can we understand the
+amazing life and work of Bunyan, or appreciate the heroic spirit of the
+American colonists who left home for a wilderness in order to give the new
+ideal of a free church in a free state its practical demonstration.
+
+LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. In literature also the Puritan Age was one of
+confusion, due to the breaking up of old ideals. Mediaeval standards of
+chivalry, the impossible loves and romances of which Spenser furnished the
+types, perished no less surely than the ideal of a national church; and in
+the absence of any fixed standard of literary criticism there was nothing
+to prevent the exaggeration of the "metaphysical" poets, who are the
+literary parallels to religious sects like the Anabaptists. Poetry took new
+and startling forms in Donne and Herbert, and prose became as somber as
+Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_. The spiritual gloom which sooner or later
+fastens upon all the writers of this age, and which is unjustly attributed
+to Puritan influence, is due to the breaking up of accepted standards in
+government and religion. No people, from the Greeks to those of our own
+day, have suffered the loss of old ideals without causing its writers to
+cry, "Ichabod! the glory has departed." That is the unconscious tendency of
+literary men in all times, who look backward for their golden age; and it
+need not concern the student of literature, who, even in the break-up of
+cherished institutions, looks for some foregleams of a better light which
+is to break upon the world. This so-called gloomy age produced some minor
+poems of exquisite workmanship, and one great master of verse whose work
+would glorify any age or people,--John Milton, in whom the indomitable
+Puritan spirit finds its noblest expression.
+
+There are three main characteristics in which Puritan literature differs
+from that of the preceding age: (1) Elizabethan literature, with all its
+diversity, had a marked unity in spirit, resulting from the patriotism of
+all classes and their devotion to a queen who, with all her faults, sought
+first the nation's welfare. Under the Stuarts all this was changed. The
+kings were the open enemies of the people; the country was divided by the
+struggle for political and religious liberty; and the literature was as
+divided in spirit as were the struggling parties. (2) Elizabethan
+literature is generally inspiring; it throbs with youth and hope and
+vitality. That which follows speaks of age and sadness; even its brightest
+hours are followed by gloom, and by the pessimism inseparable from the
+passing of old standards. (3) Elizabethan literature is intensely romantic;
+the romance springs from the heart of youth, and believes all things, even
+the impossible. The great schoolman's _credo_, "I believe because it is
+impossible," is a better expression of Elizabethan literature than of
+mediæval theology. In the literature of the Puritan period one looks in
+vain for romantic ardor. Even in the lyrics and love poems a critical,
+intellectual spirit takes its place, and whatever romance asserts itself is
+in form rather than in feeling, a fantastic and artificial adornment of
+speech rather than the natural utterance of a heart in which sentiment is
+so strong and true that poetry is its only expression.
+
+
+II. LITERATURE OF THE PURITAN PERIOD
+
+THE TRANSITION POETS. When one attempts to classify the literature of the
+first half of the seventeenth century, from the death of Elizabeth (1603)
+to the Restoration (1660), he realizes the impossibility of grouping poets
+by any accurate standard. The classifications attempted here have small
+dependence upon dates or sovereigns, and are suggestive rather than
+accurate. Thus Shakespeare and Bacon wrote largely in the reign of James I,
+but their work is Elizabethan in spirit; and Bunyan is no less a Puritan
+because he happened to write after the Restoration. The name Metaphysical
+poets, given by Dr. Johnson, is somewhat suggestive but not descriptive of
+the followers of Donne; the name Caroline or Cavalier poets brings to mind
+the careless temper of the Royalists who followed King Charles with a
+devotion of which he was unworthy; and the name Spenserian poets recalls
+the little band of dreamers who clung to Spenser's ideal, even while his
+romantic mediæval castle was battered down by Science at the one gate and
+Puritanism at the other. At the beginning of this bewildering confusion of
+ideals expressed in literature, we note a few writers who are generally
+known as Jacobean poets, but whom we have called the Transition poets
+because, with the later dramatists, they show clearly the changing
+standards of the age.
+
+SAMUEL DANIEL (1562-1619). Daniel, who is often classed with the first
+Metaphysical poets, is interesting to us for two reasons,--for his use of
+the artificial sonnet, and for his literary desertion of Spenser as a model
+for poets. His _Delia_, a cycle of sonnets modeled, perhaps, after Sidney's
+_Astrophel and Stella_, helped to fix the custom of celebrating love or
+friendship by a series of sonnets, to which some pastoral pseudonym was
+affixed. In his sonnets, many of which rank with Shakespeare's, and in his
+later poetry, especially the beautiful "Complaint of Rosamond" and his
+"Civil Wars," he aimed solely at grace of expression, and became
+influential in giving to English poetry a greater individuality and
+independence than it had ever known. In matter he set himself squarely
+against the mediæval tendency:
+
+    Let others sing of kings and paladines
+    In aged accents and untimely words,
+    Paint shadows in imaginary lines.
+
+This fling at Spenser and his followers marks the beginning of the modern
+and realistic school, which sees in life as it is enough poetic material,
+without the invention of allegories and impossible heroines. Daniel's
+poetry, which was forgotten soon after his death, has received probably
+more homage than it deserves in the praises of Wordsworth, Southey, Lamb,
+and Coleridge. The latter says: "Read Daniel, the admirable Daniel. The
+style and language are just such as any pure and manly writer of the
+present day would use. It seems quite modern in comparison with the style
+of Shakespeare."
+
+THE SONG WRITERS. In strong contrast with the above are two distinct
+groups, the Song Writers and the Spenserian poets. The close of the reign
+of Elizabeth was marked by an outburst of English songs, as remarkable in
+its sudden development as the rise of the drama. Two causes contributed to
+this result,--the increasing influence of French instead of Italian verse,
+and the rapid development of music as an art at the close of the sixteenth
+century. The two song writers best worth studying are Thomas Campion
+(1567?-1619) and Nicholas Breton (1545?-1626?). Like all the lyric poets of
+the age, they are a curious mixture of the Elizabethan and the Puritan
+standards. They sing of sacred and profane love with the same zest, and a
+careless love song is often found on the same page with a plea for divine
+grace.
+
+THE SPENSERIAN POETS. Of the Spenserian poets Giles Fletcher and Wither are
+best worth studying. Giles Fletcher (1588?-1623) has at times a strong
+suggestion of Milton (who was also a follower of Spenser in his early
+years) in the noble simplicity and majesty of his lines. His best known
+work, "Christ's Victory and Triumph" (1610), was the greatest religious
+poem that had appeared in England since "Piers Plowman," and is not an
+unworthy predecessor of _Paradise Lost_.
+
+The life of George Wither (1588-1667) covers the whole period of English
+history from Elizabeth to the Restoration, and the enormous volume of his
+work covers every phase of the literature of two great ages. His life was a
+varied one; now as a Royalist leader against the Covenanters, and again
+announcing his Puritan convictions, and suffering in prison for his faith.
+At his best Wither is a lyric poet of great originality, rising at times to
+positive genius; but the bulk of his poetry is intolerably dull. Students
+of this period find him interesting as an epitome of the whole age in which
+he lived; but the average reader is more inclined to note with interest
+that he published in 1623 _Hymns and Songs of the Church_, the first hymn
+book that ever appeared in the English language.
+
+THE METAPHYSICAL POETS. This name--which was given by Dr. Johnson in
+derision, because of the fantastic form of Donne's poetry--is often applied
+to all minor poets of the Puritan Age. We use the term here in a narrower
+sense, excluding the followers of Daniel and that later group known as the
+Cavalier poets. It includes Donne, Herbert, Waller, Denham, Cowley,
+Vaughan, Davenant, Marvell, and Crashaw. The advanced student finds them
+all worthy of study, not only for their occasional excellent poetry, but
+because of their influence on later literature. Thus Richard Crashaw
+(1613?-1649), the Catholic mystic, is interesting because his troubled life
+is singularly like Donne's, and his poetry is at times like Herbert's set
+on fire.[160] Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), who blossomed young and who, at
+twenty-five, was proclaimed the greatest poet in England, is now scarcely
+known even by name, but his "Pindaric Odes"[161] set an example which
+influenced English poetry throughout the eighteenth century. Henry Vaughan
+(1622-1695) is worthy of study because he is in some respects the
+forerunner of Wordsworth;[162] and Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), because of
+his loyal friendship with Milton, and because his poetry shows the conflict
+between the two schools of Spenser and Donne. Edmund Waller (1606-1687)
+stands between the Puritan Age and the Restoration. He was the first to use
+consistently the "closed" couplet which dominated our poetry for the next
+century. By this, and especially by his influence over Dryden, the greatest
+figure of the Restoration, he occupies a larger place in our literature
+than a reading of his rather tiresome poetry would seem to warrant.
+
+Of all these poets, each of whom has his special claim, we can consider
+here only Donne and Herbert, who in different ways are the types of revolt
+against earlier forms and standards of poetry. In feeling and imagery both
+are poets of a high order, but in style and expression they are the leaders
+of the fantastic school whose influence largely dominated poetry during the
+half century of the Puritan period.
+
+
+JOHN DONNE (1573-1631)
+
+LIFE. The briefest outline of Donne's life shows its intense human
+interest. He was born in London, the son of a rich iron merchant, at the
+time when the merchants of England were creating a new and higher kind of
+princes. On his father's side he came from an old Welsh family, and on his
+mother's side from the Heywoods and Sir Thomas More's family. Both families
+were Catholic, and in his early life persecution was brought near; for his
+brother died in prison for harboring a proscribed priest, and his own
+education could not be continued in Oxford and Cambridge because of his
+religion. Such an experience generally sets a man's religious standards for
+life; but presently Donne, as he studied law at Lincoln's Inn, was
+investigating the philosophic grounds of all faith. Gradually he left the
+church in which he was born, renounced all denominations, and called
+himself simply Christian. Meanwhile he wrote poetry and shared his wealth
+with needy Catholic relatives. He joined the expedition of Essex for Cadiz
+in 1596, and for the Azores in 1597, and on sea and in camp found time to
+write poetry. Two of his best poems, "The Storm" and "The Calm," belong to
+this period. Next he traveled in Europe for three years, but occupied
+himself with study and poetry. Returning home, he became secretary to Lord
+Egerton, fell in love with the latter's young niece, Anne More, and married
+her; for which cause Donne was cast into prison. Strangely enough his
+poetical work at this time is not a song of youthful romance, but "The
+Progress of the Soul," a study of transmigration. Years of wandering and
+poverty followed, until Sir George More forgave the young lovers and made
+an allowance to his daughter. Instead of enjoying his new comforts, Donne
+grew more ascetic and intellectual in his tastes. He refused also the
+nattering offer of entering the Church of England and of receiving a
+comfortable "living." By his "Pseudo Martyr" he attracted the favor of
+James I, who persuaded him to be ordained, yet left him without any place
+or employment. When his wife died her allowance ceased, and Donne was left
+with seven children in extreme poverty. Then he became a preacher, rose
+rapidly by sheer intellectual force and genius, and in four years was the
+greatest of English preachers and Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
+There he "carried some to heaven in holy raptures and led others to amend
+their lives," and as he leans over the pulpit with intense earnestness is
+likened by Izaak Walton to "an angel leaning from a cloud."
+
+Here is variety enough to epitomize his age, and yet in all his life,
+stronger than any impression of outward weal or woe, is the sense of
+mystery that surrounds Donne. In all his work one finds a mystery, a hiding
+of some deep thing which the world would gladly know and share, and which
+is suggested in his haunting little poem, "The Undertaking":
+
+    I have done one braver thing
+    Than all the worthies did;
+    And yet a braver thence doth spring,
+    Which is, to keep that hid.
+
+DONNE'S POETRY. Donne's poetry is so uneven, at times so startling and
+fantastic, that few critics would care to recommend it to others. Only a
+few will read his works, and they must be left to their own browsing, to
+find what pleases them, like deer which, in the midst of plenty, take a
+bite here and there and wander on, tasting twenty varieties of food in an
+hour's feeding. One who reads much will probably bewail Donne's lack of any
+consistent style or literary standard. For instance, Chaucer and Milton are
+as different as two poets could well be; yet the work of each is marked by
+a distinct and consistent style, and it is the style as much as the matter
+which makes the _Tales_ or the _Paradise Lost_ a work for all time. Donne
+threw style and all literary standards to the winds; and precisely for this
+reason he is forgotten, though his great intellect and his genius had
+marked him as one of those who should do things "worthy to be remembered."
+While the tendency of literature is to exalt style at the expense of
+thought, the world has many men and women who exalt feeling and thought
+above expression; and to these Donne is good reading. Browning is of the
+same school, and compels attention. While Donne played havoc with
+Elizabethan style, he nevertheless influenced our literature in the way of
+boldness and originality; and the present tendency is to give him a larger
+place, nearer to the few great poets, than he has occupied since Ben Jonson
+declared that he was "the first poet of the world in some things," but
+likely to perish "for not being understood." For to much of his poetry we
+must apply his own satiric verses on another's crudities:
+
+    Infinite work! which doth so far extend
+    That none can study it to any end.
+
+
+GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633)
+
+"O day most calm, most bright," sang George Herbert, and we may safely take
+that single line as expressive of the whole spirit of his writings.
+Professor Palmer, whose scholarly edition of this poet's works is a model
+for critics and editors, calls Herbert the first in English poetry who
+spoke face to face with God. That may be true; but it is interesting to
+note that not a poet of the first half of the seventeenth century, not even
+the gayest of the Cavaliers, but has written some noble verse of prayer or
+aspiration, which expresses the underlying Puritan spirit of his age.
+Herbert is the greatest, the most consistent of them all. In all the others
+the Puritan struggles against the Cavalier, or the Cavalier breaks loose
+from the restraining Puritan; but in Herbert the struggle is past and peace
+has come. That his life was not all calm, that the Puritan in him had
+struggled desperately before it subdued the pride and idleness of the
+Cavalier, is evident to one who reads between his lines:
+
+    I struck the board and cry'd, No more!
+         I will abroad.
+    What? Shall I ever sigh and pine?
+    My lines and life are free, free as the road,
+    Loose as the wind.
+
+There speaks the Cavalier of the university and the court; and as one reads
+to the end of the little poem, which he calls by the suggestive name of
+"The Collar," he may know that he is reading condensed biography.
+
+Those who seek for faults, for strained imagery and fantastic verse forms
+in Herbert's poetry, will find them in abundance; but it will better repay
+the reader to look for the deep thought and fine feeling that are hidden in
+these wonderful religious lyrics, even in those that appear most
+artificial. The fact that Herbert's reputation was greater, at times, than
+Milton's, and that his poems when published after his death had a large
+sale and influence, shows certainly that he appealed to the men of his age;
+and his poems will probably be read and appreciated, if only by the few,
+just so long as men are strong enough to understand the Puritan's spiritual
+convictions.
+
+LIFE. Herbert's life is so quiet and uneventful that to relate a few
+biographical facts can be of little advantage. Only as one reads the whole
+story by Izaak Walton can he share the gentle spirit of Herbert's poetry.
+He was born at Montgomery Castle,[163] Wales, 1593, of a noble Welsh
+family. His university course was brilliant, and after graduation he waited
+long years in the vain hope of preferment at court. All his life he had to
+battle against disease, and this is undoubtedly the cause of the long delay
+before each new step in his course. Not till he was thirty-seven was he
+ordained and placed over the little church of Bemerton. How he lived here
+among plain people, in "this happy corner of the Lord's field, hoping all
+things and blessing all people, asking his own way to Sion and showing
+others the way," should be read in Walton. It is a brief life, less than
+three years of work before being cut off by consumption, but remarkable for
+the single great purpose and the glorious spiritual strength that shine
+through physical weakness. Just before his death he gave some manuscripts
+to a friend, and his message is worthy of John Bunyan:
+
+Deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, and tell him he shall
+find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed
+betwixt God and my soul before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my
+master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom. Desire him to
+read it; and then, if he can think it may turn to the advantage of any
+dejected poor soul, let it be made public; if not, let him burn it, for I
+and it are less than the least of God's mercies.
+
+HERBERT'S POEMS. Herbert's chief work, _The Temple_, consists of over one
+hundred and fifty short poems suggested by the Church, her holidays and
+ceremonials, and the experiences of the Christian life. The first poem,
+"The Church Porch," is the longest and, though polished with a care that
+foreshadows the classic school, the least poetical. It is a wonderful
+collection of condensed sermons, wise precepts, and moral lessons,
+suggesting Chaucer's "Good Counsel," Pope's "Essay on Man," and Polonius's
+advice to Laertes, in _Hamlet;_ only it is more packed with thought than
+any of these. Of truth-speaking he says:
+
+    Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie;
+    A fault which needs it most grows two thereby.
+
+and of calmness in argument:
+
+    Calmness is great advantage: he that lets
+    Another chafe may warm him at his fire.
+
+Among the remaining poems of _The Temple_ one of the most suggestive is
+"The Pilgrimage." Here in six short stanzas, every line close-packed with
+thought, we have the whole of Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_. The poem was
+written probably before Bunyan was born, but remembering the wide influence
+of Herbert's poetry, it is an interesting question whether Bunyan received
+the idea of his immortal work from this "Pilgrimage." Probably the best
+known of all his poems is the one called "The Pulley," which generally
+appears, however under the name "Rest," or "The Gifts of God."
+
+     When God at first made man,
+    Having a glass of blessings standing by,
+    Let us, said he, pour on him all we can:
+    Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
+      Contract into a span.
+     So strength first made a way;
+    Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honor, pleasure.
+    When almost all was out, God made a stay,
+    Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
+      Rest in the bottom lay.
+     For, if I should, said he,
+    Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
+    He would adore my gifts instead of me,
+    And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
+      So both should losers be.
+     Yet let him keep the rest,
+    But keep them with repining restlessness:
+    Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
+    If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
+      May toss him to my breast.
+
+Among the poems which may be read as curiosities of versification, and
+which arouse the wrath of the critics against the whole metaphysical
+school, are those like "Easter Wings" and "The Altar," which suggest in the
+printed form of the poem the thing of which the poet sings. More ingenious
+is the poem in which rime is made by cutting off the first letter of a
+preceding word, as in the five stanzas of "Paradise ":
+
+    I bless thee, Lord, because I grow
+    Among thy trees, which in a row
+    To thee both fruit and order ow.
+
+And more ingenious still are odd conceits like the poem "Heaven," in which
+Echo, by repeating the last syllable of each line, gives an answer to the
+poet's questions.
+
+THE CAVALIER POETS. In the literature of any age there are generally found
+two distinct tendencies. The first expresses the dominant spirit of the
+times; the second, a secret or an open rebellion. So in this age, side by
+side with the serious and rational Puritan, lives the gallant and trivial
+Cavalier. The Puritan finds expression in the best poetry of the period,
+from Donne to Milton, and in the prose of Baxter and Bunyan; the Cavalier
+in a small group of poets,--Herrick, Lovelace, Suckling, and Carew,--who
+write songs generally in lighter vein, gay, trivial, often licentious, but
+who cannot altogether escape the tremendous seriousness of Puritanism.
+
+THOMAS CAREW (1598?-1639?). Carew may be called the inventor of Cavalier
+love poetry, and to him, more than to any other, is due the peculiar
+combination of the sensual and the religious which marked most of the minor
+poets of the seventeenth century. His poetry is the Spenserian pastoral
+stripped of its refinement of feeling and made direct, coarse, vigorous.
+His poems, published in 1640, are generally, like his life, trivial or
+sensual; but here and there is found one, like the following, which
+indicates that with the Metaphysical and Cavalier poets a new and
+stimulating force had entered English literature:
+
+    Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
+    When June is past, the fading rose,
+    For in your beauty's orient deep
+    These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
+    Ask me no more where those stars light
+    That downwards fall in dead of night,
+    For in your eyes they sit, and there
+    Fixèd become as in their sphere.
+    Ask me no more if east or west
+    The phoenix builds her spicy nest,
+    For unto you at last she flies,
+    And in your fragrant bosom dies.
+
+ROBERT HERRICK (1591-1674). Herrick is the true Cavalier, gay, devil-may-
+care in disposition, but by some freak of fate a clergyman of Dean Prior,
+in South Devon, a county made famous by him and Blackmore. Here, in a
+country parish, he lived discontentedly, longing for the joys of London and
+the Mermaid Tavern, his bachelor establishment consisting of an old
+housekeeper, a cat, a dog, a goose, a tame lamb, one hen,--for which he
+thanked God in poetry because she laid an egg every day,--and a pet pig
+that drank beer with Herrick out of a tankard. With admirable good nature,
+Herrick made the best of these uncongenial surroundings. He watched with
+sympathy the country life about him and caught its spirit in many lyrics, a
+few of which, like "Corinna's Maying," "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,"
+and "To Daffodils," are among the best known in our language. His poems
+cover a wide range, from trivial love songs, pagan in spirit, to hymns of
+deep religious feeling. Only the best of his poems should be read; and
+these are remarkable for their exquisite sentiment and their graceful,
+melodious expression. The rest, since they reflect something of the
+coarseness of his audience, may be passed over in silence.
+
+Late in life Herrick published his one book, _Hesperides and Noble Numbers_
+(1648). The latter half contains his religious poems, and one has only to
+read there the remarkable "Litany" to see how the religious terror that
+finds expression in Bunyan's _Grace Abounding_ could master even the most
+careless of Cavalier singers.
+
+SUCKLING AND LOVELACE. Sir John Suckling (1609-1642) was one of the most
+brilliant wits of the court of Charles I, who wrote poetry as he exercised
+a horse or fought a duel, because it was considered a gentleman's
+accomplishment in those days. His poems, "struck from his wild life like
+sparks from his rapier," are utterly trivial, and, even in his best known
+"Ballad Upon a Wedding," rarely rise above mere doggerel. It is only the
+romance of his life--his rich, brilliant, careless youth, and his poverty
+and suicide in Paris, whither he fled because of his devotion to the
+Stuarts--that keeps his name alive in our literature.
+
+In his life and poetry Sir Richard Lovelace (1618-1658) offers a remarkable
+parallel to Suckling, and the two are often classed together as perfect
+representatives of the followers of King Charles. Lovelace's _Lucasta_, a
+volume of love lyrics, is generally on a higher plane than Suckling's work;
+and a few of the poems like "To Lucasta," and "To Althea, from Prison,"
+deserve the secure place they have won. In the latter occur the oft-quoted
+lines:
+
+    Stone walls do not a prison make,
+      Nor iron bars a cage;
+    Minds innocent and quiet take
+      That for an hermitage.
+    If I have freedom in my love,
+      And in my soul am free,
+    Angels alone that soar above
+      Enjoy such liberty.
+
+JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)
+
+    Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart;
+    Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea--
+    Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free;
+    So didst thou travel on life's common way
+    In cheerful godliness: and yet thy heart
+    The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
+        (From Wordsworth's "Sonnet on Milton")
+
+Shakespeare and Milton are the two figures that tower conspicuously above
+the goodly fellowship of men who have made our literature famous. Each is
+representative of the age that produced him, and together they form a
+suggestive commentary upon the two forces that rule our humanity,--the
+force of impulse and the force of a fixed purpose. Shakespeare is the poet
+of impulse, of the loves, hates, fears, jealousies, and ambitions that
+swayed the men of his age. Milton is the poet of steadfast will and
+purpose, who moves like a god amid the fears and hopes and changing
+impulses of the world, regarding them as trivial and momentary things that
+can never swerve a great soul from its course.
+
+It is well to have some such comparison in mind while studying the
+literature of the Elizabethan and the Puritan Age. While Shakespeare and
+Ben Jonson and their unequaled company of wits make merry at the Mermaid
+Tavern, there is already growing up on the same London street a poet who
+shall bring a new force into literature, who shall add to the Renaissance
+culture and love of beauty the tremendous moral earnestness of the Puritan.
+Such a poet must begin, as the Puritan always began, with his own soul, to
+discipline and enlighten it, before expressing its beauty in literature.
+"He that would hope to write well hereafter in laudable things," says
+Milton, "ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and
+pattern of the best and most honorable things." Here is a new proposition
+in art which suggests the lofty ideal of Fra Angelico, that before one can
+write literature, which is the expression of the ideal, he must first
+develop in himself the ideal man. Because Milton is human he must know the
+best in humanity; therefore he studies, giving his days to music, art, and
+literature, his nights to profound research and meditation. But because he
+knows that man is more than mortal he also prays, depending, as he tells
+us, on "devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all
+utterance and knowledge." Such a poet is already in spirit far beyond the
+Renaissance, though he lives in the autumn of its glory and associates with
+its literary masters. "There is a spirit in man," says the old Hebrew poet,
+"and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." Here, in a
+word, is the secret of Milton's life and writing. Hence his long silences,
+years passing without a word; and when he speaks it is like the voice of a
+prophet who begins with the sublime announcement, "The Spirit of the Lord
+is upon me." Hence his style, producing an impression of sublimity, which
+has been marked for wonder by every historian of our literature. His style
+was unconsciously sublime because he lived and thought consciously in a
+sublime atmosphere.
+
+LIFE OF MILTON. Milton is like an ideal in the soul, like a lofty mountain
+on the horizon. We never attain the ideal; we never climb the mountain; but
+life would be inexpressibly poorer were either to be taken away.
+
+From childhood Milton's parents set him apart for the attainment of noble
+ends, and so left nothing to chance in the matter of training. His father,
+John Milton, is said to have turned Puritan while a student at Oxford and
+to have been disinherited by his family; whereupon he settled in London and
+prospered greatly as a scrivener, that is, a kind of notary. In character
+the elder Milton was a rare combination of scholar and business man, a
+radical Puritan in politics and religion, yet a musician, whose hymn tunes
+are still sung, and a lover of art and literature. The poet's mother was a
+woman of refinement and social grace, with a deep interest in religion and
+in local charities. So the boy grew up in a home which combined the culture
+of the Renaissance with the piety and moral strength of early Puritanism.
+He begins, therefore, as the heir of one great age and the prophet of
+another.
+
+Apparently the elder Milton shared Bacon's dislike for the educational
+methods of the time and so took charge of his son's training, encouraging
+his natural tastes, teaching him music, and seeking out a tutor who helped
+the boy to what he sought most eagerly, not the grammar and mechanism of
+Greek and Latin but rather the stories, the ideals, the poetry that hide in
+their incomparable literatures. At twelve years we find the boy already a
+scholar in spirit, unable to rest till after midnight because of the joy
+with which his study was rewarded. From boyhood two great principles seem
+to govern Milton's career: one, the love of beauty, of music, art,
+literature, and indeed of every form of human culture; the other, a
+steadfast devotion to duty as the highest object in human life.
+
+A brief course at the famous St. Paul's school in London was the prelude to
+Milton's entrance to Christ's College, Cambridge. Here again he followed
+his natural bent and, like Bacon, found himself often in opposition to the
+authorities. Aside from some Latin poems, the most noteworthy song of this
+period of Milton's life is his splendid ode, '"On the Morning of Christ's
+Nativity," which was begun on Christmas day, 1629. Milton, while deep in
+the classics, had yet a greater love for his native literature. Spenser was
+for years his master; in his verse we find every evidence of his "loving
+study" of Shakespeare, and his last great poems show clearly how he had
+been influenced by Fletcher's _Christ's Victory and Triumph_. But it is
+significant that this first ode rises higher than anything of the kind
+produced in the famous Age of Elizabeth.
+
+While at Cambridge it was the desire of his parents that Milton should take
+orders in the Church of England; but the intense love of mental liberty
+which stamped the Puritan was too strong within him, and he refused to
+consider the "oath of servitude," as he called it, which would mark his
+ordination. Throughout his life Milton, though profoundly religious, held
+aloof from the strife of sects. In belief, he belonged to the extreme
+Puritans, called Separatists, Independents, Congregationalists, of which
+our Pilgrim Fathers are the great examples; but he refused to be bound by
+any creed or church discipline:
+
+    As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.
+
+In this last line of one of his sonnets[164] is found Milton's rejection of
+every form of outward religious authority in face of the supreme Puritan
+principle, the liberty of the individual soul before God.
+
+A long period of retirement followed Milton's withdrawal from the
+university in 1632. At his father's country home in Horton he gave himself
+up for six years to solitary reading and study, roaming over the wide
+fields of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Italian, and English
+literatures, and studying hard at mathematics, science, theology, and
+music,--a curious combination. To his love of music we owe the melody of
+all his poetry, and we note it in the rhythm and balance which make even
+his mighty prose arguments harmonious. In "Lycidas," "L'Allegro," "Il
+Penseroso," "Arcades," "Comus," and a few "Sonnets," we have the poetic
+results of this retirement at Horton,--few, indeed, but the most perfect of
+their kind that our literature has recorded.
+
+Out of solitude, where his talent was perfected, Milton entered the busy
+world where his character was to be proved to the utmost. From Horton he
+traveled abroad, through France, Switzerland, and Italy, everywhere
+received with admiration for his learning and courtesy, winning the
+friendship of the exiled Dutch scholar Grotius, in Paris, and of Galileo in
+his sad imprisonment in Florence.[165] He was on his way to Greece when
+news reached him of the break between king and parliament. With the
+practical insight which never deserted him Milton saw clearly the meaning
+of the news. His cordial reception in Italy, so chary of praise to anything
+not Italian, had reawakened in Milton the old desire to write an epic which
+England would "not willingly let die"; but at thought of the conflict for
+human freedom all his dreams were flung to the winds. He gave up his
+travels and literary ambitions and hurried to England. "For I thought it
+base," he says, "to be traveling at my ease for intellectual culture while
+my fellow-countrymen at home were fighting for liberty."
+
+Then for nearly twenty years the poet of great achievement and still
+greater promise disappears. We hear no more songs, but only the prose
+denunciations and arguments which are as remarkable as his poetry. In all
+our literature there is nothing more worthy of the Puritan spirit than this
+laying aside of personal ambitions in order to join in the struggle for
+human liberty. In his best known sonnet, "On His Blindness," which reflects
+his grief, not at darkness, but at his abandoned dreams, we catch the
+sublime spirit of this renunciation.
+
+Milton's opportunity to serve came in the crisis of 1649. The king had been
+sent to the scaffold, paying the penalty of his own treachery, and England
+sat shivering at its own deed, like a child or a Russian peasant who in
+sudden passion resists unbearable brutality and then is afraid of the
+consequences. Two weeks of anxiety, of terror and silence followed; then
+appeared Milton's _Tenure of Kings and Magistrates_. To England it was like
+the coming of a strong man, not only to protect the child, but to justify
+his blow for liberty. Kings no less than people are subject to the eternal
+principle of law; the divine right of a people to defend and protect
+themselves,--that was the mighty argument which calmed a people's dread and
+proclaimed that a new man and a new principle had arisen in England. Milton
+was called to be Secretary for Foreign Tongues in the new government; and
+for the next few years, until the end of the Commonwealth, there were two
+leaders in England, Cromwell the man of action, Milton the man of thought.
+It is doubtful to which of the two humanity owes most for its emancipation
+from the tyranny of kings and prelates.
+
+Two things of personal interest deserve mention in this period of Milton's
+life, his marriage and his blindness. In 1643 he married Mary Powell, a
+shallow, pleasure-loving girl, the daughter of a Royalist; and that was the
+beginning of sorrows. After a month, tiring of the austere life of a
+Puritan household, she abandoned her husband, who, with the same radical
+reasoning with which he dealt with affairs of state, promptly repudiated
+the marriage. His _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_ and his
+_Tetrachordon_ are the arguments to justify his position; but they aroused
+a storm of protest in England, and they suggest to a modern reader that
+Milton was perhaps as much to blame as his wife, and that he had scant
+understanding of a woman's nature. When his wife, fearing for her position,
+appeared before him in tears, all his ponderous arguments were swept aside
+by a generous impulse; and though the marriage was never a happy one,
+Milton never again mentioned his wife's desertion. The scene in _Paradise
+Lost_, where Eve comes weeping to Adam, seeking peace and pardon, is
+probably a reflection of a scene in Milton's own household. His wife died
+in 1653, and a few years later he married another, whom we remember for the
+sonnet, "Methought I saw my late espoused saint," in which she is
+celebrated. She died after fifteen months, and in 1663 he married a third
+wife, who helped the blind old man to manage his poor household.
+
+From boyhood the strain on the poet's eyes had grown more and more severe;
+but even when his sight was threatened he held steadily to his purpose of
+using his pen in the service of his country. During the king's imprisonment
+a book appeared called _Eikon Basilike_ (Royal Image), giving a rosy
+picture of the king's piety, and condemning the Puritans. The book speedily
+became famous and was the source of all Royalist arguments against the
+Commonwealth. In 1649 appeared Milton's _Eikonoklastes_ (Image Breaker),
+which demolished the flimsy arguments of the _Eikon Basilike_ as a charge
+of Cromwell's Ironsides had overwhelmed the king's followers. After the
+execution of the king appeared another famous attack upon the Puritans,
+_Defensio Regia pro Carlo I_, instigated by Charles II, who was then living
+in exile. It was written in Latin by Salmasius, a Dutch professor at
+Leyden, and was hailed by the Royalists as an invincible argument. By order
+of the Council of State Milton prepared a reply. His eyesight had sadly
+failed, and he was warned that any further strain would be disastrous. His
+reply was characteristic of the man and the Puritan. As he had once
+sacrificed his poetry, so he was now ready, he said, to sacrifice his eyes
+also on the altar of English liberty. His magnificent _Defensio pro Populo
+Anglicano_ is one of the most masterly controversial works in literature.
+The power of the press was already strongly felt in England, and the new
+Commonwealth owed its standing partly to Milton's prose, and partly to
+Cromwell's policy. The _Defensio_ was the last work that Milton saw.
+Blindness fell upon him ere it was finished, and from 1652 until his death
+he labored in total darkness.
+
+The last part of Milton's life is a picture of solitary grandeur unequaled
+in literary history. With the Restoration all his labors and sacrifices for
+humanity were apparently wasted. From his retirement he could hear the
+bells and the shouts that welcomed back a vicious monarch, whose first act
+was to set his foot upon his people's neck. Milton was immediately marked
+for persecution; he remained for months in hiding; he was reduced to
+poverty, and his books were burned by the public hangman. His daughters,
+upon whom he depended in his blindness, rebelled at the task of reading to
+him and recording his thoughts. In the midst of all these sorrows we
+understand, in _Samson_, the cry of the blind champion of Israel:
+
+    Now blind, disheartened, shamed, dishonored, quelled,
+    To what can I be useful? wherein serve
+    My nation, and the work from Heaven imposed?
+    But to sit idle on the household hearth,
+    A burdenous drone; to visitants a gaze,
+    Or pitied object.
+
+Milton's answer is worthy of his own great life. Without envy or bitterness
+he goes back to the early dream of an immortal poem and begins with superb
+consciousness of power to dictate his great epic.
+
+_Paradise Lost_ was finished in 1665, after seven years' labor in darkness.
+With great difficulty he found a publisher, and for the great work, now the
+most honored poem in our literature, he received less than certain verse
+makers of our day receive for a little song in one of our popular
+magazines. Its success was immediate, though, like all his work, it met
+with venomous criticism. Dryden summed up the impression made on thoughtful
+minds of his time when he said, "This man cuts us all out, and the ancients
+too." Thereafter a bit of sunshine came into his darkened home, for the
+work stamped him as one of the world's great writers, and from England and
+the Continent pilgrims came in increasing numbers to speak their gratitude.
+
+The next year Milton began his _Paradise Regained_. In 1671 appeared his
+last important work, _Samson Agonistes_, the most powerful dramatic poem on
+the Greek model which our language possesses. The picture of Israel's
+mighty champion, blind, alone, afflicted by thoughtless enemies but
+preserving a noble ideal to the end, is a fitting close to the life work of
+the poet himself. For years he was silent, dreaming who shall say what
+dreams in his darkness, and saying cheerfully to his friends, "Still guides
+the heavenly vision." He died peacefully in 1674, the most sublime and the
+most lonely figure in our literature.
+
+MILTON'S EARLY POETRY.[166] In his early work Milton appears as the
+inheritor of all that was best in Elizabethan literature, and his first
+work, the ode "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," approaches the
+high-water mark of lyric poetry in England. In the next six years, from
+1631 to 1637, he wrote but little, scarcely more than two thousand lines,
+but these are among the most exquisite and the most perfectly finished in
+our language.
+
+"L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso" are twin poems, containing many lines and
+short descriptive passages which linger in the mind like strains of music,
+and which are known and loved wherever English is spoken. "L'Allegro" (the
+joyous or happy man) is like an excursion into the English fields at
+sunrise. The air is sweet; birds are singing; a multitude of sights,
+sounds, fragrances, fill all the senses; and to this appeal of nature the
+soul of man responds by being happy, seeing in every flower and hearing in
+every harmony some exquisite symbol of human life. "Il Penseroso" takes us
+over the same ground at twilight and at moonrise. The air is still fresh
+and fragrant; the symbolism is, if possible, more tenderly beautiful than
+before; but the gay mood is gone, though its memory lingers in the
+afterglow of the sunset. A quiet thoughtfulness takes the place of the
+pure, joyous sensation of the morning, a thoughtfulness which is not sad,
+though like all quiet moods it is akin to sadness, and which sounds the
+deeps of human emotion in the presence of nature. To quote scattered lines
+of either poem is to do injustice to both. They should be read in their
+entirety the same day, one at morning, the other at eventide, if one is to
+appreciate their beauty and suggestiveness.
+
+The "Masque of Comus" is in many respects the most perfect of Milton's
+poems. It was written in 1634 to be performed at Ludlow Castle before the
+earl of Bridgewater and his friends. There is a tradition that the earl's
+three children had been lost in the woods, and, whether true or not, Milton
+takes the simple theme of a person lost, calls in an Attendant Spirit to
+protect the wanderer, and out of this, with its natural action and
+melodious songs, makes the most exquisite pastoral drama that we possess.
+In form it is a masque, like those gorgeous products of the Elizabethan age
+of which Ben Jonson was the master. England had borrowed the idea of the
+masque from Italy and had used it as the chief entertainment at all
+festivals, until it had become to the nobles of England what the miracle
+play had been to the common people of a previous generation. Milton, with
+his strong Puritan spirit, could not be content with the mere entertainment
+of an idle hour. "Comus" has the gorgeous scenic effects, the music and
+dancing of other masques; but its moral purpose and its ideal teachings are
+unmistakable. "The Triumph of Virtue" would be a better name for this
+perfect little masque, for its theme is that virtue and innocence can walk
+through any peril of this world without permanent harm. This eternal
+triumph of good over evil is proclaimed by the Attendant Spirit who has
+protected the innocent in this life and who now disappears from mortal
+sight to resume its life of joy:
+
+    Mortals, that would follow me,
+    Love Virtue; she alone is free.
+    She can teach ye how to climb
+    Higher than the sphery chime;
+    Or if Virtue feeble were,
+    Heaven itself would stoop to her.
+
+While there are undoubted traces of Jonson and John Fletcher in Milton's
+"Comus," the poem far surpasses its predecessors in the airy beauty and
+melody of its verses.
+
+In the next poem, "Lycidas," a pastoral elegy written in 1637, and the last
+of his Horton poems, Milton is no longer the inheritor of the old age, but
+the prophet of a new. A college friend, Edward King, had been drowned in
+the Irish Sea, and Milton follows the poetic custom of his age by
+representing both his friend and himself in the guise of shepherds leading
+the pastoral life. Milton also uses all the symbolism of his predecessors,
+introducing fauns, satyrs, and sea nymphs; but again the Puritan is not
+content with heathen symbolism, and so introduces a new symbol of the
+Christian shepherd responsible for the souls of men, whom he likens to
+hungry sheep that look up and are not fed. The Puritans and Royalists at
+this time were drifting rapidly apart, and Milton uses his new symbolism to
+denounce the abuses that had crept into the Church. In any other poet this
+moral teaching would hinder the free use of the imagination; but Milton
+seems equal to the task of combining high moral purpose with the noblest
+poetry. In its exquisite finish and exhaustless imagery "Lycidas" surpasses
+most of the poetry of what is often called the pagan Renaissance.
+
+Besides these well-known poems, Milton wrote in this early period a
+fragmentary masque called "Arcades"; several Latin poems which, like his
+English, are exquisitely finished; and his famous "Sonnets," which brought
+this Italian form of verse nearly to the point of perfection. In them he
+seldom wrote of love, the usual subject with his predecessors, but of
+patriotism, duty, music, and subjects of political interest suggested by
+the struggle into which England was drifting. Among these sonnets each
+reader must find his own favorites. Those best known and most frequently
+quoted are "On His Deceased Wife," "To the Nightingale," "On Reaching the
+Age of Twenty-three," "The Massacre in Piedmont," and the two "On His
+Blindness."
+
+MILTON'S PROSE. Of Milton's prose works there are many divergent opinions,
+ranging from Macaulay's unbounded praise to the condemnation of some of our
+modern critics. From a literary view point Milton's prose would be stronger
+if less violent, and a modern writer would hardly be excused for using his
+language or his methods; but we must remember the times and the methods of
+his opponents. In his fiery zeal against injustice the poet is suddenly
+dominated by the soldier's spirit. He first musters his facts in
+battalions, and charges upon the enemy to crush and overpower without
+mercy. For Milton hates injustice and, because it is an enemy of his
+people, he cannot and will not spare it. When the victory is won, he exults
+in a paean of victory as soul-stirring as the Song of Deborah. He is the
+poet again, spite of himself, and his mind fills with magnificent images.
+Even with a subject so dull, so barren of the bare possibilities of poetry,
+as his "Animadversions upon the Remonstrants' Defense," he breaks out into
+an invocation, "Oh, Thou that sittest in light and glory unapproachable,
+parent of angels and men," which is like a chapter from the Apocalypse. In
+such passages Milton's prose is, as Taine suggests, "an outpouring of
+splendors," which suggests the noblest poetry.
+
+On account of their controversial character these prose works are seldom
+read, and it is probable that Milton never thought of them as worthy of a
+place in literature. Of them all _Areopagitica_ has perhaps the most
+permanent interest and is best worth reading. In Milton's time there was a
+law forbidding the publication of books until they were indorsed by the
+official censor. Needless to say, the censor, holding his office and salary
+by favor, was naturally more concerned with the divine right of kings and
+bishops than with the delights of literature, and many books were
+suppressed for no better reason than that they were displeasing to the
+authorities. Milton protested against this, as against every other form of
+tyranny, and his _Areopagitica_--so called from the Areopagus or Forum of
+Athens, the place of public appeal, and the Mars Hill of St. Paul's
+address--is the most famous plea in English for the freedom of the press.
+
+MILTON'S LATER POETRY. Undoubtedly the noblest of Milton's works, written
+when he was blind and suffering, are _Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained_,
+and _Samson Agonistes_. The first is the greatest, indeed the only
+generally acknowledged epic in our literature since _Beowulf;_ the last is
+the most perfect specimen of a drama after the Greek method in our
+language.
+
+Of the history of the great epic we have some interesting glimpses. In
+Cambridge there is preserved a notebook of Milton's containing a list of
+nearly one hundred subjects[167] for a great poem, selected while he was a
+boy at the university. King Arthur attracted him at first; but his choice
+finally settled upon the Fall of Man, and we have four separate outlines
+showing Milton's proposed treatment of the subject. These outlines indicate
+that he contemplated a mighty drama or miracle play; but whether because of
+Puritan antipathy to plays and players, or because of the wretched dramatic
+treatment of religious subjects which Milton had witnessed in Italy, he
+abandoned the idea of a play and settled on the form of an epic poem; most
+fortunately, it must be conceded, for Milton had not the knowledge of men
+necessary for a drama. As a study of character _Paradise Lost_ would be a
+grievous failure. Adam, the central character, is something of a prig;
+while Satan looms up a magnificent figure, entirely different from the
+devil of the miracle plays and completely overshadowing the hero both in
+interest and in manliness. The other characters, the Almighty, the Son,
+Raphael, Michael, the angels and fallen spirits, are merely mouthpieces for
+Milton's declamations, without any personal or human interest. Regarded as
+a drama, therefore, _Paradise Lost_ could never have been a success; but as
+poetry, with its sublime imagery, its harmonious verse, its titanic
+background of heaven, hell, and the illimitable void that lies between, it
+is unsurpassed in any literature.
+
+In 1658 Milton in his darkness sat down to dictate the work which he had
+planned thirty years before. In order to understand the mighty sweep of the
+poem it is necessary to sum up the argument of the twelve books, as
+follows:
+
+Book I opens with a statement of the subject, the Fall of Man, and a noble
+invocation for light and divine guidance. Then begins the account of Satan
+and the rebel angels, their banishment from heaven, and their plot to
+oppose the design of the Almighty by dragging down his children, our first
+parents, from their state of innocence. The book closes with a description
+of the land of fire and endless pain where the fallen spirits abide, and
+the erection of Pandemonium, the palace of Satan. Book II is a description
+of the council of evil spirits, of Satan's consent to undertake the
+temptation of Adam and Eve, and his journey to the gates of hell, which are
+guarded by Sin and Death. Book III transports us to heaven again. God,
+foreseeing the fall, sends Raphael to warn Adam and Eve, so that their
+disobedience shall be upon their own heads. Then the Son offers himself a
+sacrifice, to take away the sin of the coming disobedience of man. At the
+end of this book Satan appears in a different scene, meets Uriel, the Angel
+of the Sun, inquires from him the way to earth, and takes his journey
+thither disguised as an angel of light. Book IV shows us Paradise and the
+innocent state of man. An angel guard is set over Eden, and Satan is
+arrested while tempting Eve in a dream, but is curiously allowed to go free
+again. Book V shows us Eve relating her dream to Adam, and then the morning
+prayer and the daily employment of our first parents. Raphael visits them,
+is entertained by a banquet (which Eve proposes in order to show him that
+all God's gifts are not kept in heaven), and tells them of the revolt of
+the fallen spirits. His story is continued in Book VI. In Book VII we read
+the story of the creation of the world as Raphael tells it to Adam and Eve.
+In Book VIII Adam tells Raphael the story of his own life and of his
+meeting with Eve. Book IX is the story of the temptation by Satan,
+following the account in Genesis. Book X records the divine judgment upon
+Adam and Eve; shows the construction by Sin and Death of a highway through
+chaos to the earth, and Satan's return to Pandemonium. Adam and Eve repent
+of their disobedience and Satan and his angels are turned into serpents. In
+Book XI the Almighty accepts Adam's repentance, but condemns him to be
+banished from Paradise, and the archangel Michael is sent to execute the
+sentence. At the end of the book, after Eve's feminine grief at the loss of
+Paradise, Michael begins a prophetic vision of the destiny of man. Book XII
+continues Michael's vision. Adam and Eve are comforted by hearing of the
+future redemption of their race. The poem ends as they wander forth out of
+Paradise and the door closes behind them.
+
+It will be seen that this is a colossal epic, not of a man or a hero, but
+of the whole race of men; and that Milton's characters are such as no human
+hand could adequately portray. But the scenes, the splendors of heaven, the
+horrors of hell, the serene beauty of Paradise, the sun and planets
+suspended between celestial light and gross darkness, are pictured with an
+imagination that is almost superhuman. The abiding interest of the poem is
+in these colossal pictures, and in the lofty thought and the marvelous
+melody with which they are impressed on our minds. The poem is in blank
+verse, and not until Milton used it did we learn the infinite variety and
+harmony of which it is capable. He played with it, changing its melody and
+movement on every page, "as an organist out of a single theme develops an
+unending variety of harmony."
+
+Lamartine has described _Paradise Lost_ as the dream of a Puritan fallen
+asleep over his Bible, and this suggestive description leads us to the
+curious fact that it is the dream, not the theology or the descriptions of
+Bible scenes, that chiefly interests us. Thus Milton describes the
+separation of earth and water, and there is little or nothing added to the
+simplicity and strength of _Genesis_; but the sunset which follows is
+Milton's own dream, and instantly we are transported to a land of beauty
+and poetry:
+
+    Now came still Evening on, and Twilight gray
+    Had in her sober livery all things clad;
+    Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
+    They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
+    Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale.
+    She all night long her amorous descant sung:
+    Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
+    With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
+    The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon,
+    Rising in clouded majesty, at length
+    Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
+    And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
+
+So also Milton's Almighty, considered purely as a literary character, is
+unfortunately tinged with the narrow and literal theology of the time. He
+is a being enormously egotistic, the despot rather than the servant of the
+universe, seated upon a throne with a chorus of angels about him eternally
+singing his praises and ministering to a kind of divine vanity. It is not
+necessary to search heaven for such a character; the type is too common
+upon earth. But in Satan Milton breaks away from crude mediæval
+conceptions; he follows the dream again, and gives us a character to admire
+and understand:
+
+    "Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
+    Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat
+    That we must change for Heaven?--this mournful gloom
+    For that celestial light? Be it so, since He
+    Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
+    What shall be right: farthest from Him is best,
+    Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
+    Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
+    Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
+    Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,
+    Receive thy new possessor--one who brings
+    A mind not to be changed by place or time.
+    The mind is its own place, and in itself
+    Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
+    What matter where, if I be still the same,
+    And what I should be, all but less than he
+    Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
+    We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
+    Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
+    Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
+    To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
+    Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."
+
+In this magnificent heroism Milton has unconsciously immortalized the
+Puritan spirit, the same unconquerable spirit that set men to writing poems
+and allegories when in prison for the faith, and that sent them over the
+stormy sea in a cockleshell to found a free commonwealth in the wilds of
+America.
+
+For a modern reader the understanding of _Paradise Lost_ presupposes two
+things,--a knowledge of the first chapters of the Scriptures, and of the
+general principles of Calvinistic theology; but it is a pity to use the
+poem, as has so often been done, to teach a literal acceptance of one or
+the other. Of the theology of _Paradise Lost_ the least said the better;
+but to the splendor of the Puritan dream and the glorious melody of its
+expression no words can do justice. Even a slight acquaintance will make
+the reader understand why it ranks with the _Divina Commedia_ of Dante, and
+why it is generally accepted by critics as the greatest single poem in our
+literature.
+
+Soon after the completion of _Paradise Lost_, Thomas Ellwood, a friend of
+Milton, asked one day after reading the Paradise manuscript, "But what hast
+thou to say of Paradise Found?" It was in response to this suggestion that
+Milton wrote the second part of the great epic, known to us as _Paradise
+Regained_. The first tells how mankind, in the person of Adam, fell at the
+first temptation by Satan and became an outcast from Paradise and from
+divine grace; the second shows how mankind, in the person of Christ,
+withstands the tempter and is established once more in the divine favor.
+Christ's temptation in the wilderness is the theme, and Milton follows the
+account in the fourth chapter of Matthew's gospel. Though _Paradise
+Regained_ was Milton's favorite, and though it has many passages of noble
+thought and splendid imagery equal to the best of _Paradise Lost_, the poem
+as a whole falls below the level of the first, and is less interesting to
+read.
+
+In _Samson Agonistes_ Milton turns to a more vital and personal theme, and
+his genius transfigures the story of Samson, the mighty champion of Israel,
+now blind and scorned, working as a slave among the Philistines. The poet's
+aim was to present in English a pure tragedy, with all the passion and
+restraint which marked the old Greek dramas. That he succeeded where others
+failed is due to two causes: first, Milton himself suggests the hero of one
+of the Greek tragedies,--his sorrow and affliction give to his noble nature
+that touch of melancholy and calm dignity which is in perfect keeping with
+his subject. Second, Milton is telling his own story. Like Samson he had
+struggled mightily against the enemies of his race; he had taken a wife
+from the Philistines and had paid the penalty; he was blind, alone, scorned
+by his vain and thoughtless masters. To the essential action of the tragedy
+Milton could add, therefore, that touch of intense yet restrained personal
+feeling which carries more conviction than any argument. _Samson_ is in
+many respects the most convincing of his works. Entirely apart from the
+interest of its subject and treatment, one may obtain from it a better idea
+of what great tragedy was among the Greeks than from any other work in our
+language.
+
+    Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
+    Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,
+    Dispraise or blame,--nothing but well and fair,
+    And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
+
+
+III. PROSE WRITERS OF THE PURITAN PERIOD
+
+JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688)
+
+As there is but one poet great enough to express the Puritan spirit, so
+there is but one commanding prose writer, John Bunyan. Milton was the child
+of the Renaissance, inheritor of all its culture, and the most profoundly
+educated man of his age. Bunyan was a poor, uneducated tinker. From the
+Renaissance he inherited nothing; but from the Reformation he received an
+excess of that spiritual independence which had caused the Puritan struggle
+for liberty. These two men, representing the extremes of English life in
+the seventeenth century, wrote the two works that stand to-day for the
+mighty Puritan spirit. One gave us the only epic since _Beowulf_; the other
+gave us our only great allegory, which has been read more than any other
+book in our language save the Bible.
+
+LIFE OF BUNYAN. Bunyan is an extraordinary figure; we must study him, as
+well as his books. Fortunately we have his life story in his own words,
+written with the same lovable modesty and sincerity that marked all his
+work. Reading that story now, in _Grace Abounding_, we see two great
+influences at work in his life. One, from within, was his own vivid
+imagination, which saw visions, allegories, parables, revelations, in every
+common event. The other, from without, was the spiritual ferment of the
+age, the multiplication of strange sects,--Quakers, Free-Willers, Ranters,
+Anabaptists, Millenarians,--and the untempered zeal of all classes, like an
+engine without a balance wheel, when men were breaking away from authority
+and setting up their own religious standards. Bunyan's life is an epitome
+of that astonishing religious individualism which marked the close of the
+English Reformation.
+
+He was born in the little village of Elstow, near Bedford, in 1628, the son
+of a poor tinker. For a little while the boy was sent to school, where he
+learned to read and write after a fashion; but he was soon busy in his
+father's shop, where, amid the glowing pots and the fire and smoke of his
+little forge, he saw vivid pictures of hell and the devils which haunted
+him all his life. When he was sixteen years old his father married the
+second time, whereupon Bunyan ran away and became a soldier in the
+Parliamentary army.
+
+The religious ferment of the age made a tremendous impression on Bunyan's
+sensitive imagination. He went to church occasionally, only to find himself
+wrapped in terrors and torments by some fiery itinerant preacher; and he
+would rush violently away from church to forget his fears by joining in
+Sunday sports on the village green. As night came on the sports were
+forgotten, but the terrors returned, multiplied like the evil spirits of
+the parable. Visions of hell and the demons swarmed in his brain. He would
+groan aloud in his remorse, and even years afterwards he bemoans the sins
+of his early life. When we look for them fearfully, expecting some shocking
+crimes and misdemeanors, we find that they consisted of playing ball on
+Sunday and swearing. The latter sin, sad to say, was begun by listening to
+his father cursing some obstinate kettle which refused to be tinkered, and
+it was perfected in the Parliamentary army. One day his terrible swearing
+scared a woman, "a very loose and ungodly wretch," as he tells us, who
+reprimanded him for his profanity. The reproach of the poor woman went
+straight home, like the voice of a prophet. All his profanity left him; he
+hung down his head with shame. "I wished with all my heart," he says, "that
+I might be a little child again, that my father might learn me to speak
+without this wicked way of swearing." With characteristic vehemence Bunyan
+hurls himself upon a promise of Scripture, and instantly the reformation
+begins to work in his soul. He casts out the habit, root and branch, and
+finds to his astonishment that he can speak more freely and vigorously than
+before. Nothing is more characteristic of the man than this sudden seizing
+upon a text, which he had doubtless heard many times before, and being
+suddenly raised up or cast down by its influence.
+
+With Bunyan's marriage to a good woman the real reformation in his life
+began. While still in his teens he married a girl as poor as himself. "We
+came together," he says, "as poor as might be, having not so much household
+stuff as a dish or spoon between us both." The only dowry which the girl
+brought to her new home was two old, threadbare books, _The Plain Man's
+Pathway to Heaven_, and _The Practice of Piety_[168] Bunyan read these
+books, which instantly gave fire to his imagination. He saw new visions and
+dreamed terrible new dreams of lost souls; his attendance at church grew
+exemplary; he began slowly and painfully to read the Bible for himself, but
+because of his own ignorance and the contradictory interpretations of
+Scripture which he heard on every side, he was tossed about like a feather
+by all the winds of doctrine.
+
+The record of the next few years is like a nightmare, so terrible is
+Bunyan's spiritual struggle. One day he feels himself an outcast; the next
+the companion of angels; the third he tries experiments with the Almighty
+in order to put his salvation to the proof. As he goes along the road to
+Bedford he thinks he will work a miracle, like Gideon with his fleece. He
+will say to the little puddles of water in the horses' tracks, "Be ye dry";
+and to all the dry tracks he will say, "Be ye puddles." As he is about to
+perform the miracle a thought occurs to him: "But go first under yonder
+hedge and pray that the Lord will make you able to perform a miracle." He
+goes promptly and prays. Then he is afraid of the test, and goes on his way
+more troubled than before.
+
+After years of such struggle, chased about between heaven and hell, Bunyan
+at last emerges into a saner atmosphere, even as Pilgrim came out of the
+horrible Valley of the Shadow. Soon, led by his intense feelings, he
+becomes an open-air preacher, and crowds of laborers gather about him on
+the village green. They listen in silence to his words; they end in groans
+and tears; scores of them amend their sinful lives. For the Anglo-Saxon
+people are remarkable for this, that however deeply they are engaged in
+business or pleasure, they are still sensitive as barometers to any true
+spiritual influence, whether of priest or peasant; they recognize what
+Emerson calls the "accent of the Holy Ghost," and in this recognition of
+spiritual leadership lies the secret of their democracy. So this village
+tinker, with his strength and sincerity, is presently the acknowledged
+leader of an immense congregation, and his influence is felt throughout
+England. It is a tribute to his power that, after the return of Charles II,
+Bunyan was the first to be prohibited from holding public meetings.
+
+Concerning Bunyan's imprisonment in Bedford jail, which followed his
+refusal to obey the law prohibiting religious meetings without the
+authority of the Established Church, there is a difference of opinion. That
+the law was unjust goes without saying; but there was no religious
+persecution, as we understand the term. Bunyan was allowed to worship when
+and how he pleased; he was simply forbidden to hold public meetings, which
+frequently became fierce denunciations of the Established Church and
+government. His judges pleaded with Bunyan to conform with the law. He
+refused, saying that when the Spirit was upon him he must go up and down
+the land, calling on men everywhere to repent. In his refusal we see much
+heroism, a little obstinacy, and perhaps something of that desire for
+martyrdom which tempts every spiritual leader. That his final sentence to
+indefinite imprisonment was a hard blow to Bunyan is beyond question. He
+groaned aloud at the thought of his poor family, and especially at the
+thought of leaving his little blind daughter:
+
+I found myself a man encompassed with infirmities; the parting was like
+pulling the flesh from my bones.... Oh, the thoughts of the hardship I
+thought my poor blind one might go under would break my heart to pieces.
+Poor child, thought I, what sorrow thou art like to have for thy portion in
+this world; thou must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness,
+and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure that the wind should
+blow upon thee.[169]
+
+And then, because he thinks always in parables and seeks out most curious
+texts of Scripture, he speaks of "the two milch kine that were to carry the
+ark of God into another country and leave their calves behind them." Poor
+cows, poor Bunyan! Such is the mind of this extraordinary man.
+
+With characteristic diligence Bunyan set to work in prison making shoe
+laces, and so earned a living for his family. His imprisonment lasted for
+nearly twelve years; but he saw his family frequently, and was for some
+time a regular preacher in the Baptist church in Bedford. Occasionally he
+even went about late at night, holding the proscribed meetings and
+increasing his hold upon the common people. The best result of this
+imprisonment was that it gave Bunyan long hours for the working of his
+peculiar mind and for study of his two only books, the King James Bible and
+Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_. The result of his study and meditation was _The
+Pilgrim's Progress_, which was probably written in prison, but which for
+some reason he did not publish till long after his release.
+
+The years which followed are the most interesting part of Bunyan's strange
+career. The publication of _Pilgrim's Progress_ in 1678 made him the most
+popular writer, as he was already the most popular preacher, in England.
+Books, tracts, sermons, nearly sixty works in all, came from his pen; and
+when one remembers his ignorance, his painfully slow writing, and his
+activity as an itinerant preacher, one can only marvel. His evangelistic
+journeys carried him often as far as London, and wherever he went crowds
+thronged to hear him. Scholars, bishops, statesmen went in secret to listen
+among the laborers, and came away wondering and silent. At Southwark the
+largest building could not contain the multitude of his hearers; and when
+he preached in London, thousands would gather in the cold dusk of the
+winter morning, before work began, and listen until he had made an end of
+speaking. "Bishop Bunyan" he was soon called on account of his missionary
+journeys and his enormous influence.
+
+What we most admire in the midst of all this activity is his perfect mental
+balance, his charity and humor in the strife of many sects. He was badgered
+for years by petty enemies, and he arouses our enthusiasm by his tolerance,
+his self-control, and especially by his sincerity. To the very end he
+retained that simple modesty which no success could spoil. Once when he had
+preached with unusual power some of his friends waited after the service to
+congratulate him, telling him what a "sweet sermon" he had delivered.
+"Aye," said Bunyan, "you need not remind me; the devil told me that before
+I was out of the pulpit."
+
+For sixteen years this wonderful activity continued without interruption.
+Then, one day when riding through a cold storm on a labor of love, to
+reconcile a stubborn man with his own stubborn son, he caught a severe cold
+and appeared, ill and suffering but rejoicing in his success, at the house
+of a friend in Reading. He died there a few days later, and was laid away
+in Bunhill Fields burial ground, London, which has been ever since a _campo
+santo_ to the faithful.
+
+WORKS OF BUNYAN. The world's literature has three great
+allegories,--Spenser's _Faery Queen_, Dante's _Divina Commedia_, and
+Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_. The first appeals to poets, the second to
+scholars, the third to people of every age and condition. Here is a brief
+outline of the famous work:
+
+"As I walked through the wilderness of this world I lighted on a certain
+place where was a den [Bedford jail] and laid me down in that place to
+sleep; and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream." So the story begins. He sees a
+man called Christian setting out with a book in his hand and a great load
+on his back from the city of Destruction. Christian has two objects,--to
+get rid of his burden, which holds the sins and fears of his life, and to
+make his way to the Holy City. At the outset Evangelist finds him weeping
+because he knows not where to go, and points him to a wicket gate on a hill
+far away. As Christian goes forward his neighbors, friends, wife and
+children call to him to come back; but he puts his fingers in his ears,
+crying out, "Life, life, eternal life," and so rushes across the plain.
+
+Then begins a journey in ten stages, which is a vivid picture of the
+difficulties and triumphs of the Christian life. Every trial, every
+difficulty, every experience of joy or sorrow, of peace or temptation, is
+put into the form and discourse of a living character. Other allegorists
+write in poetry and their characters are shadowy and unreal; but Bunyan
+speaks in terse, idiomatic prose, and his characters are living men and
+women. There are Mr. Worldly Wiseman, a self-satisfied and dogmatic kind of
+man, youthful Ignorance, sweet Piety, courteous Demas, garrulous Talkative,
+honest Faithful, and a score of others, who are not at all the bloodless
+creatures of the _Romance of the Rose_, but men real enough to stop you on
+the road and to hold your attention. Scene after scene follows, in which
+are pictured many of our own spiritual experiences. There is the Slough of
+Despond, into which we all have fallen, out of which Pliable scrambles on
+the hither side and goes back grumbling, but through which Christian
+struggles mightily till Helpful stretches him a hand and drags him out on
+solid ground and bids him go on his way. Then come Interpreter's house, the
+Palace Beautiful, the Lions in the way, the Valley of Humiliation, the hard
+fight with the demon Apollyon, the more terrible Valley of the Shadow,
+Vanity Fair, and the trial of Faithful. The latter is condemned to death by
+a jury made up of Mr. Blindman, Mr. Nogood, Mr. Heady, Mr. Liveloose, Mr.
+Hatelight, and others of their kind to whom questions of justice are
+committed by the jury system. Most famous is Doubting Castle, where
+Christian and Hopeful are thrown into a dungeon by Giant Despair. And then
+at last the Delectable Mountains of Youth, the deep river that Christian
+must cross, and the city of All Delight and the glorious company of angels
+that come singing down the streets. At the very end, when in sight of the
+city and while he can hear the welcome with which Christian is greeted,
+Ignorance is snatched away to go to his own place; and Bunyan quaintly
+observes, "Then I saw that there was a way to hell even from the gates of
+heaven as well as from the city of Destruction. So I awoke, and behold it
+was a dream!"
+
+Such, in brief, is the story, the great epic of a Puritan's individual
+experience in a rough world, just as _Paradise Lost_ was the epic of
+mankind as dreamed by the great Puritan who had "fallen asleep over his
+Bible."
+
+The chief fact which confronts the student of literature as he pauses
+before this great allegory is that it has been translated into seventy-five
+languages and dialects, and has been read more than any other book save one
+in the English language.
+
+As for the secret of its popularity, Taine says, "Next to the Bible, the
+book most widely read in England is the _Pilgrim's Progress_....
+Protestantism is the doctrine of salvation by grace, and no writer has
+equaled Bunyan in making this doctrine understood." And this opinion is
+echoed by the majority of our literary historians. It is perhaps sufficient
+answer to quote the simple fact that _Pilgrim's Progress_ is not
+exclusively a Protestant study; it appeals to Christians of every name, and
+to Mohammedans and Buddhists in precisely the same way that it appeals to
+Christians. When it was translated into the languages of Catholic
+countries, like France and Portugal, only one or two incidents were
+omitted, and the story was almost as popular there as with English readers.
+The secret of its success is probably simple. It is, first of all, not a
+procession of shadows repeating the author's declamations, but a real
+story, the first extended story in our language. Our Puritan fathers may
+have read the story for religious instruction; but all classes of men have
+read it because they found in it a true personal experience told with
+strength, interest, humor,--in a word, with all the qualities that such a
+story should possess. Young people have read it, first, for its intrinsic
+worth, because the dramatic interest of the story lured them on to the very
+end; and second, because it was their introduction to true allegory. The
+child with his imaginative mind--the man also, who has preserved his
+simplicity--naturally personifies objects, and takes pleasure in giving
+them powers of thinking and speaking like himself. Bunyan was the first
+writer to appeal to this pleasant and natural inclination in a way that all
+could understand. Add to this the fact that _Pilgrim's Progress_ was the
+only book having any story interest in the great majority of English and
+American homes for a full century, and we have found the real reason for
+its wide reading.
+
+_The Holy War_, published in 1665, is the first important work of Bunyan.
+It is a prose _Paradise Lost_, and would undoubtedly be known as a
+remarkable allegory were it not overshadowed by its great rival. _Grace
+Abounding to the Chief of Sinners_, published in 1666, twelve years before
+_Pilgrim's Progress_, is the work from which we obtain the clearest insight
+into Bunyan's remarkable life, and to a man with historical or antiquarian
+tastes it is still excellent reading. In 1682 appeared _The Life and Death
+of Mr. Badman_, a realistic character study which is a precursor of the
+modern novel; and in 1684 the second part of _Pilgrim's Progress_, showing
+the journey of Christiana and her children to the city of All Delight.
+Besides these Bunyan published a multitude of treatises and sermons, all in
+the same style,--direct, simple, convincing, expressing every thought and
+emotion perfectly in words that even a child can understand. Many of these
+are masterpieces, admired by workingmen and scholars alike for their
+thought and expression. Take, for instance, "The Heavenly Footman," put it
+side by side with the best work of Latimer, and the resemblance in style is
+startling. It is difficult to realize that one work came from an ignorant
+tinker and the other from a great scholar, both engaged in the same general
+work. As Bunyan's one book was the Bible, we have here a suggestion of its
+influence in all our prose literature.
+
+
+MINOR PROSE WRITERS
+
+The Puritan Period is generally regarded as one destitute of literary
+interest; but that was certainly not the result of any lack of books or
+writers. Says Burton in his _Anatomy of Melancholy:_
+
+I have ... new books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole
+catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms,
+heresies, controversies in philosophy and religion. Now come tidings of
+weddings, maskings, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, sports, plays;
+then again, as in a new-shipped scene, treasons, cheatings, tricks,
+robberies, enormous villainies in all kinds, funerals, deaths, new
+discoveries, expeditions; now comical, then tragical matters.....
+
+So the record continues, till one rubs his eyes and thinks he must have
+picked up by mistake the last literary magazine. And for all these
+kaleidoscopic events there were waiting a multitude of writers, ready to
+seize the abundant material and turn it to literary account for a tract, an
+article, a volume, or an encyclopedia.
+
+If one were to recommend certain of these books as expressive of this age
+of outward storm and inward calm, there are three that deserve more than a
+passing notice, namely, the _Religio Medici_, _Holy Living_, and _The
+Compleat Angler_. The first was written by a busy physician, a supposedly
+scientific man at that time; the second by the most learned of English
+churchmen; and the third by a simple merchant and fisherman. Strangely
+enough, these three great books--the reflections of nature, science, and
+revelation--all interpret human life alike and tell the same story of
+gentleness, charity, and noble living. If the age had produced only these
+three books, we could still be profoundly grateful to it for its inspiring
+message.
+
+ROBERT BURTON (1577-1640). Burton is famous chiefly as the author of the
+_Anatomy of Melancholy_, one of the most astonishing books in all
+literature, which appeared in 1621. Burton was a clergyman of the
+Established Church, an incomprehensible genius, given to broodings and
+melancholy and to reading of every conceivable kind of literature. Thanks
+to his wonderful memory, everything he read was stored up for use or
+ornament, till his mind resembled a huge curiosity shop. All his life he
+suffered from hypochondria, but curiously traced his malady to the stars
+rather than to his own liver. It is related of him that he used to suffer
+so from despondency that no help was to be found in medicine or theology;
+his only relief was to go down to the river and hear the bargemen swear at
+one another.
+
+Burton's _Anatomy_ was begun as a medical treatise on morbidness, arranged
+and divided with all the exactness of the schoolmen's demonstration of
+doctrines; but it turned out to be an enormous hodgepodge of quotations and
+references to authors, known and unknown, living and dead, which seemed to
+prove chiefly that "much study is a weariness to the flesh." By some freak
+of taste it became instantly popular, and was proclaimed one of the
+greatest books in literature. A few scholars still explore it with delight,
+as a mine of classic wealth; but the style is hopelessly involved, and to
+the ordinary reader most of his numerous references are now as unmeaning as
+a hyper-jacobian surface.
+
+SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682). Browne was a physician who, after much study
+and travel, settled down to his profession in Norwich; but even then he
+gave far more time to the investigation of natural phenomena than to the
+barbarous practices which largely constituted the "art" of medicine in his
+day. He was known far and wide as a learned doctor and an honest man, whose
+scientific studies had placed him in advance of his age, and whose
+religious views were liberal to the point of heresy. With this in mind, it
+is interesting to note, as a sign of the times, that this most scientific
+doctor was once called to give "expert" testimony in the case of two old
+women who were being tried for the capital crime of witchcraft. He
+testified under oath that "the fits were natural, but heightened by the
+devil's coöperating with the witches, at whose instance he [the alleged
+devil] did the villainies."
+
+Browne's great work is the _Religio Medici_, i.e. The Religion of a
+Physician (1642), which met with most unusual success. "Hardly ever was a
+book published in Britain," says Oldys, a chronicler who wrote nearly a
+century later, "that made more noise than the _Religio Medici_." Its
+success may be due largely to the fact that, among thousands of religious
+works, it was one of the few which saw in nature a profound revelation, and
+which treated purely religious subjects in a reverent, kindly, tolerant
+way, without ecclesiastical bias. It is still, therefore, excellent
+reading; but it is not so much the matter as the manner--the charm, the
+gentleness, the remarkable prose style--which has established the book as
+one of the classics of our literature.
+
+Two other works of Browne are _Vulgar Errors_ (1646), a curious combination
+of scientific and credulous research in the matter of popular superstition,
+and _Urn Burial_, a treatise suggested by the discovery of Roman burial
+urns at Walsingham. It began as an inquiry into the various methods of
+burial, but ended in a dissertation on the vanity of earthly hope and
+ambitions. From a literary point of view it is Browne's best work, but is
+less read than the _Religio Medici_.
+
+THOMAS FULLER (1608-1661). Fuller was a clergyman and royalist whose lively
+style and witty observations would naturally place him with the gay
+Caroline poets. His best known works are _The Holy War, The Holy State and
+the Profane State, Church History of Britain_, and the _History of the
+Worthies of England. The Holy and Profane State_ is chiefly a biographical
+record, the first part consisting of numerous historical examples to be
+imitated, the second of examples to be avoided. The _Church History_ is not
+a scholarly work, notwithstanding its author's undoubted learning, but is a
+lively and gossipy account which has at least one virtue, that it
+entertains the reader. The _Worthies_, the most widely read of his works,
+is a racy account of the important men of England. Fuller traveled
+constantly for years, collecting information from out-of-the-way sources
+and gaining a minute knowledge of his own country. This, with his
+overflowing humor and numerous anecdotes and illustrations, makes lively
+and interesting reading. Indeed, we hardly find a dull page in any of his
+numerous books.
+
+JEREMY TAYLOR (1613-1667). Taylor was the greatest of the clergymen who
+made this period famous, a man who, like Milton, upheld a noble ideal in
+storm and calm, and himself lived it nobly. He has been called "the
+Shakespeare of divines," and "a kind of Spenser in a cassock," and both
+descriptions apply to him very well. His writings, with their exuberant
+fancy and their noble diction, belong rather to the Elizabethan than to the
+Puritan age.
+
+From the large number of his works two stand out as representative of the
+man himself: _The Liberty of Prophesying_ (1646), which Hallam calls the
+first plea for tolerance in religion, on a comprehensive basis and on
+deep-seated foundations; and _The Rules and Exercises of Holy Living_
+(1650). To the latter might be added its companion volume, _Holy Dying_,
+published in the following year. _The Holy Living and Dying_, as a single
+volume, was for many years read in almost every English cottage. With
+Baxter's _Saints' Rest, Pilgrim's Progress_, and the _King James Bible_, it
+often constituted the entire library of multitudes of Puritan homes; and as
+we read its noble words and breathe its gentle spirit, we cannot help
+wishing that our modern libraries were gathered together on the same
+thoughtful foundations.
+
+RICHARD BAXTER (1615-1691). This "busiest man of his age" strongly suggests
+Bunyan in his life and writings. Like Bunyan, he was poor and uneducated, a
+nonconformist minister, exposed continually to insult and persecution; and,
+like Bunyan, he threw himself heart and soul into the conflicts of his age,
+and became by his public speech a mighty power among the common people.
+Unlike Jeremy Taylor, who wrote for the learned, and whose involved
+sentences and classical allusions are sometimes hard to follow, Baxter went
+straight to his mark, appealing directly to the judgment and feeling of his
+readers.
+
+The number of his works is almost incredible when one thinks of his busy
+life as a preacher and the slowness of manual writing. In all, he left
+nearly one hundred and seventy different works, which if collected would
+make fifty or sixty volumes. As he wrote chiefly to influence men on the
+immediate questions of the day, most of this work has fallen into oblivion.
+His two most famous books are _The Saints' Everlasting Rest_ and _A Call to
+the Unconverted_, both of which were exceedingly popular, running through
+scores of successive editions, and have been widely read in our own
+generation.
+
+IZAAK WALTON (1593-1683). Walton was a small tradesman of London, who
+preferred trout brooks and good reading to the profits of business and the
+doubtful joys of a city life; so at fifty years, when he had saved a little
+money, he left the city and followed his heart out into the country. He
+began his literary work, or rather his recreation, by writing his famous
+_Lives_,--kindly and readable appreciations of Donne, Wotton, Hooker,
+Herbert, and Sanderson, which stand at the beginning of modern biographical
+writing.
+
+In 1653 appeared _The Compleat Angler_, which has grown steadily in
+appreciation, and which is probably more widely read than any other book on
+the subject of fishing. It begins with a conversation between a falconer, a
+hunter, and an angler; but the angler soon does most of the talking, as
+fishermen sometimes do; the hunter becomes a disciple, and learns by the
+easy method of hearing the fisherman discourse about his art. The
+conversations, it must be confessed, are often diffuse and pedantic; but
+they only make us feel most comfortably sleepy, as one invariably feels
+after a good day's fishing. So kindly is the spirit of the angler, so
+exquisite his appreciation of the beauty of the earth and sky, that one
+returns to the book, as to a favorite trout stream, with the undying
+expectation of catching something. Among a thousand books on angling it
+stands almost alone in possessing a charming style, and so it will probably
+be read as long as men go fishing. Best of all, it leads to a better
+appreciation of nature, and it drops little moral lessons into the reader's
+mind as gently as one casts a fly to a wary trout; so that one never
+suspects his better nature is being angled for. Though we have sometimes
+seen anglers catch more than they need, or sneak ahead of brother fishermen
+to the best pools, we are glad, for Walton's sake, to overlook such
+unaccountable exceptions, and agree with the milkmaid that "we love all
+anglers, they be such honest, civil, quiet men."
+
+SUMMARY OF THE PURITAN PERIOD. The half century between 1625 and 1675 is
+called the Puritan period for two reasons: first, because Puritan standards
+prevailed for a time in England; and second, because the greatest literary
+figure during all these years was the Puritan, John Milton. Historically
+the age was one of tremendous conflict. The Puritan struggled for
+righteousness and liberty, and because he prevailed, the age is one of
+moral and political revolution. In his struggle for liberty the Puritan
+overthrew the corrupt monarchy, beheaded Charles I, and established the
+Commonwealth under Cromwell. The Commonwealth lasted but a few years, and
+the restoration of Charles II in 1660 is often put as the end of the
+Puritan period. The age has no distinct limits, but overlaps the
+Elizabethan period on one side, and the Restoration period on the other.
+
+The age produced many writers, a few immortal books, and one of the world's
+great literary leaders. The literature of the age is extremely diverse in
+character, and the diversity is due to the breaking up of the ideals of
+political and religious unity. This literature differs from that of the
+preceding age in three marked ways: (1) It has no unity of spirit, as in
+the days of Elizabeth, resulting from the patriotic enthusiasm of all
+classes. (2) In contrast with the hopefulness and vigor of Elizabethan
+writings, much of the literature of this period is somber in character; it
+saddens rather than inspires us. (3) It has lost the romantic impulse of
+youth, and become critical and intellectual; it makes us think, rather than
+feel deeply.
+
+In our study we have noted (1) the Transition Poets, of whom Daniel is
+chief; (2) the Song Writers, Campion and Breton; (3) the Spenserian Poets,
+Wither and Giles Fletcher; (4) the Metaphysical Poets, Donne and Herbert;
+(5) the Cavalier Poets, Herrick, Carew, Lovelace, and Suckling; (6) John
+Milton, his life, his early or Horton poems, his militant prose, and his
+last great poetical works; (7) John Bunyan, his extraordinary life, and his
+chief work, _The Pilgrim's Progress;_ (8) the Minor Prose Writers, Burton,
+Browne, Fuller, Taylor, Baxter, and Walton. Three books selected from this
+group are Browne's _Religio Medici_, Taylor's _Holy Living and Dying_, and
+Walton's _Complete Angler_.
+
+SELECTIONS FOR READING. _Milton_. Paradise Lost, books 1-2, L'Allegro, Il
+Penseroso, Comus, Lycidas, and selected Sonnets,--all in Standard English
+Classics; same poems, more or less complete, in various other series;
+Areopagitica and Treatise on Education, selections, in Manly's English
+Prose, or Areopagitica in Arber's English Reprints, Clarendon Press Series,
+Morley's Universal Library, etc.
+
+_Minor Poets_. Selections from Herrick, edited by Hale, in Athenaeum Press
+Series; selections from Herrick, Lovelace, Donne, Herbert, etc., in Manly's
+English Poetry, Golden Treasury, Oxford Book of English Verse, etc.;
+Vaughan's Silex Scintillans, in Temple Classics, also in the Aldine Series;
+Herbert's The Temple, in Everyman's Library, Temple Classics, etc.
+
+_Bunyan_. The Pilgrim's Progress, in Standard English Classics, Pocket
+Classics, etc.; Grace Abounding, in Cassell's National Library.
+
+_Minor Prose Writers_. Wentworth's Selections from Jeremy Taylor; Browne's
+Religio Medici, Walton's Complete Angler, both in Everyman's Library,
+Temple Classics, etc.; selections from Taylor, Browne, and Walton in
+Manly's English Prose, also in Garnett's English Prose.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.[170]
+
+_HISTORY_. _Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 238-257; Cheyney, pp. 431-464;
+Green, ch. 8; Traill; Gardiner.
+
+_Special Works_. Wakeling's King and Parliament (Oxford Manuals);
+Gardiner's The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution; Tulloch's
+English Puritanism and its Leaders; Lives of Cromwell by Harrison, by
+Church, and by Morley; Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches.
+
+_LITERATURE_. Saintsbury's Elizabethan Literature (extends to 1660);
+Masterman's The Age of Milton; Dowden's Puritan and Anglican.
+
+_Milton_. Texts, Poetical Works, Globe edition, edited by Masson; Cambridge
+Poets edition, edited by Moody; English Prose Writings, edited by Morley,
+in Carisbrooke Library; also in Bohn's Standard Library.
+
+Masson's Life of John Milton (8 vols.); Life, by Garnett, by Pattison
+(English Men of Letters). Raleigh's Milton; Trent's John Milton; Corson's
+Introduction to Milton; Brooke's Milton, in Student's Library; Macaulay's
+Milton; Lowell's Essays, in Among My Books, and in Latest Literary Essays;
+M. Arnold's Essay, in Essays in Criticism; Dowden's Essay, in Puritan and
+Anglican.
+
+_Cavalier Poets_. Schelling's Seventeenth Century Lyrics, in Athenaeum
+Press Series; Cavalier and Courtier Lyrists, in Canterbury Poets Series;
+Gosse's Jacobean Poets; Lovelace, etc., in Library of Old Authors.
+
+_Donne_. Poems, in Muses' Library; Life, in Walton's Lives, in Temple
+Classics, and in Morley's Universal Library; Life, by Gosse; Jessup's John
+Donne; Dowden's Essay, in New Studies; Stephen's Studies of a Biographer,
+vol. 3.
+
+_Herbert_. Palmer's George Herbert; Poems and Prose Selections, edited by
+Rhys, in Canterbury Poets; Dowden's Essay, in Puritan and Anglican.
+
+_Bunyan_. Brown's John Bunyan, His Life, Times, and Works; Life, by
+Venables, and by Froude (English Men of Letters); Essays by Macaulay, by
+Dowden, _supra_, and by Woodberry, in Makers of Literature.
+
+_Jeremy Taylor_. Holy Living, Holy Dying, in Temple Classics, and in Bohn's
+Standard Library; Selections, edited by Wentworth; Life, by Heber, and by
+Gosse (English Men of Letters); Dowden's Essay, _supra_.
+
+_Thomas Browne_. Works, edited by Wilkin; the same, in Temple Classics, and
+in Bohn's Library; Religio Medici, in Everyman's Library; essay by Pater,
+in Appreciations; by Dowden, _supra;_ and by L. Stephen, in Hours in a
+Library; Life, by Gosse (English Men of Letters).
+
+_Izaak Walton_. Works, in Temple Classics, Cassell's Library, and Morley's
+Library; Introduction, in A. Lang's Walton's Complete Angler; Lowell's
+Essay, in Latest Literary Essays.
+
+
+SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What is meant by the Puritan period? What were the
+objects and the results of the Puritan movement in English history?
+
+2. What are the main characteristics of the literature of this period?
+Compare it with Elizabethan literature. How did religion and politics
+affect Puritan literature? Can you quote any passages or name any works
+which justify your opinion?
+
+3. What is meant by the terms Cavalier poets, Spenserian poets,
+Metaphysical poets? Name the chief writers of each group. To whom are we
+indebted for our first English hymn book? Would you call this a work of
+literature? Why?
+
+4. What are the qualities of Herrick's poetry? What marked contrasts are
+found in Herrick and in nearly all the poets of this period?
+
+5. Who was George Herbert? For what purpose did he write? What qualities
+are found in his poetry?
+
+6. Tell briefly the story of Milton's life. What are the three periods of
+his literary work? What is meant by the Horton poems? Compare "L'Allegro"
+and "Il Penseroso." Are there any Puritan ideals in "Comus"? Why is
+"Lycidas" often put at the summit of English lyrical poetry? Give the main
+idea or argument of _Paradise Lost_. What are the chief qualities of the
+poem? Describe in outline _Paradise Regained_ and _Samson Agonistes_. What
+personal element entered into the latter? What quality strikes you most
+forcibly in Milton's poetry? What occasioned Milton's prose works? Do they
+properly belong to literature? Why? Compare Milton and Shakespsare with
+regard to (1) knowledge of men, (2) ideals of life, (3) purpose in writing.
+
+7. Tell the story of Bunyan's life. What unusual elements are found in his
+life and writings? Give the main argument of _The Pilgrim's Progress_. If
+you read the story before studying literature, tell why you liked or
+disliked it. Why is it a work for all ages and for all races? What are the
+chief qualities of Bunyan's style?
+
+8. Who are the minor prose writers of this age? Name the chief works of
+Jeremy Taylor, Thomas Browne, and Izaak Walton. Can you describe from your
+own reading any of these works? How does the prose of this age compare in
+interest with the poetry? (Milton is, of course, excepted in this
+comparison.)
+
+
+                             CHRONOLOGY
+                        _Seventeenth Century_
+=====================================================================
+  HISTORY                        |  LITERATURE
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+                                 | 1621. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy
+                                 |
+                                 | 1623. Wither's Hymn Book
+                                 |
+1625. Charles I                  |
+Parliament dissolved             |
+                                 |
+1628. Petition of Right          | 1629. Milton's Ode on the Nativity
+                                 |
+1630-1640. King rules without    |
+Parliament. Puritan migration    |
+to New England                   | 1630-1633. Herbert's poems
+                                 |
+                                 | 1632-1637. Milton's Horton poems
+                                 |
+1640. Long Parliament            |
+                                 |
+1642. Civil War begins           | 1642. Browne's Religio Medici
+                                 |
+1643. Scotch Covenant            |
+                                 |
+1643. Press censorship           | 1644. Milton's Areopagitica
+                                 |
+1645. Battle of Naseby;          |
+triumph of Puritans              |
+                                 |
+1649. Execution of Charles I.    |
+Cavalier migration to Virginia   |
+                                 |
+1649-1660. Commonwealth          | 1649. Milton's Tenure of Kings
+                                 |
+                                 | 1650. Baxter's Saints' Rest.
+                                 |       Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living
+                                 |
+                                 | 1651. Hobbes's Leviathan
+                                 |
+1653-1658. Cromwell, Protector   | 1653. Walton's Complete Angler
+                                 |
+1658-1660. Richard Cromwell      |
+                                 |
+1660. Restoration of Charles II  | 1663-1694. Dryden's dramas
+                                 |        (next chapter)
+                                 |
+                                 | 1666. Bunyan's Grace Abounding
+                                 |
+                                 | 1667. Paradise Lost
+                                 |
+                                 | 1674. Death of Milton
+                                 |
+                                 | 1678. Pilgrim's Progress published
+                                 |        (written earlier)
+=====================================================================
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+PERIOD OF THE RESTORATION (1660-1700)
+
+THE AGE OF FRENCH INFLUENCE
+
+HISTORY OF THE PERIOD. It seems a curious contradiction, at first glance,
+to place the return of Charles II at the beginning of modern England, as
+our historians are wont to do; for there was never a time when the progress
+of liberty, which history records, was more plainly turned backwards. The
+Puritan régime had been too severe; it had repressed too many natural
+pleasures. Now, released from restraint, society abandoned the decencies of
+life and the reverence for law itself, and plunged into excesses more
+unnatural than had been the restraints of Puritanism. The inevitable effect
+of excess is disease, and for almost an entire generation following the
+Restoration, in 1660, England lay sick of a fever. Socially, politically,
+morally, London suggests an Italian city in the days of the Medici; and its
+literature, especially its drama, often seems more like the delirium of
+illness than the expression of a healthy mind. But even a fever has its
+advantages. Whatever impurity is in the blood "is burnt and purged away,"
+and a man rises from fever with a new strength and a new idea of the value
+of life, like King Hezekiah, who after his sickness and fear of death
+resolved to "go softly" all his days. The Restoration was the great crisis
+in English history; and that England lived through it was due solely to the
+strength and excellence of that Puritanism which she thought she had flung
+to the winds when she welcomed back a vicious monarch at Dover. The chief
+lesson of the Restoration was this,--that it showed by awful contrast the
+necessity of truth and honesty, and of a strong government of free men, for
+which the Puritan had stood like a rock in every hour of his rugged
+history. Through fever, England came slowly back to health; through gross
+corruption in society and in the state England learned that her people were
+at heart sober, sincere, religious folk, and that their character was
+naturally too strong to follow after pleasure and be satisfied. So
+Puritanism suddenly gained all that it had struggled for, and gained it
+even in the hour when all seemed lost, when Milton in his sorrow
+unconsciously portrayed the government of Charles and his Cabal in that
+tremendous scene of the council of the infernal peers in Pandemonium,
+plotting the ruin of the world.
+
+Of the king and his followers it is difficult to write temperately. Most of
+the dramatic literature of the time is atrocious, and we can understand it
+only as we remember the character of the court and society for which it was
+written. Unspeakably vile in his private life, the king had no redeeming
+patriotism, no sense of responsibility to his country for even his public
+acts. He gave high offices to blackguards, stole from the exchequer like a
+common thief, played off Catholics and Protestants against each other,
+disregarding his pledges to both alike, broke his solemn treaty with the
+Dutch and with his own ministers, and betrayed his country for French money
+to spend on his own pleasures. It is useless to paint the dishonor of a
+court which followed gayly after such a leader. The first Parliament, while
+it contained some noble and patriotic members, was dominated by young men
+who remembered the excess of Puritan zeal, but forgot the despotism and
+injustice which had compelled Puritanism to stand up and assert the manhood
+of England. These young politicians vied with the king in passing laws for
+the subjugation of Church and State, and in their thirst for revenge upon
+all who had been connected with Cromwell's iron government. Once more a
+wretched formalism--that perpetual danger to the English Church--came to
+the front and exercised authority over the free churches. The House of
+Lords was largely increased by the creation of hereditary titles and
+estates for ignoble men and shameless women who had flattered the king's
+vanity. Even the Bench, that last strong refuge of English justice, was
+corrupted by the appointment of judges, like the brutal Jeffreys, whose
+aim, like that of their royal master, was to get money and to exercise
+power without personal responsibility. Amid all this dishonor the foreign
+influence and authority of Cromwell's strong government vanished like
+smoke. The valiant little Dutch navy swept the English fleet from the sea,
+and only the thunder of Dutch guns in the Thames, under the very windows of
+London, awoke the nation to the realization of how low it had fallen.
+
+Two considerations must modify our judgment of this disheartening
+spectacle. First, the king and his court are not England. Though our
+histories are largely filled with the records of kings and soldiers, of
+intrigues and fighting, these no more express the real life of a people
+than fever and delirium express a normal manhood. Though king and court and
+high society arouse our disgust or pity, records are not wanting to show
+that private life in England remained honest and pure even in the worst
+days of the Restoration. While London society might be entertained by the
+degenerate poetry of Rochester and the dramas of Dryden and Wycherley,
+English scholars hailed Milton with delight; and the common people followed
+Bunyan and Baxter with their tremendous appeal to righteousness and
+liberty. Second, the king, with all his pretensions to divine right,
+remained only a figurehead; and the Anglo-Saxon people, when they tire of
+one figurehead, have always the will and the power to throw it overboard
+and choose a better one. The country was divided into two political
+parties: the Whigs, who sought to limit the royal power in the interests of
+Parliament and the people; and the Tories, who strove to check the growing
+power of the people in the interests of their hereditary rulers. Both
+parties, however, were largely devoted to the Anglican Church; and when
+James II, after four years of misrule, attempted to establish a national
+Catholicism by intrigues which aroused the protest of the Pope[171] as well
+as of Parliament, then Whigs and Tories, Catholics and Protestants, united
+in England's last great revolution.
+
+The complete and bloodless Revolution of 1688, which called William of
+Orange to the throne, was simply the indication of England's restored
+health and sanity. It proclaimed that she had not long forgotten, and could
+never again forget, the lesson taught her by Puritanism in its hundred
+years of struggle and sacrifice. Modern England was firmly established by
+the Revolution, which was brought about by the excesses of the Restoration.
+
+LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. In the literature of the Restoration we note a
+sudden breaking away from old standards, just as society broke away from
+the restraints of Puritanism. Many of the literary men had been driven out
+of England with Charles and his court, or else had followed their patrons
+into exile in the days of the Commonwealth. On their return they renounced
+old ideals and demanded that English poetry and drama should follow the
+style to which they had become accustomed in the gayety of Paris. We read
+with astonishment in Pepys's _Diary_ (1660-1669) that he has been to see a
+play called _Midsummer Night's Dream_, but that he will never go again to
+hear Shakespeare, "for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I
+saw in my life." And again we read in the diary of Evelyn,--another writer
+who reflects with wonderful accuracy the life and spirit of the
+Restoration,--"I saw _Hamlet_ played; but now the old plays begin to
+disgust this refined age, since his Majesty's being so long abroad." Since
+Shakespeare and the Elizabethans were no longer interesting, literary men
+began to imitate the French writers, with whose works they had just grown
+familiar; and here begins the so-called period of French influence, which
+shows itself in English literature for the next century, instead of the
+Italian influence which had been dominant since Spenser and the
+Elizabethans.
+
+One has only to consider for a moment the French writers of this period,
+Pascal, Bossuet, Fénelon, Malherbe, Corneille, Racine, Molière,--all that
+brilliant company which makes the reign of Louis XIV the Elizabethan Age of
+French literature,--to see how far astray the early writers of the
+Restoration went in their wretched imitation. When a man takes another for
+his model, he should copy virtues not vices; but unfortunately many English
+writers reversed the rule, copying the vices of French comedy without any
+of its wit or delicacy or abundant ideas. The poems of Rochester, the plays
+of Dryden, Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, all popular in
+their day, are mostly unreadable. Milton's "sons of Belial, flown with
+insolence and wine," is a good expression of the vile character of the
+court writers and of the London theaters for thirty years following the
+Restoration. Such work can never satisfy a people, and when Jeremy
+Collier,[172] in 1698, published a vigorous attack upon the evil plays and
+the playwrights of the day, all London, tired of the coarseness and
+excesses of the Restoration, joined the literary revolution, and the
+corrupt drama was driven from the stage.
+
+With the final rejection of the Restoration drama we reach a crisis in the
+history of our literature. The old Elizabethan spirit, with its patriotism,
+its creative vigor, its love of romance, and the Puritan spirit with its
+moral earnestness and individualism, were both things of the past; and at
+first there was nothing to take their places. Dryden, the greatest writer
+of the age, voiced a general complaint when he said that in his prose and
+poetry he was "drawing the outlines" of a new art, but had no teacher to
+instruct him. But literature is a progressive art, and soon the writers of
+the age developed two marked tendencies of their own,--the tendency to
+realism, and the tendency to that preciseness and elegance of expression
+which marks our literature for the next hundred years.
+
+In realism--that is, the representation of men exactly as they are, the
+expression of the plain, unvarnished truth without regard to ideals or
+romance--the tendency was at first thoroughly bad. The early Restoration
+writers sought to paint realistic pictures of a corrupt court and society,
+and, as we have suggested, they emphasized vices rather than virtues, and
+gave us coarse, low plays without interest or moral significance. Like
+Hobbes, they saw only the externals of man, his body and appetites, not his
+soul and its ideals; and so, like most realists, they resemble a man lost
+in the woods, who wanders aimlessly around in circles, seeing the confusing
+trees but never the whole forest, and who seldom thinks of climbing the
+nearest high hill to get his bearings. Later, however, this tendency to
+realism became more wholesome. While it neglected romantic poetry, in which
+youth is eternally interested, it led to a keener study of the practical
+motives which govern human action.
+
+The second tendency of the age was toward directness and simplicity of
+expression, and to this excellent tendency our literature is greatly
+indebted. In both the Elizabethan and the Puritan ages the general tendency
+of writers was towards extravagance of thought and language. Sentences were
+often involved, and loaded with Latin quotations and classical allusions.
+The Restoration writers opposed this vigorously. From France they brought
+back the tendency to regard established rules for writing, to emphasize
+close reasoning rather than romantic fancy, and to use short, clean-cut
+sentences without an unnecessary word. We see this French influence in the
+Royal Society,[173] which had for one of its objects the reform of English
+prose by getting rid of its "swellings of style," and which bound all its
+members to use "a close, naked, natural way of speaking ... as near to
+mathematical plainness as they can." Dryden accepted this excellent rule
+for his prose, and adopted the heroic couplet, as the next best thing, for
+the greater part of his poetry. As he tells us himself:
+
+    And this unpolished rugged verse I chose
+    As fittest for discourse, and nearest prose.
+
+It is largely due to him that writers developed that formalism of style,
+that precise, almost mathematical elegance, miscalled classicism, which
+ruled English literature for the next century.[174]
+
+Another thing which the reader will note with interest in Restoration
+literature is the adoption of the heroic couplet; that is, two iambic
+pentameter lines which rime together, as the most suitable form of poetry.
+Waller,[175] who began to use it in 1623, is generally regarded as the
+father of the couplet, for he is the first poet to use it consistently in
+the bulk of his poetry. Chaucer had used the rimed couplet wonderfully well
+in his _Canterbury Tales_, but in Chaucer it is the poetical thought more
+than the expression which delights us. With the Restoration writers, form
+counts for everything. Waller and Dryden made the couplet the prevailing
+literary fashion, and in their hands the couplet becomes "closed"; that is,
+each pair of lines must contain a complete thought, stated as precisely as
+possible. Thus Waller writes:
+
+    The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
+    Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.[176]
+
+That is a kind of aphorism such as Pope made in large quantities in the
+following age. It contains a thought, is catchy, quotable, easy to
+remember; and the Restoration writers delighted in it. Soon this mechanical
+closed couplet, in which the second line was often made first,[177] almost
+excluded all other forms of poetry. It was dominant in England for a full
+century, and we have grown familiar with it, and somewhat weary of its
+monotony, in such famous poems as Pope's "Essay on Man" and Goldsmith's
+"Deserted Village." These, however, are essays rather than poems. That even
+the couplet is capable of melody and variety is shown in Chaucer's _Tales_
+and in Keats's exquisite _Endymion_.
+
+These four things, the tendency to vulgar realism in the drama, a general
+formalism which came from following set rules, the development of a simpler
+and more direct prose style, and the prevalence of the heroic couplet in
+poetry are the main characteristics of Restoration literature. They are all
+exemplified in the work of one man, John Dryden.
+
+
+JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700)
+
+Dryden is the greatest literary figure of the Restoration, and in his work
+we have an excellent reflection of both the good and the evil tendencies of
+the age in which he lived. If we can think for a moment of literature as a
+canal of water, we may appreciate the figure that Dryden is the "lock by
+which the waters of English poetry were let down from the mountains of
+Shakespeare and Milton to the plain of Pope"; that is, he stands between
+two very different ages, and serves as a transition from one to the other.
+
+LIFE. Dryden's life contains so many conflicting elements of greatness and
+littleness that the biographer is continually taken away from the facts,
+which are his chief concern, to judge motives, which are manifestly outside
+his knowledge and business. Judged by his own opinion of himself, as
+expressed in the numerous prefaces to his works, Dryden was the soul of
+candor, writing with no other master than literature, and with no other
+object than to advance the welfare of his age and nation. Judged by his
+acts, he was apparently a timeserver, catering to a depraved audience in
+his dramas, and dedicating his work with much flattery to those who were
+easily cajoled by their vanity into sharing their purse and patronage. In
+this, however, he only followed the general custom of the time, and is
+above many of his contemporaries.
+
+Dryden was born in the village of Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, in 1631. His
+family were prosperous people, who brought him up in the strict Puritan
+faith, and sent him first to the famous Westminster school and then to
+Cambridge. He made excellent use of his opportunities and studied eagerly,
+becoming one of the best educated men of his age, especially in the
+classics. Though of remarkable literary taste, he showed little evidence of
+literary ability up to the age of thirty. By his training and family
+connections he was allied to the Puritan party, and his only well-known
+work of this period, the "Heroic Stanzas," was written on the death of
+Cromwell:
+
+    His grandeur he derived from Heaven alone,
+      For he was great ere Fortune made him so;
+    And wars, like mists that rise against the sun,
+      Made him but greater seem, not greater grow.
+
+In these four lines, taken almost at random from the "Heroic Stanzas," we
+have an epitome of the thought, the preciseness, and the polish that mark
+all his literary work.
+
+This poem made Dryden well known, and he was in a fair way to become the
+new poet of Puritanism when the Restoration made a complete change in his
+methods. He had come to London for a literary life, and when the Royalists
+were again in power he placed himself promptly on the winning side. His
+"Astraea Redux," a poem of welcome to Charles II, and his "Panegyric to his
+Sacred Majesty," breathe more devotion to "the old goat," as the king was
+known to his courtiers, than had his earlier poems to Puritanism.
+
+In 1667 he became more widely known and popular by his "Annus Mirabilis," a
+narrative poem describing the terrors of the great fire in London and some
+events of the disgraceful war with Holland; but with the theaters reopened
+and nightly filled, the drama offered the most attractive field to one who
+made his living by literature; so Dryden turned to the stage and agreed to
+furnish three plays yearly for the actors of the King's Theater. For nearly
+twenty years, the best of his life, Dryden gave himself up to this
+unfortunate work. Both by nature and habit he seems to have been clean in
+his personal life; but the stage demanded unclean plays, and Dryden
+followed his audience. That he deplored this is evident from some of his
+later work, and we have his statement that he wrote only one play, his
+best, to please himself. This was _All for Love_, which was written in
+blank verse, most of the others being in rimed couplets.
+
+During this time Dryden had become the best known literary man of London,
+and was almost as much a dictator to the literary set which gathered in the
+taverns and coffeehouses as Ben Jonson had been before him. His work,
+meanwhile, was rewarded by large financial returns, and by his being
+appointed poet laureate and collector of the port of London. The latter
+office, it may be remembered, had once been held by Chaucer.
+
+At fifty years of age, and before Jeremy Collier had driven his dramas from
+the stage, Dryden turned from dramatic work to throw himself into the
+strife of religion and politics, writing at this period his numerous prose
+and poetical treatises. In 1682 appeared his _Religio Laici_ (Religion of a
+Layman), defending the Anglican Church against all other sects, especially
+the Catholics and Presbyterians; but three years later, when James II came
+to the throne with schemes to establish the Roman faith, Dryden turned
+Catholic and wrote his most famous religious poem, "The Hind and the
+Panther," beginning:
+
+    A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged,
+    Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged;
+    Without unspotted, innocent within,
+    She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
+
+This hind is a symbol for the Roman Church; and the Anglicans, as a
+panther, are represented as persecuting the faithful. Numerous other
+sects--Calvinists, Anabaptists, Quakers--were represented by the wolf,
+boar, hare, and other animals, which gave the poet an excellent chance for
+exercising his satire. Dryden's enemies made the accusation, often since
+repeated, of hypocrisy in thus changing his church; but that he was sincere
+in the matter can now hardly be questioned, for he knew how to "suffer for
+the faith" and to be true to his religion, even when it meant misjudgment
+and loss of fortune. At the Revolution of 1688 he refused allegiance to
+William of Orange; he was deprived of all his offices and pensions, and as
+an old man was again thrown back on literature as his only means of
+livelihood. He went to work with extraordinary courage and energy, writing
+plays, poems, prefaces for other men, eulogies for funeral occasions,--
+every kind of literary work that men would pay for. His most successful
+work at this time was his translations, which resulted in the complete
+_Aeneid_ and many selections from Homer, Ovid, and Juvenal, appearing in
+English rimed couplets. His most enduring poem, the splendid ode called
+"Alexander's Feast," was written in 1697. Three years later he published
+his last work, _Fables_, containing poetical paraphrases of the tales of
+Boccaccio and Chaucer, and the miscellaneous poems of his last years. Long
+prefaces were the fashion in Dryden's day, and his best critical work is
+found in his introductions. The preface to the _Fables_ is generally
+admired as an example of the new prose style developed by Dryden and his
+followers.
+
+From the literary view point these last troubled years were the best of
+Dryden's life, though they were made bitter by obscurity and by the
+criticism of his numerous enemies. He died in 1700 and was buried near
+Chaucer in Westminster Abbey.
+
+WORKS OF DRYDEN. The numerous dramatic works of Dryden are best left in
+that obscurity into which they have fallen. Now and then they contain a bit
+of excellent lyric poetry, and in _All for Love_, another version of
+_Antony and Cleopatra_, where he leaves his cherished heroic couplet for
+the blank verse of Marlowe and Shakespeare, he shows what he might have
+done had he not sold his talents to a depraved audience. On the whole,
+reading his plays is like nibbling at a rotting apple; even the good spots
+are affected by the decay, and one ends by throwing the whole thing into
+the garbage can, where most of the dramatic works of this period belong.
+
+The controversial and satirical poems are on a higher plane; though, it
+must be confessed, Dryden's satire often strikes us as cutting and
+revengeful, rather than witty. The best known of these, and a masterpiece
+of its kind, is "Absalom and Achitophel," which is undoubtedly the most
+powerful political satire in our language. Taking the Bible story of David
+and Absalom, he uses it to ridicule the Whig party and also to revenge
+himself upon his enemies. Charles II appeared as King David; his natural
+son, the Duke of Monmouth, who was mixed up in the Rye House Plot, paraded
+as Absalom; Shaftesbury was Achitophel, the evil Counselor; and the Duke of
+Buckingham was satirized as Zimri. The poem had enormous political
+influence, and raised Dryden, in the opinion of his contemporaries, to the
+front rank of English poets. Two extracts from the powerful
+characterizations of Achitophel and Zimri are given here to show the style
+and spirit of the whole work.
+
+            (SHAFTESBURY)
+    Of these the false Achitophel was first;
+    A name to all succeeding ages cursed:
+    For close designs and crooked counsels fit;
+    Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
+    Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
+    In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace:
+    A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
+    Fretted the pygmy body to decay....
+    A daring pilot in extremity,
+    Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high
+    He sought the storms: but for a calm unfit,
+    Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
+    Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
+    And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
+    Else why should he, with wealth and honor blest,
+    Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
+    Punish a body which he could not please;
+    Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
+    And all to leave what with his toil he won,
+    To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son....
+    In friendship false, implacable in hate;
+    Resolved to ruin or to rule the state;...
+    Then seized with fear, yet still affecting fame,
+    Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.
+    So easy still it proves in factious times
+    With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
+         (THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM)
+    Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;
+    In the first rank of these did Zimri stand,
+    A man so various, that he seemed to be
+    Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
+    Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
+    Was everything by starts and nothing long;
+    But, in the course of one revolving moon,
+    Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
+    Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
+    Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
+    Blest madman, who could every hour employ
+    With something new to wish or to enjoy!
+    Railing and praising were his usual themes,
+    And both, to show his judgment, in extremes:
+    So over-violent, or over-civil,
+    That every man with him was God or devil.
+
+Of the many miscellaneous poems of Dryden, the curious reader will get an
+idea of his sustained narrative power from the _Annus Mirabilis_. The best
+expression of Dryden's literary genius, however, is found in "Alexander's
+Feast," which is his most enduring ode, and one of the best in our
+language.
+
+As a prose writer Dryden had a very marked influence on our literature in
+shortening his sentences, and especially in writing naturally, without
+depending on literary ornamentation to give effect to what he is saying. If
+we compare his prose with that of Milton, or Browne, or Jeremy Taylor, we
+note that Dryden cares less for style than any of the others, but takes
+more pains to state his thought clearly and concisely, as men speak when
+they wish to be understood. The classical school, which followed the
+Restoration, looked to Dryden as a leader, and to him we owe largely that
+tendency to exactness of expression which marks our subsequent prose
+writing. With his prose, Dryden rapidly developed his critical ability, and
+became the foremost critic[178] of his age. His criticisms, instead of
+being published as independent works, were generally used as prefaces or
+introductions to his poetry. The best known of these criticisms are the
+preface to the _Fables_, "Of Heroic Plays," "Discourse on Satire," and
+especially the "Essay of Dramatic Poesy" (1668), which attempts to lay a
+foundation for all literary criticism.
+
+DRYDEN'S INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE. Dryden's place among authors is due
+partly to his great influence on the succeeding age of classicism. Briefly,
+this influence may be summed up by noting the three new elements which he
+brought into our literature. These are: (1) the establishment of the heroic
+couplet as the fashion for satiric, didactic, and descriptive poetry; (2)
+his development of a direct, serviceable prose style such as we still
+cultivate; and (3) his development of the art of literary criticism in his
+essays and in the numerous prefaces to his poems. This is certainly a large
+work for one man to accomplish, and Dryden is worthy of honor, though
+comparatively little of what he wrote is now found on our bookshelves.
+
+SAMUEL BUTLER (1612-1680). In marked contrast with Dryden, who devoted his
+life to literature and won his success by hard work, is Samuel Butler, who
+jumped into fame by a single, careless work, which represents not any
+serious intent or effort, but the pastime of an idle hour. We are to
+remember that, though the Royalists had triumphed in the Restoration, the
+Puritan spirit was not dead, nor even sleeping, and that the Puritan held
+steadfastly to his own principles. Against these principles of justice,
+truth, and liberty there was no argument, since they expressed the manhood
+of England; but many of the Puritan practices were open to ridicule, and
+the Royalists, in revenge for their defeat, began to use ridicule without
+mercy. During the early years of the Restoration doggerel verses ridiculing
+Puritanism, and burlesque,--that is, a ridiculous representation of serious
+subjects, or a serious representation of ridiculous subjects,--were the
+most popular form of literature with London society. Of all this burlesque
+and doggerel the most famous is Butler's _Hudibras_, a work to which we can
+trace many of the prejudices that still prevail against Puritanism.
+
+Of Butler himself we know little; he is one of the most obscure figures in
+our literature. During the days of Cromwell's Protectorate he was in the
+employ of Sir Samuel Luke, a crabbed and extreme type of Puritan nobleman,
+and here he collected his material and probably wrote the first part of his
+burlesque, which, of course, he did not dare to publish until after the
+Restoration.
+
+_Hudibras_ is plainly modeled upon the _Don Quixote_ of Cervantes. It
+describes the adventures of a fanatical justice of the peace, Sir Hudibras,
+and of his squire, Ralpho, in their endeavor to put down all innocent
+pleasures. In Hudibras and Ralpho the two extreme types of the Puritan
+party, Presbyterians and Independents, are mercilessly ridiculed. When the
+poem first appeared in public, in 1663, after circulating secretly for
+years in manuscript, it became at once enormously popular. The king carried
+a copy in his pocket, and courtiers vied with each other in quoting its
+most scurrilous passages. A second and a third part, continuing the
+adventures of Hudibras, were published in 1664 and 1668. At best the work
+is a wretched doggerel, but it was clever enough and strikingly original;
+and since it expressed the Royalist spirit towards the Puritans, it
+speedily found its place in a literature which reflects every phase of
+human life. A few odd lines are given here to show the character of the
+work, and to introduce the reader to the best known burlesque in our
+language:
+
+      He was in logic a great critic,
+    Profoundly skilled in analytic;
+    He could distinguish, and divide
+    A hair 'twixt south and southwest side;
+    On either which he would dispute,
+    Confute, change hands, and still confute;
+    He'd undertake to prove, by force
+    Of argument, a man's no horse;
+    He'd run in debt by disputation,
+    And pay with ratiocination.
+    For he was of that stubborn crew
+    Of errant saints, whom all men grant
+    To be the true Church Militant;
+    Such as do build their faith upon
+    The holy text of pike and gun;
+    Decide all controversies by
+    Infallible artillery;
+    And prove their doctrine orthodox
+    By apostolic blows and knocks;
+    Compound for sins they are inclined to,
+    By damning those they have no mind to.
+
+HOBBES AND LOCKE. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is one of the writers that
+puzzle the historian with a doubt as to whether or not he should be
+included in the story of literature. The one book for which he is famous is
+called _Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth_
+(1651). It is partly political, partly a philosophical book, combining two
+central ideas which challenge and startle the attention, namely, that
+self-interest is the only guiding power of humanity, and that blind
+submission to rulers is the only true basis of government.[179] In a word,
+Hobbes reduced human nature to its purely animal aspects, and then asserted
+confidently that there was nothing more to study. Certainly, therefore, as
+a reflection of the underlying spirit of Charles and his followers it has
+no equal in any purely literary work of the time.
+
+John Locke (1632-1704) is famous as the author of a single great
+philosophical work, the _Essay concerning Human Understanding_ (1690). This
+is a study of the nature of the human mind and of the origin of ideas,
+which, far more than the work of Bacon and Hobbes, is the basis upon which
+English philosophy has since been built. Aside from their subjects, both
+works are models of the new prose, direct, simple, convincing, for which
+Dryden and the Royal Society labored. They are known to every student of
+philosophy, but are seldom included in a work of literature.[180]
+
+EVELYN AND PEPYS. These two men, John Evelyn (1620-1706) and Samuel Pepys
+(1633-1703), are famous as the writers of diaries, in which they jotted
+down the daily occurrences of their own lives, without any thought that the
+world would ever see or be interested in what they had written.
+
+Evelyn was the author of _Sylva_, the first book on trees and forestry in
+English, and _Terra_, which is the first attempt at a scientific study of
+agriculture; but the world has lost sight of these two good books, while it
+cherishes his diary, which extends over the greater part of his life and
+gives us vivid pictures of society in his time, and especially of the
+frightful corruption of the royal court.
+
+Pepys began life in a small way as a clerk in a government office, but soon
+rose by his diligence and industry to be Secretary of the Admiralty. Here
+he was brought into contact with every grade of society, from the king's
+ministers to the poor sailors of the fleet. Being inquisitive as a blue
+jay, he investigated the rumors and gossip of the court, as well as the
+small affairs of his neighbors, and wrote them all down in his diary with
+evident interest. But because he chattered most freely, and told his little
+book a great many secrets which it were not well for the world to know, he
+concealed everything in shorthand,--and here again he was like the blue
+jay, which carries off and hides every bright trinket it discovers. The
+_Diary_ covers the years from 1660 to 1669, and gossips about everything,
+from his own position and duties at the office, his dress and kitchen and
+cook and children, to the great political intrigues of office and the
+scandals of high society. No other such minute-picture of the daily life of
+an age has been written. Yet for a century and a half it remained entirely
+unknown, and not until 1825 was Pepys's shorthand deciphered and published.
+Since then it has been widely read, and is still one of the most
+interesting examples of diary writing that we possess. Following are a few
+extracts,[181] covering only a few days in April, 1663, from which one may
+infer the minute and interesting character of the work that this clerk,
+politician, president of the Royal Society, and general busybody wrote to
+please himself:
+
+April 1st. I went to the Temple to my Cozen Roger Pepys, to see and talk
+with him a little: who tells me that, with much ado, the Parliament do
+agree to throw down Popery; but he says it is with so much spite and
+passion, and an endeavor of bringing all Nonconformists into the same
+condition, that he is afeard matters will not go so well as he could
+wish.... To my office all the afternoon; Lord! how Sir J. Minnes, like a
+mad coxcomb, did swear and stamp, swearing that Commissioner Pett hath
+still the old heart against the King that ever he had, ... and all the
+damnable reproaches in the world, at which I was ashamed, but said little;
+but, upon the whole, I find him still a foole, led by the nose with stories
+told by Sir W. Batten, whether with or without reason. So, vexed in my mind
+to see things ordered so unlike gentlemen, or men of reason, I went home
+and to bed.
+
+3d. To White Hall and to Chappell, which being most monstrous full, I could
+not go into my pew, but sat among the quire. Dr. Creeton, the Scotchman,
+preached a most admirable, good, learned, honest, and most severe sermon,
+yet comicall.... He railed bitterly ever and anon against John Calvin and
+his brood, the Presbyterians, and against the present terme, now in use, of
+"tender consciences." He ripped up Hugh Peters (calling him the execrable
+skellum), his preaching and stirring up the mayds of the city to bring in
+their bodkins and thimbles. Thence going out of White Hall, I met Captain
+Grove, who did give me a letter directed to myself from himself. I
+discerned money to be in it, and took it, knowing, as I found it to be, the
+proceed of the place I have got him, the taking up of vessels for Tangier.
+But I did not open it till I came home to my office, and there I broke it
+open, not looking into it till all the money was out, that I might say I
+saw no money in the paper, if ever I should be questioned about it. There
+was a piece of gold and 4£ in silver.
+
+4th. To my office. Home to dinner, whither by and by comes Roger Pepys,
+etc. Very merry at, before, and after dinner, and the more for that my
+dinner was great, and most neatly dressed by our owne only mayde. We had a
+fricasee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a
+dish, a great dish of a side of lambe, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of
+four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (a most rare pie), a dish of
+anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble and to
+my great content.
+
+5th (Lord's day). Up and spent the morning, till the Barber came, in
+reading in my chamber part of Osborne's Advice to his Son, which I shall
+not never enough admire for sense and language, and being by and by
+trimmed, to Church, myself, wife, Ashwell, etc. Home and, while dinner was
+prepared, to my office to read over my vows with great affection and to
+very good purpose. Then to church again, where a simple bawling young Scot
+preached.
+
+19th (Easter day). Up and this day put on my close-kneed coloured suit,
+which, with new stockings of the colour, with belt and new gilt-handled
+sword, is very handsome. To church alone, and after dinner to church again,
+where the young Scotchman preaching, I slept all the while. After supper,
+fell in discourse of dancing, and I find that Ashwell hath a very fine
+carriage, which makes my wife almost ashamed of herself to see herself so
+outdone, but to-morrow she begins to learn to dance for a month or two. So
+to prayers and to bed. Will being gone, with my leave, to his father's this
+day for a day or two, to take physique these holydays.
+
+23d. St. George's day and Coronacion, the King and Court being at Windsor,
+at the installing of the King of Denmarke by proxy and the Duke of
+Monmouth.... Spent the evening with my father. At cards till late, and
+being at supper, my boy being sent for some mustard to a neat's tongue, the
+rogue staid half an houre in the streets, it seems at a bonfire, at which I
+was very angry, and resolve to beat him to-morrow.
+
+24th. Up betimes, and with my salt eele went down into the parler and there
+got my boy and did beat him till I was fain to take breath two or three
+times, yet for all I am afeard it will make the boy never the better, he is
+grown so hardened in his tricks, which I am sorry for, he being capable of
+making a brave man, and is a boy that I and my wife love very well.
+
+
+SUMMARY OF THE RESTORATION PERIOD. The chief thing to note in England
+during the Restoration is the tremendous social reaction from the
+restraints of Puritanism, which suggests the wide swing of a pendulum from
+one extreme to the other. For a generation many natural pleasures had been
+suppressed; now the theaters were reopened, bull and bear baiting revived,
+and sports, music, dancing,--a wild delight in the pleasures and vanities
+of this world replaced that absorption in "other-worldliness" which
+characterized the extreme of Puritanism.
+
+In literature the change is no less marked. From the Elizabethan drama
+playwrights turned to coarse, evil scenes, which presently disgusted the
+people and were driven from the stage. From romance, writers turned to
+realism; from Italian influence with its exuberance of imagination they
+turned to France, and learned to repress the emotions, to follow the head
+rather than the heart, and to write in a clear, concise, formal style,
+according to set rules. Poets turned from the noble blank verse of
+Shakespeare and Milton, from the variety and melody which had characterized
+English poetry since Chaucer's day, to the monotonous heroic couplet with
+its mechanical perfection.
+
+The greatest writer of the age is John Dryden, who established the heroic
+couplet as the prevailing verse form in English poetry, and who developed a
+new and serviceable prose style suited to the practical needs of the age.
+The popular ridicule of Puritanism in burlesque and doggerel is best
+exemplified in Butler's _Hudibras_. The realistic tendency, the study of
+facts and of men as they are, is shown in the work of the Royal Society, in
+the philosophy of Hobbes and Locke, and in the diaries of Evelyn and Pepys,
+with their minute pictures of social life. The age was one of transition
+from the exuberance and vigor of Renaissance literature to the formality
+and polish of the Augustan Age. In strong contrast with the preceding ages,
+comparatively little of Restoration literature is familiar to modern
+readers.
+
+
+SELECTIONS FOR READING. _Dryden_. Alexander's Feast, Song for St. Cecilia's
+Day, selections from Absalom and Achitophel, Religio Laici, Hind and
+Panther, Annus Mirabilis,--in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English
+Poets, or Cassell's National Library; Palamon and Arcite (Dryden's version
+of Chaucer's tale), in Standard English Classics, Riverside Literature,
+etc.; Dryden's An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, in Manly's, or Garnett's,
+English Prose.
+
+_Butler_. Selections from Hudibras, in Manly's English Poetry, Ward's
+English Poets, or Morley's Universal Library.
+
+_Pepys_. Selections in Manly's English Prose; the Diary in Everyman's
+Library.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY. _HISTORY_. _Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 257-280; Cheyney, pp.
+466-514; Green, ch. 9; Traill; Gardiner; Macaulay.
+
+_Special Works_. Sydney's Social Life in England from the Restoration to
+the Revolution; Airy's The English Restoration and Louis XIV; Hale's The
+Fall of the Stuarts.
+
+_LITERATURE_. Garnett's The Age of Dryden; Dowden's Puritan and Anglican.
+
+_Dryden_. Poetical Works, with Life, edited by Christie; the same, edited
+by Noyes, in Cambridge Poets Series; Life and Works (18 vols.), by Walter
+Scott, revised (1893) by Saintsbury; Essays, edited by Ker; Life, by
+Saintsbury (English Men of Letters); Macaulay's Essay; Lowell's Essay, in
+Among My Books (or in Literary Essays, vol. 3); Dowden's Essay, _supra_.
+
+_Butler_. Hudibras, in Morley's Universal Library; Poetical Works, edited
+by Johnson; Dowden's Essay, _supra_.
+
+_Pepys_. Diary in Everyman's Library; the same, edited by Wheatley (8
+vols.); Wheatley's Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In; Stevenson's
+Essay, in Familiar Studies of Men and Books.
+
+_The Restoration Drama_. Plays in the Mermaid Series; Hazlitt's Lectures on
+the English Comic Writers; Meredith's Essay on Comedy and the Comic Spirit;
+Lamb's Essay on the Artificial Comedy; Thackeray's Essay on Congreve, in
+English Humorists.
+
+
+SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What marked change in social conditions followed
+the Restoration? How are these changes reflected in literature?
+
+2. What are the chief characteristics of Restoration literature? Why is
+this period called the Age of French influence? What new tendencies were
+introduced? What effect did the Royal Society and the study of science have
+upon English prose? What is meant by realism? by formalism?
+
+3. What is meant by the heroic couplet? Explain why it became the
+prevailing form of English poetry. What are its good qualities and its
+defects? Name some well-known poems which are written in couplets. How do
+Dryden's couplets compare with Chaucer's? Can you explain the difference?
+
+4. Give a brief account of Dryden's life. What are his chief poetical
+works? For what new object did he use poetry? Is satire a poetical subject?
+Why is a poetical satire more effective than a satire in prose? What was
+Dryden's contribution to English prose? What influence did he exert on our
+literature?
+
+5. What is Butler's _Hudibras_? Explain its popularity. Read a passage and
+comment upon it, first, as satire; second, as a description of the
+Puritans. Is _Hudibras_ poetry? Why?
+
+6. Name the philosophers and political economists of this period. Can you
+explain why Hobbes should call his work _Leviathan_? What important
+American documents show the influence of Locke?
+
+7. Tell briefly the story of Pepys and his _Diary_. What light does the
+latter throw on the life of the age? Is the _Diary_ a work of literature?
+Why?
+
+
+                               CHRONOLOGY
+                 _Last Half of the Seventeenth Century_
+=====================================================================
+  HISTORY                            |  LITERATURE
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+                                     |
+1649. Execution of Charles I         |
+                                     |
+1649-1660. Commonwealth              | 1651. Hobbes's Leviathan
+                                     |
+1660. Restoration of Charles II      | 1660-1669, Pepys's Diary
+                                     |
+                                     | 1662. Royal Society founded
+                                     |
+                                     | 1663. Butler's Hudibras
+1665-1666. Plague and Fire of London |
+      War with Holland               |
+                                     |
+1667. Dutch fleet in the Thames      | 1667. Milton's Paradise Lost.
+                                     |       Dryden's Annus Mirabilis
+                                     |
+                                     | 1663-1694. Dryden's dramas
+                                     |
+                                     | 1671. Paradise Regained
+                                     |
+                                     | 1678. Pilgrim's Progress
+                                     |       published
+1680. Rise of Whigs and Tories       |
+                                     | 1681. Dryden's Absalom and
+                                     |       Achitophel
+1685. James II                       |
+      Monmouth's Rebellion           |
+                                     | 1687. Newton's Principia
+                                     |       proves the law of
+                                     |       gravitation
+1688. English Revolution, William of |
+      Orange called to throne        |
+                                     |
+1689. Bill of Rights. Toleration Act |
+                                     | 1690. Locke's Human
+                                     |       Understanding
+                                     | 1698. Jeremy Collier attacks
+                                     |       stage
+                                     | 1700. Death of Dryden
+=========================================================================
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE (1700-1800)
+
+I. AUGUSTAN OR CLASSIC AGE
+
+HISTORY OF THE PERIOD. The Revolution of 1688, which banished the last of
+the Stuart kings and called William of Orange to the throne, marks the end
+of the long struggle for political freedom in England. Thereafter the
+Englishman spent his tremendous energy, which his forbears had largely
+spent in fighting for freedom, in endless political discussions and in
+efforts to improve his government. In order to bring about reforms, votes
+were now necessary; and to get votes the people of England must be
+approached with ideas, facts, arguments, information. So the newspaper was
+born,[182] and literature in its widest sense, including the book, the
+newspaper, and the magazine, became the chief instrument of a nation's
+progress.
+
+The first half of the eighteenth century is remarkable for the rapid social
+development in England. Hitherto men had been more or less governed by the
+narrow, isolated standards of the Middle Ages, and when they differed they
+fell speedily to blows. Now for the first time they set themselves to the
+task of learning the art of living together, while still holding different
+opinions. In a single generation nearly two thousand public coffeehouses,
+each a center of sociability, sprang up in London alone, and the number of
+private clubs is quite as astonishing.[183] This new social life had a
+marked effect in polishing men's words and manners. The typical Londoner of
+Queen Anne's day was still rude, and a little vulgar in his tastes; the
+city was still very filthy, the streets unlighted and infested at night by
+bands of rowdies and "Mohawks"; but outwardly men sought to refine their
+manners according to prevailing standards; and to be elegant, to have "good
+form," was a man's first duty, whether he entered society or wrote
+literature. One can hardly read a book or poem of the age without feeling
+this superficial elegance. Government still had its opposing Tory and Whig
+parties, and the Church was divided into Catholics, Anglicans, and
+Dissenters; but the growing social life offset many antagonisms, producing
+at least the outward impression of peace and unity. Nearly every writer of
+the age busied himself with religion as well as with party politics, the
+scientist Newton as sincerely as the churchman Barrow, the philosophical
+Locke no less earnestly than the evangelical Wesley; but nearly all
+tempered their zeal with moderation, and argued from reason and Scripture,
+or used delicate satire upon their opponents, instead of denouncing them as
+followers of Satan. There were exceptions, of course_;_ but the general
+tendency of the age was toward toleration. Man had found himself in the
+long struggle for personal liberty; now he turned to the task of
+discovering his neighbor, of finding in Whig and Tory, in Catholic and
+Protestant, in Anglican and Dissenter, the same general human
+characteristics that he found in himself. This good work was helped,
+moreover, by the spread of education and by the growth of the national
+spfrit, following the victories of Marlborough on the Continent. In the
+midst of heated argument it needed only a word--Gibraltar, Blenheim,
+Ramillies, Malplaquet--or a poem of victory written in a garret[184] to
+tell a patriotic people that under their many differences they were all
+alike Englishmen.
+
+In the latter half of the century the political and social progress is
+almost bewildering. The modern form of cabinet government responsible to
+Parliament and the people had been established under George I; and in 1757
+the cynical and corrupt practices of Walpole, premier of the first Tory
+cabinet, were replaced by the more enlightened policies of Pitt. Schools
+were established; clubs and coffeehouses increased; books and magazines
+multiplied until the press was the greatest visible power in England; the
+modern great dailies, the _Chronicle, Post_, and _Times_, began their
+career of public education. Religiously, all the churches of England felt
+the quickening power of that tremendous spiritual revival known as
+Methodism, under the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield. Outside her own
+borders three great men--Clive in India, Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham,
+Cook in Australia and the islands of the Pacific--were unfurling the banner
+of St. George over the untold wealth of new lands, and spreading the
+world-wide empire of the Anglo-Saxons.
+
+LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. In every preceding age we have noted especially
+the poetical works, which constitute, according to Matthew Arnold, the
+glory of English literature. Now for the first time we must chronicle the
+triumph of English prose. A multitude of practical interests arising from
+the new social and political conditions demanded expression, not simply in
+books, but more especially in pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers. Poetry
+was inadequate for such a task; hence the development of prose, of the
+"unfettered word," as Dante calls it,--a development which astonishes us by
+its rapidity and excellence. The graceful elegance of Addison's essays, the
+terse vigor of Swift's satires, the artistic finish of Fielding's novels,
+the sonorous eloquence of Gibbon's history and of Burke's orations,--these
+have no parallel in the poetry of the age. Indeed, poetry itself became
+prosaic in this respect, that it was used not for creative works of
+imagination, but for essays, for satire, for criticism,--for exactly the
+same practical ends as was prose. The poetry of the first half of the
+century, as typified in the work of Pope, is polished and witty enough, but
+artificial; it lacks fire, fine feeling, enthusiasm, the glow of the
+Elizabethan Age and the moral earnestness of Puritanism. In a word, it
+interests us as a study of life, rather than delights or inspires us by its
+appeal to the imagination. The variety and excellence of prose works, and
+the development of a serviceable prose style, which had been begun by
+Dryden, until it served to express clearly every human interest and
+emotion,--these are the chief literary glories of the eighteenth century.
+
+In the literature of the preceding age we noted two marked tendencies,--the
+tendency to realism in subject-matter, and the tendency to polish and
+refinement of expression. Both these tendencies were continued in the
+Augustan Age, and are seen clearly in the poetry of Pope, who brought the
+couplet to perfection, and in the prose of Addison. A third tendency is
+shown in the prevalence of satire, resulting from the unfortunate union of
+politics with literature. We have already noted the power of the press in
+this age, and the perpetual strife of political parties. Nearly every
+writer of the first half of the century was used and rewarded by Whigs or
+Tories for satirizing their enemies and for advancing their special
+political interests. Pope was a marked exception, but he nevertheless
+followed the prose writers in using satire too largely in his poetry. Now
+satire--that is, a literary work which searches out the faults of men or
+institutions in order to hold them up to ridicule--is at best a destructive
+kind of criticism. A satirist is like a laborer who clears away the ruins
+and rubbish of an old house before the architect and builders begin on a
+new and beautiful structure. The work may sometimes be necessary, but it
+rarely arouses our enthusiasm. While the satires of Pope, Swift, and
+Addison are doubtless the best in our language, we hardly place them with
+our great literature, which is always constructive in spirit; and we have
+the feeling that all these men were capable of better things than they ever
+wrote.
+
+THE CLASSIC AGE. The period we are studying is known to us by various
+names. It is often called the Age of Queen Anne; but, unlike Elizabeth,
+this "meekly stupid" queen had practically no influence upon our
+literature. The name Classic Age is more often heard; but in using it we
+should remember clearly these three different ways in which the word
+"classic" is applied to literature: (1) the term "classic" refers, in
+general, to writers of the highest rank in any nation. As used in our
+literature, it was first applied to the works of the great Greek and Roman
+writers, like Homer and Virgil; and any English book which followed the
+simple and noble method of these writers was said to have a classic style.
+Later the term was enlarged to cover the great literary works of other
+ancient nations; so that the Bible and the Avestas, as well as the Iliad
+and the Aeneid, are called classics. (2) Every national literature has at
+least one period in which an unusual number of great writers are producing
+books, and this is called the classic period of a nation's literature. Thus
+the reign of Augustus is the classic or golden age of Rome; the generation
+of Dante is the classic age of Italian literature; the age of Louis XIV is
+the French classic age; and the age of Queen Anne is often called the
+classic age of England. (3) The word "classic" acquired an entirely
+different meaning in the period we are studying; and we shall better
+understand this by reference to the preceding ages. The Elizabethan writers
+were led by patriotism, by enthusiasm, and, in general, by romantic
+emotions. They wrote in a natural style, without regard to rules; and
+though they exaggerated and used too many words, their works are delightful
+because of their vigor and freshness and fine feeling. In the following age
+patriotism had largely disappeared from politics and enthusiasm from
+literature. Poets no longer wrote naturally, but artificially, with strange
+and fantastic verse forms to give effect, since fine feeling was wanting.
+And this is the general character of the poetry of the Puritan Age.[185]
+Gradually our writers rebelled against the exaggerations of both the
+natural and the fantastic style. They demanded that poetry should follow
+exact rules; and in this they were influenced by French writers, especially
+by Boileau and Rapin, who insisted on precise methods of writing poetry,
+and who professed to have discovered their rules in the classics of Horace
+and Aristotle. In our study of the Elizabethan drama we noted the good
+influence of the classic movement in insisting upon that beauty of form and
+definiteness of expression which characterize the dramas of Greece and
+Rome; and in the work of Dryden and his followers we see a revival of
+classicism in the effort to make English literature conform to rules
+established by the great writers of other nations. At first the results
+were excellent, especially in prose; but as the creative vigor of the
+Elizabethans was lacking in this age, writing by rule soon developed a kind
+of elegant formalism, which suggests the elaborate social code of the time.
+Just as a gentleman might not act naturally, but must follow exact rules in
+doffing his hat, or addressing a lady, or entering a room, or wearing a
+wig, or offering his snuffbox to a friend, so our writers lost
+individuality and became formal and artificial. The general tendency of
+literature was to look at life critically, to emphasize intellect rather
+than imagination, the form rather than the content of a sentence. Writers
+strove to repress all emotion and enthusiasm, and to use only precise and
+elegant methods of expression. This is what is often meant by the
+"classicism" of the ages of Pope and Johnson. It refers to the critical,
+intellectual spirit of many writers, to the fine polish of their heroic
+couplets or the elegance of their prose, and not to any resemblance which
+their work bears to true classic literature. In a word, the classic
+movement had become pseudo-classic, i.e. a false or sham classicism; and
+the latter term is now often used to designate a considerable part of
+eighteenth-century literature.[186] To avoid this critical difficulty we
+have adopted the term Augustan Age, a name chosen by the writers
+themselves, who saw in Pope, Addison, Swift, Johnson, and Burke the modern
+parallels to Horace, Virgil, Cicero, and all that brilliant company who
+made Roman literature famous in the days of Augustus.
+
+
+ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744)
+
+Pope is in many respects a unique figure. In the first place, he was for a
+generation "the poet" of a great nation. To be sure, poetry was limited in
+the early eighteenth century; there were few lyrics, little or no love
+poetry, no epics, no dramas or songs of nature worth considering; but in
+the narrow field of satiric and didactic verse Pope was the undisputed
+master. His influence completely dominated the poetry of his age, and many
+foreign writers, as well as the majority of English poets, looked to him as
+their model. Second, he was a remarkably clear and adequate reflection of
+the spirit of the age in which he lived. There is hardly an ideal, a
+belief, a doubt, a fashion, a whim of Queen Anne's time, that is not neatly
+expressed in his poetry. Third, he was the only important writer of that
+age who gave his whole life to letters. Swift was a clergyman and
+politician; Addison was secretary of state; other writers depended on
+patrons or politics or pensions for fame and a livelihood; but Pope was
+independent, and had no profession but literature. And fourth, by the sheer
+force of his ambition he won his place, and held it, in spite of religious
+prejudice, and in the face of physical and temperamental obstacles that
+would have discouraged a stronger man. For Pope was deformed and sickly,
+dwarfish in soul and body. He knew little of the world of nature or of the
+world of the human heart. He was lacking, apparently, in noble feeling, and
+instinctively chose a lie when the truth had manifestly more advantages.
+Yet this jealous, peevish, waspish little man became the most famous poet
+of his age and the acknowledged leader of English literature. We record the
+fact with wonder and admiration; but we do not attempt to explain it.
+
+LIFE. Pope was born in London in 1688, the year of the Revolution. His
+parents were both Catholics, who presently removed from London and settled
+in Binfield, near Windsor, where the poet's childhood was passed. Partly
+because of an unfortunate prejudice against Catholics in the public
+schools, partly because of his own weakness and deformity, Pope received
+very little school education, but browsed for himself among English books
+and picked up a smattering of the classics. Very early he began to write
+poetry, and records the fact with his usual vanity:
+
+    As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
+    I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
+
+Being debarred by his religion from many desirable employments, he resolved
+to make literature his life work; and in this he resembled Dryden, who, he
+tells us, was his only master, though much of his work seems to depend on
+Boileau, the French poet and critic.[187] When only sixteen years old he
+had written his "Pastorals"; a few years later appeared his "Essay on
+Criticism," which made him famous. With the publication of the _Rape of the
+Lock_, in 1712, Pope's name was known and honored all over England, and
+this dwarf of twenty-four years, by the sheer force of his own ambition,
+had jumped to the foremost place in English letters. It was soon after this
+that Voltaire called him "the best poet of England and, at present, of all
+the world,"--which is about as near the truth as Voltaire generally gets in
+his numerous universal judgments. For the next twelve years Pope was busy
+with poetry, especially with his translations of Homer; and his work was so
+successful financially that he bought a villa at Twickenham, on the Thames,
+and remained happily independent of wealthy patrons for a livelihood.
+
+Led by his success, Pope returned to London and for a time endeavored to
+live the gay and dissolute life which was supposed to be suitable for a
+literary genius; but he was utterly unfitted for it, mentally and
+physically, and soon retired to Twickenham. There he gave himself up to
+poetry, manufactured a little garden more artificial than his verses, and
+cultivated his friendship with Martha Blount, with whom for many years he
+spent a good part of each day, and who remained faithful to him to the end
+of his life. At Twickenham he wrote his _Moral Epistles_ (poetical satires
+modeled after Horace) and revenged himself upon all his critics in the
+bitter abuse of the _Dunciad_. He died in 1744 and was buried at
+Twickenham, his religion preventing him from the honor, which was certainly
+his due, of a resting place in Westminster Abbey.
+
+WORKS OF POPE. For convenience we may separate Pope's work into three
+groups, corresponding to the early, middle, and later period of his life.
+In the first he wrote his "Pastorals," "Windsor Forest," "Messiah," "Essay
+on Criticism," "Eloise to Abelard," and the _Rape of the Lock;_ in the
+second, his translations of Homer; in the third the _Dunciad_ and the
+_Epistles_, the latter containing the famous "Essay on Man" and the
+"Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," which is in truth his "Apologia," and in which
+alone we see Pope's life from his own view point.
+
+The "Essay on Criticism" sums up the art of poetry as taught first by
+Horace, then by Boileau and the eighteenth-century classicists. Though
+written in heroic couplets, we hardly consider this as a poem but rather as
+a storehouse of critical maxims. "For fools rush in where angels fear to
+tread"; "To err is human, to forgive divine"; "A little learning is a
+dangerous thing,"--these lines, and many more like them from the same
+source, have found their way into our common speech, and are used, without
+thinking of the author, whenever we need an apt quotation.
+
+The _Rape of the Lock_ is a masterpiece of its kind, and comes nearer to
+being a "creation" than anything else that Pope has written. The occasion
+of the famous poem was trivial enough. A fop at the court of Queen Anne,
+one Lord Petre, snipped a lock of hair from the abundant curls of a pretty
+maid of honor named Arabella Fermor. The young lady resented it, and the
+two families were plunged into a quarrel which was the talk of London.
+Pope, being appealed to, seized the occasion to construct, not a ballad, as
+the Cavaliers would have done, nor an epigram, as French poets love to do,
+but a long poem in which all the mannerisms of society are pictured in
+minutest detail and satirized with the most delicate wit. The first
+edition, consisting of two cantos, was published in 1712; and it is amazing
+now to read of the trivial character of London court life at the time when
+English soldiers were battling for a great continent in the French and
+Indian wars. Its instant success caused Pope to lengthen the poem by three
+more cantos; and in order to make a more perfect burlesque of an epic poem,
+he introduces gnomes, sprites, sylphs, and salamanders,[188] instead of the
+gods of the great epics, with which his readers were familiar. The poem is
+modeled after two foreign satires: Boileau's _Le Lutrin_ (reading desk), a
+satire on the French clergy, who raised a huge quarrel over the location of
+a lectern; and _La Secchia Rapita_ (stolen bucket), a famous Italian satire
+on the petty causes of the endless Italian wars. Pope, however, went far
+ahead of his masters in style and in delicacy of handling a mock-heroic
+theme, and during his lifetime the _Rape of the Lock_ was considered as the
+greatest poem of its kind in all literature. The poem is still well worth
+reading; for as an expression of the artificial life of the age--of its
+cards, parties, toilettes, lapdogs, tea-drinking, snuff-taking, and idle
+vanities--it is as perfect in its way as _Tamburlaine_, which reflects the
+boundless ambition of the Elizabethans.
+
+The fame of Pope's _Iliad_, which was financially the most successful of
+his books, was due to the fact that he interpreted Homer in the elegant,
+artificial language of his own age. Not only do his words follow literary
+fashions but even the Homeric characters lose their strength and become
+fashionable men of the court. So the criticism of the scholar Bentley was
+most appropriate when he said, "It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must
+not call it Homer." Pope translated the entire _Iliad_ and half of the
+_Odyssey_; and the latter work was finished by two Cambridge scholars,
+Elijah Fenton and William Broome, who imitated the mechanical couplets so
+perfectly that it is difficult to distinguish their work from that of the
+greatest poet of the age. A single selection is given to show how, in the
+nobler passages, even Pope may faintly suggest the elemental grandeur of
+Homer:
+
+    The troops exulting sat in order round,
+    And beaming fires illumined all the ground.
+    As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
+    O'er Heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
+    When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
+    And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
+    Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
+    And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole,
+    O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
+    And tip with silver every mountain's head.
+
+The "Essay" is the best known and the most quoted of all Pope's works.
+Except in form it is not poetry, and when one considers it as an essay and
+reduces it to plain prose, it is found to consist of numerous literary
+ornaments without any very solid structure of thought to rest upon. The
+purpose of the essay is, in Pope's words, to "vindicate the ways of God to
+Man"; and as there are no unanswered problems in Pope's philosophy, the
+vindication is perfectly accomplished in four poetical epistles, concerning
+man's relations to the universe, to himself, to society, and to happiness.
+The final result is summed up in a few well-known lines:
+
+    All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
+    All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
+    All discord, harmony not understood;
+    All partial evil, universal good:
+    And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
+    One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.
+
+Like the "Essay on Criticism," the poem abounds in quotable lines, such as
+the following, which make the entire work well worth reading:
+
+    Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
+    Man never is, but always to be blest.
+    Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
+    The proper study of Mankind is Man.
+    The same ambition can destroy or save,
+    And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.
+    Honor and shame from no condition rise;
+    Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
+      Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
+    As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
+    Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
+    We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
+      Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law,
+    Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw:
+    Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
+    A little louder, but as empty quite:
+    Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
+    And beads and prayer books are the toys of age:
+    Pleased with this bauble still, as that before;
+    Till tired he sleeps, and Life's poor play is o'er.[189]
+
+_The Dunciad_ (i.e. the "Iliad of the Dunces") began originally as a
+controversy concerning Shakespeare, but turned out to be a coarse and
+revengeful satire upon all the literary men of the age who had aroused
+Pope's anger by their criticism or lack of appreciation of his genius.
+Though brilliantly written and immensely popular at one time, its present
+effect on the reader is to arouse a sense of pity that a man of such
+acknowledged power and position should abuse both by devoting his talents
+to personal spite and petty quarrels. Among the rest of his numerous works
+the reader will find Pope's estimate of himself best set forth in his
+"Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," and it will be well to close our study of this
+strange mixture of vanity and greatness with "The Universal Prayer," which
+shows at least that Pope had considered, and judged himself, and that all
+further judgment is consequently superfluous.
+
+
+JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745)
+
+In each of Marlowe's tragedies we have the picture of a man dominated by a
+single passion, the lust of power for its own sake. In each we see that a
+powerful man without self-control is like a dangerous instrument in the
+hands of a child; and the tragedy ends in the destruction of the man by the
+ungoverned power which he possesses. The life of Swift is just such a
+living tragedy. He had the power of gaining wealth, like the hero of the
+_Jew of Malta_; yet he used it scornfully, and in sad irony left what
+remained to him of a large property to found a hospital for lunatics. By
+hard work he won enormous literary power, and used it to satirize our
+common humanity. He wrested political power from the hands of the Tories,
+and used it to insult the very men who had helped him, and who held his
+fate in their hands. By his dominant personality he exercised a curious
+power over women, and used it brutally to make them feel their inferiority.
+Being loved supremely by two good women, he brought sorrow and death to
+both, and endless misery to himself. So his power brought always tragedy in
+its wake. It is only when we remember his life of struggle and
+disappointment and bitterness that we can appreciate the personal quality
+in his satire, and perhaps find some sympathy for this greatest genius of
+all the Augustan writers.
+
+LIFE. Swift was born in Dublin, of English parents, in 1667. His father
+died before he was born; his mother was poor, and Swift, though proud as
+Lucifer, was compelled to accept aid from relatives, who gave it
+grudgingly. At the Kilkenny school, and especially at Dublin University, he
+detested the curriculum, reading only what appealed to his own nature; but,
+since a degree was necessary to his success, he was compelled to accept it
+as a favor from the examiners, whom he despised in his heart. After
+graduation the only position open to him was with a distant relative, Sir
+William Temple, who gave him the position of private secretary largely on
+account of the unwelcome relationship.
+
+Temple was a statesman and an excellent diplomatist; but he thought himself
+to be a great writer as well, and he entered into a literary controversy
+concerning the relative merits of the classics and modern literature.
+Swift's first notable work, _The Battle of the Books_, written at this time
+but not published, is a keen satire upon both parties in the controversy.
+The first touch of bitterness shows itself here; for Swift was in a galling
+position for a man of his pride, knowing his intellectual superiority to
+the man who employed him, and yet being looked upon as a servant and eating
+at the servants' table. Thus he spent ten of the best years of his life in
+the pretty Moor Park, Surrey, growing more bitter each year and steadily
+cursing his fate. Nevertheless he read and studied widely, and, after his
+position with Temple grew unbearable, quarreled with his patron, took
+orders, and entered the Church of England. Some years later we find him
+settled in the little church of Laracor, Ireland,--a country which he
+disliked intensely, but whither he went because no other "living" was open
+to him.
+
+In Ireland, faithful to his church duties, Swift labored to better the
+condition of the unhappy people around him. Never before had the poor of
+his parishes been so well cared for; but Swift chafed under his yoke,
+growing more and more irritated as he saw small men advanced to large
+positions, while he remained unnoticed in a little country church,--largely
+because he was too proud and too blunt with those who might have advanced
+him. While at Laracor he finished his _Tale of a Tub_, a satire on the
+various churches of the day, which was published in London with the _Battle
+of the Books_ in 1704. The work brought him into notice as the most
+powerful satirist of the age, and he soon gave up his church to enter the
+strife of party politics. The cheap pamphlet was then the most powerful
+political weapon known; and as Swift had no equal at pamphlet writing, he
+soon became a veritable dictator. For several years, especially from 1710
+to 1713, Swift was one of the most important figures in London. The Whigs
+feared the lash of his satire; the Tories feared to lose his support. He
+was courted, flattered, cajoled on every side; but the use he made of his
+new power is sad to contemplate. An unbearable arrogance took possession of
+him. Lords, statesmen, even ladies were compelled to sue for his favor and
+to apologize for every fancied slight to his egoism. It is at this time
+that he writes in his _Journal to Stella:_
+
+Mr. Secretary told me the Duke of Buckingham had been talking much about me
+and desired my acquaintance. I answered it could not be, for he had not yet
+made sufficient advances; then Shrewsbury said he thought the Duke was not
+used to make advances. I said I could not help that, for I always expected
+advances in proportion to men's quality, and more from a Duke than any
+other man.
+
+Writing to the Duchess of Queensberry he says:
+
+I am glad you know your duty; for it has been a known and established rule
+above twenty years in England that the first advances have been constantly
+made me by all ladies who aspire to my acquaintance, and the greater their
+quality the greater were their advances.
+
+When the Tories went out of power Swift's position became uncertain. He
+expected and had probably been promised a bishopric in England, with a seat
+among the peers of the realm; but the Tories offered him instead the place
+of dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. It was galling to a man of
+his proud spirit; but after his merciless satire on religion, in _The Tale
+of a Tub_, any ecclesiastical position in England was rendered impossible.
+Dublin was the best he could get, and he accepted it bitterly, once more
+cursing the fate which he had brought upon himself.
+
+With his return to Ireland begins the last act in the tragedy of his life.
+His best known literary work, _Gulliver's Travels_, was done here; but the
+bitterness of life grew slowly to insanity, and a frightful personal
+sorrow, of which he never spoke, reached its climax in the death of Esther
+Johnson, a beautiful young woman, who had loved Swift ever since the two
+had met in Temple's household, and to whom he had written his _Journal to
+Stella_. During the last years of his life a brain disease, of which he had
+shown frequent symptoms, fastened its terrible hold upon Swift, and he
+became by turns an idiot and a madman. He died in 1745, and when his will
+was opened it was found that he had left all his property to found St.
+Patrick's Asylum for lunatics and incurables. It stands to-day as the most
+suggestive monument of his peculiar genius.
+
+THE WORKS OF SWIFT. From Swift's life one can readily foresee the kind of
+literature he will produce. Taken together his works are a monstrous satire
+on humanity; and the spirit of that satire is shown clearly in a little
+incident of his first days in London. There was in the city at that time a
+certain astrologer named Partridge, who duped the public by calculating
+nativities from the stars, and by selling a yearly almanac predicting
+future events. Swift, who hated all shams, wrote, with a great show of
+learning, his famous _Bickerstaff Almanac_, containing "Predictions for the
+Year 1708, as Determined by the Unerring Stars." As Swift rarely signed his
+name to any literary work, letting it stand or fall on its own merits, his
+burlesque appeared over the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff, a name
+afterwards made famous by Steele in _The Tatler_. Among the predictions was
+the following:
+
+My first prediction is but a trifle; yet I will mention it to show how
+ignorant those sottish pretenders to astrology are in their own concerns:
+it relates to Partridge the almanack maker; I have consulted the star of
+his nativity by my own rules, and find he will infallibly die upon the 29th
+of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever; therefore I advise
+him to consider of it, and settle his affairs in time.
+
+On March 30, the day after the prediction was to be fulfilled, there
+appeared in the newspapers a letter from a revenue officer giving the
+details of Partridge's death, with the doings of the bailiff and the coffin
+maker; and on the following morning appeared an elaborate "Elegy of Mr.
+Partridge." When poor Partridge, who suddenly found himself without
+customers, published a denial of the burial, Swift answered with an
+elaborate "Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff," in which he proved by
+astrological rules that Partridge was dead, and that the man now in his
+place was an impostor trying to cheat the heirs out of their inheritance.
+
+This ferocious joke is suggestive of all Swift's satires. Against any case
+of hypocrisy or injustice he sets up a remedy of precisely the same kind,
+only more atrocious, and defends his plan with such seriousness that the
+satire overwhelms the reader with a sense of monstrous falsity. Thus his
+solemn "Argument to prove that the Abolishing of Christianity may be
+attended with Some Inconveniences" is such a frightful satire upon the
+abuses of Christianity by its professed followers that it is impossible for
+us to say whether Swift intended to point out needed reforms, or to satisfy
+his conscience,[190] or to perpetrate a joke on the Church, as he had done
+on poor Partridge. So also with his "Modest Proposal," concerning the
+children of Ireland, which sets up the proposition that poor Irish farmers
+ought to raise children as dainties, to be eaten, like roast pigs, on the
+tables of prosperous Englishmen. In this most characteristic work it is
+impossible to find Swift or his motive. The injustice under which Ireland
+suffered, her perversity in raising large families to certain poverty, and
+the indifference of English politicians to her suffering and protests are
+all mercilessly portrayed; but why? That is still the unanswered problem of
+Swift's life and writings.
+
+Swift's two greatest satires are his _Tale of a Tub_ and _Gulliver's
+Travels_. The _Tale_ began as a grim exposure of the alleged weaknesses of
+three principal forms of religious belief, Catholic, Lutheran, and
+Calvinist, as opposed to the Anglican; but it ended in a satire upon all
+science and philosophy.
+
+Swift explains his whimsical title by the custom of mariners in throwing
+out a tub to a whale, in order to occupy the monster's attention and divert
+it from an attack upon the ship,--which only proves how little Swift knew
+of whales or sailors. But let that pass. His book is a tub thrown out to
+the enemies of Church and State to keep them occupied from further attacks
+or criticism; and the substance of the argument is that all churches, and
+indeed all religion and science and statesmanship, are arrant hypocrisy.
+The best known part of the book is the allegory of the old man who died and
+left a coat (which is Christian Truth) to each of his three sons, Peter,
+Martin, and Jack, with minute directions for its care and use. These three
+names stand for Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists; and the way in which
+the sons evade their father's will and change the fashion of their garment
+is part of the bitter satire upon all religious sects. Though it professes
+to defend the Anglican Church, that institution fares perhaps worse than
+the others; for nothing is left to her but a thin cloak of custom under
+which to hide her alleged hypocrisy.
+
+In _Gulliver's Travels_ the satire grows more unbearable. Strangely enough,
+this book, upon which Swift's literary fame generally rests, was not
+written from any literary motive, but rather as an outlet for the author's
+own bitterness against fate and human society. It is still read with
+pleasure, as _Robinson Crusoe_ is read, for the interesting adventures of
+the hero; and fortunately those who read it generally overlook its
+degrading influence and motive.
+
+_Gulliver's Travels_ records the pretended four voyages of one Lemuel
+Gulliver, and his adventures in four astounding countries. The first book
+tells of his voyage and shipwreck in Lilliput, where the inhabitants are
+about as tall as one's thumb, and all their acts and motives are on the
+same dwarfish scale. In the petty quarrels of these dwarfs we are supposed
+to see the littleness of humanity. The statesmen who obtain place and favor
+by cutting monkey capers on the tight rope before their sovereign, and the
+two great parties, the Littleendians and Bigendians, who plunge the country
+into civil war over the momentous question of whether an egg should be
+broken on its big or on its little end, are satires on the politics of
+Swift's own day and generation. The style is simple and convincing; the
+surprising situations and adventures are as absorbing as those of Defoe's
+masterpiece; and altogether it is the most interesting of Swift's satires.
+
+On the second voyage Gulliver is abandoned in Brobdingnag, where the
+inhabitants are giants, and everything is done upon an enormous scale. The
+meanness of humanity seems all the more detestable in view of the greatness
+of these superior beings. When Gulliver tells about his own people, their
+ambitions and wars and conquests, the giants can only wonder that such
+great venom could exist in such little insects.
+
+In the third voyage Gulliver continues his adventures in Laputa, and this
+is a satire upon all the scientists and philosophers. Laputa is a flying
+island, held up in the air by a loadstone; and all the professors of the
+famous academy at Lagado are of the same airy constitution. The philosopher
+who worked eight years to extract sunshine from cucumbers is typical of
+Swift's satiric treatment of all scientific problems. It is in this voyage
+that we hear of the Struldbrugs, a ghastly race of men who are doomed to
+live upon earth after losing hope and the desire for life. The picture is
+all the more terrible in view of the last years of Swift's own life, in
+which he was compelled to live on, a burden to himself and his friends.
+
+In these three voyages the evident purpose is to strip off the veil of
+habit and custom, with which men deceive themselves, and show the crude
+vices of humanity as Swift fancies he sees them. In the fourth voyage the
+merciless satire is carried out to its logical conclusion. This brings us
+to the land of the Houyhnhnms, in which horses, superior and intelligent
+creatures, are the ruling animals. All our interest, however, is centered
+on the Yahoos, a frightful race, having the form and appearance of men, but
+living in unspeakable degradation.
+
+The _Journal to Stella_, written chiefly in the years 1710-1713 for the
+benefit of Esther Johnson, is interesting to us for two reasons. It is,
+first, an excellent commentary on contemporary characters and political
+events, by one of the most powerful and original minds of the age; and
+second, in its love passages and purely personal descriptions it gives us
+the best picture we possess of Swift himself at the summit of his power and
+influence. As we read now its words of tenderness for the woman who loved
+him, and who brought almost the only ray of sunlight into his life, we can
+only wonder and be silent. Entirely different are his _Drapier's Letters_,
+a model of political harangue and of popular argument, which roused an
+unthinking English public and did much benefit to Ireland by preventing the
+politicians' plan of debasing the Irish coinage. Swift's poems, though
+vigorous and original (like Defoe's, of the same period), are generally
+satirical, often coarse, and seldom rise above doggerel. Unlike his friend
+Addison, Swift saw, in the growing polish and decency of society, only a
+mask for hypocrisy; and he often used his verse to shock the new-born
+modesty by pointing out some native ugliness which his diseased mind
+discovered under every beautiful exterior.
+
+That Swift is the most original writer of his time, and one of the greatest
+masters of English prose, is undeniable. Directness, vigor, simplicity,
+mark every page. Among writers of that age he stands almost alone in his
+disdain of literary effects. Keeping his object steadily before him, he
+drives straight on to the end, with a convincing power that has never been
+surpassed in our language. Even in his most grotesque creations, the reader
+never loses the sense of reality, of being present as an eyewitness of the
+most impossible events, so powerful and convincing is Swift's prose. Defoe
+had the same power; but in writing _Robinson Crusoe_, for instance, his
+task was comparatively easy, since his hero and his adventures were both
+natural; while Swift gives reality to pygmies, giants, and the most
+impossible situations, as easily as if he were writing of facts.
+Notwithstanding these excellent qualities, the ordinary reader will do well
+to confine himself to _Gulliver's Travels_ and a book of well-chosen
+selections. For, it must be confessed, the bulk of Swift's work is not
+wholesome reading. It is too terribly satiric and destructive; it
+emphasizes the faults and failings of humanity; and so runs counter to the
+general course of our literature, which from Cynewulf to Tennyson follows
+the Ideal, as Merlin followed the Gleam,[191] and is not satisfied till the
+hidden beauty of man's soul and the divine purpose of his struggle are
+manifest.
+
+
+JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719)
+
+In the pleasant art of living with one's fellows, Addison is easily a
+master. It is due to his perfect expression of that art, of that new social
+life which, as we have noted, was characteristic of the Age of Anne, that
+Addison occupies such a large place in the history of literature. Of less
+power and originality than Swift, he nevertheless wields, and deserves to
+wield, a more lasting influence. Swift is the storm, roaring against the
+ice and frost of the late spring of English life. Addison is the sunshine,
+which melts the ice and dries the mud and makes the earth thrill with light
+and hope. Like Swift, he despised shams, but unlike him, he never lost
+faith in humanity; and in all his satires there is a gentle kindliness
+which makes one think better of his fellow-men, even while he laughs at
+their little vanities.
+
+Two things Addison did for our literature which are of inestimable value.
+First, he overcame a certain corrupt tendency bequeathed by Restoration
+literature. It was the apparent aim of the low drama, and even of much of
+the poetry of that age, to make virtue ridiculous and vice attractive.
+Addison set himself squarely against this unworthy tendency. To strip off
+the mask of vice, to show its ugliness and deformity, but to reveal virtue
+in its own native loveliness,--that was Addison's purpose; and he succeeded
+so well that never, since his day, has our English literature seriously
+followed after false gods. As Macaulay says, "So effectually did he retort
+on vice the mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that
+since his time the open violation of decency has always been considered
+amongst us a sure mark of a fool." And second, prompted and aided by the
+more original genius of his friend Steele, Addison seized upon the new
+social life of the clubs and made it the subject of endless pleasant essays
+upon types of men and manners. _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_ are the
+beginning of the modern essay; and their studies of human character, as
+exemplified in Sir Roger de Coverley, are a preparation for the modern
+novel.
+
+LIFE. Addison's life, like his writings, is in marked contrast to that of
+Swift. He was born in Milston, Wiltshire, in 1672. His father was a
+scholarly English clergyman, and all his life Addison followed naturally
+the quiet and cultured ways to which he was early accustomed. At the famous
+Charterhouse School, in London, and in his university life at Oxford, he
+excelled in character and scholarship and became known as a writer of
+graceful verses. He had some intention, at one time, of entering the
+Church, but was easily persuaded by his friends to take up the government
+service instead. Unlike Swift, who abused his political superiors, Addison
+took the more tactful way of winning the friendship of men in large places.
+His lines to Dryden won that literary leader's instant favor, and one of
+his Latin poems, "The Peace of Ryswick" (1697), with its kindly
+appreciation of King William's statesmen, brought him into favorable
+political notice. It brought him also a pension of three hundred pounds a
+year, with a suggestion that he travel abroad and cultivate the art of
+diplomacy; which he promptly did to his own great advantage.
+
+From a literary view point the most interesting work of Addison's early
+life is his _Account of the Greatest English Poets_ (1693), written while
+he was a fellow of Oxford University. One rubs his eyes to find Dryden
+lavishly praised, Spenser excused or patronized, while Shakespeare is not
+even mentioned. But Addison was writing under Boileau's "classic" rules;
+and the poet, like the age, was perhaps too artificial to appreciate
+natural genius.
+
+While he was traveling abroad, the death of William and the loss of power
+by the Whigs suddenly stopped Addison's pension; necessity brought him
+home, and for a time he lived in poverty and obscurity. Then occurred the
+battle of Blenheim, and in the effort to find a poet to celebrate the
+event, Addison was brought to the Tories' attention. His poem, "The
+Campaign," celebrating the victory, took the country by storm. Instead of
+making the hero slay his thousands and ten thousands, like the old epic
+heroes, Addison had some sense of what is required in a modern general, and
+so made Marlborough direct the battle from the outside, comparing him to an
+angel riding on the whirlwind:
+
+    'T was then great Marlbro's mighty soul was proved,
+    That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved,
+    Amidst confusion, horror, and despair,
+    Examined all the dreadful scenes of war;
+    In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed,
+    To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid,
+    Inspired repulsed battalions to engage,
+    And taught the doubtful battle where to rage.
+    So when an angel by divine command
+    With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
+    (Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past,)
+    Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
+    And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,
+    Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.
+
+That one doubtful simile made Addison's fortune. Never before or since was
+a poet's mechanical work so well rewarded. It was called the finest thing
+ever written, and from that day Addison rose steadily in political favor
+and office. He became in turn Undersecretary, member of Parliament,
+Secretary for Ireland, and finally Secretary of State. Probably no other
+literary man, aided by his pen alone, ever rose so rapidly and so high in
+office.
+
+The rest of Addison's life was divided between political duties and
+literature. His essays for the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_, which we still
+cherish, were written between 1709 and 1714; but he won more literary fame
+by his classic tragedy _Cato_, which we have almost forgotten. In 1716 he
+married a widow, the Countess of Warwick, and went to live at her home, the
+famous Holland House. His married life lasted only three years, and was
+probably not a happy one. Certainly he never wrote of women except with
+gentle satire, and he became more and more a clubman, spending most of his
+time in the clubs and coffeehouses of London. Up to this time his life had
+been singularly peaceful; but his last years were shadowed by quarrels,
+first with Pope, then with Swift, and finally with his lifelong friend
+Steele. The first quarrel was on literary grounds, and was largely the
+result of Pope's jealousy. The latter's venomous caricature of Addison as
+Atticus shows how he took his petty revenge on a great and good man who had
+been his friend. The other quarrels with Swift, and especially with his old
+friend Steele, were the unfortunate result of political differences, and
+show how impossible it is to mingle literary ideals with party politics. He
+died serenely in 1719. A brief description from Thackeray's _English
+Humorists_ is his best epitaph:
+
+A life prosperous and beautiful, a calm death; an immense fame and
+affection afterwards for his happy and spotless name.
+
+WORKS OF ADDISON. The most enduring of Addison's works are his famous
+_Essays_, collected from the _Tatler_ and _Spectator._ We have spoken of
+him as a master of the art of gentle living, and these essays are a
+perpetual inducement to others to know and to practice the same fine art.
+To an age of fundamental coarseness and artificiality he came with a
+wholesome message of refinement and simplicity, much as Ruskin and Arnold
+spoke to a later age of materialism; only Addison's success was greater
+than theirs because of his greater knowledge of life and his greater faith
+in men. He attacks all the little vanities and all the big vices of his
+time, not in Swift's terrible way, which makes us feel hopeless of
+humanity, but with a kindly ridicule and gentle humor which takes speedy
+improvement for granted. To read Swift's brutal "Letters to a Young Lady,"
+and then to read Addison's "Dissection of a Beau's Head" and his
+"Dissection of a Coquette's Heart," is to know at once the secret of the
+latter's more enduring influence.
+
+Three other results of these delightful essays are worthy of attention:
+first, they are the best picture we possess of the new social life of
+England, with its many new interests; second, they advanced the art of
+literary criticism to a much higher stage than it had ever before reached,
+and however much we differ from their judgment and their interpretation of
+such a man as Milton, they certainly led Englishmen to a better knowledge
+and appreciation of their own literature; and finally, in Ned Softly the
+literary dabbler, Will Wimble the poor relation, Sir Andrew Freeport the
+merchant, Will Honeycomb the fop, and Sir Roger the country gentleman, they
+give us characters that live forever as part of that goodly company which
+extends from Chaucer's country parson to Kipling's Mulvaney. Addison and
+Steele not only introduced the modern essay, but in such characters as
+these they herald the dawn of the modern novel. Of all his essays the best
+known and loved are those which introduce us to Sir Roger de Coverley, the
+genial dictator of life and manners in the quiet English country.
+
+In style these essays are remarkable as showing the growing perfection of
+the English language. Johnson says, "Whoever wishes to attain an English
+style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give
+his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." And again he says, "Give
+nights and days, sir, to the study of Addison if you mean to be a good
+writer, or, what is more worth, an honest man." That was good criticism for
+its day, and even at the present time critics are agreed that Addison's
+_Essays_ are well worth reading once for their own sake, and many times for
+their influence in shaping a clear and graceful style of writing.
+
+Addison's poems, which were enormously popular in his day, are now seldom
+read. His _Cato_, with its classic unities and lack of dramatic power, must
+be regarded as a failure, if we study it as tragedy; but it offers an
+excellent example of the rhetoric and fine sentiment which were then
+considered the essentials of good writing. The best scene from this tragedy
+is in the fifth act, where Cato soliloquizes, with Plato's _Immortality of
+the Soul_ open in his hand, and a drawn sword on the table before him:
+
+    It must be so--Plato, thou reason'st well!--
+    Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
+    This longing after immortality?
+    Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
+    Of falling into nought? why shrinks the soul
+    Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
+    'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
+    'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
+    And intimates eternity to man.
+
+Many readers make frequent use of one portion of Addison's poetry without
+knowing to whom they are indebted. His devout nature found expression in
+many hymns, a few of which are still used and loved in our churches. Many a
+congregation thrills, as Thackeray did, to the splendid sweep of his "God
+in Nature," beginning, "The spacious firmament on high." Almost as well
+known and loved are his "Traveler's Hymn," and his "Continued Help,"
+beginning, "When all thy mercies, O my God." The latter hymn--written in a
+storm at sea off the Italian coast, when the captain and crew were
+demoralized by terror--shows that poetry, especially a good hymn that one
+can sing in the same spirit as one would say his prayers, is sometimes the
+most practical and helpful thing in the world.
+
+RICHARD STEELE (1672-1729). Steele was in almost every respect the
+antithesis of his friend and fellow-worker,--a rollicking, good-hearted,
+emotional, lovable Irishman. At the Charterhouse School and at Oxford he
+shared everything with Addison, asking nothing but love in return. Unlike
+Addison, he studied but little, and left the university to enter the Horse
+Guards. He was in turn soldier, captain, poet, playwright, essayist, member
+of Parliament, manager of a theater, publisher of a newspaper, and twenty
+other things,--all of which he began joyously and then abandoned, sometimes
+against his will, as when he was expelled from Parliament, and again
+because some other interest of the moment had more attraction. His poems
+and plays are now little known; but the reader who searches them out will
+find one or two suggestive things about Steele himself. For instance, he
+loves children; and he is one of the few writers of his time who show a
+sincere and unswerving respect for womanhood. Even more than Addison he
+ridicules vice and makes virtue lovely. He is the originator of the
+_Tatler_, and joins with Addison in creating the _Spectator_,--the two
+periodicals which, in the short space of less than four years, did more to
+influence subsequent literature than all other magazines of the century
+combined. Moreover, he is the original genius of Sir Roger, and of many
+other characters and essays for which Addison usually receives the whole
+credit. It is often impossible in the _Tatler_ essays to separate the work
+of the two men; but the majority of critics hold that the more original
+parts, the characters, the thought, the overflowing kindliness, are largely
+Steele's creation; while to Addison fell the work of polishing and
+perfecting the essays, and of adding that touch of humor which made them
+the most welcome literary visitors that England had ever received.
+
+THE TATLER AND THE SPECTATOR. On account of his talent in writing political
+pamphlets, Steele was awarded the position of official gazetteer. While in
+this position, and writing for several small newspapers, the idea occurred
+to Steele to publish a paper which should contain not only the political
+news, but also the gossip of the clubs and coffeehouses, with some light
+essays on the life and manners of the age. The immediate result--for Steele
+never let an idea remain idle--was the famous _Tatler_, the first number of
+which appeared April 12, 1709. It was a small folio sheet, appearing on
+post days, three times a week, and it sold for a penny a copy. That it had
+a serious purpose is evident from this dedication to the first volume of
+collected _Tatler_ essays:
+
+The general purpose of this paper is to expose the false arts of life, to
+pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and to
+recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our
+behavior.
+
+The success of this unheard-of combination of news, gossip, and essay was
+instantaneous. Not a club or a coffeehouse in London could afford to be
+without it, and over it's pages began the first general interest in
+contemporary English life as expressed in literature. Steele at first wrote
+the entire paper and signed his essays with the name of Isaac Bickerstaff,
+which had been made famous by Swift a few years before. Addison is said to
+have soon recognized one of his own remarks to Steele, and the secret of
+the Authorship was out. From that time Addison was a regular contributor,
+and occasionally other writers added essays on the new social life of
+England.[192]
+
+Steele lost his position as gazetteer, and the _Tatler_ was discontinued
+after less than two years' life, but not till it won an astonishing
+popularity and made ready the way for its successor. Two months later, on
+March 1, 1711, appeared the first number of the _Spectator_. In the new
+magazine politics and news, as such, were ignored; it was a literary
+magazine, pure and simple, and its entire contents consisted of a single
+light essay. It was considered a crazy venture at the time, but its instant
+success proved that men were eager for some literary expression of the new
+social ideals. The following whimsical letter to the editor may serve to
+indicate the part played by the _Spectator_ in the daily life of London:
+
+Mr. Spectator,--Your paper is a part of my tea equipage; and my servant
+knows my humor so well, that in calling for my breakfast this morning (it
+being past my usual hour) she answered, the _Spectator_ was not yet come
+in, but the teakettle boiled, and she expected it every moment.
+
+It is in the incomparable _Spectator_ papers that Addison shows himself
+most "worthy to be remembered." He contributed the majority of its essays,
+and in its first number appears this description of the Spectator, by which
+name Addison is now generally known:
+
+There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make my
+appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of
+politicians at Will's [Coffeehouse] and listening with great attention to
+the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes
+I smoke a pipe at Child's, and, whilst I seem attentive to nothing but _The
+Postman_, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on
+Sunday nights at St. James's, and sometimes join the little committee of
+politics in the inner room, as one who comes to hear and improve. My face
+is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa Tree, and in the
+theaters both of Drury Lane and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a
+merchant upon the Exchange for above these ten years; and sometimes pass
+for a Jew in the assembly of stock jobbers at Jonathan's.... Thus I live in
+the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species,...
+which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper.
+
+The large place which these two little magazines hold in our literature
+seems most disproportionate to their short span of days. In the short space
+of four years in which Addison and Steele worked together the light essay
+was established as one of the most important forms of modern literature,
+and the literary magazine won its place as the expression of the social
+life of a nation.
+
+
+SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784)
+
+The reader of Boswell's _Johnson_, after listening to endless grumblings
+and watching the clumsy actions of the hero, often finds himself wondering
+why he should end his reading with a profound respect for this "old bear"
+who is the object of Boswell's groveling attention. Here is a man who was
+certainly not the greatest writer of his age, perhaps not even a great
+writer at all, but who was nevertheless the dictator of English letters,
+and who still looms across the centuries of a magnificent literature as its
+most striking and original figure. Here, moreover, is a huge, fat, awkward
+man, of vulgar manners and appearance, who monopolizes conversation, argues
+violently, abuses everybody, clubs down opposition,--"Madam" (speaking to
+his cultivated hostess at table), "talk no more nonsense"; "Sir" (turning
+to a distinguished guest), "I perceive you are a vile Whig." While talking
+he makes curious animal sounds, "sometimes giving a half whistle, sometimes
+clucking like a hen"; and when he has concluded a violent dispute and laid
+his opponents low by dogmatism or ridicule, he leans back to "blow out his
+breath like a whale" and gulp down numberless cups of hot tea. Yet this
+curious dictator of an elegant age was a veritable lion, much sought after
+by society; and around him in his own poor house gathered the foremost
+artists, scholars, actors, and literary men of London,--all honoring the
+man, loving him, and listening to his dogmatism as the Greeks listened to
+the voice of their oracle.
+
+What is the secret of this astounding spectacle? If the reader turns
+naturally to Johnson's works for an explanation, he will be disappointed.
+Reading his verses, we find nothing to delight or inspire us, but rather
+gloom and pessimism, with a few moral observations in rimed couplets:
+
+    But, scarce observed, the knowing and the bold
+    Fall in the general massacre of gold;
+    Wide-wasting pest! that rages unconfined,
+    And crowds with crimes the records of mankind;
+    For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws,
+    For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws;
+    Wealth heaped on wealth nor truth nor safety buys;
+    The dangers gather as the treasures rise.[193]
+
+That is excellent common sense, but it is not poetry; and it is not
+necessary to hunt through Johnson's bulky volumes for the information,
+since any moralist can give us offhand the same doctrine. As for his
+_Rambler_ essays, once so successful, though we marvel at the big words,
+the carefully balanced sentences, the classical allusions, one might as
+well try to get interested in an old-fashioned, three-hour sermon. We read
+a few pages listlessly, yawn, and go to bed.
+
+Since the man's work fails to account for his leadership and influence, we
+examine his personality; and here everything is interesting. Because of a
+few oft-quoted passages from Boswell's biography, Johnson appears to us as
+an eccentric bear, who amuses us by his growlings and clumsy antics. But
+there is another Johnson, a brave, patient, kindly, religious soul, who, as
+Goldsmith said, had "nothing of the bear but his skin"; a man who battled
+like a hero against poverty and pain and melancholy and the awful fear of
+death, and who overcame them manfully. "_That trouble passed away; so will
+this,_" sang the sorrowing Deor in the first old Anglo-Saxon lyric; and
+that expresses the great and suffering spirit of Johnson, who in the face
+of enormous obstacles never lost faith in God or in himself. Though he was
+a reactionary in politics, upholding the arbitrary power of kings and
+opposing the growing liberty of the people, yet his political theories,
+like his manners, were no deeper than his skin; for in all London there was
+none more kind to the wretched, and none more ready to extend an open hand
+to every struggling man and woman who crossed his path. When he passed poor
+homeless Arabs sleeping in the streets he would slip a coin into their
+hands, in order that they might have a happy awakening; for he himself knew
+well what it meant to be hungry. Such was Johnson,--a "mass of genuine
+manhood," as Carlyle called him, and as such, men loved and honored
+him.[194]
+
+Life of Johnson. Johnson was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, in 1709. He
+was the son of a small bookseller, a poor man, but intelligent and fond of
+literature, as booksellers invariably were in the good days when every town
+had its bookshop. From his childhood Johnson had to struggle against
+physical deformity and disease and the consequent disinclination to hard
+work. He prepared for the university, partly in the schools, but largely by
+omnivorous reading in his father's shop, and when he entered Oxford he had
+read more classical authors than had most of the graduates. Before
+finishing his course he had to leave the university on account of his
+poverty, and at once he began his long struggle as a hack writer to earn
+his living.
+
+At twenty-five years he married a woman old enough to be his mother,--a
+genuine love match, he called it,--and with her dowry of £800 they started
+a private school together, which was a dismal failure. Then, without money
+or influential friends, he left his home and wife in Lichfield and tramped
+to London, accompanied only by David Garrick, afterwards the famous actor,
+who had been one of his pupils. Here, led by old associations, Johnson made
+himself known to the booksellers, and now and then earned a penny by
+writing prefaces, reviews, and translations.
+
+It was a dog's life, indeed, that he led there with his literary brethren.
+Many of the writers of the day, who are ridiculed in Pope's heartless
+_Dunciad_, having no wealthy patrons to support them, lived largely in the
+streets and taverns, sleeping on an ash heap or under a wharf, like rats;
+glad of a crust, and happy over a single meal which enabled them to work
+for a while without the reminder of hunger. A few favored ones lived in
+wretched lodgings in Grub Street, which has since become a synonym for the
+fortunes of struggling writers.[195] Often, Johnson tells us, he walked the
+streets all night long, in dreary weather, when it was too cold to sleep,
+without food or shelter. But he wrote steadily for the booksellers and for
+the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and presently he became known in London and
+received enough work to earn a bare living.
+
+The works which occasioned this small success were his poem, "London," and
+his _Life of the Poet Savage_, a wretched life, at best, which were perhaps
+better left without a biographer. But his success was genuine, though
+small, and presently the booksellers of London are coming to him to ask him
+to write a dictionary of the English language. It was an enormous work,
+taking nearly eight years of his time, and long before he had finished it
+he had eaten up the money which he received for his labor. In the leisure
+intervals of this work he wrote "The Vanity of Human Wishes" and other
+poems, and finished his classic tragedy of _Irene_.
+
+Led by the great success of the _Spectator_, Johnson started two magazines,
+_The Rambler_ (1750--1752) and _The Idler_ (1758--1760). Later the
+_Rambler_ essays were published in book form and ran rapidly through ten
+editions; but the financial returns were small, and Johnson spent a large
+part of his earnings in charity. When his mother died, in 1759, Johnson,
+although one of the best known men in London, had no money, and hurriedly
+finished _Rasselas_, his only romance, in order, it is said, to pay for his
+mother's burial.
+
+It was not till 1762, when Johnson was fifty-three years old, that his
+literary labors were rewarded in the usual way by royalty, and he received
+from George III a yearly pension of three hundred pounds. Then began a
+little sunshine in his life. With Joshua Reynolds, the artist, he founded
+the famous Literary Club, of which Burke, Pitt, Fox, Gibbon, Goldsmith, and
+indeed all the great literary men and politicians of the time, were
+members. This is the period of Johnson's famous conversations, which were
+caught in minutest detail by Boswell and given to the world. His idea of
+conversation, as shown in a hundred places in Boswell, is to overcome your
+adversary at any cost; to knock him down by arguments, or, when these fail,
+by personal ridicule; to dogmatize on every possible question, pronounce a
+few oracles, and then desist with the air of victory. Concerning the
+philosopher Hume's view of death he says: "Sir, if he really thinks so, his
+perceptions are disturbed, he is mad. If he does not think so, he lies."
+Exit opposition. There is nothing more to be said. Curiously enough, it is
+often the palpable blunders of these monologues that now attract us, as if
+we were enjoying a good joke at the dictator's expense. Once a lady asked
+him, "Dr. Johnson, why did you define _pastern_ as the knee of a horse?"
+"Ignorance, madame, pure ignorance," thundered the great authority.
+
+When seventy years of age, Johnson was visited by several booksellers of
+the city, who were about to bring out a new edition of the English poets,
+and who wanted Johnson, as the leading literary man of London, to write the
+prefaces to the several volumes. The result was his _Lives of the Poets_,
+as it is now known, and this is his last literary work. He died in his poor
+Fleet Street house, in 1784, and was buried among England's honored poets
+in Westminster Abbey.
+
+JOHNSON'S WORKS. "A book," says Dr. Johnson, "should help us either to
+enjoy life or to endure it." Judged by this standard, one is puzzled what
+to recommend among Johnson's numerous books. The two things which belong
+among the things "worthy to be remembered" are his _Dictionary_ and his
+_Lives of the Poets_, though both these are valuable, not as literature,
+but rather as a study of literature. The _Dictionary_, as the first
+ambitious attempt at an English lexicon, is extremely valuable,
+notwithstanding the fact that his derivations are often faulty, and that he
+frequently exercises his humor or prejudice in his curious definitions. In
+defining "oats," for example, as a grain given in England to horses and in
+Scotland to the people, he indulges his prejudice against the Scotch, whom
+he never understood, just as, in his definition of "pension," he takes
+occasion to rap the writers who had flattered their patrons since the days
+of Elizabeth; though he afterwards accepted a comfortable pension for
+himself. With characteristic honesty he refused to alter his definition in
+subsequent editions of the _Dictionary_.
+
+The _Lives of the Poets_ are the simplest and most readable of his literary
+works. For ten years before beginning these biographies he had given
+himself up to conversation, and the ponderous style of his _Rambler_ essays
+here gives way to a lighter and more natural expression. As criticisms they
+are often misleading, giving praise to artificial poets, like Cowley and
+Pope, and doing scant justice or abundant injustice to nobler poets like
+Gray and Milton; and they are not to be compared with those found in Thomas
+Warton's _History of English Poetry_, which was published in the same
+generation. As biographies, however, they are excellent reading, and we owe
+to them some of our best known pictures of the early English poets.
+
+Of Johnson's poems the reader will have enough if he glance over "The
+Vanity of Human Wishes." His only story, _Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia_,
+is a matter of rhetoric rather than of romance, but is interesting still to
+the reader who wants to hear Johnson's personal views of society,
+philosophy, and religion. Any one of his _Essays_, like that on "Reading,"
+or "The Pernicious Effects of Revery," will be enough to acquaint the
+reader with the Johnsonese style, which was once much admired and copied by
+orators, but which happily has been replaced by a more natural way of
+speaking. Most of his works, it must be confessed, are rather tiresome. It
+is not to his books, but rather to the picture of the man himself, as given
+by Boswell, that Johnson owes his great place in our literature.
+
+
+BOSWELL'S "LIFE OF JOHNSON"
+
+In James Boswell (1740-1795) we have another extraordinary figure,--a
+shallow little Scotch barrister, who trots about like a dog at the heels of
+his big master, frantic at a caress and groveling at a cuff, and abundantly
+contented if only he can be near him and record his oracles. All his life
+long Boswell's one ambition seems to have been to shine in the reflected
+glory of great men, and his chief task to record their sayings and doings.
+When he came to London, at twenty-two years of age, Johnson, then at the
+beginning of his great fame, was to this insatiable little glory-seeker
+like a Silver Doctor to a hungry trout. He sought an introduction as a man
+seeks gold, haunted every place where Johnson declaimed, until in Davies's
+bookstore the supreme opportunity came. This is his record of the great
+event:
+
+I was much agitated [says Boswell] and recollecting his prejudice against
+the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, "Don't tell him
+where I come from." "From Scotland," cried Davies roguishly. "Mr. Johnson,"
+said I, "I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it."... "That,
+sir" [cried Johnson], "I find is what a very great many of your countrymen
+cannot help." This stroke stunned me a good deal; and when we had sat down
+I felt myself not a little embarrassed, and apprehensive of what might come
+next.
+
+Then for several years, with a persistency that no rebuffs could abate, and
+with a thick skin that no amount of ridicule could render sensitive, he
+follows Johnson; forces his way into the Literary Club, where he is not
+welcome, in order to be near his idol; carries him off on a visit to the
+Hebrides; talks with him on every possible occasion; and, when he is not
+invited to a feast, waits outside the house or tavern in order to walk home
+with his master in the thick fog of the early morning. And the moment the
+oracle is out of sight and in bed, Boswell patters home to record in detail
+all that he has seen and heard. It is to his minute record that we owe our
+only perfect picture of a great man; all his vanity as well as his
+greatness, his prejudices, superstitions, and even the details of his
+personal appearance:
+
+There is the gigantic body, the huge face seamed with the scars of disease,
+the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the gray wig with the scorched
+foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see
+the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form
+rolling; we hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why, sir!" and the "What
+then, sir?" and the "No, sir!" and the "You don't see your way through the
+question, sir!"[196]
+
+To Boswell's record we are indebted also for our knowledge of those famous
+conversations, those wordy, knockdown battles, which made Johnson famous in
+his time and which still move us to wonder. Here is a specimen
+conversation, taken almost at random from a hundred such in Boswell's
+incomparable biography. After listening to Johnson's prejudice against
+Scotland, and his dogmatic utterances on Voltaire, Robertson, and twenty
+others, an unfortunate theorist brings up a recent essay on the possible
+future life of brutes, quoting some possible authority from the sacred
+scriptures:
+
+Johnson, who did not like to hear anything concerning a future state which
+was not authorized by the regular canons of orthodoxy, discouraged this
+talk; and being offended at its continuation, he watched an opportunity to
+give the gentleman a blow of reprehension. So when the poor speculatist,
+with a serious, metaphysical, pensive face, addressed him, "But really,
+sir, when we see a very sensible dog, we don't know what to think of him";
+Johnson, rolling with joy at the thought which beamed in his eye, turned
+quickly round and replied, "True, sir; and when we see a very _foolish
+fellow_, we don't know what to think of _him_." He then rose up, strided to
+the fire, and stood for some time laughing and exulting.
+
+Then the oracle proceeds to talk of scorpions and natural history, denying
+facts, and demanding proofs which nobody could possibly furnish:
+
+He seemed pleased to talk of natural philosophy. "That woodcocks," said he,
+"fly over the northern countries is proved, because they have been observed
+at sea. Swallows certainly sleep all the winter. A number of them
+conglobulate together by flying round and round, and then all in a heap
+throw themselves under water and lie in the bed of a river." He told us one
+of his first essays was a Latin poem upon the glowworm: I am sorry I did
+not ask where it was to be found.
+
+Then follows an astonishing array of subjects and opinions. He catalogues
+libraries, settles affairs in China, pronounces judgment on men who marry
+women superior to themselves, flouts popular liberty, hammers Swift
+unmercifully, and adds a few miscellaneous oracles, most of which are about
+as reliable as his knowledge of the hibernation of swallows.
+
+When I called upon Dr. Johnson next morning I found him highly satisfied
+with his colloquial prowess the preceding evening. "Well," said he, "we had
+good talk." "Yes, sir" [says I], "you tossed and gored several persons."
+
+Far from resenting this curious mental dictatorship, his auditors never
+seem to weary. They hang upon his words, praise him, flatter him, repeat
+his judgments all over London the next day, and return in the evening
+hungry for more. Whenever the conversation begins to flag, Boswell is like
+a woman with a parrot, or like a man with a dancing bear. He must excite
+the creature, make him talk or dance for the edification of the company. He
+sidles obsequiously towards his hero and, with utter irrelevancy, propounds
+a question of theology, a social theory, a fashion of dress or marriage, a
+philosophical conundrum: "Do you think, sir, that natural affections are
+born with us?" or, "Sir, if you were shut up in a castle and a newborn babe
+with you, what would you do?" Then follow more Johnsonian laws, judgments,
+oracles; the insatiable audience clusters around him and applauds; while
+Boswell listens, with shining face, and presently goes home to write the
+wonder down. It is an astonishing spectacle; one does not know whether to
+laugh or grieve over it. But we know the man, and the audience, almost as
+well as if we had been there; and that, unconsciously, is the superb art of
+this matchless biographer.
+
+When Johnson died the opportunity came for which Boswell had been watching
+and waiting some twenty years. He would shine in the world now, not by
+reflection, but by his own luminosity. He gathered together his endless
+notes and records, and began to write his biography; but he did not hurry.
+Several biographies of Johnson appeared, in the four years after his death,
+without disturbing Boswell's perfect complacency. After seven years' labor
+he gave the world his _Life of Johnson_. It is an immortal work; praise is
+superfluous; it must be read to be appreciated. Like the Greek sculptors,
+the little slave produced a more enduring work than the great master. The
+man who reads it will know Johnson as he knows no other man who dwells
+across the border; and he will lack sensitiveness, indeed, if he lay down
+the work without a greater love and appreciation of all good literature.
+
+LATER AUGUSTAN WRITERS. With Johnson, who succeeded Dryden and Pope in the
+chief place of English letters, the classic movement had largely spent its
+force; and the latter half of the eighteenth century gives us an imposing
+array of writers who differ so widely that it is almost impossible to
+classify them. In general, three schools of writers are noticeable: first,
+the classicists, who, under Johnson's lead, insisted upon elegance and
+regularity of style; second, the romantic poets, like Collins, Gray,
+Thomson, and Burns, who revolted from Pope's artificial couplets and wrote
+of nature and the human heart[197]; third, the early novelists, like Defoe
+and Fielding, who introduced a new type of literature. The romantic poets
+and the novelists are reserved for special chapters; and of the other
+writers--Berkeley and Hume in philosophy; Robertson, Hume, and Gibbon in
+history; Chesterfield and Lady Montagu in letter writing; Adam Smith in
+economics; Pitt, Burke, Fox, and a score of lesser writers in politics--we
+select only two, Burke and Gibbon, whose works are most typical of the
+Augustan, i.e. the elegant, classic style of prose writing.
+
+
+EDMUND BURKE (1729--1797)
+
+To read all of Burke's collected works, and so to understand him
+thoroughly, is something of a task. Few are equal to it. On the other hand,
+to read selections here and there, as most of us do, is to get a wrong idea
+of the man and to join either in fulsome praise of his brilliant oratory,
+or in honest confession that his periods are ponderous and his ideas often
+buried under Johnsonian verbiage. Such are the contrasts to be found on
+successive pages of Burke's twelve volumes, which cover the enormous range
+of the political and economic thought of the age, and which mingle fact and
+fancy, philosophy, statistics, and brilliant flights of the imagination, to
+a degree never before seen in English literature. For Burke belongs in
+spirit to the new romantic school, while in style he is a model for the
+formal classicists. We can only glance at the life of this marvelous
+Irishman, and then consider his place in our literature.
+
+LIFE. Burke was born in Dublin, the son of an Irish barrister, in 1729.
+After his university course in Trinity College he came to London to study
+law, but soon gave up the idea to follow literature, which in turn led him
+to politics. He had the soul, the imagination of a poet, and the law was
+only a clog to his progress. His two first works, _A Vindication of Natural
+Society_ and _The Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful_,
+brought him political as well as literary recognition, and several small
+offices were in turn given to him. When thirty-six years old he was elected
+to Parliament as member from Wendover; and for the next thirty years he was
+the foremost figure in the House of Commons and the most eloquent orator
+which that body has ever known. Pure and incorruptible in his politics as
+in his personal life, no more learned or devoted servant of the
+Commonwealth ever pleaded for justice and human liberty. He was at the
+summit of his influence at the time when the colonies were struggling for
+independence; and the fact that he championed their cause in one of his
+greatest speeches, "On Conciliation with America," gives him an added
+interest in the eyes of American readers. His championship of America is
+all the more remarkable from the fact that, in other matters, Burke was far
+from liberal. He set himself squarely against the teachings of the romantic
+writers, who were enthusiastic over the French Revolution; he denounced the
+principles of the Revolutionists, broke with the liberal Whig party to join
+the Tories, and was largely instrumental in bringing on the terrible war
+with France, which resulted in the downfall of Napoleon.
+
+It is good to remember that, in all the strife and bitterness of party
+politics, Burke held steadily to the noblest personal ideals of truth and
+honesty; and that in all his work, whether opposing the slave trade, or
+pleading for justice for America, or protecting the poor natives of India
+from the greed of corporations, or setting himself against the popular
+sympathy for France in her desperate struggle, he aimed solely at the
+welfare of humanity. When he retired on a pension in 1794, he had won, and
+he deserved, the gratitude and affection of the whole nation.
+
+WORKS. There are three distinctly marked periods in Burke's career, and
+these correspond closely to the years in which he was busied with the
+affairs of America, India, and France successively. The first period was
+one of prophecy. He had studied the history and temper of the American
+colonies, and he warned England of the disaster which must follow her
+persistence in ignoring the American demands, and especially the American
+spirit. His great speeches, "On American Taxation" and "On Conciliation
+with America," were delivered in 1774 and 1775, preceding the Declaration
+of Independence. In this period Burke's labor seemed all in vain; he lost
+his cause, and England her greatest colony.
+
+The second period is one of denunciation rather than of prophecy. England
+had won India; but when Burke studied the methods of her victory and
+understood the soulless way in which millions of poor natives were made to
+serve the interests of an English monopoly, his soul rose in revolt, and
+again he was the champion of an oppressed people. His two greatest speeches
+of this period are "The Nabob of Arcot's Debts" and his tremendous
+"Impeachment of Warren Hastings." Again he apparently lost his cause,
+though he was still fighting on the side of right. Hastings was acquitted,
+and the spoliation of India went on; but the seeds of reform were sown, and
+grew and bore fruit long after Burke's labors were ended.
+
+The third period is, curiously enough, one of reaction. Whether because the
+horrors of the French Revolution had frightened him with the danger of
+popular liberty, or because his own advance in office and power had made
+him side unconsciously with the upper classes, is unknown. That he was as
+sincere and noble now as in all his previous life is not questioned. He
+broke with the liberal Whigs and joined forces with the reactionary Tories.
+He opposed the romantic writers, who were on fire with enthusiasm over the
+French Revolution, and thundered against the dangers which the
+revolutionary spirit must breed, forgetting that it was a revolution which
+had made modern England possible. Here, where we must judge him to have
+been mistaken in his cause, he succeeded for the first time. It was due
+largely to Burke's influence that the growing sympathy for the French
+people was checked in England, and war was declared, which ended in the
+frightful victories of Trafalgar and Waterloo.
+
+Burke's best known work of this period is his _Reflections on the French
+Revolution_, which he polished and revised again Essay on and again before
+it was finally printed. This ambitious literary essay, though it met with
+remarkable success, is a disappointment to the reader. Though of Celtic
+blood, Burke did not understand the French, or the principles for which the
+common people were fighting in their own way[198]; and his denunciations
+and apostrophes to France suggest a preacher without humor, hammering away
+at sinners who are not present in his congregation. The essay has few
+illuminating ideas, but a great deal of Johnsonian rhetoric, which make its
+periods tiresome, notwithstanding our admiration for the brilliancy of its
+author. More significant is one of Burke's first essays, _A Philosophical
+Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful_, which
+is sometimes read in order to show the contrast in style with Addison's
+_Spectator_ essays on the "Pleasures of the Imagination."
+
+Burke's best known speeches, "On Conciliation with America," "American
+Taxation," and the "Impeachment of Warren Hastings," are still much studied
+in our schools as models of English prose; and this fact tends to give them
+an exaggerated literary importance. Viewed purely as literature, they have
+faults enough; and the first of these, so characteristic of the Classic
+Age, is that they abound in fine rhetoric but lack simplicity.[199] In a
+strict sense, these eloquent speeches are not literature, to delight the
+reader and to suggest ideas, but studies in rhetoric and in mental
+concentration. All this, however, is on the surface. A careful study of any
+of these three famous speeches reveals certain admirable qualities which
+account for the important place they are given in the study of English.
+First, as showing the stateliness and the rhetorical power of our language,
+these speeches are almost unrivaled. Second, though Burke speaks in prose,
+he is essentially a poet, whose imagery, like that of Milton's prose works,
+is more remarkable than that of many of our writers of verse. He speaks in
+figures, images, symbols; and the musical cadence of his sentences reflects
+the influence of his wide reading of poetry. Not only in figurative
+expression, but much more in spirit, he belongs with the poets of the
+revival. At times his language is pseudo-classic, reflecting the influence
+of Johnson and his school; but his thought is always romantic; he is
+governed by ideal rather than by practical interests, and a profound
+sympathy for humanity is perhaps his most marked characteristic.
+
+Third, the supreme object of these orations, so different from the majority
+of political speeches, is not to win approval or to gain votes, but to
+establish the truth. Like our own Lincoln, Burke had a superb faith in the
+compelling power of the truth, a faith in men also, who, if the history of
+our race means anything, will not willingly follow a lie. The methods of
+these two great leaders are strikingly similar in this respect, that each
+repeats his idea in many ways, presenting the truth from different view
+points, so that it will appeal to men of widely different experiences.
+Otherwise the two men are in marked contrast. The uneducated Lincoln speaks
+in simple, homely words, draws his illustrations from the farm, and often
+adds a humorous story, so apt and "telling" that his hearers can never
+forget the point of his argument. The scholarly Burke speaks in ornate,
+majestic periods, and searches all history and all literature for his
+illustrations. His wealth of imagery and allusions, together with his rare
+combination of poetic and logical reasoning, make these orations
+remarkable, entirely apart from their subject and purpose.
+
+Fourth (and perhaps most significant of the man and his work), Burke takes
+his stand squarely upon the principle of justice. He has studied history,
+and he finds that to establish justice, between man and man and between
+nation and nation, has been the supreme object of every reformer since the
+world began. No small or merely temporary success attracts him; only the
+truth will suffice for an argument; and nothing less than justice will ever
+settle a question permanently. Such is his platform, simple as the Golden
+Rule, unshakable as the moral law. Hence, though he apparently fails of his
+immediate desire in each of these three orations, the principle for which
+he contends cannot fail. As a modern writer says of Lincoln, "The full,
+rich flood of his life through the nation's pulse is yet beating"; and his
+words are still potent in shaping the course of English politics in the way
+of justice.
+
+
+EDWARD GIBBON (1737-1794)
+
+To understand Burke or Johnson, one must read a multitude of books and be
+wary in his judgment; but with Gibbon the task is comparatively easy, for
+one has only to consider two books, his _Memoirs_ and the first volume of
+his _History_, to understand the author. In his _Memoirs_ we have an
+interesting reflection of Gibbon's own personality,--a man who looks with
+satisfaction on the material side of things, who seeks always the easiest
+path for himself, and avoids life's difficulties and responsibilities. "I
+sighed as a lover; but I obeyed as a son," he says, when, to save his
+inheritance, he gave up the woman he loved and came home to enjoy the
+paternal loaves and fishes. That is suggestive of the man's whole life. His
+_History_, on the other hand, is a remarkable work. It was the first in our
+language to be written on scientific principles, and with a solid basis of
+fact; and the style is the very climax of that classicism which had ruled
+England for an entire century. Its combination of historical fact and
+literary style makes _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ the one
+thing of Gibbon's life that is "worthy to be remembered."
+
+GIBBON'S HISTORY. For many years Gibbon had meditated, like Milton, upon an
+immortal work, and had tried several historical subjects, only to give them
+up idly. In his _Journal_ he tells us how his vague resolutions were
+brought to a focus:
+
+It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst
+the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers
+in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of
+the city first started to my mind.
+
+Twelve years later, in 1776, Gibbon published the first volume of _The
+Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire;_ and the enormous success of the work
+encouraged him to go on with the other five volumes, which were published
+at intervals during the next twelve years. The History begins with the
+reign of Trajan, in A.D. 98, and "builds a straight Roman road" through the
+confused histories of thirteen centuries, ending with the fall of the
+Byzantine Empire in 1453. The scope of the History is enormous. It includes
+not only the decline of the Roman Empire, but such movements as the descent
+of the northern barbarians, the spread of Christianity, the reorganization
+of the European nations, the establishment of the great Eastern Empire, the
+rise of Mohammedanism, and the splendor of the Crusades. On the one hand it
+lacks philosophical insight, being satisfied with facts without
+comprehending the causes; and, as Gibbon seems lacking in ability to
+understand spiritual and religious movements, it is utterly inadequate in
+its treatment of the tremendous influence of Christianity. On the other
+hand, Gibbon's scholarship leaves little to criticise; he read enormously,
+sifted his facts out of multitudes of books and records, and then marshaled
+them in the imposing array with which we have grown familiar. Moreover, he
+is singularly just and discriminating in the use of all documents and
+authorities at his command. Hence he has given us the first history in
+English that has borne successfully the test of modern research and
+scholarship.
+
+The style of the work is as imposing as his great subject. Indeed, with
+almost any other subject the sonorous roll of his majestic sentences would
+be out of place. While it deserves all the adjectives that have been
+applied to it by enthusiastic admirers,--finished, elegant, splendid,
+rounded, massive, sonorous, copious, elaborate, ornate, exhaustive,--it
+must be confessed, though one whispers the confession, that the style
+sometimes obscures our interest in the narrative. As he sifted his facts
+from a multitude of sources, so he often hides them again in endless
+periods, and one must often sift them out again in order to be quite sure
+of even the simple facts. Another drawback is that Gibbon is hopelessly
+worldly in his point of view; he loves pageants and crowds rather than
+individuals, and he is lacking in enthusiasm and in spiritual insight. The
+result is so frankly material at times that one wonders if he is not
+reading of forces or machines, rather than of human beings. A little
+reading of his History here and there is an excellent thing, leaving one
+impressed with the elegant classical style and the scholarship; but a
+continued reading is very apt to leave us longing for simplicity, for
+naturalness, and, above all, for the glow of enthusiasm which makes the
+dead heroes live once more in the written pages.
+
+This judgment, however, must not obscure the fact that the book had a
+remarkably large sale; and that this, of itself, is an evidence that
+multitudes of readers found it not only erudite, but readable and
+interesting.
+
+II. THE REVIVAL OF ROMANTIC POETRY
+
+      The old order changeth, yielding place to new;
+      And God fulfills Himself in many ways,
+      Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
+                     Tennyson's "The Passing of Arthur."
+
+THE MEANING OF ROMANTICISM. While Dryden, Pope, and Johnson were
+successively the dictators of English letters, and while, under their
+leadership, the heroic couplet became the fashion of poetry, and literature
+in general became satiric or critical in spirit, and formal in expression,
+a new romantic movement quietly made its appearance. Thomson's _The
+Seasons_ (1730) was the first noteworthy poem of the romantic revival; and
+the poems and the poets increased steadily in number and importance till,
+in the age of Wordsworth and Scott, the spirit of Romanticism dominated our
+literature more completely than Classicism had ever done. This romantic
+movement--which Victor Hugo calls "liberalism in literature"--is simply the
+expression of life as seen by imagination, rather than by prosaic "common
+sense," which was the central doctrine of English philosophy in the
+eighteenth century. It has six prominent characteristics which distinguish
+it from the so-called classic literature which we have just studied:
+
+1. The romantic movement was marked, and is always marked, by a strong
+reaction and protest against the bondage of rule and custom, which, in
+science and theology, as well as in literature, generally tend to fetter
+the free human spirit.
+
+2. Romanticism returned to nature and to plain humanity for its material,
+and so is in marked contrast to Classicism, which had confined itself
+largely to the clubs and drawing-rooms, and to the social and political
+life of London. Thomson's _Seasons_, whatever its defects, was a revelation
+of the natural wealth and beauty which, for nearly a century, had been
+hardly noticed by the great writers of England.
+
+3. It brought again the dream of a golden age[200] in which the stern
+realities of life were forgotten and the ideals of youth were established
+as the only permanent realities. "For the dreamer lives forever, but the
+toiler dies in a day," expresses, perhaps, only the wild fancy of a modern
+poet; but, when we think of it seriously, the dreams and ideals of a people
+are cherished possessions long after their stone monuments have crumbled
+away and their battles are forgotten. The romantic movement emphasized
+these eternal ideals of youth, and appealed to the human heart as the
+classic elegance of Dryden and Pope could never do.
+
+4. Romanticism was marked by intense human sympathy, and by a consequent
+understanding of the human heart. Not to intellect or to science does the
+heart unlock its treasures, but rather to the touch of a sympathetic
+nature; and things that are hidden from the wise and prudent are revealed
+unto children. Pope had no appreciable humanity; Swift's work is a
+frightful satire; Addison delighted polite society, but had no message for
+plain people; while even Johnson, with all his kindness, had no feeling for
+men in the mass, but supported Sir Robert Walpole in his policy of letting
+evils alone until forced by a revolution to take notice of humanity's
+appeal. With the romantic revival all this was changed. While Howard was
+working heroically for prison reform, and Wilberforce for the liberation of
+the slaves, Gray wrote his "short and simple annals of the poor," and
+Goldsmith his _Deserted Village_, and Cowper sang,
+
+                     My ear is pained,
+    My soul is sick with every day's report
+    Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled.
+    There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,
+    It does not feel for man.[201]
+
+This sympathy for the poor, and this cry against oppression, grew stronger
+and stronger till it culminated in "Bobby" Burns, who, more than any other
+writer in any language, is the poet of the unlettered human heart.
+
+5. The romantic movement was the expression of individual genius rather
+than of established rules. In consequence, the literature of the revival is
+as varied as the characters and moods of the different writers. When we
+read Pope, for instance, we have a general impression of sameness, as if
+all his polished poems were made in the same machine; but in the work of
+the best romanticists there is endless variety. To read them is like
+passing through a new village, meeting a score of different human types,
+and finding in each one something to love or to remember. Nature and the
+heart of man are as new as if we had never studied them. Hence, in reading
+the romanticists, who went to these sources for their material, we are
+seldom wearied but often surprised; and the surprise is like that of the
+sunrise, or the sea, which always offers some new beauty and stirs us
+deeply, as if we had never seen it before.
+
+6. The romantic movement, while it followed its own genius, was not
+altogether unguided. Strictly speaking, there is no new movement either in
+history or in literature; each grows out of some good thing which has
+preceded it, and looks back with reverence to past masters. Spenser,
+Shakespeare, and Milton were the inspiration of the romantic revival; and
+we can hardly read a poem of the early romanticists without finding a
+suggestion of the influence of one of these great leaders.[202]
+
+There are various other characteristics of Romanticism, but these six--the
+protest against the bondage of rules, the return to nature and the human
+heart, the interest in old sagas and mediæval romances as suggestive of a
+heroic age, the sympathy for the toilers of the world, the emphasis upon
+individual genius, and the return to Milton and the Elizabethans, instead
+of to Pope and Dryden, for literary models--are the most noticeable and
+the most interesting. Remembering them, we shall better appreciate the work
+of the following writers who, in varying degree, illustrate the revival of
+romantic poetry in the eighteenth century.
+
+THOMAS GRAY (1716-1771)
+
+    The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
+    The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea;
+    The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
+    And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
+    Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
+    And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
+    Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
+    And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
+
+So begins "the best known poem in the English language," a poem full of the
+gentle melancholy which marks all early romantic poetry. It should be read
+entire, as a perfect model of its kind. Not even Milton's "Il Penseroso,"
+which it strongly suggests, excels it in beauty and suggestiveness.
+
+LIFE OF GRAY. The author of the famous "Elegy" is the most scholarly and
+well-balanced of all the early romantic poets. In his youth he was a
+weakling, the only one of twelve children who survived infancy; and his
+unhappy childhood, the tyranny of his father, and the separation from his
+loved mother, gave to his whole life the stamp of melancholy which is
+noticeable in all his poems. At the famous Eton school and again at
+Cambridge, he seems to have followed his own scholarly tastes rather than
+the curriculum, and was shocked, like Gibbon, at the general idleness and
+aimlessness of university life. One happy result of his school life was his
+friendship for Horace Walpole, who took him abroad for a three years' tour
+of the Continent.
+
+No better index of the essential difference between the classical and the
+new romantic school can be imagined than that which is revealed in the
+letters of Gray and Addison, as they record their impressions of foreign
+travel. Thus, when Addison crossed the Alps, some twenty-five years before,
+in good weather, he wrote: "A very troublesome journey.... You cannot
+imagine how I am pleased with the sight of a plain." Gray crossed the Alps
+in the beginning of winter, "wrapped in muffs, hoods and masks of beaver,
+fur boots, and bearskins," but wrote ecstatically, "Not a precipice, not a
+torrent, not a cliff but is pregnant with religion and poetry."
+
+On his return to England, Gray lived for a short time at Stoke Poges, where
+he wrote his "Ode on Eton," and probably sketched his "Elegy," which,
+however, was not finished till 1750, eight years later. During the latter
+years of his shy and scholarly life he was Professor of Modern History and
+Languages at Cambridge, without any troublesome work of lecturing to
+students. Here he gave himself up to study and to poetry, varying his work
+by "prowlings" among the manuscripts of the new British Museum, and by his
+"Lilliputian" travels in England and Scotland. He died in his rooms at
+Pembroke College in 1771, and was buried in the little churchyard of Stoke
+Poges.
+
+WORKS OF GRAY. Gray's _Letters_, published in 1775, are excellent reading,
+and his _Journal_ is still a model of natural description; but it is to a
+single small volume of poems that he owes his fame and his place in
+literature. These poems divide themselves naturally into three periods, in
+which we may trace the progress of Gray's emancipation from the classic
+rules which had so long governed English literature. In the first period he
+wrote several minor poems, of which the best are his "Hymn to Adversity"
+and the odes "To Spring" and "On a Distant Prospect of Eton College." These
+early poems reveal two suggestive things: first, the appearance of that
+melancholy which characterizes all the poetry of the period; and second,
+the study of nature, not for its own beauty or truth, but rather as a
+suitable background for the play of human emotions.
+
+The second period shows the same tendencies more strongly developed. The
+"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (1750), the most perfect poem of
+the age, belongs to this period. To read Milton's "Il Penseroso" and Gray's
+"Elegy" is to see the beginning and the perfection of that "literature of
+melancholy" which largely occupied English poets for more than a century.
+Two other well-known poems of this second period are the Pindaric odes,
+"The Progress of Poesy" and "The Bard." The first is strongly suggestive of
+Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," but shows Milton's influence in a greater
+melody and variety of expression. "The Bard" is, in every way, more
+romantic and original. An old minstrel, the last of the Welsh singers,
+halts King Edward and his army in a wild mountain pass, and with fine
+poetic frenzy prophesies the terror and desolation which must ever follow
+the tyrant. From its first line, "Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!" to the
+end, when the old bard plunges from his lofty crag and disappears in the
+river's flood, the poem thrills with the fire of an ancient and noble race
+of men. It breaks absolutely with the classical school and proclaims a
+literary declaration of independence.
+
+In the third period Gray turns momentarily from his Welsh material and
+reveals a new field of romantic interest in two Norse poems, "The Fatal
+Sisters" and "The Descent of Odin" (1761). Gray translated his material
+from the Latin, and though these two poems lack much of the elemental
+strength and grandeur of the Norse sagas, they are remarkable for calling
+attention to the unused wealth of literary material that was hidden in
+Northern mythologv. To Gray and to Percy (who published his _Northern
+Antiquities_ in 1770) is due in large measure the profound interest in the
+old Norse sagas which has continued to our own day.
+
+Taken together, Gray's works form a most interesting commentary on the
+varied life of the eighteenth century. He was a scholar, familiar with all
+the intellectual interests of his age, and his work has much of the
+precision and polish of the classical school; but he shares also the
+reawakened interest in nature, in common man, and in mediæval culture, and
+his work is generally romantic both in style and in spirit. The same
+conflict between the classic and romantic schools, and the triumph of
+Romanticism, is shown clearly in the most versatile of Gray's
+contemporaries, Oliver Goldsmith.
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774)
+
+Because _The Deserted Village_ is one of the most familiar poems in our
+language, Goldsmith is generally given a high place among the poets of the
+romantic dawn. But the _Village_, when we read it carefully, turns out to
+be a rimed essay in the style of Pope's famous _Essay on Man_; it owes its
+popularity to the sympathetic memories which it awakens, rather than to its
+poetic excellence. It is as a prose writer that Goldsmith excels. He is an
+essayist, with Addison's fine polish but with more sympathy for human life;
+he is a dramatist, one of the very few who have ever written a comedy that
+can keep its popularity unchanged while a century rolls over its head; but
+greater, perhaps, than the poet and essayist and dramatist is Goldsmith the
+novelist, who set himself to the important work of purifying the early
+novel of its brutal and indecent tendencies, and who has given us, in _The
+Vicar of Wakefield_, one of the most enduring characters in English
+fiction. In his manner, especially in his poetry, Goldsmith was too much
+influenced by his friend Johnson and the classicists; but in his matter, in
+his sympathy for nature and human life, he belongs unmistakably to the new
+romantic school. Altogether he is the most versatile, the most charming,
+the most inconsistent, and the most lovable genius of all the literary men
+who made famous the age of Johnson.
+
+LIFE. Goldsmith's career is that of an irresponsible, unbalanced genius,
+which would make one despair if the man himself did not remain so lovable
+in all his inconsistencies. He was born in the village of Pallas, Ireland,
+the son of a poor Irish curate whose noble character is portrayed in Dr.
+Primrose, of _The Vicar of Wakefield_, and in the country parson of _The
+Deserted Village_. After an unsatisfactory course in various schools, where
+he was regarded as hopelessly stupid, Goldsmith entered Trinity College,
+Dublin, as a sizar, i.e. a student who pays with labor for his tuition. By
+his escapades he was brought into disfavor with the authorities, but that
+troubled him little. He was also wretchedly poor, which troubled him less;
+for when he earned a few shillings by writing ballads for street singers,
+his money went oftener to idle beggars than to the paying of his honest
+debts. After three years of university life he ran away, in dime-novel
+fashion, and nearly starved to death before he was found and brought back
+in disgrace. Then he worked a little, and obtained his degree in 1749.
+
+Strange that such an idle and irresponsible youth should have been urged by
+his family to take holy orders; but such was the fact. For two years more
+Goldsmith labored with theology, only to be rejected when he presented
+himself as a candidate for the ministry. He tried teaching, and failed.
+Then his fancy turned to America, and, provided with money and a good
+horse, he started off for Cork, where he was to embark for the New World.
+He loafed along the pleasant Irish ways, missed his ship, and presently
+turned up cheerfully amongst his relatives, minus all his money, and riding
+a sorry nag called Fiddleback, for which he had traded his own on the
+way.[203] He borrowed fifty pounds more, and started for London to study
+law, but speedily lost his money at cards, and again appeared, amiable and
+irresponsible as ever, among his despairing relatives. The next year they
+sent him to Edinburgh to study medicine. Here for a couple of years he
+became popular as a singer of songs and a teller of tales, to whom medicine
+was only a troublesome affliction. Suddenly the _Wanderlust_ seized him and
+he started abroad, ostensibly to complete his medical education, but in
+reality to wander like a cheerful beggar over Europe, singing and playing
+his flute for food and lodging. He may have studied a little at Leyden and
+at Padua, but that was only incidental. After a year or more of vagabondage
+he returned to London with an alleged medical degree, said to have been
+obtained at Louvain or Padua.
+
+The next few years are a pitiful struggle to make a living as tutor,
+apothecary's assistant, comedian, usher in a country school, and finally as
+a physician in Southwark. Gradually he drifted into literature, and lived
+from hand to mouth by doing hack work for the London booksellers. Some of
+his essays and his _Citizen of the World_ (1760-1761) brought him to the
+attention of Johnson, who looked him up, was attracted first by his poverty
+and then by his genius, and presently declared him to be "one of the first
+men we now have as an author." Johnson's friendship proved invaluable, and
+presently Goldsmith found himself a member of the exclusive Literary Club.
+He promptly justified Johnson's confidence by publishing _The Traveller_
+(1764), which was hailed as one of the finest poems of the century. Money
+now came to him liberally, with orders from the booksellers; he took new
+quarters in Fleet Street and furnished them gorgeously; but he had an
+inordinate vanity for bright-colored clothes, and faster than he earned
+money he spent it on velvet cloaks and in indiscriminate charity. For a
+time he resumed his practice as a physician, but his fine clothes did not
+bring patients, as he expected; and presently he turned to writing again,
+to pay his debts to the booksellers. He produced several superficial and
+grossly inaccurate schoolbooks,--like his _Animated Nature_ and his
+histories of England, Greece, and Rome,--which brought him bread and more
+fine clothes, and his _Vicar of Wakefield, The Deserted Village_, and _She
+Stoops to Conquer_, which brought him undying fame.
+
+After meeting with Johnson, Goldsmith became the object of Boswell's magpie
+curiosity; and to Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ we are indebted for many of
+the details of Goldsmith's life,--his homeliness, his awkward ways, his
+drolleries and absurdities, which made him alternately the butt and the wit
+of the famous Literary Club. Boswell disliked Goldsmith, and so draws an
+unflattering Portrait, but even this does not disguise the contagious good
+humor which made men love him. When in his forty-seventh year, he fell sick
+of a fever, and with childish confidence turned to a quack medicine to cure
+himself. He died in 1774, and Johnson placed a tablet, with a sonorous
+Latin epitaph, in Westminster Abbey, though Goldsmith was buried elsewhere.
+"Let not his frailties be remembered; he was a very great man," said
+Johnson; and the literary world--which, like that old dictator, is kind
+enough at heart, though often rough in its methods--is glad to accept and
+record the verdict.
+
+WORKS OF GOLDSMITH. Of Goldsmith's early essays and his later school
+histories little need be said. They have settled into their own place, far
+out of sight of the ordinary reader. Perhaps the most interesting of these
+is a series of letters for the _Public Ledger_ (afterwards published as
+_The Citizen of the World_), written from the view point of an alleged
+Chinese traveler, and giving the latter's comments on English
+civilization.[204] The following five works are those upon which
+Goldsmith's fame chiefly rests:
+
+_The Traveller_ (1764) made Goldsmith's reputation among his
+contemporaries, but is now seldom read, except by students who would
+understand how Goldsmith was, at one time, dominated by Johnson and his
+pseudo-classic ideals. It is a long poem, in rimed couplets, giving a
+survey and criticism of the social life of various countries in Europe, and
+reflects many of Goldsmith's own wanderings and impressions.
+
+_The Deserted Village_ (1770), though written in the same mechanical style,
+is so permeated with honest human sympathy, and voices so perfectly the
+revolt of the individual man against institutions, that a multitude of
+common people heard it gladly, without consulting the critics as to whether
+they should call it good poetry. Notwithstanding its faults, to which
+Matthew Arnold has called sufficient attention, it has become one of our
+best known poems, though we cannot help wishing that the monotony of its
+couplets had been broken by some of the Irish folk songs and ballads that
+charmed street audiences in Dublin, and that brought Goldsmith a welcome
+from the French peasants wherever he stopped to sing. In the village parson
+and the schoolmaster, Goldsmith has increased Chaucer's list by two lovable
+characters that will endure as long as the English language. The criticism
+that the picture of prosperous "Sweet Auburn" never applied to any village
+in Ireland is just, no doubt, but it is outside the question. Goldsmith was
+a hopeless dreamer, bound to see everything, as he saw his debts and his
+gay clothes, in a purely idealistic way.
+
+_The Good-Natured Man_ and _She Stoops to Conquer_ are Goldsmith's two
+comedies. The former, a comedy of character, though it has some laughable
+scenes and one laughable character, Croaker, met with failure on the stage,
+and has never been revived with any success. The latter, a comedy of
+intrigue, is one of the few plays that has never lost its popularity. Its
+lively, bustling scenes, and its pleasantly absurd characters, Marlowe, the
+Hardcastles, and Tony Lumpkin, still hold the attention of modern theater
+goers; and nearly every amateur dramatic club sooner or later places _She
+Stoops to Conquer_ on its list of attractions.
+
+_The Vicar of Wakefield_ is Goldsmith's only novel, and the first in any
+language that gives to home life an enduring romantic interest. However
+much we admire the beginnings of the English novel, to which we shall
+presently refer, we are nevertheless shocked by its frequent brutalities
+and indecencies. Goldsmith like Steele, had the Irish reverence for pure
+womanhood, and this reverence made him shun as a pest the vulgarity and
+coarseness in which contemporary novelists, like Smollett and Sterne,
+seemed to delight. So he did for the novel what Addison and Steele had done
+for the satire and the essay; he refined and elevated it, making it worthy
+of the old Anglo-Saxon ideals which are our best literary heritage.
+
+Briefly, _The Vicar of Wakefield_ is the story of a simple English
+clergyman, Dr. Primrose, and his family, who pass from happiness through
+great tribulation. Misfortunes, which are said never to come singly, appear
+in this case in flocks; but through poverty, sorrow, imprisonment, and the
+unspeakable loss of his daughters, the Vicar's faith in God and man emerges
+triumphant. To the very end he is like one of the old martyrs, who sings
+_Alleluia_ while the lions roar about him and his children in the arena.
+Goldsmith's optimism, it must be confessed, is here stretched to the
+breaking point. The reader is sometimes offered fine Johnsonian phrases
+where he would naturally expect homely and vigorous language; and he is
+continually haunted by the suspicion that, even in this best of all
+possible worlds, the Vicar's clouds of affliction were somewhat too easily
+converted into showers of blessing; yet he is forced to read on, and at the
+end he confesses gladly that Goldsmith has succeeded in making a most
+interesting story out of material that, in other hands, would have
+developed either a burlesque or a brutal tragedy. Laying aside all romantic
+passion, intrigue, and adventure, upon which other novelists depended,
+Goldsmith, in this simple story of common life, has accomplished three
+noteworthy results: he has made human fatherhood almost a divine thing; he
+has glorified the moral sentiments which cluster about the family life as
+the center of civilization; and he has given us, in Dr. Primrose, a
+striking and enduring figure, which seems more like a personal acquaintance
+than a character in a book.
+
+
+WILLIAM COWPER (1731--1800)
+
+In Cowper we have another interesting poet, who, like Gray and Goldsmith,
+shows the struggle between romantic and classic ideals. In his first volume
+of poems, Cowper is more hampered by literary fashions than was Goldsmith
+in his _Traveller_ and his _Deserted Village_. In his second period,
+however, Cowper uses blank verse freely; and his delight in nature and in
+homely characters, like the teamster and the mail carrier of _The Task_,
+shows that his classicism is being rapidly thawed out by romantic feeling.
+In his later work, especially his immortal "John Gilpin," Cowper flings
+fashions aside, gives Pegasus the reins, takes to the open road, and so
+proves himself a worthy predecessor of Burns, who is the most spontaneous
+and the most interesting of all the early romanticists.
+
+LIFE. Cowper's life is a pathetic story of a shy and timid genius, who
+found the world of men too rough, and who withdrew to nature like a wounded
+animal. He was born at Great Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, in 1731, the son
+of an English clergyman. He was a delicate, sensitive child, whose early
+life was saddened by the death of his mother and by his neglect at home. At
+six years he was sent away to a boys' school, where he was terrified by
+young barbarians who made his life miserable. There was one atrocious bully
+into whose face Cowper could never look; he recognized his enemy by his
+shoe buckles, and shivered at his approach. The fierce invectives of his
+"Tirocinium, or a Review of Schools" (1784), shows how these school
+experiences had affected his mind and health. For twelve years he studied
+law, but at the approach of a public examination for an office he was so
+terrified that he attempted suicide. The experience unsettled his reason,
+and the next twelve months were spent in an asylum at St. Alban's. The
+death of his father, in 1756, had brought the poet a small patrimony, which
+placed him above the necessity of struggling, like Goldsmith, for his daily
+bread. Upon his recovery he boarded for years at the house of the Unwins,
+cultured people who recognized the genius hidden in this shy and melancholy
+yet quaintly humorous man. Mrs. Unwin, in particular, cared for him as a
+son; and whatever happiness he experienced in his poor life was the result
+of the devotion of this good woman, who is the "Mary" of all his poems.
+
+A second attack of insanity was brought on by Cowper's morbid interest in
+religion, influenced, perhaps, by the untempered zeal of one John Newton, a
+curate, with whom Cowper worked in the small parish of Olney, and with whom
+he compiled the famous Olney Hymns. The rest of his life, between intervals
+of melancholia or insanity, was spent in gardening, in the care of his
+numerous pets, and in writing his poems, his translation of Homer, and his
+charming letters. His two best known poems were suggested by a lively and
+cultivated widow, Lady Austen, who told him the story of John Gilpin and
+called for a ballad on the subject. She also urged him to write a long poem
+in blank verse; and when he demanded a subject, she whimsically suggested
+the sofa, which was a new article of furniture at that time. Cowper
+immediately wrote "The Sofa," and, influenced by the poetic possibilities
+that lie in unexpected places, he added to this poem from time to time, and
+called his completed work _The Task_. This was published in 1785, and the
+author was instantly recognized as one of the chief poets of his age. The
+last years of his life were a long battle with insanity, until death
+mercifully ended the struggle in 1800. His last poem, "The Castaway," is a
+cry of despair, in which, under guise of a man washed overboard in a storm,
+he describes himself perishing in the sight of friends who are powerless to
+help.
+
+COWPER'S WORKS. Cowper's first volume of poems, containing "The Progress of
+Error," "Truth," "Table Talk," etc., is interesting chiefly as showing how
+the poet was bound by the classical rules of his age. These poems are
+dreary, on the whole, but a certain gentleness, and especially a vein of
+pure humor, occasionally rewards the reader. For Cowper was a humorist, and
+only the constant shadow of insanity kept him from becoming famous in that
+line alone.
+
+_The Task_, written in blank verse, and published in 1785, is Cowper's
+longest poem. Used as we are to the natural poetry of Wordsworth and
+Tennyson, it is hard for us to appreciate the striking originality of this
+work. Much of it is conventional and "wooden," to be sure, like much of
+Wordsworth's poetry; but when, after reading the rimed essays and the
+artificial couplets of Johnson's age, we turn suddenly to Cowper's
+description of homely scenes, of woods and brooks, of plowmen and teamsters
+and the letter carrier on his rounds, we realize that we are at the dawn of
+a better day in poetry:
+
+    He comes, the herald of a noisy world,
+    With spatter'd boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen locks:
+    News from all nations lumbering at his back.
+    True to his charge, the close-packed load behind,
+    Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
+    Is to conduct it to the destined inn,
+    And, having dropped the expected bag, pass on.
+    He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
+    Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief
+    Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some;
+    To him indifferent whether grief or joy.
+    Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,
+    Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet
+    With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks
+    Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,
+    Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains,
+    Or nymphs responsive, equally affect
+    His horse and him, unconscious of them all.
+
+Cowper's most laborious work, the translation of Homer in blank verse, was
+published in 1791. Its stately, Milton-like movement, and its better
+rendering of the Greek, make this translation far superior to Pope's
+artificial couplets. It is also better, in many respects, than Chapman's
+more famous and more fanciful rendering; but for some reason it was not
+successful, and has never received the recognition which it deserves.
+Entirely different in spirit are the poet's numerous hymns, which were
+published in the Olney Collection in 1779 and which are still used in our
+churches. It is only necessary to mention a few first lines--"God moves in
+a mysterious way," "Oh, for a closer walk with God," "Sometimes a light
+surprises"--to show how his gentle and devout spirit has left its impress
+upon thousands who now hardly know his name. With Cowper's charming
+_Letters_, published in 1803, we reach the end of his important works, and
+the student who enjoys reading letters will find that these rank among the
+best of their kind. It is not, however, for his ambitious works that Cowper
+is remembered, but rather for his minor poems, which have found their own
+way into so many homes. Among these, the one that brings quickest response
+from hearts that understand is his little poem, "On the Receipt of My
+Mother's Picture." beginning with the striking line, "Oh, that those lips
+had language." Another, called "Alexander Selkirk," beginning, "I am
+monarch of all I survey," suggests how Selkirk's experiences as a castaway
+(which gave Defoe his inspiration for _Robinson Crusoe_) affected the
+poet's timid nature and imagination. Last and most famous of all is his
+immortal "John Gilpin." Cowper was in a terrible fit of melancholy when
+Lady Austen told him the story, which proved to be better than medicine,
+for all night long chuckles and suppressed laughter were heard in the
+poet's bedroom. Next morning at breakfast he recited the ballad that had
+afforded its author so much delight in the making. The student should read
+it, even if he reads nothing else by Cowper; and he will be lacking in
+humor or appreciation if he is not ready to echo heartily the last stanza:
+
+    Now let us sing, Long live the King,
+    And Gilpin, long live he!
+    And when he next doth ride abroad
+    May I be there to see.
+
+
+ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796)
+
+After a century and more of Classicism, we noted with interest the work of
+three men, Gray, Goldsmith, and Cowper, whose poetry, like the chorus of
+awakening birds, suggests the dawn of another day. Two other poets of the
+same age suggest the sunrise. The first is the plowman Burns, who speaks
+straight from the heart to the primitive emotions of the race; the second
+is the mystic Blake, who only half understands his own thoughts, and whose
+words stir a sensitive nature as music does, or the moon in midheaven,
+rousing in the soul those vague desires and aspirations which ordinarily
+sleep, and which can never be expressed because they have no names. Blake
+lived his shy, mystic, spiritual life in the crowded city, and his message
+is to the few who can understand. Burns lived his sad, toilsome, erring
+life in the open air, with the sun and the rain, and his songs touch all
+the world. The latter's poetry, so far as it has a philosophy, rests upon
+two principles which the classic school never understood,--that common
+people are at heart romantic and lovers of the ideal, and that simple human
+emotions furnish the elements of true poetry. Largely because he follows
+these two principles, Burns is probably the greatest song writer of the
+world. His poetic creed may be summed up in one of his own stanzas:
+
+    Give me ae spark o' Nature's fire,
+    That's a' the learning I desire;
+    Then, though I trudge thro' dub an' mire
+           At pleugh or cart,
+    My Muse, though hamely in attire,
+           May touch the heart.
+
+LIFE.[205] Burns's life is "a life of fragments," as Carlyle called it; and
+the different fragments are as unlike as the noble "Cotter's Saturday
+Night" and the rant and riot of "The Jolly Beggars." The details of this
+sad and disjointed life were better, perhaps, forgotten. We call attention
+only to the facts which help us to understand the man and his poetry.
+
+Burns was born in a clay cottage at Alloway, Scotland, in the bleak winter
+of 1759. His father was an excellent type of the Scotch peasant of those
+days,--a poor, honest, God-fearing man, who toiled from dawn till dark to
+wrest a living for his family from the stubborn soil. His tall figure was
+bent with unceasing labor; his hair was thin and gray, and in his eyes was
+the careworn, hunted look of a peasant driven by poverty and unpaid rents
+from one poor farm to another. The family often fasted of necessity, and
+lived in solitude to avoid the temptation of spending their hard-earned
+money. The children went barefoot and bareheaded in all weathers, and
+shared the parents' toil and their anxiety over the rents. At thirteen
+Bobby, the eldest, was doing a peasant's full day's labor; at sixteen he
+was chief laborer on his father's farm; and he describes the life as "the
+cheerless gloom of a hermit, and the unceasing moil of a galley slave." In
+1784 the father, after a lifetime of toil, was saved from a debtor's prison
+by consumption and death. To rescue something from the wreck of the home,
+and to win a poor chance of bread for the family, the two older boys set up
+a claim for arrears of wages that had never been paid. With the small sum
+allowed them, they buried their father, took another farm, Mossgiel, in
+Mauchline, and began again the long struggle with poverty.
+
+Such, in outline, is Burns's own story of his early life, taken mostly from
+his letters. There is another and more pleasing side to the picture, of
+which we have glimpses in his poems and in his Common-place Book. Here we
+see the boy at school; for like most Scotch peasants, the father gave his
+boys the best education he possibly could. We see him following the plow,
+not like a slave, but like a free man, crooning over an old Scotch song and
+making a better one to match the melody. We see him stop the plow to listen
+to what the wind is saying, or turn aside lest he disturb the birds at
+their singing and nest making. At supper we see the family about the table,
+happy notwithstanding their scant fare, each child with a spoon in one hand
+and a book in the other. We hear Betty Davidson reciting, from her great
+store, some heroic ballad that fired the young hearts to enthusiasm and
+made them forget the day's toil. And in "The Cotter's Saturday Night" we
+have a glimpse of Scotch peasant life that makes us almost reverence these
+heroic men and women, who kept their faith and their self-respect in the
+face of poverty, and whose hearts, under their rough exteriors, were tender
+and true as steel.
+
+A most unfortunate change in Burns's life began when he left the farm, at
+seventeen, and went to Kirkoswald to study surveying. The town was the
+haunt of smugglers, rough-living, hard-drinking men; and Burns speedily
+found his way into those scenes of "riot and roaring dissipation" which
+were his bane ever afterwards. For a little while he studied diligently,
+but one day, while taking the altitude of the sun, he saw a pretty girl in
+the neighboring garden, and love put trigonometry to flight. Soon he gave
+up his work and wandered back to the farm and poverty again.
+
+When twenty-seven years of age Burns first attracted literary attention,
+and in the same moment sprang to the first place in Scottish letters. In
+despair over his poverty and personal habits, he resolved to emigrate to
+Jamaica, and gathered together a few of his early poems, hoping to sell
+them for enough to pay the expenses of his journey. The result was the
+famous Kilmarnock edition of Burns, published in 1786, for which he was
+offered twenty pounds. It is said that he even bought his ticket, and on
+the night before the ship sailed wrote his "Farewell to Scotland,"
+beginning, "The gloomy night is gathering fast," which he intended to be
+his last song on Scottish soil.
+
+In the morning he changed his mind, led partly by some dim foreshadowing of
+the result of his literary adventure; for the little book took all Scotland
+by storm. Not only scholars and literary men, but "even plowboys and maid
+servants," says a contemporary, eagerly spent their hard-earned shillings
+for the new book. Instead of going to Jamaica, the young poet hurried to
+Edinburgh to arrange for another edition of his work. His journey was a
+constant ovation, and in the capital he was welcomed and feasted by the
+best of Scottish society. This inexpected triumph lasted only one winter.
+Burns's fondness for taverns and riotous living shocked his cultured
+entertainers, and when he returned to Edinburgh next winter, after a
+pleasure jaunt through the Highlands, he received scant attention. He left
+the city in anger and disappointment, and went back to the soil where he
+was more at home.
+
+The last few years of Burns's life are a sad tragedy, and we pass over them
+hurriedly. He bought the farm Ellisland, Dumfriesshire, and married the
+faithful Jean Armour, in 1788, That he could write of her,
+
+    I see her in the dewy flowers,
+    I see her sweet and fair;
+    I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
+    I hear her charm the air:
+    There's not a bonie flower that springs
+    By fountain, shaw, or green;
+    There's not a bonie bird that sings,
+    But minds me o' my Jean,
+
+is enough for us to remember. The next year he was appointed exciseman,
+i.e. collector of liquor revenues, and the small salary, with the return
+from his poems, would have been sufficient to keep his family in modest
+comfort, had he but kept away from taverns. For a few years his life of
+alternate toil and dissipation was occasionally illumined by his splendid
+lyric genius, and he produced many songs--"Bonnie Doon," "My Love's like a
+Red, Red Rose," "Auld Lang Syne," "Highland Mary," and the soul-stirring
+"Scots wha hae," composed while galloping over the moor in a storm--which
+have made the name of Burns known wherever the English language is spoken,
+and honored wherever Scotchmen gather together. He died miserably in 1796,
+when only thirty-seven years old. His last letter was an appeal to a friend
+for money to stave off the bailiff, and one of his last poems a tribute to
+Jessie Lewars, a kind lassie who helped to care for him in his illness.
+This last exquisite lyric, "O wert thou in the cauld blast," set to
+Mendelssohn's music, is one of our best known songs, though its history is
+seldom suspected by those who sing it.
+
+THE POETRY OF BURNS. The publication of the Kilmarnock Burns, with the
+title _Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect_ (1786), marks an epoch in the
+history of English Literature, like the publication of Spenser's
+_Shepherd's Calendar_. After a century of cold and formal poetry, relieved
+only by the romanticism of Gray and Cowper, these fresh inspired songs went
+straight to the heart, like the music of returning birds in springtime. It
+was a little volume, but a great book; and we think of Marlowe's line,
+"Infinite riches in a little room," in connection with it. Such poems as
+"The Cotter's Saturday Night," "To a Mouse," "To Mountain Daisy," "Man was
+Made To Mourn," "The Twa Dogs," "Address to the Deil," and "Halloween,"
+suggest that the whole spirit of the romantic revival is embodied in this
+obscure plowman. Love, humor, pathos, the response to nature,--all the
+poetic qualities that touch the human heart are here; and the heart was
+touched as it had not been since the days of Elizabeth. If the reader will
+note again the six characteristics of the romantic movement, and then read
+six poems of Burns, he will see at once how perfectly this one man
+expresses the new idea. Or take a single suggestion,--
+
+    Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
+    Ae farewell, and then forever!
+    Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
+    Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
+    Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
+    While the star of hope she leaves him?
+    Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
+    Dark despair around benights me.
+    I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
+    Naething could resist my Nancy;
+    But to see her was to love her;
+    Love but her, and love forever.
+    Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
+    Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
+    Never met--or never parted--
+    We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
+
+The "essence of a thousand love tales" is in that one little song. Because
+he embodies the new spirit of romanticism, critics give him a high place in
+the history of our literature; and because his songs go straight to the
+heart, he is the poet of common men.
+
+Of Burns's many songs for music little need be said. They have found their
+way into the hearts of a whole people, and there they speak for themselves.
+They range from the exquisite "O wert thou in the cauld blast," to the
+tremendous appeal to Scottish patriotism in "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace
+bled," which, Carlyle said, should be sung with the throat of the
+whirlwind. Many of these songs were composed in his best days, when
+following the plow or resting after his work, while the music of some old
+Scotch song was ringing in his head. It is largely because he thought of
+music while he composed that so many of his poems have the singing quality,
+suggesting a melody as we read them.
+
+Among his poems of nature, "To a Mouse" and "To a Mountain Daisy" are
+unquestionably the best, suggesting the poetical possibilities that daily
+pass unnoticed under our feet. These two poems are as near as Burns ever
+comes to appreciating nature for its own sake. The majority of his poems,
+like "Winter" and "Ye banks and braes o' bonie Doon," regard nature in the
+same way that Gray regarded it, as a background for the play of human
+emotions.
+
+Of his poems of emotion there is an immense number. It is a curious fact
+that the world is always laughing and crying at the same moment; and we can
+hardly read a page of Burns without finding this natural juxtaposition of
+smiles and tears. It is noteworthy also that all strong emotions, when
+expressed naturally, lend themselves to poetry; and Burns, more than any
+other writer, has an astonishing faculty of describing his own emotions
+with vividness and simplicity, so that they appeal instantly to our own.
+One cannot read, "I love my Jean," for instance, without being in love with
+some idealized woman; or "To Mary in Heaven," without sharing the personal
+grief of one who has loved and lost.
+
+Besides the songs of nature and of human emotion, Burns has given us a
+large number of poems for which no general title can be given. Noteworthy
+among these are "A man's a man for a' that," which voices the new romantic
+estimate of humanity; "The Vision," from which we get a strong impression
+of Burns's early ideals; the "Epistle to a Young Friend," from which,
+rather than from his satires, we learn Burns's personal views of religion
+and honor; the "Address to the Unco Guid," which is the poet's plea for
+mercy in judgment; and "A Bard's Epitaph," which, as a summary of his own
+life, might well be written at the end of his poems. "Halloween," a picture
+of rustic merrymaking, and "The Twa Dogs" a contrast between the rich and
+poor, are generally classed among the poet's best works; but one unfamiliar
+with the Scotch dialect will find them rather difficult.
+
+Of Burns's longer poems the two best worth reading are "The Cotter's
+Saturday Night" and "Tam o' Shanter,"--the one giving the most perfect
+picture we possess of a noble poverty; the other being the most lively and
+the least objectionable of his humorous works. It would be difficult to
+find elsewhere such a combination of the grewsome and the ridiculous as is
+packed up in "Tam o' Shanter." With the exception of these two, the longer
+poems add little to the author's fame or to our own enjoyment. It is better
+for the beginner to read Burns's exquisite songs and gladly to recognize
+his place in the hearts of a people, and forget the rest, since they only
+sadden us and obscure the poet's better nature.
+
+
+WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)
+
+    Piping down the valleys wild,
+      Piping songs of pleasant glee,
+    On a cloud I saw a child,
+      And he laughing said to me:
+    "Pipe a song about a lamb;"
+      So I piped with merry cheer.
+    "Piper, pipe that song again;"
+      So I piped:, he wept to hear.
+    "Piper, sit thee down and write
+      In a book, that all may read;"
+    So he vanished from my sight,
+      And I plucked a hollow reed,
+    And I made a rural pen,
+      And I stained the water clear,
+    And I wrote my happy songs
+      Every child may joy to hear.[206]
+
+Of all the romantic poets of the eighteenth century, Blake is the most
+independent and the most original. In his earliest work, written when he
+was scarcely more than a child, he seems to go back to the Elizabethan song
+writers for his models; but for the greater part of his life he was the
+poet of inspiration alone, following no man's lead, and obeying no voice
+but that which he heard in his own mystic soul. Though the most
+extraordinary literary genius of his age, he had practically no influence
+upon it. Indeed, we hardly yet understand this poet of pure fancy, this
+mystic this transcendental madman, who remained to the end of his busy life
+an incomprehensible child.
+
+LIFE. Blake, the son of a London tradesman, was a strange, imaginative
+child, whose soul was more at home with brooks and flowers and fairies than
+with the crowd of the city streets. Beyond learning to read and write, he
+received education; but he began, at ten years, to copy prints and to write
+verses. He also began a long course of art study, which resulted in his
+publishing his own books, adorned with marginal engravings colored by
+hand,--an unusual setting, worthy of the strong artistic sense that shows
+itself in many of his early verses. As a child he had visions of God and
+the angels looking in at his window; and as a man he thought he received
+visits from the souls of the great dead, Moses, Virgil, Homer, Dante,
+Milton,--"majestic shadows, gray but luminous," he calls them. He seems
+never to have asked himself the question how far these visions were pure
+illusions, but believed and trusted them implicitly. To him all nature was
+a vast spiritual symbolism, wherein he saw elves, fairies, devils,
+angels,--all looking at him in friendship or enmity through the eyes of
+flowers and stars:
+
+    With the blue sky spread over with wings,
+      And the mild sun that mounts and sings;
+    With trees and fields full of fairy elves,
+      And little devils who fight for themselves;
+    With angels planted in hawthorne bowers,
+      And God himself in the passing hours.
+
+And this curious, pantheistic conception of nature was not a matter of
+creed, but the very essence of Blake's life. Strangely enough, he made no
+attempt to found a new religious cult, but followed his own way, singing
+cheerfully, working patiently, in the face of discouragement and failure.
+That writers of far less genius were exalted to favor, while he remained
+poor and obscure, does not seem to have troubled him in the least. For over
+forty years he labored diligently at book engraving, guided in his art by
+Michael Angelo. but inventing his own curious designs, at which we still
+wonder. The illustrations for Young's "Night Thoughts," for Blair's
+"Grave," and the "Inventions to the Book of Job," show the peculiarity of
+Blake's mind quite as clearly as his poems. While he worked at his trade he
+flung off--for he never seemed to compose--disjointed visions and
+incomprehensible rhapsodies, with an occasional little gem that still sets
+our hearts to singing:
+
+    Ah, sunflower, weary of time,
+      Who countest the steps of the sun;
+    Seeking after that sweet golden clime
+      Where the traveller's journey is done;
+    Where the youth pined away with desire,
+      And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
+    Rise from their graves, and aspire
+      Where my sunflower wishes to go!
+
+That is a curious flower to find growing in the London street; but it
+suggests Blake's own life, which was outwardly busy and quiet, but inwardly
+full of adventure and excitement. His last huge prophetic works, like
+_Jerusalem_ and _Milton_ (1804), were dictated to him, he declares, by
+supernatural means, and even against his own will. They are only half
+intelligible, but here and there one sees flashes of the same poetic beauty
+that marks his little poems. Critics generally dismiss Blake with the word
+"madman"; but that is only an evasion. At best, he is the writer of
+exquisite lyrics; at worst, he is mad only "north-northwest," like Hamlet;
+and the puzzle is to find the method in his madness. The most amazing thing
+about him is the perfectly sane and cheerful way in which he moved through
+poverty and obscurity, flinging out exquisite poems or senseless
+rhapsodies, as a child might play with gems or straws or sunbeams
+indifferently. He was a gentle, kindly, most unworldly little man, with
+extraordinary eyes, which seem even in the lifeless portraits to reflect
+some unusual hypnotic power. He died obscurely, smiling at a vision of
+Paradise, in 1827. That was nearly a century ago, yet he still remains one
+of the most incomprehensible figures in our literature.
+
+WORKS OF BLAKE. The _Poetical Sketches_, published in 1783, is a collection
+of Blake's earliest poetry, much of it written in boyhood. It contains much
+crude and incoherent work, but also a few lyrics of striking originality.
+Two later and better known volumes are _Songs of Innocence_ and _Songs of
+Experience_, reflecting two widely different views of the human soul. As in
+all his works, there is an abundance of apparently worthless stuff in these
+songs; but, in the language of miners, it is all "pay dirt"; it shows
+gleams of golden grains that await our sifting, and now and then we find a
+nugget unexpectedly:
+
+    My lord was like a flower upon the brows
+    Of lusty May; ah life as frail as flower!
+    My lord was like a star in highest heaven
+    Drawn down to earth by spells and wickedness;
+    My lord was like the opening eye of day;
+    But he is darkened; like the summer moon
+    Clouded; fall'n like the stately tree, cut down;
+    The breath of heaven dwelt among his leaves.
+
+On account of the chaotic character of most of Blake's work, it is well to
+begin our reading with a short book of selections, containing the best
+songs of these three little volumes. Swinburne calls Blake the only poet of
+"supreme and simple poetic genius" of the eighteenth century, the one man
+of that age fit, on all accounts, to rank with the old great masters.[207]
+The praise is doubtless extravagant, and the criticism somewhat
+intemperate; but when we have read "The Evening Star," "Memory," "Night,"
+"Love," "To the Muses," "Spring," "Summer," "The Tiger," "The Lamb," "The
+Clod and the Pebble," we may possibly share Swinburne's enthusiasm.
+Certainly, in these three volumes we have some of the most perfect and the
+most original songs in our language.
+
+Of Blake's longer poems, his titanic prophecies and apocalyptic splendors,
+it is impossible to write justly in such a brief work as this. Outwardly
+they suggest a huge chaff pile, and the scattered grains of wheat hardly
+warrant the labor of winnowing. The curious reader will get an idea of
+Blake's amazing mysticism by dipping into any of the works of his middle
+life,--_Urizen, Gates of Paradise, Marriage of Heaven and Hell, America,
+The French Revolution_, or _The Vision of the Daughters of Albion_. His
+latest works, like _Jerusalem_ and _Milton_, are too obscure to have any
+literary value. To read any of these works casually is to call the author a
+madman; to study them, remembering Blake's songs and his genius, is to
+quote softly his own answer to the child who asked about the land of
+dreams:
+
+    "O what land is the land of dreams,
+    What are its mountains and what are its streams?
+    --O father, I saw my mother there,
+    Among the lilies by waters fair."
+    "Dear child, I also by pleasant streams
+    Have wandered all night in the land of dreams;
+    But though calm and warm the waters wide,
+    I could not get to the other side."
+
+
+MINOR POETS OF THE REVIVAL
+
+We have chosen the five preceding poets, Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns,
+and Blake, as the most typical and the most interesting of the writers who
+proclaimed the dawn of Romanticism in the eighteenth century. With them we
+associate a group of minor writers, whose works were immensely popular in
+their own day. The ordinary reader will pass them by, but to the student
+they are all significant as expressions of very different phases of the
+romantic revival.
+
+JAMES THOMSON (1700-1748). Thomson belongs among the pioneers of
+Romanticism. Like Gray and Goldsmith, he wavered between Pseudo-classic and
+the new romantic ideals, and for this reason, if for no other, his early
+work is interesting, like the uncertainty of a child who hesitates whether
+to creep safely on all fours or risk a fall by walking. He is "worthy to be
+remembered" for three poems,--"Rule Britannia," which is still one of the
+national songs of England _The Castle of Indolence_, and _The Seasons_. The
+dreamy and romantic _Castle_ (1748), occupied by enchanter Indolence and
+his willing captives in the land of Drowsyhed, is purely Spenserian in its
+imagery, and is written in the Spenserian stanza. _The Seasons_ (1726-
+1730), written in blank verse, describes the sights and sounds of the
+changing year and the poet's own feelings in the presence of nature. These
+two poems, though rather dull to a modern reader, were significant of the
+early romantic revival in three ways: they abandoned the prevailing heroic
+couplet; they went back to the Elizabethans, instead of to Pope, for their
+models; and they called attention to the long-neglected life of nature as a
+subject for poetry.
+
+WILLIAM COLLINS (1721-1759). Collins, the friend and disciple of Thomson,
+was of a delicate, nervous temperament, like Cowper; and over him also
+brooded the awful shadow of insanity. His first work, _Oriental Eclogues_
+(1742), is romantic in feeling, but is written in the prevailing mechanical
+couplets. All his later work is romantic in both thought and expression.
+His "Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands" (1750) is an
+interesting event in the romantic revival, for it introduced a new world,
+of witches, pygmies, fairies, and mediæval kings, for the imagination to
+play in. Collins's best known poems are the odes "To Simplicity," "To
+Fear," "To the Passions," the little unnamed lyric beginning "How sleep the
+brave," and the exquisite "Ode to Evening." In reading the latter, one is
+scarcely aware that the lines are so delicately balanced that they have no
+need of rime to accentuate their melody.
+
+GEORGE CRABBE (1754-1832). Crabbe is an interesting combination of realism
+and romanticism, his work of depicting common life being, at times, vaguely
+suggestive of Fielding's novels. _The Village_ (1783), a poem without a
+rival as a picture of the workingmen of his age, is sometimes like Fielding
+in its coarse vigor, and again like Dryden in its precise versification.
+The poem was not successful at first, and Crabbe abandoned his literary
+dreams. For over twenty years he settled down as a clergyman in a country
+parish, observing keenly the common life about him. Then he published more
+poems, exactly like _The Village_, which immediately brought him fame and
+money. They brought him also the friendship of Walter Scott, who, like
+others, regarded Crabbe as one of the first poets of the age. These later
+poems, _The Parish Register_ (1807), _The Borough_ (1810), _Tales in Verse_
+(1812), and _Tales of the Hall_ (1819), are in the same strain. They are
+written in couplets; they are reflections of nature and of country life;
+they contain much that is sordid and dull, but are nevertheless real
+pictures of real men and women, just as Crabbe saw them, and as such they
+are still interesting. Goldsmith and Burns had idealized the poor, and we
+admire them for their sympathy and insight. It remained for Crabbe to show
+that in wretched fishing villages, in the lives of hardworking men and
+women, children, laborers, smugglers, paupers,--all sorts and conditions
+of common men,--there is abundant romantic without exaggerating or
+idealizing their vices and virtues.
+
+JAMES MACPHERSON (1736-1796). In Macpherson we have an unusual figure, who
+catered to the new romantic interest in the old epic heroes, and won
+immense though momentary fame, by a series of literary forgeries.
+Macpherson was a Scotch schoolmaster, an educated man, but evidently not
+over-tender of conscience, whose imagination had been stirred by certain
+old poems which he may have heard in Gaelic among the Highlanders. In 1760
+he published his _Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands_,
+and alleged that his work was but a translation of Gaelic manuscripts.
+Whether the work of itself would have attracted attention is doubtful; but
+the fact that an abundance of literary material might be awaiting discovery
+led to an interest such as now attends the opening of an Egyptian tomb, and
+a subscription was promptly raised in Edinburgh to send Macpherson through
+the Highlands to collect more "manuscripts." The result was the epic
+_Fingal_ (1762), "that lank and lamentable counterfeit of poetry," as
+Swinburne calls it, which the author professed to have translated from the
+Gaelic of the poet Ossian. Its success was astonishing, and Macpherson
+followed it up with _Temora_ (1763), another epic in the same strain. In
+both these works Macpherson succeeds in giving an air of primal grandeur to
+his heroes; the characters are big and shadowy; the imagery is at times
+magnificent; the language is a kind of chanting, bombastic prose:
+
+Now Fingal arose in his might and thrice he reared his voice. Cromla
+answered around, and the sons of the desert stood still. They bent their
+red faces to earth, ashamed at the presence of Fingal. He came like a cloud
+of rain in the days of the sun, when slow it rolls on the hill, and fields
+expect the shower. Swaran beheld the terrible king of Morven, and stopped
+in the midst of his course. Dark he leaned on his spear rolling his red
+eyes around. Silent and tall he seemed as an oak on the banks of Lubar,
+which had its branches blasted of old by the lightning of heaven. His
+thousands pour around the hero, and the darkness of battle gathers on the
+hill.[208]
+
+The publication of this gloomy, imaginative work produced a literary storm.
+A few critics, led by Dr. Johnson, demanded to see the original
+manuscripts, and when Macpherson refused to produce them,[209] the Ossianic
+poems were branded as a forgery; nevertheless they had enormous success.
+Macpherson was honored as a literary explorer; he was given an official
+position, carrying a salary for life; and at his death, in 1796, he was
+buried in Westminster Abbey. Blake, Burns, and indeed most of the poets of
+the age were influenced by this sham poetry. Even the scholarly Gray was
+deceived and delighted with "Ossian"; and men as far apart as Goethe and
+Napoleon praised it immoderately.
+
+THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752-1770). This "marvelous boy," to whom Keats
+dedicated his "Endymion," and who is celebrated in Shelley's "Adonais," is
+one of the saddest and most interesting figures of the romantic revival.
+During his childhood he haunted the old church of St. Mary Redcliffe, in
+Bristol, where he was fascinated by the mediæval air of the place, and
+especially by one old chest, known as Canynge's coffer, containing musty
+documents which had been preserved for three hundred years. With strange,
+uncanny intentness the child pored over these relics of the past, copying
+them instead of his writing book, until he could imitate not only the
+spelling and language but even the handwriting of the original. Soon after
+the "Ossian" forgeries appeared, Chatterton began to produce documents,
+apparently very old, containing mediæval poems, legends, and family
+histories, centering around two characters,--Thomas Rowley, priest and
+poet, and William Canynge, merchant of Bristol in the days of Henry VI. It
+seems incredible that the whole design of these mediæval romances should
+have been worked out by a child of eleven, and that he could reproduce the
+style and the writing of Caxton's day so well that the printers were
+deceived; but such is the fact. More and more _Rowley Papers_, as they were
+called, were produced by Chatterton,--apparently from the archives of the
+old church; in reality from his own imagination,--delighting a large circle
+of readers, and deceiving all but Gray and a few scholars who recognized
+the occasional misuse of fifteenth-century English words. All this work was
+carefully finished, and bore the unmistakable stamp of literary genius.
+Reading now his "Ælla," or the "Ballad of Charite," or the long poem in
+ballad style called "Bristowe Tragedie," it is hard to realize that it is a
+boy's work. At seventeen years of age Chatterton went for a literary career
+to London, where he soon afterwards took poison and killed himself in a fit
+of childish despondency, brought on by poverty and hunger.
+
+THOMAS PERCY (1729-1811). To Percy, bishop of the Irish church, in Dromore,
+we are indebted for the first attempt at a systematic collection of the
+folk songs and ballads which are counted among the treasures of a nation's
+literature.[210] In 1765 he published, in three volumes, his famous
+_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_. The most valuable part of this work
+is the remarkable collection of old English and Scottish Ballads, such as
+"Chevy Chase," the "Nut Brown Mayde," "Children of the Wood," "Battle of
+Otterburn," and many more, which but for his labor might easily have
+perished. We have now much better and more reliable editions of these same
+ballads; for Percy garbled his materials, adding and subtracting freely,
+and even inventing a few ballads of his own. Two motives probably
+influenced him in this. First, the different versions of the same ballad
+varied greatly; and Percy, in changing them to suit himself, took the same
+liberty as had many other writers in dealing with the same material.
+Second; Percy was under the influence of Johnson and his school, and
+thought it necessary to add a few elegant ballads "to atone for the
+rudeness of the more obsolete poems." That sounds queer now, used as we are
+to exactness in dealing with historical and literary material; but it
+expresses the general spirit of the age in which he lived.
+
+Notwithstanding these drawbacks, Percy's _Reliques_ marks an epoch in the
+history of Romanticism, and it is difficult to measure its influence on the
+whole romantic movement. Scott says of it, "The first time I could scrape a
+few shillings together, I bought myself a copy of these beloved volumes;
+nor do I believe I ever read a book half so frequently, or with half the
+enthusiasm." Scott's own poetry is strongly modeled upon these early
+ballads, and his _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ is due chiefly to the
+influence of Percy's work.
+
+Besides the _Reliques_, Percy has given us another good work in his
+_Northern Antiquities_ (1770) translated from the French of Mallet's
+_History of Denmark_. This also was of immense influence, since it
+introduced to English readers a new and fascinating mythology, more rugged
+and primitive than that of the Greeks; and we are still, in music as in
+letters, under the spell of Thor and Odin, of Frea and the Valkyr maidens,
+and of that stupendous drama of passion and tragedy which ended in the
+"Twilight of the Gods." The literary world owes a debt of gratitude to
+Percy, who wrote nothing of importance himself, but who, by collecting and
+translating the works of other men, did much to hasten the triumph of
+Romanticism in the nineteenth century.
+
+
+III. THE FIRST ENGLISH NOVELISTS
+
+The chief literary phenomena of the complex eighteenth century are the
+reign of so-called Classicism, the revival of romantic poetry, and the
+discovery of the modern novel. Of these three, the last is probably the
+most important. Aside from the fact that the novel is the most modern, and
+at present the most widely read and influential type of literature, we have
+a certain pride in regarding it as England's original contribution to the
+world of letters. Other great types of literature, like the epic, the
+romance, and the drama, were first produced by other nations; but the idea
+of the modern novel seems to have been worked out largely on English
+soil;[211] and in the number and the fine quality of her novelists, England
+has hardly been rivaled by any other nation. Before we study the writers
+who developed this new type of literature, it is well to consider briefly
+its meaning and history.
+
+MEANING OF THE NOVEL. Probably the most significant remark made by the
+ordinary reader concerning a work of fiction takes the form of a question:
+Is it a good story? For the reader of to-day is much like the child and the
+primitive man in this respect, that he must be attracted and held by the
+story element of a narrative before he learns to appreciate its style or
+moral significance. The story element is therefore essential to the novel;
+but where the story originates is impossible to say. As well might we seek
+for the origin of the race; for wherever primitive men are found, there we
+see them gathering eagerly about the story-teller. In the halls of our
+Saxon ancestors the scop and the tale-bringer were ever the most welcome
+guests; and in the bark wigwams of the American Indians the man who told
+the legends of Hiawatha had an audience quite as attentive as that which
+gathered at the Greek festivals to hear the story of Ulysses's wanderings.
+To man's instinct or innate love for a story we are indebted for all our
+literature; and the novel must in some degree satisfy this instinct, or
+fail of appreciation.
+
+The second question which we ask concerning a work of fiction is, How far
+does the element of imagination enter into it? For upon the element of
+imagination depends, largely, our classification of works of fiction into
+novels, romances, and mere adventure stories. The divisions here are as
+indefinite as the border land between childhood and youth, between instinct
+and reason; but there are certain principles to guide us. We note, in the
+development of any normal child, that there comes a time when for his
+stories he desires knights, giants, elves, fairies, witches, magic, and
+marvelous adventures which have no basis in experience. He tells
+extraordinary tales about himself, which may be only the vague remembrances
+of a dream or the creations of a dawning imagination,--both of which are as
+real to him as any other part of life. When we say that such a child
+"romances," we give exactly the right name to it; for this sudden interest
+in extraordinary beings and events marks the development of the human
+imagination,--running riot at first, because it is not guided by reason,
+which is a later development,--and to satisfy this new interest the
+romance[212] was invented. The romance is, originally, a work of fiction in
+which the imagination is given full play without being limited by facts or
+probabilities. It deals with extraordinary events, with heroes whose powers
+are exaggerated, and often adds the element of superhuman or supernatural
+characters. It is impossible to draw the line where romance ends; but this
+element of excessive imagination and of impossible heroes and incidents is
+its distinguishing mark in every literature.
+
+Where the novel begins it is likewise impossible to say; but again we have
+a suggestion in the experience of every reader. There comes a time,
+naturally and inevitably, in the life of every youth when the romance no
+longer enthralls him. He lives in a world of facts; gets acquainted with
+men and women, some good, some bad, but all human; and he demands that
+literature shall express life as he knows it by experience. This is the
+stage of the awakened intellect, and in our stories the intellect as well
+as the imagination must now be satisfied. At the beginning of this stage we
+delight in _Robinson Crusoe;_ we read eagerly a multitude of adventure
+narratives and a few so-called historical novels; but in each case we must
+be lured by a story, must find heroes and "moving accidents by flood and
+field" to appeal to our imagination; and though the hero and the adventure
+may be exaggerated, they must both be natural and within the bounds of
+probability. Gradually the element of adventure or surprising incident
+grows less and less important, as we learn that true life is not
+adventurous, but a plain, heroic matter of work and duty, and the daily
+choice between good and evil. Life is the most real thing in the world
+now,--not the life of kings, or heroes, or superhuman creatures, but the
+individual life with its struggles and temptations and triumphs or
+failures, like our own; and any work that faithfully represents life
+becomes interesting. So we drop the adventure story and turn to the novel.
+For the novel is a work of fiction in which the imagination and the
+intellect combine to express life in the form of a story and the
+imagination is always directed and controlled by the intellect. It is
+interested chiefly, not in romance or adventure, but in men and women as
+they are; it aims to show the motives and influences which govern human
+life, and the effects of personal choice upon character and destiny. Such
+is the true novel,[213] and as such it opens a wider and more interesting
+field than any other type of literature.
+
+PRECURSORS OF THE NOVEL. Before the novel could reach its modern stage, of
+a more or less sincere attempt to express human life and character, it had
+to pass through several centuries of almost imperceptible development.
+Among the early precursors of the novel we must place a collection of tales
+known as the Greek Romances, dating from the second to the sixth centuries.
+These are imaginative and delightful stories of ideal love and marvelous
+adventure,[214] which profoundly affected romance writing for the next
+thousand years. A second group of predecessors is found in the Italian and
+Spanish pastoral romances, which were inspired by the _Eclogues_ of Virgil.
+These were extremely popular in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and
+their influence is seen later in Sidney's _Arcadia_, which is the best of
+this type in English.
+
+The third and most influential group of predecessors of the novel is made
+up of the romances of chivalry, such as are found in Malory's _Morte
+d'Arthur_. It is noticeable, in reading these beautiful old romances in
+different languages, that each nation changes them somewhat, so as to make
+them more expressive of national traits and ideals. In a word, the old
+romance tends inevitably towards realism, especially in England, where the
+excessive imagination is curbed and the heroes become more human. In
+Malory, in the unknown author of _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_, and
+especially in Chaucer, we see the effect of the practical English mind in
+giving these old romances a more natural setting, and in making the heroes
+suggest, though faintly, the men and women of their own day. The
+_Canterbury Tales_, with their story interest and their characters
+delightfully true to nature, have in them the suggestion, at least, of a
+connected story whose chief aim is to reflect life as it is.
+
+In the Elizabethan Age the idea of the novel grows more definite. In
+Sidney's _Arcadia_ (1580), a romance of chivalry, the pastoral setting at
+least is generally true to nature; our credulity is not taxed, as in the
+old romances, by the continual appearance of magic or miracles; and the
+characters, though idealized till they become tiresome, occasionally give
+the impression of being real men and women. In Bacon's _The New Atlantis_
+(1627) we have the story of the discovery by mariners of an unknown
+country, inhabited by a superior race of men, more civilized than
+ourselves,--an idea which had been used by More in his _Utopia_ in 1516.
+These two books are neither romances nor novels, in the strict sense, but
+studies of social institutions. They use the connected story as a means of
+teaching moral lessons, and of bringing about needed reforms; and this
+valuable suggestion has been adopted by many of our modern writers in the
+so-called problem novels and novels of purpose.
+
+Nearer to the true novel is Lodge's romantic story of _Rosalynde_, which
+was used by Shakespeare in _As You Like It_. This was modeled upon the
+Italian novella, or short story, which became very popular in England
+during the Elizabethan Age. In the same age we have introduced into England
+the Spanish picaresque novel (from _picaro_, a knave or rascal), which at
+first was a kind of burlesque on the mediæval romance, and which took for
+its hero some low scoundrel or outcast, instead of a knight, and followed
+him through a long career of scandals and villainies. One of the earliest
+types of this picaresque novel in English is Nash's _The Unfortunate
+Traveller, or the Life of Jack Wilton_ (1594), which is also a forerunner
+of the historical novel, since its action takes place during that gorgeous
+interview between Henry VIII and the king of France on the Field of the
+Cloth of Gold. In all these short stories and picaresque novels the
+emphasis was laid not so much on life and character as on the adventures of
+the hero; and the interest consisted largely in wondering what would happen
+next, and how the plot would end. The same method is employed in all trashy
+novels and it is especially the bane of many modern story-writers. This
+excessive interest in adventures or incidents for their own sake, and not
+for their effect on character, is what distinguishes the modern adventure
+story from the true novel.
+
+In the Puritan Age we approach still nearer to the modern novel, especially
+in the work of Bunyan; and as the Puritan always laid emphasis on
+character, stories appeared having a definite moral purpose. Bunyan's _The
+Pilgrim's Progress_ (1678) differs from the _Faery Queen_, and from all
+other mediæval allegories, in this important respect,--that the characters,
+far from being bloodless abstractions, are but thinly disguised men and
+women. Indeed, many a modern man, reading the story of the Christian;--has
+found in it the reflection of his own life and experience. In _The Life and
+Death of Mr. Badman_ (1682) we have another and even more realistic study
+of a man as he was in Bunyan's day. These two striking figures, Christian
+and Mr. Badman, belong among the great characters of English fiction.
+Bunyan's good work,--his keen insight, his delineation of character, and
+his emphasis upon the moral effects of individual action,--was carried on
+by Addison and Steele some thirty years later. The character of Sir Roger
+de Coverley is a real reflection of English country life in the eighteenth
+century; and with Steele's domestic sketches in _The Tatler, The
+Spectator_, and _The Guardian_ (1709-1713), we definitely cross the border
+land that lies outside of romance, and enter the region of character study
+where the novel has its beginning.
+
+THE DISCOVERY OF THE MODERN NOVEL. Notwithstanding this long history of
+fiction, to which we have called attention, it is safe to say that, until
+the publication of Richardson's _Pamela_ in 1740, no true novel had
+appeared in any literature. By a true novel we mean simply a work of
+fiction which relates the story of a plain human life, under stress of
+emotion, which depends for its interest not on incident or adventure, but
+on its truth to nature. A number of English novelists--Goldsmith,
+Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne--all seem to have seized upon the
+idea of reflecting life as it is, in the form of a story, and to have
+developed it simultaneously. The result was an extraordinary awakening of
+interest, especially among people who had never before been greatly
+concerned with literature. We are to remember that, in previous periods,
+the number of readers was comparatively small; and that, with the exception
+of a few writers like Langland and Bunyan, authors wrote largely for the
+upper classes. In the eighteenth century the spread of education and the
+appearance of newspapers and magazines led to an immense increase in the
+number of readers; and at the same time the middle-class people assumed a
+foremost place in English life and history. These new readers and this new,
+powerful middle class had no classic tradition to hamper them. They cared
+little for the opinions of Dr. Johnson and the famous Literary Club; and,
+so far as they read fiction at all, they apparently took little interest in
+the exaggerated romances, of impossible heroes and the picaresque stories
+of intrigue and villainy which had interested the upper classes. Some new
+type of literature was demanded, this new type must express the new ideal
+of the eighteenth century, namely, the value and the importance of the
+individual life. So the novel was born, expressing, though in a different
+way, exactly the same ideals of personality and of the dignity of common
+life which were later proclaimed in the American and in the French
+Revolution, and were welcomed with rejoicing by the poets of the romantic
+revival. To tell men, not about knights or kings or types of heroes, but
+about themselves in the guise of plain men and women, about their own
+thoughts and motives and struggles, and the results of actions upon their
+own characters,--this was the purpose of our first novelists. The eagerness
+with which their chapters were read in England, and the rapidity with which
+their work was copied abroad, show how powerfully the new discovery
+appealed to readers everywhere.
+
+Before we consider the work of these writers who first developed the modern
+novel, we must glance at the work of a pioneer, Daniel Defoe, whom we place
+among the early novelists for the simple reason that we do not know how
+else to classify him.
+
+
+DANIEL DEFOE (1661(?)-1731)
+
+To Defoe is often given the credit for the discovery of the modern novel;
+but whether or not he deserves that honor is an open question. Even a
+casual reading of _Robinson Crusoe_ (1719), which generally heads the list
+of modern fiction, shows that this exciting tale is largely an adventure
+story, rather than the study of human character which Defoe probably
+intended it to be. Young people still read it as they might a dime novel,
+skipping its moralizing passages and hurrying on to more adventures; but
+they seldom appreciate the excellent mature reasons which banish the dime
+novel to a secret place in the haymow, while _Crusoe_ hangs proudly on the
+Christmas tree or holds an honored place on the family bookshelf. Defoe's
+_Apparition of Mrs. Veal, Memoirs of a Cavalier_, and _Journal of the
+Plague Year_ are such mixtures of fact, fiction, and credulity that they
+defy classification; while other so-called "novels," like _Captain
+Singleton, Moll Flanders_, and _Roxana_, are but, little better than
+picaresque stories, with a deal of unnatural moralizing and repentance
+added for puritanical effect. In _Crusoe_, Defoe brought the realistic
+adventure story to a very high stage of its development; but his works
+hardly deserve, to be classed as true novels, which must subordinate
+incident to the faithful portrayal of human life and character.
+
+LIFE. Defoe was the son of a London butcher named Foe, and kept his family
+name until he was forty years of age, when he added the aristocratic prefix
+with which we have grown familiar. The events of his busy seventy years of
+life, in which he passed through all extremes, from poverty to wealth, from
+prosperous brickmaker to starveling journalist, from Newgate prison to
+immense popularity and royal favor, are obscure enough in details; but four
+facts stand out clearly, which help the reader to understand the character
+of his work. First, Defoe was a jack-at-all-trades, as well as a writer;
+his interest was largely with the working classes, and notwithstanding many
+questionable practices, he seems to have had some continued purpose of
+educating and uplifting the common people. This partially accounts for the
+enormous popularity of his works, and for the fact that they were
+criticised by literary men as being "fit only for the kitchen." Second, he
+was a radical Nonconformist in religion, and was intended by his father for
+the independent ministry. The Puritan zeal for reform possessed him, and he
+tried to do by his pen what Wesley was doing by his preaching, without,
+however, having any great measure of the latter's sincerity or singleness
+of purpose. This zeal for reform marks all his numerous works, and accounts
+for the moralizing to be found everywhere. Third, Defoe was a journalist
+and pamphleteer, with a reporter's eye for the picturesque and a newspaper
+man's instinct for making a "good story." He wrote an immense number of
+pamphlets, poems, and magazine articles; conducted several papers,--one of
+the most popular, the _Review_, being issued from prison,--and the fact
+that they often blew hot and cold upon the same question was hardly
+noticed. Indeed, so extraordinarily interesting and plausible were Defoe's
+articles that he generally managed to keep employed by the party in power,
+whether Whig or Tory. This long journalistic career, lasting half a
+century, accounts for his direct, simple, narrative style, which holds us
+even now by its intense reality. To Defoe's genius we are also indebted for
+two discoveries, the "interview" and the leading editorial, both of which
+are still in daily use in our best newspapers.
+
+The fourth fact to remember is that Defoe knew prison life; and thereby
+hangs a tale. In 1702 Defoe published a remarkable pamphlet called "The
+Shortest Way with the Dissenters," supporting the claims of the free
+churches against the "High Fliers," i.e. Tories and Anglicans. In a vein of
+grim humor which recalls Swift's "Modest Proposal," Defoe advocated hanging
+all dissenting ministers, and sending all members of the free churches into
+exile; and so ferociously realistic was the satire that both Dissenters and
+Tories took the author literally. Defoe was tried, found guilty of
+seditious libel, and sentenced to be fined, to stand three days in the
+pillory, and to be imprisoned. Hardly had the sentence been pronounced when
+Defoe wrote his "Hymn to the Pillory,"--
+
+    Hail hieroglyphic state machine,
+    Contrived to punish fancy in,--
+
+a set of doggerel verses ridiculing his prosecutors, which Defoe, with a
+keen eye for advertising, scattered all over London. Crowds flocked to
+cheer him in the pillory; and seeing that Defoe was making popularity out
+of persecution, his enemies bundled him off to Newgate prison. He turned
+this experience also to account by publishing a popular newspaper, and by
+getting acquainted with rogues, pirates, smugglers, and miscellaneous
+outcasts, each one with a "good story" to be used later. After his release
+from prison, in 1704, he turned his knowledge of criminals to further
+account, and entered the government employ as a kind of spy or secret-
+service agent. His prison experience, and the further knowledge of
+criminals gained in over twenty years as a spy, accounts for his numerous
+stories of thieves and pirates, _Jonathan Wild_ and _Captain Avery_, and
+also for his later novels, which deal almost exclusively with villains and
+outcasts.
+
+When Defoe was nearly sixty years of age he turned to fiction and wrote the
+great work by which he is remembered. _Robinson Crusoe_ was an instant
+success, and the author became famous all over Europe. Other stories
+followed rapidly, and Defoe earned money enough to retire to Newington and
+live in comfort; but not idly, for his activity in producing fiction is
+rivaled only by that of Walter Scott. Thus, in 1720 appeared _Captain
+Singleton, Duncan Campbell_, and _Memoirs of a Cavalier_; in 1722, _Colonel
+Jack, Moll Flanders_, and the amazingly realistic _Journal of the Plague
+Year_. So the list grows with astonishing rapidity, ending with the
+_History of the Devil_ in 1726.
+
+In the latter year Defoe's secret connection with the government became
+known, and a great howl of indignation rose against him in the public
+print, destroying in an hour the popularity which he had gained by a
+lifetime of intrigue and labor. He fled from his home to London, where he
+died obscurely, in 1731, while hiding from real or imaginary enemies.
+
+WORKS OF DEFOE. At the head of the list stands _Robinson Crusoe_ (1719-
+1720), one of the few books in any literature which has held its popularity
+undiminished for nearly two centuries. The story is based upon the
+experiences of Alexander Selkirk, or Selcraig, who had been marooned in the
+island of Juan Fernandez, off the coast of Chile, and who had lived there
+in solitude for five years. On his return to England in 1709, Selkirk's
+experiences became known, and Steele published an account of them in _The
+Englishman_, without, however, attracting any wide attention. That Defoe
+used Selkirk's story is practically certain; but with his usual duplicity
+he claimed to have written _Crusoe_ in 1708, a year before Selkirk's
+return. However that may be, the story itself is real enough to have come
+straight from a sailor's logbook. Defoe, as shown in his _Journal of the
+Plague Year_ and his _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, had the art of describing
+things he had never seen with the accuracy of an eyewitness.
+
+The charm of the story is its intense reality, in the succession of
+thoughts, feelings, incidents, which every reader recognizes to be
+absolutely true to life. At first glance it would seem that one man on a
+desert island could not possibly furnish the material for a long story; but
+as we read we realize with amazement that every slightest thought and
+action--the saving of the cargo of the shipwrecked vessel, the preparation
+for defense against imaginary foes, the intense agitation over the
+discovery of a footprint in the sand--is a record of what the reader
+himself would do and feel if he were alone in such a place. Defoe's long
+and varied experience now stood him in good stead; in fact, he "was the
+only man of letters in his time who might have been thrown on a desert
+island without finding himself at a loss what to do;"[215] and he puts
+himself so perfectly in his hero's place that he repeats his blunders as
+well as his triumphs. Thus, what reader ever followed Defoe's hero through
+weary, feverish months of building a huge boat, which was too big to be
+launched by one man, without recalling some boy who spent many stormy days
+in shed or cellar building a boat or dog house, and who, when the thing was
+painted and finished, found it a foot wider than the door, and had to knock
+it to pieces? This absolute naturalness characterizes the whole story. It
+is a study of the human will also,--of patience, fortitude, and the
+indomitable Saxon spirit overcoming all obstacles; and it was this element
+which made Rousseau recommend _Robinson Crusoe_ as a better treatise on
+education than anything which Aristotle or the moderns had ever written.
+And this suggests the most significant thing about Defoe's masterpiece,
+namely, that the hero represents the whole of human society, doing with his
+own hands all the things which, by the division of labor and the demands of
+modern civilization, are now done by many different workers. He is
+therefore the type of the whole civilized race of men.
+
+In the remaining works of Defoe, more than two hundred in number, there is
+an astonishing variety; but all are marked by the same simple, narrative
+style, and the same intense realism. The best known of these are the
+_Journal of the Plague Year_, in which the horrors of a frightful plague
+are minutely recorded; the _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, so realistic that
+Chatham quoted it as history in Parliament; and several picaresque novels,
+like _Captain Singleton, Colonel Jack, Moll Flanders_, and _Roxana_. The
+last work is by some critics given a very high place in realistic fiction,
+but like the other three, and like Defoe's minor narratives of Jack
+Sheppard and Cartouche, it is a disagreeable study of vice, ending with a
+forced and unnatural repentance.
+
+
+SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761)
+
+To Richardson belongs the credit of writing the first modern novel. He was
+the son of a London joiner, who, for economy's sake, resided in some
+unknown town in Derbyshire, where Samuel was born in 1689. The boy received
+very little education, but he had a natural talent for writing letters, and
+even as a boy we find him frequently employed by working girls to write
+their love letters for them. This early experience, together with his
+fondness for the society of "his dearest ladies" rather than of men, gave
+him that intimate knowledge of the hearts of sentimental and uneducated
+women which is manifest in all his work. Moreover, he was a keen observer
+of manners, and his surprisingly accurate descriptions often compel us to
+listen, even when he is most tedious. At seventeen years of age he went to
+London and learned the printer's trade, which he followed to the end of his
+life. When fifty years of age he had a small reputation as a writer of
+elegant epistles, and this reputation led certain publishers to approach
+him with a proposal that he write a series of _Familiar Letters_, which
+could be used as models by people unused to writing. Richardson gladly
+accepted the proposal, and had the happy inspiration to make these letters
+tell the connected story of a girl's life. Defoe had told an adventure
+story of human life on a desert island, but Richardson would tell the story
+of a girl's inner life in the midst of English neighbors. That sounds
+simple enough now, but it marked an epoch in the history of literature.
+Like every other great and simple discovery, it makes us wonder why some
+one had not thought of it before.
+
+RICHARDSON'S NOVELS. The result of Richardson's inspiration was _Pamela, or
+Virtue Rewarded_, an endless series of letters[216] telling of the trials,
+tribulations, and the final happy marriage of a too sweet young maiden,
+published in four volumes extending over the years 1740 and 1741. Its chief
+fame lies in the fact that it is our first novel in the modern sense. Aside
+from this important fact, and viewed solely as a novel, it is sentimental,
+grandiloquent, and wearisome. Its success at the time was enormous, and
+Richardson began another series of letters (he could tell a story in no
+other way) which occupied his leisure hours for the next six years. The
+result was _Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady_, published in eight
+volumes in 1747-1748. This was another, and somewhat better, sentimental
+novel; and it was received with immense enthusiasm. Of all Richardson's
+heroines Clarissa is the most human. In her doubts and scruples of
+conscience, and especially in her bitter grief and humiliation, she is a
+real woman, in marked contrast with the mechanical hero, Lovelace, who
+simply illustrates the author's inability to portray a man's character. The
+dramatic element in this novel is strong, and is increased by means of the
+letters, which enable the reader to keep close to the characters of the
+story and to see life from their different view points. Macaulay, who was
+deeply impressed by _Clarissa_, is said to have made the remark that, were
+the novel lost, he could restore almost the whole of it from memory.
+
+Richardson now turned from his middle-class heroines, and in five or six
+years completed another series of letters, in which he attempted to tell
+the story of a man and an aristocrat. The result was _Sir Charles
+Grandison_ (1754), a novel in seven volumes, whose hero was intended to be
+a model of aristocratic manners and virtues for the middle-class people,
+who largely constituted the novelist's readers. For Richardson, who began
+in _Pamela_ with the purpose of teaching his hearers how to write, ended
+with the deliberate purpose of teaching them how to live; and in most of
+his work his chief object was, in his own words, to inculcate virtue and
+good deportment. His novels, therefore, suffer as much from his purpose as
+from his own limitations. Notwithstanding his tedious moralizing and his
+other defects, Richardson in these three books gave something entirely new
+to the literary world, and the world appreciated the gift. This was the
+story of human life, told from within, and depending for its interest not
+on incident or adventure, but on its truth to human nature. Reading his
+work is, on the whole, like examining the antiquated model of a stern-wheel
+steamer; it is interesting for its undeveloped possibilities rather than
+for its achievement.
+
+
+HENRY FIELDING (1707-1754)
+
+LIFE. Judged by his ability alone, Fielding was the greatest of this new
+group of novel writers, and one of the most artistic that our literature
+has produced. He was born in East Stour, Dorsetshire, in 1707. In contrast
+with Richardson, he was well educated, having spent several years at the
+famous Eton school, and taken a degree in letters at the University of
+Leyden in 1728. Moreover, he had a deeper knowledge of life, gained from
+his own varied and sometimes riotous experience. For several years after
+returning from Leyden he gained a precarious living by writing plays,
+farces, and buffoneries for the stage. In 1735 he married an admirable
+woman, of whom we have glimpses in two of his characters, Amelia, and
+Sophia Western, and lived extravagantly on her little fortune at East
+Stour. Having used up all his money, he returned to London and studied law,
+gaining his living by occasional plays and by newspaper work. For ten
+years, or more, little is definitely known of him, save that he published
+his first novel, _Joseph Andrews_, in 1742, and that he was made justice of
+the peace for Westminster in 1748. The remaining years of his life, in
+which his best novels were written, were not given to literature, but
+rather to his duties as magistrate, and especially to breaking up the gangs
+of thieves and cutthroats which infested the streets of London after
+nightfall. He died in Lisbon, whither he had gone for his health, in 1754,
+and lies buried there in the English cemetery. The pathetic account of this
+last journey, together with an inkling of the generosity and
+kind-heartedness of the man, notwithstanding the scandals and
+irregularities of his life, are found in his last work, the _Journal of a
+Voyage to Lisbon_.
+
+FIELDING'S WORK. Fielding's first novel, _Joseph Andrews_ (1742), was
+inspired by the success of _Pamela_, and began as a burlesque of the false
+sentimentality and the conventional virtues of Richardson's heroine. He
+took for his hero the alleged brother of Pamela, who was exposed to the
+same kind of temptations, but who, instead of being rewarded for his
+virtue, was unceremoniously turned out of doors by his mistress. There the
+burlesque ends; the hero takes to the open road, and Fielding forgets all
+about Pamela in telling the adventures of Joseph and his companion, Parson
+Adams. Unlike Richardson, who has no humor, who minces words, and
+moralizes, and dotes on the sentimental woes of his heroines, Fielding is
+direct, vigorous, hilarious, and coarse to the point of vulgarity. He is
+full of animal spirits, and he tells the story of a vagabond life, not for
+the sake of moralizing, like Richardson, or for emphasizing a forced
+repentance, like Defoe, but simply because it interests him, and his only
+concern is "to laugh men out of their follies." So his story, though it
+abounds in unpleasant incidents, generally leaves the reader with the
+strong impression of reality.
+
+Fielding's later novels are _Jonathan Wild_, the story of a rogue, which
+suggests Defoe's narrative; _The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling_ (1749),
+his best work; and _Amelia_ (1751), the story of a good wife in contrast
+with an unworthy husband. His strength in all these works is in the
+vigorous but coarse figures, like those of Jan Steen's pictures, which fill
+most of his pages; his weakness is in lack of taste, and in barrenness of
+imagination or invention, which leads him to repeat his plots and incidents
+with slight variations. In all his work sincerity is perhaps the most
+marked characteristic. Fielding likes virile men, just as they are, good
+and bad, but detests shams of every sort. His satire has none of Swift's
+bitterness, but is subtle as that of Chaucer, and good-natured as that of
+Steele. He never moralizes, though some of his powerfully drawn scenes
+suggest a deeper moral lesson than anything in Defoe or Richardson; and he
+never judges even the worst of his characters without remembering his own
+frailty and tempering justice with mercy. On the whole, though much of his
+work is perhaps in bad taste and is too coarse for pleasant or profitable
+reading, Fielding must be regarded as an artist, a very great artist, in
+realistic fiction; and the advanced student who reads him will probably
+concur in the judgment of a modern critic that, by giving us genuine
+pictures of men and women of his own age, without moralizing over their
+vices and virtues, he became the real founder of the modern novel.
+
+
+SMOLLETT AND STERNE
+
+Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) apparently tried to carry on Fielding's work;
+but he lacked Fielding's genius, as well as his humor and inherent
+kindness, and so crowded his pages with the horrors and brutalities which
+are sometimes mistaken for realism. Smollett was a physician, of eccentric
+manners and ferocious instincts, who developed his unnatural peculiarities
+by going as a surgeon on a battleship, where he seems to have picked up all
+the evils of the navy and of the medical profession to use later in his
+novels.
+
+His three best known works are _Roderick Random_ (1748), a series of
+adventures related by the hero; _Peregrine Pickle_ (1751) in which he
+reflects with brutal directness the worst of his experiences at sea; and
+_Humphrey Clinker_ (1771), his last work, recounting the mild adventures of
+a Welsh family in a journey through England and Scotland. This last alone
+can be generally read without arousing the readers profound disgust.
+Without any particular ability, he models his novels on _Don Quixote_, and
+the result is simply a series of coarse adventures which are characteristic
+of the picaresque novel of his age. Were it not for the fact that he
+unconsciously imitates Jonson's _Every Man in His Humour_, he would hardly
+be named among our writers of fiction; but in seizing upon some grotesque
+habit or peculiarity and making a character out of it--such as Commodore
+Trunnion in _Peregrine Pickle_, Matthew Bramble in _Humphrey Clinker_, and
+Bowling in _Roderick Random_--he laid the foundation for that exaggeration
+in portraying human eccentricities which finds a climax in Dickens's
+caricatures.
+
+Lawrence Sterne (1713-1768) has been compared to a "little bronze satyr of
+antiquity in whose hollow body exquisite odors were stored." That is true,
+so far as the satyr is concerned; for a more weazened, unlovely personality
+would be hard to find. The only question in the comparison is in regard to
+the character of the odors, and that is a matter of taste. In his work he
+is the reverse of Smollett, the latter being given over to coarse
+vulgarities, which are often mistaken for realism; the former to whims and
+vagaries and sentimental tears, which frequently only disguise a sneer at
+human grief and pity.
+
+The two books by which Sterne is remembered are _Tristram Shandy_ and _A
+Sentimental Journey through France and Italy_. These are termed novels for
+the simple reason that we know not what else to call them. The former was
+begun, in his own words, "with no real idea of how it was to turn out"; its
+nine volumes, published at intervals from 1760 to 1767, proceeded in the
+most aimless way, recording the experiences of the eccentric Shandy family;
+and the book was never finished. Its strength lies chiefly in its brilliant
+style, the most remarkable of the age, and in its odd characters, like
+Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, which, with all their eccentricities, are so
+humanized by the author's genius that they belong among the great
+"creations" of our literature. The _Sentimental Journey_ is a curious
+combination of fiction, sketches of travel, miscellaneous essays on odd
+subjects,--all marked by the same brilliancy of style, and all stamped with
+Sterne's false attitude towards everything in life. Many of its best
+passages were either adapted or taken bodily from Burton, Rabelais, and a
+score of other writers; so that, in reading Sterne, one is never quite sure
+how much is his own work, though the mark of his grotesque genius is on
+every page.
+
+THE FIRST NOVELISTS AND THEIR WORK. With the publication of Goldsmith's
+_Vicar of Wakefield_ in 1766 the first series of English novels came to a
+suitable close. Of this work, with its abundance of homely sentiment
+clustering about the family life as the most sacred of Anglo-Saxon
+institutions, we have already spoken[217] If we except _Robinson Crusoe_,
+as an adventure story, the _Vicar of Wakefield_ is the only novel of the
+period which can be freely recommended to all readers, as giving an
+excellent idea of the new literary type, which was perhaps more remarkable
+for its promise than for its achievement. In the short space of twenty-five
+years there suddenly appeared and flourished a new form of literature,
+which influenced all Europe for nearly a century, and which still furnishes
+the largest part of our literary enjoyment. Each successive novelist
+brought some new element to the work, as when Fielding supplied animal
+vigor and humor to Richardson's analysis of a human heart, and Sterne added
+brilliancy, and Goldsmith emphasized purity and the honest domestic
+sentiments which are still the greatest ruling force among men. So these
+early workers were like men engaged in carving a perfect cameo from the
+reverse side. One works the profile, another the eyes, a third the mouth
+and the fine lines of character; and not till the work is finished, and the
+cameo turned, do we see the complete human face and read its meaning. Such,
+in a parable, is the story of the English novel.
+
+SUMMARY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. The period we are studying is included
+between the English Revolution of 1688 and the beginning of the French
+Revolution of 1789. Historically, the period begins in a remarkable way by
+the adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1689. This famous bill was the third
+and final step in the establishment of constitutional government, the first
+step being the Great Charter (1215), and the second the Petition of Right
+(1628). The modern form of cabinet government was established in the reign
+of George I (1714-1727). The foreign prestige of England was strengthened
+by the victories of Marlborough on the Continent, in the War of the Spanish
+Succession; and the bounds of empire were enormously increased by Clive in
+India, by Cook in Australia and the islands of the Pacific, and by English
+victories over the French in Canada and the Mississippi Valley, during the
+Seven Years', or French and Indian, Wars. Politically, the country was
+divided into Whigs and Tories: the former seeking greater liberty for the
+people; the latter upholding the king against popular government. The
+continued strife between these two political parties had a direct (and
+generally a harmful) influence on literature, as many of the great writers
+were used by the Whig or Tory party to advance its own interests and to
+satirize its enemies. Notwithstanding this perpetual strife of parties, the
+age is remarkable for the rapid social development, which soon expressed
+itself in literature. Clubs and coffeehouses multiplied, and the social
+life of these clubs resulted in better manners, in a general feeling of
+toleration, and especially in a kind of superficial elegance which shows
+itself in most of the prose and poetry of the period. On the other hand,
+the moral standard of the nation was very low; bands of rowdies infested
+the city streets after nightfall; bribery and corruption were the rule in
+politics; and drunkenness was frightfully prevalent among all classes.
+Swift's degraded race of Yahoos is a reflection of the degradation to be
+seen in multitudes of London saloons. This low standard of morals
+emphasizes the importance of the great Methodist revival under Whitefield
+and Wesley, which began in the second quarter of the eighteenth century.
+
+The literature of the century is remarkably complex, but we may classify it
+all under three general heads,--the Reign of so-called Classicism, the
+Revival of Romantic Poetry, and the Beginning of the Modern Novel. The
+first half of the century, especially, is an age of prose, owing largely to
+the fact that the practical and social interests of the age demanded
+expression. Modern newspapers, like the _Chronicle, Post_, and _Times_, and
+literary magazines, like the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_, which began in this
+age, greatly influenced the development of a serviceable prose style. The
+poetry of the first half of the century, as typified in Pope, was polished,
+unimaginative, formal; and the closed couplet was in general use,
+supplanting all other forms of verse. Both prose and poetry were too
+frequently satiric, and satire does not tend to produce a high type of
+literature. These tendencies in poetry were modified, in the latter part of
+the century, by the revival of romantic poetry.
+
+In our study we have noted: (1) the Augustan or Classic Age; the meaning of
+Classicism; the life and work of Alexander Pope, the greatest poet of the
+age; of Jonathan Swift, the satirist; of Joseph Addison, the essayist; of
+Richard Steele, who was the original genius of the _Tatler_ and the
+_Spectator_; of Samuel Johnson, who for nearly half a century was the
+dictator of English letters; of James Boswell, who gave us the immortal
+_Life of Johnson_; of Edmund Burke, the greatest of English orators; and of
+Edward Gibbon, the historian, famous for his _Decline and Fall of the Roman
+Empire_.
+
+(2) The Revival of Romantic Poetry; the meaning of Romanticism; the life
+and work of Thomas Gray; of Oliver Goldsmith, famous as poet, dramatist,
+and novelist; of William Cowper; of Robert Burns, the greatest of Scottish
+poets; of William Blake, the mystic; and the minor poets of the early
+romantic movement,--James Thomson, William Collins, George Crabbe, James
+Macpherson, author of the Ossian poems, Thomas Chatterton, the boy who
+originated the Rowley Papers, and Thomas Percy, whose work for literature
+was to collect the old ballads, which he called the _Reliques of Ancient
+English Poetry_, and to translate the stories of Norse mythology in his
+_Northern Antiquities_.
+
+(3) The First English Novelists; the meaning and history of the modern
+novel; the life and work of Daniel Defoe, author of _Robinson Crusoe_, who
+is hardly to be called a novelist, but whom we placed among the pioneers;
+and the novels of Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, and Goldsmith.
+
+
+SELECTIONS FOR READING. Manly's English Poetry and Manly's English Prose
+(Ginn and Company) are two excellent volumes containing selections from all
+authors studied. Ward's English Poets (4 vols.), Craik's English Prose
+Selections (5 vols.), and Garnett's English Prose from Elizabeth to
+Victoria are useful for supplementary reading. All important works should
+be read entire, in one of the following inexpensive editions, published for
+school use. (For titles and publishers, see General Bibliography at end of
+this book.)
+
+_Pope_. Rape of the Lock and Other Poems, edited by Parrott, in Standard
+English Classics. Various other school editions of the Essay on Man, and
+Rape of the Lock, in Riverside Literature Series, Pocket Classics, etc.;
+Pope's Iliad, I, VI, XXII, XXIV, in Standard English Classics, etc.
+Selections from Pope, edited by Reed, in Holt's English Readings.
+
+_Swift_. Gulliver's Travels, school edition by Ginn and Company; also in
+Temple Classics, etc. Selections from Swift, edited by Winchester, in
+Athenaeum Press (announced); the same, edited by Craik, in Clarendon Press;
+the same, edited by Prescott, in Holt's English Readings. Battle of the
+Books, in King's Classics, Bohn's Library, etc.
+
+_Addison and Steele_. Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, in Standard English
+Classics, Riverside Literature, etc.; Selections from Addison, edited by
+Wendell and Greenough, and Selections from Steele, edited by Carpenter,
+both in Athenaeum Press; various other selections, in Golden Treasury
+Series, Camelot Series, Holt's English Readings, etc.
+
+_Johnson_. Lives of the Poets, in Cassell's National Library; Selected
+Essays, edited by G.B. Hill (Dent); Selections, in Little Masterpieces
+Series; Rasselas, in Holt's English Readings, and in Morley's Universal
+Library.
+
+_Boswell_. Life of Johnson (2 vols.), in Everyman's Library; the same (3
+vols.), in Library of English Classics; also in Temple Classics, and Bohn's
+Library.
+
+_Burke_. American Taxation, Conciliation with America, Letter to a Noble
+Lord, in Standard English Classics; various speeches, in Pocket Classics,
+Riverside Literature Series, etc.; Selections, edited by B. Perry (Holt);
+Speeches on America (Heath, etc.).
+
+_Gibbon_. The Student's Gibbon, abridged (Murray); Memoirs, edited by
+Emerson, in Athenaeum Press.
+
+_Gray_. Selections, edited by W.L. Phelps, in Athenaeum Press; Selections
+from Gray and Cowper, in Canterbury Poets, Riverside Literature, etc.;
+Gray's Elegy, in Selections from Five English Poets (Ginn and Company).
+
+_Goldsmith_. Deserted Village, in Standard English Classics, etc.; Vicar of
+Wakefield, in Standard English Classics, Everyman's Library, King's
+Classics, etc.; She Stoops to Conquer, in Pocket Classics, Belles Lettres
+Series, etc.
+
+_Cowper_. Selections, edited by Murray, in Athenaeum Press; Selections, in
+Cassell's National Library, Canterbury Poets, etc.; The Task, in Temple
+Classics.
+
+_Burns_. Representative Poems, with Carlyle's Essay on Burns, edited by
+C.L. Hanson, in Standard English Classics; Selections, in Pocket Classics,
+Riverside Literature, etc.
+
+_Blake_. Poems, edited by W.B. Yeats, in Muses' Library; Selections, in
+Canterbury Poets, etc.
+
+_Minor Poets_. Thomson, Collins, Crabbe, etc. Selections, in Manly's
+English Poetry. Thomson's The Seasons, and Castle of Indolence, in Modern
+Classics; the same poems in Clarendon Press, and in Temple Classics;
+Selections from Thomson, in Cassell's National Library. Chatterton's poems,
+in Canterbury Poets. Macpherson's Ossian, in Canterbury Poets. Percy's
+Reliques, in Everyman's Library, Chandos Classics, Bohn's Library, etc.
+More recent and reliable collections of popular ballads, for school use,
+are Gummere's Old English Ballads, in Athenaeum Press; The Ballad Book,
+edited by Allingham, in Goldern Treasury Series; Gayley and Flaherty's
+Poetry of the People (Ginn and Company), etc. See Bibliography on p. 64.
+
+_Defoe_. Robinson Crusoe, school edition, by Ginn and Company; the same in
+Pocket Classics, etc.; Journal of the Plague Year, edited by Hurlbut (Ginn
+and Company); the same, in Everyman's Library, etc.; Essay on Projects, in
+Cassell's National Library.
+
+_The Novelists_. Manly's English Prose; Craik's English Prose Selections,
+vol. 4; Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield (see above); Selected Essays of
+Fielding, edited by Gerould, in Athenæum Press.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.[218]
+
+_HISTORY_. _Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 280-322; Cheyney, pp. 516-574.
+_General Works_, Greene, ch. 9, sec. 7, to ch. 10, sec. 4; Traill,
+Gardiner, Macaulay, etc. _Special Works_, Lecky's History of England in the
+Eighteenth Century, vols. 1-3; Morris's The Age of Queen Anne and the Early
+Hanoverians (Epochs of Modern History); Seeley's The Expansion of England;
+Macaulay's Clive, and Chatham; Thackeray's The Four Georges, and the
+English Humorists; Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne; Susan
+Hale's Men and Manners of the Eighteenth Century; Sydney's England and the
+English in the Eighteenth Century.
+
+_LITERATURE. General Works_. The Cambridge Literature, Taine, Saintsbury,
+etc. _Special Works_. Perry's English Literature in the Eighteenth Century;
+L. Stephen's English Literature in the Eighteenth Century; Seccombe's The
+Age of Johnson; Dennis's The Age of Pope; Gosse's History of English
+Literature in the Eighteenth Century; Whitwell's Some Eighteenth Century
+Men of Letters (Cowper, Sterne, Fielding, Goldsmith, Gray, Johnson, and
+Boswell); Johnson's Eighteenth Century Letters and Letter Writers;
+Williams's English Letters and Letter Writers of the Eighteenth Century;
+Minto's Manual of English Prose Writers; Clark's Study of English Prose
+Writers; Bourne's English Newspapers; J.B. Williams's A History of English
+Journalism; L. Stephen's History of English Thought in the Eighteenth
+Century.
+
+_The Romantic Revival_. W.L. Phelps's The Beginnings of the English
+Romantic Movement; Beers's English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century.
+
+_The Novel_. Raleigh's The English Novel; Simonds's An Introduction to the
+Study of English Fiction; Cross's The Development of the English Novel;
+Jusserand's The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare; Stoddard's The
+Evolution of the English Novel; Warren's The History of the English Novel
+previous to the Seventeenth Century; Masson's British Novelists and their
+Styles; S. Lanier's The English Novel; Hamilton's the Materials and Methods
+of Fiction; Perry's A Study of Prose Fiction.
+
+_Pope_. Texts: Works in Globe Edition, edited by A.W. Ward; in Cambridge
+Poets, edited by H.W. Boynton; Satires and Epistles, in Clarendon Press;
+Letters, in English Letters and Letter Writers of the Eighteenth Century,
+edited by H. Williams (Bell). Life: by Courthope; by L. Stephen (English
+Men of Letters Series); by Ward, in Globe Edition; by Johnson, in Lives of
+the Poets (Cassell's National Library, etc.). Criticism: Essays, by L.
+Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Lowell, in My Study Windows; by De
+Quincey, in Biographical Essays, and in Essays on the Poets; by Thackeray,
+in English Humorists; by Sainte-Beuve, in English Portraits. Warton's
+Genius and Writings of Pope (interesting chiefly from the historical view
+point, as the first definite and extended attack on Pope's writings).
+
+_Swift_. Texts: Works, 19 vols., ed. by Walter Scott (Edinburgh, 1814-
+1824); best edition of prose works is edited by T. Scott, with introduction
+by Lecky, 12 vols. (Bonn's Library); Selections, edited by Winchester (Ginn
+and Company); also in Camelot Series, Carisbrooke Library, etc., Journal to
+Stella, (Dutton, also Putnam); Letters, in Eighteenth Century Letters and
+Letter Writers, ed. by T.B. Johnson. Life: by L. Stephen (English Men of
+Letters); by Collins; by Craik; by J. Forster; by Macaulay; by Walter
+Scott; by Johnson, in Lives of the Poets. Criticism: Essays, by Thackeray,
+in English Humorists; by A. Dobson, in Eighteenth Century Vignettes; by
+Masson, in the Three Devils and Other Essays.
+
+_Addison_. Texts: Works, in Bohn's British Classics; Selections, in
+Athenaeum Press, etc. Life: by Lucy Aiken; by Courthope (English Men of
+Letters); by Johnson, in Lives of the Poets. Criticism: Essays, by
+Macaulay; by Thackeray.
+
+_Steele_. Texts: Selections, edited by Carpenter in Athenaeum Press (Ginn
+and Company); various other Selections published by Putnam, Bangs, in
+Camelot Series, etc.; Plays, edited by Aitken, in Mermaid Series. Life: by
+Aitken; by A. Dobson (English Worthies Series). Criticism: Essays by
+Thackeray; by Dobson, in Eighteenth Century Vignettes.
+
+_Johnson_. Texts: Works, edited by Walesby, 11 vols. (Oxford, 1825); the
+same, edited by G.B. Hill, in Clarendon Press. Essays, edited by G.B. Hill
+(Dent); the same, in Camelot series; Rasselas, various school editions, by
+Ginn and Company, Holt, etc.; Selections from Lives of the Poets, with
+Macaulay's Life of Johnson, edited by Matthew Arnold (Macmillan). Life:
+Boswell's Life of Johnson, in Everyman's Library, Temple Classics, Library
+of English Classics, etc.; by L. Stephen (English Men of Letters); by
+Grant. Criticism: G.B. Hill's Dr. Johnson, his Friends and Critics; Essays,
+by L. Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Macaulay, Birrell, etc.
+
+_Boswell_. Texts: Life of Johnson, edited by G.B. Hill (London, 1874);
+various other editions (see above). Life: by Fitzgerald (London, 1891);
+Roger's Boswelliana (London, 1874). Whitfield's Some Eighteenth Century Men
+of Letters.
+
+_Burke_. Texts: Works, 12 vols. (Boston, 1871); reprinted, 6 vols., in
+Bohn's Library; Selected Works, edited by Payne, in Clarendon Press; On the
+Sublime and Beautiful, in Temple Classics. For various speeches, see
+Selections for Reading, above. Life: by Prior; by Morley (English Men of
+Letters). Criticism: Essay, by Birrell, in Obiter Dicta. See also Dowden's
+French Revolution and English Literature, and Woodrow Wilson's Mere
+Literature.
+
+_Gibbon_. Texts: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited by Bury, 7
+vols. (London, 1896-1900); various other editions; The Student's Gibbon,
+abridged (Murray); Memoirs, edited by Emerson, in Athenaeum Press (Ginn and
+Company). Life: by Morison (English Men of Letters). Criticism: Essays, by
+Birrell, in Collected Essays and Res Judicatae; by Stephen, in Studies of a
+Biographer; by Robertson, in Pioneer Humanists; by Frederick Harrison, in
+Ruskin and Other Literary Estimates; by Bagehot, in Literary Studies; by
+Sainte-Beuve, in English Portraits. See also Anton's Masters in History.
+
+_Sheridan_. Texts: Speeches, 5 vols. (London, 1816); Plays, edited by W.F.
+Rae (London, 1902); the same, edited by R. Dircks, in Camelot Series; Major
+Dramas, in Athenaeum Press; Plays also in Morley's Universal Library,
+Macmillan's English Classics, etc. Life: by Rae; by M. Oliphant (English
+Men of Letters); by L. Sanders (Great Writers).
+
+_Gray_. Texts: Works, edited by Gosse (Macmillan); Poems, in Routledge's
+Pocket Library, Chandos Classics, etc.; Selections, in Athenaeum Press,
+etc.; Letters, edited by D.C. Tovey (Bohn). Life: by Gosse (English Men of
+Letters). Criticism: Essays, by Lowell, in Latest Literary Essays; by M.
+Arnold, in Essays in Criticism; by L. Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by A.
+Dobson, in Eighteenth Century Vignettes.
+
+_Goldsmith_. Texts: edited by Masson, Globe edition; Works, edited by Aiken
+and Tuckerman (Crowell); the same, edited by A. Dobson (Dent); Morley's
+Universal Library; Arber's The Goldsmith Anthology (Frowde). See also
+Selections for Reading, above. Life: by Washington Irving; by A. Dobson
+(Great Writer's Series); by Black (English Men of Letters); by J. Forster;
+by Prior. Criticism: Essays, by Macaulay; by Thackeray; by De Quincey; by
+A. Dobson, in Miscellanies.
+
+_Cowper_. Texts: Works, Globe and Aldine editions; also in Chandos
+Classics; Selections, in Athenasum Press, Canterbury Poets, etc. The
+Correspondence of William Cowper, edited by T. Wright, 4 vols. (Dodd, Mead
+& Company). Life: by Goldwin Smith (English Men of Letters); by Wright; by
+Southey. Criticism: Essays, by L. Stephen; by Bagehot; by Sainte-Beuve; by
+Birrell; by Stopford Brooke; by A. Dobson (see above). See also Woodberry's
+Makers of Literature.
+
+_Burns_. Texts: Works, Cambridge Poets Edition (containing Henley's Study
+of Burns), Globe and Aldine editions, Clarendon Press, Canterbury Poets,
+etc.; Selections, in Athenaeum Press, etc.; Letters, in Camelot Series.
+Life: by Cunningham; by Henley; by Setoun; by Blackie (Great Writers); by
+Shairp (English Men of Letters). Criticism: Essays, by Carlyle; by R.L.
+Stevenson, in Familiar Studies; by Hazlitt, in Lectures on the English
+Poets; by Stopford Brooke, in Theology in the English Poets; by J. Forster,
+in Great Teachers.
+
+_Blake_. Texts: Poems, Aldine edition; also in Canterbury Poets; Complete
+Works, edited by Ellis and Yeats (London, 1893); Selections, edited by W.B.
+Yeats, in the Muses' Library (Dutton); Letters, with Life by F. Tatham,
+edited by A.G.B. Russell (Scribner's, 1896). Life: by Gilchrist; by Story;
+by Symons. Criticism: Swinburne's William Blake, a Critical Study; Ellis's
+The Real Blake (McClure, 1907); Elizabeth Cary's The Art of William Blake
+(Moffat, Yard & Company, 1907). Essay, by A.C. Benson, in Essays.
+
+_Thomson_. Texts: Works, Aldine edition; The Seasons, and Castle of
+Indolence, in Clarendon Press, etc. Life: by Bayne; by G.B. Macaulay
+(English Men of Letters). Essay, by Hazlitt, in Lectures on the English
+Poets.
+
+_Collins_. Works, edited by Bronson, in Athenaeum Press; also in Aldine
+edition. Life: by Johnson, in Lives of the Poets. Essay, by Swinburne, in
+Miscellanies. See also Beers's English Romanticism in the Eighteenth
+Century.
+
+_Crabbe_. Works, with memoir by his son, G. Crabbe, 8 vols. (London,
+1834-1835); Poems, edited by A.W. Ward, 3 vols., in Cambridge English
+Classics (Cambridge, 1905); Selections, in Temple Classics, Canterbury
+Poets, etc. Life: by Kebbel (Great Writers); by Ainger (English Men of
+Letters). Essays, by L. Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Woodberry, in
+Makers of Literature; by Saintsbury, in Essays in English Literature; by
+Courthope, in Ward's English Poets; by Edward Fitzgerald, in Miscellanies;
+by Hazlitt, in Spirit of the Age.
+
+_Macpherson_. Texts: Ossian, in Canterbury Poets; Poems, translated by
+Macpherson, edited by Todd (London, 1888). Life and Letters, edited by
+Saunders (London, 1894). Criticism: J.S. Smart's James Macpherson (Nutt,
+1905). See also Beers's English Romanticism. For relation of Macpherson's
+work to the original Ossian, see Dean of Lismore's Book, edited by
+MacLauchlan (Edinburgh, 1862); also Poems of Ossian, translated by Clerk
+(Edinburgh, 1870).
+
+_Chatterton_. Works, edited by Skeat (London, 1875); Poems, in Canterbury
+Poets. Life: by Russell; by Wilson; Masson's Chatterton, a Biography.
+Criticism: C.E. Russell's Thomas Chatterton (Moffatt, Yard & Company);
+Essays, by Watts-Dunton, in Ward's English Poets; by Masson, in Essays
+Biographical and Critical. See also Beers's English Romanticism.
+
+_Percy_. Reliques, edited by Wheatley (London, 1891); the same, in
+Everyman's Library, Chandos Classics, etc. Essay, by J.W. Hales, Revival of
+Ballad Poetry, in Folia Literaria. See also Beers's English Romanticism,
+etc. (Special works, above.)
+
+_Defoe_. Texts: Romances and Narratives, edited by Aitken (Dent); Poems and
+Pamphlets, in Arber's English Garner, vol. 8; school editions of Robinson
+Crusoe, and Journal of the Plague Year (Ginn and Company, etc.); Captain
+Singleton, and Memoirs of a Cavalier, in Everyman's Library; Early
+Writings, in Carisbrooke Library (Routledge). Life: by W. Lee; by Minto
+(English Men of Letters); by Wright; also in Westminster Biographies
+(Small, Maynard). Essay, by L. Stephen, in Hours in a Library.
+
+_Richardson_. Works: edited by L. Stephen (London, 1883); edited by
+Philips, with life (New York, 1901); Correspondence, edited by A. Barbauld,
+6 vols. (London, 1804). Life: by Thomson; by A. Dobson. Essays, by L.
+Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by A. Dobson, in Eighteenth Century
+Vignettes.
+
+_Fielding_. Works: Temple Edition, edited by Saintsbury (Dent); Selected
+Essays, in Athenaeum Press; Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, in Cassell's
+National Library. Life: by Dobson (English Men of Letters); Lawrence's Life
+and Times of Fielding. Essays, by Lowell; by Thackeray; by L. Stephen; by
+A. Dobson (see above); by G.B. Smith, in Poets and Novelists.
+
+_Smollett_. Works, edited by Saintsbury (London, 1895); Works, edited by
+Henley (Scribner). Life: by Hannah (Great Writers); by Smeaton; by
+Chambers. Essays, by Thackeray; by Henley; by Dobson, in Eighteenth Century
+Vignettes.
+
+_Sterne_. Works: edited by Saintsbury (Dent); Tristram Shandy, and A
+Sentimental Journey, in Temple Classics, Morley's Universal Library, etc.
+Life: by Fitzgerald; by Traill (English Men of Letters); Life and Times, by
+W.L. Cross (Macmillan). Essays, by Thackeray; by Bagehot, in Literary
+Studies.
+
+_Horace Walpole_. Texts: Castle of Otranto, in King's Classics, Cassell's
+National Library, etc. Letters, edited by C.D. Yonge. Morley's Walpole, in
+Twelve English Statesmen (Macmillan). Essay, by L. Stephen, in Hours in a
+Library. See also Beers's English Romanticism.
+
+_Frances Burney_ (Madame d'Arblay). Texts: Evelina, in Temple Classics, 2
+vols. (Macmillan). Diary and Letters, edited by S.C. Woolsey. Seeley's
+Fanny Burney and her Friends. Essay, by Macaulay.
+
+
+SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. Describe briefly the social development of the
+eighteenth century. What effect did this have on literature? What accounts
+for the prevalence of prose? What influence did the first newspapers exert
+on life and literature? How do the readers of this age compare with those
+of the Age of Elizabeth?
+
+2. How do you explain the fact that satire was largely used in both prose
+and poetry? Name the principal satires of the age. What is the chief object
+of satire? of literature? How do the two objects conflict?
+
+3. What is the meaning of the term "classicism," as applied to the
+literature of this age? Did the classicism of Johnson, for instance, have
+any relation to classic literature in its true sense? Why is this period
+called the Augustan Age? Why was Shakespeare not regarded by this age as a
+classical writer?
+
+4. _Pope_. In what respect is Pope a unique writer? Tell briefly the story
+of his life. What are his principal works? How does he reflect the critical
+spirit of his age? What are the chief characteristics of his poetry? What
+do you find to copy in his style? What is lacking in his poetry? Compare
+his subjects with those of Burns of Tennyson or Milton, for instance. How
+would Chaucer or Burns tell the story of the Rape of the Lock? What
+similarity do you find between Pope's poetry and Addison's prose?
+
+5. _Swift_. What is the general character of Swift's work? Name his chief
+satires. What is there to copy in his style? Does he ever strive for
+ornament or effect in writing? Compare Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_ with
+Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_, in style, purpose of writing, and interest. What
+resemblances do you find in these two contemporary writers? Can you explain
+the continued popularity of _Gulliver's Travels_?
+
+6. _Addison and Steele_. What great work did Addison and Steele do for
+literature? Make a brief comparison between these two men, having in mind
+their purpose, humor, knowledge of life, and human sympathy, as shown, for
+instance, in No. 112 and No. 2 of the Spectator Essays. Compare their humor
+with that of Swift. How is their work a preparation for the novel?
+
+7. _Johnson_. For what is Dr. Johnson famous in literature? Can you explain
+his great influence? Compare his style with that of Swift or Defoe. What
+are the remarkable elements in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_? Write a
+description of an imaginary meeting of Johnson, Goldsmith, and Boswell in a
+coffeehouse.
+
+8. _Burke_. For what is Burke remarkable? What great objects influenced him
+in the three periods of his life? Why has he been called a romantic poet
+who speaks in prose? Compare his use of imagery with that of other writers
+of the period. What is there to copy and what is there to avoid in his
+style? Can you trace the influence of Burke's American speeches on later
+English politics? What similarities do you find between Burke and Milton,
+as revealed in their prose works?
+
+9. _Gibbon_. For what is Gibbon "worthy to be remembered"? Why does he mark
+an epoch in historical writing? What is meant by the scientific method of
+writing history? Compare Gibbon's style with that of Johnson. Contrast it
+with that of Swift, and also with that of some modern historian, Parkman,
+for example.
+
+10. What is meant by the term "romanticism?" What are its chief
+characteristics? How does it differ from classicism? Illustrate the meaning
+from the work of Gray, Cowper, or Burns. Can you explain the prevalence of
+melancholy in romanticism?
+
+11. _Gray_. What are the chief works of Gray? Can you explain the continued
+popularity of his "Elegy"? What romantic elements are found in his poetry?
+What resemblances and what differences do you find in the works of Gray and
+of Goldsmith?
+
+12. _Goldsmith_. Tell the story of Goldsmith's life. What are his chief
+works? Show from _The Deserted Village_ the romantic and the so-called
+classic elements in his work. What great work did he do for the early
+novel, in _The Vicar of Wakefield_? Can you explain the popularity of _She
+Stoops to Conquer_? Name some of Goldsmith's characters who have found a
+permanent place in our literature. What personal reminiscences have you
+noted in _The Traveller_, _The Deserted Village_, and _She Stoops to
+Conquer_?
+
+13. _Cowper_. Describe Cowper's _The Task_. How does it show the romantic
+spirit? Give passages from "John Gilpin" to illustrate Cowper's humor.
+
+14. _Burns_. Tell the story of Burns's life. Some one has said, "The
+measure of a man's sin is the difference between what he is and what he
+might be." Comment upon this, with reference to Burns. What is the general
+character of his poetry? Why is he called the poet of common men? What
+subjects does he choose for his poetry? Compare him, in this respect, with
+Pope. What elements in the poet's character are revealed in such poems as
+"To a Mouse" and "To a Mountain Daisy"? How do Burns and Gray regard
+nature? What poems show his sympathy with the French Revolution, and with
+democracy? Read "The Cotter's Saturday Night," and explain its enduring
+interest. Can you explain the secret of Burns's great popularity?
+
+15. _Blake_. What are the characteristics of Blake's poetry? Can you
+explain why Blake, though the greatest poetic genius of the age, is so
+little appreciated?
+
+16. _Percy_. In what respect did Percy's _Reliques_ influence the romantic
+movement? What are the defects in his collection of ballads? Can you
+explain why such a crude poem as "Chevy Chase" should be popular with an
+age that delighted in Pope's "Essay on Man"?
+
+17. _Macpherson_. What is meant by Macpherson's "Ossian"? Can you account
+for the remarkable success of the Ossianic forgeries?
+
+18. _Chatterton_. Tell the story of Chatterton and the Rowley Poems. Read
+Chatterton's "Bristowe Tragedie," and compare it, in style and interest,
+with the old ballads, like "The Battle of Otterburn" or "The Hunting of the
+Cheviot" (all in Manly's _English Poetry_).
+
+19. _The First Novelists_. What is meant by the modern novel? How does it
+differ from the early romance and from the adventure story? What are some
+of the precursors of the novel? What was the purpose of stories modeled
+after _Don Quixote_? What is the significance of _Pamela_? What elements
+did Fielding add to the novel? What good work did Goldsmith's _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ accomplish? Compare Goldsmith, in this respect, with Steele and
+Addison.
+
+
+                              CHRONOLOGY
+            _End of Seventeenth and the Eighteenth Century_
+============================================================================
+  HISTORY                           |  LITERATURE
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+1689. William and Mary              | 1683-1719. Defoe's early writings
+      Bill of Rights.               |
+      Toleration Act                |
+                                    | 1695. Press made free
+1700(?) Beginning of London clubs   |
+1702. Anne (d. 1714)                |
+      War of Spanish Succession     |
+                                    | 1702. First daily newspaper
+1704. Battle of Blenheim            | 1704. Addison's The Campaign
+                                    |       Swift's Tale of a Tub
+1707. Union of England and Scotland |
+                                    | 1709. The Tatler
+                                    |       Johnson born (d. 1784)
+                                    | 1710-1713. Swift in London. Journal
+                                    |       to Stella
+                                    | 1711. The Spectator
+                                    | 1712. Pope's Rape of the Lock
+1714. George I (d. 1727)            |
+                                    | 1719. Robinson Crusoe
+1721. Cabinet government, Walpole   |
+      first prime minister          |
+                                    | 1726. Gulliver's Travels
+                                    | 1726-1730. Thomson's The Seasons
+1727. George II (d. 1760)           |
+                                    | 1732-1734. Essay on Man
+1738. Rise of Methodism             |
+                                    | 1740. Richardson's Pamela
+1740. War of Austrian Succession    |
+                                    | 1742. Fielding's Joesph Andrews
+1746. Jacobite Rebellion            |
+                                    | 1749. Fielding's Tom Jones
+                                    | 1750-1752. Johnson's The Rambler
+1750-1757. Conquest of India        | 1751. Gray's Elegy
+                                    | 1755. Johnson's Dictionary
+1756. War with France               |
+1759. Wolf at Quebec                |
+1760. George III (d. 1820)          | 1760-1767. Sterne's Tristram Shandy
+                                    | 1764. Johnson's Literary Club
+1765. Stamp Act                     | 1765. Percy's Reliques
+                                    | 1766. Goldsmith's Vicar of
+                                    |       Wakefield
+                                    |
+                                    | 1770. Goldsmith's Deserted Village
+                                    | 1771. Beginning of great newspapers
+1773. Boston Tea Party              |
+1774. Howard's prison reforms       | 1774-1775. Burke's American speeches
+1775. American Revolution           | 1776-1788. Gibbon's Rome
+1776. Declaration of Independence   | 1779. Cowper's Olney Hymns
+                                    | 1779-81. Johnson's Lives of the Poets
+1783. Treaty of Paris               | 1783. Blake's Poetical Sketches
+                                    | 1785. Cowper's The Task
+                                    |       The London Times
+1786. Trial of Warren Hastings      |
+                                    | 1786. Burns's first poems (the
+                                    |       Kilmarnock Burns)
+                                    |       Burke's Warren Hastings
+1789-1799. French Revolution        |
+                                    | 1790. Burke's French Revolution
+                                    | 1791. Boswell's Life of Johnson
+1793. War with France               |
+============================================================================
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM (1800-1850)
+
+
+THE SECOND CREATIVE PERIOD OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
+
+The first half of the nineteenth century records the triumph of Romanticism
+in literature and of democracy in government; and the two movements are so
+closely associated, in so many nations and in so many periods of history,
+that one must wonder if there be not some relation of cause and effect
+between them. Just as we understand the tremendous energizing influence of
+Puritanism in the matter of English liberty by remembering that the common
+people had begun to read, and that their book was the Bible, so we may
+understand this age of popular government by remembering that the chief
+subject of romantic literature was the essential nobleness of common men
+and the value of the individual. As we read now that brief portion of
+history which lies between the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the
+English Reform Bill of 1832, we are in the presence of such mighty
+political upheavals that "the age of revolution" is the only name by which
+we can adequately characterize it. Its great historic movements become
+intelligible only when we read what was written in this period; for the
+French Revolution and the American commonwealth, as well as the
+establishment of a true democracy in England by the Reform Bill, were the
+inevitable results of ideas which literature had spread rapidly through the
+civilized world. Liberty is fundamentally an ideal; and that
+ideal--beautiful, inspiring, compelling, as a loved banner in the wind--was
+kept steadily before men's minds by a multitude of books and pamphlets as
+far apart as Burns's _Poems_ and Thomas Paine's _Rights of Man_,--all read
+eagerly by the common people, all proclaiming the dignity of common life,
+and all uttering the same passionate cry against every form of class or
+caste oppression.
+
+First the dream, the ideal in some human soul; then the written word which
+proclaims it, and impresses other minds with its truth and beauty; then the
+united and determined effort of men to make the dream a reality,--that
+seems to be a fair estimate of the part that literature plays, even in our
+political progress.
+
+HISTORICAL SUMMARY. The period we are considering begins in the latter half
+of the reign of George III and ends with the accession of Victoria in 1837.
+When on a foggy morning in November, 1783, King George entered the House of
+Lords and in a trembling voice recognized the independence of the United
+States of America, he unconsciously proclaimed the triumph of that free
+government by free men which had been the ideal of English literature for
+more than a thousand years; though it was not till 1832, when the Reform
+Bill became the law of the land, that England herself learned the lesson
+taught her by America, and became the democracy of which her writers had
+always dreamed.
+
+The half century between these two events is one of great turmoil, yet of
+steady advance in every department of English life. The storm center of the
+political unrest was the French Revolution, that frightful uprising which
+proclaimed the natural rights of man and the abolition of class
+distinctions. Its effect on the whole civilized world is beyond
+computation. Patriotic clubs and societies multiplied in England, all
+asserting the doctrine of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, the watchwords of
+the Revolution. Young England, led by Pitt the younger, hailed the new
+French republic and offered it friendship; old England, which pardons no
+revolutions but her own, looked with horror on the turmoil in France and,
+misled by Burke and the nobles of the realm, forced the two nations into
+war. Even Pitt saw a blessing in this at first; because the sudden zeal for
+fighting a foreign nation--which by some horrible perversion is generally
+called patriotism--might turn men's thoughts from their own to their
+neighbors' affairs, and so prevent a threatened revolution at home.
+
+The causes of this threatened revolution were not political but economic.
+By her invention in steel and machinery, and by her monopoly of the
+carrying trade, England had become the workshop of the world. Her wealth
+had increased beyond her wildest dreams; but the unequal distribution of
+that wealth was a spectacle to make angels weep. The invention of machinery
+at first threw thousands of skilled hand workers out of employment; in
+order to protect a few agriculturists, heavy duties were imposed on corn
+and wheat, and bread rose to famine prices just when laboring men had the
+least money to pay for it. There followed a curious spectacle. While
+England increased in wealth, and spent vast sums to support her army and
+subsidize her allies in Europe, and while nobles, landowners,
+manufacturers, and merchants lived in increasing luxury, a multitude of
+skilled laborers were clamoring for work. Fathers sent their wives and
+little children into the mines and factories, where sixteen hours' labor
+would hardly pay for the daily bread; and in every large city were riotous
+mobs made up chiefly of hungry men and women. It was this unbearable
+economic condition, and not any political theory, as Burke supposed, which
+occasioned the danger of another English revolution.
+
+It is only when we remember these conditions that we can understand two
+books, Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_ and Thomas Paine's _Rights of Man_,
+which can hardly be considered as literature, but which exercised an
+enormous influence in England. Smith was a Scottish thinker, who wrote to
+uphold the doctrine that labor is the only source of a nation's wealth, and
+that any attempt to force labor into unnatural channels, or to prevent it
+by protective duties from freely obtaining the raw materials for its
+industry, is unjust and destructive. Paine was a curious combination of
+Jekyll and Hyde, shallow and untrustworthy personally, but with a
+passionate devotion to popular liberty. His _Rights of Man_ published in
+London in 1791, was like one of Burns's lyric outcries against institutions
+which oppressed humanity. Coming so soon after the destruction of the
+Bastille, it added fuel to the flames kindled in England by the French
+Revolution. The author was driven out of the country, on the curious ground
+that he endangered the English constitution, but not until his book had
+gained a wide sale and influence.
+
+All these dangers, real and imaginary, passed away when England turned from
+the affairs of France to remedy her own economic conditions. The long
+Continental war came to an end with Napoleon's overthrow at Waterloo, in
+1815; and England, having gained enormously in prestige abroad, now turned
+to the work of reform at home. The destruction of the African slave trade;
+the mitigation of horribly unjust laws, which included poor debtors and
+petty criminals in the same class; the prevention of child labor; the
+freedom of the press; the extension of manhood suffrage; the abolition of
+restrictions against Catholics in Parliament; the establishment of hundreds
+of popular schools, under the leadership of Andrew Bell and Joseph
+Lancaster,--these are but a few of the reforms which mark the progress of
+civilization in a single half century. When England, in 1833, proclaimed
+the emancipation of all slaves in all her colonies, she unconsciously
+proclaimed her final emancipation from barbarism.
+
+LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE. It is intensely interesting to note
+how literature at first reflected the political turmoil of the age; and
+then, when the turmoil was over and England began her mighty work of
+reform, how literature suddenly developed a new creative spirit, which
+shows itself in the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats,
+and in the prose of Scott, Jane Austen, Lamb, and De Quincey,--a wonderful
+group of writers, whose patriotic enthusiasm suggests the Elizabethan days,
+and whose genius has caused their age to be known as the second creative
+period of our literature. Thus in the early days, when old institutions
+seemed crumbling with the Bastille, Coleridge and Southey formed their
+youthful scheme of a "Pantisocracy on the banks of the Susquehanna,"--an
+ideal commonwealth, in which the principles of More's _Utopia_ should be
+put in practice. Even Wordsworth, fired with political enthusiasm, could
+write,
+
+    Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
+    But to be young was very heaven.
+
+The essence of Romanticism was, it must be remembered, that literature must
+reflect all that is spontaneous and unaffected in nature and in man, and be
+free to follow its own fancy in its own way. We have already noted this
+characteristic in the work of the Elizabethan dramatists, who followed
+their own genius in opposition to all the laws of the critics. In Coleridge
+we see this independence expressed in "Kubla Khan" and "The Ancient
+Mariner," two dream pictures, one of the populous Orient, the other of the
+lonely sea. In Wordsworth this literary independence led him inward to the
+heart of common things. Following his own instinct, as Shakespeare does, he
+too
+
+    Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
+    Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
+
+And so, more than any other writer of the age, he invests the common life
+of nature, and the souls of common men and women, with glorious
+significance. These two poets, Coleridge and Wordsworth, best represent the
+romantic genius of the age in which they lived, though Scott had a greater
+literary reputation, and Byron and Shelley had larger audiences.
+
+The second characteristic of this age is that it is emphatically an age of
+poetry. The previous century, with its practical outlook on life, was
+largely one of prose; but now, as in the Elizabethan Age, the young
+enthusiasts turned as naturally to poetry as a happy man to singing. The
+glory of the age is in the poetry of Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron,
+Shelley, Keats, Moore, and Southey. Of its prose works, those of Scott
+alone have attained a very wide reading, though the essays of Charles Lamb
+and the novels of Jane Austen have slowly won for their authors a secure
+place in the history of our literature. Coleridge and Southey (who with
+Wordsworth form the trio of so-called Lake Poets) wrote far more prose than
+poetry; and Southey's prose is much better than his verse. It was
+characteristic of the spirit of this age, so different from our own, that
+Southey could say that, in order to earn money, he wrote in verse "what
+would otherwise have been better written in prose."
+
+It was during this period that woman assumed, for the first time, an
+important place in our literature. Probably the chief reason for this
+interesting phenomenon lies in the fact that woman was for the first time
+given some slight chance of education, of entering into the intellectual
+life of the race; and as is always the case when woman is given anything
+like a fair opportunity she responded magnificently. A secondary reason may
+be found in the nature of the age itself, which was intensely emotional.
+The French Revolution stirred all Europe to its depths, and during the
+following half century every great movement in literature, as in politics
+and religion, was characterized by strong emotion; which is all the more
+noticeable by contrast with the cold, formal, satiric spirit of the early
+eighteenth century. As woman is naturally more emotional than man, it may
+well be that the spirit of this emotional age attracted her, and gave her
+the opportunity to express herself in literature.
+
+As all strong emotions tend to extremes, the age produced a new type of
+novel which seems rather hysterical now, but which in its own day delighted
+multitudes of readers whose nerves were somewhat excited, and who reveled
+in "bogey" stories of supernatural terror. Mrs. Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823)
+was one of the most successful writers of this school of exaggerated
+romance. Her novels, with their azure-eyed heroines, haunted castles,
+trapdoors, bandits, abductions, rescues in the nick of time, and a general
+medley of overwrought joys and horrors,[219] were immensely popular, not
+only with the crowd of novel readers, but also with men of unquestioned
+literary genius, like Scott and Byron.
+
+In marked contrast to these extravagant stories is the enduring work of
+Jane Austen, with her charming descriptions of everyday life, and of Maria
+Edgeworth, whose wonderful pictures of Irish life suggested to Walter Scott
+the idea of writing his Scottish romances. Two other women who attained a
+more or less lasting fame were Hannah More, poet, dramatist, and novelist,
+and Jane Porter, whose _Scottish Chiefs_ and _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ are still
+in demand in our libraries. Beside these were Fanny Burney (Madame
+D'Arblay) and several other writers whose works, in the early part of the
+nineteenth century, raised woman to the high place in literature which she
+has ever since maintained.
+
+In this age literary criticism became firmly established by the appearance
+of such magazines as the _Edinburgh Review_ (18O2), _The Quarterly Review_
+(1808), _Blackwood's Magazine_ (1817), the _Westminster Review_ (1824),
+_The Spectator_ (1828), _The Athenæum_ (1828), and _Fraser's Magazine_
+(1830). These magazines, edited by such men as Francis Jeffrey, John Wilson
+(who is known to us as Christopher North), and John Gibson Lockhart, who
+gave us the _Life of Scott_, exercised an immense influence on all
+subsequent literature. At first their criticisms were largely destructive,
+as when Jeffrey hammered Scott, Wordsworth, and Byron most unmercifully;
+and Lockhart could find no good in either Keats or Tennyson; but with added
+wisdom, criticism assumed its true function of construction. And when these
+magazines began to seek and to publish the works of unknown writers, like
+Hazlitt, Lamb, and Leigh Hunt, they discovered the chief mission of the
+modern magazine, which is to give every writer of ability the opportunity
+to make his work known to the world.
+
+
+I. THE POETS OF ROMANTICISM
+
+WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)
+
+It was in 1797 that the new romantic movement in our literature assumed
+definite form. Wordsworth and Coleridge retired to the Quantock Hills,
+Somerset, and there formed the deliberate purpose to make literature
+"adapted to interest mankind permanently," which, they declared, classic
+poetry could never do. Helping the two poets was Wordsworth's sister
+Dorothy, with a woman's love for flowers and all beautiful things; and a
+woman's divine sympathy for human life even in its lowliest forms. Though a
+silent partner, she furnished perhaps the largest share of the inspiration
+which resulted in the famous _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798. In their
+partnership Coleridge was to take up the "supernatural, or at least
+romantic"; while Wordsworth was "to give the charm of novelty to things of
+everyday ... by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom
+and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us."
+The whole spirit of their work is reflected in two poems of this remarkable
+little volume, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," which is Coleridge's
+masterpiece, and "Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey," which
+expresses Wordsworth's poetical creed, and which is one of the noblest and
+most significant of our poems. That the _Lyrical Ballads_ attracted no
+attention,[220] and was practically ignored by a public that would soon go
+into raptures over Byron's _Childe Harold_ and _Don Juan_, is of small
+consequence. Many men will hurry a mile to see skyrockets, who never notice
+Orion and the Pleiades from their own doorstep. Had Wordsworth and
+Coleridge written only this one little book, they would still be among the
+representative writers of an age that proclaimed the final triumph of
+Romanticism.
+
+LIFE OF WORDSWORTH. To understand the life of him who, in Tennyson's words,
+"uttered nothing base," it is well to read first _The Prelude_, which
+records the impressions made upon Wordsworth's mind from his earliest
+recollection until his full manhood, in 1805, when the poem was
+completed.[221] Outwardly his long and uneventful life divides itself
+naturally into four periods: (1) his childhood and youth, in the Cumberland
+Hills, from 1770 to 1787; (2) a period of uncertainty, of storm and stress,
+including his university life at Cambridge, his travels abroad, and his
+revolutionary experience, from 1787 to 1797; (3) a short but significant
+period of finding himself and his work, from 1797 to 1799; (4) a long
+period of retirement in the northern lake region, where he was born, and
+where for a full half century he lived so close to nature that her
+influence is reflected in all his poetry. When one has outlined these four
+periods he has told almost all that can be told of a life which is marked,
+not by events, but largely by spiritual experiences.
+
+Wordsworth was born in 1770 at Cockermouth, Cumberland, where the Derwent,
+
+          Fairest of all rivers, loved
+    To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song,
+    And from his alder shades and rocky falls,
+    And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice
+    That flowed along my dreams.
+
+It is almost a shock to one who knows Wordsworth only by his calm and noble
+poetry to read that he was of a moody and violent temper, and that his
+mother despaired of him alone among her five children. She died when he was
+but eight years old, but not till she had exerted an influence which lasted
+all his life, so that he could remember her as "the heart of all our
+learnings and our loves." The father died some six years later, and the
+orphan was taken in charge by relatives, who sent him to school at
+Hawkshead, in the beautiful lake region. Here, apparently, the unroofed
+school of nature attracted him more than the discipline of the classics,
+and he learned more eagerly from the flowers and hills and stars than from
+his books; but one must read Wordsworth's own record, in _The Prelude_, to
+appreciate this. Three things in this poem must impress even the casual
+reader: first, Wordsworth loves to be alone, and is never lonely, with
+nature; second, like every other child who spends much time alone in the
+woods and fields, he feels the presence of some living spirit, real though
+unseen, and companionable though silent; third, his impressions are exactly
+like our own, and delightfully familiar. When he tells of the long summer
+day spent in swimming, basking in the sun, and questing over the hills; or
+of the winter night when, on his skates, he chased the reflection of a star
+in the black ice; or of his exploring the lake in a boat, and getting
+suddenly frightened when the world grew big and strange,--in all this he is
+simply recalling a multitude of our own vague, happy memories of childhood.
+He goes out into the woods at night to tend his woodcock snares; he runs
+across another boy's snares, follows them, finds a woodcock caught, takes
+it, hurries away through the night. And then,
+
+    I heard among the solitary hills
+    Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
+    Of undistinguishable motion.
+
+That is like a mental photograph. Any boy who has come home through the
+woods at night will recognize it instantly. Again he tells as of going
+bird's-nesting on the cliffs:
+
+            Oh, when I have hung
+    Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass
+    And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock
+    But ill-sustained, and almost (so it seemed)
+    Suspended by the blast that blew amain,
+    Shouldering the naked crag,--oh, at that time,
+    While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,
+    With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind
+    Blow through my ear! The sky seemed not a sky
+    Of earth,--and with what motion moved the clouds!
+
+No man can read such records without finding his own boyhood again, and his
+own abounding joy of life, in the poet's early impressions.
+
+The second period of Wordsworth's life begins with his university course at
+Cambridge, in 1787. In the third book of _The Prelude_ we find a
+dispassionate account of student life, with its trivial occupations, its
+pleasures and general aimlessness. Wordsworth proved to be a very ordinary
+scholar, following his own genius rather than the curriculum, and looking
+forward more eagerly to his vacation among the hills than to his
+examinations. Perhaps the most interesting thing in his life at Cambridge
+was his fellowship with the young political enthusiasts, whose spirit is
+expressed in his remarkable poem on the French Revolution,--a poem which is
+better than a volume of history to show the hopes and ambitions that
+stirred all Europe in the first days of that mighty upheaval. Wordsworth
+made two trips to France, in 1790 and 1791, seeing things chiefly through
+the rosy spectacles of the young Oxford Republicans. On his second visit he
+joined the Girondists, or the moderate Republicans, and only the decision
+of his relatives, who cut off his allowance and hurried him back to
+England, prevented his going headlong to the guillotine with the leaders of
+his party. Two things rapidly cooled Wordsworth's revolutionary enthusiasm,
+and ended the only dramatic interest of his placid life. One was the
+excesses of the Revolution itself, and especially the execution of Louis
+XVI; the other was the rise of Napoleon, and the slavish adulation accorded
+by France to this most vulgar and dangerous of tyrants. His coolness soon
+grew to disgust and opposition, as shown by his subsequent poems; and this
+brought upon him the censure of Shelley, Byron, and other extremists,
+though it gained the friendship of Scott, who from the first had no
+sympathy with the Revolution or with the young English enthusiasts.
+
+Of the decisive period of Wordsworth's life, when he was living with his
+sister Dorothy and with Coleridge at Alfoxden, we have already spoken. The
+importance of this decision to give himself to poetry is evident when we
+remember that, at thirty years of age, he was without money or any definite
+aim or occupation in life. He considered the law, but confessed he had no
+sympathy for its contradictory precepts and practices; he considered the
+ministry, but though strongly inclined to the Church, he felt himself not
+good enough for the sacred office; once he had wanted to be a soldier and
+serve his country, but had wavered at the prospect of dying of disease in a
+foreign land and throwing away his life without glory or profit to anybody.
+An apparent accident, which looks more to us like a special Providence,
+determined his course. He had taken care of a young friend, Raisley
+Calvert, who died of consumption and left Wordsworth heir to a few hundred
+pounds, and to the request that he should give his life to poetry. It was
+this unexpected gift which enabled Wordsworth to retire from the world and
+follow his genius. All his life he was poor, and lived in an atmosphere of
+plain living and high thinking. His poetry brought him almost nothing in
+the way of money rewards, and it was only by a series of happy accidents
+that he was enabled to continue his work. One of these accidents was that
+he became a Tory, and soon accepted the office of a distributor of stamps,
+and was later appointed poet laureate by the government,--which occasioned
+Browning's famous but ill-considered poem of "The Lost Leader":
+
+    Just for a handful of silver he left us,
+    Just for a riband to stick in his coat.
+
+The last half century of Wordsworth's life, in which he retired to his
+beloved lake district and lived successively at Grasmere and Rydal Mount,
+remind one strongly of Browning's long struggle for literary recognition.
+It was marked by the same steadfast purpose, the same trusted ideal, the
+same continuous work, and the same tardy recognition by the public. His
+poetry was mercilessly ridiculed by nearly all the magazine critics, who
+seized upon the worst of his work as a standard of judgment; and book after
+book of poems appeared without meeting any success save the approval of a
+few loyal friends. Without doubt or impatience he continued his work,
+trusting to the future to recognize and approve it. His attitude here
+reminds one strongly of the poor old soldier whom he met in the hills,[222]
+who refused to beg or to mention his long service or the neglect of his
+country, saying with noble simplicity,
+
+      My trust is in the God of Heaven
+    And in the eye of him who passes me.
+
+Such work and patience are certain of their reward, and long before
+Wordsworth's death he felt the warm sunshine of general approval. The wave
+of popular enthusiasm for Scott and Byron passed by, as their limitations
+were recognized; and Wordsworth was hailed by critics as the first living
+poet, and one of the greatest that England had ever produced. On the death
+of Southey (1843) he was made poet laureate, against his own inclination.
+The late excessive praise left him quite as unmoved as the first excessive
+neglect. The steady decline in the quality of his work is due not, as might
+be expected, to self-satisfaction at success, but rather to his intense
+conservatism, to his living too much alone and failing to test his work by
+the standards and judgment of other literary men. He died tranquilly in
+1850, at the age of eighty years, and was buried in the churchyard at
+Grasmere.
+
+Such is the brief outward record of the world's greatest interpreter of
+nature's message; and only one who is acquainted with both nature and the
+poet can realize how inadequate is any biography; for the best thing about
+Wordsworth must always remain unsaid. It is a comfort to know that his
+life, noble, sincere, "heroically happy," never contradicted his message.
+Poetry was his life; his soul was in all his work; and only by reading what
+he has written can we understand the man.
+
+THE POETRY OF WORDSWORTH. There is often a sense of disappointment when one
+reads Wordsworth for the first time; and this leads us to speak first of
+two difficulties which may easily prevent a just appreciation of the poet's
+worth. The first difficulty is in the reader, who is often puzzled by
+Wordsworth's absolute simplicity. We are so used to stage effects in
+poetry, that beauty unadorned is apt to escape our notice,--like
+Wordsworth's "Lucy":
+
+    A violet by a mossy stone,
+      Half hidden from the eye;
+    Fair as a star, when only one
+      Is shining in the sky.
+
+Wordsworth set himself to the task of freeing poetry from all its
+"conceits," of speaking the language of simple truth, and of portraying man
+and nature as they are; and in this good work we are apt to miss the
+beauty, the passion, the intensity, that hide themselves under his simplest
+lines. The second difficulty is in the poet, not in the reader. It must be
+confessed that Wordsworth is not always melodious; that he is seldom
+graceful, and only occasionally inspired. When he is inspired, few poets
+can be compared with him; at other times the bulk of his verse is so wooden
+and prosy that we wonder how a poet could have written it. Moreover he is
+absolutely without humor, and so he often fails to see the small step that
+separates the sublime from the ridiculous. In no other way can we explain
+"The Idiot Boy," or pardon the serious absurdity of "Peter Bell" and his
+grieving jackass.
+
+On account of these difficulties it is well to avoid at first the longer
+works and begin with a good book of selections.[223] When we read these
+exquisite shorter poems, with their noble lines that live forever in our
+memory, we realize that Wordsworth is the greatest poet of nature that our
+literature has produced. If we go further, and study the poems that impress
+us, we shall find four remarkable characteristics: (1) Wordsworth is
+sensitive as a barometer to every subtle change in the world about him. In
+_The Prelude_ he compares himself to an æolian harp, which answers with
+harmony to every touch of the wind; and the figure is strikingly accurate,
+as well as interesting, for there is hardly a sight or a sound, from a
+violet to a mountain and from a bird note to the thunder of the cataract,
+that is not reflected in some beautiful way in Wordsworth's poetry.
+
+(2) Of all the poets who have written of nature there is none that compares
+with him in the truthfulness of his representation. Burns, like Gray, is
+apt to read his own emotions into natural objects, so that there is more of
+the poet than of nature even in his mouse and mountain daisy; but
+Wordsworth gives you the bird and the flower, the wind and the tree and the
+river, just as they are, and is content to let them speak their own
+message.
+
+(3) No other poet ever found such abundant beauty in the common world. He
+had not only sight, but insight, that is, he not only sees clearly and
+describes accurately, but penetrates to the heart of things and always
+finds some exquisite meaning that is not written on the surface. It is idle
+to specify or to quote lines on flowers or stars, on snow or vapor. Nothing
+is ugly or commonplace in his world; on the contrary, there is hardly one
+natural phenomenon which he has not glorified by pointing out some beauty
+that was hidden from our eyes.
+
+(4) It is the _life_ of nature which is everywhere recognized; not mere
+growth and cell changes, but sentient, personal life; and the recognition
+of this personality in nature characterizes all the world's great poetry.
+In his childhood Wordsworth regarded natural objects, the streams, the
+hills, the flowers, even the winds, as his companions; and with his mature
+belief that all nature is the reflection of the living God, it was
+inevitable that his poetry should thrill with the sense of a Spirit that
+"rolls through all things." Cowper, Burns, Keats, Tennyson,--all these
+poets give you the outward aspects of nature in varying degrees; but
+Wordsworth gives you her very life, and the impression of some personal
+living spirit that meets and accompanies the man who goes alone through the
+woods and fields. We shall hardly find, even in the philosophy of Leibnitz,
+or in the nature myths of our Indians, any such impression of living nature
+as this poet awakens in us. And that suggests another delightful
+characteristic of Wordsworth's poetry, namely, that he seems to awaken
+rather than create an impression; he stirs our memory deeply, so that in
+reading him we live once more in the vague, beautiful wonderland of our own
+childhood.
+
+Such is the philosophy of Wordsworth's nature poetry. If we search now for
+his philosophy of human life, we shall find four more doctrines, which rest
+upon his basal conception that man is not apart from nature, but is the
+very "life of her life." (1) In childhood man is sensitive as a wind harp
+to all natural influences; he is an epitome of the gladness and beauty of
+the world. Wordsworth explains this gladness and this sensitiveness to
+nature by the doctrine that the child comes straight from the Creator of
+nature:
+
+    Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
+    The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
+      Hath had elsewhere its setting,
+        And cometh from afar:
+      Not in entire forgetfulness
+      And not in utter nakedness,
+    But trailing clouds of glory do we come
+      From God, who is our home.
+
+In this exquisite ode, which he calls "Intimations of Immortality from
+Recollections of Early Childhood" (1807), Wordsworth sums up his philosophy
+of childhood; and he may possibly be indebted here to the poet Vaughan,
+who, more than a century before, had proclaimed in "The Retreat" the same
+doctrine. This kinship with nature and with God, which glorifies childhood,
+ought to extend through a man's whole life and ennoble it. This is the
+teaching of "Tintern Abbey," in which the best part of our life is shown to
+be the result of natural influences. According to Wordsworth, society and
+the crowded unnatural life of cities tend to weaken and pervert humanity;
+and a return to natural and simple living is the only remedy for human
+wretchedness.
+
+(2) The natural instincts and pleasures of childhood are the true standards
+of a man's happiness in this life. All artificial pleasures soon grow
+tiresome. The natural pleasures, which a man so easily neglects in his
+work, are the chief means by which we may expect permanent and increasing
+joy. In "Tintern Abbey," "The Rainbow," "Ode to Duty," and "Intimations of
+Immortality" we see this plain teaching; but we can hardly read one of
+Wordsworth's pages without finding it slipped in unobtrusively, like the
+fragrance of a wild flower.
+
+(3) The _truth_ of humanity, that is, the common life which labors and loves
+and shares the general heritage of smiles and tears, is the only subject of
+permanent literary interest. Burns and the early poets of the Revival began
+the good work of showing the romantic interest of common life; and
+Wordsworth continued it in "Michael," "The Solitary Reaper," "To a Highland
+Girl," "Stepping Westward," _The Excursion_, and a score of lesser poems.
+Joy and sorrow, not of princes or heroes, but "in widest commonalty
+spread," are his themes; and the hidden purpose of many of his poems is to
+show that the keynote of all life is happiness,--not an occasional thing,
+the result of chance or circumstance, but a heroic thing, to be won, as one
+would win any other success, by work and patience.
+
+(4) To this natural philosophy of man Wordsworth adds a mystic element, the
+result of his own belief that in every natural object there is a reflection
+of the living God. Nature is everywhere transfused and illumined by Spirit;
+man also is a reflection of the divine Spirit; and we shall never
+understand the emotions roused by a flower or a sunset until we learn that
+nature appeals through the eye of man to his inner spirit. In a word,
+nature must be "spiritually discerned." In "Tintern Abbey" the spiritual
+appeal of nature is expressed in almost every line; but the mystic
+conception of man is seen more clearly in "Intimations of Immortality,"
+which Emerson calls "the high-water mark of poetry in the nineteenth
+century." In this last splendid ode Wordsworth adds to his spiritual
+interpretation of nature and man the alluring doctrine of preëxistence,
+which has appealed so powerfully to Hindoo and Greek in turn, and which
+makes of human life a continuous, immortal thing, without end or beginning.
+
+Wordsworth's longer poems, since they contain much that is prosy and
+uninteresting, may well be left till after we have read the odes, sonnets,
+and short descriptive poems that have made him famous. As showing a certain
+heroic cast of Wordsworth's mind, it is interesting to learn that the
+greater part of his work, including _The Prelude_ and _The Excursion_, was
+intended for a place in a single great poem, to be called _The Recluse_,
+which should treat of nature, man, and society. _The Prelude_, treating of
+the growth of a poet's mind, was to introduce the work. The _Home at
+Grasmere_, which is the first book of _The Recluse_, was not published till
+1888, long after the poet's death. _The Excursion_ (1814) is the second
+book of _The Recluse_; and the third was never completed, though Wordsworth
+intended to include most of his shorter poems in this third part, and so
+make an immense personal epic of a poet's life and work. It is perhaps just
+as well that the work remained unfinished. The best of his work appeared in
+the _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798) and in the sonnets, odes, and lyrics of the
+next ten years; though "The Duddon Sonnets" (1820), "To a Skylark" (1825),
+and "Yarrow Revisited" (1831) show that he retained till past sixty much of
+his youthful enthusiasm. In his later years, however, he perhaps wrote too
+much; his poetry, like his prose, becomes dull and unimaginative; and we
+miss the flashes of insight, the tender memories of childhood, and the
+recurrence of noble lines--each one a poem--that constitutes the surprise
+and the delight of reading Wordsworth.
+
+    The outward shows of sky and earth,
+      Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
+    And impulses of deeper birth
+      Have come to him in solitude.
+    In common things that round us lie
+      Some random truths he can impart--
+    The harvest of a quiet eye
+      That broods and sleeps on his own heart.
+
+
+SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834)
+
+    A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,
+      A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
+    Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
+      In word, or sigh, or tear.
+
+In the wonderful "Ode to Dejection," from which the above fragment is
+taken, we have a single strong impression of Coleridge's whole life,--a
+sad, broken, tragic life, in marked contrast with the peaceful existence of
+his friend Wordsworth. For himself, during the greater part of his life,
+the poet had only grief and remorse as his portion; but for everybody else,
+for the audiences that were charmed by the brilliancy of his literary
+lectures, for the friends who gathered about him to be inspired by his
+ideals and conversation, and for all his readers who found unending delight
+in the little volume which holds his poetry, he had and still has a
+cheering message, full of beauty and hope and inspiration. Such is
+Coleridge, a man of grief who makes the world glad.
+
+LIFE. In 1772 there lived in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, a queer little
+man, the Rev. John Coleridge, vicar of the parish church and master of the
+local grammar school. In the former capacity he preached profound sermons,
+quoting to open-mouthed rustics long passages from the Hebrew, which he
+told them was the very tongue of the Holy Ghost. In the latter capacity he
+wrote for his boys a new Latin grammar, to mitigate some of the
+difficulties of traversing that terrible jungle by means of ingenious
+bypaths and short cuts. For instance, when his boys found the ablative a
+somewhat difficult case to understand, he told them to think of it as the
+_quale-quare-quidditive_ case, which of course makes its meaning perfectly
+clear. In both these capacities the elder Coleridge was a sincere man,
+gentle and kindly, whose memory was "like a religion" to his sons and
+daughters. In that same year was born Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the youngest
+of thirteen children. He was an extraordinarily precocious child, who could
+read at three years of age, and who, before he was five, had read the Bible
+and the Arabian Nights, and could remember an astonishing amount from both
+books. From three to six he attended a "dame" school; and from six till
+nine (when his father died and left the family destitute) he was in his
+father's school, learning the classics, reading an enormous quantity of
+English books, avoiding novels, and delighting in cumbrous theological and
+metaphysical treatises. At ten he was sent to the Charity School of
+Christ's Hospital, London, where he met Charles Lamb, who records his
+impression of the place and of Coleridge in one of his famous essays.[224]
+Coleridge seems to have remained in this school for seven or eight years
+without visiting his home,--a poor, neglected boy, whose comforts and
+entertainments were all within himself. Just as, when a little child, he
+used to wander over the fields with a stick in his hand, slashing the tops
+from weeds and thistles, and thinking himself to be the mighty champion of
+Christendom against the infidels, so now he would lie on the roof of the
+school, forgetting the play of his fellows and the roar of the London
+streets, watching the white clouds drifting over and following them in
+spirit into all sorts of romantic adventures.
+
+At nineteen this hopeless dreamer, who had read more books than an old
+professor, entered Cambridge as a charity student. He remained for nearly
+three years, then ran away because of a trifling debt and enlisted in the
+Dragoons, where he served several months before he was discovered and
+brought back to the university. He left in 1794 without taking his degree;
+and presently we find him with the youthful Southey,--a kindred spirit, who
+had been fired to wild enthusiasm by the French Revolution,--founding his
+famous Pantisocracy for the regeneration of human society. "The Fall of
+Robespierre," a poem composed by the two enthusiasts, is full of the new
+revolutionary spirit. The Pantisocracy, on the banks of the Susquehanna,
+was to be an ideal community, in which the citizens combined farming and
+literature; and work was to be limited to two hours each day. Moreover,
+each member of the community was to marry a good woman, and take her with
+him. The two poets obeyed the latter injunction first, marrying two
+sisters, and then found that they had no money to pay even their traveling
+expenses to the new Utopia.
+
+During all the rest of his career a tragic weakness of will takes
+possession of Coleridge, making it impossible for him, with all his genius
+and learning, to hold himself steadily to any one work or purpose. He
+studied in Germany; worked as a private secretary, till the drudgery wore
+upon his free spirit; then he went to Rome and remained for two years, lost
+in study. Later he started _The Friend_, a paper devoted to truth and
+liberty; lectured on poetry and the fine arts to enraptured audiences in
+London, until his frequent failures to meet his engagements scattered his
+hearers; was offered an excellent position and a half interest (amounting
+to some £2000) in the _Morning Post_ and _The Courier_, but declined it,
+saying "that I would not give up the country and the lazy reading of old
+folios for two thousand times two thousand pounds,--in short, that beyond
+£350 a year I considered money a real evil." His family, meanwhile, was
+almost entirely neglected; he lived apart, following his own way, and the
+wife and children were left in charge of his friend Southey. Needing money,
+he was on the point of becoming a Unitarian minister, when a small pension
+from two friends enabled him to live for a few years without regular
+employment.
+
+A terrible shadow in Coleridge's life was the apparent cause of most of his
+dejection. In early life he suffered from neuralgia, and to ease the pain
+began to use opiates. The result on such a temperament was almost
+inevitable. He became a slave to the drug habit; his naturally weak will
+lost all its directing and sustaining force, until, after fifteen years of
+pain and struggle and despair, he gave up and put himself in charge of a
+physician, one Mr. Gillman, of Highgate. Carlyle, who visited him at this
+time, calls him "a king of men," but records that "he gave you the idea of
+a life that had been full of sufferings, a life heavy-laden,
+half-vanquished, still swimming painfully in seas of manifold physical and
+other bewilderment."
+
+The shadow is dark indeed; but there are gleams of sunshine that
+occasionally break through the clouds. One of these is his association with
+Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, in the Quantock hills, out of which came
+the famous _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798. Another was his loyal devotion to
+poetry for its own sake. With the exception of his tragedy _Remorse_, which
+through Byron's influence was accepted at Drury Lane Theater, and for which
+he was paid £400, he received almost nothing for his poetry. Indeed, he
+seems not to have desired it; for he says: "Poetry has been to me its own
+exceeding great reward; it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied
+and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude, and it has given me
+the habit of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that
+meets and surrounds me." One can better understand his exquisite verse
+after such a declaration. A third ray of sunlight came from the admiration
+of his contemporaries; for though he wrote comparatively little, he was by
+his talents and learning a leader among literary men, and his conversations
+were as eagerly listened to as were those of Dr. Johnson. Wordsworth says
+of him that, though other men of the age had done some wonderful things,
+Coleridge was the only wonderful man he had ever known. Of his lectures on
+literature a contemporary says: "His words seem to flow as from a person
+repeating with grace and energy some delightful poem." And of his
+conversation it is recorded: "Throughout a long-drawn summer's day would
+this man talk to you in low, equable but clear and musical tones,
+concerning things human and divine; marshalling all history, harmonizing
+all experiment, probing the depths of your consciousness, and revealing
+visions of glory and terror to the imagination."
+
+The last bright ray of sunlight comes from Coleridge's own soul, from the
+gentle, kindly nature which made men love and respect him in spite of his
+weaknesses, and which caused Lamb to speak of him humorously as "an
+archangel a little damaged." The universal law of suffering seems to be
+that it refines and softens humanity; and Coleridge was no exception to the
+law. In his poetry we find a note of human sympathy, more tender and
+profound than can be found in Wordsworth or, indeed, in any other of the
+great English poets. Even in his later poems, when he has lost his first
+inspiration and something of the splendid imaginative power that makes his
+work equal to the best of Blake's, we find a soul tender, triumphant,
+quiet, "in the stillness of a great peace." He died in 1834, and was buried
+in Highgate Church. The last stanza of the boatman's song, in _Remorse_,
+serves better to express the world's judgment than any epitaph:
+
+    Hark! the cadence dies away
+    On the quiet moon-lit sea;
+    The boatmen rest their oars and say,
+      _Miserere Domini!_
+
+WORKS OF COLERIDGE. The works of Coleridge naturally divide themselves into
+three classes,--the poetic, the critical, and the philosophical,
+corresponding to the early, the middle, and the later periods of his
+career. Of his poetry Stopford Brooke well says: "All that he did
+excellently might be bound up in twenty pages, but it should be bound in
+pure gold." His early poems show the influence of Gray and Blake,
+especially of the latter. When Coleridge begins his "Day Dream" with the
+line, "My eyes make pictures when they're shut," we recall instantly
+Blake's haunting _Songs of Innocence_. But there is this difference between
+the two poets,--in Blake we have only a dreamer; in Coleridge we have the
+rare combination of the dreamer and the profound scholar. The quality of
+this early poetry, with its strong suggestion of Blake, may be seen in such
+poems as "A Day Dream," "The Devil's Thoughts," "The Suicide's Argument,"
+and "The Wanderings of Cain." His later poems, wherein we see his
+imagination bridled by thought and study, but still running very freely,
+may best be appreciated in "Kubla Khan," "Christabel," and "The Rime of the
+Ancient Mariner." It is difficult to criticise such poems; one can only
+read them and wonder at their melody, and at the vague suggestions which
+they conjure up in the mind. "Kubla Khan" is a fragment, painting a
+gorgeous Oriental dream picture, such as one might see in an October
+sunset. The whole poem came to Coleridge one morning when he had fallen
+asleep over Purchas, and upon awakening he began to write hastily,
+
+    In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
+    A stately pleasure-dome decree:
+    Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
+    Through caverns measureless to man
+    Down to a sunless sea.
+
+He was interrupted after fifty-four lines were written, and he never
+finished the poem.
+
+"Christabel" is also a fragment, which seems to have been planned as the
+story of a pure young girl who fell under the spell of a sorcerer, in the
+shape of the woman Geraldine. It is full of a strange melody, and contains
+many passages of exquisite poetry; but it trembles with a strange, unknown
+horror, and so suggests the supernatural terrors of the popular hysterical
+novels, to which we have referred. On this account it is not wholesome
+reading; though one flies in the face of Swinburne and of other critics by
+venturing to suggest such a thing.
+
+"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is Coleridge's chief contribution to the
+_Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798, and is one of the world's masterpieces. Though
+it introduces the reader to a supernatural realm, with a phantom ship, a
+crew of dead men, the overhanging curse of the albatross, the polar spirit,
+and the magic breeze, it nevertheless manages to create a sense of absolute
+reality concerning these manifest absurdities. All the mechanisms of the
+poem, its meter, rime, and melody are perfect; and some of its descriptions
+of the lonely sea have never been equaled. Perhaps we should say
+suggestions, rather than descriptions; for Coleridge never describes
+things, but makes a suggestion, always brief and always exactly right, and
+our own imagination instantly supplies the details. It is useless to quote
+fragments; one must read the entire poem, if he reads nothing else of the
+romantic school of poetry.
+
+Among Coleridge's shorter poems there is a wide variety, and each reader
+must be left largely to follow his own taste. The beginner will do well to
+read a few of the early poems, to which we have referred, and then try the
+"Ode to France," "Youth and Age," "Dejection," "Love Poems," "Fears in
+Solitude," "Religious Musings," "Work Without Hope," and the glorious "Hymn
+Before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni." One exquisite little poem from the
+Latin, "The Virgin's Cradle Hymn," and his version of Schiller's
+_Wallenstein_, show Coleridge's remarkable power as a translator. The
+latter is one of the best poetical translations in our literature.
+
+Of Coleridge's prose works, the _Biographia, Literaria, or Sketches of My
+Literary Life and Opinions_ (1817), his collected _Lectures on Shakespeare_
+(1849), and _Aids to Reflection_ (1825) are the most interesting from a
+literary view point. The first is an explanation and criticism of
+Wordsworth's theory of poetry, and contains more sound sense and
+illuminating ideas on the general subject of poetry than any other book in
+our language. The _Lectures_, as refreshing as a west wind in midsummer,
+are remarkable for their attempt to sweep away the arbitrary rules which
+for two centuries had stood in the way of literary criticism of
+Shakespeare, in order to study the works themselves. No finer analysis and
+appreciation of the master's genius has ever been written. In his
+philosophical work Coleridge introduced the idealistic philosophy of
+Germany into England. He set himself in line with Berkeley, and squarely
+against Bentham, Malthus, Mill, and all the materialistic tendencies which
+were and still are the bane of English philosophy. The _Aids to Reflection_
+is Coleridge's most profound work, but is more interesting to the student
+of religion and philosophy than to the readers of literature.
+
+
+ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774-1843)
+
+Closely associated with Wordsworth and Coleridge is Robert Southey; and the
+three, on account of their residence in the northern lake district, were
+referred to contemptuously as the "Lakers" by the Scottish magazine
+reviewers. Southey holds his place in this group more by personal
+association than by his literary gifts. He was born at Bristol, in 1774;
+studied at Westminster School, and at Oxford, where he found himself in
+perpetual conflict with the authorities on account of his independent
+views. He finally left the university and joined Coleridge in his scheme of
+a Pantisocracy. For more than fifty years he labored steadily at
+literature, refusing to consider any other occupation. He considered
+himself seriously as one of the greatest writers of the day, and a reading
+of his ballads--which connected him at once with the romantic school--leads
+us to think that, had he written less, he might possibly have justified his
+own opinion of himself. Unfortunately he could not wait for inspiration,
+being obliged to support not only his own family but also, in large
+measure, that of his friend Coleridge.
+
+Southey gradually surrounded himself with one of the most extensive
+libraries in England, and set himself to the task of of writing something
+every working day. The results of his industry were one hundred and nine
+volumes, besides some hundred and fifty articles for the magazines, most of
+which are now utterly forgotten. His most ambitious poems are _Thalaba_, a
+tale of Arabian enchantment; _The Curse of Kehama_, a medley of Hindoo
+mythology; _Madoc_, a legend of a Welsh prince who discovered the western
+world; and _Roderick_, a tale of the last of the Goths. All these, and many
+more, although containing some excellent passages, are on the whole
+exaggerated and unreal, both in manner and in matter. Southey wrote far
+better prose than poetry, and his admirable _Life of Nelson_ is still often
+read. Besides these are his _Lives of British Admirals_, his lives of
+Cowper and Wesley, and his histories of Brazil and of the Peninsular War.
+
+Southey was made Poet Laureate in 1813, and was the first to raise that
+office from the low estate into which it had fallen since the death of
+Dryden. The opening lines of Thalaba, beginning,
+
+    How beautiful is night!
+    A dewy freshness fills the silent air,
+
+are still sometimes quoted; and a few of his best known short poems, like
+"The Scholar," "Auld Cloots," "The Well of St. Keyne," "The Inchcape Rock,"
+and "Lodore," will repay the curious reader. The beauty of Southey's
+character, his patience and helpfulness, make him a worthy associate of the
+two greater poets with whom he is generally named.
+
+
+WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832)
+
+We have already called attention to two significant movements of the
+eighteenth century, which we must for a moment recall if we are to
+appreciate Scott, not simply as a delightful teller of tales, but as a
+tremendous force in modern literature. The first is the triumph of romantic
+poetry in Wordsworth and Coleridge; the second is the success of our first
+English novelists, and the popularization of literature by taking it from
+the control of a few patrons and critics and putting it into the hands of
+the people as one of the forces which mold our modern life. Scott is an
+epitome of both these movements. The poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge was
+read by a select few, but Scott's _Marmion_ and _Lady of the Lake_ aroused
+a whole nation to enthusiasm, and for the first time romantic poetry became
+really popular. So also the novel had been content to paint men and women
+of the present, until the wonderful series of Waverley novels appeared,
+when suddenly, by the magic of this "Wizard of the North," all history
+seemed changed. The past, which had hitherto appeared as a dreary region of
+dead heroes, became alive again, and filled with a multitude of men and
+women who had the surprising charm of reality. It is of small consequence
+that Scott's poetry and prose are both faulty; that his poems are read
+chiefly for the story, rather than for their poetic excellence; and that
+much of the evident crudity and barbarism of the Middle Ages is ignored or
+forgotten in Scott's writings. By their vigor, their freshness, their rapid
+action, and their breezy, out-of-door atmosphere, Scott's novels attracted
+thousands of readers who else had known nothing of the delights of
+literature. He is, therefore, the greatest known factor in establishing and
+in popularizing that romantic element in prose and poetry which has been
+for a hundred years the chief characteristic of our literature.
+
+LIFE. Scott was born in Edinburgh, on August 15, 1771. On both his mother's
+and father's side he was descended from old Border families, distinguished
+more for their feuds and fighting than for their intellectual attainments.
+His father was a barrister, a just man, who often lost clients by advising
+them to be, first of all, honest in their lawsuits. His mother was a woman
+of character and education, strongly imaginative, a teller of tales which
+stirred young Walter's enthusiasm by revealing the past as a world of
+living heroes.
+
+As a child, Scott was lame and delicate, and was therefore sent away from
+the city to be with his grandmother in the open country at Sandy Knowe, in
+Roxburghshire, near the Tweed. This grandmother was a perfect treasure-
+house of legends concerning the old Border feuds. From her wonderful tales
+Scott developed that intense love of Scottish history and tradition which
+characterizes all his work.
+
+By the time he was eight years old, when he returned to Edinburgh, Scott's
+tastes were fixed for life. At the high school he was a fair scholar, but
+without enthusiasm, being more interested in Border stories than in the
+text-books. He remained at school only six or seven years, and then entered
+his father's office to study law, at the same time attending lectures at
+the university. He kept this up for some six years without developing any
+interest in his profession, not even when he passed his examinations and
+was admitted to the Bar, in 1792. After nineteen years of desultory work,
+in which he showed far more zeal in gathering Highland legends than in
+gaining clients, he had won two small legal offices which gave him enough
+income to support him comfortably. His home, meanwhile, was at Ashestiel on
+the Tweed, where all his best poetry was written.
+
+Scott's literary work began with the translation from the German of
+Bürger's romantic ballad of _Lenore_ (1796) and of Goethe's _Götz von
+Berlichingen_ (1799); but there was romance enough in his own loved
+Highlands, and in 1802-1803 appeared three volumes of his _Minstrelsy of
+the Scottish Border_, which he had been collecting for many years. In 1805,
+when Scott was 34 years old, appeared his first original work, _The Lay of
+the Last Minstrel_. Its success was immediate, and when _Marmion_ (1808)
+and _The Lady of the Lake_ (1810) aroused Scotland and England to intense
+enthusiasm, and brought unexpected fame to the author,--without in the
+least spoiling his honest and lovable nature,--Scott gladly resolved to
+abandon the law, in which he had won scant success, and give himself wholly
+to literature. Unfortunately, however, in order to increase his earnings,
+he entered secretly into partnership with the firms of Constable and the
+brothers Ballantyne, as printer-publishers,--a sad mistake, indeed, and the
+cause of that tragedy which closed the life of Scotland's greatest writer.
+
+The year 1811 is remarkable for two things in Scott's life. In this year he
+seems to have realized that, notwithstanding the success of his poems, he
+had not yet "found himself"; that he was not a poetic genius, like Burns;
+that in his first three poems he had practically exhausted his material,
+though he still continued to write verse; and that, if he was to keep his
+popularity, he must find some other work. The fact that, only a year later,
+Byron suddenly became the popular favorite, shows how correctly Scott had
+judged himself and the reading public, which was even more fickle than
+usual in this emotional age. In that same year, 1811, Scott bought the
+estate of Abbotsford, on the Tweed, with which place his name is forever
+associated. Here he began to spend large sums, and to dispense the generous
+hospitality of a Scotch laird, of which he had been dreaming for years. In
+1820 he was made a baronet; and his new title of Sir Walter came nearer to
+turning his honest head than had all his literary success. His business
+partnership was kept secret, and during all the years when the Waverley
+novels were the most popular books in the world, their authorship remained
+unknown; for Scott deemed it beneath the dignity of his title to earn money
+by business or literature, and sought to give the impression that the
+enormous sums spent at Abbotsford in improving the estate and in
+entertaining lavishly were part of the dignity of the position and came
+from ancestral sources.
+
+It was the success of Byron's _Childe Harold_, and the comparative failure
+of Scott's later poems, _Rokeby_, _The Bridal of Triermain_, and _The Lord
+of the Isles_, which led our author into the new field, where he was to be
+without a rival. Rummaging through a cabinet one day in search of some
+fishing tackle, Scott found the manuscript of a story which he had begun
+and laid aside nine years before. He read this old story eagerly, as if it
+had been another's work; finished it within three weeks, and published it
+without signing his name. The success of this first novel, _Waverley_
+(1814), was immediate and unexpected. Its great sales and the general
+chorus of praise for its unknown author were without precedent; and when
+_Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, Black Dwarf, Old Mortality, Rob Roy_, and
+_The Heart of Midlothian_ appeared within the next four years, England's
+delight and wonder knew no bounds. Not only at home, but also on the
+Continent, large numbers of these fresh and fascinating stories were sold
+as fast as they could be printed.
+
+During the seventeen years which followed the appearance of _Waverley_,
+Scott wrote on an average nearly two novels per year, creating an unusual
+number of characters and illustrating many periods of Scotch, English, and
+French history, from the time of the Crusades to the fall of the Stuarts.
+In addition to these historical novels, he wrote _Tales of a Grandfather,
+Demonology and Witchcraft_, biographies of Dryden and of Swift, the _Life
+of Napoleon_, in nine volumes, and a large number of articles for the
+reviews and magazines. It was an extraordinary amount of literary work, but
+it was not quite so rapid and spontaneous as it seemed. He had been very
+diligent in looking up old records, and we must remember that, in nearly
+all his poems and novels, Scott was drawing upon a fund of legend,
+tradition, history, and poetry, which he had been gathering for forty
+years, and which his memory enabled him to produce at will with almost the
+accuracy of an encyclopedia.
+
+For the first six years Scott held himself to Scottish history, giving us
+in nine remarkable novels the whole of Scotland, its heroism, its superb
+faith and enthusiasm, and especially its clannish loyalty to its hereditary
+chiefs; giving us also all parties and characters, from Covenanters to
+Royalists, and from kings to beggars. After reading these nine volumes we
+know Scotland and Scotchmen as we can know them in no other way. In 1819 he
+turned abruptly from Scotland, and in _Ivanhoe_, the most popular of his
+works, showed what a mine of neglected wealth lay just beneath the surface
+of English history. It is hard to realize now, as we read its rapid,
+melodramatic action, its vivid portrayal of Saxon and Norman character, and
+all its picturesque details, that it was written rapidly, at a time when
+the author was suffering from disease and could hardly repress an
+occasional groan from finding its way into the rapid dictation. It stands
+to-day as the best example of the author's own theory that the will of a
+man is enough to hold him steadily, against all obstacles, to the task of
+"doing what he has a mind to do." _Kenilworth, Nigel, Peveril_, and
+_Woodstock_, all written in the next few years, show his grasp of the
+romantic side of English annals; _Count Robert_ and _The Talisman_ show his
+enthusiasm for the heroic side of the Crusaders' nature; and _Quentin
+Durward_ and _Anne of Geierstein_ suggest another mine of romance which he
+discovered in French history.
+
+For twenty years Scott labored steadily at literature, with the double
+object of giving what was in him, and of earning large sums to support the
+lavish display which he deemed essential to a laird of Scotland. In 1826,
+while he was blithely at work on _Woodstock_, the crash came. Not even the
+vast earnings of all these popular novels could longer keep the wretched
+business of Ballantyne on its feet, and the firm failed, after years of
+mismanagement. Though a silent partner, Scott assumed full responsibility,
+and at fifty-five years of age, sick, suffering, and with all his best work
+behind him, he found himself facing a debt of over half a million dollars.
+The firm could easily have compromised with its creditors; but Scott
+refused to hear of bankruptcy laws under which he could have taken refuge.
+He assumed the entire debt as a personal one, and set resolutely to work to
+pay every penny. Times were indeed changed in England when, instead of a
+literary genius starving until some wealthy patron gave him a pension, this
+man, aided by his pen alone, could confidently begin to earn that enormous
+amount of money. And this is one of the unnoticed results of the
+popularization of literature. Without a doubt Scott would have accomplished
+the task, had he been granted only a few years of health. He still lived at
+Abbotsford, which he had offered to his creditors, but which they
+generously refused to accept; and in two years, by miscellaneous work, had
+paid some two hundred thousand dollars of his debt, nearly half of this sum
+coming from his _Life of Napoleon_. A new edition of the Waverley novels
+appeared, which was very successful financially, and Scott had every reason
+to hope that he would soon face the world owing no man a penny, when he
+suddenly broke under the strain. In 1830 occurred a stroke of paralysis
+from which he never fully recovered; though after a little time he was
+again at work, dictating with splendid patience and resolution. He writes
+in his diary at this time: "The blow is a stunning one, I suppose, for I
+scarcely feel it. It is singular, but it comes with as little surprise as
+if I had a remedy ready, yet God knows I am at sea in the dark, and the
+vessel leaky."
+
+It is good to remember that governments are not always ungrateful, and to
+record that, when it became known that a voyage to Italy might improve
+Scott's health, the British government promptly placed a naval vessel at
+the disposal of a man who had led no armies to the slaughter, but had only
+given pleasure to multitudes of peaceable men and women by his stories. He
+visited Malta, Naples, and Rome; but in his heart he longed for Scotland,
+and turned homeward after a few months of exile. The river Tweed, the
+Scotch hills, the trees of Abbotsford, the joyous clamor of his dogs,
+brought forth the first exclamation of delight which had passed Scott's
+lips since he sailed away. He died in September of the same year, 1832, and
+was buried with his ancestors in the old Dryburgh Abbey.
+
+WORKS OF SCOTT. Scott's work is of a kind which the critic gladly passes
+over, leaving each reader to his own joyous and uninstructed opinion. From
+a literary view point the works are faulty enough, if one is looking for
+faults; but it is well to remember that they were intended to give delight,
+and that they rarely fail of their object. When one has read the stirring
+_Marmion_ or the more enduring _Lady of the Lake_, felt the heroism of the
+Crusaders in _The Talisman_, the picturesqueness of chivalry in _Ivanhoe_,
+the nobleness of soul of a Scotch peasant girl in _The Heart of
+Midlothian_, and the quality of Scotch faith in _Old Mortality_, then his
+own opinion of Scott's genius will be of more value than all the criticisms
+that have ever been written.
+
+At the outset we must confess frankly that Scott's poetry is not artistic,
+in the highest sense, and that it lacks the deeply imaginative and
+suggestive qualities which make a poem the noblest and most enduring work
+of humanity. We read it now, not for its poetic excellence, but for its
+absorbing story interest. Even so, it serves an admirable purpose.
+_Marmion_ and _The Lady of the Lake_, which are often the first long poems
+read by the beginner in literature, almost invariably lead to a deeper
+interest in the subject; and many readers owe to these poems an
+introduction to the delights of poetry. They are an excellent beginning,
+therefore, for young readers, since they are almost certain to hold the
+attention, and to lead indirectly to an interest in other and better poems.
+Aside from this, Scott's poetry is marked by vigor and youthful abandon;
+its interest lies in its vivid pictures, its heroic characters, and
+especially in its rapid action and succession of adventures, which hold and
+delight us still, as they held and delighted the first wondering readers.
+And one finds here and there terse descriptions, or snatches of song and
+ballad, like the "Boat Song" and "Lochinvar," which are among the best
+known in our literature.
+
+In his novels Scott plainly wrote too rapidly and too much. While a genius
+of the first magnitude, the definition of genius as "the infinite capacity
+for taking pains" hardly belongs to him. For details of life and history,
+for finely drawn characters, and for tracing the logical consequences of
+human action, he has usually no inclination. He sketches a character
+roughly, plunges him into the midst of stirring incidents, and the action
+of the story carries us on breathlessly to the end. So his stories are
+largely adventure stories, at the best; and it is this element of adventure
+and glorious action, rather than the study of character, which makes Scott
+a perennial favorite of the young. The same element of excitement is what
+causes mature readers to turn from Scott to better novelists, who have more
+power to delineate human character, and to create, or discover, a romantic
+interest in the incidents of everyday life rather than in stirring
+adventure.[225]
+
+Notwithstanding these limitations, it is well--especially in these days,
+when we hear that Scott is outgrown--to emphasize four noteworthy things
+that he accomplished.
+
+(1) He created the historical novel[226]; and all novelists of the last
+century who draw upon history for their characters and events are followers
+of Scott and acknowledge his mastery.
+
+(2) His novels are on a vast scale, covering a very wide range of action,
+and are concerned with public rather than with private interests. So, with
+the exception of _The Bride of Lammermoor_, the love story in his novels is
+generally pale and feeble; but the strife and passions of big parties are
+magnificently portrayed. A glance over even the titles of his novels shows
+how the heroic side of history for over six hundred years finds expression
+in his pages; and all the parties of these six centuries--Crusaders,
+Covenanters, Cavaliers, Roundheads, Papists, Jews, Gypsies, Rebels--start
+into life again, and fight or give a reason for the faith that is in them.
+No other novelist in England, and only Balzac in France, approaches Scott
+in the scope of his narratives.
+
+(3) Scott was the first novelist in any language to make the scene an
+essential element in the action. He knew Scotland, and loved it; and there
+is hardly an event in any of his Scottish novels in which we do not breathe
+the very atmosphere of the place, and feel the presence of its moors and
+mountains. The place, morever, is usually so well chosen and described that
+the action seems almost to be the result of natural environment. Perhaps
+the most striking illustration of this harmony between scene and incident
+is found in _Old Mortality_, where Morton approaches the cave of the old
+Covenanter, and where the spiritual terror inspired by the fanatic's
+struggle with imaginary fiends is paralleled by the physical terror of a
+gulf and a roaring flood spanned by a slippery tree trunk. A second
+illustration of the same harmony of scene and incident is found in the
+meeting of the arms and ideals of the East and West, when the two champions
+fight in the burning desert, and then eat bread together in the cool shade
+of the oasis, as described in the opening chapter of _The Talisman_. A
+third illustration is found in that fascinating love scene, where Ivanhoe
+lies wounded, raging at his helplessness, while the gentle Rebecca
+alternately hides and reveals her love as she describes the terrific
+assault on the castle, which goes on beneath her window. His thoughts are
+all on the fight; hers on the man she loves; and both are natural, and both
+are exactly what we expect under the circumstances. These are but striking
+examples of the fact that, in all his work, Scott tries to preserve perfect
+harmony between the scene and the action.
+
+(4) Scott's chief claim to greatness lies in the fact that he was the first
+novelist to recreate the past; that he changed our whole conception of
+history by making it to be, not a record of dry facts, but a stage on which
+living men and women played their parts. Carlyle's criticism is here most
+pertinent: "These historical novels have taught this truth ... unknown to
+writers of history: that the bygone ages of the world were actually filled
+by living men, not by protocols, state papers, controversies, and
+abstractions of men." Not only the pages of history, but all the hills and
+vales of his beloved Scotland are filled with living characters,--lords and
+ladies, soldiers, pirates, gypsies, preachers, schoolmasters, clansmen,
+bailiffs, dependents,--all Scotland is here before our eyes, in the reality
+of life itself. It is astonishing, with his large numbers of characters,
+that Scott never repeats himself. Naturally he is most at home in Scotland,
+and with humble people. Scott's own romantic interest in feudalism caused
+him to make his lords altogether too lordly; his aristocratic maidens are
+usually bloodless, conventional, exasperating creatures, who talk like
+books and pose like figures in an old tapestry. But when he describes
+characters like Jeanie Deans, in _The Heart of Midlothian_, and the old
+clansman, Evan Dhu, in _Waverley_, we know the very soul of Scotch
+womanhood and manhood.
+
+Perhaps one thing more should be said, or rather repeated, of Scott's
+enduring work. He is always sane, wholesome, manly, inspiring. We know the
+essential nobility of human life better, and we are better men and women
+ourselves, because of what he has written.
+
+
+GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON (1788-1824)
+
+There are two distinct sides to Byron and his poetry, one good, the other
+bad; and those who write about him generally describe one side or the other
+in superlatives. Thus one critic speaks of his "splendid and imperishable
+excellence of sincerity and strength"; another of his "gaudy charlatanry,
+blare of brass, and big bow-wowishness." As both critics are fundamentally
+right, we shall not here attempt to reconcile their differences, which
+arise from viewing one side of the man's nature and poetry to the exclusion
+of the other. Before his exile from England, in 1816, the general
+impression made by Byron is that of a man who leads an irregular life,
+poses as a romantic hero, makes himself out much worse than he really is,
+and takes delight in shocking not only the conventions but the ideals of
+English society. His poetry of this first period is generally, though not
+always, shallow and insincere in thought, and declamatory or bombastic in
+expression. After his exile, and his meeting with Shelley in Italy, we note
+a gradual improvement, due partly to Shelley's influence and partly to his
+own mature thought and experience. We have the impression now of a
+disillusioned man who recognizes his true character, and who, though
+cynical and pessimistic, is at least honest in his unhappy outlook on
+society. His poetry of this period is generally less shallow and
+rhetorical, and though he still parades his feelings in public, he often
+surprises us by being manly and sincere. Thus in the third canto of _Childe
+Harold_, written just after his exile, he says:
+
+    In my youth's summer I did sing of one,
+    The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;
+
+and as we read on to the end of the splendid fourth canto--with its poetic
+feeling for nature, and its stirring rhythm that grips and holds the reader
+like martial music--we lay down the book with profound regret that this
+gifted man should have devoted so much of his talent to describing trivial
+or unwholesome intrigues and posing as the hero of his own verses. The real
+tragedy of Byron's life is that he died just as he was beginning to find
+himself.
+
+LIFE. Byron was born in London in 1788, the year preceding the French
+Revolution. We shall understand him better, and judge him more charitably,
+if we remember the tainted stock from which he sprang. His father was a
+dissipated spendthrift of unspeakable morals; his mother was a Scotch
+heiress, passionate and unbalanced. The father deserted his wife after
+squandering her fortune; and the boy was brought up by the mother who
+"alternately petted and abused" him. In his eleventh year the death of a
+granduncle left him heir to Newstead Abbey and to the baronial title of one
+of the oldest houses in England. He was singularly handsome; and a lameness
+resulting from a deformed foot lent a suggestion of pathos to his make-up.
+All this, with his social position, his pseudo-heroic poetry, and his
+dissipated life,--over which he contrived to throw a veil of romantic
+secrecy,--made him a magnet of attraction to many thoughtless young men and
+foolish women, who made the downhill path both easy and rapid to one whose
+inclinations led him in that direction. Naturally he was generous, and
+easily led by affection. He is, therefore, largely a victim of his own
+weakness and of unfortunate surroundings.
+
+At school at Harrow, and in the university at Cambridge, Byron led an
+unbalanced life, and was more given to certain sports from which he was not
+debarred by lameness, than to books and study. His school life, like his
+infancy, is sadly marked by vanity, violence, and rebellion against every
+form of authority; yet it was not without its hours of nobility and
+generosity. Scott describes him as "a man of real goodness of heart, and
+the kindest and best feelings, miserably thrown away by his foolish
+contempt of public opinion." While at Cambridge, Byron published his first
+volume of poems, _Hours of Idleness_, in 1807. A severe criticism of the
+volume in the _Edinburgh Review_ wounded Byron's vanity, and threw him into
+a violent passion, the result of which was the now famous satire called
+_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, in which not only his enemies, but
+also Scott, Wordsworth, and nearly all the literary men of his day, were
+satirized in heroic couplets after the manner of Pope's _Dunciad_. It is
+only just to say that he afterwards made friends with Scott and with others
+whom he had abused without provocation; and it is interesting to note, in
+view of his own romantic poetry, that he denounced all masters of romance
+and accepted the artificial standards of Pope and Dryden. His two favorite
+books were the Old Testament and a volume of Pope's poetry. Of the latter
+he says, "His is the greatest name in poetry ... all the rest are
+barbarians."
+
+In 1809 Byron, when only twenty-one years of age, started on a tour of
+Europe and the Orient. The poetic results of this trip were the first two
+cantos of _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, with their famous descriptions of
+romantic scenery. The work made him instantly popular, and his fame
+overshadowed Scott's completely. As he says himself, "I awoke one morning
+to find myself famous," and presently he styles himself "the grand Napoleon
+of the realms of rhyme." The worst element in Byron at this time was his
+insincerity, his continual posing as the hero of his poetry. His best works
+were translated, and his fame spread almost as rapidly on the Continent as
+in England. Even Goethe was deceived, and declared that a man so wonderful
+in character had never before appeared in literature, and would never
+appear again. Now that the tinsel has worn off, and we can judge the man
+and his work dispassionately, we see how easily even the critics of the age
+were governed by romantic impulses.
+
+The adulation of Byron lasted only a few years in England. In 1815 he
+married Miss Milbanke, an English heiress, who abruptly left him a year
+later. With womanly reserve she kept silence; but the public was not slow
+to imagine plenty of reasons for the separation. This, together with the
+fact that men had begun to penetrate the veil of romantic secrecy with
+which Byron surrounded himself and found a rather brassy idol beneath,
+turned the tide of public opinion against him. He left England under a
+cloud of distrust and disappointment, in 1816, and never returned. Eight
+years were spent abroad, largely in Italy, where he was associated with
+Shelley until the latter's tragic death in 1822. His house was ever the
+meeting place for Revolutionists and malcontents calling themselves
+patriots, whom he trusted too greatly, and with whom he shared his money
+most generously. Curiously enough, while he trusted men too easily, he had
+no faith in human society or government, and wrote in 1817: "I have
+simplified my politics to an utter detestation of all existing
+governments." During his exile he finished _Childe Harold, The Prisoner of
+Chillon_, his dramas _Cain_ and _Manfred_, and numerous other works, in
+some of which, as in _Don Juan_, he delighted in revenging himself upon his
+countrymen by holding up to ridicule all that they held most sacred.
+
+In 1824 Byron went to Greece to give himself and a large part of his
+fortune to help that country in its struggle for liberty against the Turks.
+How far he was led by his desire for posing as a hero, and how far by a
+certain vigorous Viking spirit that was certainly in him, will never be
+known. The Greeks welcomed him and made him a leader, and for a few months
+he found himself in the midst of a wretched squabble of lies, selfishness,
+insincerity, cowardice, and intrigue, instead of the heroic struggle for
+liberty which he had anticipated. He died of fever, in Missolonghi, in
+1824. One of his last poems, written there on his thirty-sixth birthday, a
+few months before he died, expresses his own view of his disappointing
+life:
+
+    My days are in the yellow leaf,
+    The flowers and fruits of love are gone:
+    The worm, the canker, and the grief
+        Are mine alone.
+
+WORKS OF BYRON. In reading Byron it is well to remember that he was a
+disappointed and embittered man, not only in his personal life, but also in
+his expectation of a general transformation of human society. As he pours
+out his own feelings, chiefly, in his poetry, he is the most expressive
+writer of his age in voicing the discontent of a multitude of Europeans who
+were disappointed at the failure of the French Revolution to produce an
+entirely new form of government and society.
+
+One who wishes to understand the whole scope of Byron's genius and poetry
+will do well to begin with his first work, _Hours of Idleness_, written
+when he was a young man at the university. There is very little poetry in
+the volume, only a striking facility in rime, brightened by the devil-may-
+care spirit of the Cavalier poets; but as a revelation of the man himself
+it is remarkable. In a vain and sophomoric preface he declares that poetry
+is to him an idle experiment, and that this is his first and last attempt
+to amuse himself in that line. Curiously enough, as he starts for Greece on
+his last, fatal journey, he again ridicules literature, and says that the
+poet is a "mere babbler." It is this despising of the art which alone makes
+him famous that occasions our deepest disappointment. Even in his
+magnificent passages, in a glowing description of nature or of a Hindoo
+woman's exquisite love, his work is frequently marred by a wretched pun, or
+by some cheap buffoonery, which ruins our first splendid impression of his
+poetry.
+
+Byron's later volumes, _Manfred_ and _Cain_, the one a curious, and perhaps
+unconscious, parody of _Faust_, the other of _Paradise Lost_, are his two
+best known dramatic works. Aside from the question of their poetic value,
+they are interesting as voicing Byron's excessive individualism and his
+rebellion against society. The best known and the most readable of Byron's
+works _Mazeppa, The Prisoner of Chillon_, and _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_.
+The first two cantos of _Childe Harold_ (1812) are perhaps more frequently
+read than any other work of the same author, partly because of their
+melodious verse, partly because of their descriptions of places along the
+lines of European travel; but the last two cantos (1816-1818) written after
+his exile from England, have more sincerity, and are in every way better
+expressions of Byron's mature genius. Scattered through all his works one
+finds magnificent descriptions of natural scenery, and exquisite lyrics of
+love and despair; but they are mixed with such a deal of bombast and
+rhetoric, together with much that is unwholesome, that the beginner will do
+well to confine himself to a small volume of well-chosen selections.[227]
+
+Byron is often compared with Scott, as having given to us Europe and the
+Orient, just as Scott gave us Scotland and its people; but while there is a
+certain resemblance in the swing and dash of the verses, the resemblance is
+all on the surface, and the underlying difference between the two poets is
+as great as that between Thackeray and Bulwer-Lytton. Scott knew his
+country well,--its hills and valleys which are interesting as the abode of
+living and lovable men and women. Byron pretended to know the secret,
+unwholesome side of Europe, which generally hides itself in the dark; but
+instead of giving us a variety of living men, he never gets away from his
+own unbalanced and egotistical self. All his characters, in _Cain, Manfred,
+The Corsair, The Giaour, Childe Harold, Don Juan_, are tiresome repetitions
+of himself,--a vain, disappointed, cynical man, who finds no good in life
+or love or anything. Naturally, with such a disposition, he is entirely
+incapable of portraying a true woman. To nature alone, especially in her
+magnificent moods, Byron remains faithful; and his portrayal of the night
+and the storm and the ocean in _Childe Harold_ are unsurpassed in our
+language.
+
+
+PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822)
+
+    Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
+      What if my leaves are falling like its own!
+    The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
+      Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
+    Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
+      My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
+
+In this fragment, from the "Ode to the West Wind," we have a suggestion of
+Shelley's own spirit, as reflected in all his poetry. The very spirit of
+nature, which appeals to us in the wind and the cloud, the sunset and the
+moonrise, seems to have possessed him, at times, and made him a chosen
+instrument of melody. At such times he is a true poet, and his work is
+unrivaled. At other times, unfortunately, Shelley joins with Byron in
+voicing a vain rebellion against society. His poetry, like his life,
+divides itself into two distinct moods. In one he is the violent reformer,
+seeking to overthrow our present institutions and to hurry the millennium
+out of its slow walk into a gallop. Out of this mood come most of his
+longer poems, like _Queen Mab, Revolt of Islam, Hellas_, and _The Witch of
+Atlas_, which are somewhat violent diatribes against government, priests,
+marriage, religion, even God as men supposed him to be. In a different
+mood, which finds expression _Alastor, Adonais_, and his wonderful lyrics,
+Shelley is like a wanderer following a vague, beautiful vision, forever sad
+and forever unsatisfied. In the latter mood he appeals profoundly to all
+men who have known what it is to follow after an unattainable ideal.
+
+SHELLEY'S LIFE. There are three classes of men who see visions, and all
+three are represented in our literature. The first is the mere dreamer,
+like Blake, who stumbles through a world of reality without noticing it,
+and is happy in his visions. The second is the seer, the prophet, like
+Langland, or Wyclif, who sees a vision and quietly goes to work, in ways
+that men understand, to make the present world a little more like the ideal
+one which he sees in his vision. The third, who appears in many forms,--as
+visionary, enthusiast, radical, anarchist, revolutionary, call him what you
+will,--sees a vision and straightway begins to tear down all human
+institutions, which have been built up by the slow toil of centuries,
+simply because they seem to stand in the way of his dream. To the latter
+class belongs Shelley, a man perpetually at war with the present world, a
+martyr and exile, simply because of his inability to sympathize with men
+and society as they are, and because of his own mistaken judgment as to the
+value and purpose of a vision.
+
+Shelley was born in Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, in 1792. On both his
+father's and his mother's side he was descended from noble old families,
+famous in the political and literary history of England. From childhood he
+lived, like Blake, in a world of fancy, so real that certain imaginary
+dragons and headless creatures of the neighboring wood kept him and his
+sisters in a state of fearful expectancy. He learned rapidly, absorbed the
+classics as if by intuition, and, dissatisfied with ordinary processes of
+learning, seems to have sought, like Faustus, the acquaintance of spirits,
+as shown in his "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty":
+
+    While yet a boy, I sought for ghosts, and sped
+      Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
+      And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
+    Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
+
+Shelley's first public school, kept by a hard-headed Scotch master, with
+its floggings and its general brutality, seemed to him like a combination
+of hell and prison; and his active rebellion against existing institutions
+was well under way when, at twelve years of age, he entered the famous
+preparatory school at Eton. He was a delicate, nervous, marvelously
+sensitive boy, of great physical beauty; and, like Cowper, he suffered
+torments at the hands of his rough schoolfellows. Unlike Cowper, he was
+positive, resentful, and brave to the point of rashness; soul and body rose
+up against tyranny; and he promptly organized a rebellion against the
+brutal fagging system. "Mad Shelley" the boys called him, and they chivied
+him like dogs around a little coon that fights and cries defiance to the
+end. One finds what he seeks in this world, and it is not strange that
+Shelley, after his Eton experiences, found causes for rebellion in all
+existing forms of human society, and that he left school "to war among
+mankind," as he says of himself in the _Revolt of Islam_. His university
+days are but a repetition of his earlier experiences. While a student at
+Oxford he read some scraps of Hume's philosophy, and immediately published
+a pamphlet called "The Necessity of Atheism." It was a crude, foolish piece
+of work, and Shelley distributed it by post to every one to whom it might
+give offense. Naturally this brought on a conflict with the authorities,
+but Shelley would not listen to reason or make any explanation, and was
+expelled from the university in 1811.
+
+Shelley's marriage was even more unfortunate. While living in London, on a
+generous sister's pocket money, a certain young schoolgirl, Harriet
+Westbrook, was attracted by Shelley's crude revolutionary doctrines. She
+promptly left school, as her own personal part in the general rebellion,
+and refused to return or even to listen to her parents upon the subject.
+Having been taught by Shelley, she threw herself upon his protection; and
+this unbalanced couple were presently married, as they said, "in deference
+to anarch custom." The two infants had already proclaimed a rebellion
+against the institution of marriage, for which they proposed to substitute
+the doctrine of elective affinity. For two years they wandered about
+England, Ireland, and Wales, living on a small allowance from Shelley's
+father, who had disinherited his son because of his ill-considered
+marriage. The pair soon separated, and two years later Shelley, having
+formed a strong friendship with one Godwin,--a leader of young enthusiasts
+and a preacher of anarchy,--presently showed his belief in Godwin's
+theories by eloping with his daughter Mary. It is a sad story, and the
+details were perhaps better forgotten. We should remember that in Shelley
+we are dealing with a tragic blend of high-mindedness and light-headedness.
+Byron wrote of him, "The most gentle, the most amiable, and the least
+worldly-minded person I ever met!"
+
+Led partly by the general hostility against him, and partly by his own
+delicate health, Shelley went to Italy in 1818, and never returned to
+England. After wandering over Italy he finally settled in Pisa, beloved of
+so many English poets,--beautiful, sleepy Pisa, where one looks out of his
+window on the main street at the busiest hour of the day, and the only
+living thing in sight is a donkey, dozing lazily, with his head in the
+shade and his body in the sunshine. Here his best poetry was written, and
+here he found comfort in the friendship of Byron, Hunt, and Trelawney, who
+are forever associated with Shelley's Italian life. He still remained
+hostile to English social institutions; but life is a good teacher, and
+that Shelley dimly recognized the error of his rebellion is shown in the
+increasing sadness of his later poems:
+
+    O world, O life, O time!
+    On whose last steps I climb,
+      Trembling at that where I had stood before;
+    When will return the glory of your prime?
+      No more--oh, never more!
+    Out of the day and night
+    A joy has taken flight;
+      Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar,
+    Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
+      No more--oh, never more!
+
+In 1822, when only thirty years of age, Shelley was drowned while sailing
+in a small boat off the Italian coast. His body was washed ashore several
+days later, and was cremated, near Viareggio, by his friends, Byron, Hunt,
+and Trelawney. His ashes might, with all reverence, have been given to the
+winds that he loved and that were a symbol of his restless spirit; instead,
+they found a resting place near the grave of Keats, in the English cemetery
+at Rome. One rarely visits the spot now without finding English and
+American visitors standing in silence before the significant inscription,
+_Cor Cordium_.
+
+WORKS OF SHELLEY. As a lyric poet, Shelley is one of the supreme geniuses
+of our literature; and the reader will do well to begin with the poems
+which show him at his very best. "The Cloud," "To a Skylark," "Ode to the
+West Wind," "To Night,"--poems like these must surely set the reader to
+searching among Shelley's miscellaneous works, to find for himself the
+things "worthy to be remembered."
+
+In reading Shelley's longer poems one must remember that there are in this
+poet two distinct men: one, the wanderer, seeking ideal beauty and forever
+unsatisfied; the other, the unbalanced reformer, seeking the overthrow of
+present institutions and the establishment of universal happiness.
+_Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude_ (1816) is by far the best expression
+of Shelley's greater mood. Here we see him wandering restlessly through the
+vast silences of nature, in search of a loved dream-maiden who shall
+satisfy his love of beauty. Here Shelley is the poet of the moonrise, and
+of the tender exquisite fancies that can never be expressed. The charm of
+the poem lies in its succession of dreamlike pictures; but it gives
+absolutely no impressions of reality. It was written when Shelley, after
+his long struggle, had begun to realize that the world was too strong for
+him. _Alastor_ is therefore the poet's confession, not simply of failure,
+but of undying hope in some better thing that is to come.
+
+_Prometheus Unbound_ (1818-1820), a lyrical drama, is the best work of
+Shelley's revolutionary enthusiasm, and the most characteristic of all his
+poems. Shelley's philosophy (if one may dignify a hopeless dream by such a
+name) was a curious aftergrowth of the French Revolution, namely, that it
+is only the existing tyranny of State, Church, and society which keeps man
+from growth into perfect happiness. Naturally Shelley forgot, like many
+other enthusiasts, that Church and State and social laws were not imposed
+upon man from without, but were created by himself to minister to his
+necessities. In Shelley's poem the hero, Prometheus, represents mankind
+itself,--a just and noble humanity, chained and tortured by Jove, who is
+here the personification of human institutions.[228] In due time Demogorgon
+(which is Shelley's name for Necessity) overthrows the tyrant Jove and
+releases Prometheus (Mankind), who is presently united to Asia, the spirit
+of love and goodness in nature, while the earth and the moon join in a
+wedding song, and everything gives promise that they shall live together
+happy ever afterwards.
+
+Shelley here looks forward, not back, to the Golden Age, and is the prophet
+of science and evolution. If we compare his Titan with similar characters
+in _Faust_ and _Cain_, we shall find this interesting difference,--that
+while Goethe's Titan is cultured and self-reliant, and Byron's stoic and
+hopeless, Shelley's hero is patient under torture, seeing help and hope
+beyond his suffering. And he marries Love that the earth may be peopled
+with superior beings who shall substitute brotherly love for the present
+laws and conventions of society. Such is his philosophy; but the beginner
+will read this poem, not chiefly for its thought, but for its youthful
+enthusiasm, for its marvelous imagery, and especially for its ethereal
+music. Perhaps we should add here that _Prometheus_ is, and probably always
+will be, a poem for the chosen few who can appreciate its peculiar
+spiritlike beauty. In its purely pagan conception of the world, it
+suggests, by contrast, Milton's Christian philosophy in _Paradise
+Regained_.
+
+Shelley's revolutionary works, _Queen Mab_ (1813), _The Revolt of Islam_
+(1818), _Hellas_ (1821), and _The Witch of Atlas_ (1820), are to be judged
+in much the same way as is _Prometheus Unbound_. They are largely
+invectives against religion, marriage, kingcraft, and priestcraft, most
+impractical when considered as schemes for reform, but abounding in
+passages of exquisite beauty, for which alone they are worth reading. In
+the drama called _The Cenci_ (1819), which is founded upon a morbid Italian
+story, Shelley for the first and only time descends to reality. The
+heroine, Beatrice, driven to desperation by the monstrous wickedness of her
+father, kills him and suffers the death penalty in consequence. She is the
+only one of Shelley's characters who seems to us entirely human.
+
+Far different in character is _Epipsychidion_ (1821), a rhapsody
+celebrating Platonic love, the most impalpable, and so one of the most
+characteristic, of all Shelley's works. It was inspired by a beautiful
+Italian girl, Emilia Viviani, who was put into a cloister against her will,
+and in whom Shelley imagined he found his long-sought ideal of womanhood.
+With this should be read _Adonais_ (1821), the best known of all Shelley's
+longer poems. _Adonais_ is a wonderful threnody, or a song of grief, over
+the death of the poet Keats. Even in his grief Shelley still preserves a
+sense of unreality, and calls in many shadowy allegorical figures,--Sad
+Spring, Weeping Hours, Glooms, Splendors, Destinies,--all uniting in
+bewailing the loss of a loved one. The whole poem is a succession of dream
+pictures, exquisitely beautiful, such as only Shelley could imagine; and it
+holds its place with Milton's _Lycidas_ and Tennyson's _In Memoriam_ as one
+of the three greatest elegies in our language.
+
+In his interpretation of nature Shelley suggests Wordsworth, both by
+resemblance and by contrast. To both poets all natural objects are symbols
+of truth; both regard nature as permeated by the great spiritual life which
+animates all things; but while Wordsworth finds a spirit of thought, and so
+of communion between nature and the soul of man, Shelley finds a spirit of
+love, which exists chiefly for its own delight; and so "The Cloud," "The
+Skylark," and "The West Wind," three of the most beautiful poems in our
+language, have no definite message for humanity. In his "Hymn to
+Intellectual Beauty" Shelley is most like Wordsworth; but in his "Sensitive
+Plant," with its fine symbolism and imagery, he is like nobody in the world
+but himself. Comparison is sometimes an excellent thing; and if we compare
+Shelley's exquisite "Lament," beginning "O world, O life, O time," with
+Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality," we shall perhaps understand both
+poets better. Both poems recall many happy memories of youth; both express
+a very real mood of a moment; but while the beauty of one merely saddens
+and disheartens us, the beauty of the other inspires us with something of
+the poet's own faith and hopefulness. In a word, Wordsworth found and
+Shelley lost himself in nature.
+
+
+JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)
+
+Keats was not only the last but also the most perfect of the Romanticists.
+While Scott was merely telling stories, and Wordsworth reforming poetry or
+upholding the moral law, and Shelley advocating impossible reforms, and
+Byron voicing his own egoism and the political discontent of the times,
+Keats lived apart from men and from all political measures, worshiping
+beauty like a devotee, perfectly content to write what was in his own
+heart, or to reflect some splendor of the natural world as he saw or
+dreamed it to be. He had, moreover, the novel idea that poetry exists for
+its own sake, and suffers loss by being devoted to philosophy or politics
+or, indeed, to any cause, however great or small. As he says in "Lamia":
+
+                ... Do not all charms fly
+    At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
+    There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
+    We know her woof, her texture; she is given
+    In the dull catalogue of common things.
+    Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
+    Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
+    Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine--
+    Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
+    The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.
+
+Partly because of this high ideal of poetry, partly because he studied and
+unconsciously imitated the Greek classics and the best works of the
+Elizabethans, Keats's last little volume of poetry is unequaled by the work
+of any of his contemporaries. When we remember that all his work was
+published in three short years, from 1817 to 1820, and that he died when
+only twenty-five years old, we must judge him to be the most promising
+figure of the early nineteenth century, and one of the most remarkable in
+the history of literature.
+
+LIFE. Keats's life of devotion to beauty and to poetry is all the more
+remarkable in view of his lowly origin. He was the son of a hostler and
+stable keeper, and was born in the stable of the Swan and Hoop Inn, London,
+in 1795. One has only to read the rough stable scenes from our first
+novelists, or even from Dickens, to understand how little there was in such
+an atmosphere to develop poetic gifts. Before Keats was fifteen years old
+both parents died, and he was placed with his brothers and sisters in
+charge of guardians. Their first act seems to have been to take Keats from
+school at Enfield, and to bind him as an apprentice to a surgeon at
+Edmonton. For five years he served his apprenticeship, and for two years
+more he was surgeon's helper in the hospitals; but though skillful enough
+to win approval, he disliked his work, and his thoughts were on other
+things. "The other day, during a lecture," he said to a friend, "there came
+a sunbeam into the room, and with it a whole troop of creatures floating in
+the ray; and I was off with them to Oberon and fairyland." A copy of
+Spenser's _Faery Queen_, which had been given him by Charles Cowden Clark,
+was the prime cause of his abstraction. He abandoned his profession in
+1817, and early in the same year published his first volume of _Poems_. It
+was modest enough in spirit, as was also his second volume, _Endymion_
+(1818); but that did not prevent brutal attacks upon the author and his
+work by the self-constituted critics of _Blackwood's Magazine_ and the
+_Quarterly_. It is often alleged that the poet's spirit and ambition were
+broken by these attacks;[229] but Keats was a man of strong character, and
+instead of quarreling with his reviewers, or being crushed by their
+criticism, he went quietly to work with the idea of producing poetry that
+should live forever. As Matthew Arnold says, Keats "had flint and iron in
+him"; and in his next volume he accomplished his own purpose and silenced
+unfriendly criticism.
+
+For the three years during which Keats wrote his poetry he lived chiefly in
+London and in Hampstead, but wandered at times over England and Scotland,
+living for brief spaces in the Isle of Wight, in Devonshire, and in the
+Lake district, seeking to recover his own health, and especially to restore
+that of his brother. His illness began with a severe cold, but soon
+developed into consumption; and added to this sorrow was another,--his love
+for Fannie Brawne, to whom he was engaged, but whom he could not marry on
+account of his poverty and growing illness. When we remember all this
+personal grief and the harsh criticism of literary men, the last small
+volume, _Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems_ (1820), is
+most significant, as showing not only Keats's wonderful poetic gifts, but
+also his beautiful and indomitable spirit. Shelley, struck by the beauty
+and promise of "Hyperion," sent a generous invitation to the author to come
+to Pisa and live with him; but Keats refused, having little sympathy with
+Shelley's revolt against society. The invitation had this effect, however,
+that it turned Keats's thoughts to Italy, whither he soon went in the
+effort to save his life. He settled in Rome with his friend Severn, the
+artist, but died soon after his arrival, in February, 1821. His grave, in
+the Protestant cemetery at Rome, is still an object of pilgrimage to
+thousands of tourists; for among all our poets there is hardly another
+whose heroic life and tragic death have so appealed to the hearts of poets
+and young enthusiasts.
+
+THE WORK OF KEATS. "None but the master shall praise us; and none but the
+master shall blame" might well be written on the fly leaf of every volume
+of Keats's poetry; for never was there a poet more devoted to his ideal,
+entirely independent of success or failure. In strong contrast with his
+contemporary, Byron, who professed to despise the art that made him famous,
+Keats lived for poetry alone, and, as Lowell pointed out, a virtue went out
+of him into everything he wrote. In all his work we have the impression of
+this intense loyalty to his art; we have the impression also of a profound
+dissatisfaction that the deed falls so far short of the splendid dream.
+Thus after reading Chapman's translation of Homer he writes:
+
+    Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,
+    And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
+    Round many western islands have I been
+    Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
+    Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
+    That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
+    Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
+    Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
+    Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
+    When a new planet swims into his ken;
+    Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
+    He stared at the Pacific--and all his men
+    Looked at each other with a wild surmise--
+    Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
+
+In this striking sonnet we have a suggestion of Keats's high ideal, and of
+his sadness because of his own ignorance, when he published his first
+little volume of poems in 1817. He knew no Greek; yet Greek literature
+absorbed and fascinated him, as he saw its broken and imperfect reflection
+in an English translation. Like Shakespeare, who also was but poorly
+educated in the schools, he had a marvelous faculty of discerning the real
+spirit of the classics,--a faculty denied to many great scholars, and to
+most of the "classic" writers of the preceding century,--and so he set
+himself to the task of reflecting in modern English the spirit of the old
+Greeks.
+
+The imperfect results of this attempt are seen in his next volume,
+_Endymion_, which is the story of a young shepherd beloved by a moon
+goddess. The poem begins with the striking lines:
+
+    A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
+    Its loveliness increases; it will never
+    Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
+    A bower quiet for us; and a sleep
+    Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing,
+
+which well illustrate the spirit of Keats's later work, with its perfect
+finish and melody. It has many quotable lines and passages, and its "Hymn
+to Pan" should be read in connection with Wordsworth's famous sonnet
+beginning, "The world is too much with us." The poem gives splendid
+promise, but as a whole it is rather chaotic, with too much ornament and
+too little design, like a modern house. That Keats felt this defect
+strongly is evident from his modest preface, wherein he speaks of
+_Endymion_, not as a deed accomplished, but only as an unsuccessful attempt
+to suggest the underlying beauty of Greek mythology.
+
+Keats's third and last volume, _Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and
+Other Poems_ (1820), is the one with which the reader should begin his
+acquaintance with this master of English verse. It has only two subjects,
+Greek mythology and mediæval romance. "Hyperion" is a magnificent fragment,
+suggesting the first arch of a cathedral that was never finished. Its theme
+is the overthrow of the Titans by the young sun-god Apollo. Realizing his
+own immaturity and lack of knowledge, Keats laid aside this work, and only
+the pleadings of his publisher induced him to print the fragment with his
+completed poems.
+
+Throughout this last volume, and especially in "Hyperion," the influence of
+Milton is apparent, while Spenser is more frequently suggested in reading
+_Endymion_.
+
+Of the longer poems in the volume, "Lamia" is the most suggestive. It is
+the story of a beautiful enchantress, who turns from a serpent into a
+glorious woman and fills every human sense with delight, until, as a result
+of the foolish philosophy of old Apollonius, she vanishes forever from her
+lover's sight. "The Eve of St. Agnes," the most perfect of Keats's mediæval
+poems, is not a story after the manner of the metrical romances, but rather
+a vivid painting of a romantic mood, such as comes to all men, at times, to
+glorify a workaday world. Like all the work of Keats and Shelley, it has an
+element of unreality; and when we read at the end,
+
+    And they are gone; aye, ages long ago
+    These lovers fled away into the storm,
+
+it is as if we were waking from a dream,--which is the only possible ending
+to all of Keats's Greek and mediæval fancies. We are to remember, however,
+that no beautiful thing, though it be intangible as a dream, can enter a
+man's life and leave him quite the same afterwards. Keats's own word is
+here suggestive. "The imagination," he said, "may be likened to Adam's
+dream; he awoke and found it true."
+
+It is by his short poems that Keats is known to the majority of present-day
+readers. Among these exquisite shorter poems we mention only the four odes,
+"On a Grecian Urn," "To a Nightingale," "To Autumn," and "To Psyche." These
+are like an invitation to a feast; one who reads them will hardly be
+satisfied until he knows more of such delightful poetry. Those who study
+only the "Ode to a Nightingale" may find four things,--a love of sensuous
+beauty, a touch of pessimism, a purely pagan conception of nature, and a
+strong individualism,--which are characteristic of this last of the
+romantic poets.
+
+As Wordsworth's work is too often marred by the moralizer, and Byron's by
+the demagogue, and Shelley's by the reformer, so Keats's work suffers by
+the opposite extreme of aloofness from every human interest; so much so,
+that he is often accused of being indifferent to humanity. His work is also
+criticised as being too effeminate for ordinary readers. Three things
+should be remembered in this connection. First, that Keats sought to
+express beauty for its own sake; that beauty is as essential to normal
+humanity as is government or law; and that the higher man climbs in
+civilization the more imperative becomes his need of beauty as a reward for
+his labors. Second, that Keats's letters are as much an indication of the
+man as is his poetry; and in his letters, with their human sympathy, their
+eager interest in social problems, their humor, and their keen insight into
+life, there is no trace of effeminacy, but rather every indication of a
+strong and noble manhood. The third thing to remember is that all Keats's
+work was done in three or four years, with small preparation, and that,
+dying at twenty-five, he left us a body of poetry which will always be one
+of our most cherished possessions. He is often compared with "the marvelous
+boy" Chatterton, whom he greatly admired, and to whose memory he dedicated
+his _Endymion_; but though both died young, Chatterton was but a child,
+while Keats was in all respects a man. It is idle to prophesy what he might
+have done, had he been granted a Tennyson's long life and scholarly
+training. At twenty five his work was as mature as was Tennyson's at fifty,
+though the maturity suggests the too rapid growth of a tropical plant which
+under the warm rains and the flood of sunlight leaps into life, grows,
+blooms in a day, and dies.
+
+As we have stated, Keats's work was bitterly and unjustly condemned by the
+critics of his day. He belonged to what was derisively called the cockney
+school of poetry, of which Leigh Hunt was chief, and Proctor and Beddoes
+were fellow-workmen. Not even from Wordsworth and Byron, who were ready
+enough to recommend far less gifted writers, did Keats receive the
+slightest encouragement. Like young Lochinvar, "he rode all unarmed and he
+rode all alone." Shelley, with his sincerity and generosity, was the first
+to recognize the young genius, and in his noble _Adonais_--written, alas,
+like most of our tributes, when the subject of our praise is dead--he spoke
+the first true word of appreciation, and placed Keats, where he
+unquestionably belongs, among our greatest poets. The fame denied him in
+his sad life was granted freely after his death. Most fitly does he close
+the list of poets of the romantic revival, because in many respects he was
+the best workman of them all. He seems to have studied words more carefully
+than did his contemporaries, and so his poetic expression, or the harmony
+of word and thought, is generally more perfect than theirs. More than any
+other he lived for poetry, as the noblest of the arts. More than any other
+he emphasized beauty, because to him, as shown by his "Grecian Urn," beauty
+and truth were one and inseparable. And he enriched the whole romantic
+movement by adding to its interest in common life the spirit, rather than
+the letter, of the classics and of Elizabethan poetry. For these reasons
+Keats is, like Spenser, a poet's poet; his work profoundly influenced
+Tennyson and, indeed, most of the poets of the present era.
+
+
+II. PROSE WRITERS OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
+
+Aside from the splendid work of the novel writers--Walter Scott, whom we
+have considered, and Jane Austen, to whom we shall presently return--the
+early nineteenth century is remarkable for the development of a new and
+valuable type of critical prose writing. If we except the isolated work of
+Dryden and of Addison, it is safe to say that literary criticism, in its
+modern sense, was hardly known in England until about the year 1825. Such
+criticism as existed seems to us now to have been largely the result of
+personal opinion or prejudice. Indeed we could hardly expect anything else
+before some systematic study of our literature as a whole had been
+attempted. In one age a poem was called good or bad according as it
+followed or ran counter to so-called classic rules; in another we have the
+dogmatism of Dr. Johnson; in a third the personal judgment of Lockhart and
+the editors of the _Edinburgh Review_ and the _Quarterly_, who so violently
+abused Keats and the Lake poets in the name of criticism. Early in the
+nineteenth century there arose a new school of criticism which was guided
+by knowledge of literature, on the one hand, and by what one might call the
+fear of God on the other. The latter element showed itself in a profound
+human sympathy,--the essence of the romantic movement,--and its importance
+was summed up by De Quincey when he said, "Not to sympathize is not to
+understand." These new critics, with abundant reverence for past masters,
+could still lay aside the dogmatism and prejudice which marked Johnson and
+the magazine editors, and read sympathetically the work of a new author,
+with the sole idea of finding what he had contributed, or tried to
+contribute, to the magnificent total of our literature. Coleridge, Hunt,
+Hazlitt, Lamb, and De Quincey were the leaders in this new and immensely
+important development; and we must not forget the importance of the new
+periodicals, like the _Londen Magazine,_ founded in 1820, in which Lamb, De
+Quincey, and Carlyle found their first real encouragement.
+
+Of Coleridge's _Biographica Literaria_ and his _Lectures on Shakespeare_ we
+have already spoken. Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) wrote continuously for more
+than thirty years, as editor and essayist; and his chief object seems to
+have been to make good literature known and appreciated. William Hazlitt
+(1778-1830), in a long series of lectures and essays, treated all reading
+as a kind of romantic journey into new and pleasant countries. To his work
+largely, with that of Lamb, was due the new interest in Elizabethan
+literature, which so strongly influenced Keats's last and best volume of
+poetry. For those interested in the art of criticism, and in the
+appreciation of literature, both Hunt and Hazlitt will well repay study;
+but we must pass over their work to consider the larger literary interest
+of Lamb and De Quincey, who were not simply critics of other men's labor,
+but who also produced some delightful work of their own, which the world
+has carefully put away among the "things worthy to be remembered."
+
+
+CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834)
+
+In Lamb and Wordsworth we have two widely different views of the romantic
+movement; one shows the influence of nature and solitude, the other of
+society. Lamb was a lifelong friend of Coleridge, and an admirer and
+defender of the poetic creed of Wordsworth; but while the latter lived
+apart from men, content with nature and with reading an occasional moral
+lesson to society, Lamb was born and lived in the midst of the London
+streets. The city crowd, with its pleasures and occupations, its endless
+little comedies and tragedies, alone interested him. According to his own
+account, when he paused in the crowded street tears would spring to his
+eyes,--tears of pure pleasure at the abundance of so much good life; and
+when he wrote, he simply interpreted that crowded human life of joy and
+sorrow, as Wordsworth interpreted the woods and waters, without any desire
+to change or to reform them. He has given us the best pictures we possess
+of Coleridge, Hazlitt, Landor, Hood, Cowden Clarke, and many more of the
+interesting men and women of his age; and it is due to his insight and
+sympathy that the life of those far-off days seems almost as real to us as
+if we ourselves remembered it. Of all our English essayists he is the most
+lovable; partly because of his delicate, old-fashioned style and humor, but
+more because of that cheery and heroic struggle against misfortune which
+shines like a subdued light in all his writings.
+
+LIFE. In the very heart of London there is a curious, old-fashioned place
+known as the Temple,--an enormous, rambling, apparently forgotten
+structure, dusty and still, in the midst of the endless roar of the city
+streets. Originally it was a chapter house of the Knights Templars, and so
+suggests to us the spirit of the Crusades and of the Middle Ages; but now
+the building is given over almost entirely to the offices and lodgings of
+London lawyers. It is this queer old place which, more than all others, is
+associated with the name of Charles Lamb. "I was born," he says, "and
+passed the first seven years of my life in the Temple. Its gardens, its
+halls, its fountain, its river... these are my oldest recollections." He
+was the son of a poor clerk, or rather servant, of one of the barristers,
+and was the youngest of seven children, only three of whom survived
+infancy. Of these three, John, the elder, was apparently a selfish
+creature, who took no part in the heroic struggle of his brother and
+sister. At seven years, Charles was sent to the famous "Bluecoat" charity
+school of Christ's Hospital. Here he remained seven years; and here he
+formed his lifelong friendship for another poor, neglected boy, whom the
+world remembers as Coleridge.[230]
+
+When only fourteen years old, Lamb left the charity school and was soon at
+work as a clerk in the South Sea House. Two years later he became a clerk
+in the famous India House, where he worked steadily for thirty-three years,
+with the exception of six weeks, in the winter of 1795-1796, spent within
+the walls of an asylum. In 1796 Lamb's sister Mary, who was as talented and
+remarkable as Lamb himself, went violently insane and killed her own
+mother. For a long time after this appalling tragedy she was in an asylum
+at Hoxton; then Lamb, in 1797, brought her to his own little house, and for
+the remainder of his life cared for her with a tenderness and devotion
+which furnishes one of the most beautiful pages in our literary history. At
+times the malady would return to Mary, giving sure warning of its terrible
+approach; and then brother and sister might be seen walking silently, hand
+in hand, to the gates of the asylum, their cheeks wet with tears. One must
+remember this, as well as Lamb's humble lodgings and the drudgery of his
+daily work in the-big commercial house, if he would appreciate the pathos
+of "The Old Familiar Faces," or the heroism which shines through the most
+human and the most delightful essays in our language.
+
+When Lamb was fifty years of age the East India Company, led partly by his
+literary fame following his first _Essays of Elia_, and partly by his
+thirty-three years of faithful service, granted him a comfortable pension;
+and happy as a boy turned loose from school he left India House forever to
+give himself up to literary work.[231] He wrote to Wordsworth, in April,
+1825, "I came home _forever_ on Tuesday of last week--it was like passing
+from life into eternity." Curiously enough Lamb seems to lose power after
+his release from drudgery, and his last essays, published in 1833, lack
+something of the grace and charm of his earlier work. He died at Edmonton
+in 1834; and his gifted sister Mary sank rapidly into the gulf from which
+his strength and gentleness had so long held her back. No literary man was
+ever more loved and honored by a rare circle of friends; and all who knew
+him bear witness to the simplicity and goodness which any reader may find
+for himself between the lines of his essays.
+
+WORKS. The works of Lamb divide themselves naturally into three periods.
+First, there are his early literary efforts, including the poems signed "C.
+L." in Coleridge's _Poems on Various Subjects_ (1796); his romance
+_Rosamund Gray_ (1798); his poetical drama _John Woodvil_ (1802); and
+various other immature works in prose and poetry. This period comes to an
+end in 1803, when he gave up his newspaper work, especially the
+contribution of six jokes, puns, and squibs daily to the _Morning Post_ at
+sixpence apiece. The second period was given largely to literary criticism;
+and the _Tales from Shakespeare_ (1807)--written by Charles and Mary Lamb,
+the former reproducing the tragedies, and the latter the comedies--may be
+regarded as his first successful literary venture. The book was written
+primarily for children; but so thoroughly had brother and sister steeped
+themselves in the literature of the Elizabethan period that young and old
+alike were delighted with this new version of Shakespeare's stories, and
+the _Tales_ are still regarded as the best of their kind in our literature.
+In 1808 appeared his _Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Contemporary with
+Shakespeare_. This carried out the splendid critical work of Coleridge, and
+was the most noticeable influence in developing the poetic qualities of
+Keats, as shown in his last volume.
+
+The third period includes Lamb's criticisms of life, which are gathered
+together in his _Essays of Elia_ (1823), and his _Last Essays of Elia_,
+which were published ten years later. These famous essays began in 1820
+with the appearance of the new _London Magazine_[232] and were continued
+for many years, such subjects as the "Dissertation on Roast Pig," "Old
+China," "Praise of Chimney Sweepers," "Imperfect Sympathies," "A Chapter on
+Ears," "Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist," "Mackery End," "Grace Before
+Meat," "Dream Children," and many others being chosen apparently at random,
+but all leading to a delightful interpretation of the life of London, as it
+appeared to a quiet little man who walked unnoticed through its crowded
+streets. In the first and last essays which we have mentioned,
+"Dissertation on Roast Pig" and "Dream Children," we have the extremes of
+Lamb's humor and pathos.
+
+The style of all these essays is gentle, old-fashioned, irresistibly
+attractive. Lamb was especially fond of old writers and borrowed
+unconsciously from the style of Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_ and from
+Browne's _Religio Medici_ and from the early English dramatists. But this
+style had become a part of Lamb by long reading, and he was apparently
+unable to express his new thought without using their old quaint
+expressions. Though these essays are all criticisms or appreciations of the
+life of his age, they are all intensely personal. In other words, they are
+an excellent picture of Lamb and of humanity. Without a trace of vanity or
+self-assertion, Lamb begins with himself, with some purely personal mood or
+experience, and from this he leads the reader to see life and literature as
+he saw it. It is this wonderful combination of personal and universal
+interests, together with Lamb's rare old style and quaint humor, which make
+the essays remarkable. They continue the best tradition of Addison and
+Steele, our first great essayists; but their sympathies are broader and
+deeper, and their humor more delicious than any which preceded them.
+
+
+THOMAS DE QUINCY (1785-1859)
+
+In De Quincey the romantic element is even more strongly developed than in
+Lamb, not only in his critical work, but also in his erratic and
+imaginative life. He was profoundly educated, even more so than Coleridge,
+and was one of the keenest intellects of the age; yet his wonderful
+intellect seems always subordinate to his passion for dreaming. Like Lamb,
+he was a friend and associate of the Lake poets, making his headquarters in
+Wordsworth's old cottage at Grasmere for nearly twenty years. Here the
+resemblance ceases, and a marked contrast begins. As a man, Lamb is the
+most human and lovable of all our essayists; while De Quincey is the most
+uncanny and incomprehensible. Lamb's modest works breathe the two essential
+qualities of sympathy and humor; the greater number of De Quincey's essays,
+while possessing more or less of both these qualities, are characterized
+chiefly by their brilliant style. Life, as seen through De Quincey's eyes,
+is nebulous and chaotic, and there is a suspicion of the fabulous in all
+that he wrote. Even in _The Revolt of the Tartars_ the romantic element is
+uppermost, and in much of De Quincey's prose the element of unreality is
+more noticeable than in Shelley's poetry. Of his subject-matter, his facts,
+ideas, and criticisms, we are generally suspicious; but of his style,
+sometimes stately and sometimes headlong, now gorgeous as an Oriental
+dream, now musical as Keats's _Endymion_, and always, even in the most
+violent contrasts, showing a harmony between the idea and the expression
+such as no other English writer, with the possible exception of Newman, has
+ever rivaled,--say what you will of the marvelous brilliancy of De
+Quincey's style, you have still only half expressed the truth. It is the
+style alone which makes these essays immortal.
+
+LIFE. De Quincey was born in Manchester in 1785. In neither his father, who
+was a prosperous merchant, nor his mother, who was a quiet, unsympathetic
+woman, do we see any suggestion of the son's almost uncanny genius. As a
+child he was given to dreams, more vivid and intense but less beautiful
+than those of the young Blake to whom he bears a strong resemblance. In the
+grammar school at Bath he displayed astonishing ability, and acquired Greek
+and Latin with a rapidity that frightened his slow tutors. At fifteen he
+not only read Greek, but spoke it fluently; and one of his astounded
+teachers remarked, "That boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you
+or I could address an English one." From the grammar school at Manchester,
+whither he was sent in 1800, he soon ran away, finding the instruction far
+below his abilities, and the rough life absolutely intolerable to his
+sensitive nature. An uncle, just home from India, interceded for the boy
+lest he be sent back to the school, which he hated; and with an allowance
+of a guinea a week he started a career of vagrancy, much like that of
+Goldsmith, living on the open hills, in the huts of shepherds and charcoal
+burners, in the tents of gypsies, wherever fancy led him. His fear of the
+Manchester school finally led him to run away to London, where, without
+money or friends, his life was even more extraordinary than his gypsy
+wanderings. The details of this vagrancy are best learned in his
+_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, where we meet not simply the facts
+of his life, but also the confusion of dreams and fancies in the midst of
+which he wandered like a man lost on the mountains, with storm clouds under
+his feet hiding the familiar earth. After a year of vagrancy and starvation
+he was found by his family and allowed to go to Oxford, where his career
+was marked by the most brilliant and erratic scholarship. When ready for a
+degree, in 1807, he passed his written tests successfully, but felt a
+sudden terror at the thought of the oral examination and disappeared from
+the university, never to return.
+
+It was in Oxford that De Quincey began the use of opium; to relieve the
+pains of neuralgia, and the habit increased until he was an almost hopeless
+slave to the drug. Only his extraordinary will power enabled him to break
+away from the habit, after some thirty years of misery. Some peculiarity of
+his delicate constitution enabled De Quincey to take enormous quantities of
+opium, enough to kill several ordinary men; and it was largely opium,
+working upon a sensitive imagination, which produced his gorgeous dreams,
+broken by intervals of weakness and profound depression. For twenty years
+he resided at Grasmere in the companionship of the Lake poets; and here,
+led by the loss of his small fortune, he began to write, with the idea of
+supporting his family. In 1821 he published his first famous work, the
+_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_, and for nearly forty years
+afterwards he wrote industriously, contributing to various magazines an
+astonishing number of essays on a great variety of subjects. Without
+thought of literary fame, he contributed these articles anonymously; but
+fortunately, in 1853, he began to collect his own works, and the last of
+fourteen volumes was published just after his death.
+
+In 1830, led by his connection with _Blackwood's Magazine_, to which he was
+the chief contributor, De Quincey removed with his family to Edinburgh,
+where his erratic genius and his singularly childlike ways produced enough
+amusing anecdotes to fill a volume. He would take a room in some place
+unknown to his friends and family; would live in it for a few years, until
+he had filled it, even to the bath tub, with books and with his own chaotic
+manuscripts, allowing no one to enter or disturb his den; and then, when
+the place became too crowded, he would lock the door and go away and take
+another lodging, where he repeated the same extraordinary performance. He
+died in Edinburgh in 1859. Like Lamb, he was a small, boyish figure,
+gentle, and elaborately courteous. Though excessively shy, and escaping as
+often as possible to solitude, he was nevertheless fond of society, and his
+wide knowledge and vivid imagination made his conversations almost as
+prized as those of his friend Coleridge.
+
+WORKS. De Quincey's works may be divided into two general classes. The
+first includes his numerous critical articles, and the second his
+autobiographical sketches. All his works, it must be remembered, were
+contributed to various magazines, and were hastily collected just before
+his death. Hence the general impression of chaos which we get from reading
+them.
+
+From a literary view point the most illuminating of De Quincey's critical
+works is his. _Literary Reminiscences_. This contains brilliant
+appreciations of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Shelley, Keats, Hazlitt, and
+Landor, as well as some interesting studies of the literary figures of the
+age preceding. Among the best of his brilliant critical essays are _On the
+Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth_ (1823), which is admirably suited to show
+the man's critical genius, and _Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts_
+(1827), which reveals his grotesque humor Other suggestive critical works,
+if one must choose among such a multitude, are his _Letters to a Young Man_
+(1823), _Joan of Arc_ (1847), _The Revolt of the Tartars_ (1840), and _The
+English Mail-Coach_ (1849). In the last-named essay the "Dream Fugue" is
+one of the most imaginative of all his curious works.
+
+Of De Quincey's autobiographical sketches the best known is his
+_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_ (1821). This is only partly a
+record of opium dreams, and its chief interest lies in glimpses it gives us
+of De Quincey's own life and wanderings. This should be followed by
+_Suspiria de Profundis_ (1845), which is chiefly a record of gloomy and
+terrible dreams produced by opiates. The most interesting parts of his
+_Suspiria_, showing De Quincey's marvelous insight into dreams, are those
+in which we are brought face to face with the strange feminine creations
+"Levana," "Madonna," "Our Lady of Sighs," and "Our Lady of Darkness." A
+series of nearly thirty articles which he collected in 1853, called
+_Autobiographic Sketches_, completes the revelation of the author's own
+life. Among his miscellaneous works may be mentioned, in order to show his
+wide range of subjects, _Klosterheim_, a novel, _Logic of Political
+Economy_, the _Essays on Style and Rhetoric, Philosophy of Herodotus_, and
+his articles on Goethe, Pope, Schiller, and Shakespeare which he
+contributed to the _Encyclopedia Britannica_.
+
+De Quincey's style is a revelation of the beauty of the English language,
+and it profoundly influenced Ruskin and other prose writers of the
+Victorian Age. It has two chief faults,--diffuseness, which continually
+leads De Quincey away from his object, and triviality, which often makes
+him halt in the midst of a marvelous paragraph to make some light jest or
+witticism that has some humor but no mirth in it. Notwithstanding these
+faults, De Quincey's prose is still among the few supreme examples of style
+in our language. Though he was profoundly influenced by the seventeenth-
+century writers, he attempted definitely to create a new style which should
+combine the best elements of prose and poetry. In consequence, his prose
+works are often, like those of Milton, more imaginative and melodious than
+much of our poetry. He has been well called "the psychologist of style,"
+and as such his works will never be popular; but to the few who can
+appreciate him he will always be an inspiration to better writing. One has
+a deeper respect for our English language and literature after reading him.
+
+SECONDARY WRITERS OF ROMANTICISM. One has only to glance back over the
+authors we have been studying--Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Byron,
+Shelley, Keats, Scott, Lamb, De Quincey--to realize the great change which
+swept over the life and literature of England in a single half century,
+under two influences which we now know as the French Revolution in history
+and the Romantic Movement in literature. In life men had rebelled against
+the too strict authority of state and society; in literature they rebelled
+even more vigorously against the bonds of classicism, which had sternly
+repressed a writer's ambition to follow his own ideals and to express them
+in his own way. Naturally such an age of revolution was essentially
+poetic,--only the Elizabethan Age surpasses it in this respect,--and it
+produced a large number of minor writers, who followed more or less closely
+the example of its great leaders. Among novelists we have Jane Austen,
+Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Jane Porter, and Susan Ferrier,--all
+women, be it noted; among the poets, Campbell, Moore, Hogg ("the Ettrick
+Shepherd"), Mrs. Hemans, Heber, Keble, Hood, and "Ingoldsby" (Richard
+Barham); and among miscellaneous writers, Sidney Smith, "Christopher North"
+(John Wilson), Chalmers, Lockhart, Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, Hallam, and Landor.
+Here is an astonishing variety of writers, and to consider all their claims
+to remembrance would of itself require a volume. Though these are generally
+classed as secondary writers, much of their work has claims to popularity,
+and some of it to permanence. Moore's _Irish Melodies_, Campbell's lyrics,
+Keble's _Christian Year_, and Jane Porter's _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ and
+_Scottish Chiefs_ have still a multitude of readers, where Keats, Lamb, and
+De Quincey are prized only by the cultured few; and Hallam's historical and
+critical works are perhaps better known than those of Gibbon, who
+nevertheless occupies a larger place in our literature. Among all these
+writers we choose only two, Jane Austen and Walter Savage Landor, whose
+works indicate a period of transition from the Romantic to the Victorian
+Age.
+
+
+JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817)
+
+We have so lately rediscovered the charm and genius of this gifted young
+woman that she seems to be a novelist of yesterday, rather than the
+contemporary of Wordsworth and Coleridge; and few even of her readers
+realize that she did for the English novel precisely what the Lake poets
+did for English poetry,--she refined and simplified it, making it a true
+reflection of English life. Like the Lake poets, she met with scanty
+encouragement in her own generation. Her greatest novel, _Pride and
+Prejudice_, was finished in 1797, a year before the appearance of the
+famous _Lyrical Ballads_ of Wordsworth and Coleridge; but while the latter
+book was published and found a few appreciative readers, the manuscript of
+this wonderful novel went begging for sixteen years before it found a
+publisher. As Wordsworth began with the deliberate purpose of making poetry
+natural and truthful, so Miss Austen appears to have begun writing with the
+idea of presenting the life of English country society exactly as it was,
+in opposition to the romantic extravagance of Mrs. Radcliffe and her
+school. But there was this difference,--that Miss Austen had in large
+measure the saving gift of humor, which Wordsworth sadly lacked. Maria
+Edgeworth, at the same time, set a sane and excellent example in her tales
+of Irish life, _The Absentee_ and _Castle Rackrent;_ and Miss Austen
+followed up the advantage with at least six works, which have grown
+steadily in value until we place them gladly in the first rank of our
+novels of common life. It is not simply for her exquisite charm, therefore,
+that we admire her, but also for her influence in bringing our novels back
+to their true place as an expression of human life. It is due partly, at
+least, to her influence that a multitude of readers were ready to
+appreciate Mrs. Gaskell's _Cranford_, and the powerful and enduring work of
+George Eliot.
+
+LIFE. Jane Austen's life gives little opportunity for the biographer,
+unless, perchance, he has something of her own power to show the beauty and
+charm of commonplace things. She was the seventh child of Rev. George
+Austen, rector of Steventon, and was born in the parsonage of the village
+in 1775. With her sisters she was educated at home, and passed her life
+very quietly, cheerfully, in the doing of small domestic duties, to which
+love lent the magic lamp that makes all things beautiful. She began to
+write at an early age, and seems to have done her work on a little table in
+the family sitting room, in the midst of the family life. When a visitor
+entered, she would throw a paper or a piece of sewing over her work, and
+she modestly refused to be known as the author of novels which we now count
+among our treasured possessions. With the publishers she had little
+success. _Pride and Prejudice_ went begging, as we have said, for sixteen
+years; and _Northanger Abbey_ (1798) was sold for a trivial sum to a
+publisher, who laid it aside and forgot it, until the appearance and
+moderate success of _Sense and Sensibility_ in 1811. Then, after keeping
+the manuscript some fifteen years, he sold it back to the family, who found
+another publisher.
+
+An anonymous article in the _Quarterly Review_, following the appearance of
+_Emma_ in 1815, full of generous appreciation of the charm of the new
+writer, was the beginning of Jane Austen's fame; and it is only within a
+few years that we have learned that the friendly and discerning critic was
+Walter Scott. He continued to be her admirer until her early death; but
+these two, the greatest writers of fiction in their age, were never brought
+together. Both were home-loving people, and Miss Austen especially was
+averse to publicity and popularity. She died, quietly as she had lived, at
+Winchester, in 1817, and was buried in the cathedral. She was a bright,
+attractive little woman, whose sunny qualities are unconsciously reflected
+in all her books.
+
+WORKS. Very few English writers ever had so narrow a field of work as Jane
+Austen. Like the French novelists, whose success seems to lie in choosing
+the tiny field that they know best, her works have an exquisite perfection
+that is lacking in most of our writers of fiction. With the exception of an
+occasional visit to the watering place of Bath, her whole life was spent in
+small country parishes, whose simple country people became the characters
+of her novels. Her brothers were in the navy, and so naval officers furnish
+the only exciting elements in her stories; but even these alleged heroes
+lay aside their imposing martial ways and act like themselves and other
+people. Such was her literary field, in which the chief duties were of the
+household, the chief pleasures in country gatherings, and the chief
+interests in matrimony. Life, with its mighty interests, its passions,
+ambitions, and tragic struggles, swept by like a great river; while the
+secluded interests of a country parish went round and round quietly, like
+an eddy behind a sheltering rock. We can easily understand, therefore, the
+limitations of Jane Austen; but within her own field she is unequaled. Her
+characters are absolutely true to life, and all her work has the perfection
+of a delicate miniature painting. The most widely read of her novels is
+_Pride and Prejudice;_ but three others, _Sense and Sensibility, Emma_, and
+_Mansfield Park_, have slowly won their way to the front rank of fiction.
+From a literary view point _Northanger Abbey_ is perhaps the best; for in
+it we find that touch of humor and delicate satire with which this gentle
+little woman combated the grotesque popular novels of the _Udolpho_ type.
+Reading any of these works, one is inclined to accept the hearty
+indorsement of Sir Walter Scott: "That young lady has a talent for
+describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life
+which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big bowwow strain I
+can do myself, like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders
+ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of
+the description and the sentiment, is denied to me. What a pity such a
+gifted creature died so early!"
+
+
+WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (1775-1864)
+
+While Hazlitt, Lamb, De Quincey, and other romantic critics went back to
+early English literature for their inspiration, Landor shows a reaction
+from the prevailing Romanticism by his imitation of the ancient classic
+writers. His life was an extraordinary one and, like his work, abounded in
+sharp contrasts. On the one hand, there are his egoism, his unncontrollable
+anger, his perpetual lawsuits, and the last sad tragedy with his children,
+which suggests _King Lear_ and his daughters; on the other hand there is
+his steady devotion to the classics and to the cultivation of the deep
+wisdom of the ancients, which suggests Pindar and Cicero. In his works we
+find the wild extravagance of _Gebir_, followed by the superb classic style
+and charm of _Pericles and Aspasia_. Such was Landor, a man of high ideals,
+perpetually at war with himself and the world.
+
+LIFE. Lander's stormy life covers the whole period from Wordsworth's
+childhood to the middle of the Victorian Era. He was the son of a
+physician, and was born at Warwick, in 1775. From his mother he inherited a
+fortune; but it was soon scattered by large expenditures and law quarrels;
+and in his old age, refused help by his own children, only Browning's
+generosity kept Landor from actual want. At Rugby, and at Oxford, his
+extreme Republicanism brought him into constant trouble; and his fitting
+out a band of volunteers to assist the Spaniards against Napoleon, in 1808,
+allies him with Byron and his Quixotic followers. The resemblance to Byron
+is even more strikingly shown in the poem _Gebir_, published in 1798, a
+year made famous by the _Lyrical Ballads_ of Wordsworth and Coleridge.
+
+A remarkable change in Lander's life is noticeable in 1821, when, at
+forty-six years of age, after having lost his magnificent estate of
+Llanthony Abbey, in Glamorganshire, and after a stormy experience in Como,
+he settled down for a time at Fiesole near Florence. To this period of calm
+after storm we owe the classical prose works for which he is famous. The
+calm, like that at the center of a whirlwind, lasted but a short time, and
+Landor, leaving his family in great anger, returned to Bath, where he lived
+alone for more than twenty years. Then, in order to escape a libel suit,
+the choleric old man fled back to Italy. He died at Florence, in 1864. The
+spirit of his whole life may be inferred from the defiant farewell which he
+flung to it:
+
+    I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
+       Nature I loved, and next to Nature Art;
+    I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
+       It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
+
+WORKS. Landor's reaction from Romanticism is all the more remarkable in
+view of his early efforts, such as _Gebir_, a wildly romantic poem, which
+rivals any work of Byron or Shelley in its extravagance. Notwithstanding
+its occasional beautiful and suggestive lines, the work was not and never
+has been successful; and the same may be said of all his poetical works.
+His first collection of poems was published in 1795, his last a full half
+century later, in 1846. In the latter volume, _The Hellenics_,--which
+included some translations of his earlier Latin poems, called _Idyllia
+Heroica,--_one has only to read "The Hamadryad," and compare it with the
+lyrics of the first volume, in order to realize the astonishing literary
+vigor of a man who published two volumes, a half century apart, without any
+appreciable diminution of poetical feeling. In all these poems one is
+impressed by the striking and original figures of speech which Landor uses
+to emphasize his meaning.
+
+It is by his prose works, largely, that Landor has won a place in our
+literature; partly because of their intrinsic worth, their penetrating
+thought, and severe classic style; and partly because of their profound
+influence upon the writers of the present age. The most noted of his prose
+works are his six volumes of _Imaginary Conversations_ (1824-1846). For
+these conversations Landor brings together, sometimes in groups, sometimes
+in couples, well-known characters, or rather shadows, from the four corners
+of the earth and from the remotest ages of recorded history. Thus Diogenes
+talks with Plato, Æsop with a young slave girl in Egypt, Henry VIII with
+Anne Boleyn in prison, Dante with Beatrice, Leofric with Lady Godiva,--all
+these and many others, from Epictetus to Cromwell, are brought together and
+speak of life and love and death, each from his own view point.
+Occasionally, as in the meeting of Henry and Anne Boleyn, the situation is
+tense and dramatic; but as a rule the characters simply meet and converse
+in the same quiet strain, which becomes, after much reading, somewhat
+monotonous. On the other hand, one who reads the _Imaginary Conversations_
+is lifted at once into a calm and noble atmosphere which braces and
+inspires him, making him forget petty things, like a view from a hilltop.
+By its combination of lofty thought and severely classic style the book has
+won, and deserves, a very high place among our literary records.
+
+The same criticism applies to _Pericles and Aspasia_, which is a series of
+imaginary letters, telling the experiences of Aspasia, a young lady from
+Asia Minor, who visits Athens at the summit of its fame and glory, in the
+great age of Pericles. This is, in our judgment, the best worth reading of
+all Landor's works. One gets from it not only Landor's classic style,
+but--what is well worth while--a better picture of Greece in the days of
+its greatness than can be obtained from many historical volumes.
+
+
+SUMMARY OF THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM. This period extends from the war with
+the colonies, following the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, to the
+accession of Victoria in 1837, both limits being very indefinite, as will
+be seen by a glance at the Chronology following. During the first part of
+the period especially, England was in a continual turmoil, produced by
+political and economic agitation at home, and by the long wars that covered
+two continents and the wide sea between them. The mighty changes resulting
+from these two causes have given this period the name of the Age of
+Revolution. The storm center of all the turmoil at home and abroad was the
+French Revolution, which had a profound influence on the life and
+literature of all Europe. On the Continent the overthrow of Napoleon at
+Waterloo (1815) apparently checked the progress of liberty, which had
+started with the French Revolution,[233] but in England the case was
+reversed. The agitation for popular liberty, which at one time threatened a
+revolution, went steadily forward till it resulted in the final triumph of
+democracy, in the Reform Bill of 1832, and in a number of exceedingly
+important reforms, such as the extension of manhood suffrage, the removal
+of the last unjust restrictions against Catholics, the establishment of a
+national system of schools, followed by a rapid increase in popular
+education, and the abolition of slavery in all English colonies (1833). To
+this we must add the changes produced by the discovery of steam and the
+invention of machinery, which rapidly changed England from an agricultural
+to a manufacturing nation, introduced the factory system, and caused this
+period to be known as the Age of Industrial Revolution.
+
+The literature of the age is largely poetical in form, and almost entirely
+romantic in spirit. For, as we have noted, the triumph of democracy in
+government is generally accompanied by the triumph of romanticism in
+literature. At first the literature, as shown especially in the early work
+of Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley, reflected the turmoil of the age and the
+wild hopes of an ideal democracy occasioned by the French Revolution. Later
+the extravagant enthusiasm subsided, and English writers produced so much
+excellent literature that the age is often called the Second Creative
+period, the first being the Age of Elizabeth. The six chief characteristics
+of the age are: the prevalence of romantic poetry; the creation of the
+historical novel by Scott; the first appearance of women novelists, such as
+Mrs. Anne Radcliffe, Jane Porter, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen; the
+development of literary criticism, in the work of Lamb, De Quincey,
+Coleridge, and Hazlitt; the practical and economic bent of philosophy, as
+shown in the work of Malthus, James Mill, and Adam Smith; and the
+establishment of great literary magazines, like the _Edinburgh Review_, the
+_Quarterly_, _Blackwood's_, and the _Athenaeum_.
+
+In our study we have noted (1) the Poets of Romanticism: the importance of
+the _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798; the life and work of Wordsworth, Coleridge,
+Scott, Byron, Shelley, and Keats; (2) the Prose Writers: the novels of
+Scott; the development of literary criticism; the life and work of the
+essayists, Lamb, De Quincey, Landor, and of the novelist Jane Austen.
+
+
+SELECTIONS FOR READING. Manly's English Poetry and Manly's English Prose
+(each one vol.) contain good selections from all authors studied. Ward's
+English Poets (4 vols.), Craik's English Prose Selections (5 vols.),
+Braithwaite's The Book of Georgian Verse, Page's British Poets of the
+Nineteenth Century, and Garnett's English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria,
+may also be used to advantage. Important works, however, should be read
+entire in one of the inexpensive school editions given below. (Full titles
+and publishers may be found in the General Bibliography at the end of this
+book.)
+
+_Wordsworth_. Intimations of Immortality, Tintern Abbey, best lyrics and
+sonnets, in Selections, edited by Dowden (Athenaeum Press Series);
+selections and short poems, edited by M. Arnold, in Golden Treasury Series;
+Selections, also in Everyman's Library, Riverside Literature Series,
+Cassell's National Library, etc.
+
+_Coleridge_. Ancient Mariner, edited by L. R. Gibbs, in Standard English
+Classics; same poem, in Pocket Classics, Eclectic English Classics, etc.;
+Poems, edited by J. M. Hart, in Athenæum Press (announced, 1909);
+Selections, Golden Book of Coleridge, in Everyman's Library; Selections
+from Coleridge and Campbell, in Riverside Literature; Prose Selections
+(Ginn and Company, also Holt); Lectures on Shakespeare, in Everyman's
+Library, Bohn's Standard Library, etc.
+
+_Scott_. Lady of the Lake, Marmion, Ivanhoe, The Talisman, Guy Mannering,
+Quentin Durward. Numerous inexpensive editions of Scott's best poems and
+novels in Standard English Classics, Pocket Classics, Cassell's National
+Library, Eclectic English Classics, Everyman's Library, etc.; thus, Lady of
+the Lake, edited by Edwin Ginn, and Ivanhoe, edited by W. D. Lewis, both in
+Standard English Classics; Marmion, edited by G. B. Acton, and The
+Talisman, edited by F. Treudly, in Pocket Classics, etc.
+
+_Byron_. Mazeppa and The Prisoner of Chillon, edited by S. M. Tucker, in
+Standard English Classics; short poems, Selections from Childe Harold,
+etc., in Canterbury Poets, Riverside Literature, Holt's English Readings,
+Pocket Classics, etc.
+
+_Shelley_. To a Cloud, To a Skylark, West Wind, Sensitive Plant, Adonais,
+etc., all in Selections from Shelley, edited by Alexander, in Athenæum
+Press Series; Selections, edited by Woodberry, in Belles Lettres Series;
+Selections, also in Pocket Classics, Heath's English Classics, Golden
+Treasury Series, etc.
+
+_Keats_. Ode on a Grecian Urn, Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion, Lamia, To a
+Nightingale, etc., in Selections from Keats, in Athenæum Press; Selections
+also in Muses' Library, Riverside Literature, Golden Treasury Series, etc.
+
+_Lamb_. Essays: Dream Children, Old China, Dissertation on Roast Pig, etc.,
+edited by Wauchope, in Standard English Classics; various essays also in
+Camelot Series, Temple Classics, Everyman's Library, etc. Tales from
+Shakespeare, in Home and School Library (Ginn and Company); also in
+Riverside Literature, Pocket Classics, Golden Treasury, etc.
+
+_De Quincey_. The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc, in Standard English
+Classics, etc.; Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, in Temple Classics,
+Morley's Universal Library, Everyman's Library, Pocket Classics, etc.;
+Selections, edited by M. H. Turk, in Athenæum Press; Selections, edited by
+B. Perry (Holt).
+
+_Landor_. Selections, edited by W. Clymer, in Athenæum Press; Pericles and
+Aspasia, in Camelot Series; Imaginary Conversations, selected (Ginn and
+Company); the same, 2 vols., in Dutton's Universal Library; selected poems,
+in Canterbury Poets; selections, prose and verse, in Golden Treasury
+Series.
+
+_Jane Austen_. Pride and Prejudice, in Everyman's Library, Pocket Classics,
+etc.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY.[234]
+
+_HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 323-357; Cheyney, 576-632. _General
+Works_. Green, X, 2-4, Traill, Gardiner, Macaulay, etc. _Special Works_.
+Cheyney's Industrial and Social History of England; Warner's Landmarks of
+English Industrial History; Hassall's Making of the British Empire;
+Macaulay's William Pitt; Trevelyan's Early Life of Charles James Fox;
+Morley's Edmund Burke; Morris's Age of Queen Anne and the Early
+Hanoverians.
+
+_LITERATURE. General Works._ Mitchell, Courthope, Garnett and Gosse, Taine
+(see General Bibliography). _Special Works_. Beers's English Romanticism in
+the Nineteenth Century; A. Symons's The Romantic Movement in English
+Poetry; Dowden's The French Revolution and English Literature, also Studies
+in Literature, 1789-1877; Hancock's The French Revolution and the English
+Poets; Herford's The Age of Wordsworth (Handbooks of English Literature);
+Mrs. Oliphant's Literary History of England in the End of the Eighteenth
+and Beginning of the Nineteenth Centuries; Saintsbury's History of
+Nineteenth Century Literature; Masson's Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and
+Other Essays; Poets and Poetry of the Nineteenth Century, vols. 1-3;
+Gates's Studies and Appreciations; S. Brooke's Studies in Poetry;
+Rawnsley's Literary Associations of the English Lakes (2 vols.).
+
+_Wordsworth_. Texts: Globe, Aldine, Cambridge editions, etc.; Poetical and
+Prose Works, with Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, edited by Knight, Eversley
+Edition (London and New York, 1896); Letters of the Wordsworth Family,
+edited by Knight, 3 vols. (Ginn and Company); Poetical Selections, edited
+by Dowden, in Athenaeum Press; various other selections, in Golden
+Treasury, etc.; Prose Selections, edited by Gayley (Ginn and Company).
+Life: Memoirs, 2 vols., by Christopher Wordsworth; by Knight, 3 vols.; by
+Myers (English Men of Letters); by Elizabeth Wordsworth; Early Life (a
+Study of the Prelude) by E. Legouis, translated by J. Matthews; Raleigh's
+Wordsworth; N.C. Smith's Wordsworth's Literary Criticism; Rannie's
+Wordsworth and His Circle. Criticism: Herford's The Age of Wordsworth;
+Masson's Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats; Magnus's Primer of Wordsworth;
+Wilson's Helps to the Study of Arnold's Wordsworth; Essays, by Lowell, in
+Among My Books; by M. Arnold, in Essays in Criticism; by Hutton, in
+Literary Essays; by L. Stephen, in Hours in a Library, and in Studies of a
+Biographer; by Bagehot, in Literary Studies; by Hazlitt, in The Spirit of
+the Age; by Pater, in Appreciations; by De Quincey, in Essays on the Poets;
+by Fields, in Yesterdays with Authors; by Shairp, in Studies in Poetry and
+Philosophy. See also Knight's Through the Wordsworth Country, and
+Rawnsley's Literary Associations of the English Lakes.
+
+_Coleridge_. Texts: Complete Works, edited by Shedd, 7 vols. (New York
+1884); Poems, Globe, Aldine, and Cambridge editions, in Athenaeum Press
+(announced, 1909), Muses' Library, Canterbury Poets, etc.; Biographia
+Literaria, in Everyman's Library; the same, in Clarendon Press; Prose
+Selections, Lectures on Shakespeare, etc. (see Selections for Reading,
+above); Letters, edited by E.H. Coleridge (London, 1895). Life: by J.D.
+Campbell; by Traill (English Men of Letters); by Dykes; by Hall Caine
+(Great Writers Series); see also Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, and
+Lamb's essay, Christ's Hospital, in Essays of Elia. Criticism: Brandl's
+Coleridge and the English Romantic Movement. Essays, by Shairp, in Studies
+in Poetry and Philosophy; by Woodberry, in Makers of Literature; by J.
+Forster, in Great Teachers; by Dowden, in New Studies; by Swinburne, in
+Essays and Studies; by Brooke, in Theology in the English Poets; by
+Saintsbury, in Essays in English Literature; by Lowell in Democracy and
+Other Essays; by Hazlitt, and by Pater (see Wordsworth, above). See also
+Beers's English Romanticism; Carlyle's chapter on Coleridge, in Life of
+John Sterling.
+
+_Southey_. Texts: Poems, edited by Dowden (Macmillan); Poetical Works
+(Crowell); Selections in Canterbury Poets; Life of Nelson, in Everyman's
+Library, Temple Classics, Morley's Universal Library, etc. Life: by Dowden
+(English Men of Letters). Essays, by L. Stephen, in Studies of a
+Biographer; by Hazlitt and Saintsbury (see above).
+
+_Scott_. Texts: Numerous good editions of novels and poems. For single
+works, see Selections for Reading, above. Life: by Lockhart, 5 vols.
+(several editions; best by Pollard, 1900); by Hutton (English Men of
+Letters); by A. Lang, in Literary Lives; by C. D. Yonge (Great Writers); by
+Hudson; by Saintsbury (Famous Scots Series). Criticism: Essays, by
+Stevenson, Gossip on Romance, in Memories and Portraits; by Shairp, in
+Aspects of Poetry; by Swinburne, in Studies in Prose and Poetry; by
+Carlyle, in Miscellaneous Essays; by Hazlitt, Bagehot, L. Stephen, Brooke,
+and Saintsbury (see Coleridge and Wordsworth, above).
+
+_Byron_. Texts: Complete Works, Globe, Cambridge Poets, and Oxford
+editions; Selections, edited by M. Arnold, in Golden Treasury (see also
+Selections for Reading, above); Letters and Journals of Byron, edited by
+Moore (unreliable). Life: by Noel (Great Writers); by Nichol (English Men
+of Letters); The Real Lord Byron, by J. C. Jeaffreson; Trelawny's
+Recollections of Shelley and Byron. Criticism: Hunt's Lord Byron and His
+Contemporaries; Essays, by Morley, Macaulay, Hazlitt, Swinburne, and M.
+Arnold.
+
+_Shelley_. Texts: Centenary Edition, edited by Woodberry, 4 vols.; Globe
+and Cambridge Poets editions; Essays and Letters, in Camelot Series (see
+Selections for Reading, above). Life: by Symonds (English Men of Letters);
+by Dowden, 2 vols.; by Sharp (Great Writers); by T. J. Hogg, 2 vols.; by W.
+M. Rossetti. Criticism: Salt's A Shelley Primer; Essays, by Dowden, in
+Transcripts and Studies; by M. Arnold, Woodberry, Bagehot, Forster, L.
+Stephen, Brooke, De Quincey, and Hutton (see Coleridge and Wordsworth,
+above).
+
+_Keats_. Texts: Complete Works, edited by Forman, 4 vols. (London, 1883);
+Cambridge Poets Edition, with Letters, edited by H. E. Scudder (Houghton,
+Mifflin); Aldine Edition, with Life, edited by Lord Houghton (Macmillan);
+Selected Poems, with introduction and notes by Arlo Bates (Ginn and
+Company); Poems, also in Everyman's Library, Muses' Library, Golden
+Treasury, etc.; Letters, edited by S. Colvin, in Eversley Edition. Life: by
+Forman, in Complete Works; by Colvin (English Men of Letters); by W. M.
+Rossetti (Great Writers); by A. E. Hancock. Criticism: H. C. Shelley's
+Keats and His Circle; Masson's Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Other
+Essays; Essays, by M. Arnold, in Essays in Criticism, also in Ward's
+English Poets, vol. 4; by Hudson, in Studies in Interpretation; by Lowell,
+in Among My Books, or Literary Essays, vol. 2; by Brooke, De Quincey, and
+Swinburne (above).
+
+_Lamb_. Texts: Complete Works and Letters, edited by E. V. Lucas, 7 vols.
+(Putnam); the same, edited by Ainger, 6 vols. (London, 1883-1888); Essays
+of Elia, in Standard English Classics, etc. (see Selections for Reading);
+Dramatic Essays, edited by B. Matthews (Dodd, Mead); Specimens of English
+Dramatic Poets, in Bohn's Library. Life: by E. V. Lucas, 2 vols.; by Ainger
+(English Men of Letters); by Barry Cornwall; Talfourd's Memoirs of Charles
+Lamb. Criticism: Essays, by De Quincey, in Biographical Essays; by F.
+Harrison, in Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other Literary Estimates; by
+Pater, and Woodberry (see Wordsworth and Coleridge, above). See also
+Fitzgerald's Charles Lamb, his Friends, his Haunts, and his Books.
+
+_De Quincey_. Texts: Collected Writings, edited by Masson, 14 vols.
+(London, 1889-1891); Confessions of an Opium-Eater, etc. (see Selections
+for Reading). Life: by Masson (English Men of Letters); Life and Writings,
+by H. A. Page, 2 vols.; Hogg's De Quincey and his Friends; Findlay's
+Personal Recollections of De Quincey; see also De Quincey's
+Autobiographical Sketches, and Confessions. Criticism: Essays, by
+Saintsbury, in Essays in English Literature; by Masson, in Wordsworth,
+Shelley, Keats, and Other Essays; by L. Stephen, in Hours in a Library. See
+also Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature.
+
+_Landor_. Texts: Works, with Life by Forster, 8 vols. (London, 1876);
+Works, edited by Crump (London, 1897); Letters, etc., edited by Wheeler
+(London, 1897 and 1899); Imaginary Conversations, etc. (see Selections for
+Reading). Life: by Colvin (English Men of Letters); by Forster. Criticism:
+Essays, by De Quincey, Woodberry, L. Stephen, Saintsbury, Swinburne,
+Dow-den (see above). See also Stedman's Victorian Poets.
+
+_Jane Austen_. Texts: Works, edited by R. B. Johnson (Dent); various other
+editions of novels; Letters, edited by Woolsey (Roberts). Life: Austen-
+Leigh's Memoir of Jane Austen; Hill's Jane Austen, her Home and her
+Friends; Mitton's Jane Austen and her Times. Life, by Goldwin Smith; by
+Maiden (Famous Women Series); by O. F. Adams. Criticism: Pollock's Jane
+Austen; Pellew's Jane Austen's Novels; A. A. Jack's Essay on the Novel as
+Illustrated by Scott and Miss Austen; H. H. Bonnell's Charlotte Brontë,
+George Eliot, and Jane Austen; Essay, by Howells, in Heroines of Fiction.
+
+_Maria Edgeworth_. Texts: Tales and Novels, New Langford Edition, 10 vols.
+(London, 1893) various editions of novels (Dent, etc.); The Absentee, and
+Castle Rackrent, in Morley's Universal Library. Life: by Helen Zimmerman;
+Memoir, by Hare.
+
+_Mrs. Anne Radclife_. Romances, with introduction by Scott, in Ballantynes'
+Novelists Library (London, 1824); various editions of Udolpho, etc.;
+Saintsbury's Tales of Mystery, vol. i. See Beers's English Romanticism.
+
+_Moore_. Poetical Works, in Canterbury Poets, Chandos Classics, etc.;
+Selected poems, in Golden Treasury; Gunning's Thomas Moore, Poet and
+Patriot; Symington's Life and Works of Moore. Essay, by Saintsbury.
+
+_Campbell_. Poems, Aldine edition; Selections, in Golden Treasury. Life, by
+Hadden.
+
+_Hazlitt_. Texts: Works, edited by Henley, 12 vols. (London, 1902);
+Selected Essays, in Temple Classics, Camelot Series, etc. Life: by Birrell
+(English Men of Letters); Memoirs, by W. C. Hazlitt. Essays, by Saintsbury;
+by L. Stephen.
+
+_Leigh Hunt_. Texts: Selected essays, in Camelot Series, also in Cavendish
+Library (Warne); Stories from the Italian Poets (Putnam). Life: by
+Monkhouse (Great Writers). Essays, by Macaulay; by Saintsbury; by Hazlitt.
+See also Mrs. Field's A Shelf of Old Books.
+
+
+SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. (NOTE. In a period like the Age of Romanticism, the
+poems and essays chosen for special study vary so widely that only a few
+general questions on the selections for reading are attempted.)
+
+1. Why is this period of Romanticism (1789-1837) called the Age of
+Revolution? Give some reasons for the influence of the French Revolution on
+English literature, and illustrate from poems or essays which you have
+read. Explain the difference between Classicism and Romanticism. Which of
+these two types of literature do you prefer?
+
+2. What are the general characteristics of the literature of this period?
+What two opposing tendencies are illustrated in the novels of Scott and
+Jane Austen? in the poetry of Byron and Wordsworth?
+
+3. _Wordsworth_. Tell briefly the story of Wordsworth's life, and name some
+of his best poems. Why do the _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798) mark an important
+literary epoch? Read carefully, and make an analysis of the "Intimations of
+Immortality"; of "Tintern Abbey." Can you explain what political conditions
+are referred to in Wordsworth's "Sonnet on Milton"? in his "French
+Revolution"? Does he attempt to paint a picture in his sonnet on
+Westminster Bridge, or has he some other object in view? What is the
+central teaching of the "Ode to Duty"? Compare Wordsworth's two Skylark
+poems with Shelley's. Make a brief comparison between Wordsworth's sonnets
+and those of Shakespeare and of Milton, having in mind the thought, the
+melody, the view of nature, and the imagery of the three poets. Quote from
+Wordsworth's poems to show his belief that nature is conscious; to show the
+influence of nature on man; to show his interest in children; his
+sensitiveness to sounds; to illustrate the chastening influence of sorrow.
+Make a brief comparison between the characters of Wordsworth's "Michael"
+and of Burns's "The Cotter's Saturday Night." Compare Wordsworth's point of
+view and method, in the three poems "To a Daisy," with Burns's view, as
+expressed in his famous lines on the same subject.
+
+4. _Coleridge_. What are the general characteristics of Coleridge's life?
+What explains the profound sympathy for humanity that is reflected in his
+poems? For what, beside his poems, is he remarkable? Can you quote any
+passages from his poetry which show, the influence of Wordsworth? What are
+the characters in "The Ancient Mariner"? In what respect is this poem
+romantic? Give your own reasons for its popularity. Does the thought or the
+style of this poem impress you? If you have read any of the _Lectures on
+Shakespeare_, explain why Coleridge's work is called romantic criticism.
+
+5. _Scott_. Tell the story of Scott's life, and name his chief poems and
+novels. Do you recall any passage from his poetry which suggests his own
+heroism? Why was he called "the wizard of the North"? What is the general
+character of his poetry? Compare _Marmion_ with one of the old ballads,
+having in mind the characters, the dramatic interest of the story, and the
+style of writing. In what sense is he the creator of the historical novel?
+Upon what does he depend to hold the reader's attention? Compare him, in
+this respect, with Jane Austen. Which of his characters impress you as
+being the most lifelike? Name any novels of the present day which copy
+Scott or show his influence. Read _Ivanhoe_ and the _Lady of the Lake_;
+make a brief analysis of each work, having in mind the style, the plot, the
+dramatic interest, the use of adventure, and the truth to nature of the
+different characters.
+
+6. _Byron_. Why is Byron called the revolutionary poet? (Illustrate, if
+possible, from his poetry.) What is the general character of his work? In
+what kind of poetry does he excel? (Quote from _Childe Harold_ to
+illustrate your opinion.) Describe the typical Byronic hero. Can you
+explain his great popularity at first, and his subsequent loss of
+influence? Why is he still popular on the Continent? Do you find more of
+thought or of emotion in his poetry? Compare him, in this respect, with
+Shelley; with Wordsworth. Which is the more brilliant writer, Byron or
+Wordsworth? Which has the more humor? Which has the healthier mind? Which
+has the higher ideal of poetry? Which is the more inspiring and helpful? Is
+it fair to say that Byron's quality is power, not charm?
+
+7. _Shelley_. What are the chief characteristics of Shelley's poetry? Is it
+most remarkable for its thought, form, or imagery? What poems show the
+influence of the French Revolution? What subjects are considered in "Lines
+written among the Euganean Hills"? What does Shelley try to teach in "The
+Sensitive Plant"? Compare Shelley's view of nature, as reflected in "The
+Cloud" or "The West Wind," with Wordsworth's view, as reflected in "The
+Prelude," "Tintern Abbey," "Daffodils," etc. To what class of poems does
+"Adonais" belong? What is the subject of the poem? Name others of the same
+class. How does Shelley describe himself in this poem? Compare Shelley's
+"Adonais" and Milton's "Lycidas" with regard to the view of life after
+death as expressed in the poems. What kinds of scenes does Shelley like
+best to describe? Compare his characters with those of Wordsworth; of
+Byron. Do you recall any poems in which he writes of ordinary people or of
+ordinary experiences?
+
+8. _Keats_. What is the essence of Keats's poetical creed, as expressed in
+the "Ode on a Grecian Urn"? What are the remarkable elements in his life
+and work? What striking difference do you find between his early poems and
+those of Shelley and Byron? What are the chief subjects of his verse? What
+poems show the influence of the classics? of Elizabethan literature? Can
+you explain why his work has been called literary poetry? Keats and Shelley
+are generally classed together. What similarities do you find in their
+poems? Give some reasons why Keats introduces the old Bedesman in "The Eve
+of Saint Agnes." Name some of the literary friends mentioned in Keats's
+poetry.
+
+Compare Keats's characters with those of Wordsworth; of Byron. Does Keats
+ever remind you of Spenser? In what respects? Is your personal preference
+for Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, or Keats? Why?
+
+9. _Lamb_. Tell briefly the story of Lamb's life and name his principal
+works. Why is he called the most human of essayists? His friends called him
+"the last of the Elizabethans." Why? What is the general character of the
+_Essays of Elia_? How is the personality of Lamb shown in all these essays?
+Cite any passages showing Lamb's skill in portraying people. Make a brief
+comparison between Lamb and Addison, having in mind the subjects treated,
+the style, the humor, and the interest of both essayists. Which do you
+prefer, and why?
+
+10. _De Quincey_. What are the general characteristics of De Quincey's
+essays? Explain why he is called the psychologist of style. What accounts
+for a certain unreal element in all his work. Read a passage from _The
+English Mail-Coach_, or from _Joan of Arc_, or from _Levana, Our Lady of
+Sorrows_, and comment freely upon it, with regard to style, ideas,
+interest, and the impression of reality or unreality which it leaves.
+
+11. _Landor_. In what respect does Landor show a reaction from Romanticism?
+What qualities make Landor's poems stand out so clearly in the memory? Why,
+for instance, do you think Lamb was so haunted by "Rose Aylmer"? Quote from
+Landor's poems to illustrate his tenderness, his sensitiveness to beauty,
+his power of awakening emotion, his delicacy of characterization. Do you
+find the same qualities in his prose? Can you explain why much of his prose
+seems like a translation from the Greek? Compare a passage from the
+_Imaginary Conversations_ with a passage from Gibbon or Johnson, to show
+the difference between the classic and the pseudo-classic style. Compare
+one of Landor's characters, in _Imaginary Conversations_, with the same
+character in history.
+
+12. _Jane Austen_. How does Jane Austen show a reaction from Romanticism?
+What important work did she do for the novel? To what kind of fiction was
+her work opposed? In what does the charm of her novels consist? Make a
+brief comparison between Jane Austen and Scott (as illustrated in _Pride
+and Prejudice_ and _Ivanhoe_), having in mind the subject, the characters,
+the manner of treatment, and the interest of both narratives. Do Jane
+Austen's characters have to be explained by the author, or do they explain
+themselves? Which method calls for the greater literary skill? What does
+Jane Austen say about Mrs. Radcliffe, in _Northanger Abbey_? Does she make
+any other observations on eighteenth-century novelists?
+
+
+
+                                CHRONOLOGY
+      _End of the Eighteenth and Beginning of the Nineteenth Century_
+============================================================================
+  HISTORY                            |  LITERATURE
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+1760-1820. George III                |
+                                     | 1770-1850. Wordsworth
+                                     | 1771-1832. Scott
+1789-1799. French Revolution         |
+                                     | 1796-1816. Jane Austen's novels
+                                     | 1798. Lyrical Balads of Wordsworth
+                                     |       and Coleridge
+1800. Union of Great Britain and     |
+      Ireland                        |
+1802. Colonization of Australia      | 1802. Scotts Minstrelsy of the Scottish
+                                     |       Border
+1805. Battle of Trafalgar            | 1805-1817. Scotts poems
+                                     | 1807. Wordsworth's Intimations of
+1807. Abolition of slave trade       |       Immortality. Lamb's Tales
+                                     |       from Shakespeare
+1808-1814. Peninsular War            |
+                                     | 1809-1818. Byron's Childe Harold
+1812. Second war with United States  | 1810-1813. Coleridge's Lectures on
+                                     |       Shakespeare
+1814. Congress of Vienna             | 1814-1831. Waverley Novels
+1815. Battle of Waterloo             |
+                                     | 1816. Shelley's Alastor
+                                     | 1817. Coleridge's Biographia Literaria
+                                     | 1817-1820. Keats's poems
+                                     | 1818-1820. Shelley's Prometheus
+1819. First Atlantic steamship       |
+1820. George IV (_d_. 1830)          | 1820. Wordsworth's Duddon Sonnets
+                                     | 1820-1833. Lamb's Essays of Elia
+                                     | 1821. De Quincey's Confessions
+                                     | 1824-1846. Landor's Imaginary
+                                     |       Conversations.
+1826. First Temperance Society       |
+1829. Catholic Emancipation Bill     |
+1830. William IV (_d_. 1837)         | 1830. Tennyson's first poems
+      First railway                  |
+                                     | 1831. Scott's last novel
+1832. Reform Bill                    |
+1833. Emancipation of slaves         | 1833. Carlyle's Sartor Resartus
+                                     |       Browning's Pauline
+1834. System of national education   |
+1837. Victoria (_d_. 1901)           |
+                                     | 1853-1861. De Quincey's Collected
+                                     |       Essays
+============================================================================
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE VICTORIAN AGE (1850-1900)
+
+THE MODERN PERIOD OF PROGRESS AND UNREST
+
+When Victoria became queen, in 1837, English literature seemed to have
+entered upon a period of lean years, in marked contrast with the poetic
+fruitfulness of the romantic age which we have just studied. Coleridge,
+Shelley, Keats, Byron, and Scott had passed away, and it seemed as if there
+were no writers in England to fill their places. Wordsworth had written, in
+1835,
+
+    Like clouds that rake, the mountain summits,
+      Or waves that own no curbing hand,
+    How fast has brother followed brother,
+      From sunshine to the sunless land!
+
+In these lines is reflected the sorrowful spirit of a literary man of the
+early nineteenth century who remembered the glory that had passed away from
+the earth. But the leanness of these first years is more apparent than
+real. Keats and Shelley were dead, it is true, but already there had
+appeared three disciples of these poets who were destined to be far more
+widely, read than were their masters. Tennyson had been publishing poetry
+since 1827, his first poems appearing almost simultaneously with the last
+work of Byron, Shelley, and Keats; but it was not until 1842, with the
+publication of his collected poems, in two volumes, that England recognized
+in him one of her great literary leaders. So also Elizabeth Barrett had
+been writing since 1820, but not till twenty years later did her poems
+become deservedly popular; and Browning had published his _Pauline_ in
+1833, but it was not until 1846, when he published the last of the series
+called _Bells and Pomegranates_, that the reading public began to
+appreciate his power and originality. Moreover, even as romanticism seemed
+passing away, a group of great prose writers--Dickens, Thackeray, Carlyle,
+and Ruskin--had already begun to proclaim the literary glory of a new age,
+which now seems to rank only just below the Elizabethan and the Romantic
+periods.
+
+HISTORICAL SUMMARY. Amid the multitude of social and political forces of
+this great age, four things stand out clearly. First, the long struggle of
+the Anglo-Saxons for personal liberty is definitely settled, and democracy
+becomes the established order of the day. The king, who appeared in an age
+of popular weakness and ignorance, and the peers, who came with the Normans
+in triumph, are both stripped of their power and left as figureheads of a
+past civilization. The last vestige of personal government and of the
+divine right of rulers disappears; the House of Commons becomes the ruling
+power in England; and a series of new reform bills rapidly extend the
+suffrage, until the whole body of English people choose for themselves the
+men who shall represent them.
+
+Second, because it is an age of democracy, it is an age of popular
+education, of religious tolerance, of growing brotherhood, and of profound
+social unrest. The slaves had been freed in 1833; but in the middle of the
+century England awoke to the fact that slaves are not necessarily negroes,
+stolen in Africa to be sold like cattle in the market place, but that
+multitudes of men, women, and little children in the mines and factories
+were victims of a more terrible industrial and social slavery. To free
+these slaves also, the unwilling victims of our unnatural competitive
+methods, has been the growing purpose of the Victorian Age until the
+present day.
+
+Third, because it is an age of democracy and education, it is an age of
+comparative peace. England begins to think less of the pomp and false
+glitter of fighting, and more of its moral evils, as the nation realizes
+that it is the common people who bear the burden and the sorrow and the
+poverty of war, while the privileged classes reap most of the financial and
+political rewards. Moreover, with the growth of trade and of friendly
+foreign relations, it becomes evident that the social equality for which
+England was contending at home belongs to the whole race of men; that
+brotherhood is universal, not insular; that a question of justice is never
+settled by fighting; and that war is generally unmitigated horror and
+barbarism. Tennyson, who came of age when the great Reform Bill occupied
+attention, expresses the ideals of the Liberals of his day who proposed to
+spread the gospel of peace,
+
+    Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furled
+    In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the world.
+
+Fourth, the Victorian Age is especially remarkable because of its rapid
+progress in all the arts and sciences and in mechanical inventions. A
+glance at any record of the industrial achievements of the nineteenth
+century will show how vast they are, and it is unnecessary to repeat here
+the list of the inventions, from spinning looms to steamboats, and from
+matches to electric lights. All these material things, as well as the
+growth of education, have their influence upon the life of a people, and it
+is inevitable that they should react upon its prose and poetry; though as
+yet we are too much absorbed in our sciences and mechanics to determine
+accurately their influence upon literature. When these new things shall by
+long use have became familiar as country roads, or have been replaced by
+newer and better things, then they also will have their associations and
+memories, and a poem on the railroads may be as suggestive as Wordsworth's
+sonnet on Westminster Bridge; and the busy, practical workingmen who to-day
+throng our streets and factories may seem, to a future and greater age, as
+quaint and poetical as to us seem the slow toilers of the Middle Ages.
+
+LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. When one is interested enough to trace the
+genealogy of Victoria he finds, to his surprise, that in her veins flowed
+the blood both of William the Conqueror and of Cerdic, the first Saxon king
+of England; and this seems to be symbolic of the literature of her age,
+which embraces the whole realm of Saxon and Norman life,--the strength and
+ideals of the one, and the culture and refinement of the other. The
+romantic revival had done its work, and England entered upon a new free
+period, in which every form of literature, from pure romance to gross
+realism, struggled for expression. At this day it is obviously impossible
+to judge the age as a whole; but we are getting far enough away from the
+early half of it to notice certain definite characteristics. First, though
+the age produced many poets, and two who deserve to rank among the
+greatest, nevertheless this is emphatically an age of prose. And since the
+number of readers has increased a thousandfold with the spread of popular
+education, it is the age of the newspaper, the magazine, and the modern
+novel,--the first two being the story of the world's daily life, and the
+last our pleasantest form of literary entertainment, as well as our most
+successful method of presenting modern problems and modern ideals. The
+novel in this age fills a place which the drama held in the days of
+Elizabeth; and never before, in any age or language, has the novel appeared
+in such numbers and in such perfection.
+
+[Moral Purpose] The second marked characteristic of the age is that
+literature, both in prose and in poetry, seems to depart from the purely
+artistic standard, of art for art's sake, and to be actuated by a definite
+moral purpose Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, Ruskin,--who and what were these
+men if not the teachers of England, not vaguely but definitely, with superb
+faith in their message, and with the conscious moral purpose to uplift and
+to instruct? Even the novel breaks away from Scott's romantic influence,
+and first studies life as it is, and then points out what life may and
+ought to be. Whether we read the fun and sentiment of Dickens, the social
+miniatures of Thackeray, or the psychological studies of George Eliot, we
+find in almost every case a definite purpose to sweep away error and to
+reveal the underlying truth of human life. So the novel sought to do for
+society in this age precisely what Lyell and Darwin sought to do for
+science, that is, to find the truth, and to show how it might be used to
+uplift humanity. Perhaps for this reason the Victorian Age is emphatically
+an age of realism rather than of romance,--not the realism of Zola and
+Ibsen, but a deeper realism which strives to tell the whole truth, showing
+moral and physical diseases as they are, but holding up health and hope as
+the normal conditions of humanity.
+
+It is somewhat customary to speak of this age as an age of doubt and
+pessimism, following the new conception of man and of the universe which
+was formulated by science under the name of involution. It is spoken of
+also as a prosaic age, lacking in great ideals. Both these criticisms seem
+to be the result of judging a large thing when we are too close to it to
+get its true proportions, just as Cologne Cathedral, one of the world's
+most perfect structures, seems to be a shapeless pile of stone when we
+stand too close beneath its mighty walls and buttresses. Tennyson's
+immature work, like that of the minor poets, is sometimes in a doubtful or
+despairing strain; but his _In Memoriam_ is like the rainbow after storm;
+and Browning seems better to express the spirit of his age in the strong,
+manly faith of "Rabbi Ben Ezra," and in the courageous optimism of all his
+poetry. Stedman's _Victorian Anthology_ is, on the whole, a most inspiring
+book of poetry. It would be hard to collect more varied cheer from any age.
+And the great essayists, like Macaulay, Carlyle, Ruskin, and the great
+novelists, like Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, generally leave us with a
+larger charity and with a deeper faith in our humanity.
+
+So also the judgment that this age is too practical for great ideals may be
+only a description of the husk that hides a very full ear of corn. It is
+well to remember that Spenser and Sidney judged their own age (which we now
+consider to be the greatest in our literary history) to be altogether given
+over to materialism, and to be incapable of literary greatness. Just as
+time has made us smile at their blindness, so the next century may correct
+our judgment of this as a material age, and looking upon the enormous
+growth of charity and brotherhood among us, and at the literature which
+expresses our faith in men, may judge the Victorian Age to be, on the
+whole, the noblest and most inspiring in the history of the world.
+
+
+I. THE POETS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE
+
+ALFRED TENNYSON (1809-1892)
+
+    O young Mariner,
+    You from the haven
+    Under the sea-cliff,
+    You that are watching
+    The gray Magician
+    With eyes of wonder,
+    _I_ am Merlin,
+    And _I_ am dying,
+    _I_ am Merlin
+    Who follow The Gleam.
+      .  .  .  .  .  .  .
+    O young Mariner,
+    Down to the haven
+    Call your companions,
+    Launch your vessel,
+    And crowd your canvas,
+    And, ere it vanishes
+    Over the margin,
+    After it, follow it,
+    Follow The Gleam.
+
+One who reads this haunting poem of "Merlin and The Gleam" finds in it a
+suggestion of the spirit of the poet's whole life,--his devotion to the
+ideal as expressed in poetry, his early romantic impressions, his
+struggles, doubts, triumphs, and his thrilling message to his race.
+Throughout the entire Victorian period Tennyson stood at the summit of
+poetry in England. Not in vain was he appointed laureate at the death of
+Wordsworth, in 1850; for, almost alone among those who have held the
+office, he felt the importance of his place, and filled and honored it. For
+nearly half a century Tennyson was not only a man and a poet; he was a
+voice, the voice of a whole people, expressing in exquisite melody their
+doubts and their faith, their griefs and their triumphs. In the wonderful
+variety of his verse he suggests all the qualities of England's greatest
+poets. The dreaminess of Spenser, the majesty of Milton, the natural
+simplicity of Wordsworth, the fantasy of Blake and Coleridge, the melody of
+Keats and Shelley, the narrative vigor of Scott and Byron,--all these
+striking qualities are evident on successive pages of Tennyson's poetry.
+The only thing lacking is the dramatic power of the Elizabethans. In
+reflecting the restless spirit of this progressive age Tennyson is as
+remarkable as Pope was in voicing the artificiality of the early eighteenth
+century. As a poet, therefore, who expresses not so much a personal as a
+national spirit, he is probably the most representative literary man of the
+Victorian era.
+
+LIFE. Tennyson's life is a remarkable one in this respect, that from
+beginning to end he seems to have been dominated by a single impulse, the
+impulse of poetry. He had no large or remarkable experiences, no wild oats
+to sow, no great successes or reverses, no business cares or public
+offices. For sixty-six years, from the appearance of the _Poems by Two
+Brothers_, in 1827, until his death in 1892, he studied and practiced his
+art continually and exclusively. Only Browning, his fellow-worker,
+resembles him in this; but the differences in the two men are world-wide.
+Tennyson was naturally shy, retiring, indifferent to men, hating noise and
+publicity, loving to be alone with nature, like Wordsworth. Browning was
+sociable, delighting in applause, in society, in travel, in the noise and
+bustle of the big world.
+
+Tennyson was born in the rectory of Somersby, Lincolnshire, in 1809. The
+sweet influences of his early natural surroundings can be better understood
+from his early poems than from any biography. He was one of the twelve
+children of the Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, a scholarly clergyman, and
+his wife Elizabeth Fytche, a gentle, lovable woman, "not learned, save in
+gracious household ways," to whom the poet pays a son's loyal tribute near
+the close of _The Princess_. It is interesting to note that most of these
+children were poetically inclined, and that two of the brothers, Charles
+and Frederick, gave far greater promise than did Alfred.
+
+When seven years old the boy went to his grandmother's house at Louth, in
+order to attend a famous grammar school at that place. Not even a man's
+memory, which generally makes light of hardship and glorifies early
+experiences, could ever soften Tennyson's hatred of school life. His
+complaint was not so much at the roughness of the boys, which had so
+frightened Cowper, as at the brutality of the teachers, who put over the
+school door a wretched Latin inscription translating Solomon's barbarous
+advice about the rod and the child. In these psychologic days, when the
+child is more important than the curriculum, and when we teach girls and
+boys rather than Latin and arithmetic, we read with wonder Carlyle's
+description of his own schoolmaster, evidently a type of his kind, who
+"knew of the human soul thus much, that it had a faculty called memory, and
+could be acted on through the muscular integument by appliance of birch
+rods." After four years of most unsatisfactory school life, Tennyson
+returned home, and was fitted for the university by his scholarly father.
+With his brothers he wrote many verses, and his first efforts appeared in a
+little volume called _Poems by Two Brothers_, in 1827. The next year he
+entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became the center of a
+brilliant circle of friends, chief of whom was the young poet Arthur Henry
+Hallam.
+
+At the university Tennyson soon became known for his poetical ability, and
+two years after his entrance he gained the prize of the Chancellor's Medal
+for a poem called "Timbuctoo," the subject, needless to say, being chosen
+by the chancellor. Soon after winning this honor Tennyson published his
+first signed work, called _Poems Chiefly Lyrical_ (1830), which, though it
+seems somewhat crude and disappointing to us now, nevertheless contained
+the germ of all his later poetry. One of the most noticeable things in this
+volume is the influence which Byron evidently exerted over the poet in his
+early days; and it was perhaps due largely to the same romantic influence
+that Tennyson and his friend Hallam presently sailed away to Spain, with
+the idea of joining the army of insurgents against King Ferdinand.
+Considered purely as a revolutionary venture, this was something of a
+fiasco, suggesting the noble Duke of York and his ten thousand men,--"he
+marched them up a hill, one day; and he marched them down again." From a
+literary view point, however, the experience was not without its value. The
+deep impression which the wild beauty of the Pyrenees made upon the young
+poet's mind is reflected clearly in the poem "Oenone."
+
+In 1831 Tennyson left the university without taking his degree. The reasons
+for this step are not clear; but the family was poor, and poverty may have
+played a large part in his determination. His father died a few months
+later; but, by a generous arrangement with the new rector, the family
+retained the rectory at Somersby, and here, for nearly six years, Tennyson
+lived in a retirement which strongly suggests Milton at Horton. He read and
+studied widely, cultivated an intimate acquaintance with nature, thought
+deeply on the problems suggested by the Reform Bill which was then
+agitating England, and during his leisure hours wrote poetry. The first
+fruits of this retirement appeared, late in 1832, in a wonderful little
+volume bearing the simple name _Poems_. As the work of a youth only
+twenty-three, this book is remarkable for the variety and melody of its
+verse. Among its treasures we still read with delight "The Lotos Eaters,"
+"Palace of Art," "A Dream of Fair Women," "The Miller's Daughter,"
+"Oenone," and "The Lady of Shalott"; but the critics of the _Quarterly_,
+who had brutally condemned his earlier work, were again unmercifully
+severe. The effect of this harsh criticism upon a sensitive nature was most
+unfortunate; and when his friend Hallam died, in 1833, Tennyson was plunged
+into a period of gloom and sorrow. The sorrow may be read in the exquisite
+little poem beginning, "Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O
+Sea!" which was his first published elegy for his friend; and the
+depressing influence of the harsh and unjust criticism is suggested in
+"Merlin and The Gleam," which the reader will understand only after he has
+read Tennyson's biography.
+
+For nearly ten years after Hallam's death Tennyson published nothing, and
+his movements are hard to trace as the family went here and there, seeking
+peace and a home in various parts of England. But though silent, he
+continued to write poetry, and it was in these sad wandering days that he
+began his immortal _In Memoriam_ and his _Idylls of the King_. In 1842 his
+friends persuaded him to give his work to the world, and with some
+hesitation he published his _Poems_. The success of this work was almost
+instantaneous, and we can appreciate the favor with which it was received
+when we read the noble blank verse of "Ulysses" and "Morte d'Arthur," the
+perfect little song of grief for Hallam which we have already mentioned,
+and the exquisite idyls like "Dora" and "The Gardener's Daughter," which
+aroused even Wordsworth's enthusiasm and brought from him a letter saying
+that he had been trying all his life to write such an English pastoral as
+"Dora" and had failed. From this time forward Tennyson, with increasing
+confidence in himself and his message, steadily maintained his place as the
+best known and best loved poet in England.
+
+The year 1850 was a happy one for Tennyson. He was appointed poet laureate,
+to succeed Wordsworth; and he married Emily Sellwood,
+
+    Her whose gentle will has changed my fate
+      And made my life a perfumed altar flame,
+
+whom he had loved for thirteen years, but whom his poverty had prevented
+him from marrying. The year is made further remarkable by the publication
+of _In Memoriam_, probably the most enduring of his poems, upon which he
+had worked at intervals for sixteen years. Three years later, with the
+money that his work now brought him, he leased the house Farringford, in
+the Isle of Wight, and settled in the first permanent home he had known
+since he left the rectory at Somersby.
+
+For the remaining forty years of his life he lived, like Wordsworth, "in
+the stillness of a great peace," writing steadily, and enjoying the
+friendship of a large number of people, some distinguished, some obscure,
+from the kindly and sympathetic Victoria to the servants on his own farm.
+All of these he called with equal sincerity his friends, and to each one he
+was the same man, simple, strong, kindly, and noble. Carlyle describes him
+as "a fine, large-featured, dim-eyed, bronze-colored, shaggy-headed man,
+... most restful, brotherly, solid-hearted." Loving solitude and hating
+publicity as he did, the numerous tourists from both sides of the ocean,
+who sought him out in his retreat and insisted upon seeing him, made his
+life at times intolerable. Influenced partly by the desire to escape such
+popularity, he bought land and built for himself a new house, Aldworth, in
+Surrey, though he made his home in Farringford for the greater part of the
+year.
+
+His labor during these years and his marvelous freshness and youthfulness
+of feeling are best understood by a glance at the contents of his complete
+works. Inferior poems, like _The Princess_, which was written in the first
+flush of his success, and his dramas, which were written against the advice
+of his best friends, may easily be criticised; but the bulk of his verse
+shows an astonishing originality and vigor to the very end. He died very
+quietly at Aldworth, with his family about him in the moonlight, and beside
+him a volume of Shakespeare, open at the dirge in _Cymbeline:_
+
+    Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
+      Nor the furious winter's rages;
+    Thou thy worldly task hast done,
+      Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
+
+The strong and noble spirit of his life is reflected in one of his best
+known poems, "Crossing the Bar," which was written in his eighty-first
+year, and which he desired should be placed at the end of his collected
+works:
+
+    Sunset and evening star,
+      And one clear call for me!
+    And may there be no moaning of the bar,
+      When I put out to sea,
+    But such a tide as, moving, seems asleep,
+      Too full for sound and foam,
+    When that which drew from out the boundless deep
+      Turns again home.
+    Twilight and evening bell,
+      And after that the dark!
+    And may there be no sadness of farewell,
+      When I embark;
+    For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
+      The flood may bear me far,
+    I hope to see my Pilot face to face
+      When I have crost the bar.
+
+WORKS. At the outset of our study of Tennyson's works it may be well to
+record two things, by way of suggestion. First, Tennyson's poetry is not so
+much to be studied as to be read and appreciated; he is a poet to have open
+on one's table, and to enjoy as one enjoys his daily exercise. And second,
+we should by all means begin to get acquainted with Tennyson in the days of
+our youth. Unlike Browning, who is generally appreciated by more mature
+minds, Tennyson is for enjoyment, for inspiration, rather than for
+instruction. Only youth can fully appreciate him; and youth, unfortunately,
+except in a few rare, beautiful cases, is something which does not dwell
+with us long after our school days. The secret of poetry, especially of
+Tennyson's poetry, is to be eternally young, and, like Adam in Paradise, to
+find every morning a new world, fresh, wonderful, inspiring, as if just
+from the hands of God.
+
+Except by the student, eager to understand the whoje range of poetry in
+this age, Tennyson's earlier poems and his later dramas may well be
+omitted. Opinions vary about both; but the general judgment seems to be
+that the earlier poems show too much of Byron's influence, and their
+crudeness suffers by comparison with the exquisitely finished work of
+Tennyson's middle life. Of dramatic works he wrote seven, his great
+ambition being to present a large part of the history of England in a
+series of dramas. _Becket_ was one of the best of these works and met with
+considerable favor on the stage; but, like all the others, it indicates
+that Tennyson lacked the dramatic power and the humor necessary for a
+successful playwright.
+
+Among the remaining poems there is such a wide variety that every reader
+must be left largely to follow his own delightful choice.[235] Of the
+_Poems_ of 1842 we have already mentioned those best worth reading. _The
+Princess, a Medley_ (1847), a long poem of over three thousand lines of
+blank verse, is Tennyson's answer to the question of woman's rights and
+woman's sphere, which was then, as in our own day, strongly agitating the
+public mind. In this poem a baby finally solves the problem which
+philosophers have pondered ever since men began to think connectedly about
+human society. A few exquisite songs, like "Tears, Idle Tears," "Bugle
+Song," and "Sweet and Low," form the most delightful part of this poem,
+which in general is hardly up to the standard of the poet's later work.
+_Maud_ (1855) is what is called in literature a monodrama, telling the
+story of a lover who passes from morbidness to ecstasy, then to anger and
+murder, followed by insanity and recovery. This was Tennyson's favorite,
+and among his friends he read aloud from it more than from any other poem.
+Perhaps if we could hear Tennyson read it, we should appreciate it better;
+but, on the whole, it seems overwrought and melodramatic. Even its lyrics,
+like "Come into the Garden, Maud," which make this work a favorite with
+young lovers, are characterized by "prettiness" rather than by beauty or
+strength.
+
+Perhaps the most loved of all Tennyson's works is _In Memoriam_, which, on
+account of both its theme and its exquisite workmanship, is "one of the few
+immortal names that were not born to die." The immediate occasion of this
+remarkable poem was Tennyson's profound personal grief at the death of his
+friend Hallam. As he wrote lyric after lyric, inspired by this sad subject,
+the poet's grief became less personal, and the greater grief of humanity
+mourning for its dead and questioning its immortality took possession of
+him. Gradually the poem became an expression, first, of universal doubt,
+and then of universal faith, a faith which rests ultimately not on reason
+or philosophy but on the soul's instinct for immortality. The immortality
+of human love is the theme of the poem, which is made up of over one
+hundred different lyrics. The movement takes us through three years, rising
+slowly from poignant sorrow and doubt to a calm peace and hope, and ending
+with a noble hymn of courage and faith,--a modest courage and a humble
+faith, love-inspired,--which will be a favorite as long as saddened men
+turn to literature for consolation. Though Darwin's greatest books had not
+yet been written, science had already overturned many old conceptions of
+life; and Tennyson, who lived apart and thought deeply on all the problems
+of his day, gave this poem to the world as his own answer to the doubts and
+questionings of men. This universal human interest, together with its
+exquisite form and melody, makes the poem, in popular favor at least, the
+supreme threnody, or elegiac poem, of our literature; though Milton's
+_Lycidas_ is, from the critical view point, undoubtedly a more artistic
+work.
+
+_The Idylls of the King_ ranks among the greatest of Tennyson's later
+works. Its general subject is the Celtic legends of King Arthur and his
+knights of the Round Table, and the chief source of its material is
+Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_. Here, in this mass of beautiful legends, is
+certainly the subject of a great national epic; yet after four hundred
+years, during which many poets have used the material, the great epic is
+still unwritten. Milton and Spenser, as we have already noted, considered
+this material carefully; and Milton alone, of all English writers, had
+perhaps the power to use it in a great epic. Tennyson began to use these
+legends in his _Morte d'Arthur_ (1842); but the epic idea probably occurred
+to him later, in 1856, when he began "Geraint and Enid," and he added the
+stories of "Vivien," "Elaine," "Guinevere," and other heroes and heroines
+at intervals, until "Balin," the last of the _Idylls_, appeared in 1885.
+Later these works were gathered together and arranged with an attempt at
+unity. The result is in no sense an epic poem, but rather a series of
+single poems loosely connected by a thread of interest in Arthur, the
+central personage, and in his unsuccessful attempt to found an ideal
+kingdom.
+
+Entirely different in spirit is another collection of poems called _English
+Idyls,_[236] which began in the _Poems_ of 1842, and which Tennyson
+intended should reflect the ideals of widely different types of English
+life. Of these varied poems, "Dora," "The Gardener's Daughter," "Ulysses,"
+"Locksley Hall" and "Sir Galahad" are the best; but all are worthy of
+study. One of the most famous of this series is "Enoch Arden" (1864), in
+which Tennyson turns from mediæval knights, from lords, heroes, and fair
+ladies, to find the material for true poetry among the lowly people that
+make up the bulk of English life. Its rare melody, its sympathy for common
+life, and its revelation of the beauty and heroism which hide in humble men
+and women everywhere, made this work an instant favorite. Judged by its
+sales alone, it was the most popular of his works during the poet's
+lifetime.
+
+Tennyson's later volumes, like the _Ballads_ (1880) and _Demeter_ (1889),
+should not be overlooked, since they contain some of his best work. The
+former contains stirring war songs, like "The Defence of Lucknow," and
+pictures of wild passionate grief, like "Rizpah"; the latter is notable for
+"Romney's Remorse," a wonderful piece of work; "Merlin and The Gleam,"
+which expresses the poet's lifelong ideal; and several exquisite little
+songs, like "The Throstle," and "The Oak," which show how marvelously the
+aged poet retained his youthful freshness and inspiration. Here certainly
+is variety enough to give us long years of literary enjoyment; and we need
+hardly mention miscellaneous poems, like "The Brook" and "The Charge of the
+Light Brigade," which are known to every schoolboy; and "Wages" and "The
+Higher Pantheism," which should be read by every man who thinks about the
+old, old problem of life and death.
+
+CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON'S POETRY. If we attempt to sum up the quality
+of Tennyson, as shown in all these works, the task is a difficult one; but
+three things stand out more or less plainly. First, Tennyson is essentially
+the artist. No other in his age studied the art of poetry so constantly or
+with such singleness of purpose; and only Swinburne rivals him in melody
+and the perfect finish of his verse. Second, like all the great writers of
+his age, he is emphatically a teacher, often a leader. In the preceding
+age, as the result of the turmoil produced by the French Revolution,
+lawlessness was more or less common, and individuality was the rule in
+literature. Tennyson's theme, so characteristic of his age, is the reign of
+order,--of law in the physical world, producing evolution, and of law in
+the spiritual world, working out the perfect man. _In Memoriam, Idylls of
+the King, The Princess_,-here are three widely different poems; yet the
+theme of each, so far as poetry is a kind of spiritual philosophy and
+weighs its words before it utters them, is the orderly development of law
+in the natural and in the spiritual world.
+
+This certainly is a new doctrine in poetry, but the message does not end
+here. Law implies a source, a method, an object. Tennyson, after facing his
+doubts honestly and manfully, finds law even in the sorrows and losses of
+humanity. He gives this law an infinite and personal source, and finds the
+supreme purpose of all law to be a revelation of divine love. All earthly
+love, therefore, becomes an image of the heavenly. What first perhaps
+attracted readers to Tennyson, as to Shakespeare, was the character of his
+women,--pure, gentle, refined beings, whom we must revere as our Anglo-
+Saxon forefathers revered the women they loved. Like Browning, the poet had
+loved one good woman supremely, and her love made clear the meaning of all
+life. The message goes one step farther. Because law and love are in the
+world, faith is the only reasonable attitude toward life and death, even
+though we understand them not. Such, in a few words, seems to be Tennyson's
+whole message and philosophy.
+
+If we attempt now to fix Tennyson's permanent place in literature, as the
+result of his life and work, we must apply to him the same test that we
+applied to Milton and Wordsworth, and, indeed, to all our great poets, and
+ask with the German critics, "What new thing has he said to the world or
+even to his own country?" The answer is, frankly, that we do not yet know
+surely; that we are still too near Tennyson to judge him impersonally. This
+much, however, is clear. In a marvelously complex age, and amid a hundred
+great men, he was regarded as a leader. For a full half century he was the
+voice of England, loved and honored as a man and a poet, not simply by a
+few discerning critics, but by a whole people that do not easily give their
+allegiance to any one man. And that, for the present, is Tennyson's
+sufficient eulogy.
+
+
+ROBERT BROWNING (1812-1889)
+
+    How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ
+    All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy!
+
+In this new song of David, from Browning's _Saul_, we have a suggestion of
+the astonishing vigor and hope that characterize all the works of Browning,
+the one poet of the age who, after thirty years of continuous work, was
+finally recognized and placed beside Tennyson, and whom future ages may
+judge to be a greater poet,--perhaps, even, the greatest in our literature
+since Shakespeare.
+
+The chief difficulty in reading Browning is the obscurity of his style,
+which the critics of half a century ago held up to ridicule. Their attitude
+towards the poet's early work may be inferred from Tennyson's humorous
+criticism of _Sordello_. It may be remembered that the first line of this
+obscure poem is, "Who will may hear Sordello's story told"; and that the
+last line is, "Who would has heard Sordello's story told." Tennyson
+remarked that these were the only lines in the whole poem that he
+understood, and that they were evidently both lies. If we attempt to
+explain this obscurity, which puzzled Tennyson and many less friendly
+critics, we find that it has many sources. First, the poet's thought is
+often obscure, or else so extremely subtle that language expresses it
+imperfectly,--
+
+    Thoughts hardly to be packed
+    Into a narrow act,
+    Fancies that broke through language and escaped.
+
+Second, Browning is led from one thing to another by his own mental
+associations, and forgets that the reader's associations may be of an
+entirely different kind. Third, Browning is careless in his English, and
+frequently clips his speech, giving us a series of ejaculations. As we do
+not quite understand his processes of thought, we must stop between the
+ejaculations to trace out the connections. Fourth, Browning's, allusions
+are often far-fetched, referring to some odd scrap of information which he
+has picked up in his wide reading, and the ordinary reader finds it
+difficult to trace and understand them. Finally, Browning wrote too much
+and revised too Little. The time which he should have given to making one
+thought clear was used in expressing other thoughts that flitted through
+his head like a flock of swallows. His field was the individual soul, never
+exactly alike in any two men, and he sought to express the hidden motives
+and principles which govern individual action. In this field he is like a
+miner delving underground, sending up masses of mingled earth and ore; and
+the reader must sift all this material to separate the gold from the dross.
+
+Here, certainly, are sufficient reasons for Browning's obscurity; and we
+must add the word that the fault seems unpardonable, for the simple reason
+that Browning shows himself capable, at times, of writing directly,
+melodiously, and with noble simplicity.
+
+So much for the faults, which must be faced and overlooked before one finds
+the treasure that is hidden in Browning's poetry. Of all the poets in our
+literature, no other is so completely, so consciously, so magnificently a
+teacher of men. He feels his mission of faith and courage in a world of
+doubt and timidity. For thirty years he faced indifference or ridicule,
+working bravely and cheerfully the while, until he made the world recognize
+and follow him. The spirit of his whole life is well expressed in his
+_Paracelsus_, written when he was only twenty-two years old:
+
+    I see my way as birds their trackless way.
+    I shall arrive,--what time, what circuit first,
+    I ask not; but unless God send his hail
+    Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow,
+    In some time, his good time, I shall arrive;
+    He guides me and the bird. In his good time.
+
+He is not, like so many others, an entertaining poet. One cannot read him
+after dinner, or when settled in a comfortable easy-chair. One must sit up,
+and think, and be alert when he reads Browning. If we accept these
+conditions, we shall probably find that Browning is the most stimulating
+poet in our language. His influence upon our life is positive and
+tremendous. His strength, his joy of life, his robust faith, and his
+invincible optimism enter into us, making us different and better men after
+reading him. And perhaps the best thing he can say of Browning is that his
+thought is slowly but surely taking possession of all well-educated men and
+women.
+
+LIFE. Browning's father was outwardly a business man, a clerk for fifty
+years in the Bank of England; inwardly he was an interesting combination of
+the scholar and the artist, with the best tastes of both. His mother was a
+sensitive, musical woman, evidently very lovely in character, the daughter
+of a German shipowner and merchant who had settled in Scotland. She was of
+Celtic descent, and Carlyle describes her as the true type of a Scottish
+gentlewoman. From his neck down, Browning was the typical Briton,--short,
+stocky, large-chested, robust; but even in the lifeless portrait his face
+changes as we view it from different angles. Now it is like an English
+business man, now like a German scientist, and now it has a curious
+suggestion of Uncle Remus,--these being, no doubt, so many different
+reflections of his mixed and unremembered ancestors.
+
+He was born in Camberwell, on the outskirts of London, in 1812. From his
+home and from his first school, at Peckham, he could see London; and the
+city lights by night and the smoky chimneys by day had the same powerful
+fascination for the child that the woods and fields and the beautiful
+country had for his friend Tennyson. His schooling was short and desultory,
+his education being attended to by private tutors and by his father, who
+left the boy largely to follow his own inclination. Like the young Milton,
+Browning was fond of music, and in many of his poems, especially in "Abt
+Vogler" and "A Toccata of Galuppi's," he interprets the musical temperament
+better, perhaps, than any other writer in our literature. But unlike
+Milton, through whose poetry there runs a great melody, music seems to have
+had no consistent effect upon his verse, which is often so jarring that one
+must wonder how a musical ear could have endured it.
+
+Like Tennyson, this boy found his work very early, and for fifty years
+hardly a week passed that he did not write poetry. He began at six to
+produce verses, in imitation of Byron; but fortunately this early work has
+been lost. Then he fell under the influence of Shelley, and his first known
+work, _Pauline_ (1833), must be considered as a tribute to Shelley and his
+poetry. Tennyson's earliest work, _Poems by Two Brothers_, had been
+published and well paid for, five years before; but Browning could find no
+publisher who would even consider _Pauline_, and the work was published by
+means of money furnished by an indulgent relative. This poem received scant
+notice from the reviewers, who had pounced like hawks on a dovecote upon
+Tennyson's first two modest volumes. Two years later appeared _Paracelsus_,
+and then his tragedy _Strafford_ was put upon the stage; but not till
+_Sordello_ was published, in 1840, did he attract attention enough to be
+denounced for the obscurity and vagaries of his style. Six years later, in
+1846, he suddenly became famous, not because he finished in that year his
+_Bells and Pomegranates_ (which is Browning's symbolic name for "poetry and
+thought" or "singing and sermonizing"), but because he eloped with the best
+known literary woman in England, Elizabeth Barrett, whose fame was for many
+years, both before and after her marriage, much greater than Browning's,
+and who was at first considered superior to Tennyson. Thereafter, until his
+own work compelled attention, he was known chiefly as the man who married
+Elizabeth Barrett. For years this lady had been an almost helpless invalid,
+and it seemed a quixotic thing when Browning, having failed to gain her
+family's consent to the marriage, carried her off romantically. Love and
+Italy proved better than her physicians, and for fifteen years Browning and
+his wife lived an ideally happy life in Pisa and in Florence. The exquisite
+romance of their love is preserved in Mrs. Browning's _Sonnets from the
+Portuguese_, and in the volume of _Letters_ recently published,--wonderful
+letters, but so tender and intimate that it seems almost a sacrilege for
+inquisitive eyes to read them.
+
+Mrs. Browning died in Florence in 1861. The loss seemed at first too much
+to bear, and Browning fled with his son to England. For the remainder of
+his life he lived alternately in London and in various parts of Italy,
+especially at the Palazzo Rezzonico, in Venice, which is now an object of
+pilgrimage to almost every tourist who visits the beautiful city. Wherever
+he went he mingled with men and women, sociable, well dressed, courteous,
+loving crowds and popular applause, the very reverse of his friend
+Tennyson. His earlier work had been much better appreciated in America than
+in England; but with the publication of _The Ring and the Book_, in 1868,
+he was at last recognized by his countrymen as one of the greatest of
+English poets. He died in Venice, on December 12, 1889, the same day that
+saw the publication of his last work, _Asolando_. Though Italy offered him
+an honored resting place, England claimed him for her own, and he lies
+buried beside Tennyson in Westminster Abbey. The spirit of his whole life
+is magnificently expressed in his own lines, in the Epilogue of his last
+book:
+
+    One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward,
+        Never doubted clouds would break,
+    Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
+        Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
+                     Sleep to wake.
+
+WORKS. A glance at even the titles which Browning gave to his best known
+volumes--_Dramatic Lyrics_ (1842), _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_ (1845),
+_Men and Women_ (1853), _Dramatis Persona_ (1864)--will suggest how strong
+the dramatic element is in all his work. Indeed, all his poems may be
+divided into three classes,--pure dramas, like _Strafford_ and _A Blot in
+the 'Scutcheon_; dramatic narratives, like _Pippa Passes_, which are
+dramatic in form, but were not meant to be acted; and dramatic lyrics, like
+_The Last Ride Together_, which are short poems expressing some strong
+personal emotion, or describing some dramatic episode in human life, and in
+which the hero himself generally tells the story.
+
+Though Browning is often compared with Shakespeare, the reader will
+understand that he has very little of Shakespeare's dramatic talent. He
+cannot bring a group of people together and let the actions and words of
+his characters show us the comedy and tragedy of human life. Neither can
+the author be disinterested, satisfied, as Shakespeare was, with life
+itself, without drawing any moral conclusions. Browning has always a moral
+ready, and insists upon giving us his own views of life, which Shakespeare
+never does. His dramatic power lies in depicting what he himself calls the
+history of a soul. Sometimes, as in _Paracelsus_, he endeavors to trace the
+progress of the human spirit. More often he takes some dramatic moment in
+life, some crisis in the ceaseless struggle between good and evil, and
+describes with wonderful insight the hero's own thoughts and feelings; but
+he almost invariably tells us how, at such and such a point, the good or
+the evil in his hero must inevitably have triumphed. And generally, as in
+"My Last Duchess," the speaker adds a word here and there, aside from the
+story, which unconsciously shows the kind of man he is. It is this power of
+revealing the soul from within that causes Browning to fascinate those who
+study him long enough. His range is enormous, and brings all sorts and
+conditions of men under analysis. The musician in "Abt Vogler," the artist
+in "Andrea del Sarto," the early Christian in "A Death in the Desert," the
+Arab horseman in "Muteykeh," the sailor in "Herve Kiel," the mediæval
+knight in "Childe Roland," the Hebrew in "Saul," the Greek in "Balaustion's
+Adventure," the monster in "Caliban," the immortal dead in "Karshish,"--all
+these and a hundred more histories of the soul show Browning's marvelous
+versatility. It is this great range of sympathy with many different types
+of life that constitutes Browning's chief likeness to Shakespeare, though
+otherwise there is no comparison between the two men.
+
+If we separate all these dramatic poems into three main periods,--the
+early, from 1833 to 1841; the middle, from 1841 to 1868; and the late, from
+1868 to 1889,--the work of the beginner will be much more easily
+designated. Of his early soul studies, _Pauline_ (1833), _Paracelsus_
+(1835), and _Sordello_ (1840), little need be said here, except perhaps
+this: that if we begin with these works, we shall probably never read
+anything else by Browning. And that were a pity. It is better to leave
+these obscure works until his better poems have so attracted us to Browning
+that we will cheerfully endure his worst faults for the sake of his
+undoubted virtues. The same criticism applies, though in less degree, to
+his first drama, _Strafford_ (1837), which belongs to the early period of
+his work.
+
+The merciless criticism which greeted _Sordello_ had a wholesome effect on
+Browning, as is shown in the better work of his second period. Moreover,
+his new power was developing rapidly, as may be seen by comparing the eight
+numbers of his famous _Bells and Pomegranates_ series (1841-1846) with his
+earlier work. Thus, the first number of this wonderful series, published in
+1841, contains _Pippa Passes_, which is, on the whole, the most perfect of
+his longer poems; and another number contains _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_,
+which is the most readable of his dramas. Even a beginner must be thrilled
+by the beauty and the power of these two works. Two other noteworthy dramas
+of the period are _Colombe's Birthday_ (1844) and _In a Balcony_ (1855),
+which, however, met with scant appreciation on the stage, having too much
+subtle analysis and too little action to satisfy the public. Nearly all his
+best lyrics, dramas, and dramatic poems belong to this middle period of
+labor; and when _The Ring and the Book_ appeared, in 1868, he had given to
+the world the noblest expression of his poetic genius.
+
+In the third period, beginning when Browning was nearly sixty years old, he
+wrote even more industriously than before, and published on an average
+nearly a volume of poetry a year. Such volumes as _Fifine at the Fair, Red
+Cotton Night-Cap Country, The Inn Album, Jocoseria_, and many others, show
+how Browning gains steadily in the power of revealing the hidden springs of
+human action; but he often rambles most tiresomely, and in general his work
+loses in sustained interest. It is perhaps significant that most of his
+best work was done under Mrs. Browning's influence.
+
+WHAT TO READ. Of the short miscellaneous poems there is such an unusual
+variety that one must hesitate a little in suggesting this or that to the
+beginner's attention. "My Star," "Evelyn Hope," "Wanting is--What?" "Home
+Thoughts from Abroad," "Meeting at Night," "One Word More" (an exquisite
+tribute to his dead wife), "Prospice" (Look Forward); songs from _Pippa
+Passes;_ various love poems like "By the Fireside" and "The Last Ride
+Together"; the inimitable "Pied Piper," and the ballads like "Hervé Riel"
+and "How They Brought the Good News,"--these are a mere suggestion,
+expressing only the writer's personal preference; but a glance at the
+contents of Browning's volumes will reveal scores of other poems, which
+another writer might recommend as being better in themselves or more
+characteristic of Browning.[237]
+
+Among Browning's dramatic soul studies there is also a very wide choice.
+"Andrea del Sarto" is one of the best, revealing as it does the strength
+and the weakness of "the perfect painter," whose love for a soulless woman
+with a pretty face saddens his life and hampers his best work. Next in
+importance to "Andrea" stands "An Epistle," reciting the experiences of
+Karshish, an Arab physician, which is one of the best examples of
+Browning's peculiar method of presenting the truth. The half-scoffing,
+half-earnest, and wholly bewildered state of this Oriental scientist's mind
+is clearly indicated between the lines of his letter to his old master. His
+description of Lazarus, whom he meets by chance, and of the state of mind
+of one who, having seen the glories of immortality, must live again in the
+midst of the jumble of trivial and stupendous things which constitute our
+life, forms one of the most original and suggestive poems in our
+literature. "My Last Duchess" is a short but very keen analysis of the soul
+of a selfish man, who reveals his character unconsciously by his words of
+praise concerning his dead wife's picture. In "The Bishop Orders his Tomb"
+we have another extraordinarily interesting revelation of the mind of a
+vain and worldly man, this time a churchman, whose words tell you far more
+than he dreams about his own character. "Abt Vogler," undoubtedly one of
+Browning's finest poems, is the study of a musician's soul. "Muléykeh"
+gives us the soul of an Arab, vain and proud of his fast horse, which was
+never beaten in a race. A rival steals the horse and rides away upon her
+back; but, used as she is to her master's touch, she will not show her best
+pace to the stranger. Muléykeh rides up furiously; but instead of striking
+the thief from his saddle, he boasts about his peerless mare, saying that
+if a certain spot on her neck were touched with the rein, she could never
+be overtaken. Instantly the robber touches the spot, and the mare answers
+with a burst of speed that makes pursuit hopeless. Muléykeh has lost his
+mare; but he has kept his pride in the unbeaten one, and is satisfied.
+"Rabbi Ben Ezra," which refuses analysis, and which must be read entire to
+be appreciated, is perhaps the most quoted of all Browning's works, and
+contains the best expression of his own faith in life, both here and
+hereafter. All these wonderful poems are, again, merely a suggestion. They
+indicate simply the works to which one reader turns when he feels mentally
+vigorous enough to pick up Browning. Another list of soul studies, citing
+"A Toccata of Galuppi's," "A Grammarian's Funeral," "Fra Lippo Lippi,"
+"Saul," "Cleon," "A Death in the Desert," and "Soliloquy of the Spanish
+Cloister," might, in another's judgment, be more interesting and
+suggestive.
+
+[Pippa Passes] Among Browning's longer poems there are two, at least, that
+well deserve our study. _Pippa Passes_, aside from its rare poetical
+qualities, is a study of unconscious influence. The idea of the poem was
+suggested to Browning while listening to a gypsy girl singing in the woods
+near his home; but he transfers the scene of the action to the little
+mountain town of Asolo, in Italy. Pippa is a little silk weaver, who goes
+out in the morning to enjoy her one holiday of the whole year. As she
+thinks of her own happiness she is vaguely wishing that she might share it,
+and do some good. Then, with her childish imagination, she begins to weave
+a little romance in which she shares in the happiness of the four greatest
+and happiest people in Asolo. It never occurs to her that perhaps there is
+more of misery than of happiness in the four great ones of whom she dreams;
+and so she goes on her way singing,
+
+    The year's at the spring
+    And day's at the morn;
+    Morning's at seven;
+    The hillside's dew-pearled;
+    The lark's on the wing;
+    The snail's on the thorn:
+    God's in his heaven--
+    All's right with the world!
+
+Fate wills it that the words and music of her little songs should come to
+the ears of four different groups of people at the moment when they are
+facing the greatest crises of their lives, and turn the scale from evil to
+good. But Pippa knows nothing of this. She enjoys her holiday, and goes to
+bed still singing, entirely ignorant of the good she has done in the world.
+With one exception, it is the most perfect of all Browning's works. At best
+it is not easy, nor merely entertaining reading; but it richly repays
+whatever hours we spend in studying it.
+
+_The Ring and the Book_ is Browning's masterpiece. It is an immense poem,
+twice as long as _Paradise Lost_, and longer by some two thousand lines
+than the _Iliad;_ and before we begin the undoubted task of reading it, we
+must understand that there is no interesting story or dramatic development
+to carry us along. In the beginning we have an outline of the story, such
+as it is--a horrible story of Count Guido's murder of his beautiful young
+wife; and Browning tells us in detail just when and how he found a book
+containing the record of the crime and the trial. There the story element
+ends, and the symbolism of the book begins. The title of the poem is
+explained by the habit of the old Etruscan goldsmiths who, in making one of
+their elaborately chased rings, would mix the pure gold with an alloy, in
+order to harden it. When the ring was finished, acid was poured upon it;
+and the acid ate out the alloy, leaving the beautiful design in pure gold.
+Browning purposes to follow the same plan with his literary material, which
+consists simply of the evidence given at the trial of Guido in Rome, in
+1698. He intends to mix a poet's fancy with the crude facts, and create a
+beautiful and artistic work.
+
+The result of Browning's purpose is a series of monologues, in which the
+same story is retold nine different times by the different actors in the
+drama. The count, the young wife, the suspected priest, the lawyers, the
+Pope who presides at the trial,--each tells the story, and each
+unconsciously reveals the depths of his own nature in the recital. The most
+interesting of the characters are Guido, the husband, who changes from bold
+defiance to abject fear; Caponsacchi, the young priest, who aids the wife
+in her flight from her brutal husband, and is unjustly accused of false
+motives; Pompilia, the young wife, one of the noblest characters in
+literature, fit in all respects to rank with Shakespeare's great heroines;
+and the Pope, a splendid figure, the strongest of all Browning's masculine
+characters. When we have read the story, as told by these four different
+actors, we have the best of the poet's work, and of the most original poem
+in our language.
+
+BROWNING'S PLACE AND MESSAGE. Browning's place in our literature will be
+better appreciated by comparison with his friend Tennyson, whom we have
+just studied. In one respect, at least, these poets are in perfect accord.
+Each finds in love the supreme purpose and meaning of life. In other
+respects, especially in their methods of approaching the truth, the two men
+are the exact opposites. Tennyson is first the artist and then the teacher;
+but with Browning the message is always the important thing, and he is
+careless, too careless, of the form in which it is expressed. Again,
+Tennyson is under the influence of the romantic revival, and chooses his
+subjects daintily; but "all's fish" that comes to Browning's net. He takes
+comely and ugly subjects with equal pleasure, and aims to show that truth
+lies hidden in both the evil and the good. This contrast is all the more
+striking when we remember that Browning's essentially scientific attitude
+was taken by a man who refused to study science. Tennyson, whose work is
+always artistic, never studied art, but was devoted to the sciences; while
+Browning, whose work is seldom artistic in form, thought that art was the
+most suitable subject for a man's study.
+
+The two poets differ even more widely in their respective messages.
+Tennyson's message reflects the growing order of the age, and is summed up
+in the word "law." in his view, the individual will must be suppressed; the
+self must always be subordinate. His resignation is at times almost
+Oriental in its fatalism, and occasionally it suggests Schopenhauer in its
+mixture of fate and pessimism. Browning's message, on the other hand, is
+the triumph of the individual will over all obstacles; the self is not
+subordinate but supreme. There is nothing Oriental, nothing doubtful,
+nothing pessimistic in the whole range of his poetry. His is the voice of
+the Anglo-Saxon, standing up in the face of all obstacles and saying, "I
+can and I will." He is, therefore, far more radically English than is
+Tennyson; and it may be for this reason that he is the more studied, and
+that, while youth delights in Tennyson, manhood is better satisfied with
+Browning. Because of his invincible will and optimism, Browning is at
+present regarded as the poet who has spoken the strongest word of faith to
+an age of doubt. His energy, his cheerful courage, his faith in life and in
+the development that awaits us beyond the portals of death, are like a
+bugle-call to good living. This sums up his present influence upon the
+minds of those who have learned to appreciate him. Of the future we can
+only say that, both at home and abroad, he seems to be gaining steadily in
+appreciation as the years go by.
+
+
+MINOR POETS OF THE VISTORIAN AGE
+
+ELIZABETH BARRETT. Among the minor poets of the past century Elizabeth
+Barrett (Mrs. Browning) occupies perhaps the highest place in popular
+favor. She was born at Coxhoe Hall, near Durham, in 1806; but her childhood
+and early youth were spent in Herefordshire, among the Malvern Hills made
+famous by _Piers Plowman_. In 1835 the Barrett family moved to London,
+where Elizabeth gained a literary reputation by the publication of _The
+Seraphim and Other Poems_ (1838). Then illness and the shock caused by the
+tragic death of her brother, in 1840, placed her frail life in danger, and
+for six years she was confined to her own room. The innate strength and
+beauty of her spirit here showed itself strongly in her daily study, her
+poetry, and especially in her interest in the social problems which sooner
+or later occupied all the Victorian writers. "My mind to me a kingdom is"
+might well have been written over the door of the room where this delicate
+invalid worked and suffered in loneliness and in silence.
+
+In 1844 Miss Barrett published her _Poems_, which, though somewhat
+impulsive and overwrought, met with remarkable public favor. Such poems as
+"The Cry of the Children," which voices the protest of humanity against
+child labor, appealed tremendously to the readers of the age, and this
+young woman's fame as a poet temporarily overshadowed that of Tennyson and
+Browning. Indeed, as late as 1850, when Wordsworth died, she was seriously
+considered for the position of poet laureate, which was finally given to
+Tennyson. A reference to Browning, in "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," is
+supposed to have first led the poet to write to Miss Barrett in 1845. Soon
+afterwards he visited the invalid; they fell in love almost at first sight,
+and the following year, against the wishes of her father,--who was
+evidently a selfish old tyrant,--Browning carried her off and married her.
+The exquisite romance of their love is reflected in Mrs. Browning's
+_Sonnets from the Portuguese_ (1850). This is a noble and inspiring book of
+love poems; and Stedman regards the opening sonnet, "I thought once how
+Theocritus had sung," as equal to any in our language.
+
+For fifteen years the Brownings lived an ideally happy life at Pisa, and at
+Casa Guidi, Florence, sharing the same poetical ambitions. And love was the
+greatest thing in the world,--
+
+    How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
+    I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
+    My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
+    For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
+    I love thee to the level of everyday's
+    Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
+    I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
+    I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise;
+    I love thee with the passion put to use
+    In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith;
+    I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
+    With my lost saints--I love thee with the breath,
+    Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
+    I shall but love thee better after death.
+
+Mrs. Browning entered with whole-souled enthusiasm into the aspirations of
+Italy in its struggle against the tyranny of Austria; and her _Casa Guidi
+Windows_ (1851) is a combination of poetry and politics, both, it must be
+confessed, a little too emotional. In 1856 she published _Aurora Leigh_, a
+novel in verse, having for its hero a young social reformer, and for its
+heroine a young woman, poetical and enthusiastic, who strongly suggests
+Elizabeth Barrett herself. It emphasizes in verse precisely the same moral
+and social ideals which Dickens and George Eliot were proclaiming in all
+their novels. Her last two volumes were _Poems before Congress_ (1860), and
+_Last Poems_, published after her death. She died suddenly in 1861 and was
+buried in Florence. Browning's famous line, "O lyric love, half angel and
+half bird," may well apply to her frail life and aerial spirit.
+
+ROSSETTI. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), the son of an exiled Italian
+painter and scholar, was distinguished both as a painter and as a poet. He
+was a leader in the Pre-Raphaelite movement[238] and published in the first
+numbers of _The Germ_ his "Hand and Soul," a delicate prose study, and his
+famous "The Blessed Damozel," beginning,
+
+    The blessed damozel leaned out
+      From the gold bar of Heaven;
+    Her eyes were deeper than the depth
+      Of waters stilled at even;
+    She had three lilies in her hand,
+      And the stars in her hair were seven.
+
+These two early works, especially "The Blessed Damozel," with its
+simplicity and exquisite spiritual quality, are characteristic of the
+ideals of the Pre-Raphaelites.
+
+In 1860, after a long engagement, Rossetti married Elizabeth Siddal, a
+delicate, beautiful English girl, whom he has immortalized both in his
+pictures and in his poetry. She died two years later, and Rossetti never
+entirely recovered from the shock. At her burial he placed in her coffin
+the manuscripts of all his unpublished poems, and only at the persistent
+demands of his friends did he allow them to be exhumed and printed in 1870.
+The publication of this volume of love poems created a sensation in
+literary circles, and Rossetti was hailed as one of the greatest of living
+poets. In 1881 he published his _Ballads and Sonnets_, a remarkable volume
+containing, among other poems, "The Confession," modeled after Browning;
+"The Ballad of Sister Helen," founded on a mediæval superstition; "The
+King's Tragedy," a masterpiece of dramatic narrative; and "The House of
+Life," a collection of one hundred and one sonnets reflecting the poet's
+love and loss. This last collection deserves to rank with Mrs. Browning's
+_Sonnets from the Portuguese_ and with Shakespeare's _Sonnets_, as one of
+the three great cycles of love poems in our language. It has been well said
+that both Rossetti and Morris paint pictures as well in their poems as on
+their canvases, and this pictorial quality of their verse is its chief
+characteristic.
+
+MORRIS. William Morris (1834-1896) is a most interesting combination of
+literary man and artist. In the latter capacity, as architect, designer,
+and manufacturer of furniture, carpets, and wall paper, and as founder of
+the Kelmscott Press for artistic printing and bookbinding, he has laid us
+all under an immense debt of gratitude. From boyhood he had steeped himself
+in the legends and ideals of the Middle Ages, and his best literary work is
+wholly mediæval in spirit. _The Earthly Paradise_ (1868-1870) is generally
+regarded as his masterpiece. This delightful collection of stories in verse
+tells of a roving band of Vikings, who are wrecked on the fabled island of
+Atlantis, and who discover there a superior race of men having the
+characteristics of ideal Greeks. The Vikings remain for a year, telling
+stories of their own Northland, and listening to the classic and Oriental
+tales of their hosts. Morris's interest in Icelandic literature is further
+shown by his _Sigurd the Volsung_, an epic founded upon one of the old
+sagas, and by his prose romances, _The House of the Wolfings, The Story of
+the Glittering Plain_, and _The Roots of the Mountains_. Later in life he
+became deeply interested in socialism, and two other romances, _The Dream
+of John Ball_ and _News from Nowhere_, are interesting as modern attempts
+at depicting an ideal society governed by the principles of More's
+_Utopia_.
+
+SWINBURNE. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) is, chronologically, the
+last of the Victorian poets. As an artist in technique--having perfect
+command of all old English verse forms and a remarkable faculty for
+inventing new--he seems at the present time to rank among the best in our
+literature. Indeed, as Stedman says, "before his advent we did not realize
+the full scope of English verse." This refers to the melodious and
+constantly changing form rather than to the content of Swinburne's poetry.
+At the death of Tennyson, in 1892, he was undoubtedly the greatest living
+poet, and only his liberal opinions, his scorn of royalty and of
+conventions, and the prejudice aroused by the pagan spirit of his early
+work prevented his appointment as poet laureate. He has written a very
+large number of poems, dramas, and essays in literary criticism; but we are
+still too near to judge of the permanence of his work or of his place in
+literature. Those who would read and estimate his work for themselves will
+do well to begin with a volume of selected poems, especially those which
+show his love of the sea and his exquisite appreciation of child life. His
+_Atalanta in Calydon_ (1864), a beautiful lyric drama modeled on the Greek
+tragedy, is generally regarded as his masterpiece. In all his work
+Swinburne carries Tennyson's love of melody to an extreme, and often
+sacrifices sense to sound. His poetry is always musical, and, like music,
+appeals almost exclusively to the emotions.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We have chosen, somewhat arbitrarily, these four writers--Mrs. Browning, D.
+G. Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne--as representative of the minor poets of
+the age; but there are many others who are worthy of study,--Arthur Hugh
+Clough and Matthew Arnold,[239] who are often called the poets of
+skepticism, but who in reality represent a reverent seeking for truth
+through reason and human experience; Frederick William Faber, the Catholic
+mystic, author of some exquisite hymns; and the scholarly John Keble,
+author of _The Christian Year_, our best known book of devotional verse;
+and among the women poets, Adelaide Procter, Jean Ingelow, and Christina
+Rossetti, each of whom had a large, admiring circle of readers. It would be
+a hopeless task at the present time to inquire into the relative merits of
+all these minor poets. We note only their careful workmanship and exquisite
+melody, their wide range of thought and feeling, their eager search for
+truth, each in his own way, and especially the note of freshness and
+vitality which they have given to English poetry.
+
+
+II. THE NOVELISTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE
+
+CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)
+
+When we consider Dickens's life and work, in comparison with that of the
+two great poets we have been studying, the contrast is startling. While
+Tennyson and Browning were being educated for the life of literature, and
+shielded most tenderly from the hardships of the world, Dickens, a poor,
+obscure, and suffering child, was helping to support a shiftless family by
+pasting labels on blacking bottles, sleeping under a counter like a
+homeless cat, and once a week timidly approaching the big prison where his
+father was confined for debt. In 1836 his _Pickwick_ was published, and
+life was changed as if a magician had waved his wand over him. While the
+two great poets were slowly struggling for recognition, Dickens, with
+plenty of money and too much fame, was the acknowledged literary hero of
+England, the idol of immense audiences which gathered to applaud him
+wherever he appeared. And there is also this striking contrast between the
+novelist and the poets,--that while the whole tendency of the age was
+toward realism, away from the extremes of the romanticists and from the
+oddities and absurdities of the early novel writers, it was precisely by
+emphasizing oddities and absurdities, by making caricatures rather than
+characters, that Dickens first achieved his popularity.
+
+LIFE. In Dickens's early life we see a stern but unrecognized preparation
+for the work that he was to do. Never was there a better illustration of
+the fact that a boy's early hardship and suffering are sometimes only
+divine messengers disguised, and that circumstances which seem only evil
+are often the source of a man's strength and of the influence which he is
+to wield in the world. He was the second of eight poor children, and was
+born at Landport in 1812. His father, who is supposed to be the original of
+Mr. Micawber, was a clerk in a navy office. He could never make both ends
+meet, and after struggling with debts in his native town for many years,
+moved to London when Dickens was nine years old. The debts still pursued
+him, and after two years of grandiloquent misfortune he was thrown into the
+poor-debtors' prison. His wife, the original of Mrs. Micawber, then set up
+the famous Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies; but, in Dickens's
+words, no young ladies ever came. The only visitors were creditors, and
+they were quite ferocious. In the picture of the Micawber family, with its
+tears and smiles and general shiftlessness, we have a suggestion of
+Dickens's own family life.
+
+At eleven years of age the boy was taken out of school and went to work in
+the cellar of a blacking factory. At this time he was, in his own words, a
+"queer small boy," who suffered as he worked; and we can appreciate the boy
+and the suffering more when we find both reflected in the character of
+David Copperfield. It is a heart-rending picture, this sensitive child
+working from dawn till dark for a few pennies, and associating with toughs
+and waifs in his brief intervals of labor; but we can see in it the sources
+of that intimate knowledge of the hearts of the poor and outcast which was
+soon to be reflected in literature and to startle all England by its appeal
+for sympathy. A small legacy ended this wretchedness, bringing the father
+from the prison and sending the boy to Wellington House Academy,--a
+worthless and brutal school, evidently, whose head master was, in Dickens's
+words, a most ignorant fellow and a tyrant. He learned little at this
+place, being interested chiefly in stories, and in acting out the heroic
+parts which appealed to his imagination; but again his personal experience
+was of immense value, and resulted in his famous picture of Dotheboys Hall,
+in _Nicholas Nickleby_, which helped largely to mitigate the evils of
+private schools in England. Wherever he went, Dickens was a marvelously
+keen observer, with an active imagination which made stories out of
+incidents and characters that ordinary men would have hardly noticed.
+Moreover he was a born actor, and was at one time the leading spirit of a
+band of amateurs who gave entertainments for charity all over England.
+These three things, his keen observation, his active imagination, and the
+actor's spirit which animated him, furnish a key to his life and writings.
+
+When only fifteen years old, he left the school and again went to work,
+this time as clerk in a lawyer's office. By night he studied shorthand, in
+order to fit himself to be a reporter,--this in imitation of his father,
+who was now engaged by a newspaper to report the speeches in Parliament.
+Everything that Dickens attempted seems to have been done with vigor and
+intensity, and within two years we find him reporting important speeches,
+and writing out his notes as the heavy coach lurched and rolled through the
+mud of country roads on its dark way to London town. It was largely during
+this period that he gained his extraordinary knowledge of inns and stables
+and "horsey" persons, which is reflected in his novels. He also grew
+ambitious, and began to write on his own account. At the age of twenty-one
+he dropped his first little sketch "stealthily, with fear and trembling,
+into a dark letter-box, in a dark office up a dark court in Fleet Street."
+The name of this first sketch was "Mr. Minns and his Cousin," and it
+appeared with other stories in his first book, _Sketches by Boz_, in 1835.
+One who reads these sketches now, with their intimate knowledge of the
+hidden life of London, can understand Dickens's first newspaper success
+perfectly. His best known work, _Pickwick_, was published serially in
+1836-1837, and Dickens's fame and fortune were made. Never before had a
+novel appeared so full of vitality and merriment. Though crude in design, a
+mere jumble of exaggerated characters and incidents, it fairly bubbled over
+with the kind of humor in which the British public delights, and it still
+remains, after three quarters of a century, one of our most care-dispelling
+books.
+
+The remainder of Dickens's life is largely a record of personal triumphs.
+_Pickwick_ was followed rapidly by _Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Old
+Curiosity Shop_, and by many other works which seemed to indicate that
+there was no limit to the new author's invention of odd, grotesque,
+uproarious, and sentimental characters. In the intervals of his novel
+writing he attempted several times to edit a weekly paper; but his power
+lay in other directions, and with the exception of _Household Words_, his
+journalistic ventures were not a marked success. Again the actor came to
+the surface, and after managing a company of amateur actors successfully,
+Dickens began to give dramatic readings from his own works. As he was
+already the most popular writer in the English language, these readings
+were very successful. Crowds thronged to hear him, and his journeys became
+a continuous ovation. Money poured into his pockets from his novels and
+from his readings, and he bought for himself a home, Gadshill Place, which
+he had always desired, and which is forever associated with his memory.
+Though he spent the greater part of his time and strength in travel at this
+period, nothing is more characteristic of the man than the intense energy
+with which he turned from his lecturing to his novels, and then, for
+relaxation, gave himself up to what he called the magic lantern of the
+London streets.
+
+In 1842, while still a young man, Dickens was invited to visit the United
+States and Canada, where his works were even better known than in England,
+and where he was received as the guest of the nation and treated with every
+mark of honor and appreciation. At this time America was, to most
+Europeans, a kind of huge fairyland, where money sprang out of the earth,
+and life was happy as a long holiday. Dickens evidently shared this rosy
+view, and his romantic expectations were naturally disappointed. The crude,
+unfinished look of the big country seems to have roused a strong prejudice
+in his mind, which was not overcome at the time of his second visit,
+twenty-five years later, and which brought forth the harsh criticism of his
+_American Notes_ (1842) and of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ (1843-1844). These two
+unkind books struck a false note, and Dickens began to lose something of
+his great popularity. In addition he had spent money beyond his income. His
+domestic life, which had been at first very happy, became more and more
+irritating, until he separated from his wife in 1858. To get inspiration,
+which seemed for a time to have failed, he journeyed to Italy, but was
+disappointed. Then he turned back to the London streets, and in the five
+years from 1848 to 1853 appeared _Dombey and Son, David Copperfield_, and
+_Bleak House_,--three remarkable novels, which indicate that he had
+rediscovered his own power and genius. Later he resumed the public
+readings, with their public triumph and applause, which soon came to be a
+necessity to one who craved popularity as a hungry man craves bread. These
+excitements exhausted Dickens, physically and spiritually, and death was
+the inevitable result. He died in 1870, over his unfinished _Edwin Drood_,
+and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
+
+DICKENS'S WORK IN VIEW OF HIS LIFE. A glance through even this
+unsatisfactory biography gives us certain illuminating suggestions in
+regard to all of Dickens's work. First, as a child, poor and lonely,
+longing for love and for society, he laid the foundation for those
+heartrending pictures of children, which have moved so many readers to
+unaccustomed tears. Second, as clerk in a lawyer's office and in the
+courts, he gained his knowledge of an entirely different side of human
+life. Here he learned to understand both the enemies and the victims of
+society, between whom the harsh laws of that day frequently made no
+distinction. Third, as a reporter, and afterwards as manager of various
+newspapers, he learned the trick of racy writing, and of knowing to a
+nicety what would suit the popular taste. Fourth, as an actor, always an
+actor in spirit, he seized upon every dramatic possibility, every tense
+situation, every peculiarity of voice and gesture in the people whom he
+met, and reproduced these things in his novels, exaggerating them in the
+way that most pleased his audience.
+
+When we turn from his outward training to his inner disposition we find two
+strongly marked elements. The first is his excessive imagination, which
+made good stories out of incidents that ordinarily pass unnoticed, and
+which described the commonest things--a street, a shop, a fog, a lamp-post,
+a stagecoach--with a wealth of detail and of romantic suggestion that makes
+many of his descriptions like lyric poems. The second element is his
+extreme sensibility, which finds relief only in laughter and tears. Like
+shadow and sunshine these follow one another closely throughout all his
+books.
+
+Remembering these two things, his training and disposition, we can easily
+foresee the kind of novel he must produce. He will be sentimental,
+especially over children and outcasts; he will excuse the individual in
+view of the faults of society; he will be dramatic or melodramatic; and his
+sensibility will keep him always close to the public, studying its tastes
+and playing with its smiles and tears. If pleasing the public be in itself
+an art, then Dickens is one of our greatest artists. And it is well to
+remember that in pleasing his public there was nothing of the hypocrite or
+demagogue in his make-up. He was essentially a part of the great drifting
+panoramic crowd that he loved. His sympathetic soul made all their joys and
+griefs his own. He fought against injustice; he championed the weak against
+the strong; he gave courage to the faint, and hope to the weary in heart;
+and in the love which the public gave him in return he found his best
+reward. Here is the secret of Dickens's unprecedented popular success, and
+we may note here a very significant parallel with Shakespeare. The great
+different in the genius and work of the two men does not change the fact
+that each won success largely because he studied and pleased his public.
+
+GENERAL PLAN OF DICKENS'S NOVELS. An interesting suggestion comes to us
+from a study of the conditions which led to Dickens's first three novels.
+_Pickwick_ was written, at the suggestion of an editor, for serial
+publication. Each chapter was to be accompanied by a cartoon by Seymor (a
+comic artist of the day), and the object was to amuse the public, and,
+incidentally, to sell the paper. The result was a series of characters and
+scenes and incidents which for vigor and boundless fun have never been
+equaled in our language. Thereafter, no matter what he wrote, Dickins was
+lbeled a humorist. Like a certain American writer of our own generation,
+everything he said, whether for a feast or a funeral, was spposed to
+contain a laugh. In a word, he was the victim of his own book. Dickens was
+keen enough to understand his danger, and his next novel, _Oliver Twist_,
+had the serious purpose of  mitigating the evils under which the poor were
+suffering. Its hero was a poor child, the unfortunate victim of society;
+and, in order to draw attention to the real need, Dickens exaggerated the
+woeful condition of the poor, and filled his pages with sentiment which
+easily slipped over into sentimentality. This also was a popular success,
+and in his third novel, _Nicholas Nickleby,_ and indeed in most of his
+remaining works, Dickens combined the principles of his first two books,
+giving us mirth on the one hand, injustice and suffering on the other;
+mingling humor and pathos, tears and laughter, as we find them in life
+itself. And in order to increase the lights and shadows in his scenes, and
+to give greater dramatic effect to his narrative, he introduced odious and
+lothsome characters, and made vice more hateful by contrasting it with
+innocence and virtue.
+
+We find, therefore, in most of Dickens's novels three or four widely
+different types of character: first, the innocent little child, like
+Oliver, Joe, Paul, Tiny Tim, and Little Nell, appealing powerfully to the
+child love in every human heart; scond, the horrible or grotesque foil,
+like Sqeers, Fagin, Quilp, Uriah Heep, and Bill Sykes; third, the
+grandiloquent or broadly humorous fellow, the fun maker, like Micawber and
+Sam Weller; and fourth, a tenderly or powerfully drawn figure, like Lady
+Deadlock of _Bleak House,_ and Sydney Carton of _A Tale of Two Cities,_
+which rise to the dignity of true characters. We note also that most of
+Dickens's novels belong decidely to the class of purpose or problem novels.
+Thus _Bleak House_ attacks "the law's delays"; _Little Dorrit,_ the
+injustice which persecutes poor debtors; _Nicholas Nickleby,_ the abuses of
+charity schools and brutal schoolmasters; and _Oliver Twist,_ the
+unnecessary degradation and suffering of the poor in English workhouses.
+Dickens's serious purpose was to make the novel the instrument of morality
+and justice, and whatver we may think of the exaggeration of his
+characters, it is certain that his stories did more to correct the general
+selfishness and injustice of society toward the poor than all the works of
+other literary men of his age combined.
+
+THE LIMITATIONS OF DICKENS. Any severe criticism of Dickens as a novelist
+must seem, at first glance, unkind an unnecessary. In almost every house he
+is a welcome guest, a personal friend who has beguiled many an hour with
+his stories, and who has furnished us much  good laughter and a few good
+tears. Moreover, he has always a cheery message. He emphasizes the fact
+that this is an excellant world; that some errors have crept into it, due
+largely to thoughtlessness, but that they can be easily remedied by a
+little human sympathy. That is a most welcome creed to an age overburdened
+with social problems; and to criticise our cheery companion seems as
+discourteous as to speak unkindly of a guest who has just left our home.
+But we must consider Dickens not merely as a friend, but as a novelist, and
+apply to his work the same standards of art which we apply to other
+writers; and when we do this we are sometimes a little disappointed. We
+must confess that his novels, while they contain many realistic details,
+seldom give the impression of reality. His characters, though we laugh or
+weep or shudder at them, are sometimes only caricatures, each one an
+exaggeration of some peculiarity, which suggest Ben Jonson's _Every Man in
+His Humour_. It is Dickens's art to give his heroes sufficient reality to
+make them suggest certain types of men and women whom we know; but in
+reading him we find ourselves often in the mental state of a man who is
+watching through a microscope the swarming life of a water drop. Here are
+lively, bustling, extraordinary creatures, some beautiful, some grotesque,
+but all far apart from the life that we know in daily experience. It is
+certainly not the reality of these characters, but rather the genius of the
+author in managing them, which interests us and holds our attention.
+Notwithstanding this criticism, which we would gladly have omitted, Dickens
+is excellent reading, and his novels will continue to be popular just so
+long as men enjoy a wholesome and absorbing story.
+
+WHAT TO READ. Aside from the reforms in schools and prisons and workhouses
+which Dickens accomplished, he has laid us all, rich and poor alike, under
+a debt of gratitude. After the year 1843 the one literary work which he
+never neglected was to furnish a Christmas story for his readers; and it is
+due in some measure to the help of these stories, brimming over with good
+cheer, that Christmas has become in all English-speaking countries a season
+of gladness, of gift giving at home, and of remembering those less
+fortunate than ourselves, who are still members of a common brotherhood. If
+we read nothing else of Dickens, once a year, at Christmas time, we should
+remember him and renew our youth by reading one of his holiday stories,--
+_The Cricket on the Hearth, The Chimes_, and above all the unrivaled
+_Christmas Carol_. The latter especially will be read and loved as long as
+men are moved by the spirit of Christmas.
+
+Of the novels, _David Copperfield_ is regarded by many as Dickens's
+masterpiece. It is well to begin with this novel, not simply for the
+unusual interest of the story, but also for the glimpse it gives us of the
+author's own boyhood and family. For pure fun and hilarity _Pickwick_ will
+always be a favorite; but for artistic finish, and for the portrayal of one
+great character, Sydney Carton, nothing else that Dickens wrote is
+comparable to _A Tale of Two Cities_. Here is an absorbing story, with a
+carefully constructed plot, and the action moves swiftly to its thrilling,
+inevitable conclusion. Usually Dickens introduces several pathetic or
+grotesque or laughable characters besides the main actors, and records
+various unnecessary dramatic episodes for their own sake; but in _A Tale of
+Two Cities_ everything has its place in the development of the main story.
+There are, as usual, many characters,--Sydney Carton, the outcast, who lays
+down his life for the happiness of one whom he loves; Charles Darnay, an
+exiled young French noble; Dr. Manette, who has been "recalled to life"
+from a frightful imprisonment, and his gentle daughter Lucie, the heroine;
+Jarvis Lorry, a lovable, old-fashioned clerk in the big banking house; the
+terrible Madame Defarge, knitting calmly at the door of her wine shop and
+recording, with the ferocity of a tiger licking its chops, the names of all
+those who are marked for vengeance; and a dozen others, each well drawn,
+who play minor parts in the tragedy. The scene is laid in London and Paris,
+at the time of the French Revolution; and, though careless of historical
+details, Dickens reproduces the spirit of the Reign of Terror so well that
+_A Tale of Two Cities_ is an excellent supplement to the history of the
+period. It is written in Dickens's usual picturesque style, and reveals his
+usual imaginative outlook on life and his fondness for fine sentiments and
+dramatic episodes. Indeed, all his qualities are here shown, not
+brilliantly or garishly, as in other novels, but subdued and softened, like
+a shaded light, for artistic effect.
+
+Those who are interested in Dickens's growth and methods can hardly do
+better than to read in succession his first three novels, _Pickwick, Oliver
+Twist_, and _Nicholas Nickleby_, which, as we have indicated, show clearly
+how he passed from fun to serious purpose, and which furnish in combination
+the general plan of all his later works. For the rest, we can only indicate
+those which, in our personal judgment, seem best worth reading,--_Bleak
+House, Dombey and Son, Our Mutual Friend_, and _Old Curiosity Shop_,--but
+we are not yet far enough away from the first popular success of these
+works to determine their permanent value and influence.
+
+
+WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863)
+
+As the two most successful novelists of their day, it is natural for us, as
+it was for their personal friends and admirers, to compare Dickens and
+Thackeray with respect to their life and work, and their attitude toward
+the world in which they lived. Dickens, after a desperately hard struggle
+in his boyhood, without friends or higher education, comes into manhood
+cheery, self-confident, energetic, filled with the joy of his work; and in
+the world, which had at first treated him so harshly, he finds good
+everywhere, even in the jails and in the slums, simply because he is
+looking for it. Thackeray, after a boyhood spent in the best of English
+schools, with money, friends, and comforts of every kind, faces life
+timidly, distrustfully, and dislikes the literary work which makes him
+famous. He has a gracious and lovable personality, is kind of heart, and
+reveres all that is pure and good in life; yet he is almost cynical toward
+the world which uses him so well, and finds shams, deceptions, vanities
+everywhere, because he looks for them. One finds what one seeks in this
+world, but it is perhaps significant that Dickens sought his golden fleece
+among plain people, and Thackeray in high society. The chief difference
+between the two novelists, however, is not one of environment but of
+temperament. Put Thackeray in a workhouse, and he will still find material
+for another _Book of Snobs;_ put Dickens in society, and he cannot help
+finding undreamed-of possibilities among bewigged and bepowdered high lords
+and ladies. For Dickens is romantic and emotional, and interprets the world
+largely through his imagination; Thackeray is the realist and moralist, who
+judges solely by observation and reflection. He aims to give us a true
+picture of the society of his day, and as he finds it pervaded by intrigues
+and snobbery he proceeds to satirize it and point out its moral evils. In
+his novels he is influenced by Swift and Fielding, but he is entirely free
+from the bitterness of the one and the coarseness of the other, and his
+satire is generally softened by a noble tenderness. Taken together, the
+novels of Dickens and Thackeray give us a remarkable picture of all classes
+of English society in the middle of the nineteenth century.
+
+LIFE. Thackeray was born in 1811, in Calcutta, where his father held a
+civil position under the Indian government. When the boy was five years old
+his father died, and the mother returned with her child to England.
+Presently she married again, and Thackeray was sent to the famous
+Charterhouse school, of which he has given us a vivid picture in _The
+Newcomes_. Such a school would have been a veritable heaven to Dickens, who
+at this time was tossed about between poverty and ambition; but Thackeray
+detested it for its rude manners, and occasionally referred to it as the
+"Slaughterhouse." Writing to his mother he says: "There are three hundred
+and seventy boys in the school. I wish, there were only three hundred and
+sixty-nine."
+
+In 1829 Thackeray entered Trinity College, Cambridge, but left after less
+than two years, without taking a degree, and went to Germany and France
+where he studied with the idea of becoming an artist. When he became of
+age, in 1832, he came into possession of a comfortable fortune, returned to
+England, and settled down in the Temple to study law. Soon he began to
+dislike the profession intensely, and we have in _Pendennis_ a reflection
+of his mental attitude toward the law and the young men who studied it. He
+soon lost his fortune, partly by gambling and speculation, partly by
+unsuccessful attempts at running a newspaper, and at twenty-two began for
+the first time to earn his own living, as an artist and illustrator. An
+interesting meeting between Thackeray and Dickens at this time (1836)
+suggests the relative importance of the two writers. Seymour, who was
+illustrating the _Pickwick Papers_, had just died, and Thackeray called
+upon Dickens with a few drawings and asked to be allowed to continue the
+illustrations. Dickens was at this time at the beginning of his great
+popularity. The better literary artist, whose drawings were refused, was
+almost unknown, and had to work hard for more than ten years before he
+received recognition. Disappointed by his failure as an illustrator, he
+began his literary career by writing satires on society for _Fraser's
+Magazine_. This was the beginning of his success; but though the
+_Yellowplush Papers, The Great Hoggarty Diamond, Catherine, The Fitz
+Boodlers, The Book of Snobs, Barry Lyndon_, and various other immature
+works made him known to a few readers of _Punch_ and of _Fraser's
+Magazine_, it was not till the publication of _Vanity Fair_ (1847-1848)
+that he began to be recognized as one of the great novelists of his day.
+All his earlier works are satires, some upon society, others upon the
+popular novelists,--Bulwer, Disraeli, and especially Dickens,--with whose
+sentimental heroes and heroines he had no patience whatever. He had
+married, meanwhile, in 1836, and for a few years was very happy in his
+home. Then disease and insanity fastened upon his young wife, and she was
+placed in an asylum. The whole after life of our novelist was darkened by
+this loss worse than death. He became a man of the clubs, rather than of
+his own home, and though his wit and kindness made him the most welcome of
+clubmen, there was an undercurrent of sadness in all that he wrote. Long
+afterwards he said that, though his marriage ended in shipwreck, he "would
+do it over again; for behold Love is the crown and completion of all
+earthly good."
+
+After the moderate success of _Vanity Fair_, Thackeray wrote the three
+novels of his middle life upon which his fame chiefly rests,--_Pendennis_
+in 1850, _Henry Esmond_ in 1852, and _The Newcomes_ in 1855. Dickens's
+great popular success as a lecturer and dramatic reader had led to a
+general desire on the part of the public to see and to hear literary men,
+and Thackeray, to increase his income, gave two remarkable courses of
+lectures, the first being _English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_,
+and the second _The Four Georges_,--both courses being delivered with
+gratifying success in England and especially in America. Dickens, as we
+have seen, was disappointed in America and vented his displeasure in
+outrageous criticism; but Thackeray, with his usual good breeding, saw only
+the best side of his generous entertainers, and in both his public and
+private utterances emphasized the virtues of the new land, whose restless
+energy seemed to fascinate him. Unlike Dickens, he had no confidence in
+himself when he faced an audience, and like most literary men he disliked
+lecturing, and soon gave it up. In 1860 he became editor of the _Cornhill
+Magazine_, which prospered in his hands, and with a comfortable income he
+seemed just ready to do his best work for the world (which has always
+believed that he was capable of even better things than he ever wrote) when
+he died suddenly in 1863. His body lies buried in Kensal Green, and only a
+bust does honor to his memory in Westminster Abbey.
+
+WORKS OF THACKERAY. The beginner will do well to omit the earlier satires
+of Thackeray, written while he was struggling to earn a living from the
+magazines, and open _Henry Esmond_ (1852), his most perfect novel, though
+not the most widely known and read. The fine historical and literary,
+flavor of this story is one of its most marked characteristics, and only
+one who knows something of the history and literature of the eighteenth
+century can appreciate its value. The hero, Colonel Esmond; relates his own
+story, carrying the reader through the courts and camps of Queen Anne's
+reign, and giving the most complete and accurate picture of a past age that
+has ever appeared in a novel. Thackeray is, as we have said, a realist, and
+he begins his story by adopting the style and manner of a scholarly
+gentleman of the period he is describing. He has an extraordinary knowledge
+of eighteenth-century literature, and he reproduces its style in detail,
+going so far as to insert in his narrative an alleged essay from the
+_Tatler_. And so perfectly is it done that it is impossible to say wherein
+it differs from the style of Addison and Steele.
+
+In his matter also Thackeray is realistic, reflecting not the pride and
+pomp of war, which are largely delusions, but its brutality and barbarism,
+which are all too real; painting generals and leaders, not as the newspaper
+heroes to whom we are accustomed, but as moved by intrigues, petty
+jealousies, and selfish ambitions; showing us the great Duke of Marlborough
+not as the military hero, the idol of war-crazed multitudes, but as without
+personal honor, and governed by despicable avarice. In a word, Thackeray
+gives us the "back stairs" view of war, which is, as a rule, totally
+neglected in our histories. When he deals with the literary men of the
+period, he uses the same frank realism, showing us Steele and Addison and
+other leaders, not with halos about their heads, as popular authors, but in
+slippers and dressing gowns, smoking a pipe in their own rooms, or else
+growing tipsy and hilarious in the taverns,--just as they appeared in daily
+life. Both in style and in matter, therefore, _Esmond_ deserves to rank as
+probably the best historical novel in our language.
+
+The plot of the story is, like most of Thackeray's plots, very slight, but
+perfectly suited to the novelist's purpose. The plans of his characters
+fail; their ideals grow dim; there is a general disappearance of youthful
+ambitions. There is a love story at the center; but the element of romance,
+which furnishes the light and music and fragrance of love, is
+inconspicuous. The hero, after ten years of devotion to a young woman, a
+paragon of beauty, finally marries her mother, and ends with a few pious
+observations concerning Heaven's mercy and his own happy lot. Such an
+ending seems disappointing, almost bizarre, in view of the romantic novels
+to which we are accustomed; but we must remember that Thackeray's purpose
+was to paint life as he saw it, and that in life men and things often take
+a different way from that described in romances. As we grow acquainted with
+Thackeray's characters, we realize that no other ending was possible to his
+story, and conclude that his plot, like his style, is perhaps as near
+perfection as a realistic novelist can ever come.
+
+_Vanity Fair_ (1847--1848) is the best known of Thackeray's novels. It was
+his first great work, and was intended to express his own views of the
+social life about him, and to protest against the overdrawn heroes of
+popular novels. He takes for his subject that Vanity Fair to which
+Christian and Faithful were conducted on their way to the Heavenly City, as
+recorded in _Pilgrim's Progress_. In this fair there are many different
+booths, given over to the sale of "all sorts of vanities," and as we go
+from one to another we come in contact with "juggling, cheats, games,
+plays, fools, apes, knaves, rogues, and that of every kind." Evidently this
+is a picture of one side of social life; but the difference between Bunyan
+and Thackeray is simply this,--that Bunyan made Vanity Fair a small
+incident in a long journey, a place through which most of us pass on our
+way to better things; while Thackeray, describing high society in his own
+day, makes it a place of long sojourn, wherein his characters spend the
+greater part of their lives. Thackeray styles this work "a novel without a
+hero." The whole action of the story, which is without plot or development,
+revolves about two women,--Amelia, a meek creature of the milk-and-water
+type, and Becky Sharp, a keen, unprincipled intriguer, who lets nothing
+stand in the way of her selfish desire to get the most out of the fools who
+largely constitute society. On the whole, it is the most powerful but not
+the most wholesome of Thackeray's works.
+
+In his second important novel, _Pendennis_ (1849-1850), we have a
+continuation of the satire on society begun in _Vanity Fair_. This novel,
+which the beginner should read after _Esmond_, is interesting to us for two
+reasons,--because it reflects more of the details of Thackeray's life than
+all his other writings, and because it contains one powerfully drawn
+character who is a perpetual reminder of the danger of selfishness. The
+hero is "neither angel nor imp," in Thackeray's words, but the typical
+young man of society, whom he knows thoroughly, and whom he paints exactly
+as he is,--a careless, good-natured but essentially selfish person, who
+goes through life intent on his own interests. _Pendennis_ is a profound
+moral study, and the most powerful arraignment of well-meaning selfishness
+in our literature, not even excepting George Eliot's _Romola_, which it
+suggests.
+
+Two other novels, _The Newcomes_ (1855) and _The Virginians_ (1859),
+complete the list of Thackeray's great works of fiction. The former is a
+sequel to _Pendennis_, and the latter to _Henry Esmond;_ and both share the
+general fate of sequels in not being quite equal in power or interest to
+their predecessors. _The Newcomes_, however, deserves a very high place,--
+some critics, indeed, placing it at the head of the author's works. Like
+all Thackeray's novels, it is a story of human frailty; but here the
+author's innate gentleness and kindness are seen at their best, and the
+hero is perhaps the most genuine and lovable of all his characters.
+
+Thackeray is known in English literature as an essayist as well as a
+novelist. His _English Humorists_ and _The Four Georges_ are among the
+finest essays of the nineteenth century. In the former especially,
+Thackeray shows not only a wide knowledge but an extraordinary
+understanding of his subject. Apparently this nineteenth-century writer
+knows Addison, Fielding, Swift, Smollett, and other great writers of the
+past century almost as intimately as one knows his nearest friend; and he
+gives us the fine flavor of their humor in a way which no other writer,
+save perhaps Larnb, has ever rivaled.[240] _The Four Georges_ is in a vein
+of delicate satire, and presents a rather unflattering picture of four of
+England's rulers and of the courts in which they moved. Both these works
+are remarkable for their exquisite style, their gentle humor, their keen
+literary criticisms, and for the intimate knowledge and sympathy which
+makes the' people of a past age live once more in the written pages.
+
+GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. In treating of Thackeray's view of life, as
+reflected in his novels, critics vary greatly, and the following summary
+must be taken not as a positive judgment but only as an attempt to express
+the general impression of his works on an uncritical reader. He is first of
+a realist, who paints life as he sees it. As he says himself, "I have no
+brains above my eyes; I describe what I see.". His pictures of certain
+types, notably the weak and vicious elements of society, are accurate and
+true to life, but they seem to play too large a part in his books, and have
+perhaps too greatly influenced his general judgment of humanity. An
+excessive sensibility, or the capacity for fine feelings and emotions, is a
+marked characteristic of Thackeray, as it is of Dickens and Carlyle. He is
+easily offended, as they are, by the shams of society; but he cannot find
+an outlet, as Dickens does, in laughter and tears, and he is too gentle to
+follow Carlyle in violent denunciations and prophecies. He turns to
+satire,--influenced, doubtless, by eighteenth-century literature which he
+knew so well, and in which satire played too large a part.[241] His satire
+is never personal, like Pope's, or brutal, like Swift's, and is tempered by
+kindness and humor; but it is used too freely, and generally lays too much
+emphasis on faults and foibles to be considered a true picture of any large
+class of English society.
+
+Besides being a realist and satirist, Thackeray is essentially a moralist,
+like Addison, aiming definitely in all his work at producing a moral
+impression. So much does he revere goodness, and so determined is he that
+his Pendennis or his Becky Sharp shall be judged at their true value, that
+he is not content, like Shakespeare, to be simply an artist, to tell an
+artistic tale and let it speak its own message; he must explain and
+emphasize the moral significance of his work. There is no need to consult
+our own conscience over the actions of Thackeray's characters; the beauty
+of virtue and the ugliness of vice are evident on every page.
+
+Whatever we may think of Thackeray's matter, there is one point in which
+critics are agreed,--that he is master of a pure and simple English style.
+Whether his thought be sad or humorous, commonplace or profound, he
+expresses it perfectly, without effort or affectation. In all his work
+there is a subtle charm, impossible to describe, which gives the impression
+that we are listening to a gentleman. And it is the ease, the refinement,
+the exquisite naturalness of Thackeray's style that furnishes a large part
+of our pleasure in reading him.
+
+
+MARY ANN EVANS, GEORGE ELIOT (1819-1880)
+
+In nearly all the writers of the Victorian Age we note, on the one hand, a
+strong intellectual tendency to analyze the problems of life, and on the
+other a tendency to teach, that is, to explain to men the method by which
+these problems may be solved. The novels especially seem to lose sight of
+the purely artistic ideal of writing, and to aim definitely at moral
+instruction. In George Eliot both these tendencies reach a climax. She is
+more obviously, more consciously a preacher and moralizer than any of her
+great contemporaries. Though profoundly religious at heart, she was largely
+occupied by the scientific spirit of the age; and finding no religious
+creed or political system satisfactory, she fell back upon duty as the
+supreme law of life. All her novels aim, first, to show in individuals the
+play of universal moral forces, and second, to establish the moral law as
+the basis of human society. Aside from this moral teaching, we look to
+George Eliot for the reflection of country life in England, just as we look
+to Dickens for pictures of the city streets, and to Thackeray for the
+vanities of society. Of all the women writer's who have helped and are
+still helping to place our English novels at the head of the world's
+fiction, she holds at present unquestionably the highest rank.
+
+LIFE. Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans, known to us by her pen name of George
+Eliot, began to write late in life, when nearly forty years of age, and
+attained the leading position among living English novelists in the ten
+years between 1870 and 1880, after Thackeray and Dickens had passed away.
+She was born at Arbury Farm, Warwickshire, some twenty miles from
+Stratford-on-Avon, in 1819. Her parents were plain, honest folk, of the
+farmer class, who brought her up in the somewhat strict religious manner of
+those days. Her father seems to have been a man of sterling integrity and
+of practical English sense,--one of those essentially noble characters who
+do the world's work silently and well, and who by their solid worth obtain
+a position of influence among their fellow-men.
+
+A few months after George Eliot's birth the family moved to another home,
+in the parish of Griff, where her childhood was largely passed. The scenery
+of the Midland counties and many details of her own family life are
+reflected in her earlier novels. Thus we find her and her brother, as
+Maggie and Tom Tulliver, in _The Mill on the Floss;_ her aunt, as Dinah
+Morris, and her mother, as Mrs. Poyser, in _Adam Bede_. We have a
+suggestion of her father in the hero of the latter novel, but the picture
+is more fully drawn as Caleb Garth, in _Middlemarch_. For a few years she
+studied at two private schools for young ladies, at Nuneaton and Coventry;
+but the death of her mother called her, at seventeen years of age, to take
+entire charge of the household. Thereafter her education was gained wholly
+by miscellaneous reading. We have a suggestion of her method in one of her
+early letters, in which she says: "My mind presents an assemblage of
+disjointed specimens of history, ancient and modern; scraps of poetry
+picked up from Shakespeare, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Milton; newspaper
+topics, morsels of Addison and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry, entomology,
+and chemistry; reviews and metaphysics, all arrested and petrified and
+smothered by the fast-thickening everyday accession of actual events,
+relative anxieties, and household cares and vexations."
+
+When Mary was twenty-one years old the family again moved, this time to
+Foleshill Road, near Coventry. Here she became acquainted with the family
+of Charles Bray, a prosperous ribbon manufacturer, whose house was a
+gathering place for the freethinkers of the neighborhood. The effect of
+this liberal atmosphere upon Miss Evans, brought up in a narrow way, with
+no knowledge of the world, was to unsettle many of her youthful
+convictions. From a narrow, intense dogmatism, she went to the other
+extreme of radicalism; then (about 1860) she lost all sympathy with the
+freethinkers, and, being instinctively religious, seemed to be groping
+after a definite faith while following the ideal of duty. This spiritual
+struggle, which suggests that of Carlyle, is undoubtedly the cause of that
+gloom and depression which hang, like an English fog, over much of her
+work; though her biographer, Cross, tells us that she was not by any means
+a sad or gloomy woman.
+
+In 1849 Miss Evans's father died, and the Brays took her abroad for a tour
+of the continent. On her return to England she wrote several liberal
+articles for the _Westminster Review_, and presently was made assistant
+editor of that magazine. Her residence in London at this time marks a
+turning point in her career and the real beginning of her literary life.
+She made strong friendships with Spencer, Mill, and other scientists of the
+day, and through Spencer met George Henry Lewes, a miscellaneous writer,
+whom she afterwards married.
+
+Under his sympathetic influence she began to write fiction for the
+magazines, her first story being "Amos Barton" (1857), which was later
+included in the _Scenes of Clerical Life_ (1858). Her first long novel,
+_Adam Bede_, appeared early in 1859 and met with such popular favor that to
+the end of her life she despaired of ever again repeating her triumph. But
+the unexpected success proved to be an inspiration, and she completed _The
+Mill on the Floss_ and began _Silas Marner_ during the following year. Not
+until the great success of these works led to an insistent demand to know
+the author did the English public learn that it was a woman, and not an
+English clergyman, as they supposed, who had suddenly jumped to the front
+rank of living writers.
+
+Up to this point George Eliot had confined herself to English country life,
+but now she suddenly abandoned the scenes and the people with whom she was
+most familiar in order to write an historical novel. It was in 1860, while
+traveling in Italy, that she formed "the great project" of _Romola_,--a
+mingling of fiction and moral philosophy, against the background of the
+mighty Renaissance movement. In this she was writing of things of which she
+had no personal knowledge, and the book cost her many months of hard and
+depressing labor. She said herself that she was a young woman when she
+began the work, and an old woman when she finished it. _Romola_ (1862--
+1863) was not successful with the public, and the same may be said of
+_Felix Holt the Radical_ (1866) and _The Spanish Gypsy_ (1868). The
+last-named work was the result of the author's ambition to write a dramatic
+poem which should duplicate the lesson of _Romola_; and for the purpose of
+gathering material she visited Spain, which she had decided upon as the
+scene of her poetical effort. With the publication of _Middlemarch_
+(1871-1872) George Eliot came back again into popular favor, though this
+work is less spontaneous, and more labored and pedantic, than her earlier
+novels. The fault of too much analysis and moralizing was even more
+conspicuous in _Daniei Deronda_ (1876), which she regarded as her greatest
+book. Her life during all this time was singularly uneventful, and the
+chief milestones along the road mark the publication of her successive
+novels.
+
+During all the years of her literary success her husband Lewes had been a
+most sympathetic friend and critic, and when he died, in 1878, the loss
+seemed to be more than she could bear. Her letters of this period are
+touching in their loneliness and their craving for sympathy. Later she
+astonished everybody by marrying John Walter Cross, much younger than
+herself, who is known as her biographer. "Deep down below there is a river
+of sadness, but ... I am able to enjoy my newly re-opened life," writes
+this woman of sixty, who, ever since she was the girl whom we know as
+Maggie Tulliver, must always have some one to love and to depend upon. Her
+new interest in life lasted but a few months, for she died in December of
+the same year (1880). One of the best indications of her strength and her
+limitations is her portrait, with its strong masculine features, suggesting
+both by resemblance and by contrast that wonderful portrait of Savonarola
+which hangs over his old desk in the monastery at Florence.
+
+WORKS OF GEORGE ELIOT. These are conveniently divided into three groups,
+corresponding to the three periods of her life. The first group includes
+all her early essays and miscellaneous work, from her translation of
+Strauss's _Leben Jesu_, in 1846, to her union with Lewes in 1854. The
+second group includes _Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, Mill on the
+Floss_, and _Silas Marner_, all published between 1858 and 1861. These four
+novels of the middle period are founded on the author's own life and
+experience; their scenes are laid in the country, and their characters are
+taken from the stolid people of the Midlands, with whom George Eliot had
+been familiar since childhood. They are probably the author's most enduring
+works. They have a naturalness, a spontaneity, at times a flash of real
+humor, which are lacking in her later novels; and they show a rapid
+development of literary power which reaches a climax in _Silas Marner_.
+
+The novel of Italian life, _Romola_ (1862-1863), marks a transition to the
+third group, which includes three more novels,--_Felix Holt_ (1866),
+_Middlemarch_ (1871-1872), _Daniel Deronda_ (1876), the ambitious dramatic
+poem _The Spanish Gypsy_ (1868), and a collection of miscellaneous essays
+called _The Impressions of Theophrastus Such_ (1879). The general
+impression, of these works is not so favorable as that produced by the
+novels of the middle period. They are more labored and less interesting;
+they contain much deep reflection and analysis of character, but less
+observation, less delight in picturing country life as it is, and very
+little of what we call inspiration. We must add, however, that this does
+not express a unanimous literary judgment, for critics are not wanting who
+assert that _Daniel Deronda_ is the highest expression of the author's
+genius.
+
+The general character of all these novels may be described, in the author's
+own term, as psychologic realism. This means that George Eliot sought to do
+in her novels what Browning attempted in his poetry; that is, to represent
+the inner struggle of a soul, and to reveal the motives, impulses, and
+hereditary influences which govern human action. Browning generally stops
+when he tells his story, and either lets you draw your own conclusion or
+else gives you his in a few striking lines. But George Eliot is not content
+until she has minutely explained the motives of her characters and the
+moral lesson to be learned from them. Moreover, it is the development of a
+soul, the slow growth or decline of moral power, which chiefly interests
+her. Her heroes and heroines differ radically from those of Dickens and
+Thackeray in this respect,--that when we meet the men and women of the
+latter novelists, their characters are already formed, and we are
+reasonably sure what they will do under given circumstances. In George
+Eliot's novels the characters develop gradually as we come to know them.
+They go from weakness to strength, or from strength to weakness, according
+to the works that they do and the thoughts that they cherish. In _Romola_,
+for instance, Tito, as we first meet him, may be either good or bad, and we
+know not whether he will finally turn to the right hand or to the left. As
+time passes, we see him degenerate steadily because he follows his selfish
+impulses, while Romola, whose character is at first only faintly indicated,
+grows into beauty and strength with every act of self-renunciation.
+
+In these two characters, Tito and Romola, we have an epitome of our
+author's moral teaching. The principle of law was in the air during the
+Victorian era, and we have already noted how deeply Tennyson was influenced
+by it. With George Eliot law is like fate; it overwhelms personal freedom
+and inclination. Moral law was to her as inevitable, as automatic, as
+gravitation. Tito's degeneration, and the sad failure of Dorothea and
+Lydgate in _Middlemarch_, may be explained as simply as the fall of an
+apple, or as a bruised knee when a man loses his balance. A certain act
+produces a definite moral effect on the individual; and character is the
+added sum of all, the acts of a man's; life,--just as the weight of a body
+is the sum of the weights of many different atoms which constitute it. The
+matter of rewards and punishments, therefore, needs no final judge or
+judgment, since these things take care of themselves automatically in a
+world of inviolable moral law.
+
+Perhaps one thing more should be added to the general characteristics of
+George Eliot's novels,--they are all rather depressing. The gladsomeness of
+life, the sunshine of smiles and laughter, is denied her. It is said that
+once, when her husband remarked that her novels were all essentially sad,
+she wept, and answered that she must describe life as she had found it.
+
+WHAT TO READ. George Eliot's first stories are in some respects her best,
+though her literary power increases during her second period, culminating
+in _Silas Marner_, and her psychological analysis is more evident in
+_Daniel Deronda_. On the whole, it is an excellent way to begin with the
+freshness and inspiration of the _Scenes of Clerical Life_ and read her
+books in the order in which they were written. In the first group of novels
+_Adam Bede_ is the most natural, and probably interests more readers than
+all the others combined. _The Mill on the Floss_ has a larger personal
+interest, because it reflects much of George Eliot's history and the scenes
+and the friends of her early life. The lack of proportion in this story,
+which gives rather too much space to the girl-and-boy experiences, is
+naturally explained by the tendency in every man and woman to linger over
+early memories.
+
+_Silas Marner_ is artistically the most perfect of George Eliot's novels,
+and we venture to analyze it as typical of her ideals and methods. We note
+first the style, which is heavy and a little self-conscious, lacking the
+vigor and picturesqueness of Dickens, and the grace and naturalness of
+Thackeray. The characters are the common people of the Midlands, the hero
+being a linen weaver, a lonely outcast who hoards and gloats over his
+hard-earned money, is robbed, thrown into utter despair, and brought back
+to life and happiness by the coming of an abandoned child to his fire. In
+the development of her story the author shows herself, first, a realist, by
+the naturalness of her characters and the minute accuracy with which she
+reproduces their ways and even the accents of their speech; second, a
+psychologist, by the continual analysis and explanation of motives; third,
+a moralist, by showing in each individual the action and reaction of
+universal moral forces, and especially by making every evil act bring
+inevitable punishment to the man who does it. Tragedy, therefore, plays a
+large part in the story; for, according to George Eliot, tragedy and
+suffering walk close behind us, or lurk at every turn in the road of life.
+Like all her novels, _Silas Marner_ is depressing. We turn away from even
+the wedding of Eppie--which is just as it should be--with a sense of
+sadness and incompleteness. Finally, as we close the book, we are conscious
+of a powerful and enduring impression of reality. Silas, the poor weaver;
+Godfrey Cass, the well-meaning, selfish man; Mr. Macey, the garrulous, and
+observant parish clerk; Dolly Winthrop, the kind-hearted countrywoman who
+cannot understand the mysteries of religion and so interprets God in terms
+of human love,--these are real people, whom having once met we can never
+forget.
+
+_Romola_ has the same general moral theme as the English novels; but the
+scenes are entirely different, and opinion is divided as to the comparative
+merit of the work. It is a study, a very profound study of moral
+development in one character and of moral degeneracy in another. Its
+characters and its scenes are both Italian, and the action takes place
+during a critical period of the Renaissance movement, when Savonarola was
+at the height of his power in Florence. Here is a magnificent theme and a
+superb background for a great novel, and George Eliot read and studied till
+she felt sure that she understood the place, the time, and the people of
+her story. _Romola_ is therefore interesting reading, in many respects the
+most interesting of her works. It has been called one of our greatest
+historical novels; but as such it has one grievous fault. It is not quite
+true to the people or even to the locality which it endeavors to represent.
+One who reads it here, in a new and different land, thinks only of the
+story and of the novelist's power; but one who reads it on the spot which
+it describes, and amidst the life which it pictures, is continually haunted
+by the suggestion that George Eliot understood neither Italy nor the
+Italians. It is this lack of harmony with Italian life itself which caused
+Morris and Rossetti and even Browning, with all his admiration for the
+author, to lay aside the book, unable to read it with pleasure or profit.
+In a word, _Romola_ is a great moral study and a very interesting book; but
+the characters are not Italian, and the novel as a whole lacks the strong
+reality which marks George Eliot's English studies.
+
+
+MINOR NOVELISTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE
+
+In the three great novelists just considered we have an epitome of the
+fiction of the age, Dickens using the novel to solve social problems,
+Thackeray to paint the life of society as he saw it, and George Eliot to
+teach the fundamental principles of morality. The influence of these three
+writers is reflected in all the minor novelists of the Victorian Age. Thus,
+Dickens is reflected in Charles Reade, Thackeray in Anthony Trollope and
+the Brontë sisters, and George Eliot's psychology finds artistic expression
+in George Meredith. To these social and moral and realistic studies we
+should add the element of romance, from which few of our modern novelist's
+can long escape. The nineteenth century, which began with the romanticism
+of Walter Scott, returns to its first love, like a man glad to be home, in
+its delight over Blackmore's _Lorna Doone_ and the romances of Robert Louis
+Stevenson.
+
+CHARLES READE. In his fondness for stage effects, for picturing the
+romantic side of common life, and for using the novel as the instrument of
+social reform, there is a strong suggestion of Dickens in the work of
+Charles Reade (1814-1884). Thus his _Peg Woffington_ is a study of stage
+life from behind the scenes; _A Terrible Temptation_ is a study of social
+reforms and reformers; and _Put yourself in his Place_ is the picture of a
+workingman who struggles against the injustice of the trades unions. His
+masterpiece, _The Cloister and the Hearth_ (1861), one of our best
+historical novels, is a somewhat laborious study of student and vagabond
+life in Europe in the days of the German Renaissance. It has small
+resemblance to George Eliot's _Romola_, whose scene is laid in Italy during
+the same period; but the two works may well be read in succession, as the
+efforts of two very different novelists of the same period to restore the
+life of an age long past.
+
+ANTHONY TROLLOPE. In his realism, and especially in his conception of the
+novel as the entertainment of an idle hour, Trollope (1815-1882) is a
+reflection of Thackeray. It would be hard to find a better duplicate of
+Becky Sharp, the heroine of _Vanity Fair_, for instance, than is found in
+Lizzie Eustace, the heroine of _The Eustace Diamonds_. Trollope was the
+most industrious and systematic of modern novelists, writing a definite
+amount each day, and the wide range of his characters suggests the _Human
+Comedy_ of Balzac. His masterpiece is _Barchester Towers_ (1857). This is a
+study of life in a cathedral town, and is remarkable for its minute
+pictures of bishops and clergymen, with their families and dependents. It
+would be well to read this novel in connection with _The Warden_ (1855),
+_The Last Chronicle of Barset_ (1867), and other novels of the same series,
+since the scenes and characters are the same in all these books, and they
+are undoubtedly the best expression of the author's genius. Hawthorne says
+of his novels: "They precisely suit my taste,--solid and substantial, and
+... just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth
+and put it under a glass case, with all the inhabitants going about their
+daily business and not suspecting that they were being made a show of."
+
+CHARLOTTE BRONTë. We have another suggestion of Thackeray in the work of
+Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855). She aimed to make her novels a realistic
+picture of society, but she added to Thackeray's realism the element of
+passionate and somewhat unbalanced romanticism. The latter element was
+partly the expression of Miss Brontë's own nature, and partly the result of
+her lonely and grief-stricken life, which was darkened by a succession of
+family tragedies. It will help us to understand her work if we remember
+that both Charlotte Brontë and her sister Emily[242] turned to literature
+because they found their work as governess and teacher unendurable, and
+sought to relieve the loneliness and sadness of their own lot by creating a
+new world of the imagination. In this new world, however, the sadness of
+the old remains, and all the Brontë novels have behind them an aching
+heart. Charlotte Brontë's best known work is _Jane Eyre_ (1847), which,
+with all its faults, is a powerful and fascinating study of elemental love
+and hate, reminding us vaguely of one of Marlowe's tragedies. This work won
+instant favor with the public, and the author was placed in the front rank
+of living novelists. Aside from its value as a novel, it is interesting, in
+many of its early passages, as the reflection of the author's own life and
+experience. _Shirley_ (1849) and _Villette_ (1853) make up the trio of
+novels by which this gifted woman is generally remembered.
+
+BULWER LYTTON. Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873) was an extremely versatile
+writer, who tried almost every kind of novel known to the nineteenth
+century. In his early life he wrote poems and dramas, under the influence
+of Byron; but his first notable work, _Pelham_ (1828), one of the best of
+his novels, was a kind of burlesque on the Byronic type of gentleman. As a
+study of contemporary manners in high society, _Pelham_ has a suggestion of
+Thackeray, and the resemblance is more noticeable in other novels of the
+same type, such as _Ernest Maltravers_ (1837), _The Caxtons_ (1848-1849),
+_My Novel_ (1853), and _Kenelm Chillingly_ (1873). We have a suggestion of
+Dickens in at least two of Lytton's novels, _Paul Clifford_ and _Eugene
+Aram_, the heroes of which are criminals, pictured as the victims rather
+than as the oppressors of society. Lytton essayed also, with considerable
+popular success, the romantic novel in _The Pilgrims of the Rhine_ and
+_Zanoni_, and tried the ghost story in _The Haunted and the Haunters_. His
+fame at the present day rests largely upon his historical novels, in
+imitation of Walter Scott, _The Last Days of Pompeii_ (1834), _Riettza_
+(1835), and _Harold_ (1848), the last being his most ambitious attempt to
+make the novel the supplement of history. In all his novels Lytton is
+inclined to sentimentalism and sensationalism, and his works, though
+generally interesting, seem hardly worthy of a high place in the history of
+fiction.
+
+KINGSLEY. Entirely different in spirit are the novels of the scholarly
+clergyman, Charles Kingsley (1819-1875). His works naturally divide
+themselves into three classes. In the first are his social studies and
+problem novels, such as _Alton Locke_ (1850), having for its hero a London
+tailor and poet, and _Yeast_ (1848), which deals with the problem of the
+agricultural laborer. In the second class are his historical novels,
+_Hereward the Wake, Hypatia_, and _Westward Ho! Hypatia_ is a dramatic
+story of Christianity in contact with paganism, having its scene laid in
+Alexandria at the beginning of the fifth century. _Westward Ho_! (1855),
+his best known work, is a stirring tale of English conquest by land and sea
+in the days of Elizabeth. In the third class are his various miscellaneous
+works, not the least of which is _Water-Babies_, a fascinating story of a
+chimney sweep, which mothers read to their children at bedtime,--to the
+great delight of the round-eyed little listeners under the counterpane.
+
+MRS. GASKELL. Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) began, like Kingsley, with
+the idea of making the novel the instrument of social reform. As the wife
+of a clergyman in Manchester, she had come in close contact with the
+struggles and ideals of the industrial poor of a great city, and she
+reflected her sympathy as well as her observation in _Mary Barton_ (1848)
+and in _North and South_ (1855). Between these two problem novels she
+published her masterpiece, _Cranford_, in 1853. The original of this
+country village, which is given over to spinsters, is undoubtedly
+Knutsford, in Cheshire, where Mrs. Gaskell had spent her childhood. The
+sympathy, the keen observation, and the gentle humor with which the small
+affairs of a country village are described make _Cranford_ one of the most
+delightful stories in the English language. We are indebted to Mrs. Gaskell
+also for the _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, which is one of our best
+biographies.
+
+BLACKMORE. Richard Doddridge Blackrhore (1825--1900) was a prolific writer,
+but he owes his fame almost entirely to one splendid novel, _Lorna Doone_,
+which was published in 1869. The scene of this fascinating romance is laid
+in Exmoor in the seventeenth century. The story abounds in romantic scenes
+and incidents; its descriptions of natural scenery are unsurpassed; the
+rhythmic language is at times almost equal to poetry; and the whole tone of
+the book is wholesome and refreshing. Altogether it would be hard to find a
+more delightful romance in any language, and it well deserves the place it
+has won as one of the classics of our literature. Other works of Blackmore
+which will repay the reader are _Clara Vaughan_ (1864), his first novel,
+_The Maid of Sker_ (1872), _Springhaven_ (1887), _Perlycross_ (1894), and
+_Tales from the Telling House_ (1896); but none of these, though he counted
+them his best work, has met with the same favor as _Lorna Doone_.
+
+MEREDITH. So much does George Meredith (1828-1909) belong to our own day
+that it is difficult to think of him as one of the Victorian novelists. His
+first notable work, _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_, was published in 1859,
+the same year as George Eliot's _Adam Bede;_ but it was not till the
+publication of _Diana of the Crossways_ in 1885, that his power as a
+novelist was widely recognized. He resembles Browning not only in his
+condensed style, packed with thought, but also in this respect,--that he
+labored for years in obscurity, and after much of his best work was
+published and apparently forgotten he slowly won the leading place in
+English fiction. We are still too near him to speak of the permanence of
+his work, but a casual reading of any of his novels suggests a comparison
+and a contrast with George Eliot. Like her, he is a realist and a
+psychologist; but while George Eliot uses tragedy to teach a moral lesson,
+Meredith depends more upon comedy, making vice not terrible but ridiculous.
+For the hero or heroine of her novel George Eliot invariably takes an
+individual, and shows in each one the play of universal moral forces.
+Meredith constructs a type-man as a hero, and makes this type express his
+purpose and meaning. So his characters seldom speak naturally, as George
+Eliot's do; they are more like Browning's characters in packing a whole
+paragraph into a single sentence or an exclamation. On account of his
+enigmatic style and his psychology, Meredith will never be popular; but by
+thoughtful men and women he will probably be ranked among our greatest
+writers of fiction. The simplest and easiest of his novels for a beginner
+is _The Adventures of Henry Richmond_ (1871). Among the best of his works,
+besides the two mentioned above, are _Beauchamp's Career_ (1876) and _The
+Egoist_ (1879). The latter is, in our personal judgment, one of the
+strongest and most convincing novels of the Victorian Age.
+
+HARDY. Thomas Hardy (1840-) seems, like Meredith, to belong to the present
+rather than to a past age, and an interesting comparison may be drawn
+between these two novelists. In style, Meredith is obscure and difficult,
+while Hardy is direct and simple, aiming at realism in all things. Meredith
+makes man the most important phenomenon in the universe; and the struggles
+of men are brightened by the hope of victory. Hardy makes man an
+insignificant part of the world, struggling against powers greater than
+himself,--sometimes against systems which he cannot reach or influence,
+sometimes against a kind of grim world-spirit who delights in making human
+affairs go wrong. He is, therefore, hardly a realist, but rather a man
+blinded by pessimism; and his novels, though generally powerful and
+sometimes fascinating, are not pleasant or wholesome reading. From the
+reader's view point some of his earlier works, like the idyllic love story
+_Under the Greenwood Tree_ (1872) and _A Pair of Blue Eyes_ (1873), are the
+most interesting. Hardy became noted, however, when he published _Far from
+the Madding Crowd_, a book which, when it appeared anonymously in the
+_Cornhill Magazine_ (1874), was generally attributed to George Eliot, for
+the simple reason that no other novelist was supposed to be capable of
+writing it. _The Return of the Native_ (1878) and _The Woodlanders_ are
+generally regarded as Hardy's masterpieces; but two novels of our own day,
+_Tess of the D'Ubervilles_ (1891) and _Jude the Obscure_ (1895), are better
+expressions of Hardy's literary art and of his gloomy philosophy.
+
+STEVENSON. In pleasing contrast with Hardy is Robert Louis Stevenson
+(1850-1894), a brave, cheery, wholesome spirit, who has made us all braver
+and cheerier by what he has written. Aside from their intrinsic value,
+Stevenson's novels are interesting in this respect,--that they mark a
+return to the pure romanticism of Walter Scott. The novel of the nineteenth
+century had, as we have shown, a very definite purpose. It aimed not only
+to represent life but to correct it, and to offer a solution to pressing
+moral and social problems. At the end of the century Hardy's gloom in the
+face of modern social conditions became oppressive, and Stevenson broke
+away from it into that land of delightful romance in which youth finds an
+answer to all its questions. Problems differ, but youth is ever the same,
+and therefore Stevenson will probably be regarded by future generations as
+one of our most enduring writers. To his life, with its "heroically happy"
+struggle, first against poverty, then against physical illness, it is
+impossible to do justice in a short article. Even a longer biography is
+inadequate, for Stevenson's spirit, not the incidents of his life, is the
+important thing; and the spirit has no biographer. Though he had written
+much better work earlier, he first gained fame by his _Treasure Island_
+(1883), an absorbing story of pirates and of a hunt for buried gold. _Dr.
+Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ (1886) is a profound ethical parable, in which,
+however, Stevenson leaves the psychology and the minute analysis of
+character to his readers, and makes the story the chief thing in his novel.
+_Kidnapped_ (1886), _The Master of Ballantrae_ (1889), and _David Balfour_
+(1893) are novels of adventure, giving us vivid pictures of Scotch life.
+Two romances left unfinished by his early death in Samoa are _The Weir of
+Hermiston_ and _St. Ives_. The latter was finished by Quiller-Couch in
+1897; the former is happily just as Stevenson left it, and though
+unfinished is generally regarded as his masterpiece. In addition to these
+novels, Stevenson wrote a large number of essays, the best of which are
+collected in _Virginibus Puerisque, Familiar Studies of Men and Books_, and
+_Memories and Portraits_. Delightful sketches of his travels are found in
+_An Inland Voyage_ (1878), _Travels with a Donkey_ (1879), _Across the
+Plains_ (1892), and _The Amateur Emigrant_ (1894). _Underwoods_ (1887) is
+an exquisite little volume of poetry, and _A Child's Garden of Verses_ is
+one of the books that mothers will always keep to read to their children.
+
+In all his books Stevenson gives the impression of a man at play rather
+than at work, and the reader soon shares in the happy spirit of the author.
+Because of his beautiful personality, and because of the love and
+admiration he awakened for himself in multitudes of readers, we are
+naturally inclined to exaggerate his importance as a writer. However that
+may be, a study of his works shows him to be a consummate literary artist.
+His style is always simple, often perfect, and both in his manner and in
+his matter he exercises a profound influence, on the writers of the present
+generation.
+
+
+III. ESSAYISTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE
+
+THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800-1859)
+
+Macaulay is one of the most typical figures of the nineteenth century.
+Though not a great writer, if we compare him with Browning or Thackeray, he
+was more closely associated than any of his literary contemporaries with
+the social and political struggles of the age. While Carlyle was
+proclaiming the gospel of labor, and Dickens writing novels to better the
+condition of the poor, Macaulay went vigorously to work on what he thought
+to be the most important task of the hour, and by his brilliant speeches
+did perhaps more than any other single man to force the passage of the
+famous Reform Bill. Like many of the Elizabethans, he was a practical man
+of affairs rather than a literary man, and though we miss in his writings
+the imagination and the spiritual insight which stamp the literary genius,
+we have the impression always of a keen, practical, honest mind, which
+looks at present problems in the light of past experience. Moreover, the
+man himself, with his marvelous mind, his happy spirit, and his absolute
+integrity of character, is an inspiration to better living.
+
+LIFE. Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, in 1800. His
+father, of Scotch descent, was at one time governor of the Sierra Leone
+colony for liberated negroes, and devoted a large part of his life to the
+abolition of the slave trade. His mother, of Quaker parentage, was a
+brilliant, sensitive woman, whose character is reflected in that of her
+son. The influence of these two, and the son's loyal devotion to his
+family, can best be read in Trevelyan's interesting biography.
+
+As a child, Macaulay is strongly suggestive of Coleridge. At three years of
+age he began to read eagerly; at five he "talked like a book"; at ten he
+had written a compendium of universal history, besides various hymns, verse
+romances, arguments for Christianity, and one ambitious epic poem. The
+habit of rapid reading, begun in childhood, continued throughout his life,
+and the number and vari ety of books which he read is almost incredible.
+His memory was phenomenal. He could repeat long poems and essays after a
+single reading; he could quote not only passages but the greater part of
+many books, including _Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost_, and various
+novels like _Clarissa_. Once, to test his memory, he recited two newspaper
+poems which he had read in a coffeehouse forty years before, and which he
+had never thought of in the interval.
+
+At twelve years of age this remarkable boy was sent to a private school at
+Little Shelford, and at eighteen he eqgered Trinity College, Cambridge.
+Here he made a reputation as a classical scholar and a brilliant talker,
+but made a failure of his mathematics. In a letter to his mother he wrote:
+"Oh for words to express my abomination of that science.... Discipline of
+the mind! Say rather starvation, confinement, torture, annihilation!" We
+quote this as a commentary on Macaulay's later writings, which are
+frequently lacking in the exactness and the logical sequence of the science
+which he detested.
+
+After his college course Macaulay studied law, was admitted to the bar,
+devoted himself largely to politics, entered Parliament in 1830, and almost
+immediately won a reputation as the best debater and the most eloquent
+speaker, of the Liberal or Whig party. Gladstone says of him: "Whenever he
+arose to speak it was a summons like a trumpet call to fill the benches."
+At the time of his election he was poor, and the loss of his father's
+property threw upon him the support of his brothers and sisters; but he
+took up the burden with cheerful courage, and by his own efforts soon
+placed himself and his family in comfort. His political progress was rapid,
+and was due not to favoritism or intrigue, but to his ability, his hard
+work, and his sterling character. He was several times elected to
+Parliament, was legal adviser to the Supreme Council of India, was a member
+of the cabinet, and declined many offices for which other men labor a
+lifetime. In 1857 his great ability and services to his country were
+recognized by his being raised to the peerage with the title of Baron
+Macaulay of Rothley.
+
+Macaulay's literary work began in college with the contribution of various
+ballads and essays to the magazines. In his later life practical affairs
+claimed the greater part of his time, and his brilliant essays were written
+in the early morning or late at night. His famous _Essay on Milton_
+appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_ in 1825. It created a sensation, and
+Macaulay, having gained the ear of the public, never once lost it during
+the twenty years in which he was a contributor to the magazines. His _Lays
+of Ancient Rome_ appeared in 1842, and in the following year three volumes
+of his collected _Essays_. In 1847 he lost his seat in Parliament,
+temporarily, through his zealous efforts in behalf of religious toleration;
+and the loss was most fortunate, since it gave him opportunity to begin his
+_History of England_,--a monumental work which he had been planning for
+many years. The first two volumes appeared in 1848, and their success can
+be compared only to that of the most popular novels. The third and fourth
+volumes of the _History_ (1855) were even more successful, and Macaulay was
+hard at work on the remaining volumes when he died, quite suddenly, in
+1859. He was buried, near Addison, in the Poets' Corner of Westminster
+Abbey. A paragraph from one of his letters, written at the height of his
+fame and influence, may give us an insight into his life and work:
+
+I can truly say that I have not, for many years, been so happy as I am at
+present.... I am free. I am independent. I am in Parliament, as honorably
+seated as man can be. My family is comfortably off. I have leisure for
+literature, yet I am not reduced to the necessity of writing for money. If
+I had to choose a lot from all that there are in human life, I am not sure
+that I should prefer any to that which has fallen to me. I am sincerely and
+thoroughly contented.
+
+WORKS OF MACAULAY. Macaulay is famous in literature for his essays, for his
+martial ballads, and for his _History of England_. His first important
+work, the _Essay on Milton_ (1825), is worthy of study not only for itself,
+as a critical estimate of the Puritan poet, but as a key to all Macaulay's
+writings. Here, first of all, is an interesting work, which, however much
+we differ from the author's opinion, holds our attention and generally
+makes us regret that the end comes so soon. The second thing to note is the
+historical flavor of the essay. We study not only Milton, but also the
+times in which he lived, and the great movements of which he was a part.
+History and literature properly belong together, and Macaulay was one of
+the first writers to explain the historical conditions which partly account
+for a writer's work and influence. The third thing to note is Macaulay's
+enthusiasm for his subject,--an enthusiasm which is often partisan, but
+which we gladly share for the moment as we follow the breathless narrative.
+Macaulay generally makes a hero of his man, shows him battling against
+odds, and the heroic side of our own nature awakens and responds to the
+author's plea. The fourth, and perhaps most characteristic thing in the
+essay is the style, which is remarkably clear, forceful, and convincing.
+Jeffrey, the editor of the _Edinburgh Review_, wrote enthusiastically when
+he received the manuscript, "The more I think, the less I can conceive
+where you picked up that style." We still share in the editor's wonder; but
+the more we think, the less we conceive that such a style could be picked
+up. It was partly the result of a well-stored mind, partly of unconscious
+imitation of other writers, and partly of that natural talent for clear
+speaking and writing which is manifest in all Macaulay's work.
+
+In the remaining essays we find the same general qualities which
+characterize Macaulay's first attempt. They cover a wide range of subjects,
+but they may be divided into two general classes, the literary or critical,
+and the historical. Of the literary essays the best are those on Milton,
+Addison, Goldsmith, Byron, Dryden, Leigh Hunt, Bunyan, Bacon, and Johnson.
+Among the best known of the historical essays are those on Lord Clive,
+Chatham, Warren Hastings, Hallam's Constitutional History, Von Ranke's
+History of the Papacy, Frederick the Great, Horace Walpole, William Pitt,
+Sir William Temple, Machiavelli, and Mirabeau. Most of these were produced
+in the vigor of young manhood, between 1825 and 1845, while the writer was
+busy with practical affairs of state. They are often one-sided and
+inaccurate, but always interesting, and from them a large number of busy
+people have derived their first knowledge of history and literature.
+
+The best of Macaulay's poetical work is found in the _Lays of Ancient Rome_
+(1842), a collection of ballads in the style of Scott, which sing of the
+old heroic days of the Rome Roman republic. The ballad does not require
+much thought or emotion. It demands clearness, vigor, enthusiasm, action;
+and it suited Macaulay's genius perfectly. He was, however, much more
+careful than other ballad writers in making his narrative true to
+tradition. The stirring martial spirit of these ballads, their fine
+workmanship, and their appeal to courage and patriotism made them instantly
+popular. Even to-day, after more than fifty years, such ballads as those on
+Virginius and Horatius at the Bridge are favorite pieces in many school
+readers.
+
+The _History of England_, Macaulay's masterpiece, is still one of the most
+popular historical works in the English language. Originally it was
+intended to cover the period from the accession of James II, in 1685, to
+the death of George IV, in 1830. Only five volumes of the work were
+finished, and so thoroughly did Macaulay go into details that these five
+volumes cover only sixteen years. It has been estimated that to complete
+the work on the same scale would require some fifty volumes and the labor
+of one man for over a century.
+
+In his historical method Macaulay suggests Gibbon. His own knowledge of
+history was very great, but before writing he read numberless pages,
+consulted original documents, and visited the scenes which he intended to
+describe. Thackeray's remark, that "Macaulay reads twenty books to write a
+sentence and travels one hundred miles to make a line of description," is,
+in view of his industry, a well-warranted exaggeration.
+
+As in his literary essays, he is fond of making heroes, and he throws
+himself so heartily into the spirit of the scene he is describing that his
+word pictures almost startle us by their vivid reality. The story of
+Monmouth's rebellion, for instance, or the trial of the seven bishops, is
+as fascinating as the best chapters of Scott's historical novels.
+
+While Macaulay's search for original sources of information suggests the
+scientific historian, his use of his material is much more like that of a
+novelist or playwright. In his essay on Machiavelli he writes: "The best
+portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of
+caricature, and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in
+which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously
+employed. Something is lost in accuracy, but much is gained in
+effect."[243] Whether this estimate of historical writing be true or false,
+Macaulay employed it in his own work and made his narrative as absorbing as
+a novel. To all his characters he gives the reality of flesh and blood, and
+in his own words he "shows us over their houses and seats us at their
+tables." All that is excellent, but it has its disadvantages. In his
+admiration for heroism, Macaulay makes some of his characters too good and
+others too bad. In his zeal for details he misses the importance of great
+movements, and of great leaders who are accustomed to ignore details; and
+in his joy of describing events he often loses sight of underlying causes.
+In a word, he is without historical insight, and his work, though
+fascinating, is seldom placed among the reliable histories of England.
+
+GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. To the reader who studies Macaulay's brilliant
+essays and a few chosen chapters of his _History_, three things soon become
+manifest. First, Macaulay's art is that of a public speaker rather than
+that of a literary man. He has a wonderful command of language, and he
+makes his meaning clear by striking phrases, vigorous antitheses,
+anecdotes, and illustrations. His style is so clear that "he who runs may
+read," and from beginning to end he never loses the attention of his
+readers. Second, Macaulay's good spirits and enthusiasm are contagious. As
+he said himself, he wrote "out of a full head," chiefly for his own
+pleasure or recreation; and one who writes joyously generally awakens a
+sense of pleasure in his readers. Third, Macaulay has "the defect of his
+qualities." He reads and remembers so much that he has no time to think or
+to form settled opinions. As Gladstone said, Macaulay is "always conversing
+or recollecting or reading or composing, but reflecting never." So he wrote
+his brilliant _Essay on Milton_, which took all England by storm, and said
+of it afterward that it contained "scarcely a paragraph which his mature
+judgment approved." Whether he speaks or writes, he has always before him
+an eager audience, and he feels within him the born orator's power to hold
+and fascinate. So he gives loose rein to his enthusiasm, quotes from a
+hundred books, and in his delight at entertaining us forgets that the first
+quality of a critical or historical work is to be accurate, and the second
+to be interesting.
+
+
+THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881)
+
+In marked contrast with Macaulay, the brilliant and cheerful essayist, is
+Thomas Carlyle, the prophet and censor of the nineteenth century. Macaulay
+is the practical man of affairs, helping and rejoicing in the progress of
+his beloved England. Carlyle lives apart from all practical interests,
+looks with distrust on the progress of his age, and tells men that truth,
+justice, and immortality are the only worthy objects of human endeavor.
+Macaulay is delighted with material comforts; he is most at home in
+brilliant and fashionable company; and he writes, even when ill and
+suffering, with unfailing hopefulness and good nature. Carlyle is like a
+Hebrew prophet just in from the desert, and the burden of his message is,
+"Woe to them that are at ease in Zion!" Both men are, in different ways,
+typical of the century, and somewhere between the two extremes--the
+practical, helpful activity of Macaulay and the spiritual agony and
+conflict of Carlyle--we shall find the measure of an age which has left the
+deepest impress upon our own.
+
+LIFE OF CARLYLE. Carlyle was born at Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, in 1795, a
+few months before Burns's death, and before Scott had published his first
+work. Like Burns, he came of peasant stock,--strong, simple, God-fearing
+folk, whose influence in Carlyle's later life is beyond calculation. Of his
+mother he says, "She was too mild and peaceful for the planet she lived
+in"; and of his father, a stone mason, he writes, "Could I write my books
+as he built his houses, walk my way so manfully through this shadow world,
+and leave it with so little blame, it were more than all my hopes."
+
+Of Carlyle's early school life we have some interesting glimpses in _Sartor
+Resartus_. At nine years he entered the Annan grammar school, where he was
+bullied by the older boys, who nicknamed him Tom the Tearful. For the
+teachers of those days he has only ridicule, calling them "hide-bound
+pedants," and he calls the school by the suggestive German name of
+_Hinterschlag Gymnasium_. At the wish of his parents, who intended Carlyle
+for the ministry, he endured this hateful school life till 1809, when he
+entered Edinburgh University. There he spent five miserable years, of which
+his own record is: "I was without friends, experience, or connection in the
+sphere of human business, was of sly humor, proud enough and to spare, and
+had begun my long curriculum of dyspepsia." This nagging illness was the
+cause of much of that irritability of temper which frequently led him to
+scold the public, and for which he has been harshly handled by unfriendly
+critics.
+
+The period following his university course was one of storm and stress for
+Carlyle. Much to the grief of the father whom he loved, he had given up the
+idea of entering the ministry. Wherever he turned, doubts like a thick fog
+surrounded him,--doubts of God, of his fellow-men, of human progress, of
+himself. He was poor, and to earn an honest living was his first problem.
+He tried successively teaching school, tutoring, the study of law, and
+writing miscellaneous articles for the _Edinburgh Encyclopedia_. All the
+while he was fighting his doubts, living, as he says, "in a continual,
+indefinite, pining fear." After six or seven years of mental agony, which
+has at times a suggestion of Bunyan's spiritual struggle, the crisis came
+in 1821, when Carlyle suddenly shook off his doubts and found himself. "All
+at once," he says in _Sartor_, "there arose a thought in me, and I asked
+myself: 'What _Art_ thou afraid of? Wherefore like a coward dost thou
+forever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trembling? Despicable biped!
+What is the sum total of the worst that lies before thee? Death? Well,
+Death; and say the pangs of Tophet too, and all that the Devil and Man may,
+will, or can do against thee! Hast thou not a heart; canst thou not suffer
+whatsoever it be; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast, trample
+Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee? Let it come then; I
+will meet it and defy it!' And as I so thought, there rushed like a stream
+of fire over my whole soul; and I shook base Fear away from me forever."
+This struggle between fear and faith, and the triumph of the latter, is
+recorded in two remarkable chapters, "The Everlasting No" and "The
+Everlasting Yea," of _Sartor Resartus_.
+
+Carlyle now definitely resolved on a literary life, and began with any work
+that offered a bare livelihood. He translated Legendre's _Geometry_ from
+the French, wrote numerous essays for the magazines, and continued his
+study of German while making translations from that language. His
+translation of Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_ Appeared in 1824, his _Life of
+Schiller_ in 1825, and his _Specimens of German Romance_ in 1827. He began
+at this time a correspondence with Goethe, his literary hero, which lasted
+till the German poet's death in 1832. While still busy with "hack work,"
+Carlyle, in 1826, married Jane Welsh, a brilliant and beautiful woman,
+whose literary genius almost equaled that of her husband. Soon afterwards,
+influenced chiefly by poverty, the Carlyles retired to a farm, at Craigen-
+puttoch (Hawks' Hill), a dreary and lonely spot, far from friends and even
+neighbors. They remained here six years, during which time Carlyle wrote
+many of his best essays, and _Sartor Resartus_, his most original work. The
+latter went begging among publishers for two years, and was finally
+published serially in _Fraser's Magazine_, in 1833-1834. By this time
+Carlyle had begun to attract attention as a writer, and, thinking that one
+who made his living by the magazines should be in close touch with the
+editors, took his wife's advice and moved to London "to seek work and
+bread." He settled in Cheyne Row, Chelsea,--a place made famous by More,
+Erasmus, Bolingbroke, Smollett, Leigh Hunt, and many lesser lights of
+literature,--and began to enjoy the first real peace he had known since
+childhood. In 1837 appeared _The French Revolution_, which first made
+Carlyle famous; and in the same year, led by the necessity of earning
+money, he began the series of lectures--_German. Literature_ (1837),
+_Periods of European Culture_ (1838), _Revolutions of Modern Europe_
+(1839), _Heroes and Hero Worship_ (1841)--which created a sensation in
+London. "It was," says Leigh Hunt, "as if some Puritan had come to life
+again, liberalized by German philosophy and his own intense reflection and
+experience."
+
+Though Carlyle set himself against the spirit of his age, calling the
+famous Reform Bill a "progress into darkness," and democracy "the rule of
+the worst rather than the best," his rough sincerity was unquestioned, and
+his remarks were more quoted than those of any other living man. He was
+supported, moreover, by a rare circle of friends,--Edward Irving, Southey,
+Sterling, Landor, Leigh Hunt, Dickens, Mill, Tennyson, Browning, and, most
+helpful of all, Emerson, who had visited Carlyle at Craigenputtoch in 1833.
+It was due largely to Emerson's influence that Carlyle's works were better
+appreciated, and brought better financial rewards, in America than in
+England.
+
+Carlyle's fame reached its climax in the monumental _History of Frederick
+the Great_ (1858-1865), published after thirteen years of solitary toil,
+which, in his own words, "made entire devastation of home life and
+happiness." The proudest moment of his life was when he was elected to
+succeed Gladstone as lord rector of Edinburgh University, in 1865, the year
+in which _Frederick the Great_ was finished. In the midst of his triumph,
+and while he was in Scotland to deliver his inaugural address, his
+happiness was suddenly destroyed by the death of his wife,--a terrible
+blow, from which he never recovered. He lived on for fifteen years, shorn
+of his strength and interest in life; and his closing hours were like the
+dull sunset of a November day. Only as we remember his grief and remorse at
+the death of the companion who had shared his toil but not his triumph, can
+we understand the sorrow that pervades the pages of his _Reminiscences_. He
+died in 1881, and at his own wish was buried, not in Westminster Abbey, but
+among his humble kinsfolk in Ecclefechan. However much we may differ from
+his philosophy or regret the harshness of his minor works, we shall
+probably all agree in this sentiment from one of his own letters,--that the
+object of all his struggle and writing was "that men should find out and
+believe the truth, and match their lives to it."
+
+WORKS OF CARLYLE. There are two widely different judgments of Carlyle as a
+man and a writer. The first, which is founded largely on his minor
+writings, like _Chartism, Latter-Day Pamphlets_, and _Shooting Niagara_,
+declares that he is a misanthrope and dyspeptic with a barbarous style of
+writing; that he denounces progress, democracy, science, America, Darwin,
+--everybody and everything that he does not understand; that his literary
+opinions are largely prejudices; that he began as a prophet and ended as a
+scold; and that in denouncing shams of every sort he was something of a
+sham himself, since his practice was not in accord with his own preaching.
+The second judgment, which is founded upon _Heroes and Hero Worship,
+Cromwell_, and _Sartor Resartus_, declares that these works are the supreme
+manifestation of genius; that their rugged, picturesque style makes others
+look feeble or colorless by comparison; and that the author is the greatest
+teacher, leader, and prophet of the nineteenth century.
+
+Somewhere between these two extremes will be found the truth about Carlyle.
+We only note here that, while there are some grounds for the first
+unfavorable criticism, we are to judge an author by his best rather than by
+his worst work; and that a man's aims as well as his accomplishments must
+be taken into consideration. As it is written, "Whereas it was in thine
+heart to build an house unto my name, thou didst well that it was in thine
+heart." Whatever the defects of Carlyle and his work, in his heart he was
+always planning a house or temple to the God of truth and justice.
+
+Carlyle's important works may be divided into three general classes,--
+critical and literary essays, historical works, and _Sartor Resartus_, the
+last being in a class by itself, since there is nothing like it in
+literature. To these should be added a biography, the admirable _Life of
+John Sterling_, and Carlyle's _Letters_ and _Reminiscences_, which are more
+interesting and suggestive than some of his better known works. We omit
+here all consideration of translations, and his intemperate denunciations
+of men and institutions in _Chartism, Latter-Day Pamphlets_, and other
+essays, which add nothing to the author's fame or influence.
+
+Of the essays, which are all characterized by Carlyle's zeal to get at the
+heart of things, and to reveal the soul rather than the works of a writer,
+the best are those on "Burns," "Scott," "Novalis," "Goethe,"
+"Characteristics," "Signs of the Times," and "Boswell's Life of
+Johnson."[244] In the famous _Essay on Burns_, which is generally selected
+for special study, we note four significant things: (1) Carlyle is
+peculiarly well fitted for his task, having many points in common with his
+hero. (2) In most of his work Carlyle, by his style and mannerisms and
+positive opinions, generally attracts our attention away from his subject;
+but in this essay he shows himself capable of forgetting himself for a
+moment. To an unusual extent he sticks to his subject, and makes us think
+of Burns rather than of Carlyle. The style, though unpolished, is fairly
+simple and readable, and is free from the breaks, crudities, ejaculations,
+and general "nodulosities" which disfigure much of his work. (3) Carlyle
+has an original and interesting theory of biography and criticism. The
+object of criticism is to show the man himself, his aims, ideals, and
+outlook on the universe; the object of biography is "to show what and how
+produced was the effect of society upon him; what and how produced was his
+effect on society." (4) Carlyle is often severe, even harsh, in his
+estimates of other men, but in this case the tragedy of Burns's "life of
+fragments" attracts and softens him. He grows enthusiastic and--a rare
+thing for Carlyle--apologizes for his enthusiasm in the striking sentence,
+"We love Burns, and we pity him; and love and pity are prone to magnify."
+So he gives us the most tender and appreciative of his essays, and one of
+the most illuminating criticisms of Burns that has appeared in our
+language.
+
+The central idea of Carlyle's historical works is found in his _Heroes and
+Hero Worship_ (1841), his most widely read book. "Universal history," he
+says, "is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked here." To
+get at the truth of history we must study not movements but men, and read
+not state papers but the biographies of heroes. His summary of history as
+presented in this work has six divisions: (1) The Hero as Divinity, having
+for its general subject Odin, the "type Norseman," who, Carlyle thinks, was
+some old heroic chief, afterwards deified by his countrymen; (2) The Hero
+as Prophet, treating of Mahomet and the rise of Islam; (3) The Hero as
+Poet, in which Dante and Shakespeare are taken as types; (4) The Hero as
+Priest, or religious leader, in which Luther appears as the hero of the
+Reformation, and Knox as the hero of Puritanism; (5) The Hero as Man of
+Letters, in which we have the curious choice of Johnson, Rousseau, and
+Burns; (6) The Hero as King, in which Cromwell and Napoleon appear as the
+heroes of reform by revolution.
+
+It is needless to say that _Heroes_ is not a book of history; neither is it
+scientifically written in the manner of Gibbon. With science in any form
+Carlyle had no patience; and he miscalculated the value of that patient
+search for facts and evidence which science undertakes before building any
+theories, either of kings or cabbages. The book, therefore, abounds in
+errors; but they are the errors of carelessness and are perhaps of small
+consequence. His misconception of history, however, is more serious. With
+the modern idea of history, as the growth of freedom among all classes, he
+has no sympathy. The progress of democracy was to him an evil thing, a
+"turning of the face towards darkness and anarchy." At certain periods,
+according to Carlyle, God sends us geniuses, sometimes as priests or poets,
+sometimes as soldiers or statesmen; but in whatever guise they appear,
+these are our real rulers. He shows, moreover, that whenever such men
+appear, multitudes follow them, and that a man's following is a sure index
+of his heroism and kingship.
+
+Whether we agree with Carlyle or not, we must accept for the moment his
+peculiar view of history, else _Heroes_ can never open its treasures to us.
+The book abounds in startling ideas, expressed with originality and power,
+and is pervaded throughout by an atmosphere of intense moral earnestness.
+The more we read it, the more we find to admire and to remember.
+
+Carlyle's _French Revolution_ (1837) is to be taken more seriously as a
+historical work; but here again his hero worship comes to the front, and
+his book is a series of flashlights thrown upon men in dramatic situations,
+rather than a tracing of causes to their consequences. The very titles of
+his chapters--"Astraea Redux," "Windbags," "Broglie the War God"--do
+violence to our conception of history, and are more suggestive of Carlyle's
+individualism than of French history. He is here the preacher rather than
+the historian; his text is the eternal justice; and his message is that all
+wrongdoing is inevitably followed by vengeance. His method is intensely
+dramatic. From a mass of historical details he selects a few picturesque
+incidents and striking figures, and his vivid pictures of the storming of
+the Bastille, the rush of the mob to Versailles, the death of Louis XVI,
+and the Reign of Terror, seem like the work of an eyewitness describing
+some terrible catastrophe. At times, as it portrays Danton, Robespierre,
+and the great characters of the tragedy, Carlyle's work is suggestive of an
+historical play of Shakespeare; and again, as it describes the rush and
+riot of men led by elemental passion, it is more like a great prose epic.
+Though not a reliable history in any sense, it is one of the most dramatic
+and stirring narratives in our language.
+
+Two other historical works deserve at least a passing notice. The _History
+of Frederick the Great_ (1858-1865), in six volumes, is a colossal picture
+of the life and times of the hero of the Prussian Empire. _Oliver
+Cromwell's Letters and Speeches_ is, in our personal judgment, Carlyle's
+best historical work. His idea is to present the very soul of the great
+Puritan leader. He gives us, as of first importance, Cromwell's own words,
+and connects them by a commentary in which other men and events are
+described with vigor and vividness. Cromwell was one of Carlyle's greatest
+heroes, and in this case he is most careful to present the facts which
+occasion his own enthusiasm. The result is, on the whole, the most lifelike
+picture of a great historical character that we possess. Other historians
+had heaped calumny upon Cromwell till the English public regarded him with
+prejudice and horror; and it is an indication of Carlyle's power that by a
+single book he revolutionized England's opinion of one of her greatest men.
+
+Carlyle's _Sartor Resartus_ (1834), his only creative work, is a mixture of
+philosophy and romance, of wisdom and nonsense,--a chaotic jumble of the
+author's thoughts, feelings, and experiences during the first thirty-five
+years of his life. The title, which means "The Tailor Patched-up," is taken
+from an old Scotch song. The hero is Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh, a German
+professor at the University of Weissnichtwo (don't know where); the
+narrative concerns this queer professor's life and opinions; and the
+central thought of the book is the philosophy of clothes, which are
+considered symbolically as the outward expression of spirit. Thus, man's
+body is the outward garment of his soul, and the universe is the visible
+garment of the invisible God. The arrangement of _Sartor_ is clumsy and
+hard to follow. In order to leave himself free to bring in everything he
+thought about, Carlyle assumed the position of one who was translating and
+editing the old professor's manuscripts, which are supposed to consist of
+numerous sheets stuffed into twelve paper bags, each labeled with a sign of
+the zodiac. The editor pretends to make order out of this chaos; but he is
+free to jump from one subject to another and to state the most startling
+opinion by simply using quotation marks and adding a note that he is not
+responsible for Teufelsdroeckh's crazy notions,--which are in reality
+Carlyle's own dreams and ideals. Partly because of the matter, which is
+sometimes incoherent, partly because of the style, which, though
+picturesque, is sometimes confused and ungrammatical, _Sartor_ is not easy
+reading; but it amply repays whatever time and study we give to it. Many of
+its passages are more like poetry than prose; and one cannot read such
+chapters as "The Everlasting No," "The Everlasting Yea," "Reminiscences,"
+and "Natural Supernaturalism," and be quite the same man afterwards; for
+Carlyle's thought has entered into him, and he walks henceforth more
+gently, more reverently through the world, as in the presence of the
+Eternal.
+
+GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. Concerning Carlyle's style there are almost as
+many opinions as there are readers. This is partly because he impresses
+different people in widely different ways, and partly because his
+expression varies greatly. At times he is calm, persuasive, grimly
+humorous, as if conversing; at other times, wildly exclamatory, as if he
+were shouting and waving his arms at the reader. We have spoken of
+Macaulay's style as that of the finished orator, and we might reasonably
+speak of Carlyle's as that of the exhorter, who cares little for methods so
+long as he makes a strong impression on his hearers. "Every sentence is
+alive to its finger tips," writes a modern critic; and though Carlyle often
+violates the rules of grammar and rhetoric, we can well afford to let an
+original genius express his own intense conviction in his own vivid and
+picturesque way.
+
+Carlyle's message may be summed up in two imperatives,--labor, and be
+sincere. He lectured and wrote chiefly for the upper classes who had begun
+to think, somewhat sentimentally, of the conditions of the laboring men of
+the world; and he demanded for the latter, not charity or pity, but justice
+and honor. All labor, whether of head or hand, is divine; and labor alone
+justifies a man as a son of earth and heaven. To society, which Carlyle
+thought to be occupied wholly with conventional affairs, he came with the
+stamp of sincerity, calling upon men to lay aside hypocrisy and to think
+and speak and live the truth. He had none of Addison's delicate satire and
+humor, and in his fury at what he thought was false he was generally
+unsympathetic and often harsh; but we must not forget that Thackeray--who
+knew society much better than did Carlyle--gave a very unflattering picture
+of it in _Vanity Fair_ and _The Book of Snobs_. Apparently the age needed
+plain speaking, and Carlyle furnished it in scripture measure. Harriet
+Martineau, who knew the world for which Carlyle wrote, summed up his
+influence when she said that he had "infused into the mind of the English
+nation ... sincerity, earnestness, healthfulness, and courage." If we add
+to the above message Carlyle's conceptions of the world as governed by a
+God of justice who never forgets, and of human history as "an inarticulate
+Bible," slowly revealing the divine purpose, we shall understand better the
+force of his ethical appeal and the profound influence he exercised on the
+moral and intellectual life of the past century.
+
+
+JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)
+
+In approaching the study of Ruskin we are to remember, first of all, that
+we are dealing with a great and good man, who is himself more inspiring
+than any of his books. In some respects he is like his friend Carlyle,
+whose disciple he acknowledged himself to be; but he is broader in his
+sympathies, and in every way more hopeful, helpful, and humane. Thus, in
+the face of the drudgery and poverty of the competitive system, Carlyle
+proposed, with the grim satire of Swift's "Modest Proposal," to organize an
+annual hunt in which successful people should shoot the unfortunate, and to
+use the game for the support of the army and navy. Ruskin, facing the same
+problem, wrote: "I will endure it no longer quietly; but henceforward, with
+any few or many who will help, do my best to abate this misery." Then,
+leaving the field of art criticism, where he was the acknowledged leader,
+he begins to write of labor and justice; gives his fortune in charity, in
+establishing schools and libraries; and founds his St. George's Guild of
+workingmen, to put in practice the principles of brotherhood and
+cooperation for which he and Carlyle contended. Though his style marks him
+as one of the masters of English prose, he is generally studied not as a
+literary man but as an ethical teacher, and we shall hardly appreciate his
+works unless we see behind every book the figure of the heroically sincere
+man who wrote it.
+
+LIFE. Ruskin was born in London, in 1819. His father was a prosperous wine
+merchant who gained a fortune in trade, and who spent his leisure hours in
+the company of good books and pictures. On his tombstone one may still read
+this inscription written by Ruskin: "He was an entirely honest merchant and
+his memory is to all who keep it dear and helpful. His son, whom he loved
+to the uttermost and taught to speak truth, says this of him." Ruskin's
+mother, a devout and somewhat austere woman, brought her son up with
+Puritanical strictness, not forgetting Solomon's injunction that "the rod
+and reproof give wisdom."
+
+Of Ruskin's early years at Herne Hill, on the outskirts of London, it is
+better to read his own interesting record in _Praeterita_. It was in some
+respects a cramped and lonely childhood, but certain things which strongly
+molded his character are worthy of mention. First, he was taught by word
+and example in all things to speak the truth, and he never forgot the
+lesson. Second, he had few toys, and spent much time in studying the
+leaves, the flowers, the grass, the clouds, even the figures and colors of
+the carpet, and so laid the foundation for that minute and accurate
+observation which is manifest in all his writings. Third, he was educated
+first by his mother, then by private tutors, and so missed the discipline
+of the public schools. The influence of this lonely training is evident in
+all his work. Like Carlyle, he is often too positive and dogmatic,--the
+result of failing to test his work by the standards of other men of his
+age. Fourth, he was obliged to read the Bible every day and to learn long
+passages verbatim. The result of this training was, he says, "to make every
+word of the Scriptures familiar to my ear in habitual music." We can hardly
+read a page of his later work without finding some reflection of the noble
+simplicity or vivid imagery of the sacred records. Fifth, he traveled much
+with his father and mother, and his innate love of nature was intensified
+by what he saw on his leisurely journeys through the most beautiful parts
+of England and the Continent.
+
+Ruskin entered Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1836, when only seventeen
+years old. He was at this time a shy, sensitive boy, a lover of nature and
+of every art which reflects nature, but almost entirely ignorant of the
+ways of boys and men. An attack of consumption, with which he had long been
+threatened, caused him to leave Oxford in 1840, and for nearly two years he
+wandered over Italy searching for health and cheerfulness, and gathering
+materials for the first volume of _Modern Painters_, the book that made him
+famous.
+
+Ruskin's literary work began in childhood, when he was encouraged to write
+freely in prose and poetry. A volume of poems illustrated by his own
+drawings was published in 1859, after he had won fame as a prose writer,
+but, save for the drawings, it is of small importance. The first volume of
+_Modern Painters_ (1843) was begun as a heated defense of the artist
+Turner, but it developed into an essay on art as a true picture of nature,
+"not only in her outward aspect but in her inward spirit." The work, which
+was signed simply "Oxford Graduate," aroused a storm of mingled approval
+and protest; but however much critics warred over its theories of art, all
+were agreed that the unknown author was a master of descriptive prose.
+Ruskin now made frequent trips to the art galleries of the Continent, and
+produced four more volumes of _Modern Painters_ during the next seventeen
+years. Meanwhile he wrote other books,--_Seven Lamps of Architecture_
+(1849), _Stones of Venice_ (1851-1853), _Pre-Raphaelitism_, and numerous
+lectures and essays, which gave him a place in the world of art similar to
+that held by Matthew Arnold in the world of letters. In 1869 he was
+appointed professor of art at Oxford, a position which greatly increased
+his prestige and influence, not only among students but among a great
+variety of people who heard his lectures and read his published works.
+_Lectures on Art, Aratra Pentelici_ (lectures on sculpture), _Ariadne
+Florentina_ (lectures on engraving), _Michael Angela and Tintoret, The Art
+of England, Val d'Arno_ (lectures on Tuscan art), _St. Mark's Rest_ (a
+history of Venice), _Mornings in Florence_ (studies in Christian art, now
+much used as a guidebook to the picture galleries of Florence), _The Laws
+of Fiesole_ (a treatise on drawing and painting for schools), _Academy of
+Fine Arts in Venice, Pleasures of England_,--all these works on art show
+Ruskin's literary industry. And we must also record _Love's Meinie_ (a
+study of birds), _Proserpina_ (a study of flowers), _Deucalion_ (a study of
+waves and stones), besides various essays on political economy which
+indicate that Ruskin, like Arnold, had begun to consider the practical
+problems of his age.
+
+At the height of his fame, in 1860, Ruskin turned for a time from art, to
+consider questions of wealth and labor,--terms which were used glibly by
+the economists of the age without much thought for their fundamental
+meaning. "There is no wealth but life," announced Ruskin,--"life, including
+all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the
+richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human
+beings." Such a doctrine, proclaimed by Goldsmith in his _Deserted
+Village_, was regarded as a pretty sentiment, but coming from one of the
+greatest leaders and teachers of England it was like a bombshell. Ruskin
+wrote four essays establishing this doctrine and pleading for a more
+socialistic form of government in which reform might be possible. The
+essays were published in the _Cornhill Magazine_, of which Thackeray was
+editor, and they aroused such a storm that the publication was
+discontinued. Ruskin then published the essays in book form, with the title
+_Unto This Last_, in 1862. _Munera Pulveris_ (1862) was another work in
+which the principles of capital and labor and the evils of the competitive
+system were discussed in such a way that the author was denounced as a
+visionary or a madman. Other works of this practical period are _Time and
+Tide, Fors Clavigera, Sesame and Lilies_, and the _Crown of Wild Olive_.
+
+The latter part of Ruskin's life was a time of increasing sadness, due
+partly to the failure of his plans, and partly to public attacks upon his
+motives or upon his sanity. He grew bitter at first, as his critics
+ridiculed or denounced his principles, and at times his voice is as
+querulous as that of Carlyle. We are to remember, however, the conditions
+under which he struggled. His health had been shattered by successive
+attacks of disease; he had been disappointed in love; his marriage was
+unhappy; and his work seemed a failure. He had given nearly all his fortune
+in charity, and the poor were more numerous than ever before. His famous
+St. George's Guild was not successful, and the tyranny of the competitive
+system seemed too deeply rooted to be overthrown. On the death of his
+mother he left London and, in 1879, retired to Brantwood, on Coniston Lake,
+in the beautiful region beloved of Wordsworth. Here he passed the last
+quiet years of his life under the care of his cousin, Mrs. Severn, the
+"angel of the house," and wrote, at Professor Norton's suggestion,
+_Praeterita_, one of his most interesting books, in which he describes the
+events of his youth from his own view point. He died quietly in 1900, and
+was buried, as he wished, without funeral pomp or public ceremony, in the
+little churchyard at Coniston.
+
+WORKS OF RUSKIN. There are three little books which, in popular favor,
+stand first on the list of Ruskin's numerous works,--_Ethics-of-the-Dust_,
+a series of Lectures to Little Housewives, which appeals most to women;
+_Crown of Wild Olive_, three lectures on Work, Traffic, and War, which
+appeals to thoughtful men facing the problems of work and duty; and _Sesame
+and Lilies_, which appeals to men and women alike. The last is the most
+widely known of Ruskin's works and the best with which to begin our
+reading.
+
+The first thing we notice in _Sesame and Lilies_ is the symbolical title.
+"Sesame," taken from the story of the robbers' cave in the _Arabian
+Nights_, means a secret word or talisman which unlocks a treasure house. It
+was intended, no doubt, to introduce the first part of the work, called "Of
+Kings' Treasuries," which treats of books and reading. "Lilies," taken from
+Isaiah as a symbol of beauty, purity, and peace, introduces the second
+lecture, "Of Queens' Gardens," which is an exquisite study of woman's life
+and education. These two lectures properly constitute the book, but a third
+is added, on "The Mystery of Life." The last begins in a monologue upon his
+own failures in life, and is pervaded by an atmosphere of sadness,
+sometimes of pessimism, quite different from the spirit of the other two
+lectures.
+
+Though the theme of the first lecture is books, Ruskin manages to present
+to his audience his whole philosophy of life. He gives us, with a wealth of
+detail, a description of what constitutes a real book; he looks into the
+meaning of words, and teaches us how to read, using a selection from
+Milton's _Lycidas_ as an illustration. This study of words gives us the key
+with which we are to unlock "Kings' Treasuries," that is, the books which
+contain the precious thoughts of the kingly minds of all ages. He shows the
+real meaning and end of education, the value of labor and of a purpose in
+life; he treats of nature, science, art, literature, religion; he defines
+the purpose of government, showing that soul-life, not money or trade, is
+the measure of national greatness; and he criticises the general injustice
+of his age, quoting a heartrending story of toil and suffering from the
+newspapers to show how close his theory is to daily needs. Here is an
+astonishing variety in a small compass; but there is no confusion. Ruskin's
+mind was wonderfully analytical, and one subject develops naturally from
+the other.
+
+In the second lecture, "Of Queens' Gardens," he considers the question of
+woman's place and education, which Tennyson had attempted to answer in _The
+Princess_. Ruskin's theory is that the purpose of all education is to
+acquire power to bless and to redeem human society; and that in this noble
+work woman must always play the leading part. He searches all literature
+for illustrations, and his description of literary heroines, especially of
+Shakespeare's perfect women, is unrivaled. Ruskin is always at his best in
+writing of women or for women, and the lofty idealism of this essay,
+together with its rare beauty of expression, makes it, on the whole, the
+most delightful and inspiring of his works.
+
+Among Ruskin's practical works the reader will find in _Fors Clavigera_, a
+series of letters to workingmen, and _Unto This Last_, four essays on the
+principles of political economy, the substance of his economic teachings.
+In the latter work, starting with the proposition that our present
+competitive system centers about the idea of wealth, Ruskin tries to find
+out what wealth is; and the pith of his teaching is this,--that men are of
+more account than money; that a man's real wealth is found in his soul; not
+in his pocket; and that the prime object of life and labor is "the
+producing of as many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-
+hearted human creatures." To make this ideal practical, Ruskin makes four
+suggestions: (1) that training schools be established to teach young men
+and women three things,--the laws and practice of health, habits of
+gentleness and justice, and the trade or calling by which they are to live;
+(2) that the government establish farms and workshops for the production of
+all the necessaries of life, where only good and honest work shall be
+tolerated and where a standard of work and wages shall be maintained; (3)
+that any person out of employment shall be received at the nearest
+government school: if ignorant he shall be educated, and if competent to do
+any work he shall have the opportunity to do it; (4) that comfortable homes
+be provided for the sick and for the aged, and that this be done in
+justice, not in charity. A laborer serves his country as truly as does a
+soldier or a statesman, and a pension should be no more disgraceful in one
+case than in the other.
+
+Among Ruskin's numerous books treating of art, we recommend the _Seven
+Lamps of Architecture_ (1849), _Stones of Venice_ (1851-1853), and the
+first two volumes of _Modern Painters_ (1843-1846). With Ruskin's art
+theories, which, as Sydney Smith prophesied, "worked a complete revolution
+in the world of taste," we need not concern ourselves here. We simply point
+out four principles that are manifest in all his work: (1) that the object
+of art, as of every other human endeavor, is to find and to express the
+truth; (2) that art, in order to be true, must break away from
+conventionalities and copy nature; (3) that morality is closely allied with
+art, and that a careful study of any art reveals the moral strength or
+weakness of the people that produced it; (4) that the main purpose of art
+is not to delight a few cultured people but to serve the daily uses of
+common life. "The giving brightness to pictures is much," he says, "but the
+giving brightness to life is more." In this attempt to make art serve the
+practical ends of life, Ruskin is allied with all the great writers of the
+period, who use literature as the instrument of human progress.
+
+GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. One who reads Ruskin is in a state of mind
+analogous to that of a man who goes through a picture gallery, pausing now
+to admire a face or a landscape for its own sake, and again to marvel at
+the technical skill of the artist, without regard to his subject. For
+Ruskin is a great literary artist and a great ethical teacher, and we
+admire one page for its style, and the next for its message to humanity.
+The best of his prose, which one may find in the descriptive passages of
+_Præterita_ and _Modern Painters_, is written in a richly ornate style,
+with a wealth of figures and allusions, and at times a rhythmic, melodious
+quality which makes it almost equal to poetry. Ruskin had a rare
+sensitiveness to beauty in every form, and more, perhaps, than any other
+writer in our language, he has helped us to see and appreciate the beauty
+of the world around us.
+
+As for Ruskin's ethical teaching, it appears in so many forms and in so
+many different works that any summary must appear inadequate. For a full
+half century he was "the apostle of beauty" in England, and the beauty for
+which he pleaded was never sensuous or pagan, as in the Renaissance, but
+always spiritual, appealing to the soul of man rather than to his eyes,
+leading to better work and better living. In his economic essays Ruskin is
+even more directly and positively ethical. To mitigate the evils of the
+unreasonable competitive system under which we labor and sorrow; to bring
+master and man together in mutual trust and helpfulness; to seek beauty,
+truth, goodness as the chief ends of life, and, having found them, to make
+our characters correspond; to share the best treasures of art and
+literature with rich and poor alike; to labor always, and, whether we work
+with hand or head, to do our work in praise of something that we love,--
+this sums up Ruskin's purpose and message. And the best of it is that, like
+Chaucer's country parson, he practiced his doctrine before he preached it.
+
+
+MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888)
+
+In the world of literature Arnold has occupied for many years an
+authoritative position as critic and teacher, similar to that held by
+Ruskin in the world of art. In his literary work two very different moods
+are manifest. In his poetry he reflects the doubt of an age which witnessed
+the conflict between science and revealed religion. Apparently he never
+passed through any such decisive personal struggle as is recorded in
+_Sartor Resartus_, and he has no positive conviction such as is voiced in
+"The Everlasting Yea." He is beset by doubts which he never settles, and
+his poems generally express sorrow or regret or resignation. In his prose
+he shows the cavalier spirit,--aggressive, light-hearted, self-confident.
+Like Carlyle, he dislikes shams, and protests against what he calls the
+barbarisms of society; but he writes with a light touch, using satire and
+banter as the better part of his argument. Carlyle denounces with the zeal
+of a Hebrew prophet, and lets you know that you are hopelessly lost if you
+reject his message. Arnold is more like the cultivated Greek; his voice is
+soft, his speech suave, but he leaves the impression, if you happen to
+differ with him, that you must be deficient in culture. Both these men, so
+different in spirit and methods, confronted the same problems, sought the
+same ends, and were dominated by the same moral sincerity.
+
+LIFE. Arnold was born in Laleham, in the valley of the Thames, in 1822. His
+father was Dr. Thomas Arnold, head master of Rugby, with whom many of us
+have grown familiar by reading _Tom Brown's School Days_. After fitting for
+the university at Winchester and at Rugby, Arnold entered Balliol College,
+Oxford, where he was distinguished by winning prizes in poetry and by
+general excellence in the classics. More than any other poet Arnold
+reflects the spirit of his university. "The Scholar-Gipsy" and "Thyrsis"
+contain many references to Oxford and the surrounding country, but they are
+more noticeable for their spirit of aloofness,--as if Oxford men were too
+much occupied with classic dreams and ideals to concern themselves with the
+practical affairs of life.
+
+After leaving the university Arnold first taught the classics at Rugby;
+then, in 1847, he became private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, who appointed
+the young poet to the position of inspector of schools under the
+government. In this position Arnold worked patiently for the next thirty-
+five years, traveling about the country, examining teachers, and correcting
+endless examination papers. For ten years (1857-1867) he was professor of
+poetry at Oxford, where his famous lectures _On Translating Homer_ were
+given. He made numerous reports on English and foreign schools, and was
+three times sent abroad to study educational methods on the Continent. From
+this it will be seen that Arnold led a busy, often a laborious life, and we
+can appreciate his statement that all his best literary work was done late
+at night, after a day of drudgery. It is well to remember that, while
+Carlyle was preaching about labor, Arnold labored daily; that his work was
+cheerfully and patiently done; and that after the day's work he hurried
+away, like Lamb, to the Elysian fields of literature. He was happily
+married, loved his home, and especially loved children, was free from all
+bitterness and envy, and, notwithstanding his cold manner, was at heart
+sincere, generous, and true. We shall appreciate his work better if we can
+see the man himself behind all that he has written.
+
+Arnold's literary work divides itself into three periods, which we may call
+the poetical, the critical, and the practical. He had written poetry since
+his school days, and his first volume, _The Strayed Reveller and Other
+Poems_, appeared anonymously in 1849. Three years later he published
+_Empedocles on Etna and other Poems;_ but only a few copies of these
+volumes were sold, and presently both were withdrawn from circulation. In
+1853-1855 he published his signed _Poems_, and twelve years later appeared
+his last volume of poetry. Compared with the early work of Tennyson, these
+works met with little favor, and Arnold practically abandoned poetry in
+favor of critical writing.
+
+The chief works of his critical period are the lectures _On Translating
+Homer_ (1861) and the two volumes of _Essays in Criticism_ (1865-1888),
+which made Arnold one of the best known literary men in England. Then, like
+Ruskin, he turned to practical questions, and his _Friendship's Garland_
+(1871) was intended to satirize and perhaps reform the great middle class
+of England, whom he called the Philistines. _Culture and Anarchy_, the most
+characteristic work of his practical period, appeared in 1869. These were
+followed by four books on religious subjects,--_St. Paul and Protestantism_
+(1870), _Literature and Dogma_ (1873), _God and the Bible_ (1875), and
+_Last Essays on Church and Religion_ (1877). The _Discourses in America_
+(1885) completes the list of his important works. At the height of his fame
+and influence he died suddenly, in 1888, and was buried in the churchyard
+at Laleham. The spirit of his whole life is well expressed in a few lines
+of one of his own early sonnets:
+
+    One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,
+    One lesson which in every wind is blown,
+    One lesson of two duties kept at one
+    Though the loud world proclaim their enmity--
+    Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity;
+    Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows
+    Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose,
+    Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.
+
+WORKS OF MATTHEW ARNOLD. We shall better appreciate Arnold's poetry if we
+remember two things: First, he had been taught in his home a simple and
+devout faith in revealed religion, and in college he was thrown into a
+world of doubt and questioning. He faced these doubts honestly,
+reverently,--in his heart longing to accept the faith of his fathers, but
+in his head demanding proof and scientific exactness. The same struggle
+between head and heart, between reason and intuition, goes on to-day, and
+that is one reason why Arnold's poetry, which wavers on the borderland
+between doubt and faith, is a favorite with many readers. Second, Arnold,
+as shown in his essay on _The Study of Poetry_, regarded poetry as "a
+criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such criticism by the laws
+of poetic truth and poetic beauty." Naturally, one who regards poetry as a
+"criticism" will write very differently from one who regards poetry as the
+natural language of the soul. He will write for the head rather than for
+the heart, and will be cold and critical rather than enthusiastic.
+According to Arnold, each poem should be a unit, and he protested against
+the tendency of English poets to use brilliant phrases and figures of
+speech which only detract attention from the poem as a whole. For his
+models he went to Greek poetry, which he regarded as "the only sure
+guidance to what is sound and true in poetical art." Arnold is, however,
+more indebted than he thinks to English masters, especially to Wordsworth
+and Milton, whose influence is noticeable in a large part of his poetry.
+
+Of Arnold's narrative poems the two best known are _Balder Dead_ (1855), an
+incursion into the field of Norse mythology which is suggestive of Gray,
+and _Sohrab and Rustum_ (1853), which takes us into the field of legendary
+Persian history. The theme of the latter poem is taken from the _Shah-
+Namah_ (Book of Kings) of the Persian poet Firdausi, who lived and wrote in
+the eleventh century.
+
+Briefly, the story is of one Rustem or Rustum, a Persian Achilles, who fell
+asleep one day when he had grown weary of hunting. While he slept a band of
+robbers stole his favorite horse, Ruksh. In trailing the robbers Rustum
+came to the palace of the king of Samengan, where he was royally welcomed,
+and where he fell in love with the king's daughter, Temineh, and married
+her. But he was of a roving, adventurous disposition, and soon went back to
+fight among his own people, the Persians. While he was gone his son Sohrab
+was born, grew to manhood, and became the hero of the Turan army. War arose
+between the two peoples, and two hostile armies were encamped by the Oxus.
+Each army chose a champion, and Rustum and Sohrab found themselves matched
+in mortal combat between the lines. At this point Sohrab, whose chief
+interest in life was to find his father, demanded to know if his enemy were
+not Rustum; but the latter was disguised and denied his identity. On the
+first day of the fight Rustum was overcome, but his life was spared by a
+trick and by the generosity of Sohrab. On the second day Rustum prevailed,
+and mortally wounded his antagonist. Then he recognized his own son by a
+gold bracelet which he had long ago given to his wife Temineh. The two
+armies, rushing into battle, were stopped by the sight of father and son
+weeping in each other's arms. Sohrab died, the war ceased, and Rustum went
+home to a life of sorrow and remorse.
+
+Using this interesting material, Arnold produced a poem which has the rare
+and difficult combination of classic reserve and romantic feeling. It is
+written in blank verse, and one has only to read the first few lines to see
+that the poet is not a master of his instrument. The lines are seldom
+harmonious, and we must frequently change the accent of common words, or
+lay stress on unimportant particles, to show the rhythm. Arnold frequently
+copies Milton, especially in his repetition of ideas and phrases; but the
+poem as a whole is lacking in Milton's wonderful melody.
+
+The classic influence on _Sohrab and Rustum_ is especially noticeable in
+Arnold's use of materials. Fights are short; grief is long; therefore the
+poet gives few lines to the combat, but lingers over the son's joy at
+finding his father, and the father's quenchless sorrow at the death of his
+son. The last lines especially, with their "passionate grief set to solemn
+music," make this poem one of the best, on the whole, that Arnold has
+written. And the exquisite ending, where the Oxus, unmindful of the trivial
+strifes of men, flows on sedately to join "his luminous home of waters" is
+most suggestive of the poet's conception of the orderly life of nature, in
+contrast with the doubt and restlessness of human life.
+
+Next in importance to the narrative poems are the elegies, "Thyrsis," "The
+Scholar-Gipsy," "Memorial Verses," "A Southern Night," "Obermann," "Stanzas
+from the Grande Chartreuse," and "Rugby Chapel." All these are worthy of
+careful reading, but the best is "Thyrsis," a lament for the poet Clough,
+which is sometimes classed with Milton's _Lycidas_ and Shelley's _Adonais_.
+Among the minor poems the reader will find the best expression of Arnold's
+ideals and methods in "Dover Beach," the love lyrics entitled
+"Switzerland," "Requiescat," "Shakespeare," "The Future," "Kensington
+Gardens," "Philomela," "Human Life," "Callicles's Song," "Morality," and
+"Geist's Grave."--the last being an exquisite tribute to a little dog
+which, like all his kind, had repaid our scant crumbs of affection with a
+whole life's devotion.
+
+The first place among Arnold's prose works must be given to the _Essays in
+Criticism_, which raised the author to the front rank of living critics.
+His fundamental idea of criticism appeals to us strongly. The business of
+criticism, he says, is neither to find fault nor to display the critic's
+own learning or influence; it is to know "the best which has been thought
+and said in the world," and by using this knowledge to create a current of
+fresh and free thought. If a choice must be made among these essays, which
+are all worthy of study, we would suggest "The Study of Poetry,"
+"Wordsworth," "Byron," and "Emerson." The last-named essay, which is found
+in the _Discourses in America_, is hardly a satisfactory estimate of
+Emerson, but its singular charm of manner and its atmosphere of
+intellectual culture make it perhaps the most characteristic of Arnold's
+prose writings.
+
+Among the works of Arnold's practical period there are two which may be
+taken as typical of all the rest. _Literature and Dogma_ (1873) is, in
+general, a plea for liberality in religion. Arnold would have us read the
+Bible, for instance, as we would read any other great work, and apply to it
+the ordinary standards of literary criticism.
+
+_Culture and Anarchy_ (1869) contains most of the terms--culture, sweetness
+and light, Barbarian, Philistine, Hebraism, and many others--which are now
+associated with Arnold's work and influence. The term "Barbarian" refers to
+the aristocratic classes, whom Arnold thought to be essentially crude in
+soul, notwithstanding their good clothes and superficial graces.
+"Philistine" refers to the middle classes,--narrow-minded and
+self-satisfied people, according to Arnold, whom he satirizes with the idea
+of opening their minds to new ideas. "Hebraism" is Arnold's term for moral
+education. Carlyle had emphasized the Hebraic or moral element in life, and
+Arnold undertook to preach the Hellenic or intellectual element, which
+welcomes new ideas, and delights in the arts that reflect the beauty of the
+world. "The uppermost idea with. Hellenism," he says, "is to see things as
+they are; the uppermost idea with Hebraism is conduct and obedience." With
+great clearness, sometimes with great force, and always with a play of
+humor and raillery aimed at the "Philistines," Arnold pleads for both these
+elements in life which together aim at "Culture," that is, at moral and
+intellectual perfection.
+
+GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. Arnold's influence in our literature may be summed
+up, in a word, as intellectual rather than inspirational. One cannot be
+enthusiastic over his poetry, for the simple reason that he himself lacked
+enthusiasm. He is, however, a true reflection of a very real mood of the
+past century, the mood of doubt and sorrow; and a future generation may
+give him a higher place than he now holds as a poet. Though marked by "the
+elemental note of sadness," all Arnold's poems are distinguished by
+clearness, simplicity, and the restrained emotion of his classic models.
+
+As a prose writer the cold intellectual quality, which mars his poetry by
+restraining romantic feeling, is of first importance, since it leads him to
+approach literature with an open mind and with the single desire to find
+"the best which has been thought and said in the world." We cannot yet
+speak with confidence of his rank in literature; but by his crystal-clear
+style, his scientific spirit of inquiry and comparison, illumined here and
+there by the play of humor, and especially by his broad sympathy and
+intellectual culture, he seems destined to occupy a very high place among
+the masters of literary criticism.
+
+
+JOHN HENRY NEWMAN (1801-1890)
+
+Any record of the prose literature of the Victorian era, which includes the
+historical essays of Macaulay and the art criticism of Ruskin, should
+contain also some notice of its spiritual leaders. For there was never a
+time when the religious ideals that inspire the race were kept more
+constantly before men's minds through the medium of literature.
+
+Among the religious writers of the age the first place belongs
+unquestionably to Cardinal Newman. Whether we consider him as a man, with
+his powerful yet gracious personality, or as a religious reformer, who did
+much to break down old religious prejudices by showing the underlying
+beauty and consistency of the Roman church, or as a prose writer whose
+style is as near perfection as we have ever reached, Newman is one of the
+most interesting figures of the whole nineteenth century.
+
+LIFE. Three things stand out clearly in Newman's life: first, his unshaken
+faith in the divine companionship and guidance; second, his desire to find
+and to teach the truth of revealed religion; third, his quest of an
+authoritative standard of faith, which should remain steadfast through the
+changing centuries and amid all sorts and conditions of men. The first led
+to that rare and beautiful spiritual quality which shines in all his work;
+the second to his frequent doctrinal and controversial essays; the third to
+his conversion to the Catholic church, which he served as priest and
+teacher for the last forty-five years of his life. Perhaps we should add
+one more characteristic,--the practical bent of his religion; for he was
+never so busy with study or controversy that he neglected to give a large
+part of his time to gentle ministration among the poor and needy.
+
+He was born in London, in 1801. His father was an English banker; his
+mother, a member of a French Huguenot family, was a thoughtful, devout
+woman, who brought up her son in a way which suggests the mother of Ruskin.
+Of his early training, his reading of doctrinal and argumentative works,
+and of his isolation from material things in the thought that there were
+"two and only two absolute and luminously self-evident beings in the
+world," himself and his Creator, it is better to read his own record in the
+_Apologia_, which is a kind of spiritual biography.
+
+At the age of fifteen Newman had begun his profound study of theological
+subjects. For science, literature, art, nature,--all the broad interests
+which attracted other literary men of his age,--he cared little, his mind
+being wholly occupied with the history and doctrines of the Christian
+church, to which he had already devoted his life. He was educated first at
+the school in Ealing, then at Oxford, taking his degree in the latter place
+in 1820. Though his college career was not more brilliant than that of many
+unknown men, his unusual ability was recognized and he was made a fellow of
+Oriel College, retaining the fellowship, and leading a scholarly life for
+over twenty years. In 1824 he was ordained in the Anglican church, and four
+years later was chosen vicar of St. Mary's, at Oxford, where his sermons
+made a deep impression on the cultivated audiences that gathered from far
+and near to hear him.
+
+A change is noticeable in Newman's life after his trip to the Mediterranean
+in 1832. He had begun his life as a Calvinist, but while in Oxford, then
+the center of religious unrest, he described himself as "drifting in the
+direction of Liberalism." Then study and bereavement and an innate
+mysticism led him to a profound sympathy with the mediæval Church. He had
+from the beginning opposed Catholicism; but during his visit to Italy,
+where he saw the Roman church at the center of Its power and splendor, many
+of his prejudices were overcome. In this enlargement of his spiritual
+horizon Newman was greatly influenced by his friend Hurrell Froude, with
+whom he made the first part of the journey. His poems of this period
+(afterwards collected in the _Lyra Apostolica_), among which is the famous
+"Lead, Kindly Light," are noticeable for their radiant spirituality; but
+one who reads them carefully sees the beginning of that mental struggle
+which ended in his leaving the church in which he was born. Thus he writes
+of the Catholic church, whose services he had attended as "one who in a
+foreign land receives the gifts of a good Samaritan":
+
+    O that thy creed were sound!
+      For thou dost soothe the heart, thou church of Rome,
+    By thy unwearied watch and varied round
+      Of service, in thy Saviour's holy home.
+    I cannot walk the city's sultry streets,
+    But the wide porch invites to still retreats,
+      Where passion's thirst is calmed, and care's unthankful gloom.
+
+On his return to England, in 1833, he entered into the religious struggle
+known as the Oxford or Tractarian Movement,[245] and speedily became its
+acknowledged leader. Those who wish to follow this attempt at religious
+reform, which profoundly affected the life of the whole English church,
+will find it recorded in the _Tracts for the Times_, twenty-nine of which
+were written by Newman, and in his _Parochial and Plain Sermons_ (1837-
+1843). After nine years of spiritual conflict Newman retired to Littlemore,
+where, with a few followers, he led a life of almost monastic seclusion,
+still striving to reconcile his changing belief with the doctrines of his
+own church. Two years later he resigned his charge at St. Mary's and left
+the Anglican communion,--not bitterly, but with a deep and tender regret.
+His last sermon at Littlemore on "The Parting of Friends" still moves us
+profoundly, like the cry of a prophet torn by personal anguish in the face
+of duty. In 1845 he was received into the Catholic church, and the
+following year, at Rome, he joined the community of St. Philip Neri, "the
+saint of gentleness and kindness," as Newman describes him, and was
+ordained to the Roman priesthood.
+
+By his preaching and writing Newman had exercised a strong influence over
+his cultivated English hearers, and the effect of his conversion was
+tremendous. Into the theological controversy of the next twenty years we
+have no mind to enter. Through it all Newman retained his serenity, and,
+though a master of irony and satire, kept his literary power always
+subordinate to his chief aim, which was to establish the truth as he saw
+it. Whether or not we agree with his conclusions, we must all admire the
+spirit of the man, which is above praise or criticism. His most widely read
+work, _Apologia Pro Vita Sua_ (1864), was written in answer to an
+unfortunate attack by Charles Kingsley, which would long since have been
+forgotten had it not led to this remarkable book. In 1854 Newman was
+appointed rector of the Catholic University in Dublin, but after four years
+returned to England and founded a Catholic school at Edgbaston. In 1879 he
+was made cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. The grace and dignity of his life,
+quite as much as the sincerity of his _Apologia_, had long since disarmed
+criticism, and at his death, in 1890, the thought of all England might well
+be expressed by his own lines in "The Dream of Gerontius":
+
+    I had a dream. Yes, some one softly said,
+      "He's gone," and then a sigh went round the room;
+    And then I surely heard a priestly voice
+        Cry _Subvenite_; and they knelt in prayer.
+
+WORKS OF NEWMAN. Readers approach Newman from so many different motives,
+some for doctrine, some for argument, some for a pure prose style, that it
+is difficult to recommend the best works for the beginner's use. As an
+expression of Newman's spiritual struggle the _Apologia Pro Vita Sua_ is
+perhaps the most significant. This book is not light reading and one who
+opens it should understand clearly the reasons for which it was written.
+Newman had been accused of insincerity, not only by Kingsley but by many
+other men, in the public press. His retirement to solitude and meditation
+at Littlemore had been outrageously misunderstood, and it was openly
+charged that his conversion was a cunningly devised plot to win a large
+number of his followers to the Catholic church. This charge involved
+others, and it was to defend them, as well as to vindicate himself, that
+Newman wrote the _Apologia_. The perfect sincerity with which he traced his
+religious history, showing that his conversion was only the final step in a
+course he had been following since boyhood, silenced his critics and
+revolutionized public opinion concerning himself and the church which he
+had joined. As the revelation of a soul's history, and as a model of pure,
+simple, unaffected English, this book, entirely apart from its doctrinal
+teaching, deserves a high place in our prose literature.
+
+In Newman's doctrinal works, the _Via Media_, the _Grammar of Assent_, and
+in numerous controversial essays the student of literature will have little
+interest. Much more significant are his sermons, the unconscious reflection
+of a rare spiritual nature, of which Professor Shairp said: "His power
+shows itself clearly in the new and unlooked-for way in which he touched
+into life old truths, moral or spiritual.... And as he spoke, how the old
+truth became new! and how it came home with a meaning never felt before! He
+laid his finger how gently yet how powerfully on some inner place in the
+hearer's heart, and told him things about himself he had never known till
+then. Subtlest truths, which would have taken philosophers pages of
+circumlocution and big words to state, were dropped out by the way in a
+sentence or two of the most transparent Saxon." Of greater interest to the
+general reader are _The Idea of a University_, discourses delivered at
+Dublin, and his two works of fiction, _Loss and Gain_, treating of a man's
+conversion to Catholicism, and _Callista_, which is, in his own words, "an
+attempt to express the feelings and mutual relations of Christians and
+heathens in the middle of the third century." The latter is, in our
+judgment, the most readable and interesting of Newman's works. The
+character of Callista, a beautiful Greek sculptor of idols, is powerfully
+delineated; the style is clear and transparent as air, and the story of the
+heroine's conversion and death makes one of the most fascinating chapters
+in fiction, though it is not the story so much as the author's unconscious
+revelation of himself that charms us. It would be well to read this novel
+in connection with Kingsley's _Hypatia_, which attempts to reconstruct the
+life and ideals of the same period.
+
+Newman's poems are not so well known as his prose, but the reader who
+examines the _Lyra Apostolica_ and _Verses on Various Occasions_ will find
+many short poems that stir a religious nature profoundly by their pure and
+lofty imagination; and future generations may pronounce one of these poems,
+"The Dream of Gerontius," to be Newman's most enduring work. This poem aims
+to reproduce the thoughts and feelings of a man whose soul is just quitting
+the body, and who is just beginning a new and greater life. Both in style
+and in thought "The Dream" is a powerful and original poem and is worthy of
+attention not only for itself but, as a modern critic suggests, "as a
+revelation of that high spiritual purpose which animated Newman's life from
+beginning to end."
+
+Of Newman's style it is as difficult to write as it would be to describe
+the dress of a gentleman we had met, who was so perfectly dressed that we
+paid no attention to his clothes. His style is called transparent, because
+at first we are not conscious of his manner; and unobtrusive, because we
+never think of Newman himself, but only of the subject he is discussing. He
+is like the best French prose writers in expressing his thought with such
+naturalness and apparent ease that, without thinking of style, we receive
+exactly the impression which he means to convey. In his sermons and essays
+he is wonderfully simple and direct; in his controversial writings, gently
+ironical and satiric, and the satire is pervaded by a delicate humor; but
+when his feelings are aroused he speaks with poetic images and symbols, and
+his eloquence is like that of the Old Testament prophets. Like Ruskin's,
+his style is modeled largely on that of the Bible, but not even Ruskin
+equals him in the poetic beauty and melody of his sentences. On the whole
+he comes nearer than any other of his age to our ideal of a perfect prose
+writer.
+
+OTHER ESSAYISTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE. We have selected the above five
+essayists, Macaulay, Carlyle, Arnold, Newman, and Ruskin, as representative
+writers of the Victorian Age; but there are many others who well repay our
+study. Notable among these are John Addington Symonds, author of _The
+Renaissance in Italy_, undoubtedly his greatest work, and of many critical
+essays; Walter Pater, whose _Appreciations_ and numerous other works mark
+him as one of our best literary critics; and Leslie Stephen, famous for his
+work on the monumental _Dictionary of National Biography_, and for his
+_Hours in a Library_, a series of impartial and excellent criticisms,
+brightened by the play of an original and delightful humor.
+
+Among the most famous writers of the age are the scientists, Lyell, Darwin,
+Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and Wallace,--a wonderful group of men whose
+works, though they hardly belong to our present study, have exercised an
+incalculable influence on our life and literature. Darwin's _Origin of
+Species_ (1859), which apparently established the theory of evolution, was
+an epoch-making book. It revolutionized not only our conceptions of natural
+history, but also our methods of thinking on all the problems of human
+society. Those who would read a summary of the greatest scientific
+discovery of the age will find it in Wallace's _Darwinism_,--a most
+interesting book, written by the man who claims, with Darwin, the honor of
+first announcing the principle of evolution. And, from a multitude of
+scientific works, we recommend also to the general reader Huxley's
+_Autobiography_ and his _Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews_, partly
+because they are excellent expressions of the spirit and methods of
+science, and partly because Huxley as a writer is perhaps the clearest and
+the most readable of the scientists.
+
+THE SPIRIT OF MODERN LITERATURE. As we reflect on the varied work of the
+Victorian writers, three marked characteristics invite our attention.
+First, our great literary men, no less than our great scientists, have made
+truth the supreme object of human endeavor. All these eager poets,
+novelists, and essayists, questing over so many different ways, are equally
+intent on discovering the truth of life. Men as far apart as Darwin and
+Newman are strangely alike in spirit, one seeking truth in the natural, the
+other in the spiritual history of the race. Second, literature has become
+the mirror of truth; and the first requirement of every serious novel or
+essay is to be true to the life or the facts which it represents. Third,
+literature has become animated by a definite moral purpose. It is not
+enough for the Victorian writers to create or attempt an artistic work for
+its own sake; the work must have a definite lesson for humanity. The poets
+are not only singers, but leaders; they hold up an ideal, and they compel
+men to recognize and follow it. The novelists tell a story which pictures
+human life, and at the same time call us to the work Of social reform, or
+drive home a moral lesson. The essayists are nearly all prophets or
+teachers, and use literature as the chief instrument of progress and
+education. Among them all we find comparatively little of the exuberant
+fancy, the romantic ardor, and the boyish gladness of the Elizabethans.
+They write books not primarily to delight the artistic sense, but to give
+bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty in soul. Milton's famous
+sentence, "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit,"
+might be written across the whole Victorian era. We are still too near
+these writers to judge how far their work suffers artistically from their
+practical purpose; but this much is certain,--that whether or not they
+created immortal works, their books have made the present world a better
+and a happier place to live in. And that is perhaps the best that can be
+said of the work of any artist or artisan.
+
+SUMMARY OF THE VICTORIAN AGE. The year 1830 is generally placed at the
+beginning of this period, but its limits are very indefinite. In general we
+may think of it as covering the reign of Victoria (1837-1901). Historically
+the age is remarkable for the growth of democracy following the Reform Bill
+of 1832; for the spread of education among all classes; for the rapid
+development of the arts and sciences; for important mechanical inventions;
+and for the enormous extension of the bounds of human knowledge by the
+discoveries of science.
+
+At the accession of Victoria the romantic movement had spent its force;
+Wordsworth had written his best work; the other romantic poets, Coleridge,
+Shelley, Keats, and Byron, had passed away; and for a time no new
+development was apparent in English poetry. Though the Victorian Age
+produced two great poets, Tennyson and Browning, the age, as a whole, is
+remarkable for the variety and excellence of its prose. A study of all the
+great writers of the period reveals four general characteristics: (1)
+Literature in this Age has come very close to daily life, reflecting its
+practical problems and interests, and is a powerful instrument of human
+progress. (2) The tendency of literature is strongly ethical; all the great
+poets, novelists, and essayists of the age are moral teachers. (3) Science
+in this age exercises an incalculable influence. On the one hand it
+emphasizes truth as the sole object of human endeavor; it has established
+the principle of law throughout the universe; and it has given us an
+entirely new view of life, as summed up in the word "evolution," that is,
+the principle of growth or development from simple to complex forms. On the
+other hand, its first effect seems to be to discourage works of the
+imagination. Though the age produced an incredible number of books, very
+few of them belong among the great creative works of literature. (4) Though
+the age is generally characterized as practical and materialistic, it is
+significant that nearly all the writers whom the nation delights to honor
+vigorously attack materialism, and exalt a purely ideal conception of life.
+On the whole, we are inclined to call this an idealistic age fundamentally,
+since love, truth, justice, brotherhood--all great ideals--are emphasized
+as the chief ends of life, not only by its poets but also by its novelists
+and essayists.
+
+In our study we have considered: (1) The Poets; the life and works of
+Tennyson and Browning; and the chief characteristics of the minor poets,
+Elizabeth Barrett (Mrs. Browning), Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne. (2) The
+Novelists; the life and works of Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot; and
+the chief works of Charles Reade, Anthony Trollope, Charlotte Brontë,
+Bulwer-Lytton, Kingsley, Mrs. Gaskell, Blackmore, George Meredith, Hardy,
+and Stevenson. (3) The Essayists; the life and works of Macaulay, Matthew
+Arnold, Carlyle, Newman, and Ruskin. These were selected, from among many
+essayists and miscellaneous writers, as most typical of the Victorian Age.
+The great scientists, like Lyell, Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, Tyndall, and
+Spencer, hardly belong to our study of literature, though their works are
+of vast importance; and we omit the works of living writers who belong to
+the present rather than to the past century.
+
+
+SELECTIONS FOR READING. Manly's English Poetry and Manly's English Prose
+(Ginn and Company) contain excellent selections from all authors of this
+period. Many other collections, like Ward's English Poets, Garnett's
+English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria, Page's British Poets of the
+Nineteenth Century, and Stedman's A Victorian Anthology, may be used to
+advantage. All important works may be found in the convenient and
+inexpensive school editions given below. (For full titles and publishers
+see the General Bibliography.)
+
+_Tennyson_. Short poems, and selections from Idylls of the King, In
+Memoriam, Enoch Arden, and The Princess. These are found in various school
+editions, Standard English Classics, Pocket Classics, Riverside Literature
+Series, etc. Poems by Tennyson, selected and edited with notes by Henry Van
+Dyke (Athenaeum Press Series), is an excellent little volume for beginners.
+
+_Browning_. Selections, edited by R.M. Lovett, in Standard English
+Classics. Other school editions in Everyman's Library, Belles Lettres
+Series, etc.
+
+_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_. Selections, edited by Elizabeth Lee, in
+Standard English Classics. Selections also in Pocket Classics, etc.
+
+_Matthew Arnold_. Sohrab and Rustum, edited by Trent and Brewster, in
+Standard English Classics. The same poem in Riverside Literature Series,
+etc. Selections in Golden Treasury Series, etc. Poems, students' edition
+(Crowell). Essays in Everyman's Library, etc. Prose selections (Holt, Allyn
+& Bacon, etc.).
+
+_Dickens_. Tale of Two Cities, edited by J.W. Linn, in Standard English
+Classics. A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, and Pickwick Papers.
+Various good school editions of these novels in Everyman's Library, etc.
+
+_Thackeray_. Henry Esmond, edited by H.B. Moore, in Standard English
+Classics. The same novel, in Everyman's Library, Pocket Classics, etc.
+
+_George Eliot_. Silas Marner, edited by R. Adelaide Witham, in Standard
+English Classics. The same novel, in Pocket Classics, etc.
+
+_Carlyle_. Essay on Burns, edited by C.L. Hanson, in Standard English
+Classics, and Heroes and Hero Worship, edited by A. MacMechan, in Athenaeum
+Press Series. Selections, edited by H.W. Boynton (Allyn & Bacon). Various
+other inexpensive editions, in Pocket Classics, Eclectic English Classics,
+etc.
+
+_Ruskin_. Sesame and Lilies, edited by Lois G. Hufford, in Standard English
+Classics. Other editions in Riverside Literature, Everyman's Library, etc.
+Selected Essays and Letters, edited by Hufford, in Standard English
+Classics. Selections, edited by Vida D. Scudder (Sibley); edited by C.B.
+Tinker, in Riverside Literature.
+
+_Macaulay_. Essays on Addison and Milton, edited by H.A. Smith, in Standard
+English Classics. Same essays, in Cassell's National Library, Riverside
+Literature, etc. Lays of Ancient Rome, in Standard English Classics, Pocket
+Classics, etc.
+
+_Newman_. Selections, with introduction by L.E. Gates (Holt); Selections
+from prose and poetry, in Riverside Literature. The Idea of a University,
+in Manly's English Prose.
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY. (note. For full titles and publishers of general reference
+books, see General Bibliography.) _HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp.
+357-383; Cheyney, pp. 632-643. _General Works_. Gardiner, and Traill.
+_Special Works_. McCarthy's History of Our Own Times; Bright's History of
+England, vols. 4-5; Lee's Queen Victoria; Bryce's Studies in Contemporary
+Biography.
+
+_LITERATURE. General Works_. Garnett and Gosse, Taine. _Special Works_.
+Harrison's Early Victorian Literature; Saintsbury's A History of Nineteenth
+Century Literature; Walker's The Age of Tennyson; same author's The Greater
+Victorian Poets; Morley's Literature of the Age of Victoria; Stedman's
+Victorian Poets; Mrs. Oliphant's Literary History of England in the
+Nineteenth Century; Beers's English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century;
+Dowden's Victorian Literature, in Transcripts and Studies; Brownell's
+Victorian Prose Masters.
+
+_Tennyson_. Texts: Cabinet edition (London, 1897) is the standard. Various
+good editions, Globe, Cambridge Poets, etc. Selections in Athenaeum Press
+(Ginn and Company).
+
+Life: Alfred Lord Tennyson, a Memoir by his son, is the standard; by Lyall
+(in English Men of Letters); by Horton; by Waugh. See also Anne T.
+Ritchie's Tennyson and His Friends; Napier's The Homes and Haunts of
+Tennyson; Rawnsley's Memories of the Tennysons.
+
+Criticism: Brooke's Tennyson, his Art and his Relation to Modern Life; A.
+Lang's Alfred Tennyson; Van Dyke's The Poetry of Tennyson; Sneath's The
+Mind of Tennyson; Gwynn's A Critical Study of Tennyson's Works; Luce's
+Handbook to Tennyson's Works; Dixon's A Tennyson Primer; Masterman's
+Tennyson as a Religious Teacher; Collins's The Early Poems of Tennyson;
+Macallum's Tennyson's Idylls of the King and the Arthurian Story; Bradley's
+Commentary on In Memoriam; Bagehot's Literary Studies, vol. 2; Brightwell's
+Concordance; Shepherd's Bibliography.
+
+Essays: By F. Harrison, in Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other Literary
+Estimates; by Stedman, in Victorian Poets; by Hutton, in Literary Essays;
+by Dowden, in Studies in Literature; by Gates, in Studies and
+Appreciations; by Forster, in Great Teachers; by Forman, in Our Living
+Poets. See also Myers's Science and a Future Life.
+
+_Browning_. Texts: Cambridge and Globe editions, etc. Various editions of
+selections. (See Selections for Reading, above.)
+
+Life: by W. Sharp (Great Writers); by Chesterton (English Men of Letters);
+Life and Letters, by Mrs. Sutherland Orr; by Waugh, in Westminster
+Biographies (Small & Maynard).
+
+Criticism: Symons's An Introduction to the Study of Browning; same title,
+by Corson; Mrs. Orr's Handbook to the Works of Browning; Nettleship's
+Robert Browning; Brooke's The Poetry of Robert Browning; Cooke's Browning
+Guide Book; Revell's Browning's Criticism of Life; Berdoe's Browning's
+Message to his Times; Berdoe's Browning Cyclopedia.
+
+Essays: by Hutton, Stedman, Dowden, Forster (for titles, see Tennyson,
+above); by Jacobs, in Literary Studies; by Chapman, in Emerson and Other
+Essays; by Cooke, in Poets and Problems; by Birrell, in Obiter Dicta.
+
+_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_. Texts: Globe and Cambridge editions, etc.;
+various editions of selections. Life: by J. H. Ingram; see also Bayne's Two
+Great Englishmen. Kenyon's Letters of E. B. Browning.
+
+Criticism: Essays, by Stedman, in Victorian Poets; by Benson, in Essays.
+
+_Matthew Arnold_. Texts: Poems, Globe edition, etc. See Selections for
+Reading, above. Life: by Russell; by Saintsbury; by Paul (English Men of
+Letters); Letters, by Russell.
+
+Criticism: Essays by Woodberry, in Makers of Literature; by Gates, in Three
+Studies in Literature; by Hutton, in Modern Guides of English Thought; by
+Brownell, in Victorian Prose Masters; by F. Harrison (see Tennyson, above).
+
+_Dickens_. Texts: numerous good editions of novels. Life: by J. Forster; by
+Marzials (Great Writers); by Ward (English Men of Letters); Langton's The
+Childhood and Youth of Dickens.
+
+Criticism: Gissing's Charles Dickens; Chesterton's Charles Dickens;
+Kitten's The Novels of Charles Dickens; Fitzgerald's The History of
+Pickwick. Essays: by F. Harrison (see above); by Bagehot, in Literary
+Studies; by Lilly, in Four English Humorists; by A. Lang, in Gadshill
+edition of Dickens's works.
+
+_Thackeray_. Texts: numerous good editions of novels and essays. Life: by
+Melville; by Merivale and Marzials (Great Writers); by A. Trollope (English
+Men of Letters); by L. Stephen, in Dictionary of National Biography. See
+also Crowe's Homes and Haunts of Thackeray; Wilson's Thackeray in the
+United States.
+
+Criticism: Essays, by Lilly, in Four English Humorists; by Harrison, in
+Studies in Early Victorian Literature; by Scudder, in Social Ideals in
+English Letters; by Brownell, in Victorian Prose Masters.
+
+_George Eliot_. Texts: numerous editions. Life: by L. Stephen (English Men
+of Letters); by O. Browning (Great Writers); by her husband, J.W. Cross.
+
+Criticism: Cooke's George Eliot, a Critical Study of her Life and Writings.
+Essays: by J. Jacobs, in Literary Studies; by H. James, in Partial
+Portraits; by Dowden, in Studies in Literature; by Hutton, Harrison,
+Brownell, Lilly (see above). See also Parkinson's Scenes from the George
+Eliot Country.
+
+_Carlyle_. Texts: various editions of works. Heroes, and Sartor Resartus,
+in Athenaeum Press (Ginn and Company); Sartor, and Past and Present, 1 vol.
+(Harper); Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, 1 vol. (Appleton); Letters and
+Reminiscences, edited by C. E. Norton, 6 vols. (Macmillan).
+
+Life: by Garnett (Great Writers); by Nichol (English Men of Letters); by
+Froude, 2 vols. (very full, but not trustworthy). See also Carlyle's
+Reminiscences and Correspondence, and Craig's The Making of Carlyle.
+
+Criticism: Masson's Carlyle Personally and in his Writings. Essays: by
+Lowell, in My Study Windows; by Harrison, Brownell, Hutton, Lilly (see
+above).
+
+_Ruskin_. Texts: Brantwood edition, edited by C.E. Norton; various editions
+of separate works. Life: by Harrison (English Men of Letters); by
+Collingwood, 2 vols.; see also Ruskin's Praeterita.
+
+Criticism: Mather's Ruskin, his Life and Teaching; Cooke's Studies in
+Ruskin; Waldstein's The Work of John Ruskin; Hobson's John Ruskin, Social
+Reformer; Mrs. Meynell's John Ruskin; Sizeranne's Ruskin and the Religion
+of Beauty, translated from the French; White's Principles of Art; W. M.
+Rossetti's Ruskin, Rossetti, and Pre-Raphaelitism.
+
+Essays: by Robertson, in Modern Humanists; by Saintsbury, in Corrected
+Impressions; by Brownell, Harrison, Forster (see above).
+
+_Macaulay_. Texts: Complete works, edited by his sister, Lady Trevelyan
+(London, 1866); various editions of separate works (see Selections for
+Reading, above). Life: Life and Letters, by Trevelyan, 2 vols.; by Morrison
+(English Men of Letters).
+
+Criticism: Essays, by Bagehot, in Literary Studies; by L. Stephen, in Hours
+in a Library; by Saintsbury, in Corrected Impressions; by Harrison, in
+Studies in Early Victorian Literature; by Matthew Arnold.
+
+_Newman_. Texts: Uniform edition of important works (London, 1868-1881);
+Apologia (Longmans); Selections (Holt, Riverside Literature, etc.). Life:
+Jennings's Cardinal Newman; Button's Cardinal Newman; Early Life, by F.
+Newman; by Waller and Barrow, in Westminster Biographies. See also Church's
+The Oxford Movement; Fitzgerald's Fifty Years of Catholic Life and
+Progress.
+
+Criticism: Essays, by Donaldson, in Five Great Oxford Leaders; by Church,
+in Occasional Papers, vol. 2; by Gates, in Three Studies in Literature; by
+Jacobs, in Literary Studies; by Hutton, in Modern Guides of English
+Thought; by Lilly, in Essays and Speeches; by Shairp, in Studies in Poetry
+and Philosophy. See also Button's Cardinal Newman.
+
+_Rossetti_. Works, 2 vols. (London, 1901). Selections, in Golden Treasury
+Series. Life: by Knight (Great Writers); by Sharp; Hall Caine's
+Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Gary's The Rossettis; Marillier's
+Rossetti; Wood's Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement; W.M. Hunt's
+Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
+
+Criticism: Tirebuck's Rossetti, his Work and Influence. Essays: by
+Swinburne, in Essays and Studies; by Forman, in Our Living Poets; by Pater,
+in Ward's English Poets; by F.W.H. Myers, in Essays Modern.
+
+_Morris_. Texts: Story of the Glittering Plain, House of the Wolfings, etc.
+(Reeves & Turner); Early Romances, in Everyman's Library; Sigurd the
+Volsung, in Camelot Series; Socialistic writings (Humboldt Publishing Co.).
+Life: by Mackail; by Cary; by Vallance.
+
+Criticism: Essays, by Symons, in Studies in Two Literatures; by Dawson, in
+Makers of Modern English; by Saintsbury, in Corrected Impressions. See also
+Nordby's Influence of Old Norse Literature.
+
+_Swinburne_. Texts: Complete works (Chatto and Windus); Poems and Ballads
+(Lovell); Selections (Rivington, Belles Lettres Series, etc.). Life:
+Wratislaw's Algernon Charles Swinburne, a Study.
+
+Criticism: Essays, by Forman, Saintsbury (see above); by Lowell, in My
+Study Windows; see also Stedman's Victorian Poets.
+
+_Charles Keade_. Texts: Cloister and the Hearth, in Everyman's Library;
+various editions of separate novels. Life: by C. Reade.
+
+Criticism: Essay, by Swinburne, in Miscellanies.
+
+_Anthony Trollope_. Texts: Royal edition of principal novels (Philadelphia,
+1900); Barchester Towers, etc., in Everyman's Library. Life: Autobiography
+(Harper, 1883).
+
+Criticism: H.T. Peck's Introduction to Royal edition, vol. 1. Essays: by H.
+James, in Partial Portraits; by Harrison, in Early Victorian Literature.
+See also Cross, The Development of the English Novel.
+
+_Charlotte and Emily Brontë_. Texts: Works, Haworth edition, edited by Mrs.
+H. Ward (Harper); Complete works (Dent, 1893); Jane Eyre, Shirley, and
+Wuthering Heights, in Everyman's Library. Life of Charlotte Brontë: by Mrs.
+Gaskell; by Shorter; by Birrell (Great Writers). Life of Emily Brontë: by
+Robinson. See also Leyland's The Brontë Family.
+
+Criticism: Essays, by L. Stephen, in Hours in a Library; by Gates, in
+Studies and Appreciations; by Harrison, in Early Victorian Literature; by
+G.B. Smith, in Poets and Novelists. See also Swinburne's A Note on
+Charlotte Brontë.
+
+_Bulwer-Lytton_. Texts: Works, Knebsworth edition (Routledge); various
+editions of separate works; Last Days of Pompeii, etc., in Everyman's
+Library. Life: by his son, the Earl of Lytton; by Cooper; by Ten Brink.
+
+Criticism: Essay, by W. Senior, in Essays in Fiction.
+
+_Mrs. Gaskell_. Various editions of separate works; Cranford, in Standard
+English Classics, etc. Life: see Dictionary of National Biography.
+Criticism: see Saintsbury's Nineteenth-Century Literature.
+
+_Kingsley_. Texts: Works, Chester edition; Hypatia, Westward Ho! etc., in
+Everyman's Library. Life: Letters and Memories, by his wife; by Kaufmann.
+
+Criticism: Essays, by Harrison, in Early Victorian Literature; by L.
+Stephen, in Hours in a Library.
+
+_Stevenson_. Texts: Works (Scribner); Treasure Island, in Everyman's
+Library; Master of Ballantrae, in Pocket Classics; Letters, edited by
+Colvin (Scribner). Life: by Balfour; by Baildon; by Black; by Cornford. See
+also Simpson's Edinburgh Days; Eraser's In Stevenson's Samoa; Osborne and
+Strong's Memories of Vailima.
+
+Criticism: Raleigh's Stevenson; Alice Brown's Stevenson. Essays: by H.
+James, in Partial Portraits; by Chapman, in Emerson and Other Essays.
+
+_Hardy_. Texts: Works (Harper). Criticism: Macdonnell's Thomas Hardy;
+Johnson's The Art of Thomas Hardy. See also Windle's The Wessex of Thomas
+Hardy; and Dawson's Makers of English Fiction.
+
+_George Meredith_. Texts: Novels and Selected Poems (Scribner).
+
+Criticism: Le Gallienne's George Meredith; Hannah Lynch's George Meredith.
+Essays: by Henley, in Views and Reviews; by Brownell, in Victorian Prose
+Masters; by Monkhouse, in Books and Plays. See also Bailey's The Novels of
+George Meredith; Curie's Aspects of George Meredith; and Cross's The
+Development of the English Novel.
+
+
+SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. (NOTE. The best questions are those which are based
+upon the books, essays, and poems read by the pupil. As the works chosen
+for special study vary greatly with different teachers and classes, we
+insert here only a few questions of general interest.) 1. What are the
+chief characteristics of Victorian literature? Name the chief writers of
+the period in prose and poetry. What books of this period are, in your
+judgment, worthy to be placed among the great works of literature? What
+effect did the discoveries of science have upon the literature of the age?
+What poet reflects the new conception of law and evolution? What historical
+conditions account for the fact that most of the Victorian writers are
+ethical teachers?
+
+2. _Tennyson_. Give a brief sketch of Tennyson's life, and name his chief
+works. Why is he, like Chaucer, a national poet? Is your pleasure in
+reading Tennyson due chiefly to the thought or the melody of expression?
+Note this figure in "The Lotos Eaters":
+
+    Music that gentlier on the spirit lies
+    Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.
+
+What does this suggest concerning Tennyson's figures of speech in general?
+Compare "Locksley Hall" with "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After." What
+differences do you find in thought, in workmanship, and in poetic
+enthusiasm? What is Tennyson's idea of faith and immortality as expressed
+in _In Memoriam_?
+
+3. _Browning_. In what respects is Browning like Shakespeare? What is meant
+by the optimism of his poetry? Can you explain why many thoughtful persons
+prefer him to Tennyson? What is Browning's creed as expressed in "Rabbi Ben
+Ezra"? Read "Fra Lippo Lippi" or "Andrea del Sarto," and tell what is meant
+by a dramatic monologue. In "Andrea" what is meant by the lines,
+
+    Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
+    Or what's a heaven for?
+
+4. _Dickens_. What experiences in Dickens's life are reflected in his
+novels? What are his favorite types of character? What is meant by the
+exaggeration of Dickens? What was the serious purpose of his novels? Make a
+brief analysis of the _Tale of Two Cities_, having in mind the plot, the
+characters, and the style, as compared with Dickens's other novels.
+
+5. _Thackeray_. Read _Henry Esmond_ and explain Thackeray's realism. What
+is there remarkable in the style of this novel? Compare it with _Ivanhoe_
+as a historical novel. What is the general character of Thackeray's satire?
+What are the chief characteristics of his novels? Describe briefly the
+works which show his great skill as a critical writer.
+
+6. _George Eliot_. Read _Silas Marner_ and make a brief analysis, having in
+mind the plot, the characters, the style, and the ethical teaching of the
+novel. Is the moral teaching of George Eliot convincing; that is, does it
+suggest itself from the story, or is it added for effect? What is the
+general impression left by her books? How do her characters compare with
+those of Dickens and Thackeray?
+
+7. _Carlyle_. Why is Carlyle called a prophet, and why a censor? Read the
+_Essay on Burns_ and make an analysis, having in mind the style, the idea
+of criticism, and the picture which this essay presents of the Scotch poet.
+Is Carlyle chiefly interested in Burns or in his poetry? Does he show any
+marked appreciation of Burns's power as a lyric poet? What is Carlyle's
+idea of history as shown in _Heroes and Hero Worship_? What experiences of
+his own life are reflected in _Sartor Resartus_? What was Carlyle's message
+to his age? What is meant by a "Carlylese" style?
+
+8. _Macaulay_. In what respects is Macaulay typical of his age? Compare his
+view of life with that of Carlyle. Read one of the essays, on Milton or
+Addison, and make an analysis, having in mind the style, the interest, and
+the accuracy of the essay. What useful purpose does Macaulay's historical
+knowledge serve in writing his literary essays? What is the general
+character of Macaulay's _History of England_? Rqad a chapter from
+Macaulay's _History_, another from Carlyle's _French Revolution_, and
+compare the two. How does each writer regard history and historical
+writing? What differences do you note in their methods? What are the best
+qualities of each work? Why are both unreliable?
+
+9. _Arnold_. What elements of Victorian life are reflected in Arnold's
+poetry? How do you account for the coldness and sadness of his verses? Read
+_Sohrab and Rustum_ and write an account of it, having in mind the story,
+Arnold's use of his material, the style, and the classic elements in the
+poem. How does it compare in melody with the blank verse of Milton or
+Tennyson? What marked contrasts do you find between the poetry and the
+prose of Arnold?
+
+10. _Ruskin_. In what respects is Ruskin "the prophet of modern society"?
+Read the first two lectures in _Sesame and Lilies_ and then give Ruskin's
+views of labor, wealth, books, education, woman's sphere, and human
+society. How does he regard the commercialism of his age? What elements of
+style do you find in these lectures? Give the chief resemblances and
+differences between Carlyle and Ruskin.
+
+11. Read Mrs. Gaskell's _Cranford_ and describe it, having in mind the
+style, the interest, and the characters of the story. How does it compare,
+as a picture of country life, with George Eliot's novels?
+
+12. Read Blackmore's _Lorna Doone_ and describe it (as in the question
+above). What are the romantic elements in the story? How does it compare
+with Scott's romances in style, in plot, in interest, and in truthfulness
+to life?
+
+
+
+                            CHRONOLOGY
+                       _Nineteenth Century_
+============================================================================
+  HISTORY                        |  LITERATURE
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+                                 | 1825. Macaulay's Essay on Milton
+                                 | 1826. Mrs. Browning's early poems
+1830. William IV                 | 1830. Tennyson's Poems, Chiefly Lyrical
+1832. Reform Bill                |
+                                 | 1833. Browning's Pauline
+                                 | 1833-1834. Carlyle's Sartor Resartus
+                                 | 1836-1865. Dickens's novels
+1837. Victoria (_d_. 1901)       | 1837. Carlyle's French Revolution
+                                 | 1843. Macaulay's essays
+1844. Morse's Telegraph          | 1843-1860. Ruskin's Modern Painters
+1846. Repeal of Corn Laws        |
+                                 | 1847-1859. Thackeray's important novels
+                                 | 1847-1857. Charlotte Brontë's novels
+                                 | 1848-1861. Macaulay's History
+                                 | 1853. Kingsley's Hypatia
+                                 |       Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford
+1854. Crimean War                |
+                                 | 1853-1855. Matthew Arnold's poems
+                                 | 1856. Mrs. Browning's Aurora Leigh
+1857. Indian Mutiny              |
+                                 | 1858-1876. George Eliot's novels
+                                 | 1859-1888. Tennyson's Idylls of the King
+                                 | 1859. Darwin's Origin of Species
+                                 | 1864. Newman's Apologia
+                                 |       Tennyson's Enoch Arden
+                                 | 1865-1888. Arnold's Essays in Criticism
+1867. Dominion of Canada         |
+      established                | 1868. Browning's Ring and the Book
+                                 | 1869. Blackmore's Lorna Doone
+1870. Government schools         |
+      established                |
+                                 | 1879. Meredith's The Egoist
+1880. Gladstone prime minister   |
+                                 | 1883. Stevenson's Treasure Island
+                                 | 1885. Ruskin's Praeterita begun
+1887. Queen's jubilee            |
+                                 | 1889. Browning's last work, Asolando
+                                 | 1892. Death of Tennyson
+1901. Edward VII                 |
+============================================================================
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+Every chapter in this book includes two lists, one of selected readings,
+the other of special works treating of the history and literature of the
+period under consideration. The following lists include the books most
+useful for general reference work and for supplementary reading.
+
+A knowledge of history is of great advantage in the study of literature. In
+each of the preceding chapters we have given a brief summary of historical
+events and social conditions, but the student should do more than simply
+read these summaries. He should review rapidly the whole history of each
+period by means of a good textbook. Montgomery's _English History_ and
+Cheyney's _Short History of England_ are recommended, but any other
+reliable text-book will serve the purpose.
+
+For literary texts and selections for reading a few general collections,
+such as are given below, are useful; but the important works of each author
+may now be obtained in excellent and inexpensive school editions. At the
+beginning of the course the teacher, or the home student, should write for
+the latest catalogue of such publications as the Standard English Classics,
+Everyman's Library, etc., which offer a very wide range of reading at small
+cost. Nearly every publishing house issues a series of good English books
+for school use, and the list is constantly increasing.
+
+_HISTORY_
+
+_Text-books:_ Montgomery's English History; Cheyney's Short History of
+England (Ginn and Company).
+
+_General Works:_ Green's Short History of the English People, 1 vol., or A
+History of the English People, 4 vols. (American Book Co.).
+
+Traill's Social England, 6 vols. (Putnam).
+
+Bright's History, of England, 5 vols., and Gardiner's Students' History of
+England (Longmans).
+
+Gibbins's Industrial History of England, and Mitchell's English Lands,
+Letters, and Kings, 5 vols. (Scribner).
+
+
+Oxford Manuals of English History, Handbooks of English History, and
+Kendall's Source Book of English History (Macmillan).
+
+Lingard's History of England until 1688 (revised, 10 vols., 1855) is the
+standard Catholic history.
+
+Other histories of England are by Knight, Froude, Macaulay, etc. Special
+works on the history of each period are recommended in the preceding
+chapters.
+
+_HISTORY OF LITERATURE_
+
+Jusserand's Literary History of the English People, 2 vols. (Putnam).
+
+Ten Brink's Early English Literature, 3 vols. (Holt).
+
+Courthope's History of English Poetry (Macmillan).
+
+The Cambridge History of English Literature, many vols., incomplete
+(Putnam).
+
+Handbooks of English Literature, 9 vols. (Macmillan).
+
+Garnett and Gosse's Illustrated History of English Literature, 4 vols.
+(Macmillan).
+
+Morley's English Writers, 11 vols. (Cassell), extends through Elizabethan
+literature. It is rather complex and not up to date, but has many
+quotations from authors studied.
+
+Taine's English Literature (many editions), is brilliant and interesting,
+but unreliable.
+
+_LITERARY CRITICISM_
+
+Lowell's Literary Essays.
+
+Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets.
+
+Mackail's The Springs of Helicon (a study of English poetry from Chaucer to
+Milton).
+
+Dowden's Studies in Literature, and Dowden's Transcripts and Studies.
+
+Minto's Characteristics of English Poets.
+
+Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism.
+
+Stevenson's Familiar Studies in Men and Books.
+
+Leslie Stephen's Hours in a Library.
+
+Birrell's Obiter Dicta.
+
+Hales's Folia Litteraria.
+
+Pater's Appreciations.
+
+NOTE. Special works on criticism, the drama, the novel, etc., will be found
+in the Bibliographies on pp. 9, 181, etc.
+
+
+_TEXTS AND HELPS_ (inexpensive school editions).
+
+Standard English Classics, and Athenaeum Press Series (Ginn and Company).
+
+Everyman's Library (Dutton).
+
+Pocket Classics, Golden Treasury Series, etc. (Macmillan).
+
+Belles Lettres Series (Heath).
+
+English Readings Series (Holt).
+
+Riverside Literature Series (Houghton, Mifflin).
+
+Canterbury Classics (Rand, McNally).
+
+Academy Classics (Allyn & Bacon).
+
+Cambridge Literature Series (Sanborn).
+
+Silver Series (Silver, Burdett).
+
+Student's Series (Sibley).
+
+Lakeside Classics (Ainsworth).
+
+Lake English Classics (Scott, Foresman).
+
+Maynard's English Classics (Merrill).
+
+Eclectic English Classics (American Book Co.).
+
+Caxton Classics (Scribner).
+
+The King's Classics (Luce).
+
+The World's Classics (Clarendon Press).
+
+Little Masterpieces Series (Doubleday, Page).
+
+Arber's English Reprints (Macmillan).
+
+New Mediaeval Library (Duffield).
+
+Arthurian Romances Series (Nutt).
+
+Morley's Universal Library (Routledge).
+
+Cassell's National Library (Cassell).
+
+Bohn Libraries (Macmillan).
+
+Temple Dramatists (Macmillan).
+
+Mermaid Series of English Dramatists (Scribner).
+
+NOTE. We have included in the above list all the editions of which we have
+any personal knowledge, but there are doubtless others that have escaped
+attention.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Biography
+
+Dictionary of National Biography, 63 vols. (Macmillan), is the standard.
+
+English Men of Letters Series (Macmillan).
+
+Great Writers Series (Scribner).
+
+Beacon Biographies (Houghton, Mifflin).
+
+Westminster Biographies (Small, Maynard).
+
+Hinchman and Gummere's Lives of Great English Writers (Houghton, Mifflin)
+is a good single volume, containing thirty-eight biographies.
+
+NOTE. For the best biographies of individual writers, see the
+Bibliographies at the ends of the preceding chapters.
+
+_SELECTIONS_
+
+Manly's English Poetry and Manly's English Prose (Ginn and Company) are the
+best single-volume collections, covering the whole field of English
+literature.
+
+Pancoast's Standard English Poetry, and Pancoast's Standard English Prose
+(Holt).
+
+Oxford Book of English Verse, and Oxford Treasury of English Literature, 3
+vols. (Clarendon Press).
+
+Page's British Poets of the Nineteenth Century (Sanborn).
+
+Stedman's Victorian Anthology (Houghton, Mifflin).
+
+Ward's English Poets, 4 vols.; Craik's English Prose Selections, 5 vols.;
+Chambers's Encyclopedia of English Literature, etc.
+
+_MISCELLANEOUS_
+
+The Classic Myths in English Literature (Ginn and Company).
+
+Adams's Dictionary of English Literature.
+
+Ryland's Chronological Outlines of English Literature.
+
+Brewer's Reader's Handbook.
+
+Botta's Handbook of Universal Literature.
+
+Ploetz's Epitome of Universal History.
+
+Hutton's Literary Landmarks of London.
+
+Heydrick's How to Study Literature.
+
+For works on the English language see Bibliography of the Norman period, p.
+65.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+KEY TO PRONUNCIATION
+
+[=a], as in fate; [)a], as in fat; ä, as in arm; [a:], as in all; [a.], as
+in what; â, as in care
+
+[=e], as in mete; [)e], as in met; ê, as in there
+
+[=i], as in ice; [)i], as in it; ï, as in machine
+
+[=o], as in old; [)o], as in not; [o:], as in move; [.o], as in son; ô, as
+in horse; [=oo] as in food; [)oo], as in foot
+
+[=u], as in use; [)u], as in up; û, as in fur; [:u], as in rule; [.u], as
+in pull
+
+[=y], as in fly; [)y], as in baby
+
+c, as in call; ç, as in mice; ch, as in child; [-c]h, as in school
+
+g, as in go; [.g], as in cage
+
+s, as in saw; [s=], as in is
+
+th, as in thin; th, as in then
+
+x, as in vex; [x=], as in exact.
+
+NOTE. Titles of books, poems, essays, etc., are in _italics_.
+
+
+_Absalom and Achitophel_ ([=a]-chit'o-fel)
+_Abt Vogler_ (äpt v[=o]g'ler)
+Actors, in early plays;
+  Elizabethan
+Addison;
+  life;
+  works;
+  hymns;
+  influence;
+  style
+_Adonais_ (ad-[=o]-n[=a]'is)
+Aesc (esk)
+Aidan, St. ([=i]'dan)
+_Aids to Reflection_
+_Alastor_ ([)a]-l[)a]s-tôr)
+_Alchemist, The_
+_Alexander's Feast_
+Alfred, King;
+  life and times;
+  works
+_All for Love_
+_Alysoun_, or Alisoun (äl'[)y]-sown or äl'[)y]-zoon), old form of Alice
+_Amelia_
+_American Taxation_, Burke's speech on
+_An Epistle_
+_Anatomy of Melancholy_
+_Ancren Riwle_ (angk'ren rol)
+_Andrea del Sarto_ (än-dr[=a]'yä del sär't[=o])
+_Andreas_
+Angeln
+Angles, the
+Anglo-Norman Period;
+  literature;
+  ballads;
+  lyrics;
+  summary;
+  selections for reading;
+  bibliography;
+  questions on;
+  chronology
+_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_
+Anglo-Saxon Period;
+  early poetry;
+  springs of poetry;
+  language;
+  Christian writers;
+  source books;
+  summary;
+  selections for reading;
+  bibliography;
+  questions on;
+  chronology
+Anglo-Saxons;
+  the name;
+  life;
+  language;
+  literature,
+_see_ Anglo-Saxon Period.
+_Annus Mirabilis_
+Anselm
+_Apologia_, Newman's
+_Apologie for Poetrie_
+_Arcadia_
+_Areopagitica_ ([)a]r'=[=e]-[)o]p-[)a]-j[)i]t'[)i]-cä)
+Arnold, Matthew;
+  life;
+  poetry;
+  prose works;
+  characteristics
+Art, definition of
+Arthurian romances
+Artistic period of drama
+Artistic quality of literature
+Ascham, Roger
+Assonance
+_Astraea Redux_ ([)a]s-tr[=e]'ä r[=e]'duks)
+_Astrophel and Stella_ ([)a]s'tr[=o]-fel)
+_Atalanta in Calydon_ ([)a]t-[)a]-l[)a]n'tä, k[)a]l'[)i]-d[)o]n)
+Augustan Age, meaning. _See_
+  Eighteenth-century literature
+_Aurora Leigh_ ([a:]-r[=o]'rä l[=e])
+Austen, Jane; life;
+  novels; Scott's criticism of
+
+Bacon, Francis; life; works;
+  place and influence
+Bacon, Roger
+Ballad, the
+_Ballads and Sonnets_
+_Barchester Towers_
+_Bard, The_
+_Bard of the Dimbovitza_ (dim-bo-vitz'ä),
+  Roumanian folk songs
+_Battle of Agincourt_ (English, [)a]j'in-k[=o]rt)
+_Battle of Brunanburh_
+_Battle of the Books_
+Baxter, Richard
+Beaumont, Francis (b[=o]'mont)
+_Becket_
+Bede; his history; his account
+  of Cædmon
+_Bells and Pomegranates_
+Benefit of clergy
+_Beowulf_ (b[=a]'[=o]-wulf), the poem;
+  history; poetical form;
+  manuscript of
+Beowulf's Mount
+Bibliographies, study of literature;
+  Anglo-Saxon Period; Norman;
+  Chaucer; Revival of Learning;
+  Elizabethan; Puritan;
+  Restoration; Eighteenth
+  century; Romanticism;
+  Victorian; general
+_Bickerstaff Almanac_
+_Biographia Literaria_
+Blackmore, Richard
+Blake, William; life; works
+Blank verse
+_Blessed Damozel_
+_Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A_
+Boethius (b[=o]-[=e]'thi-us)
+Boileau (bwa-l[=o]'), French critic
+_Boke of the Duchesse_
+_Book of Martyrs_
+_Borough, The_
+Boswell, James. _See also_ Johnson
+Boy actors
+Breton, Nicholas
+Brontë, Charlotte and Emily
+Browne, Thomas; works
+Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett
+Browning, Robert; life;
+  works; obscurity of; as
+  a teacher; compared with
+  Shakespeare; with Tennyson;
+  periods of work; soul
+  studies; place and message
+_Brut_, Layamon's; quotation from
+Brutus, alleged founder of Britain
+Bulwer Lytton
+Bunyan, John; life; works;
+  his style
+Burke, Edmund; life; works;
+  analysis of his orations
+Burney, Fanny (Madame D'Arblay)
+Burns, Robert; life; poetry;
+  Carlyle's essay on
+Burton, Robert
+Butler, Samuel
+Byron; life; works;
+  compared with Scott
+
+Cædmon (k[)a]d'mon), life; works;
+  his _Paraphrase_; school of
+_Cain_
+_Callista_
+Calvert, Raisley
+Camden, William
+_Campaign, The_
+Campion, Thomas
+_Canterbury Tales_; plan of;
+  prologue; Dryden's criticism
+  of
+Canynge's coffer
+Carew, Thomas
+Carlyle; life; works;
+  style and message
+Carols, in early plays
+_Casa Guidi Windows_ (kä'sä gw[=e]'d[=e])
+_Castell of Perseverance_
+_Castle of Indolence_
+_Cata_
+Cavalier poets
+Caxton; specimen of printing
+Celtic legends
+_Chanson de Gestes_
+_Chanson de Roland_
+Chapman, George; his _Homer_;
+  Keats's sonnet on
+Chatterton, Thomas
+Chaucer, how to read; life;
+  works; form of his poetry;
+  melody; compared with Spenser
+Chaucer, Age of: history; writers;
+  summary; selections for reading;
+  bibliography; questions on; chronology
+Chester plays
+Cheyne Row
+_Childe Harold_
+_Child's Garden of Verses_
+Chocilaicus (k[=o]-kil-[=a]'[=i]-cus)
+_Christ, The_, of Cynewulf
+_Christabel_
+_Christian Year_
+_Christmas Carol, A_
+Christ's Hospital, London
+_Chronicle, The Anglo-Saxon_
+Chronicle plays
+Chronicles, riming
+Chronology: Anglo-Saxon Period;
+  Norman-French; Age of Chaucer;
+  Revival of Learning; Elizabethan;
+  Puritan; Restoration; Eighteenth Century;
+  Romanticism; Victorian
+_Citizen of the World_
+_Clarissa_
+Classic and classicism
+Classic influence on the drama
+_Cloister and the Hearth_
+Clough, Arthur Hugh
+_Cockaygne, Land of_ (k[=o]-k[=a]n')
+Coleridge; life; works; critiqal writings
+Collier, Jeremy
+Collins, William
+Comedy, definition; first English; of the court
+_Complete Angler, The_
+_Comus, Masque of_
+_Conciliation with America_, Burke's speech
+_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_
+_Consolations of Philosophy_
+_Cotter's Saturday Night_
+Couplet, the
+Court comedies
+Covenant of 1643
+Coventry plays
+Cowley, Abraham
+Cowper, William; life; works
+Crabbe, George
+_Cranford_
+Crashaw, Richard
+Critic, meaning of
+Critical writing, Dryden; Coleridge;
+  in Age of Romanticism;
+  in Victorian Age
+Criticism, Arnold's definition
+Cross, John Walter
+_Crown of Wild Olive_
+_Culture and Anarchy_
+_Curse of Jfehama_ (k[=e]-hä'mä)
+_Cursor Mundi_
+Cycles, of plays; of romances
+Cynewulf (kin'[)e]-wulf), 36-38
+_Cynthia's Revels_ (sin'thi-ä)
+
+Daniel, Samuel
+_Daniel Deronda_
+D'Arblay, Madame (Fanny Burney)
+Darwin and _Darwinism_
+Death, Raleigh's apostrophe to
+_Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_
+_Defense of Poesie_
+_Defensio pro Populo Anglicano_
+Defoe; life; works
+Dekker, Thomas
+_Delia_
+Democracy and Romanticism;
+  in Victorian Age
+_Dear's Lament_
+De Quincey; life; works; style
+_De Sapientia Veterum_
+_Deserted Village, The_
+_Dethe of Blanche the Duchesse_
+_Diary_, Evelyn's; Pepys's; selections from
+Dickens;
+   life;
+   works;
+   general plan of novels;
+   his characters;
+   his public;
+   limitations
+_Dictionary_, Johnson's
+_Discoverie of Guiana_ (g[=e]-ä'nä)
+_Divina Commedia_ (d[=e]-v[=e]'nä kom-m[=a]'d[=e]-ä)
+_Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_
+Domestic drama
+Donne, John
+  his poetry
+Dotheboys Hall (do-the-boys)
+Drama, in Elizabethan Age
+  origin,
+  periods of,
+  miracle and mystery plays,
+  interludes,
+  classical influence on,
+  unities,
+  the English,
+  types of,
+  decline of.
+  _See also_ Elizabethan Age, Shakespeare,
+  Jonson, Marlowe, etc.
+Dramatic unities
+Dramatists, methods of _See_
+  Shakespeare, Marlowe, etc.
+_Drapier's Letters_
+Drayton, Michael
+_Dream of Gerontius, The_ (j[)e]-r[)o]n'sh[)i]-us)
+Dryden
+  life,
+  works,
+  influence,
+  criticism of _Canterbury Tales_
+_Duchess of Malfi_ (mäl'f[=e])
+_Dunciad, The_ (dun's[)i]-ad)
+
+Ealhild, queen ([=e]-äl'hild)
+_Earthly Paradise_
+_Eastward Ho_!
+Economic conditions, in Age of Romanticism
+Edgeworth, Maria
+_Edward II_
+_Egoist, The_
+Eighteenth-Century Literature:
+  history of the period,
+  literary characteristics,
+  the Classic Age,
+  Augustan writers,
+  romantic revival,
+  the first novelists,
+  summary,
+  selections for reading,
+  bibliography,
+  questions,
+  chronology,
+_Eikon Basilike_ ([=i]'kon b[)a]-sil'[)i]-k[=e])
+Eikonoklastes ([=i]-kon-[=o]-klas't[=e]z)
+_Elegy_, Gray's
+_Elene_
+Elizabethan Age
+  history,
+  non-dramatic poets,
+  first dramatists,
+  Shakespeare's predecessors,
+  Shakespeare,
+  Shakespeare's contemporaries and successors,
+  prose writers,
+  summary,
+  selections,
+  bibliography,
+  questions,
+  chronology
+_Endymion_
+_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_
+_English Humorists_
+_English Idyls_
+Eormanric ([=e]-or'man-ric)
+_Epicaene_ ([)e]p'[=i]-sen), or _The Silent Woman_
+_Epithalamium_ ([)e]p-[)i]-th[=a]-l[=a]'m[)i]-um)
+Erasmus
+_Essay concerning Human Understanding_
+_Essay of Dramatic Poesy_
+_Essay on Burns_
+_Essay on Criticism_
+_Essay on Man_
+_Essay on Milton_
+_Essays_,
+  Addison's,
+  Bacon's
+_Essays in Criticism_
+_Essays of Elia_ ([=e]'l[)i]-ä)
+_Ethics of the Dust_
+_Euphues_ and euphuism ([=u]'f[=u]-[=e]z)
+Evans, Mary Ann. _See_ George Eliot
+Evelyn, John
+_Everlasting No_, and _Yea, The_
+_Every Man in His Humour_
+_Everyman_
+_Excursion, The_
+_Exeter Book_
+
+Faber, Frederick
+_Fables_, Dryden's
+_Faery Queen_
+_Fall of Princes_
+_Faust_ (foust), _Faustus_ (fas'tus)
+_Ferrex and Porrex_
+Fielding,
+  novels,
+  characteristics
+_Fight at Finnsburgh_
+_Fingal_ (fing'gal)
+First-folio Shakespeare
+Fletcher, Giles
+Fletcher, John
+Ford, John
+Formalism
+_Four Georges, The_
+Foxe, John
+_Fragments of Ancient Poetry_
+French influence in Restoration literature
+French language in England
+French Revolution, influence of
+_French Revolution_, Carlyle's
+Fuller, Thomas
+
+_Gammer Gurton's Needle_
+Gaskell, Mrs. Elizabeth
+_Gawain and the Green Knight_ (gä'-w[=a]n)
+Gawain cycle of romances, 57
+_Gebir_ (g[=a]-b[=e]r')
+Geoffrey of Monmouth (jef'r[)i])
+George Eliot;
+  life;
+  works;
+  characteristics;
+  as a moralist
+Gest (_or_ jest) books
+_Geste of Robin Hood_
+Gibbon,
+  his history
+_Gifts of God, The_
+Girondists (j[)i]-ron'dists)
+Gleemen, _or_ minstrels
+Goldsmith;
+  life;
+  works
+_Good Counsel_
+_Gorboduc_ (gôr'b[=o]-duk)
+_Gorgeous Gallery_
+Gower
+_Grace Abounding_
+Gray, Thomas;
+  life;
+  works
+_Greatest English Poets_
+Greene, Robert
+Gregory, Pope
+Grendel; story of;
+  mother of
+Grubb Street
+_Gulliver's Travels_
+_Gull's Hornbook_
+
+Hakluyt, Richard (h[)a]k'loot)
+Hallam,
+  his criticism of Bacon
+Hardy, Thomas
+Hastings, battle of
+Hathaway, Anne
+Hazlitt, William
+Hengist (h[)e]ng'gist)
+_Henry Esmond_
+Herbert, George;
+  life;
+  poetry of
+_Hero and Leander_
+_Heroes and Hero Worship_
+Heroic couplet
+_Heroic Stanzas_
+Herrick, Robert
+_Hesperides and Noble Numbers_ (h[)e]s-p[)e]r'[)i]-d[=e]z)
+Heywood, John
+Heywood, Thomas
+Hilda, abbess
+Hildgund (hild'gund)
+Historical novel
+_History, of England_, Macaulay's;
+  _of Frederick the Great_, Carlyle's;
+  _of Henry VIII_, Bacon's;
+  _of the Reformation in Scotland_, Knox's;
+  _of the Wortd_, Raleigh's
+Hnæf (n[e=]f)
+Hobbes, Thomas
+Holofernes (hol-[=o]-fer'n[=e]z) in _Judith_
+_Holy and Profane State_
+_Holy Living_
+_Holy War_
+_Homer_, Chapman's;
+  Dryden's;
+  Pope's;
+  Cowper's
+Hooker, Richard
+Hooker, Thomas
+_Hours in a Library_
+_Hours of Idleness_
+_House of Fame_
+_House of Life_
+Hrothgar (r[)o]th'gar)
+_Hudibras_ (h[=u]'d[)i]-bras)
+Humanism
+_Humphrey Clinker_
+Hunt, Leigh
+_Husband's Message_
+Huxley,
+Hygelac (h[=i]-j[=e]'lak)
+Hymn book, first English
+_Hymn to Intellectual Beauty_
+_Hymns_, Addison's;
+  Cowper's
+_Hypatia_ (h[=i]-p[=a]'shia)
+_Hyperion_ (h[=i]-p[=e]'r[)i]-on)
+
+Idealism of Victorian Age
+Ideals
+Idols, of Bacon
+_Idylls of the King_
+_Il Penseroso_ (il pen-s[)e]-r[=o]'s[=o])
+_Iliad_, Pope's translation;
+  Chapman's;
+  Dryden's
+_Imaginary Conversations_
+_Impeachment of Warren Hastings_
+_In Memoriam_
+_Instauratio Magna_ (in-sta-r[=a]'shi-o)
+Interludes
+_Intimations of Immortality_
+
+Jacobean poets
+_Jane Eyre_ (âr)
+Jeffrey, Francis
+Jest (_or_ gest) books
+_Jew of Malta_
+_John Gilpin_
+Johnson, Samuel; life;
+  works; his conversations;
+  Boswell's _Life of Johnson_
+_Jonathan Wild_
+Jonson, Ben; life; works
+_Joseph Andrews_
+_Journal of the Plague Year_
+_Journal to Stella_
+_Judith_
+_Juliana_
+
+Keats; life; works;
+  place in literature
+Kilmarnock Burns, the
+_Kings' Treasuries_
+Kingsley, Charles
+_Knight's Tale, The_
+Knox, John
+_Kubla Khan_ (kob'lä kän)
+Kyd, Thomas
+
+_L'Allegro_ (läl-[=a]'gr[=o])
+_Lady of the Lake_
+Lake poets, the
+Lamb, Charles; life; works;
+  style
+Lamb, Mary
+_Lamia_ (l[=a]'mi-ä)
+_Land of Cockaygne_ (k[)o]-kän')
+_Land of Dreams_
+Landor, Walter Savage; life;
+  works
+Langland, William
+Language, our first speech; dual
+  character of; Teutonic origin
+_Last Days of Pompeii_ (pom-p[=a]'y[=e])
+Law, Hooker's idea of
+_Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity,_
+_Lay Sermons_
+Layamon
+_Lays of Ancient Rome_
+_Lead, Kindly Light_
+_Lectures on Shakespeare_
+_Legends of Goode Wimmen_
+_Leviathan_
+Lewes, George Henry
+_Liberty of Prophesying_
+Life, compared to a sea voyage
+_Life of Johnson_
+_Life of Savage_
+Lindsay, David
+Literary Club, the
+Literary criticism. _See also_
+  Critical writing.
+_Literary Reminiscences_
+Literature, definition; qualities;
+  tests; object in studying; importance;
+  Goethe's definition;
+  spirit of modern
+_Literature and Dogma_
+_Lives_, Plutarch's; Walton's
+_Lives of the Poets_
+Locke, John
+Lockhart, John
+_Lorna Doone_
+_Lost Leader, The_
+Lovelace, Richard
+_Lycidas_ (lis'[)i]-das)
+Lydgate, John
+Lyly, John (lil'[)i])
+_Lyra Apostolica_
+_Lyrical Ballads_
+Lytton, Edward Bulwer
+
+Macaulay; life; works;
+  characteristics
+Macpherson, James (mak-fer'son)
+Magazines, the modern
+_Maldon, The Battle of_
+Malory
+_Mandeville's Travels_
+_Manfred_
+Marlowe; life; works;
+  and Milton; and Shakespeare
+_Marmion_
+Marvell, Andrew
+Massinger, Philip
+Matter of France, Rome, and Britain
+Melodrama
+_Memoirs of a Cavalier_
+Meredith, George
+_Merlin and the Gleam_
+Metaphysical poets
+Metrical romances
+Middleton, Thomas
+_Miles Gloriosus_ (m[=e]'les gl[=o]-r[)i]-[=o]'s[u:]s)
+_Mill on the Floss_
+Milton; life; early or Horton
+  poems; prose works;
+  later poetry; and Shakespeare;
+  Wordsworth's sonnet on
+_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_
+Miracle plays
+_Mirror for Magistrates_
+_Mr. Badman, Life and Death of_
+Modern literature, spirit of
+_Modern Painters_
+_Modest Proposal, A_
+_Moral Epistles_
+Moral period of the drama
+Moral purpose in Victorian literature
+Morality plays
+More, Hannah
+More, Thomas
+Morris, William
+_Morte d'Arthur_ (mort där'ther)
+_Mother Hubbard's Tale_
+_Mulèykeh_ (m[=u]-l[=a]'k[)a])
+_My Last Duchess_
+_Mysteries of Udolpho, The_ ([=u]-dol'f[=o])
+Mystery plays
+
+_New Atalantis_
+_Newcomes, The_
+Newman, Cardinal; life;
+  prose works; poems;
+  style
+Newspapers, the first
+_Nibelungenlied_ (n[=e]'b[)e]-lung-en-l[=e]d)
+_Noah, Play of_
+Norman Conquest
+Norman pageantry
+Norman period. _See_ Anglo-Norman
+Normans;
+  union with Saxons;
+  literature of
+North, Christopher (John Wilson)
+North, Thomas
+Northanger Abbey (north'[=a]n-jer)
+_Northern Antiquities_
+Northumbrian literature; decline
+  of; how saved
+Novel, meaning and history;
+  precursors of; discovery of
+  modern
+Novelists, the first English.
+  _See_ Scott, Dickens, etc.
+_Novum Organum_ (or'g[)a]-num)
+
+_Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity_
+_Ode to Dejection_
+_Ode to the West Wind_
+Odes, Pindaric
+_Odyssey_, Pope's; Chapman's;
+  Dryden's
+_Old Fortunatus_ (for-t[=u]-n[=a]'tus)
+_Oliver Cromwell_, Carlyle's
+_Oliver Twist_
+_Origin of Species_
+_Orlando Furioso_ (or-lan'd[=o] foo-r[=e]-[=o]'s[=o])
+Orm, _or_ Orme; his _Ormulum_
+Orosius ([=o]-r[=o]'si-us), his history
+Ossian (osh'ian) and Ossianic poems
+_Owl and Nightingale, The_
+Oxford movement
+
+_P's, The Four_
+_Palamon and Arcite_ (pal'a-mon, är'-s[=i]te)
+_Pamela_ (pam'e-lä)
+Pantisocracy (pan-t[=i]-sok'r[=a]-se), of Coleridge,
+  Southey, etc.
+_Paradise Lost_
+_Paradise Regained_
+_Paradyse of Daynty Devises_
+_Paraphrase_, of Cædmon
+_Parish Register, The_
+_Pauline_
+_Pearl, The_
+_Pelham_
+_Pendennis_
+Pepys, Samuel (pep'is, peeps, pips)
+Percy, Thomas
+_Peregrine Pickle_ (per'e-grin)
+_Pericles and Aspasia_ (per'i-kl[=e]z, as-p[=a]'shi-ä)
+Philistines, the
+_Phoenix_ (f[=e]'nix)
+_Pickwick Papers_
+_Piers Plowman_ (peers)
+_Pilgrim's Progress_
+Pindaric odes (pin-där'ic)
+_Pippa Passes_
+_Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven_
+Plutarch's _Lives_
+_Poems by Two Brothers_
+_Poetaster, The_
+_Polyolbion_ (pol-[)i]-ol'b[)i]-on)
+Pope, Alexander; life;
+  works
+Porter, Jane
+_Practice of Piety_
+_Praeterita_ (pr[=e]-ter'[)i]-tä)
+_Praise of Folly_
+_Prelude, The_
+_Pre-Raphaelites_ (rä'f[=a]-el-ites)
+_Pride and Prejudice_
+_Princess, The_
+_Prometheus Unbound_ (pr[=o]-m[=e]'th[=u]s)
+Prose development in eighteenth century
+Pseudo-classicism (s[=u]'d[=o])
+Purchas, Samuel; _Purchas His
+  Pilgrimes_
+Puritan Age: history; literary
+  characteristics; poets;
+  prose writers; compared with
+  Elizabethan; summary;
+  selections for reading; bibliography,
+  questions;
+  chronology
+Puritan movement
+Puritans, wrong ideas of
+
+Queen Mab, in _Romeo and Juliet_
+_Queen's Gardens_
+
+_Rabbi Ben Ezra_
+Radcliffe, Mrs. Anne
+Raleigh, Walter
+_Ralph Royster Doyster_
+_Rambler_ essays
+_Rape of the Lock_
+Reade, Charles
+Realism
+_Recluse, The_
+_Reflections on the French Revolution_
+_Religio Laici_
+_Religio Medici_
+Religious period of the drama
+_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_
+_Reminiscences_, Carlyle's
+_Remorse_
+Renaissance, the (re-n[=a]'säns, r[=e]'n[=a]s-sans, etc.)
+Restoration Period: history; literary
+  characteristics; writers;
+  summary; selections for
+  reading; bibliography;
+  questions; chronology
+Revival of Learning Period: history;
+  literature; summary;
+  selections for reading; bibliography;
+  questions; chronology
+_Revolt of Islam_
+Revolution, French; of
+  1688; age of
+Richardson, Samuel; novels of
+_Rights of Man_
+_Rime of the Ancient Alariner_
+Rime Royal
+_Ring and the Book, The_
+_Robin Hood_
+_Robinson Crusoe_
+_Roderick_
+_Roderick Random_
+Romance; Greek Romances
+Romance languages
+_Romance of the Rose_
+Romantic comedy and tragedy
+Romantic enthusiasm
+Romantic poetry
+Romanticism, Age of; history;
+  literary characteristics;
+  poets; prose writers; summary;
+  selections for reading;
+  bibliography; questions;
+  chronology
+Romanticism, meaning
+_Romola_
+_Rosalynde_
+Rossetti, Christina (ros-set't[=e])
+Rossetti, Dante Gabriel
+_Rowley Papers_
+Royal Society
+Runes
+Ruskin; life; works;
+  characteristics; message
+
+Sackville, Thomas
+_St. Catherine, Play of_
+St. George's Guild
+_Saints' Everlasting Rest_
+_Samson Agonistes_ (ag-o-nis't[=e]z)
+_Sartor Resartus_ (sar'tor re-sar'tus)
+  Satire; of Swift; of Thackeray
+Saxon. _See_ Anglo-Saxon
+_School of Shooting_
+Science, in Victorian Age
+Scop, _or_ poet (skop)
+Scott, Walter; life; poetry;
+  novels; criticism of Jane
+  Austen
+_Scottish Chiefs_
+Scyld (skild), story of
+Sea, names of, in Anglo-Saxon, 25
+_Seafarer, The_
+_Seasons, The_
+Selections for reading:
+  Anglo-Saxon period;
+  Norman;
+  Chaucer;
+  Revival of Learning;
+  Elizabethan;
+  Puritan;
+  Restoration;
+  Eighteenth Century;
+  Romanticism;
+  Victorian
+_Sentimental Journey_
+_Sesame and Lilies_ (ses'a-m[=e])
+Shakespeare;
+  life;
+  works;
+  four periods;
+  sources of plays;
+  classification of plays;
+  doubtful plays;
+  poems;
+  place and influence
+_She Stoops to Conquer_
+Shelley;
+  life;
+  works;
+  compared with Wordsworth
+_Shepherds' Book_
+_Shepherd's Calendar_
+Shirley, James
+_Shoemaker's Holiday, The_
+_Short View of the English Stage_
+Sidney, Philip
+_Sigurd the Volsung_
+_Silas Marner_
+_Silent Woman, The_
+_Sir Charles Grandison_
+Skelton, John
+_Sketches by Boz_
+Smollett, Tobias
+Social development in eighteenth century
+_Sohrab and Rustum_ (soo'rhab, _or_ s[=o]'hrab)
+_Songs of Innocence_, and _Songs of Experience_
+Sonnet, introduction of
+_Sonnets_,
+  of Shakespeare;
+  of Milton
+_Sonnets from the Portuguese_
+Southey;
+  works
+_Spanish Gypsy_
+_Spanish Tragedy_
+_Specimens of English Dramatic Poets_
+_Spectator, The_
+Spenser;
+  life;
+  works;
+  characteristics;
+  compared with Chaucer
+Spenserian poets
+Spenserian stanza
+Stage, in early plays;
+  Elizabethan
+Steele, Richard
+Stephen, Leslie
+Sterne, Lawrence
+Stevenson, Robert Louis
+Style, a test of literature
+Suckling, John
+Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of
+_Swan, The_
+Swift;
+  life;
+  works;
+  satire;
+  characteristics
+Swinburne
+_Sylva_
+Symonds, John Addington
+
+Tabard Inn
+_Tale of a Tub_
+_Tale of Two Cities_
+_Tales from Shakespeare_
+_Tales in Verse_
+_Tales of the Hall_
+_Tam o' Shanter_
+_Tamburlaine_ (tam'bur-lane)
+_Task, The_
+_Tatler, The_
+Taylor, Jeremy
+_Temora_ (te-m[=o]'rä)
+_Tempest, The_
+_Temple, The_
+Tennyson;
+  life;
+  works;
+  characteristics;
+  message
+_Tenure of Kings and Magistrates_
+_Terra_
+Tests of literature
+Teufelsdroeckh (toy'felz-droek)
+Thackeray;
+  life;
+  works;
+  characteristics;
+  style;
+  and Dickens
+_Thaddeus of Warsaw_
+_Thalaba_ (täl-ä'bä)
+Theater, the first
+Thomson, James
+_Thyrsis_ (ther'sis)
+_Timber_
+_Tintern Abbey_
+_Tirocinium_ (t[=i]-r[=o]-sin'[)i]-um), _or A Review of Schools_
+_Tom Jones_
+Tories and Whigs
+_Tottel's Miscellany_
+Townley plays
+_Toxophilus_ (tok-sof'[)i]-lus)
+Tractarian movement
+_Tracts for the Times_
+Tragedy, definition,
+  of blood
+Transition poets
+_Traveler, The_
+_Treasure Island_
+_Treatises on Government_
+_Tristram Shandy_
+_Troilus and Cressida_ (tr[=o]'[)i]-lus, kres'-[)i]-dä)
+Trollope, Anthony
+Troyes, Treaty of
+_Truth_, or _Good Counsel_
+Tyndale, William (tin'dal)
+
+Udall, Nicholas ([=u]'dal)
+_Udolpho_ ([=u]-dol'f[=o])
+_Unfortunate Traveller, The_
+Universality, a test of literature
+University wits
+_Unto This Last_
+_Utopia_
+
+_Vanity Fair_
+_Vanity of Human Wishes_
+Vaughan, Henry
+_Vercelli Book_
+_Vicar of Wakefield_
+Vice, the, in old plays
+Victorian Age,
+  history,
+  literary characteristics,
+  poets,
+  novelists,
+  essayists, etc.,
+  spirit of,
+  summary,
+  selections for reading,
+  bibliography,
+  questions,
+  chronology
+_View of the State of Ireland_
+_Village, The_
+_Vision of the Rood_
+_Volpone_ (vol-p[=o]'ne)
+_Voyages_, Hakluyt's
+
+Wakefield plays
+_Waldere_ (väl-d[=a]'re, _or_ väl'dare)
+Waller, Edmund
+Walton, Izaak
+_Waverley_
+_Wealth of Nations_
+_Weather, The_, play of
+Webster, John
+Wedmore, Treaty of
+_Westward Ho_
+Whigs and Tories
+Whitby (hwit'b[)i])
+_Widsith_ (vid'sith)
+Wiglaf (vig'läf)
+Wilson, John (Christopher North),
+Wither, George
+Women, in literature
+Wordsworth,
+  life,
+  poetry,
+  poems of nature,
+  poems of life,
+  last works
+Wordsworth, Dorothy
+_Worthies of England_
+_Wuthering Heights_ (wuth'er-ing)
+Wyatt (w[=i]'at), Thomas
+Wyclif (wik'lif)
+Wyrd (vird), or fate
+
+York plays
+
+
+Footnote 1:   From _The Bard of the Dimbovitza_, First Series, p. 73.
+
+Footnote 2:   There is a mystery about this old hero which stirs our
+imagination, but which is never explained. It refers, probably, to some
+legend of the Anglo-Saxons which we have supplied from other sources, aided
+by some vague suggestions and glimpses of the past in the poem itself.
+
+Footnote 3:   This is not the Beowulf who is hero of the poem.
+
+Footnote 4:   _Beowulf_, ll. 26-50, a free rendering to suggest the
+alliteration of the original.
+
+Footnote 5:   Grendel, of the Eoten (giant) race, the death shadow, the
+mark stalker, the shadow ganger, is also variously called god's foe, fiend
+of hell, Cain's brood, etc. It need hardly be explained that the latter
+terms are additions to the original poem, made, probably, by monks who
+copied the manuscript. A belief in Wyrd, the mighty power controlling the
+destinies of men, is the chief religious motive of the epic. In line 1056
+we find a curious blending of pagan and Christian belief, where Wyrd is
+withstood by the "wise God."
+
+Footnote 6:   Summary of ll. 710-727. We have not indicated in our
+translation (or in quotations from Garnett, Morley, Brooke, etc.) where
+parts of the text are omitted.
+
+Footnote 7:   Grendel's mother belongs also to the Eoten (giant) race. She
+is called _brimwylf_ (sea wolf), _merewif_ (sea woman), _grundwyrgen_
+(bottom master), etc.
+
+Footnote 8:   From Garnett's _Beowulf_, ll. 1384-1394.
+
+Footnote 9:   From Morley's version, ll. 1357-1376.
+
+Footnote 10:   _Beowulf_, ll. 2417-2423, a free rendering.
+
+Footnote 11:   Lines 2729-2740, a free rendering.
+
+Footnote 12:   Morley's version, ll. 2799-2816.
+
+Footnote 13:   Lines 3156-3182 (Morley's version).
+
+Footnote 14:   Probably to the fourth century, though some parts of the
+poem must have been added later. Thus the poet says (II. 88-102) that he
+visited Eormanric, who died _cir_. 375, and Queen Ealhhild whose father,
+Eadwin, died _cir_. 561. The difficulty of fixing a date to the poem is
+apparent. It contains several references to scenes and characters in
+_Beowulf_.
+
+Footnote 15:   Lines 135-143 (Morley's version).
+
+Footnote 16:   A lyric is a short poem reflecting some personal emotion,
+like love or grief. Two other Anglo-Saxon poems, "The Wife's Complaint" and
+"The Husband's Message," belong to this class.
+
+Footnote 17:   First strophe of Brooke's version, _History of Early English
+Literature_
+
+Footnote 18:   _Seafarer_, Part I, Iddings' version, in _Translations from
+Old English Poetry._
+
+Footnote 19:   It is an open question whether this poem celebrates the
+fight at which Hnæf, the Danish leader, fell, or a later fight led by
+Hengist, to avenge Hnæf's death.
+
+Footnote 20:   Brooke's translation, _History of Early English Literature_,
+For another early battle-song see Tennyson's "Battle of Brunanburh."
+
+Footnote 21:   William Camden (1551-1623), one of England's earliest and
+greatest antiquarians. His first work, _Britannia_, a Latin history of
+England, has been called "the common sun whereat our modern writers have
+all kindled their little torches."
+
+Footnote 22:   From Iddings' version of _The Seafarer_.
+
+Footnote 23:   From _Andreas_, ll. 511 ff., a free translation. The whole
+poem thrills with the Old Saxon love of the sea and of ships.
+
+Footnote 24:   From _Beowulf_, ll. 1063 ff., a free translation.
+
+Footnote 25:   Translated from _The Husband's Message_, written on a piece
+of bark. With wonderful poetic insight the bark itself is represented as
+telling its story to the wife, from the time when the birch tree grew
+beside the sea until the exiled man found it and stripped the bark and
+carved on its surface a message to the woman he loved. This first of all
+English love songs deserves to rank with Valentine's description of Silvia:
+
+               Why, man, she is mine own,
+    And I as rich in having such a jewel
+    As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
+    The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.
+_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, II, 4.
+
+Footnote 26:   From the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, record of the year 457.
+
+Footnote 27:   According to Sweet the original home of the Aryans is placed
+in central or northern Europe, rather than in Asia, as was once assumed.
+See _The History of Language_, p. 103.
+
+Footnote 28:   "Cædmon's Hymn," Cook's version, in _Translations from Old
+English Poetry_.
+
+Footnote 29:   _Ecclesiastical History_, IV, xxiv.
+
+Footnote 30:   Genesis, 112-131 (Morley).
+
+Footnote 31:   Exodus, 155 ff. (Brooke).
+
+Footnote 32:   Runes were primitive letters of the old northern alphabet.
+In a few passages Cynewulf uses each rune to represent not only a letter
+but a word beginning with that letter. Thus the rune-equivalent of C stands
+for _cene_ (keen, courageous), Y for _yfel_ (evil, in the sense of
+wretched), N for _nyd_ (need), W for _ivyn_ (joy), U for _ur_ (our), L for
+_lagu_ (lake), F for _feoh_ (fee, wealth). Using the runes equivalent to
+these seven letters, Cynewulf hides and at the same time reveals his name
+in certain verses of _The Christ_, for instance:
+
+    Then the _Courage-hearted_ quakes, when the King (Lord) he hears
+    Speak to those who once on earth but obeyed Him weakly,
+    While as yet their _Yearning fain_ and their _Need_
+    most easily Comfort might discover.... Gone is then the _Winsomeness_
+    Of the earth's adornments! What to _Us_ as men belonged
+    Of the joys of life was locked, long ago, in _Lake-flood_.
+    All the _Fee_ on earth.
+See Brooke's _History of Early English Literature_, pp. 377-379, or _The
+Christ of Cynewulf_, ed. by Cook, also by Gollancz.
+
+Footnote 33:
+    My robe is noiseless while I tread the earth,
+    Or tarry 'neath the banks, or stir the shallows;
+    But when these shining wings, this depth of air,
+    Bear me aloft above the bending shores
+    Where men abide, and far the welkin's strength
+    Over the multitudes conveys me, then
+    With rushing whir and clear melodious sound
+    My raiment sings. And like a wandering spirit
+    I float unweariedly o'er flood and field.
+(Brougham's version, in _Transl. from Old Eng. Poetry_.)
+
+Footnote 34:   The source of _Andreas_ is an early Greek legend of St.
+Andrew that found its way to England and was probably known to Cynewulf in
+some brief Latin form, now lost.
+
+Footnote 35:   Our two chief sources are the famous Exeter Book, in Exeter
+Cathedral, a collection of Anglo-Saxon poems presented by Bishop Leofric
+(_c_. 1050), and the Vercelli Book, discovered in the monastery of
+Vercelli, Italy, in 1822. The only known manuscript of _Beowulf_ was
+discovered _c_. 1600, and is now in the Cotton Library of the British
+Museum. All these are fragmentary copies, and show the marks of fire and of
+hard usage. The Exeter Book contains _the Christ, Guthlac, the Phoenix,
+Juliana, Widsith, The Seafarer, Deor's Lament, The Wife's Complaint, The
+Lover's Message_, ninety-five Riddles, and many short hymns and
+fragments,--an astonishing variety for a single manuscript.
+
+Footnote 36:   From Alfred's _Boethius_.
+
+Footnote 37:   It is not certain that the translation of Bede is the work
+of Alfred.
+
+Footnote 38:   See _Translations from Old English Poetry_. Only a brief
+account of the fight is given in the _Chronicle_. The song known as "The
+Battle of Maldon," or "Byrhtnoth's Death," is recorded in another
+manuscript.
+
+Footnote 39:   This is an admirable little book, containing the cream of
+Anglo-Saxon poetry, in free translations, with notes. Translations from
+_Old English Prose_ is a companion volume.
+
+Footnote 40:   For full titles and publishers of general reference books,
+and for a list of inexpensive texts and helps, see General Bibliography at
+the end of this book.
+
+Footnote 41:   The chief object of these questions is not to serve as a
+review, or to prepare for examination, but rather to set the student
+thinking for himself about what he has read. A few questions of an advanced
+nature are inserted which call for special study and research in
+interesting fields.
+
+Footnote 42:   A Romance language is one whose basis is Latin,--not the
+classic language of literature, but a vulgar or popular Latin spoken in the
+military camps and provinces. Thus Italian, Spanish, and French were
+originally different dialects of the vulgar Latin, slightly modified by the
+mingling of the Roman soldiers with the natives of the conquered provinces.
+
+Footnote 43:   See p. 51.
+
+Footnote 44:   It is interesting to note that all the chroniclers of the
+period, whether of English or Norman birth, unite in admiration of the
+great figures of English history, as it was then understood. Brutus,
+Arthur, Hengist, Horsa, Edward the Confessor, and William of Normandy are
+all alike set down as English heroes. In a French poem of the thirteenth
+century, for instance, we read that "there is no land in the world where so
+many good kings and saints have lived as in the isle of the English ...
+such as the strong and brave Arthur, Edmund, and Cnut." This national poem,
+celebrating the English Edward, was written in French by a Norman monk of
+Westminster Abbey, and its first heroes are a Celt, a Saxon, and a Dane.
+(See Jusserand, _Literary History of the English People_, I, 112 ff.)
+
+Footnote 45:   _English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer_.
+
+Footnote 46:   Anselm was an Italian by birth, but wrote his famous work
+while holding the see of Canterbury.
+
+Footnote 47:   During the Roman occupancy of Britain occurred a curious
+mingling of Celtic and Roman traditions. The Welsh began to associate their
+national hero Arthur with Roman ancestors; hence the story of Brutus,
+great-grandson of Aeneas, the first king of Britain, as related by Geoffrey
+and Layamon.
+
+Footnote 48:   Probably a Latin copy of Bede.
+
+Footnote 49:   Wace's translation of Geoffrey.
+
+Footnote 50:   Only one word in about three hundred and fifty is of French
+origin. A century later Robert Mannyng uses one French word in eighty,
+while Chaucer has one in six or seven. This includes repetitions, and is a
+fair estimate rather than an exact computation.
+
+Footnote 51:   The matter of Britain refers strictly to the Arthurian, i.e.
+the Welsh romances; and so another division, the matter of England, may be
+noted. This includes tales of popular English heroes, like Bevis of
+Hampton, Guy of Warwick, Horn Child, etc.
+
+Footnote 52:   According to mediæval literary custom these songs were
+rarely signed. Later, when many songs were made over into a long poem, the
+author signed his name to the entire work, without indicating what he had
+borrowed
+
+Footnote 53:   An English book in which such romances were written was
+called a Gest or Jest Book. So also at the beginning of _Cursor Mundi_
+(_c_. 1320) we read:
+
+    Men yernen jestis for to here
+    And romaunce rede in diverse manere,
+
+and then follows a summary of the great cycles of romance, which we are
+considering.
+
+Footnote 54:   Tennyson goes farther than Malory in making Gawain false and
+irreverent. That seems to be a mistake; for in all the earliest romances
+Gawain is, next to Arthur, the noblest of knights, the most loved and
+honored of all the heroes of the Round Table.
+
+Footnote 55:   There were various French versions of the story; but it came
+originally from the Irish, where the hero was called Cuchulinn.
+
+Footnote 56:   It is often alleged that in this romance we have a very
+poetical foundation for the Order of the Garter, which was instituted by
+Edward III, in 1349; but the history of the order makes this extremely
+doubtful. The reader will be chiefly interested in comparing this romance
+with _Beowulf_, for instance, to see what new ideals have taken root in
+England.
+
+Footnote 57:   Originally Cockaygne (variously spelled) was intended to
+ridicule the mythical country of Avalon, somewhat as Cervantes' _Don
+Quixote_ later ridicules the romances of chivalry. In Luxury Land
+everything was good to eat; houses were built of dainties and shingled with
+cakes; buttered larks fell instead of rain; the streams ran with good wine;
+and roast geese passed slowly down the streets, turning themselves as they
+went.
+
+Footnote 58:   Child's _English and Scottish Popular Ballads_ is the most
+scholarly and complete collection in our language. Gummere's _Old English
+Ballads_ is a good short work. Professor Kittredge's Introduction to the
+Cambridge edition of Child's _Ballads_ is the best summary of a very
+difficult subject. For an extended discussion of the literary character of
+the ballad, see Gummere's _The Popular Ballad_.
+
+Footnote 59:   little bird.
+
+Footnote 60:   in her language.
+
+Footnote 61:   I live
+
+Footnote 62:   fairest
+
+Footnote 63:   I am
+
+Footnote 64:   power, bondage.
+
+Footnote 65:   a pleasant fate I have attained.
+
+Footnote 66:   I know
+
+Footnote 67:   gone
+
+Footnote 68:   lit, alighted
+
+Footnote 69:   For titles and publishers of reference books see General
+Bibliography at the end of this book.
+
+Footnote 70:   The reader may perhaps be more interested in these final
+letters, which are sometimes sounded and again silent, if he remembers that
+they represent the decaying inflections of our old Anglo-Saxon speech.
+
+Footnote 71:   _House of Fame_, II, 652 ff. The passage is more or less
+autobiographical.
+
+Footnote 72:   _Legend of Good Women_, Prologue, ll. 29 ff.
+
+Footnote 73:   wealth.
+
+Footnote 74:   the crowd.
+
+Footnote 75:   success.
+
+Footnote 76:   blinds.
+
+Footnote 77:   act.
+
+Footnote 78:   trouble.
+
+Footnote 79:   i.e. the goddess Fortune.
+
+Footnote 80:   kick.
+
+Footnote 81:   awl.
+
+Footnote 82:   judge.
+
+Footnote 83:   For the typography of titles the author has adopted the plan
+of putting the titles of all books, and of all important works generally
+regarded as single books, in italics. Individual poems, essays, etc., are
+in Roman letters with quotation marks. Thus we have the "Knight's Tale," or
+the story of "Palamon and Arcite," in the _Canterbury Tales_. This system
+seems on the whole the best, though it may result in some inconsistencies.
+
+Footnote 84:   _Troilus and Criseyde_, III.
+
+Footnote 85:   See p. 107.
+
+Footnote 86:   For a summary of Chaucer's work and place in our literature,
+see the Comparison with Spenser, p. 111.
+
+Footnote 87:   clad.
+
+Footnote 88:   wonder.
+
+Footnote 89:   brook.
+
+Footnote 90:   sounded.
+
+Footnote 91:   theirs
+
+Footnote 92:   rule
+
+Footnote 93:   righteousness
+
+Footnote 94:   called
+
+Footnote 95:   theirs
+
+Footnote 96:   yield
+
+Footnote 97:   say
+
+Footnote 98:   them
+
+Footnote 99:   hate
+
+Footnote 100:   persecute
+
+Footnote 101:   slander
+
+Footnote 102:   rains
+
+Footnote 103:   In its English form the alleged Mandeville describes the
+lands and customs he has seen, and brings in all the wonders he has heard
+about. Many things he has seen himself, he tells us, and these are
+certainly true; but others he has heard in his travels, and of these the
+reader must judge for himself. Then he incidentally mentions a desert where
+he saw devils as thick as grasshoppers. As for things that he has been told
+by devout travelers, here are the dog-faced men, and birds that carry off
+elephants, and giants twenty-eight feet tall, and dangerous women who have
+bright jewels in their heads instead of eyes, "and if they behold any man
+in wrath, they slay him with a look, as doth the basilisk." Here also are
+the folk of Ethiopia, who have only one leg, but who hop about with
+extraordinary rapidity. Their one foot is so big that, when they lie in the
+sun, they raise it to shade their bodies; in rainy weather it is as good as
+an umbrella. At the close of this interesting book of travel, which is a
+guide for pilgrims, the author promises to all those who say a prayer for
+him a share in whatever heavenly grace he may himself obtain for all his
+holy pilgrimages.
+
+Footnote 104:   For titles and publishers of reference works see General
+Bibliography at the end of this book.
+
+Footnote 105:   _Constitutional History of England_.
+
+Footnote 106:   Symonds, _Revival of Learning_.
+
+Footnote 107:   Sismondi attributes this to two causes: first, the lack of
+general culture; and second, the absorption of the schools in the new study
+of antiquity. See _Literature of the South of Europe_, II, 400 ff.
+
+Footnote 108:   Erasmus, the greatest scholar of the Renaissance, was not
+an Englishman, but seems to belong to every nation. He was born at
+Rotterdam (_c_. 1466), but lived the greater part of his life in France,
+Switzerland, England, and Italy. His _Encomium Moriae_ was sketched on a
+journey from Italy (1509) and written while he was the guest of Sir Thomas
+More in London.
+
+Footnote 109:   Unless, perchance, the reader finds some points of
+resemblance in Plato's "Republic."
+
+Footnote 110:   See Wordsworth's sonnet, _On the Sonnet_. For a detailed
+study of this most perfect verse form, see Tomlinson's _The Sonnet, Its
+Origin, Structure, and Place in Poetry_.
+
+Footnote 111:   William Caxton (_c_. 1422-1491) was the first English
+printer. He learned the art abroad, probably at Cologne or Bruges, and
+about the year 1476 set up the first wooden printing press in England. His
+influence in fixing a national language to supersede the various dialects,
+and in preparing the way for the literary renaissance of the Elizabethan
+age, is beyond calculation.
+
+Footnote 112:   Malory has, in our own day, been identified with an English
+country gentleman and soldier, who was member of Parliament for
+Warwickshire in 1445.
+
+Footnote 113:   For titles and publishers of general works see General
+Bibliography at the end of this book.
+
+Footnote 114:   _Eastward Ho!_ a play given in Blackfriars Theater about
+1603. The play was written by Marston and two collaborators.
+
+Footnote 115:   Lie so faint.
+
+Footnote 116:   The _View_ was not published till 1633.
+
+Footnote 117:   clad.
+
+Footnote 118:   handsome.
+
+Footnote 119:   jousts, tournaments.
+
+Footnote 120:   countenance.
+
+Footnote 121:   dreaded.
+
+Footnote 122:   took off.
+
+Footnote 123:   pity.
+
+Footnote 124:   know.
+
+Footnote 125:   In the nineteenth century men learned again to appreciate
+Chaucer.
+
+Footnote 126:   The most dramatic part of the early ritual centered about
+Christ's death and resurrection, on Good Fridays and Easter days. An
+exquisite account of this most impressive service is preserved in St.
+Ethelwold's Latin manual of church services, written about 965. The Latin
+and English versions are found in Chambers's _Mediaeval Stage_, Vol. II.
+For a brief, interesting description, see Gayley, _Plays of Our
+Forefathers_, pp. 14 ff.
+
+Footnote 127:   How much we are indebted to the Norman love of pageantry
+for the development of the drama in England is an unanswered question.
+During the Middle Ages it was customary, in welcoming a monarch or in
+celebrating a royal wedding, to represent allegorical and mythological
+scenes, like the combat of St. George and the dragon, for instance, on a
+stage constructed for the purpose. These pageants were popular all over
+Europe and developed during the Renaissance into the dramatic form known as
+the Masque. Though the drama was of religious origin, we must not overlook
+these secular pageants as an important factor in the development of
+dramatic art.
+
+Footnote 128:   Miracles were acted on the Continent earlier than this. The
+Normans undoubtedly brought religious plays with them, but it is probable
+that they began in England before the Conquest (1066). See Manly,
+_Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_, I, xix.
+
+Footnote 129:   See Jusserand, _A Literary History of the English People_,
+I, iii, vi. For our earliest plays and their authors see Gayley, _Plays of
+Our Forefathers_.
+
+Footnote 130:   These three periods are not historically accurate. The
+author uses them to emphasize three different views of our earliest plays
+rather than to suggest that there was any orderly or chronological
+development from Miracle to Morality and thence to the Interludes. The
+latter is a prevalent opinion, but it seems hardly warranted by the facts.
+Thus, though the Miracles precede the Moralities by two centuries (the
+first known Morality, "The Play of the Lord's Prayer," mentioned by Wyclif,
+was given probably about 1375), some of the best known Moralities, like
+"Pride of Life," precede many of the later York Miracles. And the term
+Interlude, which is often used as symbolical of the transition from the
+moral to the artistic period of the drama, was occasionally used in England
+(fourteenth century) as synonymous with Miracle and again (sixteenth
+century) as synonymous with Comedy. That the drama had these three stages
+seems reasonably certain; but it is impossible to fix the limits of any one
+of them, and all three are sometimes seen together in one of the later
+Miracles of the Wakefield cycle.
+
+Footnote 131:   In fact, Heywood "cribbed" from Chaucer's _Tales_ in
+another Interlude called "The Pardoner and the Frere."
+
+Footnote 132:   Schelling, _Elizabethan Drama_, I, 86.
+
+Footnote 133:   That these gallants were an unmitigated nuisance, and had
+frequently to be silenced by the common people who came to enjoy the play,
+seems certain. Dekker's _Gull's Hornbook_ (1609) has an interesting chapter
+on "How a Gallant should behave Himself in a Playhouse."
+
+Footnote 134:   The first actors were classed with thieves and vagabonds;
+but they speedily raised their profession to an art and won a reputation
+which extended far abroad. Thus a contemporary, Fynes Moryson, writes in
+his _Itinerary:_ "So I remember that when some of our cast despised stage
+players came ... into Germany and played at Franckford ... having nether a
+complete number of actors, nor any good aparell, nor any ornament of the
+stage, yet the Germans, not understanding a worde they sayde, both men and
+wemen, flocked wonderfully to see their gesture and action."
+
+Footnote 135:   Schelling, _Elizabethan Drama_.
+
+Footnote 136:   Baker, in his _Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist_,
+pp. 57-62, takes a different view, and shows how carefully many of the boy
+actors were trained. It would require, however, a vigorous use of the
+imagination to be satisfied with a boy's presentation of Portia, Juliet,
+Cordelia, Rosalind, or any other of Shakespeare's wonderful women.
+
+Footnote 137:   These choir masters had royal permits to take boys of good
+voice, wherever found, and train them as singers and actors. The boys were
+taken from their parents and were often half starved and most brutally
+treated. The abuse of this unnatural privilege led to the final withdrawal
+of all such permits.
+
+Footnote 138:   So called from Euphues, the hero of Lyly's two prose works,
+_Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit_ (1579), and _Euphues and his England_ (1580).
+The style is affected and over-elegant, abounds in odd conceits, and uses
+hopelessly involved sentences. It is found in nearly all Elizabethan prose
+writers, and partially accounts for their general tendency to
+artificiality. Shakespeare satirizes euphuism in the character of Don
+Adriano of _Love's Labour's Lost_, but is himself tiresomely euphuistic at
+times, especially in his early or "Lylian" comedies. Lyly, by the way, did
+not invent the style, but did more than any other to diffuse it.
+
+Footnote 139:   See Schelling, I, 211.
+
+Footnote 140:   See p. 114.
+
+Footnote 141:   In 1587 the first history of Johann Faust, a half-legendary
+German necromancer, appeared in Frankfort. Where Marlowe found the story is
+unknown; but he used it, as Goethe did two centuries later, for the basis
+of his great tragedy.
+
+Footnote 142:   We must remember, however, that our present version of
+_Faustus_ is very much mutilated, and does not preserve the play as Marlowe
+wrote it.
+
+Footnote 143:   The two dramatists may have worked together in such
+doubtful plays as _Richard III_, the hero of which is like Timur in an
+English dress, and _Titus Andronicus_, with its violence and horror. In
+many strong scenes in Shakespeare's works Marlowe's influence is manifest.
+
+Footnote 144:   _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ appeared _c_. 1562; _Love's
+Labour's Lost, c_. 1591.
+
+Footnote 145:   _King John_, IV, 2.
+
+Footnote 146:   Queen Mab, in _Romeo and Juliet_.
+
+Footnote 147:   By Archdeacon Davies, in the seventeenth century.
+
+Footnote 148:   In 1709, nearly a century after the poet's death.
+
+Footnote 149:   Robert Greene, one of the popular playwrights of the time,
+who attacked Shakespeare in a pamphlet called "A Groat's Worth of Wit
+Bought with a Million of Repentance." The pamphlet, aside from its jealousy
+of Shakespeare, is a sad picture of a man of genius dying of dissipation,
+and contains a warning to other playwrights of the time, whose lives were
+apparently almost as bad as that of Greene.
+
+Footnote 150:   _Love's Labour's Lost, Comedy of Errors, Two Gentlemen of
+Verona_.
+
+Footnote 151:   _Henry VI, Richard III, Richard II, King John_. Prior to
+1588 only three true Chronicle plays are known to have been acted. The
+defeat of the Armada in that year led to an outburst of national feeling
+which found one outlet in the theaters, and in the next ten years over
+eighty Chronicle plays appeared. Of these Shakespeare furnished nine or
+ten. It was the great popular success of _Henry VI_, a revision of an old
+play, in 1592 that probably led to Greene's jealous attack.
+
+Footnote 152:   See Lee's _Life of William Shakespeare_, pp. 188-196.
+
+Footnote 153:   Like _Henry VIII_, and possibly the lost _Cardenio_.
+
+Footnote 154:   A name given to the privilege--claimed by the mediæval
+Church for its clergy--of being exempt from trial by the regular law
+courts. After the Reformation the custom survived for a long time, and
+special privileges were allowed to ministers and their families. Jonson
+claimed the privilege as a minister's son.
+
+Footnote 155:   A similar story of quackery is found in Chaucer, "The
+Canon's Yeoman's Tale."
+
+Footnote 156:   In this and in _A Fair Quarrel_ Middleton collaborated with
+William Rowley, of whom little is known except that he was an actor from
+_c_. 1607-1627.
+
+Footnote 157:   The reader will find wholesome criticism of these writers,
+and selections from their works, in Charles Lamb's _Specimens of English
+Dramatic Poets_, an excellent book, which helps us to a better knowledge
+and appreciation of the lesser Elizabethan dramatists.
+
+Footnote 158:   The first five books were published 1594-1597, and are as
+Hooker wrote them. The last three books, published after his death, are of
+doubtful authorship, but they are thought to have been completed from
+Hooker's notes.
+
+Footnote 159:   For titles and publishers of reference works see General
+Bibliography at the end of this book.
+
+Footnote 160:   See, for instance, the "Hymn to St. Theresa" and "The
+Flaming Heart."
+
+Footnote 161:   So called from Pindar, the greatest lyric poet of Greece.
+
+Footnote 162:   See, for instance, "Childhood," "The Retreat,"
+"Corruption," "The Bird," "The Hidden Flower," for Vaughan's mystic
+interpretation of childhood and nature.
+
+Footnote 163:   There is some doubt as to whether he was born at the
+Castle, or at Black Hall. Recent opinion inclines to the latter view.
+
+Footnote 164:   "On his being arrived to the Age of Twenty-three."
+
+Footnote 165:   "It is remarkable," says Lamartine, "how often in the
+libraries of Italian princes and in the correspondence of great Italian
+writers of this period you find mentioned the name and fame of this young
+Englishman."
+
+Footnote 166:   In Milton's work we see plainly the progressive influence
+of the Puritan Age. Thus his Horton poems are joyous, almost Elizabethan in
+character; his prose is stern, militant, unyielding, like the Puritan in
+his struggle for liberty; his later poetry, following the apparent failure
+of Puritanism in the Restoration, has a note of sadness, yet proclaims the
+eternal principles of liberty and justice for which he had lived.
+
+Footnote 167:   Of these sixty were taken from the Bible, thirty-three from
+English and five from Scotch history.
+
+Footnote 168:   The latter was by Lewis Bayly, bishop of Bangor. It is
+interesting to note that this book, whose very title is unfamiliar to us,
+was speedily translated into five different languages. It had an enormous
+sale, and ran through fifty editions soon after publication.
+
+Footnote 169:   Abridged from _Grace Abounding_, Part 3; _Works_ (ed.
+1873), p. 71.
+
+Footnote 170:   For titles and publishers of reference works, see General
+Bibliography at the end of this book.
+
+Footnote 171:   Guizot's _History of the Revolution in England_.
+
+Footnote 172:   Jeremy Collier (1650-1726), a clergyman and author, noted
+for his scholarly _Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain_ (1708-1714) and
+his _Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage_
+(1698). The latter was largely instrumental in correcting the low tendency
+of the Restoration drama.
+
+Footnote 173:   The Royal Society, for the investigation and discussion of
+scientific questions, was founded in 1662, and soon included practically
+all of the literary and scientific men of the age. It encouraged the work
+of Isaac Newton, who was one of its members; and its influence for
+truth--at a time when men were still trying to compound the philosopher's
+stone, calculating men's actions from the stars, and hanging harmless old
+women for witches--can hardly be overestimated.
+
+Footnote 174:   If the reader would see this in concrete form, let him read
+a paragraph of Milton's prose, or a stanza of his poetry, and compare its
+exuberant, melodious diction with Dryden's concise method of writing.
+
+Footnote 175:   Edmund Waller (1606-1687), the most noted poet of the
+Restoration period until his pupil Dryden appeared. His works are now
+seldom read.
+
+Footnote 176:   From _Divine Poems_, "Old Age and Death."
+
+Footnote 177:   Following the advice of Boileau (1676-1711), a noted French
+critic, whom Voltaire called "the lawgiver of Parnassus."
+
+Footnote 178:   By a critic we mean simply one who examines the literary
+works of various ages, separates the good from the bad, and gives the
+reasons for his classification. It is noticeable that critical writings
+increase in an age, like that of the Restoration, when great creative works
+are wanting.
+
+Footnote 179:   Two other principles of this book should be noted: (1) that
+all power originates in the people; and (2) that the object of all
+government is the common good. Here evidently is a democratic doctrine,
+which abolishes the divine right of kings; but Hobbes immediately destroys
+democracy by another doctrine,--that the power given by the people to the
+ruler could not be taken away. Hence the Royalists could use the book to
+justify the despotism of the Stuarts on the ground that the people had
+chosen them. This part of the book is in direct opposition to Milton's
+_Defense of the English People_.
+
+Footnote 180:   Locke's _Treatises on Government_ should also be mentioned,
+for they are of profound interest to American students of history and
+political science. It was from Locke that the framers of the Declaration of
+Independence and of the Constitution drew many of their ideas, and even
+some of their most striking phrases. "All men are endowed with certain
+inalienable rights"; "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; "the
+origin and basis of government is in the consent of the governed,"--these
+and many more familiar and striking expressions are from Locke. It is
+interesting to note that he was appointed to draft a constitution for the
+new province of Carolina; but his work was rejected,--probably because it
+was too democratic for the age in which he lived.
+
+Footnote 181:   A few slight changes and omissions from the original text,
+as given in Wheatley's edition of Pepys (London, 1892, 9 vols.), are not
+indicated in these brief quotations.
+
+Footnote 182:   The first daily newspaper, _The Daily Courant_, appeared in
+London in 1702.
+
+Footnote 183:   See Lecky, _England in the Eighteenth Century_.
+
+Footnote 184:   Addison's "Campaign" (1704), written to celebrate the
+battle of Blenheim.
+
+Footnote 185:   Great writers in every age, men like Shakespeare and
+Milton, make their own style. They are therefore not included in this
+summary. Among the minor writers also there are exceptions to the rule; and
+fine feeling is often manifest in the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Vaughan,
+and Herrick.
+
+Footnote 186:   We have endeavored here simply to show the meaning of terms
+in general use in our literature; but it must be remembered that it is
+impossible to classify or to give a descriptive name to the writers of any
+period or century. While "classic" or "pseudo-classic" may apply to a part
+of eighteenth-century literature, every age has both its romantic and its
+classic movements. In this period the revolt against classicism is shown in
+the revival of romantic poetry under Gray, Collins, Burns, and Thomson, and
+in the beginning of the English novel under Defoe, Richardson, and
+Fielding. These poets and novelists, who have little or no connection with
+classicism, belong chronologically to the period we are studying. They are
+reserved for special treatment in the sections following.
+
+Footnote 187:   Pope's satires, for instance, are strongly suggested in
+Boileau; his _Rape of the Lock_ is much like the mock-heroic _Le Lutrin;_
+and the "Essay on Criticism," which made him famous, is an English edition
+and improvement of _L'Art Poétique_. The last was, in turn, a combination
+of the _Ars Poetica_ of Horace and of many well-known rules of the
+classicists.
+
+Footnote 188:   These are the four kinds of spirits inhabiting the four
+elements, according to the Rosicrucians,--a fantastic sect of spiritualists
+of that age. In the dedication of the poem Pope says he took the idea from
+a French book called _Le Comte de Gabalis_.
+
+Footnote 189:   Compare this with Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage,"
+in _As You Like it_, II, 7.
+
+Footnote 190:   It is only fair to point out that Swift wrote this and two
+other pamphlets on religion at a time when he knew that they would damage,
+if not destroy, his own prospects of political advancement.
+
+Footnote 191:   See Tennyson's "Merlin and the Gleam."
+
+Footnote 192:   Of the _Tatler_ essays Addison contributed forty-two;
+thirty-six others were written in collaboration with Steele; while at least
+a hundred and eighty are the work of Steele alone.
+
+Footnote 193:   From "The Vanity of Human Wishes"
+
+Footnote 194:   A very lovable side of Johnson's nature is shown by his
+doing penance in the public market place for his unfilial conduct as a boy.
+(See, in Hawthorne's _Our Old Home_, the article on "Lichfield and
+Johnson.") His sterling manhood is recalled in his famous letter to Lord
+Chesterfield, refusing the latter's patronage for the _Dictionary_. The
+student should read this incident entire, in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_.
+
+Footnote 195:   In Johnson's _Dictionary_ we find this definition:
+"Grub-street, the name of a street in London much inhabited by writers of
+small histories, _dictionaries_, and temporary poems; whence any mean
+production is called Grub-street."
+
+Footnote 196:   From Macaulay's review of Boswell's _Life of Johnson_.
+
+Footnote 197:   Many of the writers show a mingling of the classic and the
+romantic tendencies. Thus Goldsmith followed Johnson and opposed the
+romanticists; but his _Deserted Village_ is romantic in spirit, though its
+classic couplets are almost as mechanical as Pope's. So Burke's orations
+are "elegantly classic" in style, but are illumined by bursts of emotion
+and romantic feeling.
+
+Footnote 198:   A much more interesting work is Thomas Paine's _Rights of
+Man_, which was written in answer to Burke's essay, and which had enormous
+influence in England and America.
+
+Footnote 199:   In the same year, 1775, in which Burke's magnificent
+"Conciliation" oration was delivered, Patrick Henry made a remarkable
+little speech before a gathering of delegates in Virginia. Both men were
+pleading the same cause of justice, and were actuated by the same high
+ideals. A very interesting contrast, however, may be drawn between the
+methods and the effects of Henry's speech and of Burke's more brilliant
+oration. Burke makes us wonder at his learning, his brilliancy, his
+eloquence; but he does not move us to action. Patrick Henry calls us, and
+we spring to follow him. That suggests the essential difference between the
+two orators.
+
+Footnote 200:   The romantic revival is marked by renewed interest in
+mediæval ideals and literature; and to this interest is due the success of
+Walpole's romance, _The Castle of Otranto_, and of Chatterton's forgeries
+known as the _Rowley Papers_.
+
+Footnote 201:   From _The Task_, Book II.
+
+Footnote 202:   See, for instance, Phelps, _Beginnings of the Romantic
+Movement_, for a list of Spenserian imitators from 1700 to 1775.
+
+Footnote 203:   Such is Goldsmith's version of a somewhat suspicious
+adventure, whose details are unknown.
+
+Footnote 204:   Goldsmith's idea, which was borrowed from Walpole,
+reappears in the pseudo _Letters from a Chinese Official_, which recently
+attracted considerable attention.
+
+Footnote 205:   Fitz-Greene Halleck's poem "To a Rose from near Alloway
+Kirk" (1822) is a good appreciation of Burns and his poetry. It might be
+well to read this poem before the sad story of Burns's life.
+
+Footnote 206:   Introduction, _Songs of Innocence_.
+
+Footnote 207:   Swinburne's _William Blake_.
+
+Footnote 208:   There are several omissions from the text in this fragment
+from _Fingal_.
+
+Footnote 209:   Several fragments of Gaelic poetry, attributed to Ossian or
+Oisin, are now known to have existed at that time in the Highlands.
+Macpherson used these as a basis for his epic, but most of the details were
+furnished by his own imagination. The alleged text of "Ossian" was
+published in 1807, some eleven years after Macpherson's death. It only
+added another mystery to the forgery; for, while it embodied a few old and
+probably genuine fragments, the bulk of it seems to be Macpherson's work
+translated back into Gaelic.
+
+Footnote 210:   For various other collections of songs and ballads,
+antedating Percy's, see Phelps's _Beginnings of the English Romantic
+Movement_, ch. vii.
+
+Footnote 211:   The first books to which the term "novel," in the modern
+sense, may be applied, appeared almost simultaneously in England, France,
+and Germany. The rapid development of the English novel had an immense
+influence in all European nations.
+
+Footnote 212:   The name "romance" was given at first to any story in one
+of the Romance languages, like the French metrical romances, which we have
+considered. Because these stories were brought to England at a time when
+the childish mind of the Middle Ages delighted in the most impossible
+stories, the name "romance" was retained to cover any work of the unbridled
+imagination.
+
+Footnote 213:   This division of works of fiction into romances and novels
+is a somewhat arbitrary one, but it seems, on the whole, the most natural
+and the most satisfactory. Many writers use the generic term "novel" to
+include all prose fiction. They divide novels into two classes, stories and
+romances; the story being a form of the novel which relates certain
+incidents of life with as little complexity as possible; and the romance
+being a form of novel which describes life as led by strong emotions into
+complex and unusual circumstances. Novels are otherwise divided into novels
+of personality, like _Vicar of Wakefield_ and _Silas Marner_; historical
+novels, _Ivanhoe_; novels of romance, like _Lorna Doone_ and novels of
+purpose, like _Oliver Twist_ and _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. All such
+classifications are imperfect, and the best of them is open to objections.
+
+Footnote 214:   One of these tales was called _The Wonderful Things beyond
+Thule_. It is the story of a youth, Dinias, who for love of a girl,
+Dercyllis, did heroic things and undertook many adventures, including a
+journey to the frozen north, and another to the moon. A second tale,
+_Ephesiaca_, is the story of a man and a maid, each of whom scoffs at love.
+They meet and fall desperately in love; but the course of true love does
+not run smooth, and they separate, and suffer, and go through many perils,
+before they "live happily ever after." This tale is the source of the
+mediæval story, _Apollonius of Tyre_, which is used in Gower's _Confessio
+Amantis_ and in Shakespeare's _Pericles_. A third tale is the pastoral love
+story, _Daphnis and Chloe_, which reappeared in many forms in subsequent
+literature.
+
+Footnote 215:   Minto's _Life of Defoe_, p. 139.
+
+Footnote 216:   These were not what the booksellers expected. They wanted a
+"handy letter writer," something like a book of etiquette; and it was
+published in 1741, a few months after _Pamela_.
+
+Footnote 217:   See p. 315.
+
+Footnote 218:   For titles and publishers of general reference works, and
+of inexpensive texts, see General Bibliography at end of this book.
+
+Footnote 219:   Mrs. Radcliffe's best work is the _Mysteries of Udolpho_.
+This is the story of a tender heroine shut up in a gloomy castle. Over her
+broods the terrible shadow of an ancestor's crime. There are the usual
+"goose-flesh" accompaniments of haunted rooms, secret doors, sliding
+panels, mysterious figures behind old pictures, and a subterranean passage
+leading to a vault, dark and creepy as a tomb. Here the heroine finds a
+chest with blood-stained papers. By the light of a flickering candle she
+reads, with chills and shivering, the record of long-buried crimes. At the
+psychologic moment the little candle suddenly goes out. Then out of the
+darkness a cold, clammy hand--ugh! Foolish as such stories seem to us now,
+they show, first, a wild reaction from the skepticism of the preceding age;
+and second, a development of the mediæval romance of adventure; only the
+adventure is here inward rather than outward. It faces a ghost instead of a
+dragon; and for this work a nun with her beads is better than a knight in
+armor. So heroines abound, instead of heroes. The age was too educated for
+medieval monsters and magic, but not educated enough to reject ghosts and
+other bogeys.
+
+Footnote 220:   The _Lyrical Ballads_ were better appreciated in America
+than in England. The first edition was printed here in 1802.
+
+Footnote 221:   _The Prelude_ was not published till after Wordsworth's
+death, nearly half a century later.
+
+Footnote 222:   _The Prelude_, Book IV.
+
+Footnote 223:   Dowden's _Selections from Wordsworth_ is the best of many
+such collections. See Selections for Reading, and Bibliography, at the end
+of this chapter.
+
+Footnote 224:   See "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago," in
+_Essays of Elia_.
+
+Footnote 225:   See Scott's criticism of his own work, in comparison with
+Jane Austen's, p. 439.
+
+Footnote 226:   Scott's novels were not the first to have an historical
+basis. For thirty years preceding the appearance of _Waverley_, historical
+romances were popular; but it was due to Scott's genius that the historical
+novel became a permanent type of literature. See Cross, _The Development of
+the English Novel_.
+
+Footnote 227:   See Selections for Reading, and Bibliography, at the end of
+this chapter.
+
+Footnote 228:   Shelley undoubtedly took his idea from a lost drama of
+Aeschylus, a sequel to _Prometheus Bound_, in which the great friend of
+mankind was unchained from a precipice, where he had been placed by the
+tyrant Zeus.
+
+Footnote 229:   This idea is suppported by Shelley's poem _Adonais_, and by
+Byron's parody against the reviewers, beginning, "Who killed John Keats? I,
+says the Quarterly."
+
+Footnote 230:   See "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago," in
+_Essays of Elia_.
+
+Footnote 231:   See _Essays of Elia,_ "The Superannuated Man."
+
+Footnote 232:   In the first essay, "The South Sea House," Lamb assumed as
+a joke the name of a former clerk, Elia. Other essays followed, and the
+name was retained when several successful essays were published in book
+form, in 1823. In these essays "Elia" is Lamb himself, and "Cousin Bridget"
+is his sister Mary.
+
+Footnote 233:   See histories for the Congress of Vienna (1814) and the
+Holy Alliance (1815).
+
+Footnote 234:   For full titles and publishers of general reference books,
+see General Bibliography at end of this book.
+
+Footnote 235:   An excellent little volume for the beginner is Van Dyke's
+"Poems by Tennyson," which shows the entire range of the poet's work from
+his earliest to his latest years. (See Selections for Reading, at the end
+of this chapter.)
+
+Footnote 236:   Tennyson made a distinction in spelling between the _Idylls
+of the King_, and the _English Idyls_, like "Dora."
+
+Footnote 237:   An excellent little book for the beginner is Lovett's
+_Selections from Browning_. (See Selections for Reading, at the end of this
+chapter.)
+
+Footnote 238:   This term, which means simply Italian painters before
+Raphael, is generally applied to an artistic movement in the middle of the
+nineteenth century. The term was first used by a brotherhood of German
+artists who worked together in the convent of San Isodoro, in Rome, with
+the idea of restoring art to its mediæval purity and simplicity. The term
+now generally refers to a company of seven young men,--Dante Gabriel
+Rossetti and his brother William, William Holman Hunt, John Everett
+Millais, James Collinson, Frederick George Stevens, and Thomas Woolner,--
+who formed the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood in England in 1848. Their
+official literary organ was called _The Germ_, in which much of the early
+work of Morris and Rossetti appeared. They took for their models the early
+Italian painters who, they declared, were "simple, sincere, and religious."
+Their purpose was to encourage simplicity and naturalness in art and
+literature; and one of their chief objects, in the face of doubt and
+materialism, was to express the "wonder, reverence, and awe" which
+characterizes mediæval art. In its return to the mysticism and symbolism of
+the mediæval age, this Pre-Raphaelitism suggests the contemporary Oxford or
+Tractarian movement in religion. (See footnote, p. 554).
+
+Footnote 239:   Arnold was one of the best known poets of the age, but
+because he has exerted a deeper influence on our literature as a critic, we
+have reserved him for special study among the essayists. (See p. xxx)
+
+Footnote 240:   It should be pointed out that the _English Humorists_ is
+somewhat too highly colored to be strictly accurate. In certain cases also,
+notably that of Steele, the reader may well object to Thackeray's
+patronizing attitude toward his subject.
+
+Footnote 241:   See pp. 260-261.
+
+Footnote 242:   Emily Brontë (1818-1848) was only a little less gifted than
+her famous sister. Her best known work is _Wuthering Heights_ (1847), a
+strong but morbid novel of love and suffering. Matthew Arnold said of her
+that, "for the portrayal of passion, vehemence, and grief," Emily Brontë
+had no equal save Byron. An exquisite picture of Emily is given in
+Charlotte Brontë's novel _Shirley_.
+
+Footnote 243:   _Essays_, Riverside edition, I, 318.
+
+Footnote 244:   The student should remember that Carlyle's literary
+opinions, though very positive, are to be received with caution. Sometimes,
+indeed, they are so one-sided and prejudiced that they are more valuable as
+a revelation of Carlyle himself than as a study of the author he is
+considering.
+
+Footnote 245:   The Oxford movement in religion has many points of
+resemblance to the Pre-Raphaelite movement in art. Both protested against
+the materialism of the age, and both went back for their models to the
+Middle Ages. Originally the movement was intended to bring new life to the
+Anglican church by a revival of the doctrine and practices of an earlier
+period. Recognizing the power of the press, the leaders chose literature
+for their instrument of reform, and by their _Tracts for the Times_ they
+became known as Tractarians. To oppose liberalism and to restore the
+doctrine and authority of the early Church was the center of their
+teaching. Their belief might be summed up in one great article of the
+Creed, with all that it implies,--"I believe in one Catholic and Apostolic
+Church." The movement began at Oxford with Keble's famous sermon on
+"National Apostasy," in 1833; but Newman was the real leader of the
+movement, which practically ended when he entered the Catholic church in
+1845.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of English Literature, by William J. Long
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10609 ***