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diff --git a/old/10631-8.txt b/old/10631-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1cdfead --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10631-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,23679 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Halleck's New English Literature, by Reuben P. Halleck + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Halleck's New English Literature + +Author: Reuben P. Halleck + +Release Date: January 8, 2004 [EBook #10631] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HALLECK'S NEW ENGLISH LITERATURE *** + + + + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Keith M. Eckrich and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +HALLECKS'S NEW ENGLISH LITERATURE + +by REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A., LL.D. + +Author of "History of English Literature" and "History of American +Literature" + + +PREFACE + +In this _New English Literature_ the author endeavors to preserve the +qualities that have caused his former _History of English Literature_ +to be so widely used; namely, suggestiveness, clearness, organic +unity, interest, and the power to awaken thought and to stimulate the +student to further reading. + +The book furnishes a concise account of the history and growth of +English literature from the earliest times to the present day. It lays +special emphasis on literary movements, on the essential qualities +that differentiate one period from another, and on the spirit that +animates each age. Above all, the constant purpose has been to arouse +in the student an enthusiastic desire to read the works of the authors +discussed. Because of the author's belief in the guide-book function +of a history of literature, he has spent much time and thought in +preparing the unusually detailed _Suggested Readings_ that follow each +chapter. + +It was necessary for several reasons to prepare a new book. Twentieth +century research has transformed the knowledge of the Elizabethan +theater and has brought to light important new facts relating to the +drama and to Shakespeare. The new social spirit has changed the +critical viewpoint concerning authors as different as Wordsworth, +Keats, Ruskin, Dickens, and Tennyson. Wordsworth's treatment of +childhood, for instance, now requires an amount of space that would a +short time ago have seemed disproportionate. Later Victorian writers, +like Meredith, Hardy, Swinburne, and Kipling, can no longer be +accorded the usual brief perfunctory treatment. Increased modern +interest in contemporary life is also demanding some account of the +literature already produced by the twentieth century. An entire +chapter is devoted to showing how this new literature reveals the +thought and ideals of this generation. + +Other special features of this new work are the suggestions and +references for a literary trip through England, the historical +introductions to the chapters, the careful treatment of the modern +drama, the latest bibliography, and the new illustrations, some of +which have been specially drawn for this work, while others have been +taken from original paintings in the National Portrait Gallery, +London, and elsewhere. The illustrations are the result of much +individual research by the author during his travels in England. + +The greater part of this book was gradually fashioned in the +classroom, during the long period that the author has taught this +subject. Experience with his classes has proved to him the +reasonableness of the modern demand that a textbook shall be definite +and stimulating. + +The author desires to thank the large number of teachers who have +aided him by their criticism. Miss Elizabeth Howard Spaulding and Miss +Sarah E. Simons deserve special mention for valuable assistance. The +entire treatment of Rudyard Kipling is the work of Miss Mary Brown +Humphrey. The greater part of the chapter, _Twentieth-Century +Literature_, was prepared by Miss Anna Blanche McGill. Some of the +best and most difficult parts of the book were written by the author's +wife. R.P.H. + + +CONTENTS + +INTRODUCTION--LITERARY ENGLAND + +CHAPTERS: + + I. FROM 449 A.D. TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066 + + II. FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066, TO CHAUCER'S DEATH 1400 + + III. FROM CHAUCER'S DEATH 1400, TO THE ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH, 1558 + + IV. THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 1558-1603 + + V. THE PURITAN AGE, 1603-1660 + + VI. FROM THE RESTORATION, 1660, TO THE PUBLICATION OF PAMELA, 1740 + + VII. THE SECOND FORTY YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 1740-1780 + +VIII. THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM, 1780-1837 + + IX. THE VICTORIAN AGE, 1837-1900 + + X. TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE + + +SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS AND THEIR CHIEF WORKS + +INDEX + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS: + + 1. Woden. + 2. Exeter Cathedral. + 3. Anglo-Saxon Gleeman. (From the tapestry designed by H.A. Bone). + 4. Facsimile of beginning of Cotton MS. of Beowulf.(British Museum). + 5. Facsimile of Beginning of Junian MS. of Caedmon. + 6. Anglo-Saxon Musicians. (From illuminated MS., British Museum). + 7. The Beginning of Alfred's Laws. (From illuminated MS., British + Museum). + 8. The Death of Harold at Hastings. (From the Bayeux tapestry). + 9. What Mandeville Saw. (From Edition of 1725). + 10. John Wycliffe. (From an old print). + 11. Treuthe's Pilgryme atte Plow. (From a MS. in Trinity College, + Cambridge). + 12. Gower Hearing the Confession of a Lover. (From Egerton MS., + British Museum). + 13. Geoffrey Chaucer. (From an old drawing in the MS. of Occleve's + Poems, British Museum). + 14. Canterbury Cathedral. + 15. Pilgrims Leaving the Tabard Inn. (From Urry's Chaucer). + 16. Facsimile of Lines Describing the Franklyn. (From the Cambridge + University MS.). + 17. Franklyn, Friar, Knight, Prioress, Squire, Clerk of Oxford. (From + the Ellesmere MS.). + 18. Morris Dancers. (From MS. of Chaucer's Time). + 19. Henry VIII, giving Bibles to Clergy and Laity. (From frontispiece + to Coverdale Bible). + 20. Book Illustration, Early Fifteenth Century. (British Museum). + 21. Facsimile of Caxton's Advertisement of his Books. (Bodleian + Library, Oxford). + 22. Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_. (From DeWorde's Edition, 1529). + 23. Early Title Page of _Robin Hood_. (Copland Edition, 1550). + 24. William Tyndale. (From an old print). + 25. Sir Thomas Wyatt. (After Holbein). + 26. Facsimile of Queen Elizabeth's Signature. + 27. Sir Philip Sidney. (After the miniature by Isaac Oliver, Windsor + Castle). + 28. Francis Bacon. (From the painting by Van Somer, National Portrait + Gallery). + 29. Title page of _Bacon's Essays_, 1597. + 30. John Donne. (From the painting by Jansen, South Kensington + Museum). + 31. Edmund Spenser. (From a painting in Dublin Castle). + 32. Miracle Play at Coventry. (From an old print). + 33. Hell Mouth in the Old Miracle Play. From a Columbia University + Model. + 34. Fool's Head. + 35. Air-Bag Flapper and Lath Dagger. + 36. Fool of the Old Play. + 37. Thomas Sackville. + 38. Theater in Inn Yard. (From Columbia University model). + 39. Reconstructed Globe Theater, Earl's Court, London. + 40. The Bankside and its Theaters. (From the Hollar engraving, about + 1620). + 41. Contemporary Drawing of Interior of an Elizabethan Theater. + 42. Marlowe's Memorial Statue at Canterbury. + 43. William Shakespeare. (From the Chandos portrait, National + Portrait Gallery). + 44. Shakespeare's Birthplace. Stratford-on-Avon. + 45. Classroom in Stratford Grammar School. + 46. Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Shottery. + 47. View of Stratford-on-Avon. + 48. Inscription over Shakespeare's Tomb. + 49. Shakespeare--The D'Avenant Bust. (Discovered in 1845). + 50. Henry Irving as Hamlet. + 51. Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (From the painting by Sargent). + 52. Falstaff and his Page. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott). + 53. Ben Jonson. (From the portrait by Honthorst, National Portrait + Gallery). + 54. Ben Jonson's Tomb in Westminster Abbey. + 55. Francis Beaumont. + 56. John Fletcher. + 57. Cromwell Dictating Dispatches to Milton. (From the painting by + Ford Maddox Brown). + 58. Thomas Fuller. + 59. Izaak Walton. + 60. Jeremy Taylor. + 61. John Bunyan. (From the painting by Sadler, National Portrait + Gallery). + 62. Bedford Bridge, Showing Gates and Jail. (From an old print). + 63. Bunyan's Dream. (From Fourth Edition _Pilgrim's Progress_, 1680). + 64. Woodcut from the First Edition of Mr. Badman. + 65. Robert Herrick. + 66. John Milton. (After a drawing by W. Faithorne, at Bayfordbury). + 67. John Milton, AEt. 10. + 68. Milton's Visit to Galileo in 1638. (From the painting by T. + Lessi). + 69. Facsimile of Milton's Signature. 1663. + 70. Title Page to _Comus_, 1637. + 71. Milton's Motto from _Comus_, with Autograph, 1639. + 72. Milton Dictating _Paradise Lost_ to his Daughter. (From the + painting by Munkacsy). + 73. Samuel Butler. + 74. John Dryden. (From the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller, National + Portrait Gallery). + 75. Birthplace of Dryden. (From a print). + 76. Daniel Defoe. (From a print by Vandergucht). + 77. Jonathan Swift. (From the painting by C. Jervas, National + Portrait Gallery). + 78. Moor Park. (From a drawing). + 79. Swift and Stella. (From the painting by Dicksee). + 80. Joseph Addison. (From the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller, + National Portrait Gallery.) + 81. Birthplace of Addison. + 82. Richard Steele. + 83. Sir Roger de Coverley in Church. (From a drawing by B. + Westmacott). + 84. Alexander Pope. (From the portrait by William Hoare). + 85. Pope's Villa at Twickenham. (From an old print). + 86. Rape of the Lock. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott). + 87. Alexander Pope. (From a contemporary portrait). + 88. Horace Walpole. + 89. Thomas Gray. + 90. Stoke Poges Churchyard. + 91. A Blind Beggar Robbed of his Drink. (From a British Museum MS.) + 92. Samuel Richardson. (From an original drawing). + 93. Henry Fielding. (From the drawing by Hogarth). + 94. Laurence Sterne. + 95. Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott). + 96. Tobias Smollett. + 97. Edward Gibbon. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds). + 98. Edmund Burke. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, National + Portrait Gallery). + 99. Oliver Goldsmith. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, + National Portrait Gallery). +100. Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott). +101. Goldsmith's Lodgings, Canonbury Tower, London. +102. Dr. Primrose and his Family. (From a drawing by G. Patrick + Nelson). +103. Samuel Johnson. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds). +104. Samuel Johnson's Birthplace. (From an old print). +105. James Boswell. +106. Cheshire Cheese Inn To-day. +107. Robert Southey. +108. Charles Lamb. (From a drawing by Maclise). +109. Bo-Bo and Roast Pig. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott). +110. William Cowper. (From the portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence). +111. Cowper's cottage at Weston. +112. John Gilpin's Ride. (From a drawing by R. Caldecott). +113. Robert Burns. (From the painting by Nasmyth National Portrait + Gallery). +114. Birthplace of Burns. +115. Burns and Highland Mary. (From the painting by James Archer). +116. Sir Walter Scott. (From the painting by William Nicholson). +117. Abbotsford, Home of Sir Walter Scott. +118. Scott's Grave in Dryburgh Abbey. +119. Loch Katrine and Ellen's Isle. +120. Walter Scott. (From a life sketch by Maclise). +121. Scott's Desk and "Elbow Chair" at Abbotsford. +122. Jane Austen. (From an original family portrait). +123. Jane Austen's Desk. +124. William Wordsworth. (From the portrait by B.R. Haydon). +125. Boy of Winander. (From the painting by H.O. Walker, Congressional + Library). +126. Wordsworth's Home at Grasmere--Dove Cottage. +127. Grasmere Lake. +128. William Wordsworth. (From a sketch in _Fraser's Magazine_). +129. Rydal Mount near Ambleside. +130. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (From a pencil sketch by C.R. Leslie). +131. Coleridge's Cottage at Nether-Stowey. +132. Coleridge as a Young Man. (From a sketch made in Germany). +133. Lord Byron. (From a portrait by Kramer). +134. Byron at Seventeen. (From a painting). +135. Newstead Abbey, Byron's Home. +136. Castle of Chillon. +137. Byron's Home at Pisa. +138. Percy Bysshe Shelley. (From the portrait by Amelia Curran, + National Portrait Gallery). +139. Shelley's Birthplace, Field Place. +140. Grave of Shelley, Protestant Cemetery, Rome. +141. Facsimile of Stanza from _To a Skylark_. +142. John Keats. (From the painting by Hilton, National Portrait + Gallery). +143. Keats's Home, Wentworth Place. +144. Grave of Keats, Rome. +145. Facsimile of Original MS. of _Endymion_. +146. Endymion. (From the painting by H.O. Walker, Congressional + Library). +147. Thomas de Quincy. (From the painting by Sir J.W. Gordon, National + Portrait Gallery). +148. Room in Dove Cottage. +149. Charles Darwin. +150. John Tyndall. +151. Thomas Huxley. (From the painting by John Collier, National + Portrait Gallery). +152. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (From the drawing by himself, National + Portrait Gallery). +153. Thomas Babington Macaulay. (From the painting by Sir. F. Grant, + National Portrait Gallery). +154. Cardinal Newman. (From the painting by Emmeline Deane). +155. Thomas Carlyle. (From the painting by James McNeill Whistler). +156. Craigenputtock. +157. Mrs. Carlyle. (From a miniature portrait). +158. John Ruskin. (From a photograph). +159. Charles Dickens. (From a photograph taken in America, 1868). +160. Dicken's Home, Gads Hill. +161. Facsimile of MS. of _A Christmas Carol_. +162. William Makepeace Thackeray. (From the painting by Samuel + Laurence, National Portrait Gallery). +163. Caricature of Thackeray by Himself. +164. Thackeray's Home where _Vanity Fair_ was Written. +165. George Eliot. (From a drawing by Sir F.W. Burton, National + Portrait Gallery). +166. George Eliot's Birthplace. +167. Robert Louis Stevenson. (From a photograph). +168. Stevenson as a Boy. +169. Edinburgh Memorial of Robert Louis Stevenson. (By St. Gaudens). +170. George Meredith. (From the painting by G.F. Watts, National + Portrait Gallery). +171. Thomas Hardy. (From the painting by Winifred Thompson). +172. Max Gate. (The Home of Hardy). +173. Matthew Arnold. (From the painting by G.F. Watts, National + Portrait Gallery). +174. Robert Browning. (From the painting by G.F. Watts, National + Portrait Gallery). +175. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (From the painting by Field Talfourd, + National Portrait Gallery). +176. Facsimile of MS. from _Pippa Passes_. +177. Alfred Tennyson. (From a photograph by Mayall). +178. Farringford. +179. Facsimile of MS. of _Crossing the Bar_. +180. Algernon Charles Swinburne. (From the painting by Dante Gabriel + Rossetti). +181. Rudyard Kipling. (From the painting by John Collier). +182. Mowgli and his Brothers. (From _The Jungle Book_). +183. The Cat That Walked. (From Kipling's drawing for _Just-So + Stories_). +184. Joseph Conrad. +185. Arnold Bennett. +186. John Galsworthy. +187. Herbert George Wells. +188. William Butler Yeats. +189. John Masefield. +190. Alfred Noyes. +191. Henry Arthur Jones. +192. Arthur Wing Pinero. +193. George Bernard Shaw. (From the bust by Rodin). +194. James Matthew Barrie. +195. Stephen Phillips. +196. Lady Gregory. +197. John Synge. + +[Illustration: LITERARY MAP OF ENGLAND] + +[Illustration: LITERARY MAP OF ENGLAND] + +NEW ENGLISH LITERATURE + +INTRODUCTION + +LITERARY ENGLAND + +Some knowledge of the homes and haunts of English authors is necessary +for an understanding of their work. We feel in much closer touch with +Shakespeare after merely reading about Stratford-on-Avon; but we seem +to share his experiences when we actually walk from Stratford-on-Avon +to Shottery and Warwick. The scenery and life of the Lake Country are +reflected in Wordsworth's poetry. Ayr and the surrounding country +throw a flood of light on the work of Burns. The streets of London are +a commentary on the novels of Dickens. A journey to Canterbury aids us +in recreating the life of Chaucer's Pilgrims. + +Much may be learned from a study of literary England. Whether one does +or does not travel, such study is necessary. Those who hope at some +time to visit England should acquire in advance as much knowledge as +possible about the literary associations of the places to be visited; +for when the opportunity for the trip finally comes, there is usually +insufficient time for such preparation as will enable the traveler to +derive the greatest enjoyment from a visit to the literary centers in +which Great Britain abounds. + +Whenever an author is studied, his birthplace should be located on the +literary map. Baedeker's _Great Britain_ will be indispensable in +making an itinerary. The _Reference List for Literary England_ is +sufficiently comprehensive to enable any one to plan an enjoyable +literary pilgrimage through Great Britain and to learn the most +important facts about the places connected with English authors. + +The following suggestions from the author's experience are intended to +serve merely as an illustration of how to begin an itinerary. The +majority of east-bound steamships call at Plymouth, a good place to +disembark for a literary trip. From Plymouth, the traveler may go to +Exeter (a quaint old town with a fine cathedral, the home of _Exeter +Book_,) thence by rail to Camelford in Cornwall and by coach four +miles to the fascinating Tintagel (King Arthur), where, as Tennyson +says in his _Idylls of the King_:-- + + "All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos, + There came a day as still as heaven, and then + They found a naked child upon the sands + Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea, + And that was Arthur." + +Next, the traveler may go by coach to Bude (of which Tennyson +remarked, "I hear that there are larger waves at Bude than at any +other place. I must go thither and be alone with God") and to unique +Clovelly and Bideford (Kingsley), by rail to Ilfracombe, by coach to +Lynton (Lorna Doone), and the adjacent Lynmouth (where Shelley passed +some of his happiest days and alarmed the authorities by setting +afloat bottles containing his _Declaration of Rights_), by coach to +Minehead, by rail to Watchet, driving past Alfoxden (Wordsworth) to +Nether-Stowey (Coleridge) and the Quantock Hills, by motor and rail to +Glastonbury (Isle of Avalon, burial place of King Arthur and Queen +Guinevere), by rail to Wells (cathedral), to Bath (many literary +associations), to Bristol (Chatterton, Southey), to Gloucester (fine +cathedral, tomb of Edward II), and to Ross, the starting point for a +remarkable all day's row down the river Wye to Tintern Abbey +(Wordsworth), stopping for dinner at Monmouth (Geoffrey of Monmouth). + +After a start similar to the foregoing, the traveler should begin to +make an itinerary of his own. He will enjoy a trip more if he has a +share in planning it. From Tintern Abbey he might proceed, for +instance, to Stratford-on-Avon (Shakespeare); then to Warwick, +Kenilworth, and the George Eliot Country in North Warwickshire and +Staffordshire. + +Far natural beauty, there is nothing in England that is more +delightful than a coaching trip through Wordsworth's Lake Country +(Cumberland and Westmoreland). From there it is not far to the Carlyle +Country (Ecclefechan, Craigenputtock), to the Burns Country (Dumfries, +Ayr), and to the Scott Country (Loch Katrine, The Trossachs, +Edinburgh, and Abbotsford). In Edinburgh, William Sharp's statement +about Stevenson should be remembered, "One can, in a word, outline +Stevenson's own country as all the region that on a clear day one may +in the heart of Edinburgh descry from the Castle walls." + +If the traveler lands at Southampton, he is on the eastern edge of +Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Dorchester in Dorsetshire being the center. The +Jane Austen Country (Steventon, Chawton) is in Hampshire. To the east, +in Surrey, is Burford Bridge near Dorking, where Keats wrote part of +his _Endymion_, where George Meredith had his summer home, and where +"the country of his poetry" is located. + +In London, it is a pleasure to trace some of the greatest literary +associations in the world. We may stand at the corner of Monkwell and +Silver streets, on the site of a building in which Shakespeare wrote +some of his greatest plays. Milton lived in the vicinity and is buried +not far distant in St. Giles Church. In Westminster Abbey we find the +graves of many of the greatest authors, from Chaucer to Tennyson. +London is not only Dickens Land and Thackeray Land, but also the +"Land" of many other writers. We may still eat in the Old Cheshire +Cheese, where Johnson and Goldsmith dined. + +Those interested in literary England ought to include the cathedral +towns in their itinerary, so that they may visit the wonderful "poems +in stone," some of which, _e.g_., Canterbury (Chaucer), Winchester +(Izaak Walton, Jane Austen), Lichfield (Johnson), have literary +associations. For this reason, all of the cathedral towns in England +have been included in the literary map. + +REFERENCE LIST FOR LITERARY ENGLAND: + +Baedeker's _Great Britain_ (includes England and Scotland). + +Baedeker's _London and its Environs_. + +Adcock's _Famous Houses and Literary Shrines of London_. + +Lang's _Literary London_. + +Hutton's _Literary Landmarks in London_. + +Lucas's _A Wanderer in London_. + +Shelley's _Literary By-Paths in Old England_. + +Baildon's _Homes and Haunts of Famous Authors_. + +Bates's _From Gretna Green to Land's End_. + +Masson's _In the Footsteps of the Poets_. + +Wolfe's _A Literary Pilgrimage among the Haunts of Famous British +Authors_. + +Salmon's _Literary Rambles in the West of England_. + +Hutton's _A Book of the Wye_. + +Headlam's _Oxford (Medieval Towns Series)_. + +Winter's _Shakespeare's England_. + +Murray's _Handbook of Warwickshire_. + +Lee's _Stratford-on-Avon, from the Earliest Times to the Death of +Shakespeare_. + +Tompkins's _Stratford-on-Avon_ (Dent's _Temple Topographies_). + +Brassington's _Shakespeare's Homeland_. + +Winter's _Grey Days and Gold_ (Shakespeare). + +Collingwood's _The Lake Counties_ (Dent's County Guides). + +Wordsworth's _The Prelude_ (Books I.-V.). + +Rawnsley's _Literary Associations of the English Lakes_. + +Knight's _Through the Wordsworth Country_. + +Bradley's _Highways and Byways in the English Lakes_. + +Jerrold's _Surrey_ (Dent's County Guides). + +Dewar's _Hampshire with Isle of Wight_ (Dent's County Guides). + +Ward's _The Canterbury Pilgrimage_. + +Harper's _The Hardy Country_. + +Snell's _The Blackmore Country_. + +Melville's _The Thackeray Country_. + +Kitton's _The Dickens Country_. + +Sloan's _The Carlyle Country_. + +Dougall's _The Burns Country_. + +Crockett's _The Scott Country_. + +Hill's _Jane Austen: Her Homes and Her Friends_. + +Cook's _Homes and Haunts of John Ruskin_. + +William Sharp's _Literary Geography and Travel Sketches_ (Vol. IV. of +_Works_) contains chapters on _The Country of Stevenson, The Country +of George Meredith, The Country of Carlyle, The Country of George. + +Eliot, The Brontė Country, Thackeray Land_, The Thames from Oxford to +the Nore_. + +Hutton's _Literary Landmarks of Edinburgh_. + +Stevenson's _Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh_. + +Loftie's _Brief Account of Westminster Abbey_. + +Parker's _Introduction to the Study of Gothic Architecture_. + +Stanley's _Memorials of Westminster Abbey_. + +Kimball's _An English Cathedral Journey_. + +Singleton's _How to Visit the English Cathedrals_. + +Bond's _The English Cathedrals_ (200 illustrations). + +Cram's _The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain_ (6 illustrations). + +Home's _What to See in England_. + +Boynton's _London in English Literature_. + +GENERAL REFERENCE LIST FOR THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE[1]: + +_Cambridge History of English Literature_, 14 vols. + +Garnett and Gosse's _English Literature_, 4 vols. + +Morley's _English Writers_, 11 vols. + +Jusserand's _Literary History of the English People_. + +Taine's _English Literature_. + +Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, 6 vols. + +Stephens and Lee's _Dictionary of National Biography_ (dead authors). + +_New International Cyclopedia_ (living and dead authors). + +_English Men of Letters Series_ (abbreviated reference, E.M.L.) + +_Great Writers' Series_ (abbreviated reference. G.W.). + +Poole's _Index_ (and continuation volumes for reference to critical +articles in periodicals). + +_The United States Catalogue_ and _Cumulative Book Index_. + +SELECTIONS FROM ENGLISH LITERATURE[2]: + +*Pancoast and Spaeth's _Early English Poems_. (P. & S.)[3] + +*Warren's _Treasury of English Literature, Part I_. (Origins to +Eleventh Century: London, One Shilling.) (Warren.) + +*Ward's _English Poets_, 4 vols. (Ward.) + +*Bronson's _English Poems_, 4 vols. (Bronson.) + +_Oxford Treasury of English Literature_, Vol. I., _Beowulf to +Jacobean_; + +*Vol. II., _Growth of the Drama_; Vol. III., _Jacobean to Victorian_. + (Oxford Treasury.) + +*_Oxford Book of English Verse_. (Oxford.) + +*Craik's _English Prose_, 5 vols. (Craik.) + +*Page's _British Poets of the Nineteenth Century_. (Page.) + +Chambers's _Cyclopedia of English Literature_. (Chambers.) + +Manly's _English Poetry_ (from 1170). (Manly I.) + +Manly's _English Prose_ (from 1137). (Manly II.) + +_Century Readings for a Course in English Literature_. (Century.) + + +CHAPTER I: FROM 449 A.D. TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066 + +Subject Matter and Aim.--The history of English literature traces +the development of the best poetry and prose written in English by the +inhabitants of the British Isles. For more than twelve hundred years +the Anglo-Saxon race has been producing this great literature, which +includes among its achievements the incomparable work of Shakespeare. + +This literature is so great in amount that the student who approaches +the study without a guide is usually bewildered. He needs a history of +English literature for the same reason that a traveler in England +requires a guidebook. Such a history should do more than indicate +where the choicest treasures of literature may be found; it should +also show the interesting stages of development; it should emphasize +some of the ideals that have made the Anglo-Saxons one of the most +famous races in the world; and it should inspire a love for the +reading of good literature. + +No satisfactory definition of "literature" has ever been framed. +Milton's conception of it was "something so written to after times, as +they should not willingly let it die." Shakespeare's working +definition of literature was something addressed not to after times +but to an eternal present, and invested with such a touch of nature as +to make the whole world kin. When he says of Duncan:-- + + "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well," + +he touches the feelings of mortals of all times and opens the door for +imaginative activity, causing us to wonder why life should be a fitful +fever, followed by an incommunicable sleep. Much of what we call +literature would not survive the test of Shakespeare's definition; but +true literature must appeal to imagination and feeling as well as to +intellect. No mere definition can take the place of what may be called +a feeling for literature. Such a feeling will develop as the best +English poetry and prose: are sympathetically read. Wordsworth had +this feeling when he defined the poets as those:-- + + "Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares." + +The Mission of English Literature.--It is a pertinent question to +ask, What has English literature to offer? + +In the first place, to quote Ben Jonson:-- + + "The thirst that from the soul cloth rise + Doth ask a drink divine." + +English literature is of preėminent worth in helping to supply that +thirst. It brings us face to face with great ideals, which increase +our sense of responsibility for the stewardship of life and tend to +raise the level of our individual achievement. We have a heightened +sense of the demands which life makes and a better comprehension of +the "far-off divine event" toward which we move, after we have heard +Swinburne's ringing call:-- + + "...this thing is God, + To be man with thy might, + To grow straight in the strength + of thy spirit, and live out thy life + as the light." + +We feel prompted to act on the suggestion of-- + + "...him who sings + To one clear harp in divers tones, + That men may rise on striping-stones + Of their dead selves to higher things."[4] + +In the second place, the various spiritual activities demanded for the +interpretation of the best things in literature add to enjoyment. This +pleasure, unlike that which arises from physical gratification, +increases with age, and often becomes the principal source of +entertainment as life advances. Shakespeare has Prospero say:-- + + "...my library + Was dukedom large enough." + +The suggestions from great minds disclose vistas that we might never +otherwise see. Browning truly says:-- + + "...we're made so that we love + First when we see them painted, things we have passed + Perhaps a hundred tunes nor cared to see." + +Sometimes it is only after reading Shakespeare that we can see-- + + "...winking Mary buds begin + To ope their golden eyes. + With everything that pretty is." + +and only after spending some time in Wordsworth's company that the +common objects of our daily life become invested with-- + + "The glory and the freshness of a dream." + +In the third place, we should emphasize the fact that one great +function of English literature is to bring deliverance to souls weary +with routine, despondent, or suffering the stroke of some affliction. +In order to transfigure the everyday duties of life, there is need of +imagination, of a vision such as the poets give. Without such a vision +the tasks of life are drudgery. The dramas of the poets bring relief +and incite to nobler action. + + "The soul hath need of prophet and redeemer. + Her outstretched wings against her prisoning bars + She waits for truth, and truth is with the dreamer + Persistent as the myriad light of stars."[5] + +We need to listen to a poet like Browning, who-- + + "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." + +In the fourth place, the twentieth century is emphasizing the fact +that neither happiness nor perpetuity of government is possible +without the development of a spirit of service,--a truth long since +taught by English literature. We may learn this lesson from _Beowulf_, +the first English epic, from Alfred the Great, from William Langland, +and from Chaucer's _Parish Priest_. All Shakespeare's greatest and +happiest characters, all the great failures of his dramas, are sermons +on this text. In _The Tempest_ he presents Ariel, tendering his +service to Prospero:-- + + "All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come + To answer thy best pleasure." + +Shakespeare delights to show Ferdinand winning Miranda through +service, and Caliban remaining an abhorred creature because he +detested service. Much of modern literature is an illuminated text on +the glory of service. Coleridge voiced for all the coming years what +has grown to be almost an elemental feeling to the English-speaking +race:-- + + "He prayeth best who loveth best + All things both great and small." + +The Home and Migrations of the Anglo-Saxon Race.--Just as there was +a time when no English foot had touched the shores of America, so +there was a period when the ancestors of the English lived far away +from the British Isles. For nearly four hundred years prior to the +coming of the Anglo-Saxons, Britain had been a Roman province. In 410 +A.D. the Romans withdrew their legions from Britain to protect Rome +herself against swarms of Teutonic invaders. About 449 a band of +Teutons, called Jutes, left Denmark, landed on the Isle of Thanet (in +the north-eastern part of Kent), and began the conquest of Britain. +Warriors from the tribes of the Angles and the Saxons soon followed, +and drove westward the original inhabitants, the Britons or Welsh, +_i.e._ foreigners, as the Teutons styled the natives. + +Before the invasion of Britain, the Teutons inhabited the central part +of Europe as far south as the Rhine, a tract which in a large measure +coincides with modern Germany. The Jutes, Angles, and Saxons were +different tribes of Teutons. These ancestors of the English dwelt in +Denmark and in the lands extending southward along the North Sea. + +The Angles, an important Teutonic tribe, furnished the name for the +new home, which was called Angle-land, afterward shortened into +England. The language spoken by these tribes is generally called +Anglo-Saxon or Saxon. + +The Training of the Race.--The climate is a potent factor in +determining the vigor and characteristics of a race. Nature reared the +Teuton like a wise but not indulgent parent. By every method known to +her, she endeavored to render him fit to colonize and sway the world. +Summer paid him but a brief visit. His companions were the frost, the +fluttering snowflake, the stinging hail. For music, instead of the +soft notes of a shepherd's pipe under blue Italian or Grecian skies, +he listened to the north wind whistling among the bare branches, or to +the roar of an angry northern sea upon the bleak coast. + +The feeble could not withstand the rigor of such a climate, in the +absence of the comforts of civilization. Only the strongest in each +generation survived; and these transmitted to their children +increasing vigor. Warfare was incessant not only with nature but also +with the surrounding tribes. Nature kept the Teuton in such a school +until he seemed fit to colonize the world and to produce a literature +that would appeal to humanity in every age. + +The Early Teutonic Religion.--In the early days on the continent, +before the Teuton had learned of Christianity, his religious beliefs +received their most pronounced coloring from the rigors of his +northern climate, from the Frost Giants, the personified forces of +evil, with whom he battled. The kindly, life-bringing spring and +summer, which seemed to him earth's redeeming divinity, were soon +slain by the arrows that came from the winter's quivers. Not even +Thor, the wielder of the thunderbolt, nor Woden, the All-Father, +delayed the inevitable hour when the dusk of winter came, when the +voice of Baldur could no longer be heard awaking earth to a new life. +The approach of the "twilight of the gods," the _Götterdämmerung_, was +a stern reality to the Teuton. + +[Illustration: WODEN.] + +Although instinct with gloomy fatalism, this religion taught bravery. +None but the brave were invited to Valhalla to become Woden's guest. +The brave man might perish, but even then he won victory; for he was +invited to sit with heroes at the table of the gods. "None but the +brave deserves the fair," is merely a modern softened rendering of the +old spirit. + +The Christian religion, which was brought to the Teuton after he had +come to England, found him already cast in a semi-heroic mold. But +before he could proceed on his matchless career of world conquest, +before he could produce a Shakespeare and plant his flag in the +sunshine of every land, it was necessary for this new faith to develop +in him the belief that a man of high ideals, working in unison with +the divinity that shapes his end, may rise superior to fate and be +given the strength to overcome the powers of evil and to mold the +world to his will. The intensity of this faith, swaying an energetic +race naturally fitted to respond to the great moral forces of the +universe, has enabled the Anglo-Saxon to produce the world's greatest +literature, to evolve the best government for developing human +capabilities, and to make the whole world feel the effect of his +ideals and force of character. At the close of the nineteenth century, +a French philosopher wrote a book entitled _Anglo-Saxon Superiority, +In What Does it Consist?_ His answer was, "In self-reliance and in the +happiness found in surmounting the material and moral difficulties of +life." A study of the literature in which the ideals of the race are +most artistically and effectively embodied will lead to much the same +conclusion. + +The History of Anglo-Saxon England.--The first task of the +Anglo-Saxons after settling in England was to subdue the British, the +race that has given King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table to +English literature. By 600 A.D., after a century and a half of +struggle, the Anglo-Saxons had probably occupied about half of +England. + +They did not build on the civilization that Rome had left when she +withdrew in 410, but destroyed the towns and lived in the country. The +typical Englishman still loves to dwell in a country home. The work of +Anglo-Saxon England consisted chiefly in tilling the soil and in +fighting. + +The year 597 marks an especially important date, the coming of St. +Augustine, who brought the Christian faith to the Anglo-Saxons. +Education, literature, and art followed finding their home in the +monasteries. + +For nearly 400 years after coming to England, the different tribes +were not united under one ruler. Not until 830 did Egbert, king of the +West Saxons, become overlord of England. Before and after this time, +the Danes repeatedly plundered the land. They finally settled in the +eastern part above the Thames. Alfred (849-900), the greatest of +Anglo-Saxon rulers, temporarily checked them, but in the latter part +of the tenth century they were more troublesome, and in 1017 they made +Canute, the Dane, king of England. Fortunately the Danes were of the +same race, and they easily amalgamated with the Saxons. + +These invasions wasted the energies of England during more than two +centuries, but this long period of struggle brought little change to +the institutions or manner of life in Anglo-Saxon England. The +_witan_, or assembly of wise men, the forerunner of the present +English parliament, met in 1066 and chose Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon +king. + +During these six hundred rears, the Anglo-Saxons conquered the +British, accepted Christianity, fought the Danes, finally amalgamating +with them, brought to England a lasting representative type of +government, established the fundamental customs of the race, surpassed +all contemporary western European peoples in the production of +literature, and were ready to receive fresh impetus from the Normans +in 1066. + +The Anglo-Saxon Language.--Our oldest English literature is written +in the language spoken by the Angles and the Saxons. This at first +sight looks like a strange tongue to one conversant with modern +English only; but the language that we employ to-day has the +framework, the bone and sinew, of the earlier tongue. Modern English +is no more unlike Anglo-Saxon than a bearded man is unlike his former +childish self. A few examples will show the likeness and the +difference. "The noble queen" would in Anglo-Saxon be _s=eo aešele +cw=en_; "the noble queen's," _š=aere aešelan cw=ene_. _S=eo_ is the +nominative feminine singular, _š=aere_ the genitive, of the definite +article. The adjective and the noun also change their forms with the +varying cases. In its inflections, Anglo-Saxon resembles its sister +language, the modern German. + +After the first feeling of strangeness has passed away, it is easy to +recognize many of the old words. Take, for instance, this from +_Beowulf_:-- + + "...š=y h=e šone f=eond ofercw=om, + gehn=aegde helle g=ast." + +Here are eight words, apparently strange, but even a novice soon +recognizes five of them: _h=e, f=eond_ (fiend), _ofercw=om_ +(overcame), _helle_ (hell), _g=ast_ (ghost). The word _šone_, strange +as it looks, is merely the article "the." + + ...therefore he overcame the fiend, + Subdued the ghost of hell. + +Let us take from the same poem another passage, containing the famous +simile:-- + + "...l=eoht inne st=od, + efne sw=a of hefene h=adre sc=ineš + rodores candel." + +Of these eleven words, seven may be recognized: _l=eoht_ (light), +_inne_ (in), _st=od_ (stood), _of_, _hefene_ (heaven),_sc=ineš_ +(shineth), _candel_ (candle). + + ...a light stood within, + Even so from heaven serenely shineth + The firmament's candle. + +Some prefer to use "Old English" in place of "Anglo-Saxon" in order to +emphasize the continuity of the development of the language. It is, +however, sometimes convenient to employ different terms for different +periods of development of the same entity. We do not insist on calling +a man a "grown boy," although there may be no absolute line of +demarcation between boy and man. + +Earliest Anglo-Saxon Literature.--As with the Greeks and Romans, so +with the Teutons, poetry afforded the first literary outlet for the +feelings. The first productions were handed down by memory. Poetry is +easily memorized and naturally lends itself to singing and musical +accompaniment. Under such circumstances, even prose would speedily +fall into metrical form. Poetry is, furthermore, the most suitable +vehicle of expression for the emotions. The ancients, unlike modern +writers, seldom undertook to make literature unless they felt so +deeply that silence was impossible. + +The Form of Anglo-Saxon Poetry.--Each line is divided Into two parts +by a major pause. Because each of these parts was often printed as a +complete line in old texts, _Beowulf_ has sometimes been called a poem +of 6368 lines, although it has but 3184. + +A striking characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry is consonantal +alliteration; that is, the repetition of the same consonant at the +beginning of words in the same line:-- + + "Grendel gongan; Godes yrre baer." + Grendel going; God's anger bare. + +The usual type of Anglo-Saxon poetry has two alliterations in the +first half of the line and one in the second. The lines vary +considerably in the number of syllables. The line from _Beowulf_ +quoted just above has nine syllables. The following line from the same +poem has eleven:-- + + "Flota f=amig-heals, fugle gel=icost." + The floater foamy-necked, to a fowl most like. + +This line, also from _Beowulf_ has eight syllables:-- + + "N=ipende niht, and noršan wind." + Noisome night, and northern wind. + +Vowel alliteration is less common. Where this is employed, the vowels +are generally different, as is shown in the principal words of the +following line:-- + + "On =ead, on =aeht, on eorcan st=an." + On wealth, on goods, on precious stone. + +End rime is uncommon, but we must beware of thinking that there is no +rhythm, for that is a pronounced characteristic. + +Anglo-Saxon verse was intended to be sung, and hence rhythm and accent +or stress are important. Stress and the length of the line are varied; +but we usually find that the four most important words, two in each +half of the line, are stressed on their most important syllable. +Alliteration usually shows where to place three stresses. A fourth +stress generally falls on a word presenting an emphatic idea near the +end of the line. + +[Illustration: EXETER CATHEDRAL.] + +The Manuscripts that have handed down Anglo-Saxon Literature.--The +earliest Anglo-Saxon poetry was transmitted by the memories of men. +Finally, with the slow growth of learning, a few acquired the art of +writing, and transcribed on parchment a small portion of the current +songs. The introduction of Christianity ushered in prose translations +and a few original compositions, which were taken down on parchment +and kept in the monasteries. + +The study of Anglo-Saxon literature is comparatively recent, for its +treasures have not been long accessible. Its most famous poem, +_Beowulf_, was not printed until the dawn of the nineteenth century. +In 1822 Dr. Blume, a German professor of law, happened to find in a +monastery at Vercelli, Italy, a large volume of Anglo-Saxon +manuscript, containing a number of fine poems and twenty-two sermons. +This is now known as the _Vercelli Book_. No one knows how it happened +to reach Italy. Another large parchment volume of poems and miscellany +was deposited by Bishop Leofric at the cathedral of Exeter in +Devonshire, about 1050 A.D. This collection, one of the prized +treasures of that cathedral, is now called the _Exeter Book_. + +Many valuable manuscripts were destroyed at the dissolution of the +monasteries in the time of Henry VIII., between 1535 and 1540. John +Bale, a contemporary writer, says that "those who purchased the +monasteries reserved the books, some to scour their candlesticks, some +to rub their boots, some they sold to the grocers and soap sellers, +and some they sent over sea to the bookbinders, not in small numbers, +but at times whole ships full, to the wonder of foreign nations." + +The Anglo-Saxon Scop and Gleeman.--Our earliest poetry was made +current and kept fresh in memory by the singers. The kings and nobles +often attached to them a _scop_, or maker of verses. When the +warriors, after some victorious battle, were feasting at their long +tables, the banquet was not complete without the songs of the _scop_. +While the warriors ate the flesh of boar and deer, and warmed their +blood with horns of foaming ale, the _scop_, standing where the blaze +from a pile of logs disclosed to him the grizzly features of the men, +sang his most stirring songs, often accompanying them with the music +of a rude harp. As the feasters roused his enthusiasm with their +applause, he would sometimes indulge in an outburst of eloquent +extempore song. Not infrequently the imagination of some king or noble +would be fired, and he would sing of his own great deeds. + +We read in _Beowulf_ that in Hrothgar's famous hall-- + + "...š=aer was hearpan sw=eg, + swutol sang scopes." + + ...there was sound of harp + Loud the singing of the scop. + +In addition to the _scop_, who was more or less permanently attached +to the royal court or hall of a noble, there was a craft of gleemen +who roved from hall to hall. In the song of _Widsiš_ we catch a +glimpse of the life of a gleeman:-- + + "Sw=a scrišende gesceapum hweorfaš + gl=eomen gumena geond grunda fela." + + Thus roving, with shapéd songs there wander + The gleemen of the people through many lands. + +The _scop_ was an originator of poetry, the gleeman more often a mere +repeater, although this distinction in the use of the terms was not +observed in later times. + +The Songs of Scop and Gleeman.--The subject matter of these songs +was suggested by the most common experiences of the time. These were +with war, the sea, and death. + +[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON GLEEMAN. _From the tapestry designed by +H.A. Bone_.] + +The oldest Anglo-Saxon song known, which is called _Widsiš_ or the +_Far Traveler_, has been preserved in the _Exeter Book_. This song was +probably composed in the older Angle-land on the continent and brought +to England in the memories of the singers. The poem is an account of +the wanderings of a gleeman over a great part of Europe. Such a song +will mean little to us unless we can imaginatively represent the +circumstances under which it was sung, the long hall with its tables +of feasting, drinking warriors, the firelight throwing weird shadows +among the smoky rafters. The imagination of the warriors would be +roused as similar experiences of their own were suggested by these +lines in Widsiš's song:-- + + "Ful oft of š=am h=eape hw=inende fl=eag + giellende g=ar on grome š=eode." + + Full oft from that host hissing flew + The whistling spear on the fierce folk. + +The gleeman ends this song with two thoughts characteristic of the +poets of the Saxon race. He shows his love fur noble deeds, and he +next thinks of the shortness of life, as he sings:-- + + "In mortal court his deeds are not unsung, + Such as a noble man mill show to men, + Till all doth flit away, both life and light." + +A greater _scop_, looking at life through Saxon eyes, sings:-- + + "We are such stuff + As dreams are made on; and our little life + Is rounded with a sleep."[6] + +The _scop_ in the song called _The Wanderer (Exeter Book)_ tells how +fleeting are riches, friend, kinsman, maiden,--all the "earth-stead," +and he also makes us think of Shakespeare's "insubstantial pageant +faded" which leaves "not a rack behind." + +Another old song, also found in the _Exeter Book_, is the _Seafarer_. +We must imagine the _scop_ recalling vivid experiences to our early +ancestors with this song of the sea:-- + + "Hail flew in hard showers. + And nothing I heard + But the wrath of the waters, + The icy-cold way + At times the swan's song; + In the scream of the gannet + I sought for my joy, + In the moan of the sea whelp + For laughter of men, + In the song of the sea-mew + For drinking of mead."[7] + +To show that love of the sea yet remains one of the characteristics of +English poetry, we may quote by way of comparison a song sung more +than a thousand years later, in Victoria's reign:-- + + "The wind is as iron that rings, + The foam heads loosen and flee; + It swells and welters and swings, + The pulse of the tide of the sea. + + Let the wind shake our flag like a feather, + Like the plumes of the foam of the sea! + * * * * * + In the teeth of the hard glad a weather, + In the blown wet face of the sea."[8] + +Kipling in _A Song of the English_ says of the sea:-- + + "...there's never a wave of all her waves + But marks our English dead." + +Another song from the _Exeter Book_ is called _The Fortunes of Men_. +It gives vivid pictures of certain phases of life among the +Anglo-Saxons:-- + + "One shall sharp hunger slay; + One shall the storms beat down; + One be destroyed by darts, + One die in war. + Orre shall live losing + The light of his eyes, + Feel blindly with his fingers; + And one lame of foot. + With sinew-wound wearily + Wasteth away. + Musing and mourning; + With death in his mind. + * * * * * + One shall die by the dagger, + In wrath, drenched with ale, + Wild through the wine, on the mead bench + Too swift with his words + Too swift with his words; + Shall the wretched one lose."[9] + +The songs that we have noted, together with _Beowulf_, the greatest of +them all, will give a fair idea of _scopic_ poetry. + +BEOWULF + +The Oldest Epic of the Teutonic Race.--The greatest monument of +Anglo-Saxon poetry is called _Beowulf_, from the name of its hero. His +character and exploits give unity and dignity to the poem and raise it +to the rank of an epic. + +The subject matter is partly historical and partly mythical. The deeds +and character of an actual hero may have furnished the first +suggestions for the songs, which were finally elaborated into +_Beowulf_, as we now have it. The poem was probably a long time in +process of evolution, and many different _scops_ doubtless added new +episodes to the song, altering it by expansion and contraction under +the inspiration of different times and places. Finally, it seems +probable that some one English poet gave the work its present form, +making it a more unified whole, and incorporating in it Christian +opinions. + +We do not know when the first _scop_ sang of Beowulf's exploits; but +he probably began before the ancestors of the English came to England. +We are unable to ascertain how long _Beowulf_ was in process of +evolution; but there is internal evidence for thinking that part of +the poem could not have been composed before 500 A.D. Ten Brink, a +great German authority, thinks that Beowulf was given its present form +not far from 700 A.D. The unique manuscript in the British Museum is +written in the West Saxon dialect of Alfred the Great's time +(849-901). + +The characters, scenery, and action of _Beowulf_ belong to the older +Angle-land on the continent of Europe; but the poem is essentially +English, even though the chief action is laid in what is now known as +Denmark and the southern part of Sweden. Hrothgar's hall, near which +the hero performed two of his great exploits, was probably on the +island of Seeland. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF BEGINNING OF COTTON MS. OF BEOWULF.] + +TRANSLATION + + Lo! we, of the Gar-Danes in distant days, + The folk-kings' fame have found. + How deeds of daring the aethelings did. + Oft Scyld-Scefing from hosts of schathers, + From many men the mead seats [reft]. + +The student who wishes to enter into the spirit of the poem will do +well to familiarize himself with the position of these coasts, and +with a description of their natural features in winter as well as in +summer. Heine says of the sea which Beowulf sailed:-- + + "Before me rolleth a waste of water ... and above me go rolling + the storm clouds, the formless dark gray daughters of air, which + from the sea in cloudy buckets scoop up the water, ever wearied + lifting and lifting, and then pour it again in the sea, a mournful, + wearisome business. Over the sea, flat on his face, lies the + monstrous, terrible North Wind, sighing and sinking his voice as in + secret, like an old grumbler; for once in good humor, unto the ocean + he talks, and he tells her wonderful stories." + +Beowulf's Three Great Exploits.--The hero of the poem engaged in +three great contests, all of which were prompted by unselfishness and +by a desire to relieve human misery. Beowulf had much of the spirit +that animates the social worker to-day. If such a hero should live in +our time, he would probably be distinguished fur social service, for +fighting the forces of evil which cripple or destroy so many human +beings. + +Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, built a hall, named Heorot, where his +followers could drink mead, listen to the scop, enjoy the music of the +harp, and find solace in social intercourse during the dreary winter +evenings. + + "So liv'd on all happy the host of the kinsmen + In game and in glee, until one night began, + A fiend out of hell-pit, the framing of evil, + And Grendel forsooth the grim guest was hight, + The mighty mark-strider the holder of moorland, + The fen and the fastness."[10] + +This monster, Grendel, came from the moors and devoured thirty of the +thanes. For twelve winters he visited Heorot and killed some of the +guests whenever he heard the sound of festivity in the hall, until at +length the young hero Beowulf, who lived a day's sail from Hrothgar, +determined to rescue Heorot from this curse. The youth selected +fourteen warriors and on a "foamy-necked floater, most like to a +bird," he sailed to Hrothgar. + +Beowulf stated his mission, and he and his companions determined to +remain in Heorot all night. Grendel heard them and came. + + "...he quickly laid hold of + A soldier asleep, suddenly tore him, + Bit his bone-prison, the blood drank in currents, + Swallowed in mouthfuls."[11] + +Bare-handed, Beowulf grappled with the monster, and they wrestled up +and down the hall, which was shaken to its foundations. This terrible +contest ended when Beowulf tore away the arm and shoulder of Grendel, +who escaped to the marshes to die. + +In honor of the victory, Hrothgar gave to Beowulf many presents and a +banquet in Heorot. After the feast, the warriors slept in the hall, +but Beowulf went to the palace. He had been gone but a short time, +when in rushed Grendel's mother, to avenge the death of her son. She +seized a warrior, the king's dearest friend, and carried him away. In +the morning, the king said to Beowulf:-- + + "My trusty friend AEschere is dead... The cruel hag has wreaked + on him her vengeance. The country folk said there were two of them, + one the semblance of a woman; the other the specter of a man. Their + haunt is in the remote land, in the crags of the wolf, the + wind-beaten cliffs, and untrodden bogs, where the dismal stream + plunges into the drear abyss of an awful lake, overhung with a dark + and grizzly wood rooted down to the water's edge, where a lurid + flame plays nightly on the surface of the flood--and there lives not + the man who knows its depth! So dreadful is the place that the + hunted stag, hard driven by the hounds, will rather die on the bank + than find a shelter there. A place of terror! When the wind rises, + the waves mingle hurly-burly with the clouds, the air is stifling + and rumbles with thunder. To thee alone we look for relief."[12] + +Beowulf knew that a second and harder contest was at hand, but without +hesitation he followed the bloody trail of Grendel's mother, until it +disappeared at the edge of a terrible flood. Undaunted by the dragons +and serpents that made their home within the depths, he grasped a +sword and plunged beneath the waves. After sinking what seemed to him +a day's space, he saw Grendel's mother, who came forward to meet him. +She dragged him into her dwelling, where there was no water, and the +fight began. The issue was for a time doubtful; but at last Beowulf +ran her through with a gigantic sword, and she fell dead upon the +floor of her dwelling. A little distance away, he saw the dead body of +Grendel. The hero cut off the head of the monster and hastened away to +Hrothgar's court. After receiving much praise and many presents, +Beowulf and his warriors sailed to their own land, where he ruled as +king for fifty years. + +He engaged in his third and hardest conflict when he was old. A +firedrake, angered at the loss of a part of a treasure, which he had +for three hundred years been guarding in a cavern, laid waste the land +in the hero's kingdom. Although Beowulf knew that this dragon breathed +flames of fire and that mortal man could not long withstand such +weapons, he sought the cavern which sheltered the destroyer and fought +the most terrible battle of his life. He killed the dragon, but +received mortal hurt from the enveloping flames. The old hero had +finally fallen; but he had through life fought a good fight, and he +could say as the twilight passed into the dark:-- + + "I have ruled the people fifty years; no folk-king was there of them + that dwelt about me durst touch me with his sword or cow me through + terror. I bided at home the hours of destiny, guarded well mine own, + sought not feuds with guile, swore not many an oath unjustly."[13] + +The poem closes with this fitting epitaph for the hero:-- + + "Quoth they that he was a world-king forsooth, + The mildest of all men, unto men kindest, + To his folk the most gentlest, most yearning of fame."[14] + +Wherein Beowulf is Typical of the Anglo-Saxon Race.--_Beowulf_ is by +far the most important Anglo-Saxon poem, because it presents in the +rough the persistent characteristics of the race. This epic shows the +ideals of our ancestors, what they held most dear, the way they lived +and died. + +I. We note the love of liberty and law, the readiness to fight any +dragon that threatened these. The English _Magna Charta_ and _Petition +of Right_ and the American _Declaration of Independence_ are an +extension of the application of the same principles embodied in +_Beowulf_. The old-time spirit of war still prevails in all branches +of the race; but the contest is to-day directed against dragons of a +different type from Grendel,--against myriad forms of industrial and +social injustice and against those forces which have been securing +special privileges for some and denying equal opportunity for all. + +II. _Beowulf_ is a recognition in general of the great moral forces of +the universe. The poem upholds the ideals of personal manliness, +bravery, loyalty, devotion to duty. The hero has the ever-present +consciousness that death is preferable to dishonor. He taught his +thane to sing:-- + + "Far better stainless death + Than life's dishonored breath." + +III. In this poem, the action outweighs the words. The keynote to +_Beowulf_ is deeds. In New England, more than a thousand years later, +Thoreau wrote, "Be not simply good; be good for something." In reading +other literatures, for instance the Celtic, we often find that the +words overbalance the action. The Celt tells us that when two bulls +fought, the "sky was darkened by the turf thrown up by their feet and +by the foam from their mouths. The province rang with their roar and +the inhabitants hid in caves or climbed the hills." + +Again, more attention is paid to the worth of the subject matter and +to sincerity of utterance than to mere form or polish. The literature +of this race has usually been more distinguished for the value of the +thought than for artistic presentation. Prejudice is felt to-day +against matter that relies mainly on art to secure effects. + +IV. Repression of sentiment is a marked characteristic of _Beowulf_ +and it still remains a peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon race. Some +people say vastly more than they feel. This race has been inclined to +feel more than it expresses. When it was transplanted to New England, +the same characteristic was prominent, the same apparent contradiction +between sentiment and stern, unrelenting devotion to duty. In _Snow +Bound_, the New England poet, Whittier, paints this portrait of a New +England maiden, still Anglo-Saxon to the core:-- + + "A full, rich nature, free to trust, + Truthful and almost sternly just, + Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, + And make her generous thought a fact, + Keeping with many a light disguise + The secret of self-sacrifice." + +No matter what stars now shine over them, the descendants of the +English are still truthful and sternly just; they still dislike to +give full expression to their feelings; they still endeavor to +translate thoughts into deeds, and in this world where all need so +much help, they take self-sacrifice as a matter of course. The spirit +of _Beowulf_, softened and consecrated by religion, still persists in +Anglo-Saxon thought and action. + +THE CAEDMONIAN CYCLE + +Caedmon.--In 597 St. Augustine began to teach the Christian religion +to the Anglo-Saxons. The results of this teaching were shown in the +subsequent literature. In what is known as Caedmon's _Paraphrase_, the +next great Anglo-Saxon epic, there is no decrease in the warlike +spirit. Instead of Grendel, we have Satan as the arch-enemy against +whom the battle rages. + +Caedmon, who died in 680, was until middle life a layman attached to +the monastery at Whitby, on the northeast coast of Yorkshire. Since +the _Paraphrase_ has been attributed to Caedmon on the authority of +the Saxon historian Bede, born in 673, we shall quote Bede himself on +the subject, from his famous _Ecclesiastical History_:-- + + "Caedmon, having lived in a secular habit until he was well advanced + in years, had never learned anything of versifying; for which + reason, being sometimes at entertainments, where it was agreed for + the sake of mirth that all present should sing in their turns, when + he saw the instrument come toward him, he rose from table and + returned home. + + "Having done so at a certain time, and gone out of the house where + the entertainment was, to the stable, where he had to take care of + the horses that night, he there composed himself to rest at the + proper time; a person appeared to him in his sleep, and, saluting + him by his name, said, 'Caedmon, sing some song to me.' He answered, + 'I cannot sing; for that was the reason why I left the entertainment + and retired to this place, because I could not sing.' The other who + talked to him replied, 'However, you shall sing.' 'What shall I + sing?' rejoined he. 'Sing the beginning of created beings,' said the + other. Hereupon he presently began to sing verses to the praise of + God." + +Caedmon remembered the poetry that he had composed in his dreams, and +repeated it in the morning to the inmates of the monastery. They +concluded that the gift of song was divinely given and invited him to +enter the monastery and devote his time to poetry. + +Of Caedmon's work Bede says:-- + + "He sang the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the + history of Genesis: and made many verses on the departure of the + children of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the land of + promise, with many other histories from Holy Writ; the incarnation, + passion, resurrection of our Lord, and his ascension into heaven; + the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the preaching of the Apostles; + also the terror of future judgment, the horror of the pains of hell, + and the delights of heaven." + +The Authorship and Subject Matter of the Caedmonian Cycle.--The +first edition of the _Paraphrase_ was published in 1655 by Junius, an +acquaintance of Milton. Junius attributed the entire _Paraphrase_ to +Caedmon, on the authority of the above quotations from Bede. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF BEGINNING OF JUNIAN MANUSCRIPT OF +CAEDMON.] + +TRANSLATION + + For us it is mickle right that we should praise with words, love + with our hearts, the Lord of the heavens, the glorious King of the + people. He is the mighty power, the chief of all exalted creatures, + Lord Almighty. + +The _Paraphrase_ is really composed of three separate poems: the +_Genesis_, the _Exodus_, and the _Daniel_; and these are probably the +works of different writers. Critics are not agreed whether any of +these poems in their present form can be ascribed to Caedmon. The +_Genesis_ shows internal evidence of having been composed by several +different writers, but some parts of this poem may be Caedmon's own +work. The _Genesis_, like Milton's _Paradise Lost_, has for its +subject matter the fall of man and its consequences. The _Exodus_, the +work of an unknown writer, is a poem of much originality, on the +escape of the children of Israel from Egypt, their passage through the +Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh's host. The _Daniel_, an +uninteresting poem of 765 lines, paraphrases portions of the book of +_Daniel_ relating to Nebuchadnezzar's dreams, the fiery furnace, and +Belshazzar's feast. + +Characteristics of the Poetry.--No matter who wrote the +_Paraphrase_, we have the poetry, a fact which critics too often +overlook. Though the narrative sometimes closely follows the Biblical +account in _Genesis_, _Exodus_, and _Daniel_, there are frequent +unfettered outbursts of the imagination. The _Exodus_ rings with the +warlike notes of the victorious Teutonic race. + +The _Genesis_ possesses special interest for the student, since many +of its strong passages show a marked likeness to certain parts of +Milton's _Paradise Lost_. As some critics have concluded that Milton +must have been familiar with the Caedmonian _Genesis_, it will be +instructive to note the parallelism between the two poems. Caedmon's +hell is "without light and full of flame." Milton's flames emit no +light; they only make "darkness visible." The following lines are from +the _Genesis_:-- + + "The Lord made anguish a reward, a home + In banishment, hell groans, hard pain, and bade + That torture house abide the joyless fall. + When with eternal night and sulphur pains, + Fullness of fire, dread cold, reek and red flames, + He knew it filled."[15] + +With this description we may compare these lines from Milton:-- + + "A dungeon horrible, on all sides round. + As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames + No light; but rather darkness visible. + ...a fiery deluge, fed + With ever burning sulphur unconsumed."[16] + +In Caedmon "the false Archangel and his band lay prone in liquid fire, +scarce visible amid the clouds of rolling smoke." In Milton, Satan is +shown lying "prone on the flood," struggling to escape "from off the +tossing of these fiery waves," to a plain "void of light," except what +comes from "the glimmering of these livid flames." The older poet +sings with forceful simplicity:-- + + "Then comes, at dawn, the east wind, keen with frost." + +Milton writes:-- + + "...the parching air + Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire."[17] + +When Satan rises on his wings to cross the flaming vault, the +_Genesis_ gives in one line an idea that Milton expands into two and a +half:-- + + "Swang šaet f=yr on tw=a f=eondes craefte." + Struck the fire asunder with fiendish craft. + + "...on each hand the flames, + Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, rolled + In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale."[18] + +It is not certain that Milton ever knew of the existence of the +Caedmonian _Genesis_; for he was blind three years before it was +published. But whether he knew of it or not, it is a striking fact +that the temper of the Teutonic mind during a thousand years should +have changed so little toward the choice and treatment of the subject +of an epic, and that the first great poem known to have been written +on English soil should in so many points have anticipated the greatest +epic of the English race. + +THE CYNEWULF CYCLE + +Cynewulf is the only great Anglo-Saxon poet who affixed his name to +certain poems and thus settled the question of their authorship. We +know nothing of his life except what we infer from his poetry. He was +probably born near the middle of the eighth century, and it is not +unlikely that he passed part of his youth as a thane of some noble. He +became a man of wide learning, well skilled in "wordcraft" and in the +Christian traditions of the time. Such learning could then hardly have +been acquired outside of some monastery whither he may have retired. + +[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON MUSICIANS. _Illuminated MS., British +Museum._] + +In variety, inventiveness, and lyrical qualities, his poetry shows an +advance over the Caedmonian cycle. He has a poet's love for the beauty +of the sun and the moon (_heofon-condelle_), for the dew and the rain, +for the strife of the waves (_holm-šroece_), for the steeds of the sea +(_sund-hengestas_), and for the "all-green" (_eal-gr=ene_) earth. "For +Cynewulf," says a critic, "'earth's crammed with heaven and every +common bush afire with God.'" + +Cynewulf has inserted his name in runic characters in four poems: +_Christ_, _Elene_, _Juliana_, a story of a Christian martyr, and the +least important, _The Fates of the Apostles_. The _Christ_, a poem on +the Savior's Nativity, Ascension, and Judgment of the world at the +last day, sometimes suggests Dante's _Inferno_ or _Paradiso_, and +Milton's _Paradise Lost_. We see the-- + + "Flame that welters up and of worms the fierce aspect, + With the bitter-biting jaws--school of burning creatures."[19] + +Cynewulf closes the _Christ_ with almost as beautiful a conception of +Paradise as Dante's or Milton's,--a conception that could never have +occurred to a poet of the warlike Saxon race before the introduction +of Christianity:-- + + "...Hunger is not there nor thirst, + Sleep nor heavy sickness, nor the scorching of the Sun; + Neither cold nor care."[20] + +_Elene_ is a dramatic poem, named from its heroine, Helena, the mother +of the Roman emperor Constantine. A vision of the cross bearing the +inscription, "With this shalt thou conquer," appeared to Constantine +before a victorious battle and caused him to send his mother to the +Holy Land to discover the true cross. The story of her successful +voyage is given in the poem _Elene_. The miraculous power of the true +cross among counterfeits is shown in a way that suggests kinship with +the fourteenth century miracle plays. A dead man is brought in contact +with the first and the second cross, but the watchers see no divine +manifestation until he touches the third cross, when he is restored to +life. + +_Elene_ and the _Dream of the Road_, also probably written by +Cynewulf, are an Anglo-Saxon apotheosis of the cross. Some of this +Cynewulfian poetry is inscribed on the famous Ruthwell cross in +Dumfriesshire. + +Andreas and Phoenix.--Cynewulf is probably the author of _Andreas_, +an unsigned poem of special excellence and dramatic power. The poem, +"a romance of the sea," describes St. Andrew's voyage to Mermedonia to +deliver St. Matthew from the savages. The Savior in disguise is the +Pilot. The dialogue between him and St. Andrew is specially fine. The +saint has all the admiration of a Viking for his unknown Pilot, who +stands at the helm in a gale and manages the vessel as he would a +thought. + +Although the poet tells of a voyage in eastern seas, he is describing +the German ocean:-- + + "Then was sorely troubled, + Sorely wrought the whale-mere. Wallowed there the Horn-fish, + Glode the great deep through; and the gray-backed gull + Slaughter-greedy wheeled. Dark the storm-sun grew, + Waxed the winds up, grinded waves; + Stirred the surges, groaned the cordage, + Wet with breaking sea."[21] + +Cynewulf is also the probable author of the _Phoenix_, which is in +part an adaptation of an old Latin poem. The _Phoenix_ is the only +Saxon poem that gives us the rich scenery of the South, in place of +the stern northern landscape. He thus describes the land where this +fabulous bird dwells:-- + + "Calm and fair this glorious field, flashes there the sunny grove; + Happy is the holt of trees, never withers fruitage there. + Bright are there the blossoms... + In that home the hating foe houses not at all, + * * * * * + Neither sleep nor sadness, nor the sick man's weary bed, + Nor the winter-whirling snow... + ...but the liquid streamlets, + Wonderfully beautiful, from their wells upspringing, + Softly lap the land with their lovely floods."[22] + +GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ANGLO-SAXON POETRY + +Martial Spirit.--The love of war is very marked in Anglo-Saxon +poetry. This characteristic might have been expected in the songs of a +race that had withstood the well-nigh all-conquering arm of the vast +Roman Empire. + +Our study of _Beowulf_ has already shown the intensity of the martial +spirit in heathen times. These lines from the _Fight at Finnsburg_, +dating from about the same time as _Beowulf_, have only the flash of +the sword to lighten their gloom. They introduce the raven, for whom +the Saxon felt it his duty to provide food on the battlefield:-- + + "...hraefen wandrode + sweart and sealo-br=un; swurd-l=eoma st=od + swylce eal Finns-buruh f=yrenu w=aere." + + ...the raven wandered + Swart and sallow-brown; the sword-flash stood + As if all Finnsburg were afire. + +The love of war is almost as marked in the Christian poetry. There are +vivid pictures of battle against the heathen and the enemies of God, +as shown by the following selection from one of the poems of the +Caedmonian cycle:-- + + "Helmeted men went from the holy burgh, + At the first reddening of dawn, to fight: + Loud stormed the din of shields. + For that rejoiced the lank wolf in the wood, + And the black raven, slaughter-greedy bird."[23] + +_Judith_, a fragment of a religious poem, is aflame with the spirit of +war. One of its lines tells how a bird of prey-- + + "Sang with its horny beak the song of war." + +This very line aptly characterizes one of the emphatic qualities of +Anglo-Saxon poetry. + +The poems often describe battle as if it were an enjoyable game. They +mention the "Play of the spear" and speak of "putting to sleep with +the sword," as if the din of war were in their ears a slumber melody. + +One of the latest of Anglo-Saxon poems, _The Battle of Brunanburh_, +937, is a famous example of war poetry. We quote a few lines from +Tennyson's excellent translation:-- + + "Grimly with swords that were sharp from the grindstone, + Fiercely we hack'd at the flyers before us. + * * * * * + Five young kings put asleep by the sword-stroke + Seven strong earls of the army of Anlaf + Fell on the war-field, numberless numbers." + +Love of the Sea.--The Anglo-Saxon fondness for the sea has been +noted, together with the fact that this characteristic has been +transmitted to the more recent English poetry. Our forefathers rank +among the best seamen that the world has ever known. Had they not +loved to dare an unknown sea, English literature might not have +existed, and the sun might never have risen on any English flag. + +The _scop_ sings thus of Beowulf's adventure on the North Sea:-- + + "Swoln were the surges, of storms 'twas the coldest, + Dark grew the night, and northern the wind, + Rattling and roaring, rough were the billows."[24] + +In the _Seafarer_, the _scop_ also sings:-- + + "My mind now is set, + My heart's thought, on wide waters, + The home of the whale; + It wanders away + Beyond limits of land. + * * * * * + And stirs the mind's longing + To travel the way that is trackless."[25] + +In the _Andreas_, the poet speaks of the ship in one of the most +charming of Saxon similes:-- + + "Foaming Ocean beats our steed: full of speed this boat is; + Fares along foam-throated, flieth on the wave, + Likest to a bird."[26] + +Some of the most striking Saxon epithets are applied to the sea. We +may instance such a compound as _=ar-ge-bland_ (_=ar_, "oar"; +_blendan_, "to blend"), which conveys the idea of the companionship of +the oar with the sea. From this compound, modern poets have borrowed +their "oar-disturbéd sea," "oaréd sea," "oar-blending sea," and +"oar-wedded sea." The Anglo-Saxon poets call the sun rising or setting +in the sea the _mere-candel_. In Beowulf, _mere-str=aeta_, +"sea-streets," are spoken of as if they were the easily traversed +avenues of a town. + +Figures of Rhetoric.--A special characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry +is the rarity of similes. In Homer they are frequent, but Anglo-Saxon +verse is too abrupt and rapid in the succession of images to employ +the expanded simile. The long poem of _Beowulf_ contains only five +similes, and these are of the shorter kind. Two of them, the +comparison of the light in Grendel's dwelling to the beams of the sun, +and of a vessel to a flying bird, have been given in the original +Anglo-Saxon on pages 16, 17. Other similes compare the light from +Grendel's eyes to a flame, and the nails on his fingers to steel: +while the most complete simile says that the sword, when bathed in the +monster's poisonous blood, melted like ice. + +On the other hand, this poetry uses many direct and forcible +metaphors, such as "wave-ropes" for ice, the "whale-road" or +"swan-road" for the sea, the "foamy-necked floater" for a ship, the +"war-adder" for an arrow, the "bone-house" for the body. The sword is +said to sing a war song, the slain to be put to sleep with the sword, +the sun to be a candle, the flood to boil. War is appropriately called +the sword-game. + +Parallelisms.--The repetition of the same ideas in slightly +differing form, known as parallelism, is frequent. The author, wishing +to make certain ideas emphatic, repeated them with varying +phraseology. As the first sight of land is important to the sailor, +the poet used four different terms for the shore that met Beowulf's +eyes on his voyage to Hrothgar: _land, brimclifu, beorgas, +saen=aessas_ (land, sea-cliffs, mountains, promontories). + +This passage from the _Phoenix_ shows how repetition emphasizes the +absence of disagreeable things:-- + + "...there may neither snow nor rain, + Nor the furious air of frost, nor the flare of fire, + Nor the headlong squall of hail, nor the hoar frost's fall, + Nor the burning of the sun, nor the bitter cold, + Nor the weather over-warm, nor the winter shower, + Do their wrong to any wight."[27] + +The general absence of cold is here made emphatic by mentioning +special cold things: "snow," "frost," "hail," "hoar frost," "bitter +cold," "winter shower." The absence of heat is emphasized in the same +way. + +Saxon contrasted with Celtic Imagery.--A critic rightly says: "The +gay wit of the Celt would pour into the song of a few minutes more +phrases of ornament than are to be found in the whole poem of +_Beowulf_." In three lines of an old Celtic death song, we find three +similes:-- + + "Black as the raven was his brow; + Sharp as a razor was his spear; + White as lime was his skin." + +We look in Anglo-Saxon poetry in vain for a touch like this:-- + + "Sweetly a bird sang on a pear tree above the head of Gwenn before + they covered him with a turf."[28] + +Celtic literature shows more exaggeration, more love of color, and a +deeper appreciation of nature in her gentler aspects. The Celt could +write:-- + + "More yellow was her head than the flower of the broom, and her + skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands + and fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray + of the meadow fountain."[29] + +King Arthur and his romantic Knights of the Round Table are Celtic +heroes. Possibly the Celtic strain persisting in many of the Scotch +people inspires lines like these in more modern times:-- + + "The corn-craik was chirming + His sad eerie cry [30] + And the wee stars were dreaming + Their path through the sky." + +In order to produce a poet able to write both _A Midsummer Night's +Dream_ and _Hamlet_, the Celtic imagination must blend with the +Anglo-Saxon seriousness. As we shall see, this was accomplished by the +Norman conquest. + +ANGLO-SAXON PROSE + +When and where written.--We have seen that poetry normally precedes +prose. The principal part of Anglo-Saxon poetry had been produced +before much prose was written. The most productive poetic period was +between 650 and 825. Near the close of the eighth century, the Danes +began their plundering expeditions into England. By 800 they had +destroyed the great northern monasteries, like the one at Whitby, +where Caedmon is said to have composed the first religious song. As +the home of poetry was in the north of England, these Danish inroads +almost completely silenced the singers. What prose there was in the +north was principally in Latin. On the other hand, the Saxon prose was +produced chiefly in the south of England. The most glorious period of +Anglo-Saxon prose was during Alfred's reign, 871-901. + +Bede.--This famous monk (673-735) was probably the greatest teacher +and the best known man of letters and scholar in all contemporary +Europe. He is said to have translated the _Gospel of St. John_ into +Saxon, but the translation is lost. He wrote in Latin on a vast range +of subjects, from the _Scriptures_ to natural science, and from +grammar to history. He has given a list of thirty-seven works of which +he is the author. His most important work is the _Ecclesiastical +History of the English People_, which is really a history of England +from Julius Caesar's invasion to 731. The quotation from Bede's work +relative to Caedmon shows that Bede could relate things simply and +well. He passed almost all his useful life at the monastery of Jarrow +on the Tyne. + +Alfred (849-901).--The deeds and thoughts of Alfred, king of the +West Saxons from 871 until his death in 901, remain a strong moral +influence an the world, although he died more than a thousand years +ago. Posterity rightly gave him the surname of "the Great," as he is +one of the comparatively few great men of all time. E.A. Freeman, the +noted historian of the early English period, says of him:-- + + "No man recorded in history seems ever to have united so many + great and good qualities... A great part of his reign was taken up + with warfare with an enemy [the Danes] who threatened the national + being; yet he found means personally to do more for the general + enlightenment of his people than any other king in English history." + +After a Danish leader had outrageously broken his oaths to Alfred, the +Dane's two boys and their mother fell into Alfred's hands, and he +returned them unharmed. "Let us love the man," he wrote, "but hate his +sins." His revision of the legal code, known as _Alfred's Laws_, shows +high moral aim. He does not forget the slave, who was to be freed +after six years of service. His administration of the law endeavored +to secure the same justice for the poor as for the rich. + +Alfred's example has caused many to stop making excuses for not doing +more for their kind. If any one ever had an adequate excuse for not +undertaking more work than his position absolutely demanded, that man +was Alfred; yet his ill health and the wars with the Danes did not +keep him from trying to educate his people or from earning the title, +"father of English prose." Freeman even says that England owes to +Alfred's prose writing and to the encouragement that he gave to other +writers the "possession of a richer early literature than any other +people of western Europe" and the maintenance of the habit of writing +after the Norman conquest, when English was no longer used in courtly +circles. + +[Illustration: THE BEGINNING OF ALFRED'S LAWS. _Illuminated MS., +British Museum_.] + +Although most of his works are translations from the Latin, yet he has +left the stamp of his originality and sterling sense upon them all. +Finding that his people needed textbooks in the native tongue, he +studied Latin so that he might consult all accessible authorities and +translate the most helpful works, making alterations and additions to +suit his plan. For example, he found a Latin work on history and +geography by Orosius, a Spanish Christian of the fifth century; but as +this book contained much material that was unsuited to Alfred's +purposes, he omitted some parts, changed others, and, after +interviewing travelers from the far North, added much original matter. +These additions, which even now are not uninteresting reading, are the +best material in the book. This work is known as Alfred's _Orosius_. + +Alfred also translated Pope Gregory's _Pastoral Rule_ in order to show +the clergy how to teach and care for their flocks. Alfred's own words +at the beginning of the volume show how great was the need for the +work. Speaking of the clergy, he says:-- + + "There were very few on this side Humber who would know how to + render their services in English, or so much as translate an epistle + out of Latin into English; and I ween that not many would be on the + other side Humber. So few of them were there, that I cannot think of + so much as a single one, south of Thames, when I took to the + realm."[31] + +Alfred produced a work on moral philosophy, by altering and amending +the _De Consolatione Philosophiae_ of Boethius, a noble Roman who was +brutally thrown into prison and executed about 525 A.D. In simplicity +and moral power, some of Alfred's original matter in this volume was +not surpassed by any English writer for several hundred years. We +frequently find such thoughts as, "If it be not in a man's power to do +good, let him have the good intent." "True high birth is of the mind, +not of the flesh." His _Prayer_ in the same work makes us feel that he +could see the divine touch in human nature:-- + + "No enmity hast Thou towards anything... Thou, O Lord, + bringest together heavenly souls and earthly bodies, and minglest + them in this world. As they came hither from Thee, even so they also + seek to go hence to Thee." + +AElfric, 955?-1025?--The most famous theologian who followed +Alfred's example in writing native English prose, and who took Alfred +for his model, was a priest named AElfric. His chief works are his +_Homilies_, a series of sermons, and the _Lives of the Saints_. +Although much of his writing is a compilation or a translation from +the Latin Fathers, it is often remarkably vigorous in expression and +stimulating to the reader. We find such thoughts as:-- + + "God hath wrought many miracles, and He performs them every day, + but these miracles have become much less important in the sight of + men because they are very common... Spiritual miracles are greater + than the physical ones." + +To modern readers the most interesting of Aelfric's writings is his +_Colloquium_, designed to teach Latin in the monastery at Winchester. +The pupils were required to learn the Latin translation of his +dialogues in the Anglo-Saxon vernacular. Some of these dialogues are +today valuable illustrations of the social and industrial life of the +time. The following is part of the conversation between the Teacher +and the Plowman:-- + + "_Teacher_. What have you to say, plowman? How do you carry on + your work? + + "_Plowman_. O master, I work very hard; I go out at dawn, drive + the oxen to the field, and yoke them to the plow. There is no storm + so severe that I dare to hide at home, for fear of my lord, but when + the oxen are yoked, and the share and coulter have been fastened to + the plow, I must plow a whole acre or more every day. + * * * * * + "_Teacher_. Oh! oh! the labor must be great! + + "_Plowman_. It is indeed great drudgery, because I am not free."[32] + +The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.--This is the first history of any branch +of the Teutonic people in their own tongue. The _Chronicle_ has come +down to us in several different texts, according as it was compiled or +copied at different monasteries. The _Chronicle_ was probably begun in +Alfred's reign. The entries relating to earlier events were copied +from Bede's _Ecclesiastical History_ and from other Latin authorities. +The _Chronicle_ contains chiefly those events which each year +impressed the clerical compilers as the most important in the history +of the nation. This work is a fountainhead to which writers of the +history of those times must turn. + +A few extracts (translated) will show its character:-- + + "A.D. 449. This year ... Hengist and Horsa, invited by Vortigern, + King of Britons, landed in Britain, on the shore which is called + Wappidsfleet; at first in aid of the Britons, but afterwards they + fought against them." + + "806. This year the moon was eclipsed on the Kalends of September; + and Eardulf, King of the Northumbrians. was driven from his + kingdom; and Eanbert, Bishop of Hexham, died." + +Sometimes the narrative is extremely vivid. Those who know the +difficulty of describing anything impressively in a few words will +realize the excellence of this portraiture of William the Conqueror:-- + + "1087. If any would know what manner of man King William was, + the glory that he obtained, and of how many lands he was lord; then + will we describe him as we have known him... He was mild to + those good men who loved God, but severe beyond measure to those + withstood his will... So also was he a very stern and a wrathful + man, so that none durst do anything against his will, and he kept + in prison those earls who acted against his pleasure. He removed + bishops from their sees, and abbots from their offices, and he + imprisoned thanes, and at length he spared not his own brother. + Odo... Amongst other things, the good order that William + established is not to be forgotten; it was such that any man, who + was himself aught, might travel over the kingdom with a bosom-full + of gold, unmolested; and no man durst kill another... He made large + forests for the deer, and enacted laws therewith, so that whoever + killed a hart or a hind should be blinded ... and he loved the tall + stags as if he were their father." + +SUMMARY + +The Anglo-Saxons, a branch of the Teutonic race, made permanent +settlements in England about the middle of the fifth century A.D. Like +modern German, their language is highly inflected. The most +flourishing period of Anglo-Saxon poetry was between 650 and 825 A.D. +It was produced for the most part in the north of England, which was +overrun by the Danes about 800. These marauders destroyed many of the +monasteries and silenced the voices of the singers. The prose was +written chiefly in the south of England after the greatest poetic +masterpieces had been produced. The Norman Conquest of England, +beginning in 1066, brought the period to a close. + +Among the poems of this age, we may emphasize: (1) the shorter +_scopic_ pieces, of which the _Far Traveler, The Wanderer, The +Seafarer, The Fortunes of Men_, and _The Battle of Brunanburh_ are +important examples; (2) _Beowulf_, the greatest Anglo-Saxon epic poem, +which describes the deeds of an unselfish hero, shows how the +ancestors of the English lived and died, and reveals the elemental +ideals of the race; (3) the _Caedmonian Cycle_ of scriptural +paraphrases, some of which have Miltonic qualities; and (4) the +_Cynewulf Cycle_, which has the most variety and lyrical excellence. +Both of these _Cycles_ show how the introduction of Christianity +affected poetry. + +The subject matter of the poetry is principally war, the sea, and +religion. The martial spirit and love of the sea are typical of the +nation that has raised her flag in every clime. The chief qualities of +the poetry are earnestness, somberness, and strength, rather than +delicacy of touch, exuberance of imagination, or artistic adornment. + +The golden period of prose coincides in large measure with Alfred's +reign, 871-901, and he is the greatest prose writer. His translations +of Latin works to serve as textbooks for his people contain excellent +additions by him. AElfric, a tenth century prose writer, has left a +collection of sermons, called _Homilies_, and an interesting +_Colloquium_, which throws strong lights on the social life of the +time. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ is an important record of +contemporaneous events for the historian. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +In connection with the progress of literature, students should obtain +for themselves a general idea of contemporary historical events from +any of the following named works:-- + +Gardiner's_ Students' History of England_. + +Green's _Short History of the English People_. + +Walker's _Essentials in English History_. + +Cheney's _A Short History of England_. + +Lingard's _History of England_. + +Traill's _Social England_, Vol. I. + +Ramsay's _The Foundations of England_. + +LITERARY + +_Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vol. I. + +Brooke's _History of Early English Literature to the Accession of King +Alfred_. + +Morley's _English Writers_, Vols. I. and II. + +Earle's _Anglo-Saxon Literature_. + +Ten Brink's Early English Literature, Vol. I. + +_The Exeter Book_, edited and translated, by Gollancz (Early English +Text Society). + +Gurteen's _The Epic of the Fall of Man: A Comparative Study of +Caedmon, Dante, and Milton_. + +Cook's _The Christ of Cynewulf_. (The _Introduction of 97 pages gives +a valuable account of the life and writings of Cynewulf.) + +Kennedy's_ Translation of the Poems of Cynewulf_. + +Bede's _Ecclesiastical History of England and the Anglo-Saxon +Chronicle_, I vol., translated by Giles in Bohn's _Antiquarian +Library_. + +Snell's _The Age of Alfred._ + +Pauli's _Life of Alfred_ (Bohn's Antiquarian Library). + +Gem's _An Anglo-Saxon Abbot: AElfric of Eynsham_. + +_Mabinogion_ (a collection of Welsh fairy tales and romances, +_Everyman's Library_), translated by Lady Charlotte Guest. + +Pancoast and Spaeth's _Early English Poems_ (abbreviated reference) +("P & S."). + +Cook and Tinker's _Select Translations from Old English Poetry_ ("C. & +T."). + +Cook & Tinker's _Select Translations from Old English Prose_ +("C. & T. _Prose_"). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +The student who is not familiar with the original Anglo-Saxon should +read the translations specified below:-- + +Scopic Poetry.[33]--_Widsiš_ or the _Far Traveler_, translated in +Morley's _English Writers_, Vol. II, 1-11, or in C. & T.,[34] 3-8. + +_The Wanderer_, translated in P. & S., 65-68; C. & T., 50-55; Brooke, +364-367. + +_The Seafarer_, translated in P. & S., 68-70; C. & T., 44-49; Morley, +II., 21-26; Brooke, 362, 363. + +_The Fortunes of Men_, trans. in P. & S., 79-81; Morley, II., 32-37. + +_Battle of Brunanburh_, Tennyson's translation. + +What were the chief subjects of the songs of the scop? How do they +reveal the life of the time? Is there any common quality running +through them? What qualities of this verse appear in modern poetry? + +Beowulf.--This important poem should be read entire in one of the +following translations: + + Child's _Beowulf (Riverside Literature Series)_; + + Earle's _The Deeds of Beowulf, Done into Modern Prose_ (Clarendon + Press); + + Gummere's _The Oldest English Epic_; + + Morris and Wyatt's _The Tale of Beowulf_; + + Hall's _Beowulf, Translated into Modern Metres_; + + Lumsden's _Beowulf, an Old English Poem, Translated into Modern + Rhymes_ (the most readable poetic translation). + + Translations of many of the best parts of _Beowulf_ may be found in + P. & S. 5-29; C. & T., 9-24; Morley, I. 278-310; Brooke 26-73. + +Where did the exploits celebrated in the poem take place? Where was +Heorot? What was the probably time of the completion of _Beowulf_? +Describe the hero's three exploits. What analogy is there between the +conflict of natural forces in the Norseland and Beowulf's fight with +Grendel? What different attitude toward nature is manifest in modern +poetry? What is the moral lesson of the poem? Show that its chief +characteristics are typical of the Anglo-Saxon race. + +Caedmonian Cycle.--Some of the strongest passages may be found in P. +& S., 30-45; C. & T., 104-120; Morley, II. 81-101; Brooke, 290-340. +Read at the same time from Milton's _Paradise Lost_, Book I., lines +44-74, 169-184, 248-263, and _passim_. + +What evidence do we find in this cycle of the introduction of +Christianity? Who takes the place of Grendel? What account of Caedmon +does Bede give? What is the subject matter of this cycle? + +Cynewulf Cycle.--_The Poems of Cynewulf_, translated by C.W. +Kennedy. Translations of parts of this cycle may be found in Whitman's +_The Christ of Cynewulf_, and _The Exeter Book_, translated by +Gollancz. Good selections are translated in P. & S., 46-55; C. & T., +79-103; and 132-142: Morley, II., 206-241; Brooke, 371-443. For +selections from the _Phoenix_, see P & S, 54-65; C.& T., 143-163. + +What new qualities does this cycle show? What is the subject matter of +its most important poems? What is especially noticeable about the_ +Andreas and the Phoenix_? + +_General Characteristics of the Verse._--What is its usual form? What +most striking passages (a) in Beowulf; (b) elsewhere, show the Saxon +love of war and of the sea? Instance some similes and make a list of +vivid metaphors. What are the most striking parallelisms found in your +readings? What conspicuous differences are there between Saxon and +Celtic imagery? (See Morley, l, 165-239, or Guest's _Mabinogion_). +What excellencies and defects seem to you most pronounced in +Anglo-Saxon verse? + +Prose_--The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ and Bede's _Ecclesiastical +History_ are both translated in one volume of Bohn's _Antiquarian +Library_. The most interesting part of Bede for the student of +literature is the chapter relating to Caedmon (Chap. XXIV., pp. +217-220). + +In the _Chronicle_, read the entries for the years 871, 878, 897, 975, +1087, and 1137. + +Alfred's _Orosius_ is translated into modern English in the volume of +Bohn's_ Antiquarian Library_ entitled, _Alfred the Great, his Life and +Anglo-Saxon Works_, by Pauli. Sedgefield's translation of the_ +Consolations of Boethius_ distinguishes the original matter by Alfred +from the translation. Selections from Alfred's works are given in C. & +T.(_Prose_), 85-146, and in Earle's _Anglo-Saxon Literature_, 186-206. + +For selections from AElfric, see C. & T. (_Prose_), 149-192. Read +especially the _Colloquies_, 177-186. + +What was Bede's principal work? Why has Alfred been called the "father +of English prose"? What were his ideals? Mention his chief works and +their object. What is the character of AElfric's work? Why are modern +readers interested in his _Colloquium_? + +Why is the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ important? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER I: + +[Footnote 1: For special references to authors, movements and the +history of the period, see the lists under the heading, _Suggestions +for Further Study_, at the end of each chapter.] + +[Footnote 2: School libraries should own books marked *.] + +[Footnote 3: The abbreviation in parentheses after titles will be used +in the _Suggested Readings_ in place of the full title.] + +[Footnote 4: Tennyson's _In Memoriam_.] + +[Footnote 5: Florence Earls Coates's _Dream the Great Dream_.] + +[Footnote 6: Shakespeare's _The Tempest_, Act IV., Scene 1.] + +[Footnote 7: Morley's translation, _English Writers_, Vol. II., p. +21.] + +[Footnote 8: Swinburne's _A Song in Time of Order_.] + +[Footnote 9: Morley's _English Writers_, Vol. II., pp. 33, 34.] + +[Footnote 10: _Beowulf_, translated by William Morris and A.J. Wyatt.] + +[Footnote 11: Translated by J.L. Hall.] + +[Footnote 12: Earle's Translation.] + +[Footnote 13: Translated by Childs.] + +[Footnote 14: Translated by Morris and Wyatt.] + +[Footnote 15: Morley's translation.] + +[Footnote 16: _Paradise Lost_, Book I., lines 61-69.] + +[Footnote 17: _Paradise Lost_, II., 594.] + +[Footnote 18: _Ibid_., I., 222-224.] + +[Footnotes 19-22: Brooke's translation.] + +[Footnote 23: Morley's translation.] + +[Footnote 24: Brooke's translation.] + +[Footnote 25: Morley's translation.] + +[Footnotes 26-27: Brooke's translation.] + +[Footnote 28: _Llywarch's Lament for his Son Gwenn_.] + +[Footnote 29: Guest's _Mabinogion_.] + +[Footnote 30: William Motherwell's _Wearie's Well_.] + +[Footnote 31: Earle's translation.] + +[Footnote 32: Cook and Tinker's _Select Translations from Old English +Prose.] + +[Footnote 33: In his _Education of the Central Nervous System_, Chaps. +VII.-X., the author has endeavored to give some special directions for +securing definite ideas in the study of poetry.] + +[Footnote 34: For full titles, see page 50.] + + +CHAPTER II: FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066, TO CHAUCER'S DEATH, 1400 + +[Illustration: THE DEATH OF HAROLD AT HASTINGS. _From the Bayeaux +tapestry_.] + +The Norman Conquest.--The overthrow of the Saxon rule in England by +William the Conqueror in 1066 was an event of vast importance to +English literature. The Normans (Norsemen or Northmen), as they were +called, a term which shows their northern extraction, were originally +of the same blood as the English race. They settled in France in the +ninth century, married French wives, and adopted the French language. +In 1066 their leader, Duke William, and his army crossed the English +Channel and won the battle of Hastings, in which Harold, the last +Anglo-Saxon king, was killed. William thus became king of England. + +Characteristics of the Normans.--The intermixture of Teutonic and +French blood had given to the Normans the best qualities of both +races. The Norman was nimble-witted, highly imaginative, and full of +northern energy. The Saxon possessed dogged perseverance, good common +sense, if he had long enough to think, and but little imagination. +Some one has well said that the union of Norman with Saxon was like +joining the swift spirit of the eagle to the strong body of the ox, +or, again, that the Saxon furnished the dough, and the Norman the +yeast. Had it not been for the blending of these necessary qualities +in one race, English literature could not have become the first in the +world. We see the characteristics of both the Teuton and the Norman in +Shakespeare's greatest plays. A pure Saxon could not have turned from +Hamlet's soliloquy to write:-- + + "Where the bee sucks, there suck I."[1] + +Progress of the Nation, 1066-1400.--The Normans were specially +successful in giving a strong central government to England. The +feudal system, that custom of parceling out land in return for +service, was so extended by William the Conqueror, that from king +through noble to serf there was not a break in the interdependence of +one human being on another. At first the Normans were the ruling +classes and they looked down on the Saxons; but intermarriage and +community of interests united both races into one strong nation before +the close of the period. + +There was great improvement in methods of administering justice. +Accused persons no longer had to submit to the ordeal of the red-hot +iron or to trial by combat, relying on heaven to decide their +innocence. Ecclesiastical courts lost their jurisdiction over civil +cases. In the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189), great grandson of +William the Conqueror, judges went on circuits, and the germ of the +jury system was developed. + +Parliament grew more influential, and the first half of the fourteenth +century saw it organized into two bodies,--the Lords and the Commons. +Three kings who governed tyrannically or unwisely were curbed or +deposed. King John (1199-1216) was compelled to sign the _Magna +Charta_, which reduced to writing certain foundation rights of his +subjects. Edward II. (1307-1327) and Richard II. (1377-1399) were both +deposed by Parliament. One of the reasons assigned far the deposition +of Richard II. was his claim that "he alone could change and frame the +laws of the kingdom." + +The ideals of chivalry and the Crusades left their impress on the age. +One English Monarch, Richard the Lion-Hearted (1189-1199) was the +popular hero of the Third Crusade. In _Ivanhoe_ and _The Talisman_ Sir +Walter Scott presents vivid pictures of knights and crusaders. + +We may form some idea of the religious spirit of the Middle Ages from +the Gothic cathedrals, which had the same relative position in the +world's architecture as Shakespeare's work does in literature. +Travelers often declare that there is to-day nothing in England better +worth seeing than these cathedrals, which were erected in the twelfth, +thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries.[2] + +The religious, social, and intellectual life of the time was +profoundly affected by the coming of the friars (1220), who included +the earnest followers of St. Francis (1182-1226), that Good Samaritan +of the Middle Ages. The great philosopher and scientist, Roger Bacon +(1214-1294), who was centuries in advance of his time, was a +Franciscan friar. He studied at Oxford University, which had in his +time become one of the great institutions of Europe. + +The church fostered schools and learning, while the barons were +fighting. Although William Langland, a fourteenth-century cleric, +pointed out the abuses which had crept into the church, he gave this +testimony in its favor:-- + + "For if heaven be on this earth or any ease for the soul, it is in + cloister or school. For in cloister no man cometh to chide or fight, + and in school there is lowliness and love and liking to learn." + +The rise of the common people was slow. During all this period the +tillers of the soil were legally serfs, forbidden to change their +location. The Black Death (1349) and the Peasants' Revolt (1381), +although seemingly barren of results, helped them in their struggle +toward emancipation. Some bought their freedom with part of their +wages. Others escaped to the towns where new commercial activities +needed more labor. Finally, the common toiler acquired more commanding +influence by overthrowing even the French knights with his long bow. +This period laid the foundation for the almost complete disappearance +of serfdom in the fifteenth century. France waited for the terrible +Revolution of 1789 to free her serfs. England anticipated other great +modern nations in producing a literature of universal appeal because +her common people began to throw off their shackles earlier. + +This period opens with a victorious French army in England, followed +by the rule of the conquerors, who made French the language of high +life. It closes with the ascendancy of English government and speech +at home and with the mid-fourteenth century victories of English +armies on French soil, resulting in the rapture of Calais, which +remained for more than two hundred years in the possession of England. + +At the close of this period we find Wycliffe, "the morning star of the +Reformation," and Chaucer, the first great singer of the welded +Anglo-Norman race. His wide interest in human beings and his knowledge +of the new Italian literature prefigure the coming to England of the +Revival of Learning in the next age. + +It will now be necessary to study the changes in the language, which +were so pronounced between 1066 and Chaucer's death. + +THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN ENGLISH + +Three Languages used in England--For three hundred years after the +Norman Conquest, three languages were widely used in England. The +Normans introduced French, which was the language of the court and the +aristocracy. William the Conqueror brought over many Norman priests, +who used Latin almost exclusively in their service. The influence of +this book Latin is generally underestimated by those who do not +appreciate the power of the church. The Domesday survey shows that in +1085 the church and her dependents held more than one third of some +counties. + +In addition to the Latin and the French (which was itself principally +of Latin origin), there was, thirdly, the Anglo-Saxon, to which the +middle and the lower classes of the English stubbornly adhered. The +Loss of Inflections.--Anglo-Saxon was a language with changing +endings, like modern German. If a Saxon wished to say, "good gifts," +he had to have the proper case endings for both the adjective and the +noun, and his expression was _g=ode giefa_. For "the good gifts," he +said _š=a g=odan giefa_, inflecting "the" and at the same time +changing the case ending of "good." + +The Norman Conquest helped to lop off these endings, which German has +never entirely lost. We, however, no longer decline articles or +ordinary adjectives. Instead of having our attention taken up with +thinking of the proper endings, we are left free to attend to the +thought rather than to the vehicle of its expression. Although our +pronouns are still declined, the sole inflection of our nouns, with +the exception of a few like _ox, oxen_, or _mouse, mice_, is the +addition of _'s, s,_ or _es_ for the possessive and the plural. Modern +German, on the other hand, still retains these troublesome case +endings. How did English have the good fortune to lose them? + +Whenever two peoples, speaking different languages, are closely +associated, there is a tendency to drop the terminations and to use +the stem word in all grammatical relations. If an English-speaking +person, who knows only a little German, travels in Germany, he finds +that he can make himself understood by using only one form of the noun +or adjective. If he calls for "two large glasses of hot milk," +employing the incorrect expression, _zwei gross Glass heiss Milch_, he +will probably get the milk as quickly as if he had said correctly, +_zwei grosse Gläser heisse Milch_. Neglect of the proper case endings +may provoke a smile, but the tourist prefers that to starvation. +Should the Germans and the English happen to be thrown together in +nearly equal numbers on an island, the Germans would begin to drop the +inflections that the English could not understand, and the German +language would undergo a change. + +If there were no books or newspapers to circulate a fixed form of +speech, the alteration in the spoken tongue would be comparatively +rapid. + +Such dropping of terminations is precisely what did happen before the +Norman Conquest in those parts of England most overrun by the Danes. +There, the adjectives lost their terminations to indicate gender and +case, and the article "the" ceased to be declined. + +Even if the Normans had not come to England, the dropping of the +inflections would not have ceased. Many authorities think that the +grammatical structure of English would, even in the absence of that +event, have evolved into something like its present form. Of course +the Norman Conquest hastened many grammatical changes that would +ultimately have resulted from inherent causes, but it did not exercise +as great an influence as was formerly ascribed to it. Philologists +find it impossible to assign the exact amount of change due to the +Conquest and to other causes. Let us next notice some changes other +than the loss of inflections. + +Change in Gender.--Before any one could speak Anglo-Saxon correctly, +he had first to learn the fanciful genders that were attached to +nouns: "trousers" was feminine; "childhood," masculine; "child," +neuter. During this period the English gradually lost these fanciful +genders which the German still retains. A critic thus illustrates the +use of genders in that language: "A German gentleman writes a +masculine letter of feminine love to a neuter young lady with a +feminine pen and feminine ink on masculine sheets of neuter paper, and +incloses it in a masculine envelope with a feminine address to his +darling, though neuter, Gretchen. He has a masculine head, a feminine +hand, and a neuter heart." + +Prefixes, Suffixes, and Self-explaining Compounds.--The English +tongue lost much of its power of using prefixes. A prefix joined to a +well-known word changes its meaning and renders the coining of a new +term unnecessary. The Anglo-Saxons, by the use of prefixes, formed ten +compounds from their verb _fl=owan_, "to flow." Of these, only one +survives in our "overflow." From _sittan_, "to sit," thirteen +compounds were thus formed, but every one has perished. A larger +percentage of suffixes was retained, and we still have many words like +"wholesome-ness," "child-hood," "sing-er." + +The power of forming self-explaining compounds was largely lost. The +Saxon compounded the words for "tree," and "worker," and said +_tr=eow-wyrhta_, "tree-wright," but we now make use of the single word +"carpenter." We have replaced the Saxon _b=oc-craeft_, "book-art," by +"literature"; _=aefen-gl=om_, "evening-gloom," by "twilight"; +mere-sw=in, "sea-swine," by "porpoise"; _=eag-wraec_, "eye-rack," by +"pain in the eye"; _leornung-cild_, "learning-child," by "pupil." The +title of an old work, _Ayen-bite of In-wit_, "Again-bite of In-wit," +was translated into "Remorse of Conscience." _Grund-weall_ and +_word-hora_ were displaced by "foundation" and "vocabulary." The +German language still retains this power and calls a glove a +"hand-shoe," a thimble a "finger-hat," and rolls up such clumsy +compound expressions as _Unabhängigkeits-erklärung_. + +We might lament this loss more if we did not remember that Shakespeare +found our language ample for his needs, and that a considerable number +of the old compounds still survive, as _home-stead, man-hood, +in-sight, break-fast, house-hold, horse-back, ship-man, sea-shore, +hand-work_, and _day-light_. + +Introduction of New Words and Loss of Old Ones.--Since the Normans +were for some time the governing race, while many of the Saxons +occupied comparatively menial positions, numerous French words +indicative of rank, power, science, luxury, and fashion were +introduced. Many titles were derived from a French source. English +thus obtained words like "sovereign," "royalty," "duke," "marquis," +"mayor," and "clerk." Many terms of government are from the French; +for instance, "parliament," "peers," "commons." The language of law +abounds in French terms, like "damage," "trespass," "circuit," +"judge," "jury," "verdict," "sentence," "counsel," "prisoner." Many +words used in war, architecture, and medicine also have a French +origin. Examples are "fort," "arch," "mason," "surgery." In fact, we +find words from the French in almost every field. "Uncle" and +"cousin," "rabbit" and "falcon," "trot" and "stable," "money" and +"soldier," "reason" and "virtue," "Bible" and "preach," are instances +in point. + +French words often displaced Saxon ones. Thus, the Saxon _Haelend_, +the Healer, gave way to the French _Savior_, _wanhope_ and _wonstead_ +were displaced by _despair_ and _residence_. Sometimes the Saxon +stubbornly kept its place beside the French term. The English language +is thus especially rich in synonyms, or rather in slightly +differentiated forms of expression capable of denoting the exact shade +of thought and feeling. The following words are instances:-- + + SAXON FRENCH + + body corpse + folk people + swine pork + calf veal + worth value + green verdant + food nourishment + wrangle contend + fatherly paternal + workman laborer + +English was enriched not only by those expressions, gained from the +daily speech of the Normans, but also by words that were added from +literary Latin. Thus, we have the Saxon "ask," the Norman-French +"inquire" and "question," and the Latin "interrogate." "Bold," +"impudent," "audacious"; "bright," "cheerful," "animated"; "earnings," +"wages," "remuneration," "short," "brief," "concise," are other +examples of words, largely synonymous, from the Saxon, the +Norman-French, and the Latin, respectively. These facts explain why +modern English has such a wealth of expression, although probably more +than one half of the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary has been lost. + +The Superiority of the Composite Tongue.--While we insist on the +truth that Anglo-Saxon gained much of its wonderful directness and +power from standing in close relations to earnest life, it is +necessary to remember that many words of French origin did, by an +apprenticeship at the fireside, in the field, the workshop, and the +laboratory, equally fit themselves for taking their place in the +language. Such words from French-Latin roots as "faith," "pray," +"vein," "beast," "poor," "nurse," "flower," "taste," "state," and +"fool" remain in our vocabulary because they were used in everyday +life. + +Pure Anglo-Saxon was a forcible language, but it lacked the wealth of +expression and the flexibility necessary to respond to the most +delicate touches of the master-musicians who were to come. When +Shakespeare has Lear say of Cordelia:-- + + "Her voice was ever soft, + Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman," + +we find that ten of the thirteen words are Saxon, but the other three +of Romance (French) origin are as necessary as is a small amount of +tin added to copper to make bronze. Two of these three words express +varying shades of quality. + +Lounsbury well says: "There result, indeed, from the union of the +foreign and native elements, a wealth of phraseology and a +many-sidedness in English, which give it in these respects a +superiority over any other modern cultivated tongue. German is +strictly a pure Teutonic speech, but no native speaker of it claims +for it any superiority over the English as an instrument of +expression, while many are willing to concede its inferiority." + +The Changes Slowly Accomplished.--For over a hundred years after the +Conquest, but few French words found their way into current English +use. This is shown by the fact that the _Brut_, a poem of 32,250 +lines, translated from a French original into English about 1205, has +not more than a hundred words of Norman-French origin. + +At first the Normans despised the tongue of the conquered Saxons, but, +as time progressed, the two races intermarried, and the children could +hardly escape learning some Saxon words from their mothers or nurses. +On the other hand, many well-to-do Saxons, like parents in later +times, probably had their children taught French because it was +considered aristocratic. + +Until 1204 a knowledge of French was an absolute necessity to the +nobles, as they frequently went back and forth between their estates +in Normandy and in England. In 1204 King John lost Normandy, and in +the next reign both English and French kings decreed that no subject +of the one should hold land in the territory of the other. This +narrowing of the attention of English subjects down to England was a +foundation stone in building up the supremacy of the English tongue. + +In 1338 began the Hundred Years' War between France and England. In +Edward the Third's reign (1327-1377), it was demonstrated that one +Englishman could whip six Frenchmen; and the language of a hostile and +partly conquered race naturally began to occupy a less high position. +In 1362 Parliament enacted that English should thereafter be used in +law courts, "because the laws, customs, and statutes of this realm, be +not commonly known in the same realm, for that they be pleaded, +shewed, and judged in the French tongue, which is much unknown in the +said realm." + +LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 1066-1400 + +Metrical Romances.--For nearly three hundred years after the Norman +Conquest the chief literary productions were metrical romances, which +were in the first instance usually written by Frenchmen, but sometimes +by Englishmen (_e.g._ Layamon) under French influence. There were four +main cycles of French romance especially popular in England before the +fifteenth century. These were tales of the remarkable adventures of +King Arthur and his Knights, Charlemagne and his Peers, Alexander the +Great, and the heroes at the siege of Troy. At the battle of Hastings +a French minstrel is said to have sung the _Song of Roland_ from the +Charlemagne cycle. + +These long stories in verse usually present the glory of chivalry, the +religious faith, and the romantic loves of a feudal age. In _Beowulf_, +woman plays a very minor part and there is no love story; but in these +romances we often find woman and love in the ascendancy. One of them, +well known today in song, _Tristram and Iseult_ (Wagner's _Tristan und +Isolde_), "a possession of our composite race," is almost entirely a +story of romantic love. + +The romances of this age that have most interest for English readers +are those which relate to King Arthur and his Knights of the Round +Table. The foundation suggestions for the most of this cycle are of +British (Welsh) origin. This period would not have existed in vain, if +it had given to the world nothing, but these Arthurian ideals of +generosity, courage, honor, and high endeavour, which are still a +potent influence. In his _Idylls of the King_, Tennyson calls Arthur +and his Knights:-- + + "A glorious company, the flower of men, + To serve as model for the mighty world, + And be the fair beginning of a time." + +The _Quest of the Holy Grail_ belongs to the Arthurian cycle. Percival +(Wagner's Parsifal), the hero of the earlier version and Sir Galahad +of the later, show the same spirit that animated the knights in the +Crusades. Tennyson introduces Sir Galahad as a knight whose strength +is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure, undertaking "the +far-quest after the divine." The American poet Lowell chose Sir +Launfal, a less prominent figure in Arthurian romance, for the hero of +his version of the search for the Grail, and had him find it in every +sympathetic act along the common way of life. + +The story of _Gawayne and the Green Knight_, "the jewel of English +medieval literature," tells how Sir Gawayne, Arthur's favorite, fought +with a giant called the Green Knight. The romance might almost be +called a sermon, if it did not reveal in a more interesting way a +great moral truth,--that deception weakens character and renders the +deceiver vulnerable in life's contests. In preparing for the struggle, +Sir Gawayne is guilty of one act of deceit. But for this, he would +have emerged unscathed from the battle. One wound, which leaves a +lasting scar, is the result of an apparently trivial deception. His +purity and honor in all things else save him from death. This story, +which reminds us of Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, presents in a new garb +one of the oft-recurring ideals of the race, "keep troth" (truth). +Chaucer sings in the same key:-- + + "Hold the hye wey, and let thy gost thee lede, + And trouthe shall delivere, it is no drede." + +We should remember that these romances are the most characteristic +literary creations of the Middle Ages, that they embody the new spirit +of chivalry, religious faith, and romantic love in a feudal age, that +they had a story to tell, and that some of them have never lost their +influence on human ideals. + +A Latin Chronicler.--One chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth, +although he wrote in Latin, must receive some attention because of his +vast influence on English poetry. He probably acquired his last name +from being archdeacon of Monmouth. He was appointed Bishop of St. +Asaph in 1152 and died about 1154. Unlike the majority of the monkish +chroniclers, he possessed a vivid imagination, which he used in his +so-called _History of the Kings of Britain_. + +Geoffrey pretended to have found an old manuscript which related the +deeds of all British kings from Brutus, the mythical founder of the +kingdom of Britain, and the great-grandson of Aeneas, to Caesar. +Geoffrey wrote an account of the traditionary British kings down to +Cadwallader in 689 with as much minuteness and gravity as Swift +employed in the _Voyage to Lilliput_. Other chroniclers declared that +Geoffrey lied saucily and shamelessly, but his book became extremely +popular. The monks could not then comprehend that the world's greatest +literary works were to be products of the imagination. + +In Geoffrey of Monmouth's _History of the Kings of Britain_ we are +given vivid pictures of King Lear and his daughters, of Cymbeline, of +King Arthur and his Knights, of Guinevere and the rest of that company +whom later poets have immortalized. It is probable that Geoffrey was +not particular whether he obtained his materials from old chroniclers, +Welsh bards, floating tradition, or from his own imagination. His book +left its impress on the historical imagination of the Middle Ages. Had +it not been for Geoffrey's _History_, the dramas of _King Lear_ and +_Cymbeline_ might never have been suggested to Shakespeare. + +Layamon's Brut.--About 1155 a Frenchman named Wace translated into +his own language Geoffrey of Monmouth's works. This translation fell +into the hands of Layamon, a priest living in Worcestershire, who +proceeded to render the poem, with additions of his own, into the +Southern English dialect. Wace's _Brut_ has 15,300 lines; Layamon's, +32,250. As the matter which Layamon added is the best in the poem, he +is, in so far, an original author of much imaginative power. He is +certainly the greatest poet between the Conquest and Chaucer's time. + +A selection from the _Brut_ will give the student an opportunity of +comparing this transition English with the language in its modern +form:-- + + "And Ich wulle varan to Avalun: And I will fare to Avalon, + To vairest alre maidene To the fairest of all maidens, + To Argante šere quene, To Argante the queen, + Alven swiše sceone; Elf surpassing fair; + And heo scal mine wunden And she shall my wounds + Makien alle isunde, Make all sound, + Al hal me makien All hale me make + Mid halweige drenchen. With healing draughts. + And seoše Ich cumen wulle And afterwards I will come + To mine kineriche To my kingdom + And wunien mid Brutten And dwell with Britons + Mid muchelere wunne." With much joy. + +With this, compare the following lines from Tennyson's _The Passing of +Arthur_:-- + + "...I am going a long way + * * * * * + To the island-valley of Avilion, + Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, + Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies + Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns + And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, + Where I will heal me of my grievous wound. + * * * * * + He passes to be King among the dead, + And after healing of his grievous wound + He comes again." + +Layamon employed less alliteration than is found in Anglo-Saxon +poetry. He also used an occasional rime, but the accent and rhythm of +his verse are more Saxon than modern. When reading Tennyson's _Idylls +of the King_, we must not forget that Layamon was the first poet to +celebrate in English King Arthur's deeds. The _Brut_ shows little +trace of French influences, not more than a hundred French words being +found in it. + +Orm's Ormulum.--A monk named Orm wrote in the Midland dialect a +metrical paraphrase of those parts of the _Gospels_ used in the church +on each service day throughout the year. After the paraphrase comes +his metrical explanation and application of the _Scripture_. + +He says:-- + + "Diss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum + Forrši šatt Ormm itt wrohhte." + + This book is named Ormulum + For that Orm it wrote. + +There was no fixed spelling at this time. Orm generally doubled the +consonant after a short vowel, and insisted that any one who copied +his work should be careful to do the same. We shall find on counting +the syllables in the two lines quoted from him that the first line has +eight; the second, seven. This scheme is followed with great precision +throughout the poem, which employs neither rime nor regular +alliteration. Orm used even fewer French words than Layamon. The date +of the _Ormulum_ is probably somewhere between 1200 and 1215. + +The Ancren Riwle.--About 1225 appeared the most notable prose work +in the native tongue since the time of Alfred, if we except the +_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_. Three young ladies who had secluded +themselves from the world in Dorsetshire, wished rules for guidance in +their seclusion. An unknown author, to oblige them, wrote the _Ancren +Riwle_ (Rule of Anchoresses). This book not only lays down rules for +their future conduct in all the affairs of life, but also offers much +religious consolation. + +The following selection shows some of the curious rules for the +guidance of the anchoresses, and furnishes a specimen of the Southern +dialect of transitional English prose in the early part of the +thirteenth century:-- + + "ße, mine leoue sustren, + ne schulen habben no best + bute kat one... ße schulen + beon i-dodded four sišen, + iše ßere, uorto lihten ower + heaued... Of idelnesse awakeneš + muchel flesshes fondunge... + Iren šet liš stille gedereš + sone rust." + + Ye, my beloved sisters, + shall have no beast + but one cat... Ye shall + be cropped four times + in the year for to lighten your + head... Of idleness ariseth + much temptation of the flesh... + Iron that lieth still soon gathereth + rust. + +The keynote of the work is the renunciation of self. Few productions +of modern literature contain finer pictures of the divine love and +sympathy. The following simile affords an instance of this quality in +the work:-- + + "De sixte kunfort is šet + ure Louerd, hwon he išolš + šet we beoš itented, he plaieš mid + us, ase še moder mid hire ßunge + deorlinge; vlihš from him, and + hut hire, and let hit sitten one, + and loken ßeorne abuten, and cleopien + Dame! dame! and weopen + one hwule; and šeonne mid ispredde + ermes leapeš lauhwinde + vorš, and cluppeš and cusseš and + wipeš his eien. Riht so ure + Louerd let us one iwuršen ošer + hwules, and wišdraweš his grace + and his kunfort, šet we ne ivindeš + swetnesse in none šinge šet we wel + doš, ne savor of heorte; and šauh, + išet ilke point ne luveš he us + ure leove veder never še lesce, + auh he deš hit for muchel luve + šet he haveš to us." + + The sixth comfort is that + our Lord, when he suffers + that we be tempted, he plays with + us, as the mother with her young + darling; she flees from it, and + hides herself, and lets it sit alone + and look anxiously about and cry + "Dame! dame!" and weep + awhile; and then with outspread + arms leaps laughing + forth and clasps and kisses it and + wipes its eyes. Exactly so our + Lord leaves us alone once in a + while and withdraws his grace + and his comfort, that we find + sweetness in nothing that we do well, + no relish of heart; and notwithstanding, + at the same time, he, our dear + Father, loves us nevertheless, + but he does it for the great love + that he has for us. + +Professor Sweet calls the _Ancren Riwle_ "one of the most perfect +models of simple, natural, eloquent prose in our language." For its +introduction of French words, this work occupies a prominent place in +the development of the English language. Among the words of French +origin found in it, we may instance: "dainty," "cruelty," "vestments," +"comfort," "journey," "mercer." + +Lyrical Poetry.--A famous British Museum manuscript, known as +_Harleian MS., No. 2253_. which was transcribed about 1310, contains a +fine anthology of English lyrics, some of which may have been composed +early in the thirteenth century. The best of these are love lyrics, +but they are less remarkable for an expression of the tender passion +than for a genuine appreciation of nature. Some of them are full of +the joy of birds and flowers and warm spring days. + +A lover's song, called _Alysoun_, is one of the best of these +lyrics:-- + + "Bytuene Mershe ant[3] Averil[4] + When spray biginneth to spring, + The lutel[5] foul hath hire wyl + On hyre lud[6] to synge." + +A famous spring lyric beginning:-- + + "Lenten[7] ys come with love to toune,[8] + With blosmen ant with briddes[9] roune."[10] + +is a symphony of daisies, roses, "lovesome lilies," thrushes, and +"notes suete of nyhtegales." + +The refrain of one love song is invigorating with the breath of the +northern wind:-- + + "Blou, northerne wynd! + Send thou me my suetyng! + Blou norterne wynd! blou, blou, blou!" + +The _Cuckoo Song_, which is perhaps older than any of these, is the +best known of all the early lyrics:-- + + "Sumer is i-cumen in + Lhude sing cuccu + Groweth sed and bloweth med + And springeth the wde nu. + Sing cuccu, cuccu." + + Summer is a-coming in, + Loud sing cuckoo, + Groweth seed and bloometh mead, + And springeth the wood now. + Sing cuckoo, cuckoo. + +A more somber note is heard in the religious lyrics:-- + + "Wynter wakeneth al my care, + Nou this leves waxeth bare; + Ofte I sike[11] ant mourne sare[12] + When hit cometh in my thoht + Of this worldes joie, hou hit goth al to noht." + +We do not know the names of any of these singers, but they were worthy +forerunners of the later lyrists of love and nature. + +Robert Manning of Brunne.--We have now come to fourteenth-century +literature, which begins to wear a more modern aspect. Robert Manning, +generally known as Robert of Brunne, because he was born at Brunne, +now called Bourn, in Lincolnshire, adapted from a Norman-French +original a work entitled _Handlyng Synne_ (_Manual of Sins_). This +book, written in the Midland dialect in 1303, discourses of the Seven +Deadly Sins and the best ways of living a godly life. + +A careful inspection of the following selection from the _Handlyng +Synne_ will show that, aside from the spelling, the English is +essentially modern. Most persons will be able to understand all but a +few words. He was the first prominent English writer to use the modern +order of words. The end rime is also modern. A beggar, seeing a beast +laden with bread at the house of a rich man, asks for food. The poem +says of the rich man:-- + + "He stouped down to seke a stone, + But, as hap was, than fonde he none. + For the stone he toke a lofe, + And at the pore man hyt drofe. + The pore man hente hyt up belyue, + And was thereof ful ferly blythe, + To hys felaws fast he ran + With the lofe, thys pore man." + + He stooped down to seek a stone, + But, as chance was, then found he none. + For the stone he took a loaf, + And at the poor man it drove. + The poor man caught it up quickly, + And was thereof full strangely glad, + To his fellows fast he ran + With the loaf this poor man. + +Oliphant says: "Strange it is that Dante should have been compiling +his _Inferno_, which settled the course of Italian literature forever, +in the selfsame years that Robert of Brunne was compiling the earliest +pattern of well-formed New English... Almost every one of the Teutonic +changes in idiom, distinguishing the New English from the Old, the +speech of Queen Victoria from the speech of Hengist, is to be found in +Manning's work." + +Mandeville's Travels.--Sir John Mandeville, who is popularly +considered the author of a very entertaining work of travels, states +that he was born in St. Albans in 1300, that he left England in 1322, +and traveled in the East for thirty-four years. His _Travels_ relates +what he saw and heard in his wanderings through Ethiopia, Persia, +Tartary, India, and Cathay. What he tells on his own authority, he +vouches for as true, but what he relates as hearsay, he leaves to the +reader's judgment for belief. + +[Illustration: WHAT MADEVILLE SAW. _Old print from Edition of +1725._] + +No such single traveler as Mandeville ever existed. The work +attributed to him has been proved to be a compilation from the +writings of other travelers. A French critic says wittily: "He first +lost his character as a truthful writer; then out of the three +versions of his book, French, English, and Latin, two were withdrawn +from him, leaving him only the first. Existence has now been taken +from him, and he is left with nothing at all." No matter, however, who +the author was, the book exists. More manuscripts of it survive than +of any other work except the _Scriptures_. It is the most entertaining +volume of English prose that we have before 1360. The sentences are +simple and direct, and they describe things vividly:-- + + "In Ethiope ben many dyverse folk: and Ethiope is clept[13] Cusis. + In that contree ben folk, that han but o foot: and thei gon so fast, + that it is marvaylle: and the foot is so large, that it schadewethe + alle the body azen[14] the Sonne whanne thei wole[15] lye and reste + hem."[16] + +Mandeville also tells of a bird that used to amuse itself by flying +away with an elephant in its talons. In the land of Prester John was a +valley where Mandeville says he saw devils jumping about as thick as +grasshoppers. Stories like these make the work as interesting as +_Gulliver's Travels_. + +The so-called Mandeville's _Travels_ was one of the few works that the +unlearned of that age could understand and enjoy. Consequently its +popularity was so great as to bring large number of French words into +familiar use. The native "againbought" is, however, used instead of +the foreign "redeemed." + +[Illustration: JOHN WYCLIFFE. _From an old print_.] + +John Wycliffe.--Wycliffe (1324-1384) was born at Hipswell, near +Richmond, in the northern part of Yorkshire. He became a doctor of +divinity and a master of one of the colleges at Oxford. Afterward he +was installed vicar of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where he died. +In history he is principally known as the first great figure in the +English Reformation. He preceded the other reformers by more than a +century. In literature he is best known for the first complete +translation of the _Bible_,--a work that exerted great influence on +English prose. All the translation was not made by him personally, but +all was done under his direction. The translation of most of the _New +Testament_ is thought to be his own special work. He is the most +important prose writer of the fourteenth century. His prose had an +influence as wide as the circulation of the _Bible_. The fact that it +was forced to circulate in manuscript, because printing had not then +been invented, limited his readers; but his translation was, +nevertheless, read by many. To help the cause of the Reformation, he +wrote argumentative religious pamphlets, which are excellent specimens +of energetic fourteenth-century prose. + +Of his place in literature, Ten Brink says: "Wycliffe's literary +importance lies in the fact that he extended the domain of English +prose and enhanced its powers of expression. He accustomed it to terse +reasoning, and perfected it as an instrument for expressing rigorous +logical thought and argument; he brought it into the service of great +ideas and questions of the day, and made it the medium of polemics and +satire. And above all, he raised it to the dignity of the national +language of the _Bible_." + +The following is a specimen verse of Wycliffe's translation. We may +note that the strong old English word "againrising" had not then been +displaced by the Latin "resurrection." + + "Jhesu seith to hir, I am agenrisyng and lyf; he that bileueth in + me, he, if he schal be deed, schall lyue." + +Piers Plowman.--_The Vision of William Concerning Piers the +Plowman_, popularly called _Piers Plowman_, from its most important +character, is the name of an allegorical poem, the first draft ("A" +text) of which was probably composed about 1362. Later in the century +two other versions, known as texts "B" and "C" appeared. Authorities +differ in regard to whether these are the work of the same man. _The +Vision_ is the first and the most interesting part of a much longer +work, known as _Liber de Petro Plowman_ (_The Book of Piers the +Plowman_). + +The authorship of the poem is not certainly known, but it has long +been ascribed to William Langland, born about 1322 at Cleobury +Mortimer in Shropshire. The author of _Piers Plowman_ seems to have +performed certain functions connected with the church, such as singing +at funerals. + +_Piers Plowman_ opens on a pleasant May morning amid rural scenery. +The poet falls asleep by the side of a brook and dreams. In his dream +he has a vision of the world passing before his eyes, like a drama. +The poem tells what he saw. Its opening lines are:-- + + "In a _s_omer _s_eson * whan _s_oft was the _s_onne + I _sh_ope[17] me in _sh_roudes[18] * as I a _sh_epe[19] were + In _h_abite as an _h_eremite[20] - un_h_oly of workes + _W_ent _w_yde in žis _w_orld - _w_ondres to here + Ac on a _M_ay _m_ornynge - on _M_aluerne hulles[21] + Me by_f_el a _f_erly[22] - of _f_airy me thouß te + I _w_as _w_ery for_w_andred[23] - and _w_ent me to reste + Under a _b_rode _b_ank - _b_i a _b_ornes[24] side, + And as I _l_ay and _l_ened[25] - and _l_oked in že wateres + I _s_lombred in a _s_lepyng - it _s_weyved[26] so merye." + +[Illustration: TREUTHE'S PILGRYME ATTE PLOW. _From a manuscript in +Trinity College, Cambridge._] + +The language of _Piers Plowman_ is a mixture of the Southern and +Midland dialects. It should be noticed that the poem employs the old +Anglo-Saxon alliterative meter. There is no end rime. _Piers Plowman_ +is the last great poem written in this way. + +The actors in this poem are largely allegorical. Abstractions are +personified. Prominent characters are Conscience, Lady Meed or +Bribery, Reason, Truth, Gluttony, Hunger, and the Seven Deadly Sins. +In some respects, the poem is not unlike the _Pilgrim's Progress_, for +the battle in passing from this life to the next is well described in +both; but there are more humor, satire, and descriptions of common +life in Langland. Piers is at first a simple plowman, who offers to +guide men to truth. He is finally identified with the Savior. + +Throughout the poem, the writer displays all the old Saxon +earnestness. His hatred of hypocrisy is manifest on every page. His +sadness, because things are not as they ought to be, makes itself +constantly felt. He cannot reconcile the contradiction between the +real and the ideal. In attacking selfishness, hypocrisy, and +corruption; in preaching the value of a life of good deeds; in showing +how men ought to progress toward higher ideals; in teaching that "Love +is the physician of life and nearest our Lord himself,--" _Piers +Plowman_ proved itself a regenerating spiritual force, a +stepping-stone toward the later Reformation. + +The author of this poem was also a fourteenth-century social reformer, +protesting against the oppression of the poor, insisting on mutual +service and "the good and loving life." In order to have a +well-rounded conception of the life of the fourteenth century, we must +read _Piers Plowman_. Chaucer was a poet for the upper classes. _Piers +Plowman_ gives valuable pictures of the life of the common people and +shows them working-- + + "To kepe kyne In že field, že corne fro že bestes, + Diken[27] or deluen[28] or dyngen[29] vppon sheues,[30] + Or helpe make mortar or here mukke a-felde." + +We find in the popular poetry of _Piers Plowman_ almost as many words +of French derivation as in the work of the more aristocratic Chaucer. +This fact shows how thoroughly the French element had become +incorporated in the speech of all classes. The style of the author of +_Piers Plowman_ is, however, remarkable for the old Saxon sincerity +and for the realistic directness of the bearer of a worthy message. + +John Gower.--Gower, a very learned poet, was born about 1325 and +died in 1408. As he was not sure that English would become the +language of his cultivated countrymen, he tried each of the three +languages used in England. His first important work, the _Speculum +Meditantis_, was written in French; his second, the _Vox Clamantis_, +in Latin; his third, the _Confessio Amantis_, in English. + +[Illustration: EARLY PORTRAIT OF GOWER HEARING THE CONFESSION OF A +LOVER (CONFESSIO AMANTIS). _From the Egerton MS., British Museum._] + +The _Confessio Amantis_ (_Confession of a Lover_) is principally a +collection of one hundred and twelve short tales. An attempt to unify +them is seen in the design to have the confessor relate, at the +lover's request, those stories which reveal the causes tending to +hinder or to further love. Gower had ability in story-telling, as is +shown by the tales about Medea and the knight Florent; but he lacked +Chaucer's dramatic skill and humor. Gower's influence has waned +because, although he stood at the threshold of the Renaissance, his +gaze was chiefly turned backward toward medievalism. His contemporary, +Chaucer, as we see, was affected by the new spirit. + +GEOFFREY CHAUCER, 1340?-1400. + +[Illustration: GEOFFREY CHAUCER. _From an old drawing in Occleve's +Poems, British Museum._] + +Life.--Chaucer was born in London about 1340. His father and +grandfather were vintners, who belonged to the upper class of +merchants. Our first knowledge of Geoffrey Chaucer is obtained from +the household accounts of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter-in-law of +Edward III., in whose family Chaucer was a page. An entry shows that +she bought him a fine suit of clothes, including a pair of red and +black breeches. Such evidence points to the fact that he was early +accustomed to associating with the nobility, and enables us to +understand why he and the author of _Piers Plowman_ regard life from +different points of view. + +In 1359 Chaucer accompanied the English army to France and was taken +prisoner. Edward III. thought enough of the youth to pay for his +ransom a sum equivalent to-day to about $1200. After his return he was +made valet of the king's chamber. The duties of that office "consisted +in making the royal bed, holding torches, and carrying messages." +Later, Chaucer became a squire. + +In 1370 he was sent to the continent on a diplomatic mission. He seems +to have succeeded so well that during the next ten years he was +repeatedly sent abroad in the royal service. He visited Italy twice +and may thus have met the Italian poet Petrarch. These journeys +inspired Chaucer with a desire to study Italian literature,--a +literature that had just been enriched by the pens of Dante and +Boccaccio. + +We must next note that Chaucer's life was not that of a poetic +dreamer, but of a stirring business man. For more than twelve years he +was controller of customs for London. This office necessitated +assessing duties on wools, skins, wines, and candles. Only a part of +this work could be performed by deputy. He was later overseeing clerk +of the king's works. The repeated selection of Chaucer for foreign and +diplomatic business shows that he was considered sagacious as well as +trustworthy. Had he not kept in close touch with life, he could never +have become so great a poet. In this connection we may remark that +England's second greatest writer, Milton, spent his prime in attending +to affairs of state. Chaucer's busy life did not keep him from +attaining third place on the list of England's poets. + +There are many passages of autobiographical interest in his poems. He +was a student of books as well as of men, as is shown by these lines +from the _Hous of Fame_:-- + + "For whan thy labour doon al is, + And halt y-maad thy rekeninges, + In stede of rest and newe thinges, + Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon, + And, also domb as any stoon, + Thou sittest at another boke, + Til fully daswed[31] is thy loke, + And livest thus as an hermyte."[32] + +Chaucer was pensioned by three kings,--Edward III., Richard II., and +Henry IV. Before the reign of Henry IV., Chaucer's pensions were +either not always regularly paid, or they were insufficient for +certain emergencies, as he complained of poverty in his old age. The +pension of Henry IV. in 1399 must have been ample, however; since in +that year Chaucer leased a house in the garden of a chapel at +Westminster for as many of fifty-three years as he should live. He had +occasion to use this house but ten months, for he died in 1400. + +He may be said to have founded the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, +as he was the first of the many great authors to be buried there. + +Chaucer's Earlier Poems.--At the age of forty, Chaucer had probably +written not more than one seventh of a total of about 35,000 lines of +verse which he left at his death. Before he reached his poetic prime, +he showed two periods of influence,--French and Italian. + +During his first period, he studied French models. He learned much +from his partial translation of the popular French _Romaunt of the +Rose_. The best poem of his French period is _Dethe of Blanche the +Duchesse_, a tribute to the wife of John of Gaunt, the son of Edward +III. + +Chaucer's journey to Italy next turned his attention to Italian +models. A study of these was of especial service in helping him to +acquire that skill which enabled him to produce the masterpieces of +his third or English period. This study came at a specially opportune +time and resulted in communicating to him something of the spirit of +the early Renaissance. + +The influence of Boccaccio and, sometimes, of Dante is noticeable in +the principal poems of the Italian period,--the _Troilus and Criseyde, +Hous of Fame_, and _Legende of Good Women_. The _Troilus and Criseyde_ +is a tale of love that was not true. The _Hous of Fame_, an unfinished +poem, gives a vision of a vast palace of ice on which the names of the +famous are carved to await the melting rays of the sun. The _Legende +of Good Women_ is a series of stories of those who, like Alcestis, are +willing to give up everything for love. In _A Dream of Fair Women_ +Tennyson says:-- + + "'The Legend of Good Women,' long ago + Sung by the morning star of song, who made + His music heard below; + Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath + Preluded those melodious bursts that fill + The spacious times of great Elizabeth + With sounds that echo still." + +In this series of poems Chaucer learned how to rely less and less on +an Italian crutch. He next took his immortal ride to Canterbury on an +English Pegasus. + +General Plan of the Canterbury Tales.--People in general have always +been more interested in stories than in any other form of literature. +Chaucer probably did not realize that he had such positive genius for +telling tales in verse that the next five hundred years would fail to +produce his superior in that branch of English literature. + +[Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.] + +All that Chaucer needed was some framework into which he could fit the +stories that occurred to him, to make them something more than mere +stray tales, which might soon be forgotten. Chaucer's great +contemporary Italian storyteller, Boccaccio, conceived the idea of +representing some of the nobility of Florence as fleeing from the +plague, and telling in their retirement the tales that he used in his +_Decameron_. It is not certain that Chaucer received from the +_Decameron_ his suggestions for the _Canterbury Tales_, although he +was probably in Florence at the same time as Boccaccio. + +In 1170 Thomas ą Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered at the +altar. He was considered both a martyr and a saint, and his body was +placed in a splendid mausoleum at the Cathedral. It was said that +miracles were worked at his tomb, that the sick were cured, and that +the worldly affairs of those who knelt at his shrine prospered. It +became the fashion for men of all classes to go on pilgrimages to his +tomb. As robbers infested the highways, the pilgrims usually waited at +some inn until there was a sufficient band to resist attack. In time +the journey came to be looked on as a holiday, which relieved the +monotony of everyday life. About 1385 Chaucer probably went on such a +pilgrimage. To furnish amusement, as the pilgrims cantered along, some +of them may have told stories. The idea occurred to Chaucer to write a +collection of such tales as the various pilgrims might have been +supposed to tell on their journey. The result was the _Canterbury +Tales_. + +Characters in the Tales.--Chaucer's plan is superior to Boccaccio's; +for only the nobility figure as story-tellers in the _Decameron_, +while the Canterbury pilgrims represent all ranks of English life, +from the knight to the sailor. + +The _Prologue_ to the _Tales_ places these characters before us almost +as distinctly as they would appear in real life. At the Tabard Inn in +Southwark, just across the Thames from London, we see that merry band +of pilgrims on a pleasant April day. We look first upon a manly figure +who strikes us as being every inch a knight. His cassock shows the +marks of his coat of mail. + + "At mortal batailles hadde he been fiftene. + * * * * * + And of his port as meke as is a mayde. + He never yet no vileinye ne sayde + In al his lyf, un-to no maner wight. + He was a verray parfit gentil knight." + +His son, the Squire, next catches our attention. We notice his curly +locks, his garments embroidered with gay flowers, and the graceful way +in which he rides his horse. By his side is his servant, the Yeoman, +"clad in cote and hood of grene," with a sheaf of arrows at his belt. +We may even note his cropped head and his horn suspended from green +belt. We next catch sight of a Nun's gracefully pleated wimple, +shapely nose, small mouth, "eyes greye as glas," well-made cloak, +coral beads, and brooch of gold. She is attended by a second Nun and +three Priests. The Monk is a striking figure:-- + + "His heed was balled, that shoon as any glas, + And eek his face, as he hadde been anoint. + He was a lord ful fat and in good point." + +[Illustration: PILGRIMS LEAVING THE TABARD INN. _From Urry's +Chaucer._] + +There follow the Friar with twinkling eyes, "the beste beggere in his +hous," the Merchant with his forked beard, the Clerk (scholar) of +Oxford in his threadbare garments, the Sergeant-at-Law, the Franklyn +(country gentleman), Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Tapycer +(tapestry maker), Cook, Shipman, Physician, Wife of Bath, Parish +Priest, Plowman, Miller, Manciple (purchaser of provisions), Reeve +(bailiff of a farm), Summoner (official of an ecclesiastical court), +and Pardoner. These characters, exclusive of Baily (the host of Tabard +Inn) and Chaucer himself, are alluded to in the _Prologue_ to the +_Tales_ as-- + + "Wel nyne and twenty in a companye, + Of sondry folk, by aventure y-falle + In felawshipe, and pilgrims were they alle, + That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde." + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF LINES DESCRIBING THE FRANKLYN[33]. _From +the Cambridge University MS._] + +[Illustration: THE FRANKLYN[34].] + +[Illustration: THE FRIAR.] + +The completeness of the picture of fourteenth century English life in +the _Canterbury Tales_ makes them absolutely necessary reading for the +historian as well as for the student of literature. + +Certainly no one who has ever read the _Prologue_ to the _Tales_ will +question Chaucer's right to be considered a great _original_ poet, no +matter how much he may have owed to foreign teachers. + +The Tales.--Harry Baily, the keeper of the Tabard Inn, who +accompanied the pilgrims, proposed that each member of the party +should tell four tales,--two going and two returning. The one who told +the best story was to have a supper at the expense of the rest. The +plan thus outlined was not fully executed by Chaucer, for the +collection contains but twenty-four tales, all but two of which are in +verse. + +[Illustration: THE KNIGHT.] + +[Illustration: THE PRIORESS.] + +[Illustration: THE SQUIRE.] + +The _Knightes Tale_, which is the first, is also the best. It is a +very interesting story of love and chivalry. Two young Theban +nobleman, Palamon and Arcite, sworn friends, are prisoners of war at +Athens. Looking through the windows of their dungeon, they see walking +in the garden the beautiful sister of the queen. Each one swears that +he will have the princess. Arcite is finally pardoned on condition +that he will leave Athens and never return, on penalty of death; but +his love for Emily lures him back to the forbidden land. Reduced +almost to a skeleton, he disguises himself, goes to Athens, and +becomes a servant in the house of King Theseus. Finally, Palamon +escapes from prison, and by chance encounters Arcite. The two men +promptly fight, but are interrupted by Theseus, who at first condemns +them to death, but later relents and directs them to depart and to +return at the end of a year, each with a hundred brave knights. The +king prescribes that each lover shall then lead his forces in mortal +battle and that the victor shall wed the princess. + +[Illustration: THE CLERK OF OXFORD.] + +On the morning of the contest, Palamon goes before dawn to the temple +of Venus to beseech her aid in winning Emily, while Arcite at the same +time steals to the temple of Mars to pray for victory in war. Each +deity not only promises but actually grants the suppliants precisely +what they ask; for Arcite, though fatally wounded, is victorious in +the battle, and Palamon in the end weds Emily. Although Boccaccio's +_Teseide_ furnished the general plot for this _Knightes Tale_, +Chaucer's story is, as Skeat says, "to all intents, a truly original +poem." + +The other pilgrims tell stories in keeping with their professions and +characters. Perhaps the next best tale is the merry story of +_Chanticleer and the Fox_. This is related by the Nun's Priest. The +Clerk of Oxford tells the pathetic tale of _Patient Griselda_, and the +Nun relates a touching story of a little martyr. + +Chief Qualities of Chaucer.--I. Chaucer's descriptions are unusually +clear-cut and vivid. They are the work of a poet who did not shut +himself in his study, but who mingled among his fellow-men and noticed +them acutely. He says of the Friar:-- + + "His eyes twinkled in his heed aright, + As doon the sterres in the frosty night." + +Our eyes and ears distinctly perceive the jolly Monk, as he canters +along:-- + + "And, whan he rood, men might his brydel here + Ginglen in a whistling wind as clere, + And eek as loude as dooth the chapel-belle." + +II. Chaucer's pervasive, sympathetic humor is especially +characteristic. We can see him looking with twinkling eyes at the +Miller, "tolling thrice"; at the Monk, "full fat and in good point," +hunting with his greyhounds, "swift as fowl in flight," or smiling +before a fat roast swan; at the Squire, keeping the nightingale +company; at the Doctor, prescribing the rules of astrology. The Nun +feels a touch of his humor:-- + + "Ful wel she song the service divyne, + Entuned in hir nose ful semely." + +Of the lawyer, he says:-- + + "No-wher so bisy a man as he ther nas, + And yet he semed bisier than he was." + +Sometimes Chaucer's humor is so delicate as to be lost on those who +are not quick-witted. Lowell instances the case of the Friar, who, +"before setting himself softly down, drives away the cat," and adds +what is true only of those who have acute understanding: "We know, +without need of more words, that he has chosen the snuggest corner." + +His humor is often a graceful cloak for his serious philosophy of +existence. The humor in the _Prologue_ does not impair its worth to +the student of fourteenth-century life. + +III. Although Chaucer's humor and excellence in lighter vein are such +marked characteristics, we must not forget his serious qualities; for +he has the Saxon seriousness as well as the Norman airiness. As he +looks over the struggling world, he says with a sympathetic heart:-- + + "Infinite been the sorwes and the teres + Of olde folk, and folk of tendre yeres."[35] + +In like vein, we have:-- + + "This world nis but a thurghfare ful of wo, + And we ben pilgrimes, passinge to and fro; + Deeth is an ende of every worldly sore."[36] + + "Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse. + Forthe, pylgrime, forthe! forthe, beste out of thi stal! + Knowe thi contree, look up, thank God of al!"[37] + +The finest character in the company is that of the Parish Priest, who +attends to his flock like a good Samaritan:-- + + "But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, + He taughte, and first he folwed it him-selve." + +IV. The largeness of his view of human nature is remarkable. Some +poets, either intentionally or unintentionally, paint one type of men +accurately and distort all the rest. Chaucer impartially portrays the +highest as well as the lowest, and the honest man as well as the +hypocrite. The pictures of the roguish Friar and the self-denying +Parish Priest, the Oxford Scholar and the Miller, the Physician and +the Shipman, are painted with equal fidelity to life. In the breadth +and kindliness of his view of life, Chaucer is a worthy predecessor of +Shakespeare. Dryden's verdict on Chaucer's poetry is: "Here is God's +plenty." + +V. His love of nature is noteworthy for that early age. Such lines as +these manifest something more than a desire for rhetorical effect in +speaking of nature's phenomena:-- + + "Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, + That hast this wintres weders over-shake, + And driven awey the longe nightes blake[38]!"[39] + +His affection for the daisy has for five hundred years caused many +other people to look with fonder eyes upon that flower. + +VI. He stands in the front rank of those who have attempted to tell +stories in melodious verse. Lowell justly says: "One of the world's +three or four great story-tellers, he was also one of the best +versifiers that ever made English trip and sing with a gayety that +seems careless, but where every foot beats time to the tune of the +thought." + +[Illustration: MORRIS DANCERS._From a Manuscript of Chaucer's +Time._] + +VII. He is the first great English author to feel the influence of the +Renaissance, which did not until long afterward culminate in England. +Gower has his lover hear tales from a confessor in cloistered quiet. +Chaucer takes his Pilgrims out for jolly holidays in the April +sunshine. He shows the spirit of the Renaissance in his joy in varied +life, in his desire for knowledge of all classes of men as well as of +books, in his humor, and in his general reaching out into new fields. +He makes us feel that he lives in a merrier England, where both the +Morris dancer and the Pilgrim may show their joy in life. + +What Chaucer did for the English Language.--Before Chaucer's works, +English was, as we have seen, a language of dialects. He wrote in the +Midland dialect, and aided in making that the language of England. +Lounsbury says of Chaucer's influence: "No really national language +could exist until a literature had been created which would be admired +and studied by all who could read, and taken as a model by all who +could write. It was only a man of genius that could lift up one of +these dialects into a preėminence over the rest, or could ever give to +the scattered forces existing in any one of them the unity and vigor +of life. This was the work that Chaucer did." For this reason he +deserves to be called our first modern English poet. At first sight, +his works look far harder to read than they really are, because the +spelling has changed so much since Chaucer's day. + +SUMMARY + +The period from the Norman Conquest to 1400 is remarkable (1) for +bringing into England French influence and closer contact with the +continent; (2) for the development of (_a_) a more centralized +government, (_b_) the feudal system and chivalry, (_c_) better civil +courts of justice and a more representative government, _Magna Charta_ +being one of the steps in this direction; (3) for the influence of +religion, the coming of the friars, the erection of unsurpassed Gothic +cathedrals; (4) for the struggles of the peasants to escape their +bondage, for a striking decline in the relative importance of the +armored knight, and for Wycliffe's movement for a religious +reformation. + +This period is also specially important because it gave to England a +new language of greater flexibility and power. The old inflections, +genders, formative prefixes, and capability of making self-explaining +compounds were for the most part lost. To supply the places of lost +words and to express those new ideas which came with the broader +experiences of an emancipated, progressive nation, many new words were +adopted from the French and the Latin. When the time for literature +came, Chaucer found ready for his pen the strongest, sincerest, and +most flexible language that ever expressed a poet's thought. + +In tracing the development of the literature of this period, we have +noted (1) the metrical romances; (2) Geoffrey of Monmouth's (Latin) +_History of the Kings of Britain_, and Layamon's _Brut_, with their +stories of Lear, Cymbeline and King Arthur; (3) the _Ormulum_, a +metrical paraphrase of those parts of the _Gospels_ used in church +service; (4) the _Ancren Riwle_, remarkable for its natural eloquent +prose and its noble ethics, as well as for showing the development of +the language; (5) the lyrical poetry, beginning to be redolent of the +odor of the blossom and resonant with the song of the bird; (6) the +_Handlyng Synne_, in which we stand on the threshold of modern +English; (7) Mandeville's _Travels_, with its entertaining stories; +(8) Wycliffe's monumental translation of the _Bible_ and vigorous +religious prose pamphlets; (9) _Piers Plowman_, with its pictures of +homely life, its intense desire for higher ideals and for the +reformation of social and religious life; (10) Gower's _Confessio +Amantis_, a collection of tales about love; and (11) Chaucer's poetry, +which stands in the front rank for the number of vivid pictures of +contemporary life, for humor, love of nature, melody, and capacity for +story-telling. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +An account of the history of this period may be found in either +Gardiner[40], Green, Lingard, Walker, or Cheney. Volumes II. and III. +of the _Political History of England_, edited by Hunt (Longmans), give +the history in greater detail. For the social side, consult Traill, I. +and II. See also Rogers's _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_. Freeman's +_William the Conqueror_, Green's _Henry II_., and Tout's _Edward I_. +(_Twelve English Statesmen Series_) are short and interesting. +Kingsley's _Hereward the Wake_ deals with the times of William the +Conqueror and Scott's _Ivanhoe_ with those of Richard the +Lion-Hearted. Archer and Kingsford's _The Story of the Crusades_, +Cutt's _Parish Priests and their People in the Middle Ages in +England_, and Jusserand's _English Wayfaring Life in the fourteenth +Century_ are good works. + +LITERARY + +_Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vols. I. and II. + +Bradley's _Making of English_. + +Schofield's _English Literature from the Conquest to Chaucer_. + +Ker's _Epic and Romance_. + +Saintsbury's _The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory_. + +Lawrence's _Medieval Story_ (excellent). + +Weston's _The Romance Cycle of Charlemagne and his Peers_. + +Weston's _King Arthur and his Knights_. + +Maynadier's _The Arthur of the English Poets_. + +Nutt's _The Legends of the Holy Grail_. + +Jusserand's _Piers Plowman_. + +Warren's _Langland's Vision of Piers the Plowman, Done into Modern +Prose_. + +Savage's _Old English Libraries_. + +Schofield's _Chivalry in English Literature_. + +Snell's _The Age of Chaucer_. + +Root's _The Poetry of Chaucer_. + +Tuckwell's _Chaucer_ (96 pp.). + +Pollard's _Chaucer_ (142 pp.). + +Legouis's _Chaucer_. + +Coulton's _Chaucer and his England_. + +Lowell's _My Study Windows_ contains one of the best essays ever +written on Chaucer. + +Mackail's _The Springs of Helicon_ (Chaucer). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Romances.--The student will be interested in reading from Lawrence's +_Medieval Story_, Chapters III., _The Song of Roland_; IV., _The +Arthurian Romances_; V., _The Legend of the Holy Grail_; VI., _The +History of Reynard the Fox_. Butler's _The Song of Roland_ (_Riverside +Literature Series_) is an English prose translation of a popular story +from the Charlemagne cycle. _Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight_ has +been retold in modern English prose by J.L. Weston (London: David +Nutt). A long metrical selection from this romance is given in +Bronson.[41] I., 83-100, in _Oxford Treasury_, I., 60-81, and a prose +selection in _Century_, 1000-1022. + +Stories from the Arthurian cycle may he found in Newell's _King Arthur +and the Table Round_. See also Maynadier's _The Arthur of the English +Poets_, and Tennyson's _The Idylls of the King_. + +Geoffrey of Monmouth's _History of the Kings of Britain_ is translated +in Giles's _Six Old English Chronicles_ (Bohn Library). + +Selections from Layamon's _Brut_ may be found in Bronson, I.; P. & S.; +and Manly, I. + +What were the chief subjects of the cycles of Romance? Were they +mostly of English or French origin? What new elements appear, not +found in Beowulf? Which of these cycles has the most interest for +English readers? How does this cycle still influence twentieth-century +ideals? In what respect is the romance of _Gawayne_ like a sermon? + +What Shakespearean characters does Geoffrey of Monmouth introduce? How +is Layamon's _Brut_ related to Geoffrey's chronicle? Point out a +likeness between the _Brut_ and the work of a Victorian poet. + +Ormulum, Lyrics, and Robert Manning of Brunne.--Selections may be +found in P. & S.; Bronson, I.; Oxford (lyrics, pp. 1-10); Manly, I.; +Morris's _Specimens of Early English_. Among the lyrics, read +specially, "Sumer is i-cumen in," "Alysoun," "Lenten ys come with love +to toune," and "Blow, Northern Wind." + +What was the purpose of the _Ormulum_? What is its subject matter? +Does it show much French influence? + +What new appreciation of nature do the thirteenth-century lyrics show? +Point out at least twelve definite concrete references to nature in +"Lenten ys come with love to toune." How many such references are +there in the _Cuckoo Song_? + +What difference do you note between the form of Robert Manning of +Brunne's _Handling Synne_ and Anglo-Saxon poetry? Can you find an +increasing number of words of French derivation in his work? + +Prose.--Manly's _English Prose_, Morris's _Specimens of Early +English_, Parts I. and II., Chambers, I., Craik, I., contain specimens +of the best prose, including Mandeville and Wycliffe. Mandeville's +_Travels_ may be found in modern English in Cassell's _National +Library_ (15¢). Bosworth and Waring's edition of the _Gospels_ +contains the Anglo-Saxon text, together with the translations of +Wycliffe and Tyndale. No. 107 of Maynard's _English Classics_ contains +selections from both Wycliffe's _Bible_ and Mandeville's _Travels_. + +What is the subject matter of the _Ancren Riwle_? What is the keynote +of the work? Mention some words of French origin found in it. What is +the character of Mandeville's _Travels_? Why was it so popular? + +In what does Wycliffe's literary importance consist? Compare some +verses of his translation of the _Bible_ with the 1611 version. + +Piers Plowman and Gower.--Selections are given in P. & S.; Bronson, +I.; Ward, I.; Chambers, I.; and Manly, I. Skeat has edited a small +edition of _Piers the Plowman_ ("B" text) and also a larger edition, +entitled _The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, in Three +Parallel Texts_. G.C. Macaulay has a good volume of selections from +Gower's _Confessio Amantis_. + +What is the difference between the form of the verse in _Piers +Plowman_ and _Handling Synne_? Who is Piers? Who are some of the other +characters in the poem? What type of life is specially described? In +what sort of work are the laborers engaged? Why may the author of +_Piers Plowman_ be called a reformer? + +Why was Gower undecided in what language to write? What is the subject +matter of the _Confessio Amantis_? + +Chaucer.--Read the _Prologue_ and if possible also the _Knightes +Tale_ (Liddell's, or Morris-Skeat's, or Van Dyke's, or Mather's +edition). Good selections may be found in Bronson, I.; Ward, I.; P. +and S., and _Oxford Treasury_, I. Skeat's Complete Works, 6 vols., is +the best edition. Skeat's _Oxford Chaucer_ in one volume has the same +text. The _Globe Edition of Chaucer_, edited by Pollard, is also a +satisfactory single volume edition. Root's _The Poetry of Chaucer_, +292 pp., is a good reference work in connection with the actual study +of the poetry. + +Give a clear-cut description of the six of Chaucer's pilgrims that +impress you most strongly. How has the _Prologue_ added to our +knowledge of life in the fourteenth century? Give examples of +Chaucer's vivid pictures. What specimens of his humor does the +_Prologue_ contain? Do any of Chaucer's lines in the _Prologue_ show +that the Reformation spirit was in the air, or did Wycliffe and +Langland alone among contemporary authors afford evidence of this +spirit? Compare Chaucer's verse with Langland's in point of subject +matter. What qualities in Chaucer save him from the charge of cynicism +when he alludes to human faults? Does the _Prologue_ attempt to +portray any of the nobler sides of human nature? Is the _Prologue_ +mainly or entirely concerned with the personality of the pilgrims? Has +Chaucer any philosophy of life? Are there any references to the +delights of nature? Note any passages that show special powers of +melody and mastery over verse. Does the poem reveal anything of +Chaucer's personality? In your future reading see if you can find +another English story-teller in verse who can be classed with Chaucer. + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER II: + +[Footnote 1: _The Tempest_, V., I.] + +[Footnote 2: For the location of all the English cathedral towns, see +the _Literary Map_, p. XII.] + +[Footnote 3: and.] + +[Footnote 4: April.] + +[Footnote 5: little.] + +[Footnote 6: in her language.] + +[Footnote 7: Spring.] + +[Footnote 8: in its turn.] + +[Footnote 9: birds.] + +[Footnote 10: song.] + +[Footnote 11: sigh.] + +[Footnote 12: sorely.] + +[Footnote 13: called.] + +[Footnote 14: against.] + +[Footnote 15: will.] + +[Footnote 16: them.] + +[Footnote 17: arrayed.] + +[Footnote 18: garments.] + +[Footnote 19: shepherd.] + +[Footnote 20: hermit.] + +[Footnote 21: hills.] + +[Footnote 22: wonder.] + +[Footnote 23: tired out with wandering.] + +[Footnote 24: brook.] + +[Footnote 25: reclined.] + +[Footnote 26: sounded.] + +[Footnote 27: to make dykes or ditches.] + +[Footnote 28: to dig.] + +[Footnote 29: to thrash (ding).] + +[Footnote 30: sheaves.] + +[Footnote 31: dazed.] + +[Footnote 32: hermit.] + +[Footnote 33: _The Prologue_, Lines 331-335.] + +[Footnote 34: The cuts of the Pilgrims are from the Fourteenth Century +Ellesmere MS. of _Canterbury Tales_.] + +[Footnotes 35-36: _Knightes Tale_.] + +[Footnote 37: _Truth: Balade de bon Conseyl_.] + +[Footnote 38: black.] + +[Footnote 39: _The Parlement of Foules_.] + +[Footnote 40: For full titles, see p. 50.] + +[Footnote 41: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER III: FROM CHAUCER'S DEATH, 1400, TO THE ACCESSION OF +ELIZABETH, 1558 + +The Course of English History.--The century and a half that followed +the death of Chaucer appealed especially to Shakespeare. He wrote or +helped to edit five plays that deal with this period,--_Henry IV., +Henry V., Henry VI., Richard III._, and _Henry VIII_. While these +plays do not give an absolutely accurate presentation of the history +of the time, they show rare sympathy in catching the spirit of the +age, and they leave many unusually vivid impressions. + +Henry IV. (1399-1413), a descendant of John of Gaunt, Duke of +Lancaster, one of the younger sons of Edward III., and therefore not +in the direct line of succession, was the first English king who owed +his crown entirely to Parliament. Henry's reign was disturbed by the +revolt of nobles and by contests with the Welsh. Shakespeare gives a +pathetic picture of the king calling in vain for sleep, "nature's +tired nurse," and exclaiming:-- + + "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." + +Henry V. (1413-1422) is one of Shakespeare's romantic characters. The +young king renewed the French war, which had broken out in 1337 and +which later became known as the Hundred Years' War. By his victory +over the French at Agincourt (1415), he made himself a national hero. +Shakespeare has him say:-- + + "I thought upon one pair of English legs + Did march three Frenchmen." + +In the reign of Henry VI. (1422-1461), Joan of Arc appeared and saved +France. + +The setting aside of the direct succession in the case of Henry IV. +was a pretext for the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) to settle the +royal claims of different descendants of Edward III. While this war +did not greatly disturb the common people, it occupied the attention +of those who might have been patrons of literature. Nearly all the +nobles were killed during this prolonged contest; hence when Henry +VII. (1485-1509), the first of the Tudor line of monarchs, came to the +throne, there were no powerful nobles with their retainers to hold the +king in check. He gave a strong centralized government to England. + +The period following Chaucer's death opens with religious persecution. +In 1401 the first Englishman was burned at the stake for his religious +faith. From this time the expenses of burning heretics are sometimes +found in the regular accounts of cities and boroughs. Henry VIII. +(1509-1547) broke with the Pope, dissolved the monasteries, proclaimed +himself head of the church, and allowed the laity to read the _Bible_, +but insisted on retaining many of the old beliefs. In Germany, Martin +Luther (1483-1546) was in the same age issuing his famous protests +against religious abuses. Edward VI. (1547-1553) espoused the +Protestant cause. An order was given to introduce into all the +churches an English prayer book, which was not very different from +that in use to-day in the Episcopal churches. Mary (1553-1558) sought +the aid of fagots and the stake to bring the nation back to the old +beliefs. + +[Illustration: HENRY VIII. GIVING BIBLES TO CLERGY AND LAITY. _From +frontispiece to Coverdale Bible_.] + +While this period did not produce a single great poet or a statesman +of the first rank, it witnessed the destruction of the majority of the +nobility in the Wars of the Roses, the increase of the king's power, +the decline of feudalism, the final overthrow of the knight by the +yeoman with his long bow at Agincourt(1415), the freedom of the serf, +and the growth of manufactures, especially of wool. English trading +vessels began to displace even the ships of Venice. + +In spite of the religious persecution with which the period began and +ended, there was a remarkable change in religious belief, the +dissolution of the monasteries and the subordination of church to +state being striking evidences of this change. An event that had +far-reaching consequences on literature and life was the act of Henry +VIII. in ordering a translation of the _Bible_ to be placed in every +parish church in England. The death of Mary may in a measure be said +to indicate the beginning of modern times. + +Contrast between the Spirit of the Renaissance and of the Middle +Ages.--One of the most important intellectual movements of the world +is known as the Renaissance or Revival of Learning. This movement +began in Italy about the middle of the fourteenth century and spread +slowly westward. While Chaucer's travels in Italy; and his early +contact with this new influence are reflected in his work, yet the +Renaissance did not reach its zenith in England until the time of +Shakespeare. This new epoch followed a long period, known as the +Middle ages, when learning was mostly confined to the church, when +thousands of the best minds retired to the cloisters, when many +questions, like those of the revolution of the sun around the earth or +the cause of disease, were determined, not by observation and +scientific proof, but by the assertion of those in spiritual +authority. Then, scientific investigators, like Roger Bacon, were +thought to be in league with the devil and were thrown into prison. In +1258 Dante's tutor visited Roger Bacon, and, after seeing his +experiments with the mariner's compass, wrote to an Italian friend:-- + + "This discovery so useful to all who travel by sea, must remain + concealed until other times, because no mariner dare use it, lest he + fall under imputation of being a magician, nor would sailors put to + sea with one who carried an instrument so evidently constructed by + the devil." + +Symonds says: "During the Middle Ages, man had lived enveloped in a +cowl. He had not seen the beauty of the world, or had seen it only to +cross himself and turn aside, to tell his beads and pray." Before the +Renaissance, the tendency was to regard with contempt mere questions +of earthly progress and enjoyment, because they were considered +unimportant in comparison with the eternal future of the soul. It was +not believed that beauty, art, and literature might play a part in +saving souls. + +The Schoolmen of the Middle Ages often discussed such subjects as +these: whether the finite can comprehend the infinite at any point, +since the infinite can have no finite points; whether God can make a +wheel revolve and be stationary at the same time; whether all children +in a state of innocence are masculine. Such debates made remarkable +theologians and metaphysicians, developed precision in defining terms, +accuracy in applying the rules of deductive logic, and fluency in +expression. As a result, later scientists were able to reason more +accurately and express themselves with greater facility. + +The chief fault of the studies of the Middle Ages consisted in +neglecting the external world of concrete fact. The discussions of the +Schoolmen would never have introduced printing or invented the +mariner's compass or developed any of the sciences that have +revolutionized life. + +The coming of the Renaissance opened avenues of learning outside of +the church, interested men in manifold questions relating to this +world, caused a demand for scientific investigation and proof, and +made increasing numbers seek for joy in this life as well as in that +to come. + +Causes and Effects of the Renaissance.--Some of the causes of this +new movement were the weariness of human beings with their lack of +progress, their dissatisfaction with the low estimate of the value of +this life, and their yearning for fuller expansion of the soul, for +more knowledge and joy on this side of the grave. + +Another cause was the influence of Greek literature newly discovered +in the fifteenth century by the western world. In 1423 an Italian +scholar brought 238 Greek manuscripts to Italy. In 1453 the Turks +captured Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and +the headquarters of Grecian learning. Because of the remoteness of +this capital, English literature had not been greatly influenced by +Greece. When Constantinople fell, many of her scholars went to Italy, +taking with them precious Grecian manuscripts. As Englishmen often +visited Italy, they soon began to study Grecian masterpieces, and to +fall under the spell of Homer and the Athenian dramatists. + +The renewed study of Greek and Latin classics stimulated a longing for +the beautiful in art and literature. Fourteenth-century Italian +writers, like Petrarch and Boccaccio, found increasing interest in +their work. Sixteenth-century artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci, +Michael Angelo, and Raphael show their magnificent response to a world +that had already been born again. + +Many of the other so-called causes of the Renaissance should strictly +be considered its effects. The application of the modern theory of the +solar system, the desire for exploration, the use of the mariner's +compass, the invention and spread of printing, were more effects of +the new movement than its causes. + +Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), inspired by the spirit of the +Renaissance, wrote in Latin a remarkable book called _Utopia_ (1516), +which presents many new social ideals. In the land of Utopia, society +does not make criminals and then punish them for crime. Every one +worships as he pleases. Only a few hours of work a day are necessary, +and all find genuine pleasure in that. In Utopia life is given to be a +joy. No advantage is taken of the weak or the unfortunate. +Twentieth-century dreams of social justice are not more vivid and +absorbing than Sir Thomas More's. It is pleasant to think that the +Roman Catholic church in 1886 added to her list of saints this lovable +man, "martyr to faith and freedom." + +When the full influences of the Renaissance reached England, +Shakespeare answered their call, and his own creations surpass the +children of Utopia. + +The Invention of Printing.--In 1344, about the time of Chaucer's +birth, a _Bible_ in manuscript cost as much as three oxen. A century +later an amount equal to the wages of a workman for 266 days was paid +for a manuscript _Bible_. At this time a book on astronomy cost as +much as 800 pounds of butter. One page of a manuscript book cost the +equivalent of from a dollar to a dollar and a half to-day. When a +member of the Medici family in Florence desired a library, he sent for +a book contractor, who secured forty-five copyists. By rigorous work +for nearly two years they produced two hundred volumes. + +[Illustration: BOOK ILLUSTRATION, EARLY FIFTEENTH CENTURY. _British +Museum_.] + +One of the most powerful agencies of the Renaissance was the invention +of printing, which multiplied books indefinitely and made them +comparatively cheap. People were alive with newly awakened curiosity, +and they read books to learn more of the expanding world. + +About 1477 William Caxton, who had set up his press at the Almonry, +near Westminster Abbey, printed the first book in England, _The Dictes +and Notable Wish Sayings of the Philosophers_. Among fully a hundred +different volumes that he printed were Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, +Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, and an English translation of Vergil's +_AEneid_. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF CAXTON'S ADVERTISEMENT OF HIS BOOKS._ +Bodleian Library, Oxford._] + +Malory's Morte d'Arthur.--The greatest prose work of the fifteenth +century was completed in 1470 by a man who styles himself Sir Thomas +Malory, Knight. We know nothing of the author's life; but he has left +as a monument a great prose epic of the deeds of King Arthur and his +Knights of the Round Table. From the various French legends concerning +King Arthur, Malory selected his materials and fashioned than into the +completest Arthuriad that we possess. While his work cannot be called +original, he displayed rare artistic power in arranging, abridging, +and selecting the various parts from different French works. + +Malory's prose is remarkably simple and direct. Even in the impressive +scene where Sir Bedivere throws the dying King Arthur's sword into the +sea, the language tells the story simply and shows no straining after +effect:-- + + "And then he threw the sword as far into the water as he might, + and there came an arm and an hand above the water, and met it, and + caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and then vanished + away the hand with the sword in the water... 'Now put me into + the barge,' said the king; and so he did softly. And there received + him three queens with great mourning, and so they set him down, and + in one of their laps King Arthur laid his head, and then that queen + said, 'Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me?'" + +After the dusky barge has borne Arthur away from mortal sight, Malory +writes: "Here in this world he changed his life." A century before, +Chaucer had with equal simplicity voiced the Saxon faith:-- + + "His spirit chaunged hous."[1] + +Sometimes this prose narrative, in its condensation and expression of +feeling, shows something of the poetic spirit. When the damsel on the +white palfrey sees that her knightly lover has been killed, she +cries:-- + + "O Balin! two bodies + hast thou slain and one + heart, and two hearts in + one body, and two souls + thou hast lost.' And + therewith she took the + sword from her love that + lay dead, and as she took + it, she fell to the ground + in a swoon." + +[Illustration: MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR. _From De Worde's Ed., +1529_.] + +Malory's work, rather than Layamon's _Brut_, has been the storehouse +to which later poets have turned. Many nineteenth-century poets are +indebted to Malory. Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_, Matthew Arnold's +_Death of Tristram_, Swinburne's _Tristram of Lyonesse_, and William +Morris's _Defense of Guinevere_ were inspired by the _Morte d'Arthur_. +Few English prose works have had more influence on the poetry of the +Victorian age. + +Scottish Poetry.--The best poetry of the fifteenth century was +written in the Northern dialect, which was spoken north of the river +Humber. This language was just as much English as the Midland tongue +in which Chaucer wrote. Not until the sixteenth century was this +dialect called Scotch. + +James I. of Scotland (1406-1437) spent nineteen years of his youth +as a prisoner in England. During his captivity in Windsor Castle, he +fell in love with a maiden, seen at her orisons in the garden, and +wrote a poem, called the _King's Quair_, to tell the story of his +love. Although the _King's Quair_ is suggestive of _The Knightes +Tale_, and indeed owes much to Chaucer, it is a poetic record of +genuine and successful love. These four lines from the spring song +show real feeling for nature:-- + + "Worshippe, ye that lovers be, this May, + For of your bliss the kalends are begun, + And sing with us, 'Away, Winter, away, + Come, Summer, come, the sweet season and sun!'" + +Much of this Scotch poetry is remarkable for showing in that early age +a genuine love of nature. Changes are not rung on some typical +landscape, copied from an Italian versifier. The Northern poet had his +eye fixed on the scenery and the sky of Scotland. About the middle of +the century, Robert Henryson, a teacher in Dunfermline, wrote.-- + + "The northin wind had purifyit the air + And sched the misty cloudis fra the sky."[2] + +This may lack the magic of Shelley's rhythm, but the feeling for +nature is as genuine as in the later poet's lines:-- + + "For after the rain when, with never a stain + The pavilion of heaven is bare."[3] + +William Dunbar, the greatest poet of this group, who lived in the +last half of the fifteenth century, was a loving student of the nature +that greeted him in his northland. No Italian poet, as he wandered +beside a brook, would have thought of a simile like this:-- + + "The stonés clear as stars in frosty night."[4] + +Dunbar takes us with him on a fresh spring morning, where-- + + "Enamelled was the field with all colośrs, + The pearly droppés shook in silver showers,"[5] + +where we can hear the matin song of the birds hopping among the buds, +while-- + + "Up rose the lark, the heaven's minstrel fine."[6] + +Both Dunbar and Gawain Douglas (1474?-1522), the son of a Scotch +nobleman, had keen eyes for all coloring in sky, leaf, and flower. In +one line Dunbar calls our attention to these varied patches of color +in a Scotch garden: "purple, azure, gold, and gulés [red]." In the +verses of Douglas we see the purple streaks of the morning, the +bluish-gray, blood-red, fawn-yellow, golden, and freckled red and +white flowers, and-- + + "Some watery-hued, as the blue wavy sea."[7] + +Outside the pages of Shakespeare, we shall for the next two hundred +years look in vain for so genuine a love of scenery and natural +phenomena as we find in fifteenth-century Scottish poetry. These poets +obtained many of their images of nature at first hand, an achievement +rare in any age. + +[Illustration: EARLY TITLE PAGE OF ROBIN HOOD.] + +"Songs for Man or Woman, of All Sizes."--When Shakespeare shows us +Autolycus offering such songs at a rustic festival,[8] the great poet +emphasizes the fondness for the ballad which had for a long time been +developing a taste for poetry. While it is difficult to assign exact +dates to the composition of many ballads, we know that they flourished +in the fifteenth century. They were then as much prized as the novel +is now, and like it they had a story to tell. The verse was often +halting, but it succeeded in conveying to the hearer tales of love, of +adventure, and of mystery. These ballads were sometimes tinged with +pathos; but there was an energy in the rude lines that made the heart +beat faster and often stirred listeners to find in a dance an outlet +for their emotions. Even now, with all the poetry of centuries from +which to choose, it is refreshing to turn to a Robin Hood ballad and +look upon the greensward, hear the rustle of the leaves in Nottingham +forest, and follow the adventures of the hero. We read the opening +lines:-- + + "There are twelve months in all the year, + As I hear many say, + But the merriest month in all the year + Is the merry month of May." + + "Now Robin Hood is to Nottingham gone, + With a link a down, and a day, + And there he met a silly old woman + Was weeping on the way." + +Of our own accord we finish the ballad to see whether Robin Hood +rescued her sons, who were condemned to death for shooting the fallow +deer. The ballad of the _Nut-Brown Maid_ has some touches that are +almost Shakespearean. + +Some of the carols of the fifteenth century give a foretaste of the +Elizabethan song. One carol on the birth of the Christ-child contains +stanzas like these, which show artistic workmanship, imaginative +power, and, above all, rare lyrical beauty:-- + + "He cam also stylle + to his moderes bowr, + As dew in Aprille + that Fallyt on the flour." + + "He cam also stylle + ther his moder lay, + As dew in Aprille + that fallyt on the spray"[9] + +We saw that the English tongue during its period of exclusion from the +Norman court gained strength from coming in such close contact with +life. Although the higher types of poetry were for the most part +wanting during the fifteenth century, yet the ballads multiplied and +sang their songs to the ear of life. Critics may say that the rude +stanzas seldom soar far from the ground, but we are again reminded of +the invincible strength of Antaeus so long as he kept close to his +mother earth. English poetry is so great because it has not withdrawn +from life, because it was nurtured in such a cradle. When Shakespeare +wrote his plays, he found an audience to understand and to appreciate +them. Not only those who occupied the boxes, but also those who stood +in the pit, listened intelligently to his dramatic stories. The ballad +had played its part in teaching the humblest home to love poetry. +These rude fireside songs were no mean factors in preparing the nation +to welcome Shakespeare. + +William Tyndale, 1490?-1536.--The Reformation was another mighty +influence, working side by side with all the other forces to effect a +lasting change in English history and literature. In the early part of +the sixteenth century, Martin Luther was electrifying Germany with his +demands for church reformation. In order to decide which religious +party was in the right, there arose a desire for more knowledge of the +_Scriptures_. The language had changed much since Wycliffe's +translation of the _Bible_, and, besides, this was accessible only in +manuscript. William Tyndale, a clergyman and an excellent linguist, +who had been educated at both Oxford and Cambridge, conceived the idea +of giving the English people the Bible in their own tongue. As he +found that he could not translate and print the Bible with safety in +England, he went to the continent, where with the help of friends he +made the translation and had it printed. He was forced to move +frequently from place to place, and was finally betrayed in his hiding +place near Brussels. After eighteen months' imprisonment without pen +or books, he was strangled and his body was burned at the stake. + +Of his translation, Brooke says: "It was this _Bible_ which, revised +by Coverdale, and edited and reėdited as _Cromwell's Bible_, 1539, and +again as _Cranmer's Bible_, 1540, was set up in every parish church in +England. It got north into Scotland and made the Lowland English more +like the London English. It passed over into the Protestant +settlements in Ireland. After its revival in 1611 it went with the +Puritan Fathers to New England and fixed the standard of English in +America. Many millions of people now speak the English of Tyndale's +_Bible_, and there is no other book which has had, through the +_Authorized Version_, so great an influence on the style of English +literature and on the standard of English prose." + +[Illustration: WILLIAM TYNDALE. _From an old print_.] + +The following verses from Tyndale's version show its simplicity +directness, and similarity to the present version:-- + + "Jesus sayde unto her, Thy brother shall ryse agayne. + + "Martha sayde unto hym, I knowe wele, he shall ryse agayne in the + resurreccion att the last day. + + "Jesus sayde unto her, I am the resurreccion and lyfe; whosoever + beleveth on me, ye, though he were deed, yet shall he lyve." + +Italian Influence: Wyatt and Surrey.--During the reign of Henry +VIII. (1509-1547), the influence of Italian poetry made itself +distinctly felt. The roots of Elizabethan poetry were watered by many +fountains, one of the chief of which flowed from Italian soil. To Sir +Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and to the Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) belongs +the credit of introducing from Italian sources new influences, which +helped to remodel English poetry and give it a distinctly modern cast. + +These poets were the first to introduce the sonnet, which Shakespeare, +Milton, and Wordsworth employed with such power in after times. Blank +verse was first used in England by the Earl of Surrey, who translated +a portion of Vergil's _AEneid_ into that measure. When Shakespeare +took up his pen, he found that vehicle of poetic expression ready for +his use. + +[Illustration: SIR THOMAS WYATT._After Holbein_.] + +Wyatt and Surrey adopted Italian subject matter as well as form. They +introduced the poetry of the amorists, that is, verse which tells of +the woes and joys of a lover. We find Shakespeare in his _Sonnets_ +turning to this subject, which he made as broad and deep as life. In +1557, the year before Elizabeth's accession, the poems of Wyatt and +Surrey appeared in Tottel's _Miscellany_, one of the earliest printed +collections of modern English poetry. + +SUMMARY + +The first part of the century and a half following the death of +Chaucer saw war with France and the Wars of the Roses, in which most +of the nobles were killed. The reign of Henry VII. and his successors +in the Tudor line shows the increased influence of the crown, freed +from the restraint of the powerful lords. The period witnessed the +passing of serfdom and the extension of trade and manufactures. + +The changes in religious views were far-reaching. Henry VIII. +superseded the Pope as head of the English church, dissolved the +monasteries, and placed an English translation of the _Bible_ in the +churches. Henry's son and successor Edward VI., established the +Protestant form of worship, but his half-sister Mary used persecution +in an endeavor to bring back the old faith. + +The influences of the Renaissance, moving westward from Italy, were +tending toward their culmination in the next period. The study of +Greek literature, the discovery of the new world, the decline of +feudalism, the overthrow of the armed knight, the extension of the use +of gunpowder, the invention of printing, the increased love of +learning, the demand for scientific investigation, the decline of +monastic influence, shown in the new interest in this finite world and +life,--all figured as causes or effects of the new influence. + +The most important prose works are Sir Thomas Malory's _Morte +d'Arthur_, a masterly retelling of the Arthurian legends; Sir Thomas +More's _Utopia_, a magnificent Renaissance dream of a new social +world; and Tyndale's translation of the _Bible_. The best poetry was +written in Scotland, and this verse anticipates in some measure that +love of nature which is a dominant characteristic of the last part of +the eighteenth century. The age is noted for its ballads, which aided +in developing among high and low a liking for poetry. At the close of +the period, we find Italian influences at work, as may be seen in the +verse of Wyatt and Surrey. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +An account of the history of this period may be found in either +Gardiner,[10] Green, Lingard, Walker, or Cheney. Vols. IV. and V. of +_The Political History of England_, edited by Hunt (Longmans), gives +the history in greater detail. For the social side, consult Traill's +_Social England_, Vols. II. and III., also Cheney's _Industrial and +Social History of England_, Field's _Introduction to the Study of the +Renaissance_, Einstein's _The Italian Renaissance in England_, +Symonds's _A Short History of the Renaissance_. + +LITERARY + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vol. II. + +Snell's _The Age of Transition_, 1400-1580. + +Morley's _English Literature_, Vols. VI. and VII. + +Minto's _Characteristics of English Poets_, pp. 69-130. + +Saintsbury's _Short History of English Literature_, pp. 157-218. + +_Dictionary of National Biography_, articles on _Malory, Caxton, +Henryson, Gawain Douglas, Dunbar, Tyndale, Wyatt_, and _Surrey_. + +Veitch's _The Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry_. + +Percy's _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_. + +Gummere's _Old English Ballads_. + +Child's _The English and Scotch Popular Ballads_. + +Collins's _Greek Influence on English Poetry_. + +Tucker's _The Foreign Debt of English Literature_. + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Malory.--Craik,[11] _Century_, 19-33; Swiggett's _Selections from +Malory_; Wragg's _Selections from Malory_,--all contain good +selections. The Globe Edition is an inexpensive single volume +containing the complete text. The best edition is a reproduction of +the original in three volumes with introductions by Oscar Sommer and +Andrew Lang (London: David Nutt). Howard Pyle has retold Malory's best +stories in simple form (Scribner). + +Compare the death (or passing) of Arthur in Malory with Tennyson's +_The Passing of Arthur._ What special dualities do you notice in the +manner of Malory's telling a story? Is his work original? Why has it +remained so popular? What age specially shows its influence? + +More.--The English translation of the _Utopia_ may be found entire +in _Everyman's Library_ (35¢). There are good selections in Craik, I., +162-167. + +What is the etymological meaning of _Utopia_? What is its modern +significance? Did More really give a new word to literature and +speech? The _Utopia_ should be read for an indication of the influence +of the Renaissance and for comparison with twentieth-century ideas of +social improvement. + +Tyndale.--Bosworth and Waring's _Gospels_, containing the +Anglo-Saxon, Wycliffe, and Tyndale versions. Specimens of Tyndale's +prose are given in Chambers, I., 130; Craik, I., 185-187. + +Why is Tyndale's translation of the _Bible_ important to the student +of literature? What are some special dualities of this translation? + +Early Scottish Poetry.--Selections from fifteenth-century Scottish +poetry may be found in Bronson, I, 170-197; Ward, I, _passim_; P. & +S., 246-277; _Oxford_, 16-33. + +From the _King's Quair_ and the poems of Henryson, Dunbar, and Gawain +Douglas, select passages that show first-hand intimacy with nature. +Compare these with lines from any poet whose knowledge of nature seems +to you to be acquired from books. + +Ballads.--Ward. I., _passim_, contains among others three excellent +ballads,--_Sir Patrick Spens, The Twa Corbies, Robin Hood Rescuing the +Widow's Three Sons_. Bronson, I., 203-254; P. & S., 282-301; _Oxford_, +33-51; and Maynard's _English Classics_, No. 96, _Early English +Ballads_ also have good selections. The best collection is Child's +_The English and Scotch Popular Ballads_, 5 vols. + +What are the chief characteristics of the old ballads? Why do they +interest us today? Which of those indicated for reading has proved +most interesting? What influence impossible for other forms of +literature, was exerted by the ballad? What did Autolycus mean +(_Winter's Tale_, IV., 4) when he offered "songs for man or woman, of +all sizes"? Have any ballads been written in recent times? + +Wyatt and Surrey.--Read two characteristic love sonnets by Wyatt and +Surrey, P. & S., 313-319; Ward, I., 251, 257; Bronson, II., 1-4. A +specimen of the first English blank verse employed by Surrey in +translating Vergil's, _AEneid_ is given in Bronson, II., 4, 5; in P. & +S., 322, 323; and Chambers, I., 162. + +Why are Wyatt and Surrey called amourists? What contributions did they +make to the form of English verse? What foreign influences did they +help to usher in? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER III: + +[Footnote 1: _Knightes Tale_.] + +[Footnote 2: _Testament of Cresseid_.] + +[Footnote 3: _The Cloud_.] + +[Footnotes 4-6: _The Golden Targe_.] + +[Footnote 7: _Prologue to AEneid_, Book XII.] + +[Footnote 8: _The Winter's Tale_, IV., 4.] + +[Footnote 9: Wright's _Songs and Carols of the Fifteenth Century_, p. +30.] + +[Footnote 10: For full titles, see p. 50.] + +[Footnote 11: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER IV: THE AGE OF ELIZABETH, 1558-1603 + +The Reign of Elizabeth.--Queen Elizabeth, who ranks among the +greatest of the world's rulers, was the daughter of Henry VIII. and +his second wife Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth reigned as queen of England +from 1558 until her death in 1603. The remarkable allowances which she +made for difference of opinion showed that she felt the spirit of the +Renaissance. She loved England, and her most important acts were +guided, not by selfish personal motives, but by a strong desire to +make England a great nation. + +She had a law passed restoring the supremacy of the monarch, "as well +in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things as temporal." The prayer +book of Edward VI. was again introduced and the mass was forbidden. +She was broad enough not to inquire too closely into the private +religious opinions of her subjects, so long as they went to the +established church. For each absence they were fined a shilling. Next +to churchgoing and her country, she loved and encouraged plays. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF ELIZABETH'S SIGNATURE TO A LICENSE +FOR THE EARL OF LEICESTER'S COMPANY OF PLAYERS, 1574.] + +For more than twenty years she was worried by fear that either France +or Spain would put her Catholic cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, on the +English throne. With masterly diplomacy, Elizabeth for a long time +managed to retain the active friendship of at least one of these great +powers, in order to restrain the other from interfering. She had kept +Mary a prisoner for nineteen years, fearing to liberate her. At last +an active conspiracy was discovered to assassinate Elizabeth and put +Mary on the throne. Elizabeth accordingly had her cousin beheaded in +1587. Spain thereupon prepared her fleet, the Invincible Armada, to +attack England. When this became known, the outburst of patriotic +feeling was so intense among all classes in England that the queen did +not hesitate to put Lord Howard, a Catholic, in command of the English +fleet. The Armada was utterly defeated, and England was free to enter +on her glorious period of influencing the thought and action of the +world. + +In brief, Elizabeth's reign was remarkable for the rise of the middle +classes, for the growth of manufactures, for the appearance of English +ships in almost all parts of the world, for the extension of commerce, +for greater freedom of thought and action, for what the world now +calls Elizabethan literature, and for the ascendancy of a great mental +and moral movement to which we must next call attention. + +Culmination of the Renaissance and the Reformation.--We have seen +that the Renaissance began in Italy in the fourteenth century and +influenced the work of Chaucer. In the same century, Wycliffe's +influence helped the cause of the Reformation. Elizabethan England +alone had the good fortune to experience the culmination of these two +movements at one and the same time. At no other period and in no other +country have two forces, like the Renaissance and the Reformation, +combined at the height of their ascendancy to stimulate the human +mind. One result of these two mighty influences was the work of +William Shakespeare, which speaks to the ear of all time. + +The Renaissance, having opened the gates of knowledge, inspired the +Elizabethans with the hope of learning every secret of nature and of +surmounting all difficulties. The Reformation gave man new freedom, +imposed on him the gravest individual responsibilities, made him +realize the importance of every act of his own will, and emphasized +afresh the idea of the stewardship of this present life, for which he +would be held accountable. In Elizabethan days, these two forces +coöperated; in the following Puritan age they were at war. + +Some Characteristics of Elizabethan Life.--It became an ambition to +have as many different experiences as possible, to search for that +variety craved by youth and by a youthful age. Sir Walter Raleigh was +a courtier, a writer, a warden of the tin mines, a vice admiral, a +captain of the guard, a colonizer, a country gentleman, and a pirate. +Sir Philip Sidney, who died at the age of thirty-two, was an envoy to +a foreign court, a writer of romances, an officer in the army, a poet +and a courtier. Shakespeare left the little town where he was born, to +plunge into the more complex life of London. The poet, Edmund Spenser, +went to turbulent Ireland, where he had enough experiences to suggest +the conflicts in the _Faerie Queene_. + +The greater freedom and initiative of the individual and the +remarkable extension of trade with all parts of the world naturally +led to the rise of the middle class. The nobility were no longer the +sole leaders in England's rapid progress. Many of Elizabeth's +councilors were said to have sprung from the masses, but no reign +could boast of wiser ministers. It was then customary for the various +classes to mingle much more freely than they do now. There was absence +of that overspecialization which today keeps people in such sharply +separated groups. This mingling was further aided by the tendency to +try many different pursuits and by the spirit of patriotism in the +air. All classes were interested in repelling the Spanish Armada and +in maintaining England's freedom. It was fortunate for Shakespeare +that the Elizabethan age gave him unusual opportunity to meet and to +become the spokesman of all classes of men. The audience that stood in +the pit or sat in the boxes to witness the performance of his plays, +comprised not only lords and wealthy merchants, but also weavers, +sailors, and country folk. + +Initiative and Love of Action.--The Elizabethans were distinguished +for their initiative. This term implies the possession of two +qualities: (1) ingenuity or fertility in ideas, and (2) ability to +pass at once from an idea to its suggested action. Never did action +habitually follow more quickly on the heels of thought. The age loved +to translate everything into action, because the spirit of the +Renaissance demanded the exercise of youthful activity to its fullest +capacity in order that the power which the new knowledge promised +could be acquired and enjoyed before death. As the Elizabethans felt +that real life meant activity in exploring a new and interesting +world, both physical and mental, they demanded that their literature +should present this life of action. Hence, all their greatest poets, +with the exception of Spenser, were dramatists. Even Spenser's _Faerie +Queene_, with its abstractions, is a poem of action, for the virtues +fight with the vices. + +ELIZABETHAN PROSE LITERATURE + +Variety in the Prose.--The imaginative spirit of the Elizabethans +craved poetry, and all the greatest authors of this age, with the +exception of Francis Bacon, were poets. If, however, an Elizabethan +had been so peculiarly constituted as to wish to stock his library +with contemporary prose only, he could have secured good works in many +different fields. He could, for instance, have obtained (1) an +excellent book on education, the _Scholemaster_ of Roger Ascham +(1515-1568); (2) interesting volumes of travel, such as the +_Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation_, by +Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616); and _The Discovery of Guiana_, by Sir +Walter Raleigh (1552-1618); (3) history, in the important _Chronicles +of England, Ireland, and Scotland_ (1578), by Raphael Holinshed; the +_Chronicle (Annals of England)_ and _Survey of London_, by John Stow +(1525-1604); and the _Brittania_, by William Camden (1551-1623); (4) +biography, in the excellent translation of _Plutarch's Lives_, by Sir +Thomas North (1535-1601?); (5) criticism, in _The Apologie for +Poetrie_, by Sir Philip Sidney; (6) essays on varied subjects by +Francis Bacon; (7) works dealing with religion and faith: (_a_) John +Foxe's (1516-1587) _Book of Martyrs_, which told in simple prose +thrilling stories of martyrs and served as a textbook of the +Reformation; (_b_) Hooker's _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_, a +treatise on theology; (8) fiction,[1] in John Lyly's _Euphues_ (1579), +Robert Greene's _Pandosto_ (1588), Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcardia_ +(1590), Thomas Lodge's _Rosalynde_ (1590), Nashe's _The Unfortunate +Traveler_ (1594), and Thomas Deloney's _The Gentle Craft_ (1597).[2] + +Shakespeare read Holinshed, North, Greene, Sidney, and Lodge and +turned some of their suggestions into poetry, which we very much +prefer to their prose. We are nearly certain that Shakespeare studied +Lyly's _Euphues_, because we can trace the influence of that work in +his style. + +It was the misfortune of Elizabethan prose to be almost completely +overshadowed by the poetry. This prose was, however, far more varied +and important than that of any preceding age. The books mentioned on +page 123 constitute only a small part of the prose of this period. + +Lyly, Sidney, Hooker.--In 1579, when Shakespeare was fifteen years +old, there appeared the first part of an influential prose work, John +Lyly's (1554?-1606) _Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit_, followed in 1580 by +a second part, _Euphues and his England_. Much of Lyly's subject +matter is borrowed, and his form reflects the artificial style then +popular over Europe. + +Euphues, a young Athenian, goes to Naples, where he falls in love and +is jilted. This is all the action in the first part of the so-called +story. The rest is moralizing. In the second part, Euphues comes to +England with a friend, who falls in love twice, and finally marries; +but again there is more moralizing than story. Euphues returns to +Athens and retires to the mountains to muse in solitude. + +In its use of a love story, _Euphues_ prefigures the modern novel. In +_Euphues_, however, the love story serves chiefly as a peg on which to +hang discussions on fickleness, youthful follies, friendship, and +divers other subjects. + +Lyly aimed to produce artistic prose, which would render his meaning +clear and impressive. To achieve this object, he made such excessive +use of contrast, balanced words and phrases, and far-fetched +comparisons, that his style seems highly artificial and affected. This +quotation is typical:-- + + "Achilles spear could as well heal as hurt, the scorpion though he + sting, yet he stints the pain, through the herb _Nerius_ poison the + sheep, yet is a remedy to man against poison... There is great + difference between the standing puddle and the running stream, yet + both water: great odds between the adamant and the pomice, yet both + stones, a great distinction to be put between _vitrum_ and the + crystal, yet both glass: great contrariety between Lais and + Lucretia, yet both women." + +Although this selection shows unnatural or strained antithesis, there +is also evident a commendable desire to vary the diction and to avoid +the repetition of the same word. To find four different terms for +nearly the same idea "difference," "odds," "distinction," and +"contrariety," involves considerable painstaking. While it is true +that the term "euphuism" has come to be applied to any stilted, +antithetical style that pays more attention to the manner of +expressing a thought than to its worth, we should remember that +English prose style has advanced because some writers, like Lyly, +emphasized the importance of artistic form. Shakespeare occasionally +employs euphuistic contrast in an effective way. The sententious +Polonius says in _Hamlet_:-- + + "Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice." + +[Illustration: PHILIPPE SIDNEY. _After the miniature by Isaac +Oliver, Windsor Castle._] + +Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) wrote for his sister, the Countess of +Pembroke, a pastoral romance, entitled _Arcadia_ (published in 1590). +Unlike Lyly, Sidney did not aim at precision, emphatic contrast, and +balance. For its effectiveness, the _Arcadia_ relies on poetic +language and conceptions. The characters in the romance live and love +in a Utopian Arcadia, where "the morning did strow Roses and Violets +in the heavenly floor against the coming of the Sun," and where the +shepherd boy pipes "as though he should never be old." + +Passages like the following show Sidney's poetic style and as much +exuberant fancy as if they had been written by a Celt:-- + + "Her breath is more sweet than a gentle southwest wind, which + comes creeping over flowery fields and shadowed waters in the + extreme heat of summer and yet is nothing compared to the + honey-flowing speech that breath doth carry." + +The _Arcadia_ furnished Shakespeare's _King Lear_ with the auxiliary +plot of Gloucester and his two sons and inspired Thomas Lodge to write +his novel _Rosalynde_, which in turn suggested Shakespeare's _As You +Like It_. + +To Sidney belongs the credit of having written the first meritorious +essay on criticism in the English language, _The Apologie for +Poetrie_. This defends the poetic art, and shows how necessary such +exercise of the imagination is to take us away from the cold, hard +facts of life. + +Richard Hooker's (1554?-1600) _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_ +shows a third aim in Elizabethan prose,--to express carefully reasoned +investigation and conclusion in English that is as thoroughly +elaborated and qualified as the thought. Lyly's striking contrasts and +Sidney's flowery prose do not appeal to Hooker, who uses Latin +inversions and parenthetical qualifications, and adds clause after +clause whenever he thinks it necessary to amplify the thought or to +guard against misunderstanding. Hooker's prose is as carefully wrought +as Lyly's and far more rhythmical. Both were experimenting with +English prose in different fields, serving to teach succeeding writers +what to imitate and to avoid. + +Unlike _Euphues_ and the _Arcadia_, _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical +Polity_ is more valuable for its thought than for its form of +expression. This work, which is still studied as an authority, is an +exposition of divine law in its relations to both the world and the +church. Hooker was personally a compound of sweetness and light, and +his philosophy is marked by sweet reasonableness. He was a clergyman +of the Church of England, but he shows a spirit of toleration toward +other churches. He had much of the modern idea of growth in both +government and religion, and he "accepts no system of government +either in church or state as unalterable." + +FRANCIS BACON, 1561-1626 + +[Illustration: FRANCIS BACON. _From the painting by Van Somer, +National Portrait Gallery._] + +Life.--A study of Bacon takes us beyond the limits of the reign of +Elizabeth, but not beyond the continued influences of that reign. +Francis Bacon, the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great +Seal under Elizabeth, was born in London and grew up under the +influences of the court. In order to understand some of Bacon's +actions in later life, we must remember the influences that helped to +fashion him in his boyhood days. Those with whom he early associated +and who unconsciously molded him were not very scrupulous about the +way in which they secured the favor of the court or the means which +they took to outstrip an adversary. They also encouraged in him a +taste for expensive luxuries. These unfortunate influences were +intensified when, at the age of sixteen, he went with the English +ambassador to Paris, and remained there for two and a half years, +studying statecraft and diplomacy. + +When Bacon was nineteen, his father died. The son, being without +money, returned from Paris and appealed to his uncle, Lord Burleigh, +one of Elizabeth's ministers, for some lucrative position at the +court. In a letter to his uncle, Bacon says: "I confess I have as vast +contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends; for I have taken all +knowledge to be my province." This statement shows the Elizabethan +desire to master the entire world of the New Learning. Instead of +helping his nephew, however, Lord Burleigh seems to have done all in +his power to thwart him. Bacon thereupon studied law and was admitted +to the bar in 1582. + +Bacon entered Parliament in 1584 and distinguished himself as a +speaker. Ben Jonson, the dramatist, says of him "There happened in my +time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking. No man +ever spoke more neatly, more presly, more weightily, or suffered less +emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. His hearers could not +cough or look aside from him without loss. The fear of every man that +heard him was lest he should make an end." This speaking was valuable +training for Bacon in writing the pithy sentences of his _Essays_. A +man who uses the long, involved sentences of Hooker can never become a +speaker to whom people will listen. The habit of directness and +simplicity, which Bacon formed in his speaking, remained with him +through Life. + +Among the many charges against Bacon's personal code of ethics, two +stand out conspicuously. The Earl of Essex, who had given Bacon an +estate then worth £1800, was influential in having him appointed to +the staff of counselors to Queen Elizabeth. When Essex was accused of +treason, Bacon kept the queen's friendship by repudiating him and +taking an active part in the prosecution that led to the earl's +execution. After James I. had made Bacon Lord High Chancellor of +England, he was accused of receiving bribes as a judge. He replied +that he had accepted only the customary presents given to judges and +that these made no difference in his decisions. He was tried, found +guilty, fined £40,000, and sentenced to be imprisoned in the Tower +during the king's pleasure. After a few days, however, the king +released him, forgave the fine, and gave him an annual pension of +£1200. + +The question whether he wrote Shakespeare's plays needs almost as much +discussion on the moral as on the intellectual side. James Spedding, +after studying Bacon's life and works for thirty years, said: "I see +no reason to suppose that Shakespeare did not write the plays. But if +somebody else did, then I think I am in a position to say that it was +not Lord Bacon." + +After his release, Bacon passed the remaining five years of his life +in retirement,--studying and writing. His interest in observing +natural objects and experimenting with them was the cause of his +death. He was riding in a snowstorm when it occurred to him to test +snow as a preservative agent. He stopped at a house, procured a fowl, +and stuffed it with snow. He caught cold during this experiment and, +being improperly cared for, soon died. + +The Essays.--The first ten of his _Essays_, his most popular work, +appeared in the year 1597. At the time of his death, he had increased +them to fifty-eight. They deal with a with range of subjects, from +_Studies_ and _Nobility_, On the one hand, to _Marriage and Single +Life_ and _Gardens_ on the other. The great critic Hallam say: "It +would be somewhat derogatory to a man of the slightest claim to polite +letters, were he unacquainted with the _Essays_ of Bacon. It is, +indeed, little worth while to read this or any other book for +reputation's, sake; but very few in our language so well repay the +pains, or afford more nourishment to the thoughts." + +[Illustration: TITLE PAGE OF BACON'S ESSAYS, 1597.] + +The following sentence from the essay _Of Studies_ will show some of +the characteristics of his way of presenting thought:-- + + "Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing + an exact man: and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need + have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present + wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to + know that he doth not." + +We may notice here (1) clearness, (2) conciseness, (3) breadth of +thought and observation. + +A shrewd Scotchman says: "It may be said that to men wishing to rise +in the world by politic management of their fellowmen, Bacon's +_Essays_ are the best handbook hitherto published." In justification +of this criticism, we need only quote from the essay _Of +Negotiating_:-- + + "It is generally better to deal by speech than by letter... Letters + are good, when a man would draw an answer by letter back again, or + when it may serve, for a man's justification, afterwards to produce + his own letter, or where it may he danger to be interrupted or heard + by pieces. To deal in person is good, when a man's face breedeth + regard, as commonly with inferiors, or in tender cases, where a + man's eye upon the countenance of him with whom he speaketh may give + him a direction how far to go, and generally, where a man will + reserve to himself liberty either to disavow or to expound." + +Scientific and Miscellaneous Works.--_The Advancement of Learning_ +is another of Bacon's great works. The title aptly expresses the +purpose of the took. He insists on the necessity of close observation +of nature and of making experiments with various forms of matter. He +decries the habit of spinning things out of one's inner consciousness, +without patiently studying the outside world to see whether the facts +justify the conclusions. In other words, he insists on induction. +Bacon was not the father of the inductive principle, as is sometimes +wrongly stated; for prehistoric man was compelled to make inductions +before he could advance one step from barbarism. The trouble was that +this method was not rigorously applied. It was currently believed that +our valuable garden toad is venomous and that frogs are bred from +slime. For his knowledge of bees, Lyly consulted classical authors in +preference to watching the insects. Bacon's writings exerted a +powerful influence in the direction of exact inductive method. + +Bacon had so little faith in the enduring qualities of the English +language, that he wrote the most of his philosophical works in Latin. +He planned a Latin work in six parts, to cover the whole field of the +philosophy of natural science. The most famous of the parts completed +is the _Novum Organum_, which deals with certain methods for searching +after definite truth, and shows how to avoid some ever present +tendencies toward error. + +Bacon wrote an excellent _History of the Reign of Henry VII_., which +is standard to this day. He is also the author of _The New Atlantis_, +which may be termed a Baconian Utopia, or study of an ideal +commonwealth. + +General Characteristics.--In Bacon's sentences we may often find +remarkable condensation of thought in few words. A modern essayist has +taken seven pages to express, or rather to obscure, the ideas in these +three lines from Bacon:-- + + "Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, + repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, + but content themselves with a mediocrity of success."[3] + +His works abound in illustrations, analogies, and striking imagery; +but unlike the great Elizabethan poets, he appeals more to cold +intellect than to the feelings. We are often pleased with his +intellectual ingenuity, for instance, in likening the Schoolmen to +spiders, spinning such stuff as webs are made of "out of no great +quantity of matter." + +He resembles the Elizabethans in preferring magnificent to commonplace +images. It has been often noticed that if he essays to write of +buildings in general, he prefers to describe palaces. His knowledge of +the intellectual side of human nature is especially remarkable, but, +unlike Shakespeare, Bacon never drops his plummet into the emotional +depths of the soul. + +THE NON-DRAMATIC POETRY--LYRICAL VERSE + +A Medium of Artistic Expression.--No age has surpassed the +Elizabethan in lyrical poems, those "short swallow flights of song," +as Tennyson defines them. The English Renaissance, unlike the Italian, +did not achieve great success in painting. The Englishman embodied in +poetry his artistic expression of the beautiful. Many lyrics are +merely examples of word painting. The Elizabethan poet often began his +career by trying to show his skill with the ingenious and musical +arrangement of words, where an Italian would have used color and +drawing on an actual canvas. + +We have seen that in the reign of Henry VIII. Wyatt and Surrey +introduced into England from Italy the type of lyrical verse known as +the sonnet. This is the most artificial of lyrics, because its rules +prescribe a length of exactly fourteen lines and a definite internal +structure. + +The sonnet was especially popular with Elizabethan poets. In the last +ten years of the sixteenth century, more than two thousand sonnets +were written. Even Shakespeare served a poetic apprenticeship by +writing many sonnets as well as semi-lyrical poems, like _Venus and +Adonis_. + +We should, however, remember that the sonnet is only one type of the +varied lyric expression of the age. Many Elizabethan song books show +that lyrics were set to music and used on the most varied occasions. +There were songs for weddings, funerals, dances, banquets,--songs for +the tinkers, the barbers, and other workmen. If modern readers chance +to pick up an Elizabethan novel, like Thomas Lodge's _Rosalynde_ +(1590), they are surprised to find that prose will not suffice for the +lover, who must "evaporate" into song like this:-- + + "Love in my bosom like a bee, + Doth suck his sweet. + Now with his wings he plays with me, + Now with his feet." + +There are large numbers of Elizabethan lyrics apparently as +spontaneous and unfettered as the song of the lark. The seeming +artlessness of much of this verse should not blind us to the fact that +an unusual number of poets had really studied the art of song. + +Love Lyrics.--The subject of the Elizabethan sonnets is usually +love. Sir Philip Sidney wrote many love sonnets, the best of which is +the one beginning:-- + + "With how sad steps. O Moon, thou climb'st the Skies!" + +Edmund Spencer composed fifty-eight sonnets in one year to chronicle +his varied emotions as a lover. We may find among Shakespeare's 154 +sonnets some of the greatest love lyrics in the language, such, for +instance, as CXVI., containing the lines:-- + + "Love is not love + Which alters when it alteration finds"; + +or, as XVIII.:-- + + "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? + Thou art more lovely and more temperate: + Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, + And summer's lease bath all too short a date. + * * * * * + But thy eternal summer shall not fade." + +Sonnets came to be used in much the same way as a modern love letter +or valentine. In the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, sonnets were +even called "merchantable ware." Michael Drayton (1563-1631), a +prolific poet, author of the _Ballad of Agincourt_, one of England's +greatest war songs, tells how he was employed by a lover to write a +sonnet which won the lady. Drayton's best sonnet is, _Since there's no +help, come let us kiss and part_. + +Outside of the sonnets, we shall find love lyrics in great variety. +One of the most popular of Elizabethan songs is Ben Jonson's:-- + + "Drink to me only with thine eyes, + And I will pledge with mine; + Or leave a kiss but in the cup, + And I'll not look for wine." + +The Elizabethans were called a "nest of singing birds" because such +songs as the following are not unusual in the work of their minor +writers:-- + + "Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft + To give my love good morrow! + Winds from the wind to please her mind, + Notes from the lark I'll borrow."[4] + +Pastoral Lyrics.--In Shakespeare's early youth it was the fashion to +write lyrics about the delights of rustic life with sheep and +shepherds. The Italians, freshly interesting in Vergil's _Georgics_ +and _Bucolics_, had taught the English how to write pastoral verse. +The entire joyous world had become a Utopian sheep pasture, in which +shepherds piped and fell in love with glorified sheperdesses. A great +poet named one of his productions, _Shepherd's Calendar_ and Sir +Philip Sidney wrote in poetic prose the pastoral romance _Arcadia_. + +Christopher Marlowe's _The Passionate Shepherd to his Love_ is a +typical poetic expression of the fancied delight in pastoral life:-- + + "...we will sit upon the rocks, + Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks + By shallow rivers, to whose falls + Melodious birds sing madrigals." + +Miscellaneous Lyrics.--As the Elizabethan age progressed, the +subject matter of the lyrics became broader. Verse showing consummate +mastery of turns expressed the most varied emotions. Some of the +greatest lyrics of the period are the songs interspersed in the plays +of the dramatists, from Lyly to Beaumont and Fletcher. The plays of +Shakespeare, the greatest and most varied of Elizabethan lyrical +poets, especially abound in such songs. Two of the best of these occur +in his _Cymbeline_. One is the song-- + + "Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings," + +and the other is the dirge beginning:-- + + "Fear no more the heat o' the sun." + +Ariel's songs in _The Tempest_ fascinate with the witchery of +untrammeled existence. Two lines of a song from _Twelfth Night_ give +an attractive presentation of the Renaissance philosophy of the +present as opposed to an elusive future:-- + + "What is love? 'tis not hereafter; + Present mirth hath present laughter." + +[Illustration: JOHN DONNE. _From the painting ascribed to Cornelius +Jansen, South Kensington Museum._] + +Two of the later Elizabethan poets, Ben Jonson and John Donne +(1573-1631), specially impress us by their efforts to secure ingenious +effects in verse. Ben Jonson often shows this tendency, as in trying +to give a poetic definition of a kiss as something-- + + "So sugar'd, so melting, so soft, so delicious," + +and in showing so much ingenuity of expression in the cramping limits +of an epitaph:-- + + "Underneath this stone doth lie + As much beauty as could die, + Which in life did harbor give + To more virtue than doth live." + +The poet most famous for a display of extreme ingenuity in verse is +John Donne, a traveler, courtier, and finally dean of St. Paul's +Cathedral, who possessed, to quote his own phrase, an "hydroptic +immoderate desire of human learning." He paid less attention to +artistic form than the earlier Elizabethans, showed more cynicism, +chose the abstract rather than the concrete, and preferred involved +metaphysical thought to simple sensuous images. He made few references +to nature and few allusions to the characters of classical mythology, +but searched for obscure likenesses between things, and for conceits +or far-fetched comparisons. In his poem, _A Funeral Elegy_, he shows +these qualities in characterizing a fair young lady as:-- + + "One whose clear body was so pure and thin, + Because it need disguise no thought within; + 'Twas but a through-light scarf her mind to enroll, + Or exhalation breathed out from her soul." + +The idea in Shakespeare's simpler expression, "the heavenly rhetoric +of thine eye," was expanded by Donne into:-- + + "Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread + Our eyes upon one double string." + +Donne does not always show so much fine-spun ingenuity, but this was +the quality most imitated by a group of his successors. His claim to +distinction rests on the originality and ingenuity of his verse, and +perhaps still more on his influence over succeeding poets.[5] + +EDMUND SPENSER, 1552-1599 + +[Illustration: EDMUND SPENSER._From a painting in Duplin Castle_.] + +Life and Minor Poems.--For one hundred and fifty-two years after +Chaucer's death, in 1400, England had no great poet until Edmund +Spenser was born in London in 1552. Spenser, who became the greatest +non-dramatic poet of the Elizabethan age, was twelve years older than +Shakespeare. + +His parents were poor, but fortunately in Elizabethan times, as well +as in our own days, there were generous men who found their chief +pleasure in aiding others. Such a man assisted Spenser in going to +Cambridge. Spenser's benefactor was sufficiently wise not to give the +student enough to dwarf the growth of self-reliance. We know that +Spenser was a sizar at Cambridge, that is, one of those students who, +to quote Macaulay, "had to perform some menial services. They swept +the court; they carried up the dinner to the fellows' table, and +changed the plate and poured out the ale of the rulers of society." We +know further that Spenser was handicapped by ill health during a part +of his course, for we find records of allowances paid "Spenser +_aegrotanti_." + +After leaving Cambridge Spenser went to the north of England, probably +in the capacity of tutor. While there, he fell in love with a young +woman whom he calls Rosalind. This event colored his after life. +Although she refused him, she had penetration enough to see in what +his greatness consisted, and her opinion spurred him to develop his +abilities as a poet. He was about twenty-five years old when he fell +in love with Rosalind; and he remained single until he was forty-two, +when he married an Irish maiden named Elizabeth. In honor of that +event, he composed the _Epithalamion_, the noblest marriage song in +any literature. So strong are early impressions that even in its lines +he seems to be thinking of Rosalind and fancying that she is his +bride. + +After returning from the north, he spent some time with Sir Philip +Sidney, who helped fashion Spenser's ideals of a chivalrous gentleman. +Sidney's influence is seen in Spenser's greatest work, the _Faerie +Queene_. Sir Walter Raleigh was another friend who left his imprint on +Spenser. + +In 1579, Spenser published the _Shepherd's Calendar_. This is a +pastoral poem, consisting of twelve different parts, one part being +assigned to each of the twelve months. Although inferior to the +_Faerie Queene_, the _Shepherd's Calendar_ remains one of the greatest +pastoral poems in the English language. + +In 1580 he was appointed secretary to Lord Gray, Lord Lieutenant of +Ireland. In one capacity or another, in the service of the crown, +Spenser passed in Ireland almost the entire remaining eighteen years +of his life. In 1591 he received in the south of Ireland a grant of +three thousand acres, a part of the confiscated estate of an Irish +earl. Sir Walter Raleigh was also given forty-two thousand acres near +Spenser. Ireland was then in a state of continuous turmoil. In such a +country Spenser lived and wrote his _Faerie Queene_. Of course, this +environment powerfully affected the character of that poem. It has +been said that to read a contemporary's account of "Raleigh's +adventures with the Irish chieftains, his challenges and single +combats, his escapes at fords and woods, is like reading bits of the +_Faerie Queene_ in prose." + +In 1598 the Irish, infuriated by the invasion of their country and the +seizure of their lands, set fire to Spenser's castle. He and his +family barely escaped with their lives. He crossed to England and died +the next year, according to some accounts, in want. He was buried, at +the expense of Lord Essex, in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer. + +The Faerie Queene.--In 1590 Spenser published the first three books +of the _Faerie Queene_. The original plan was to have the poem contain +twelve books, like Vergil's _AEneid_, but only six were published. If +more were written, they have been lost. + +The poem is an allegory with the avowed moral purpose of fashioning "a +gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline." Spenser +says: "I labour 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." Twelve Knights personifying +twelve Virtues were to fight with their opposing Vices, and the twelve +books were to tell the story of the conflict. The Knights set out from +the court of Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, in search of their enemies, +and meet with divers adventures and enchantments. + +The hero of the tale is Arthur, who has figured so much in English +song and legend. Spenser makes him typical of all the Virtues taken +together. The first book, which is really a complete poem by itself, +and which is generally admitted to be the finest, contains an account +of the adventures of the Red Cross Knight who represents Holiness. +Other books tell of the warfare of the Knights who typify Temperance, +Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. + +The poem begins thus:-- + + "A gentle Knight was pricking[6] on the plaine, + Ycladd 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. + * * * * * + "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. + * * * * * + "Upon a great adventure he was bond. + That greatest Gloriana to him gave, + That greatest glorious Queene of Faerie lond." + +The entire poem really typifies the aspirations of the human soul for +something nobler and better than can be gained without effort. In +Spenser's imaginative mind, these aspirations became real persons who +set out to win laurels in a fairyland, lighted with the soft light of +the moon, and presided over by the good genius that loves to uplift +struggling and weary souls. + +The allegory certainly becomes confused. A critic well says: "We can +hardly lose our way in it, for there is no way to lose." We are not +called on to understand the intricacies of the allegory, but to read +between the lines, catch the noble moral lesson, and drink to our fill +at the fountain of beauty and melody. + +Spenser a Subjective Poet.--The subjective cast of Spenser's mind +next demands attention. We feel that his is an ideal world, one that +does not exist outside of the imagination. In order to understand the +difference between subjective and objective, let us compare Chaucer +with Spenser. No one can really be said to study literature without +constantly bringing in the principle of comparison. We must notice the +likeness and the difference between literary productions, or the faint +impression which they make upon our minds will soon pass away. + +Chaucer is objective; that is, he identifies himself with things that +could have a real existence in the outside world. We find ourselves +looking at the shiny bald head of Chaucer's Monk, at the lean horse +and threadbare clothes of the Student of Oxford, at the brown +complexion of the Shipman, at the enormous hat and large figure of the +Wife of Bath, at the red face of the Summoner, at the hair of the +Pardoner "yelow as wex." These are not mere figments of the +imagination. We feel that they are either realities or that they could +have existed. + +While the adventures in the Irish wars undoubtedly gave the original +suggestions for many of the contests between good and evil in the +_Faerie Queene_, Spenser intentionally idealized these knightly +struggles to uphold the right and placed them in fairyland. This great +poem is the work of a mind that loved to elaborate purely subjective +images. The pictures were not painted from gazing at the outside +world. We feel that they are mostly creations of the imagination, and +that few of them could exist in a real world. There is no bower in the +bottom of the sea, "built of hollow billowes heaped hye," and no lion +ever follows a lost maiden to protect her. We feel that the principal +part of Shakespeare's world could have existed in reality as well as +in imagination. Spenser was never able to reach this highest type of +art. + +The world, however, needs poets to create images of a higher type of +beauty than this life can offer. These images react on our material +lives and cast them in a nobler mold. Spenser's belief that the +subjective has power to fashion the objective is expressed in two of +the finest lines that he ever wrote:-- + + "For of the soule the bodie forme doth take; + For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make."[7] + +Chief Characteristics of Spenser's Poetry.--We can say of Spencer's +verse that it stands in the front rank for (1) melody, (2) love of the +beautiful, and (3) nobility of the ideals presented. His poetry also +(4) shows a preference for the subjective world, (5) exerts a +remarkable influence over other poets, and (6) displays a peculiar +liking for obsolete forms of expression. + +Spencer's melody is noteworthy. If we read aloud correctly such lines +as these, we can scarcely fail to be impressed with their harmonious +flow:-- + + "A teme of Dolphins raunged in aray + Drew the smooth charett of sad Cymoent: + They were all taught by Triton to obay + To the long raynes at her commaundement: + As swifte as swallowes on the waves they went. + * * * * * + "Upon great Neptune's necke they softly swim, + And to her watry chamber swiftly carry him. + Deepe in the bottome of the sea her bowre + Is built of hollow billowes heaped hye."[8] + +The following lines will show Spenser's love for beauty, and at the +same time indicate the nobility of some of his ideal characters. He is +describing Lady Una, the fair representative of true religion, who has +lost through enchantment her Guardian Knight, and who is wandering +disconsolate in the forest:-- + + "...Her angel's face, + As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, + And made a sunshine in the shady place; + Did never mortall eye behold such heavenly grace. + + "It fortuned out of the thickest wood + A ramping Lyon rushed suddeinly, + Hunting full greedy after salvage blood. + Soone as the royall virgin he did spy, + With gaping mouth at her ran greedily, + To have att once devoured her tender corse; + But to the pray when as he drew more ny, + His bloody rage aswaged with remorse, + And with the sight amazd, forgat his furious forse. + + "In stead thereof he kist her wearie feet, + And lickt her lilly hands with fawning tong, + As he her wronged innocence did weet. + O, how can beautie maister the most strong, + And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!"[9] + +The power of beauty has seldom been more vividly described. As we read +the succeeding stanzas and see the lion following her, like a faithful +dog, to shield her from harm, we feel the power of both beauty and +goodness and realize that with Spenser these terms are +interchangeable, Each one of the preceding selections shows his +preference for the subjective and the ideal to the actual. + +Spenser searched for old and obsolete words. He used "eyne" for +"eyes," "fone" for "foes," "shend" for "shame." He did not hesitate to +coin words when he needed them, like "mercify" and "fortunize." He +even wrote "wawes" in place of "waves" because he wished it to rime +with "jaws." In spite of these peculiarities, Spenser is not hard +reading after the first appearance of strangeness has worn away. + +A critic rightly says that Spenser repels none but the anti-poetical. +His influence upon other poets has been far-reaching. Milton, Dryden, +Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley show traces of his influence. +Spenser has been called the poet's poet, because the more poetical one +is, the more one will enjoy him. + +THE ENGLISH DRAMA + +The Early Religious Drama.--It is necessary to remember at the +outset that the purpose of the religious drama was not to amuse, but +to give a vivid presentation of scriptural truth. On the other hand, +the primary aim of the later dramatist has usually been to entertain, +or, in Shakespeare's exact words, "to please." Shakespeare was, +however, fortunate in having an audience that was pleased to be +instructed, as well as entertained. + +Before the sixteenth century, England had a religious drama that made +a profound impression on life and thought. The old religious plays +helped to educate the public, the playwrights, and the actors for the +later drama. + +Any one may to-day form some idea of the rise of the religious drama, +by attending the service of the Catholic church on Christmas or Easter +Sunday. In many Catholic churches there may still be seen at Christmas +time a representation of the manger at Bethlehem. Sometimes the +figures of the infant Savior, of Joseph and Mary, of the wise men, of +the sheep and cattle, are very lifelike. + +The events clustering about the Crucifixion and the Resurrection +furnished the most striking material for the early religious drama. +Our earliest dramatic writers drew their inspiration from the _New +Testament_. + +Miracle and Mystery Plays.--A Miracle play is the dramatic +representation of the life of a saint and of the miracles connected +with him. A Mystery play deals with gospel events which are concerned +with any phase of the life of Christ, or with any Biblical event that +remotely foreshadows Christ or indicates the necessity of a Redeemer. +In England there were few, if any, pure Miracle plays, but the term +"Miracle" is applied indiscriminately to both Miracles and Mysteries. + +The first Miracle play in England was acted probably not far from +1100. In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries these +plays had become so popular that they were produced in nearly every +part of England. Shakespeare felt their influence. He must have had +frequent opportunities in his boyhood to witness their production. +They were seldom performed in England after 1600, although visitors to +Germany have, every ten years, the opportunity of seeing a modern +production of a Mystery in the _Passion Play_ at Oberammergau. + +The Subjects.--Four great cycles of Miracle plays have been +preserved: the York, Chester, and Coventry plays, so called because +they were performed in those places, and the Towneley plays, which +take their name from Towneley Hall in Lancashire, where the manuscript +was kept for some time. It is probable that almost every town of +importance had its own collection of plays. + +[Illustration: MIRACLE PLAY AT COVENTRY. _From an old print_] + +The York cycle contains forty-eight plays. A cycle or circle of plays +means a list forming a complete circle from Creation until Doomsday. +The York collection begins with Creation and the fall of Lucifer and +the bad angels from Heaven,--a theme which was later to inspire the +pen of one of England's greatest poets. The tragedies of Eden and the +Flood, scenes from the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses, the manger +at Bethlehem, the slaughter of the Innocents, the Temptation, the +resurrection of Lazarus, the Last Supper, the Trial, the Crucifixion, +and the Easter triumph are a few of the Miracle plays that were acted +in the city of York. + +The Actors and Manner of Presentation.--At first the actors were +priests who presented the plays either in the church or in its +immediate vicinity on sacred ground. After a while the plays became so +popular that the laity presented them. When they were at the height of +their popularity, that is, during the fourteenth and fifteenth +centuries, the actors were selected with great care from the members +of the various trades guilds. Each guild undertook the entire +responsibility for the presentation of some one play, and endeavored +to surpass all the other guilds. + +[Illustration: HELL MOUTH._From a Columbia University Model_.] + +Considerable humor was displayed in the allotment of various plays. +The tanners presented the fall of Lucifer and the bad angels into the +infernal regions; the ship carpenters, the play of Noah and the +building of the ark; the bakers, the Last Supper; the butchers, the +Crucifixion. In their prime, the Miracle plays were acted on wooden +platforms mounted on wheels. There were two distinct stories in these +movable stages, a lower one in which the actors dressed, and an upper +one in which they played. The entrance to the lower story, known as +Hell Mouth, consisted of a terrible pair of dragonlike jaws, painted +red. From these jaws issued smoke, flame, and horrible outcries. From +the entrance leaped red-coated devils to tempt the Savior, the saints, +and men. Into it the devils would disappear with some wicked soul. +They would torture it and make it roar with pain, as the smoke poured +faster from the red jaws. + +In York on Corpus Christi Day, which usually fell in the first week in +June, the actors were ordered to be in their places on these movable +theaters at half past three in the morning. Certain stations had been +selected throughout the city, where each pageant should stop and, in +the proper order, present its own play. In this way the enormous +crowds that visited York to see these performances were more evenly +scattered throughout the city. + +The actors did not always remain on the stage. Herod, for example, in +his magnificent robes used to ride on horseback among the people, +boast of his prowess, and overdo everything. Shakespeare, who was +evidently familiar with the character, speaks of out-Heroding Herod. +The Devil also frequently jumped from the stage and availed himself of +his license to play pranks among the audience. + +Much of the acting was undoubtedly excellent. In 1476 the council at +York ordained that four of the best players in the city should examine +with regard to fitness all who wished to take part in the plays. So +many were desirous of acting that it was much trouble to get rid of +incompetents. The ordinance ran: "All such as they shall find +sufficient in person and cunning, to the honor of the City and worship +of the said Crafts, for to admit and able; and all other insufficient +persons, either in cunning, voice, or person, to discharge, ammove and +avoid." A critic says that this ordinance is "one of the steps on +which the greatness of the Elizabethan stage was built, and through +which its actors grew up."[10] + +Introduction of the Comic Element in the Miracle Plays.--While the +old drama generally confined itself to religious subjects, the comic +element occasionally crept in, made its power felt, and disclosed a +new path for future playwrights. In the _Play of Noah's Flood_, when +the time for the flood has come, Noah's wife refuses to enter the ark +and a domestic quarrel ensues. Finally her children pull and shove her +into the ark. When she is safe on board, Noah bids her welcome. His +enraged wife deals him resounding blows until he calls to her to stop, +because his back is nearly broken. + +The _Play of the Shepherds_ includes a genuine comedy, the first +comedy worthy of the name to appear in England. While watching their +flocks on Christmas Eve, the shepherds are joined by Mak, a neighbor +whose reputation for honesty is not good. Before they go to sleep, +they make him lie down within their circle; but he rises when he hears +them begin to snore, steals a sheep, and hastens home. His wife is +alarmed, because in that day the theft of a sheep was punishable by +death. She finally concludes that the best plan will be to wrap the +animal in swaddling clothes and put it in the cradle. If the shepherds +come to search the house, she will pretend that she has a child; and, +if they approach the cradle, she will caution them against touching it +for fear of waking the child and causing him to fill the house with +his cries. She speedily hurries Mak away to resume his slumbers among +the shepherds. When they wake, they miss the sheep, suspect Mak, and +go to search his house. His wife allows them to look around +thoroughly, but she keeps them away from the cradle. They leave, +rather ashamed of their suspicion. As they are going out of the door, +a thought strikes one of them whereby they can make partial amends. +Deciding to give the child sixpence, he returns, lifts up the covering +of the cradle, and discovers the sheep. Mak and his wife both declare +that an elf has changed their child into a sheep. The shepherds +threaten to have the pair hanged. They seize Mak, throw him on a +canvas, and toss him into the air until they are exhausted. They then +lie down to rest and are roused with the song of an angel from +Bethlehem. + +To produce this comedy required genuine inventive imagination; for +there is nothing faintly resembling this incident in the sacred +narrative. These early exercises of the imagination in our drama may +resemble the tattering footsteps of a child; but they were necessary +antecedents to the strength, beauty, and divinity of movement in +Elizabethan times. + +[Illustration: FOOL'S HEAD. State properties of the Vice and Fool.] + +The Morality.--The next step in the development of the drama is +known as the Morality play. This personified abstractions. Characters +like Charity, Hope, Faith, Truth, Covetousness, Falsehood, Abominable +Living, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil,--in short, all the +Virtues and the Vices,--came on the stage in the guise of persons, and +played the drama of life. + +Critics do not agree about the precise way in which the Morality is +related to the Miracle play. It is certain that the Miracle play had +already introduced some abstractions. + +In one very important respect, the Morality marks an advance, by +giving more scope to the imagination. The Miracle plays had their +general treatment absolutely predetermined by the Scriptural version +of the action or by the legends of the lives of saints, although +diverting incidents could be introduced, as we have seen. In the +Morality, the events could take any turn which the author chose to +give. + +[Illustration: AIR-BAG FLAPPER. Stage properties of the Vice and +Fool.] + +In spite of this advantage, the Morality is in general a synonym for +what is uninteresting. The characters born of abstractions are too +often bloodless, like their parents. The Morality under a changed name +was current a few years ago in the average Sunday-school book. +Incompetent writers of fiction today often adopt the Morality +principle in making their characters unnaturally good or bad, mere +puppets who do not develop along the line of their own emotional +prompting, but are moved by machinery in the author's hands. + +[Illustration: LATH DAGGER. Stage properties of the Vice and Fool.] + +A new character, the Vice, was added as an adjunct to the Devil, to +increase the interest of the audience in the Morality play. The Vice +represented the leading spirit of evil in any particular play, +sometimes Fraud, Covetousness, Pride, Iniquity, or Hypocrisy. It was +the business of the Vice to annoy the Virtues and to be constantly +playing pranks. The Vice was the predecessor of the clown and the fool +upon the stage. The Vice also amused the audience by tormenting the +Devil, belaboring him with a sword of lath, sticking thorns into him, +and making him roar with pain. Sometimes the Devil would be kicked +down Hell Mouth by the offended Virtues; but he would soon reappear +with saucily curled tail, and at the end of the play he would delight +the spectators by plunging into Hell Mouth with the Vice on his back. + +[Illustration: FOOL OF THE OLD PLAY.] + +Court Plays.--In the first part of the sixteenth century, the court +and the nobility especially encouraged the production of plays whose +main object was to entertain. The influence of the court in shaping +the drama became much more powerful than that of the church. Wallace +says of the new materials which his researches have disclosed in the +twentieth century:-- + + "They throw into the lime-light a brilliant development of this new + drama through the Chapel Royal, a development that took place + primarily under the direction of the great musicians who served as + masters of the children of the Chapel and as court entertainers, the + first true poets-laureate, through the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward + VI., Mary, and Elizabeth."[11] + +In 1509 Henry VIII. appointed William Cornish (died 1523) to be Master +of the Children of the Chapel Royal. This court institution with its +choral body of men and boys not only ministered "by song to the +spiritual well-being of the sovereign and his household," but also +gave them "temporal" enjoyment in dances, pageants, and plays. We must +not forget, however, that the Chapel Royal was originally, as its name +implies, a religious body. Cornish was a capable dramatist, as well as +a musician and a poet; and he, unlike the author of _Everyman_, wrote +plays simply to amuse the court and its guests. He has even been +called the founder of the secular English drama.[12] + +The court of Henry VIII. became especially fond of the Interlude, +which was a short play, often given in connection with a banquet or +other entertainment. Any dramatic incident, such as the refusal of +Noah's wife to enter the ark, or Mak's thievery in _The Play of the +Shepherds_, might serve as an Interlude. Cornish and John Heywood +(1497?--1580?), a court dramatist of much versatility, incorporated in +the Interlude many of the elements of the five-act drama. _The Four +P's_, the most famous Interlude, shows a contest between a Pardoner, +Palmer, Pedlar, and Poticary, to determine who could tell the greatest +lie. Wallace thinks that the best Interludes, such as _The Four P's_ +and _The Pardoner and the Frere_, were written by Cornish, although +they are usually ascribed to Heywood. + +Cornish had unusual ability as a deviser of masques and plays. One of +his interludes for children has allegorical characters that remotely +suggest some that appear in the modern _Bluebird_, by Maeterlinck. +Cornish had Wind appear "in blue with drops of silver"; Rain, "in +black with silver honeysuckles"; Winter, "in russet with flakes of +silver snow"; Summer, "in green with gold stars"; and Spring, "in +green with gold primroses." In 1522 Cornish wrote and presented before +Henry VIII. and his guest, the Roman emperor, a political play, +especially planned to indicate the attitude of the English monarch +toward Spain and France. Under court influences, the drama enlarged +its scope and was no longer chiefly the vehicle for religious +instruction. + +Early Comedies.--Two early comedies, divided, after the classical +fashion, into acts and scenes, show close approximation to the modern +form of English plays. + +_Ralph Royster Doyster_ was written not far from the middle of the +sixteenth century by Nicholas Udall (1505-1556), sometime master of +Eton College and, later, court poet under Queen Mary. This play, +founded on a comedy of Plautus, shows the classical influence which +was so powerful in England at this time. Ralph, the hero, is a +conceited simpleton. He falls in love with a widow who has already +promised her hand to a man infinitely Ralph's superior. Ralph, +however, unable to understand why she should not want him, persists in +his wooing. She makes him the butt of her jokes, and he finds himself +in ridiculous positions. The comedy amuses us in this way until her +lover returns and marries her. The characters of the play, which is +written in rime, are of the English middle class. + +_Gammer Gurton's Needle_, the work of William Stevenson, a +little-known pre-Shakespearean writer, was acted at Christ's College, +Cambridge, shortly after the middle of the sixteenth century. This +play borrows hardly anything from the classical stage. Most of the +characters of _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ are from the lowest English +working classes, and its language, unlike that of _Ralph Royster +Doyster_, which has little to offend, is very coarse. + +Gorboduc and the Dramatic Unities.--The tragedy of _Gorboduc_, the +first regular English tragedy written in blank verse, was acted in +1561, three years before the birth of Shakespeare. This play is in +part the work of Thomas Sackville (1536-1608), a poet and diplomat, +the author of two powerful somber poems, the _Induction_ and +_Complaint of the Duke of Buckingham_. In spite of their heavy +narrative form, these poems are in places even more dramatic than the +dull tragedy of Gorboduc, which was fashioned after the classical +rules of Seneca and the Greeks. _Gorboduc_ requires little action on +the stage. There is considerable bloodshed in the play; but the +spectators are informed of the carnage by a messenger, as they are not +permitted to witness a bloody contest on the stage. + +[Illustration: THOMAS SACKVILLE.] + +If Gorboduc had been taken for a model, the English drama could never +have attained Shakespearean greatness. Our drama would then have been +crippled by following the classical rules, which prescribed unity of +place and time in the plot and the action. The ancients held that a +play should not represent actions which would, in actual life, require +much more than twenty-four hours for their performance. If one of the +characters was a boy, he had to be represented as a boy throughout the +play. The next act could not introduce him as one who had grown to +manhood in the interval. The classical rules further required that the +action should be performed in one place, or near it. Anything that +happened at a great distance had to be related by a messenger, and not +acted on the stage. + +Had these rules been followed, the English drama could never have +painted the growth and development of character, which is not the work +of a day. The genius of Marlowe and Shakespeare taught them to +disregard these dramatic unities. In _As You Like It_, the action is +now at the court, and now in the far-off Forest of Arden. Shakespeare +knew that the imagination could traverse the distance. At the +beginning of the play Oliver is an unnatural, brutal brother; but +events change him, so that in the fourth act, when he is asked if he +is the man who tried to kill his brother, Oliver replies:-- + + "'Twas I; but 'tis not I." + +THE PRESENTATION OF ELIZABETHAN PLAYS + +[Illustration: THEATER IN INN YARD. _From Columbia University +model._] + +The Elizabethan Theater.--Before considering the work of the +Elizabethan dramatists, we should know something of the conditions +which they had to meet in order to produce plays for the contemporary +stage. The courtyard of London inns often served as a playhouse before +sufficient regular theaters were built. The stage was in one end of +the yard, and the unused ground space in front served as the pit. Two +or three tiers of galleries or balconies around the yard afforded +additional space for both actors and spectators. These inn yards +furnished many suggestions which were incorporated in the early +theaters. + +The first building in England for the public presentation of plays was +known as The Theater. It was built in London in 1576. In 1598 +Shakespeare and his associates, failing to secure a lease of the +ground on which this building stood, pulled it down, carried the +materials across the river, and erected the famous Globe Theater on +the Bankside, as the street running along the south side of the Thames +was called. In late years a careful study of the specifications (1599) +for building the Fortune Theater (see Frontispiece) has thrown much +light on the Globe, which is unusually important from its association +with Shakespeare. Although the Fortune was square, while the Globe was +octagonal, the Fortune was in many essentials modeled after the Globe. +A part of the specifications of the Fortune read as follows:-- + + + "...the frame of the saide howse to be sett square and to conteine + fowerscore foote of lawful assize everye waie square, without, and + fiftie five foote of like assize square, everye waie within ... and + the saide frame to conteine three stories in heigth ... [the] stadge + shall conteine in length fortie and three foote of lawfull assize, + and in breadth to extende to the middle of the yarde of the said + howse: the same stadge to be paled in belowe with goode stronge and + sufficyent new oken boardes... And the said stadge to be in all + other proportions contryved and fashioned like unto the stadge + of the wide Playhowse called the Globe." + +[Illustration: RECONSTRUCTED GLOBE THEATER, "SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND," +EARL'S COURT, LONDON, 1912. _From an original drawing._] + +The first part of the twentieth century has made a detailed study of +the stage on which the Great Elizabethan plays were acted. G.F. +Reynolds says:-- + + "Most students agree that the 'typical' Elizabethan stage consisted + of a platform, uncurtained in front, open as well at the sides, + carpeted, it is generally said, with rushes, and surrounded with a + railing, a space behind this platform closed by a sliding curtain, + and a balcony with its own curtains and entrances. There were also a + space below the stage reached by trap doors, a dressing room behind + the stage, machinery by which characters ascended to and descended + from some place above, and in some theaters at least, a 'heavens,' + or roof over part or all of the stage."[13] + +Possibly no single stage had every feature mentioned in the above +description, which gives, however, a good general idea of a typical +stage of the time. We must remember that no one has the right to +assert that different Elizabethan stages did not differ in details. We +are not sure that every stage was so planned as to be divided into two +parts by a sliding curtain. The drawing of the Swan Theater shows no +place for such a curtain, although it is possible that the draftsman +forgot to include it. The specifications of the stage of the Fortune +Theater make no mention of a railing. + +The Play and the Audience.--It is impossible to criticize +Elizabethan plays properly from the point of view of the +twentieth-century stage. Many modern criticisms are shown to be +without reason when we understand the wishes of the audience and the +manner of presenting the plays. The conditions of the entry or the +reėntry of a player might explain some of those lengthy monologues +that seem so inartistic to modern dramatists. The Elizabethan theaters +and the tastes of their patrons had certain important characteristics +of their own. + +I. In the public theaters,[14] the play began in the early afternoon, +usually between two and three o'clock, and lasted for about two hours. +The audience was an alert one, neither jaded by a long day's business +nor rendered impatient by waiting for the adjustment of scenery. The +Elizabethans constituted a vigorous audience, eager to meet the +dramatist and actors more than half way in interpreting what was +presented. + +II. In the case of such public theaters as the Globe and the Fortune, +even their roofed parts, which extended around the pit and back of the +stage and which contained the galleries and the boxes, were all +exposed to the open air on the inner side. The pit, which was +immediately in front of the stage, had the sky for a roof and the +ground for a floor. The frequenters of the pit, who often jostled each +other for standing room, were sometimes called the "groundlings." +Occasionally a severe rain would drive them out of the theater to seek +shelter. Those who attended the Elizabethan public theater were in no +danger of being made drowsy or sick by its bad air. + +[Illustration: THE BANKSIDE AND ITS THEATERS + +1. The Swan Theater. 3. The Hope Theater. 5. Old St. Paul's. +2. The Bear Gardens. 4. The Globe Theater. 6. The Temple.] + +III. The audiences did not attend merely for relaxation or amusement. +They often came for information and education, and they were probably +glad to learn about alchemy from one of Ben Jonson's plays. The +audience doubtless welcomed long monologues if they were well +delivered and presented ideas of worth. The theater took the place of +lectures, newspapers, magazines, and, to a certain extent, of books. +We know that in 1608 the Blackfriars Theater acted the part of a +newspaper in presenting a scandal about the French king and that at +another time it gave some humorous information concerning the English +monarch's newly discovered silver mine in Scotland. + +IV. The Elizabethans loved good poetry for its imaginative appeal. +Shakespeare was a poet before he was a dramatist. Beautiful poetry +presenting high ideals must have met with vigorous appreciation, or +Shakespeare could not have continued to produce such great work. + +V. The Elizabethans also demanded story and incident. Modern critics +have often noticed that the characterization in Shakespeare's fourth +acts, _e.g._, in _Macbeth_, does not equal that in the preceding part +of the play; but the fourth act of _Macbeth_ interested the +Elizabethans because there was progress in the complicated story. To +modern theatergoers this fourth act seems to drag because they have +acquired through novel reading a liking for analysis and dissection. + +Shakespeare succeeded in interesting the Elizabethans by embodying in +story and incident his portrayal of character. Because of admiration +for the revelation of character in his greatest plays, modern readers +forget their moving incidents,--for instance, the almost +blood-curdling appearances of a ghost, the actions of a crazed woman, +the killing of an eavesdropper on the stage, two men fighting at an +open grave, the skull and bones of a human being dug from a grave in +full view of the audience, the fighting to the death on the stage, +which is ghastly with corpses at the close. When we add to this the +roar of cannon whenever the king drinks, as well as when there is some +more noteworthy action, and remember that the very last words of +_Hamlet_ are: "Go, bid the soldiers shoot," we shall realize that +there was not much danger of going to sleep even during a performance +of _Hamlet_. + +Scenery.--The conditions under which early Elizabethan plays were +sometimes produced are thus described by Sir Philip Sidney:-- + + "You shall have Asia of the one side, and Africa of the other, and + so many other under-kingdoms, that the player when he comes in, must + ever begin with telling you where he is, or else the tale will not + be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies walk to gather + flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and + by we hear news of a shipwreck in the same place, then we are to + blame if we accept it not for a rock." + +[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY DRAWING OF INTERIOR OF AN ELIZABETHAN +THEATER[15].] + +Those who remember this well-known quotation too often forget that +Sidney wrote before Shakespeare's plays were produced. We do not know +whether Sidney was describing a private or a public stage, but the +private theaters had the greater amount of scenery. + +Modern research has shown that the manner of presenting plays did not +remain stationary while the drama was rapidly evolving. Before +Shakespeare died, there were such stage properties as beds, tables, +chairs, dishes, fetters, shop wares, and perhaps also some artificial +trees, mossy banks, and rocks. A theatrical manager in an inventory of +stage properties (1598) mentions "the sittie of Rome," which was +perhaps a cloth so painted as to present a perspective of the city. He +also speaks of a "cloth of the Sone and Mone." The use of such painted +cloths was an important step toward modern scenery. We may, however, +conclude that the scenery of any Elizabethan theater would have seemed +scant to one accustomed to the detailed setting of the modern stage. + +The comparatively little scenery in Elizabethan theaters imposed +strenuous imaginative exercise on the spectators. This effort was +fortunate for all concerned--for the dramatist and for the actor, but +especially for the spectator, who became accustomed to give an +imaginative interpretation and setting to a play that would mean +little to a modern theatergoer. + +Actors.--Those who have seen some of the recent performances of +plays under Elizabethan conditions, on a stage modeled after that of +Shakespeare's time have been surprised at the increase of the actors' +power. The stage projects far enough into the pit to bring the actors +close to the audience. Their appeal thus becomes far more personal, +direct, and forceful. The spectator more easily identifies himself +with them and almost feels as if he were a part of the play. This has +been the experience of those who have seen the old-time reproduction +of plays as different as _The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The +Merchant of Venice_, and _Much Ado About Nothing_. In the case of _The +Tempest_, a very interesting act was presented when all the scenery +consisted of a board on which was painted "Prospero Isle." + +In Shakespeare's times, the plays were probably well acted. While the +fame of Elizabethan actors like Edward Alleyn and Richard Burbage has +come down to modern times, the success of plays did not depend on +single stars. Shakespeare is said to have played in minor rōles. The +audience discouraged bad acting. The occupants of the pit would throw +apples or worse missiles at an unsatisfactory player, and sometimes +the disgusted spectators would suddenly leap on the stage and chase an +incompetent actor off the boards. + +Prior to the Restoration in 1660, the women's parts were taken by +boys. While this must have hampered the presentation of characters +like Lady Macbeth, it is now known to have been less of a handicap +than was formerly thought. The twentieth century has seen feminine +parts so well played by carefully trained boys that the most astute +women spectators never detected the deception. Boys, especially those +of the Chapel Royal, had for a long time acted masculine, as well as +feminine, parts. As late as the beginning of the seventeenth century, +the choir boys were presenting some of the great Elizabethan plays in +a private theater connected with St. Paul's Cathedral. Rosencrantz in +the second act of _Hamlet_ bears witness to the popularity of these +boy actors, when he calls them "little eyases, that cry on the top of +question and are most tyrannically clapped for it." Ben Jonson's +touching lyrical epitaph on a boy actor, Salathiel Pavy, who had for +"three fill'd zodiacs" been "the stage's jewel," shows how highly the +Elizabethans sometimes regarded boy actors. The regular theaters found +the companies of boys such strong rivals that, in 1609, Shakespeare +and other theatrical managers used modern business methods to suppress +competition and agreed to pay the master of the boys of St. Paul's +enough to cause him to withdraw them permanently from competing with +the other theaters. + +PRE-SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMATISTS + +The "University Wits" and Thomas Kyd.--Five authors, John Lyly, +George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge, and Thomas Nashe, all +graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, were sufficiently versatile to be +called "university wits." Amid various other activities, all of them +were impelled by the spirit of the age to write plays. These +intellectual aristocrats hurled the keen shafts of their wit at those +dramatists, who, without a university education, were arrogant enough +to think that they could write plays. Because Shakespeare had never +attended a university, Greene called him "an upstart Crow beautified +with our feathers." + +On New Year's, 1584, John Lyly, the author of _Euphues_, presented +in the first Blackfriars Theater[16] his prose comedy, entitled +_Campaspe_. This play relates the love story of Alexander the Great's +fair Theban captive, Campaspe. The twenty-eight characters necessary +to produce this play were obtained from the boys of the Chapel Royal +and St. Paul's Cathedral. Two months later Lyly's _Sapho and Phao_ was +given in the same theater with a cast of seventeen boys. It should be +remembered that these plays, so important in the evolution of the +drama, were acted by boys under royal patronage. _Campaspe_ is little +more than a series of episodes, divided into acts and scenes, but, +unlike _Gorboduc, Campaspe_ has many of the characteristics of an +interesting modern play. + +Lyly wrote eight comedies, all but one in prose. In the history of the +drama, he is important for (1) finished style, (2) good dialogue, (3) +considerable invention in the way he secured interest, by using +classical matter in combination with contemporary life, (4) subtle +comedy, and (5) influence on Shakespeare. It is doubtful whether +Shakespeare could have produced such good early comedies, if he had +not received suggestions from Lyly's work in this field. + +The chapel boys also presented at Blackfriars in the same year George +Peele's (1558-1597) _The Arraignment of Paris_, a pastoral drama in +riming verse. In Juno's promise to Paris, Peele shows how the +possibilities of the New World affected his imagination:-- + + "Xanthus shall run liquid gold for thee to wash thy hands; + And if thou like to tend thy flock and not from them to fly, + Their fleeces shall be curlčd gold to please their master's eye." + +While _The Arraignment of Paris_ and his two other plays, _David and +Bathsabe_ and _The Old Wives' Tale_, are not good specimens of +dramatic construction, the beauty of some of Peele's verse could +hardly have failed to impress both Marlowe and Shakespeare with the +poetic possibilities of the drama. Peele writes without effort-- + + "Of moss that sleeps with sound the waters make," + +and has David build-- + + "...a kingly bower, + Seated in hearing of a hundred streams." + +Robert Greene (1560-1592) showed much skill in (1) the construction +of plots, (2) the revelation of simple and genuine human feeling, and +(3) the weaving of an interesting story into a play. His best drama is +the poetic comedy _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_. In this play, he +made the love story the central point of interest. + +Thomas Lodge (1558-1625), author of the story _Rosalynde_, which +Shakespeare used to such good advantage, wrote in collaboration with +Greene, _A Looking Glass for London and England_, and an independent +play, _The Wounds of Civil War_. Thomas Nashe (1567-1601), best +known for his picaresque novel, _The Unfortunate Traveler_, wrote a +play, _Summer's Last Will and Testament_, but he and Lodge had little +dramatic ability. + +Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), although lacking a university education, +succeeded in writing, about 1586, the most popular early Elizabethan +play, _The Spanish Tragedy_, a blank verse drama, in which blood flows +profusely. Although this play is not free from classical influences, +yet its excellence of construction, effective dramatic situations, +vigor of movement, and romantic spirit helped to prepare the way for +the tragedies of Marlowe and Shakespeare. + +CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, 1564-1593 + +Life.--The year 1564 saw the birth of the two greatest geniuses in +the English drama, Marlowe and Shakespeare. Marlowe, the son of a +shoemaker, was born at Canterbury, and educated at Cambridge. When he +was graduated, the dramatic profession was the only one that gave full +scope to genius like his. He became both playwriter and actor. All his +extant work was written in about six years. When he was only +twenty-nine he was fatally stabbed in a tavern quarrel. Shakespeare +had at that age not produced his greatest plays. Marlowe unwittingly +wrote his own epitaph in that of Dr. Faustus:-- + + "Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, + And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough." + +[Illustration: MARLOWE'S MEMORIAL STATUE AT CANTERBURY.] + +Works.--Marlowe's great tragedies are four in number _Timberline, +Dr. Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Edward, II._. No careful student of +English literature can afford to be unacquainted with any of them. +Shakespeare's work appears less miraculous when we know that a +predecessor at the age of twenty-four had written plays like +_Timberline_ and _Dr. Faustus_. + +_Timberline_ shows the supreme ambition for conquest, for controlling +the world with physical force. It is such a play as might have been +suggested to an Elizabethan by watching Napoleon's career. _Dr. +Faustus_, on the other hand, shows the desire for knowledge that would +give universal power, a desire born of the Renaissance. _The Jew of +Malta_ is the incarnation of the passion for the world's wealth, a +passion that towers above common greed only by the magnificence of its +immensity. In that play we see that Marlowe-- + + "Without control can pick his riches up, + And in his house heap pearl like pebble stones, + * * * * * + Infinite riches in a little room." + +_Edward II._ gives a pathetic picture of one of the weakest of kings. +This shows more evenness and regularity of construction than any of +Marlowe's other plays; but it is the one least characteristic of him. +The others manifest more intensity of imagination, more of the spirit +of the age. + +_Dr. Faustus_ shows Marlowe's peculiar genius at its best. The legend +on which the play is based came from Germany, but Marlowe breathed his +own imaginative spirit into the tragedy. Faustus is wearied with the +barren philosophy of the past. He is impatient to secure at once the +benefits of the New Learning, which seems to him to have all the +powers of magic. If he can immediately enjoy the fruits of such +knowledge, he says:-- + + "Had I as many souls as there be stars, + I'd give them all." + +In order to acquire this knowledge and the resulting power for +twenty-four years, he sells his soul to Mephistopheles. Faustus then +proceeds to enjoy all that the new order of things promised. He +commands Homer to come from the realm of shades to sing his entrancing +songs. He summons Helen to appear before him in the morning of her +beauty. The apostrophe to her shows the vividness and exuberance of +his imagination:-- + + "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships + And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? + Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. + * * * * * + Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air + Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars." + +Marlowe left a fragment of a lyrical poem, entitled _Hero and +Leander_, which is one of the finest productions of its kind in the +language. Shakespeare accorded him the unusual honor of quoting from +this poem. + +In What Sense is Marlowe a Founder of the English Drama?--His +success with blank verse showed Shakespeare that this was the proper +versification for the drama. Before Marlowe, rime or prose had been +chiefly employed in writing plays. Sackville had used blank verse in +_Gorboduc_, but his verse and Marlowe's are as unlike as the movements +of the ox and the flight of the swallow. The sentences of _Gorboduc_ +generally end with the line, and the accents usually fall in the same +place. Marlowe's blank verse shows great variety, and the major pause +frequently does not come at the end of the line. + +Marlowe cast the dramatic unities to the wind. The action in _Dr. +Faustus_ occupies twenty-four years, and the scene changes from +country to country. He knew that he was speaking to a people whose +imaginations could accompany him and interpret what he uttered. The +other dramatists followed him in placing imaginative interpretation +above measurements by the foot rule of the intellect. Symonds says of +him: "It was he who irrevocably decided the destinies of the romantic +drama; and the whole subsequent evolution of that species, including +Shakespeare's work, can be regarded as the expansion, rectification, +and artistic ennoblement of the type fixed by Marlowe's epoch-making +tragedies. In very little more than fifty years from the publication +of _Tamburlaine_, our drama had run its course of unparalleled energy +and splendor." + +_General Characteristics_.--As we sum up Marlowe's general qualities, +it is well to note that they exhibit in a striking way the +characteristics of the time. In the morning of that youthful age the +superlative was possible. _Tamburlaine_, _The Jew of Malta_, and _Dr. +Faustus_ show in the superlative degree the love of conquest, of +wealth, and of knowledge. Everything that Marlowe wrote is stamped +with a love of beauty and of the impossible. + +Tamburlaine speaks like one of the young Elizabethans-- + + "That in conceit bear empires on our spears, + Affecting thoughts co-equal with the clouds." + +Marlowe voices the new sense of worth of enfranchised man:-- + + "Thinkest thou heaven glorious thing? + I tell thee, 'tis not half so fair as thou, + Or any man that breathes on earth. + * * * * * + 'Twas made for man, therefore is man more excellent."[17] + +Marlowe's faults are the faults of youth and of his time. Exaggeration +and lack of restraint are shown in almost all his work. In +_Tamburlaine_, written when he was twenty-two, he is often bombastic. +He has hardly any sense of humor. He does not draw fine distinctions +between his characters. + +On the other hand, using the words of Tamburlaine, we may say of all +his dramatic contemporaries, excepting Shakespeare-- + + "If all the heavenly quintessence they still + From their immortal flowers of poesy," + +were gathered into one vial, it could not surpass the odor from +patches of flowers in Marlowe's garden. + +These seven lines represent better than pages of description the +aspiring spirit of the new Elizabethan Renaissance. + + "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 + Until we reach the ripest fruit of all."[18] + +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616 + +[Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. _From the Chandos portrait in +the National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Birthplace and Parents.--William Shakespeare, the greatest of the +world's writers, was born in Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. The name +originally meant one skilled in wielding a spear. The first William +Shakespeare of whom mention is made in the records was hanged for +robbery near Stratford; but it is only fair to state that in those +days hanging was inflicted for stealing even a sheep. + +[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE, STRATFORD-ON-AVON.] + +The great dramatist's birthplace lies in the midst of England's +fairest rural scenery. When two Englishmen were asked to name the +finest walk in England, one chose the walk from Stratford to Coventry, +the other, the walk from Coventry to Stratford. A short distance +northeast of Stratford are Warwick with its castle, the home of the +famous king-maker, and Kenilworth Castle, whose historic associations +were romantic enough to stir the imagination of a boy like +Shakespeare. + +He was the son of John Shakespeare, an influential merchant, who in +1571 was elected chief alderman of Stratford. The poet's mother was +the daughter of Robert Arden, a well-to-do farmer. We are told that +she was her father's favorite among seven children. Perhaps it was due +to her influence that he had a happy childhood. His references to +plays and sports and his later desire to return to Stratford are +indicative of pleasant boyhood days. + +Probably his mother was the original of some of her son's noblest +conceptions of women. His plays have more heroines than heroes. We may +fancy that it was his mother who first pointed out to him-- + + "...daffodils, + That come before the swallow dares, and take + The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, + But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes."[19] + +We may imagine that from her teaching, as she walked with him over the +Stratford fields, he obtained suggestions which enabled him to hold +captive the ear of the world, when he sang of the pearl in the +cowslip's ear, of the bank where the wild thyme blows, of the +greenwood tree and the merry note of the bird. Many of the references +to nature in his plays are unsurpassed in English verse. + +[Illustration: CLASSROOM IN STRATFORD GRAMMAR SCHOOL[20].] + +What He Learned at School.--In all probability Shakespeare entered +the Stratford Grammar School at about the age of seven and continued +there until he was nearly fourteen. The typical course in grammar +schools of that period consisted principally of various Latin authors. +One school in 1583 had twenty-five Latin books on its list of studies, +while the only required works in English were the _Catechism, Psalter, +Book of Common Prayer_, and _New Testament_. Children were required to +study Lilly's _Latin Grammar_ instead of their mother tongue. Among +the works that Shakespeare probably read in Latin, AEsop's _Fables_ +and Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ may be mentioned. + +Although English was not taught, Shakespeare shows wonderful mastery +in the use of his mother tongue. We have the testimony of the +schoolmaster, Holofernes, in _Love's Labor's Lost_ to show that the +study of Latin led to facility in the use of English synonyms:-- + + "The deer was, as you know, _sanguis_, in blood, ripe as the + pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of _caelo_, the + sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on the + face of _terra_, the soil, the land, the earth." + +Three English equivalents are here given for each of the Latin terms +_caelo_ and _terra_. The same schoolmaster uses seven synonyms in +describing the "fashion" of speech of the ignorant constable, +--"undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, +or, rather unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed, fashion." When we +remember that it was really Shakespeare who wrote this, we know that +he had been led to study variety of expression. His large vocabulary +could not have been acquired by any one without hard work. + +A good translation of the English _Bible_ was accessible to him. +Scriptural phrases and references appear in his plays, and volumes +have been written to show the influence of the _Bible_ on his thought. + +Financial Reverses of the Shakespeare Family.--It is probable that +Shakespeare at about the age of fourteen was taken from school to +assist his father in the store. The elder Shakespeare was then +overtaken by financial reverses and compelled to mortgage his wife's +land. His affairs went from bad to worse; he was sued for debt, but +the court could not find any property to satisfy the claim. It is +possible that he was for a short time even imprisoned for debt. +Finally he was deprived of his alderman's gown. + +These events must have made a deep impression on the sensitive boy, +and they may have led him to an early determination to try to master +fortune. In after years he showed a business sagacity very rare for a +poet. + +Marriage and Departure from Stratford.--The most famous lovers' walk +in England is the footpath from Stratford, leading about one mile +westward through meadows to the hamlet of Shottery. Perhaps William +Shakespeare had this very walk in mind when he wrote the song:-- + + "Journeys end in lovers' meeting + Every wise man's son doth know." + +[Illustration: ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE, SHOTTERY.] + +The end of his walk led to Anne Hathaway's home in Shottery. She was +nearly eight years his senior, but in 1582 at the age of eighteen he +married her. + +There is a record that Shakespeare's twin children, Hamnet and Judith, +were baptized in 1585. From this we know that before he was twenty-one +Shakespeare had a wife and family to support. + +We have no positive information to tell us what he did for the next +seven years after the birth of his twins. Tradition says that he +joined a group of hunters, killed some of the deer of Sir Thomas Lucy +at Charlecote Park, and fled from Stratford to London in consequence +of threatened prosecution. There is reason to doubt the truth of this +story, and Shakespeare may have sought the metropolis merely because +it offered him more scope to provide for his rapidly increasing +family. + +Connects Himself with the London Stage.--The next scene of +Shakespeare's life is laid in London. In 1592 Robert Greene, a London +poet, dramatist, and hack-writer, wrote:-- + + "There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with + his _Tyger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide_, supposes he is as + well able to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being + an absolute _Iohannes fac-totum_, is in his owne conceit the only + Shake-scene in a countrie."[21] + +The best critics agree that the "upstart Crow" and "Shake-scene" refer +to Shakespeare. The allusion to "Tyger's heart" is from the third part +of _King Henry VI_. and is addressed by the Duke of York to Queen +Margaret of Anjou:-- + + "O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!" + +Greene's satiric thrust shows that Shakespeare was becoming popular as +a playwright. We can only imagine the steps by which he rose to his +ascendancy as a dramatist. Perhaps he first served the theater in some +menial capacity, then became an actor, and assisted others in revising +or adapting plays before he acquired sufficient skill to write a play +entirely by himself. + +In 1593 he published the non-dramatic poem, _Venus and Adonis_, which +he dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. This nobleman is said to have +given Shakespeare, on one occasion, "a thousand pounds to enable him +to make a purchase which he heard he had a mind to." This would show +that Shakespeare had a capacity for attracting people and making +lasting friendships. In 1597 he purchased "New Place," the stateliest +house in Stratford, and we hear no more of his father's financial +troubles. + +Twentieth-century Discoveries.--In the first decade of the twentieth +century, Professor C.W. Wallace discovered in the London Record Office +a romantic story in which Shakespeare was an important figure. This +story opens in the year 1598 in the London house of a French Huguenot, +Christopher Mountjoy, wig-maker, with whom Shakespeare lived. Mountjoy +took as apprentice for six years, Stephen Bellott, a young Frenchman. +Beside him worked Mary Mountjoy, the proprietor's only daughter, who +looked with favor upon the young apprentice. At the end of his +apprenticeship Stephen left without proposing marriage to Mary; but on +his return Mrs. Mountjoy asked Shakespeare to make a match between +Stephen and Mary,--a task in which he was successful. + +Seven and a half years later Shakespeare was called into court to +testify to all the facts leading to the marriage. After a family +quarrel, Mr. Mountjoy declared that he would never leave Stephen and +Mary a groat, and the son-in-law brought suit for a dowry. +Shakespeare's testimony shows that he remembered Mrs. Mountjoy's +commission and the part that he played in mating the pair, but he +forgot the amount of the dowry and when it was to be paid. The puzzled +court turned the matter over for settlement to the French church in +London, but it is not known what decision was reached. + +The documents in the case show that Shakespeare was on familiar terms +with tradesmen, that they thought well of him, that he was willing to +undertake to try to make two people happy, and that he lived in the +Mountjoy house at the corner of Silver and Monkwell streets. During +the period of Stephen's apprenticeship (1598-1604), Shakespeare wrote +some of his greatest plays, such as _Hamlet_ and _Othello_. From its +connection with Shakespeare, this is the most important corner in +London for literary associations. + +Wallace also found documents showing that Shakespeare owned at the +time of his death a one-seventh interest in the Blackfriars Theater +and a one-fourteenth interest in the Globe. The hitherto unknown fact +that he continued to hold to the end of his life these important +interests, requiring such skilled supervision, makes more doubtful the +former assumption that he spent the last years of his life entirely at +Stratford. + +Last Years and Death.--Shakespeare probably bought New Place in +Stratford as a residence for his family and a retreat for himself out +of the theatrical season, but he doubtless continued to live in London +for the greater part of his time until a few years before his death in +1616. The Mountjoy testimony proves that he was in London in May, +1612. + +We are positive, however, that he was living in Stratford at the time +of his death. He may for several years have taken only occasional +trips to London to look after his interests in his theaters. It is not +improbable that his health forced him to retire to Stratford, for it +is difficult to see how any one could have produced nearly two +Shakespearean plays a year for almost twenty years without breaking +down under the strain. He had in addition almost certainly helped to +manage the production of the plays, and tradition says that he was +also an actor. Some of the parts which he is said to have played are +the ghost in _Hamlet_, Adam in _As You Like It_, and Old Knowell in +Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his Humor_. + +[Illustration: STRATFORD-ON-AVON, SHOWING CHURCH WHERE SHAKESPEARE IS +BURIED.] + +In 1616, at the age of fifty-two, this master-singer of the world, +who, in De Quincey's phrase, was "a little lower than the angels," +died and was buried in the parish church at Stratford. Shakespeare +knew that in the course of time graves were often opened and the bones +thrown into the charnel house. The world is thankful that he +deliberately planned to have his resting place remain unmolested. His +grave was dug seventeen feet deep and over it was placed the following +inscription, intended to frighten those who might think of moving his +bones:-- + +[Illustration: INSCRIPTION OVER SHAKESPEARE'S TOMB.] + +Publication of his Plays.--It is probable that Shakespeare himself +published only two early poems. Sixteen of his plays appeared in print +during his lifetime; but the chances are that they were taken either +from notes or from stage copies, more or less imperfect and +surreptitiously obtained. The twentieth century has seen one of these +careless reprints of a single play sell for more than three times as +much as it cost to build a leading Elizabethan theater.[22] If +Shakespeare himself had seen to the publication of his plays, +succeeding generations would have been saved much trouble in puzzling +over obscurities due to an imperfect text. We must remember, however, +that publishing a play was thought to injure its success on the stage. +One manager offered a printer a sum now equal to $100 not to publish a +copy of a play that he had secured. + +The _First Folio_ edition of Shakespeare's works was published in +1623, seven years after his death, by two of his friends, John Heming +and Henry Condell. In their dedication of the plays they say:-- + + "We have but collected them and done an office to the dead ... + without ambition either of self profit or fame, only to keep the + memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive, as was our + Shakespeare, by humble offer of his plays." + +If Shakespeare had not possessed the art of making friends, we might +to-day be without such plays as _Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The +Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, Antony and +Cleopatra, and Macbeth_. These were printed for the first time in the +1623 _Folio_. + +Amount and Classification of his Work.--The _First Folio_ edition +contained thirty-five plays, containing 100,120 lines. The Globe +edition, one of the best modern texts of Shakespeare, has thirty-seven +plays. Even if we give him no credit for the unknown dramas which he +assisted in fashioning, and if we further deduct all doubtful plays +from this number, the amount of dramatic work of which he is certainly +the author is only less astonishing than its excellence. His +non-dramatic poetry, comprising _Venus and Adonis, Lucrece_, 154 +_Sonnets_, and some other short pieces, amounts to more than half as +many lines as Milton's _Paradise Lost_. + +Mere genius without wonderful self-control and a well-ordered use of +time would not have enabled Shakespeare to leave such a legacy to the +world. The pressure for fresh plays to meet exigencies is sufficient +to explain why he did not always do his best work, even if we suppose +that his health was never "out of joint." + +The _First Folio_ gives the current contemporary classification of the +plays into "Comedies," "Histories," and "Tragedies." We indicate the +following as some of the best in each class:-- + +Comedies: _A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, +The Merchant of Venice, The Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest_. + +Histories: _Richard III., Henry IV., Henry V., Julius Caesar_. + +Tragedies: _Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet_. + +Four Periods of his Life.--We may make another classification from a +different point of view, according to the period of his development at +the time of writing special plays. In order to study his growth and +changing ideals, it will assist us to divide his work into four +periods. + +(1) There was the sanguine period, showing the exuberance of youthful +love and imagination. Among the plays that are typical of these years +are _The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and +Juliet, Richard II._, and _Richard III_. These were probably all +composed before 1595. + +(2) The second period, from 1595 to 1601, shows progress in dramatic +art. There is less exaggeration, more real power, and a deeper insight +into human nature. There appears in his philosophy a vein of sadness, +such as we find in the sayings of Jaques in _As You Like It_, and more +appreciation of the growth of character, typified by his treatment of +Orlando and Adam in the same play. Among the plays of this period are +_The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV., Henry V.,_ and _As You Like It_. + +(3) We may characterize the third period, from 1601 to 1608, as one in +which he felt that the time was out of joint, that life was a fitful +fever. His father died in 1601, after great disappointments. His best +friends suffered what he calls, in _Hamlet,_ "the slings and arrows of +outrageous fortune." In 1601 Elizabeth executed the Earl of Essex for +treason, and on the same charge threw the Earl of Southampton into the +Tower. Even Shakespeare himself may have been suspected. The great +plays of this period are tragedies, among which we may instance +_Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth,_ and _King Lear_. + +(4) The plays of his fourth period, 1608-1613, are remarkable for calm +strength and sweetness. The fierceness of _Othello_ and _Macbeth_ is +left behind. In 1608 Shakespeare's mother died. Her death and the +vivid recollection of her kindness and love may have been strong +factors in causing him to look on life with kindlier eyes. The +greatest plays of this period are _Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale_, and +_The Tempest_. + +While the dates of the composition of these plays are not exactly +known, the foregoing classification is probably approximately correct. +It should be followed in studying the development and the changing +phases of Shakespeare's mind. (See table, pp. 188 and 189.) + +Development as a Dramatist.--It is possible to study some of +Shakespeare's plays with increased interest, if we note the reasons +for assigning them to certain periods of his life. We conclude that +_Love's Labor's Lost_, for instance, is an early play, because of its +form,--excess of rime, small proportion of blank verse, lack of +mastery of poetic expression,--and also because it suffers from the +puns, conceits, and overdrawn wit and imagery of his early work. +Almost one half of the 2789 lines of _Love's Labor's Lost_ rime, while +there are only 579 lines of blank verse. Of the 2064 lines in _The +Tempest_, one of the last of his plays, 1458 are in blank verse. The +plays of his first period show less freedom in the use of verse. He +dislikes to let his meaning run over into the next line without a +pause, and he hesitates to introduce those extra syllables which give +such wonderful variety to his later work. As he grows older, he also +uses more prose. _Romeo and Juliet_ has 405 lines of prose in a total +of 3052 lines, while _Hamlet_, a tragedy of 3931 lines, has 1208 lines +of prose. + +His treatment of his characters is even a more significant index to +his growth than the form of his dramas. In the earlier plays, his men +and women are more engaged with external forces than with internal +struggles. In as excellent an early tragedy as _Romeo and Juliet_, the +hero fights more with outside obstacles than with himself. In the +great later tragedies, the internal conflict is more emphasized, as in +the cases of Hamlet and Macbeth. "See thou character" became in an +increasing degree Shakespeare's watchword. He grew to care less for +mere incident, for plots based on mistaken identity, as in _The Comedy +of Errors_; but he became more and more interested in the delineation +of character, in showing the effect of evil on Macbeth and his wife, +of jealousy on Othello, of indecision on Hamlet, as well as in +exploring the ineffectual attempts of many of his characters to escape +the consequences of their acts. + +Sources of his Plots.--We should have had fewer plays from +Shakespeare, if he had been compelled to take the time to invent new +plots. The sources of the plots of his plays may usually be found in +some old chronicle, novel, biography, or older play. Holinshed's +_Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland_, published when +Shakespeare was fourteen years old, gives the stories of Lear, +Cymbeline, Macbeth, and of all the English kings who are the heroes of +the historical plays. As Holinshed is very dry reading, if Shakespeare +had followed him closely, for instance, in _King Lear_, the play would +have lost its most impressive parts. There is not in Holinshed even a +suggestion of the Falstaff of _Henry IV_., that veritable "comic +Hamlet," who holds a unique place among the humorous characters of the +world. + +North's translation of Plutarch's _Lives_, published when Shakespeare +was fifteen years old, became his textbook of ancient history and +furnished him the raw material for plays like _Julius Caesar_ and +_Antony and Cleopatra_. + +TABLE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS[23] + +Play Total Prose Blank Penta- Rimes, Songs Publ- Supp- + of meter Short ished osed + Lines Rimes Lines Date + + I.--PLAYS OF FIRST (RIMING) PERIOD + +Love's Labor's 2789 1086 579 1028 54 32 1598 1588-9 + Lost +Comedy of 1778 240 1150 380 --- --- 1623 1589-91 + Errors [24] +Midsummer 2174 441 878 731 138 63 1600 1590-1 + Night's Dream +Two Gentlemen 2294 409 1510 116 --- 15 1623 1590-2 + of Verona +Romeo and 3052 405 2111 486 --- --- 1597 1591-3 + Juliet +Richard II. 2756 --- 2107 537 --- --- 1597 ? 1593 +Richard III. 3619 55? 3374 170 --- --- 1597 ? 1594-5 + + II.--HISTORIES AND COMEDIES OF SECOND PERIOD + +King John 2570 --- 2403 150 --- --- 1623 1594-5 +Merchant of 2660 673 1896 93 34 9 1600[24]? 1595-6 + Venice +1 Henry IV. 3176 1464 1622 84 --- --- 1598 1596-7[25] +2 Henry IV. 3446 1860 1417 74 7 15 1600 1598-9 +Henry V. 3380 1531 1678 101 2 8 1600 1599[25] +Merry Wives 3018 2703 227 69 --- 19 1602 1599 +Much Ado, &c. 2826 2106 643 40 18 16 1600 1599-1600 +As You Like It 2857 1681 925 71 130 97 1623 1599-1600[25] +Twelfth Night 2690 1741 763 120 --- 60 1623 1601[25] +All's Well 2966 1453 1234 280 2 12 1623 1601-2 + (Love's Labor's Won, 1590) + + III.--TRAGEDIES AND COMEDY OF THIRD PERIOD + +Julius Caesar 2478 165 2241 34 --- --- 1623 1601[3] +Hamlet 3931 1208 2490 81 --- 60 1603[24]1602-3[25] +Measure for 2821 1134 1574 73 22 6 1623 ? 1603 + Measure +Othello 3316 541 2672 86 --- 25 1622 ? 1604 +Macbeth 2108 158 1588 118 129 --- 1623 1605-6[25] +King Lear 3334 903 2238 74 --- 83 1608[24]1605-6[25] +Antony and 3063 255 2761 42 --- 6 1623 1606-7 + Cleopatra +Coriolanus 3410 829 2521 42 --- --- 1623 ? 1607-8 + + IV.--PLAYS OF FOURTH PERIOD + +Tempest 2064 458 1458 2 --- 96 1623 1609-10 +Cymbeline 3339 638 2585 107 --- 32 1623 1609-10 +Winter's Tale 3075 844 1825 --- --- 57 1623 ? 1611 + + V.--DOUBTFUL PLAYS + +Titus 2523 43 2338 144 --- --- 1594 1588-90 + Andronicus +1 Henry VI. 2677 --- 2379 314 --- --- 1623 1592-4 +2 Henry VI. 3162 448 2562 122 --- --- 1623 1592-4 +3 Henry VI. 2904 --- 2749 155 --- --- 1623 1592-4 +Contention 1952 381 1571 44 --- --- 1594 1586-8 +True Tragedy 2101 --- 2035 66 --- --- 1595 1586-8 + + VI.--PLAYS IN WHICH SHAKESPEARE WAS NOT SOLE AUTHOR + +Taming of the 2649 516 1971 169 15 --- 1623 1596-7 + Shrew +Troilus and 3496 1186 2025 196 --- 16 1609 1603 + Cressida +Timon of 2373 596 1560 184 18 --- 1623 1607-8 + Athens +Pericles 2389 418 1436 225 89 --- 1609[23]1608-9[24] +Henry VIII. 2822 67? 2613 16 --- 12 1623 1610-12[24] + +Poems published.--_Venus and Adonis_, 1593; _Lucrece_, 1594; +_Passionate Pilgrim_, 1599; _Phoenix and Turtle_ in Chester's _Loves +Martyr_, 1601; _Sonnets_, 1609, with _A Lover's Complaint_. + +Shakespeare recognized the greatness of North's _Plutarch_ and paid it +the compliment of following its thought more closely than that of any +other of his sources. + +Shakespeare found suggestions for _As You Like It_ in Thomas Lodge's +contemporary novel _Rosalynde_, but Touchstone and Adam are original +creations. + +Our astonishment is often increased to find that the merest hint led +to an imperishable creation, such as the character of Lady Macbeth, +the reference to whom in Holinshed is confined to these twenty-eight +words, "...specially his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing, +as she that was very ambitious, burning in unquenchable desire to bear +the name of a queen." His plays are almost as different from the old +chronicles or tales as the rose from the soil which nourished it. + +[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE--THE D'AVENANT BUST. _Discovered in 1845 +on site of Duke's Theater_.] + +GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS + +Sympathy.---His most pronounced characteristic is the broadest +sympathy ever shown by an author. He seems to have been able to +sympathize with every kind of human soul in every emergency. He plays +with the simple rustics in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. The portrait +of the serving man Adam, in _As You Like It_, is as kindly and as +discriminating as that of king or nobleman. Though he is the scholar +and philosopher in _Hamlet_, he can afterward roam the country with +the tramp Autolycus in _The Winter's Tale_. Women have marveled at the +ease with which his sympathy crosses the barriers of sex, at his +portraits of Portia, Rosalind, Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, Miranda, +Cleopatra, and Cordelia. Great actresses have testified to their +amazement at his discovery of feminine secrets which they had thought +no man could ever divine. + +[Illustration: HENRY IRVING AS HAMLET.] + +Universality.--Shakespeare's sympathy might have been broad enough +to include all the people of his own time and their peculiar +interests, but might have lacked the power to project itself into the +universal heart of humanity. Sometimes a writer voices the ideals and +aspirations of his own day so effectively that he is called the +spokesman of his age, but he makes slight appeal to future +generations. Shakespeare was the spokesman of his own time, but he had +the genius also to speak to all ages. He loved to present the eternal +truths of the human heart and to invest them with such a touch of +nature as to reveal the kinship of the entire world. + +His contemporary, the dramatist, Ben Jonson, had the penetration to +say of Shakespeare:-- + + "He was not of an age but for all time." + +He meant that Shakespeare does not exhibit some popular conceit, +folly, or phase of thought, which is merely the fashion of the hour +and for which succeeding generations would care nothing; but that he +voices those truths which appeal to the people of all ages. The grief +of Lear over the dead Cordelia, the ambition of Lady Macbeth, the +loves of Rosalind and Juliet, the questionings of Hamlet, interest us +as much today as they did the Elizabethans. Fashions in literature may +come and go, but Shakespeare's work remains. + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS LADY MACBETH. _From the painting by +Sargent_.] + +Humor.--Shakespeare had the most comprehensive sense of humor of any +of the world's great writers,--a humor that was closely related to his +sympathy. It has been said that he saved his tragedies from the fatal +disease of absurdity, by inoculating them with his comic virus, and +that his sense of humor kept him from ever becoming shrill. This +faculty enabled him to detect incongruity, to keep from overstressing +a situation, to enter into the personality of others, to recover +quickly from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and in one +of his last plays, _The Tempest_, to welcome the "brave young world" +as if he would like to play the game of life again. It was largely +because of his humor that the tragedies and pain of life did not sour +and subdue Shakespeare. + +He soon wearies of a vacant laugh. He has only one strictly farcical +play, _The Comedy of Errors_. There are few intellects keen enough to +extract all the humor from Shakespeare. For literal minds the full +comprehension of even a slight display of his humor, such as the +following dialogue affords, is better exercise than the solution of an +algebraic problem. Dogberry, a constable in _Much Ado About Nothing_, +thus instructs the Watch:-- + + "_Dogberry_. You shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid + any man stand in the prince's name. + + "_Watch_. How if a' will not stand? + + "_Dogberry_. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go, and + presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are + rid of a knave." + +Of all Shakespeare's qualities, his humor is the hardest to describe +because of its protean forms. Falstaff is his greatest humorous +creation. So resourceful is he that even defeat enables him to rise +like Antaeus after a fall. His humor is almost a philosophy of +existence for those who love to use wit and ingenuity in trying to +evade the laws of sober, orderly living. Perhaps it was for this very +reason that Shakespeare consented to send so early to "Arthur's +bosom"[26] a character who had not a little of the complexity of +Hamlet. + +[Illustration: FALSTAFF AND HIS PAGE. _From a drawing by B. +Westmacott_.] + +Much of Shakespeare's humor is delicately suffused through his plays. +Many of them either ripple with the laughter of his characters or are +lighted with their smiles. We may pass pleasant hours in the company +of his joyous creations, such as Rosalind in _As You Like It_, or +Portia in _The Merchant of Venice_, or Puck as the spokesman for _A +Midsummer Night's Dream_, who good naturedly exclaims:-- + + "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" + +or Viola and her companions in _Twelfth Night_, or Beatrice and +Benedict in _Much Ado About Nothing_, or Ariel in _The Tempest_ +playing pranks on the bewildered mariners and singing of the joys of +life which come as a reward for service:-- + + "Merrily, merrily shall I live now + Under the blossom that hangs on the bough." + +Shakespeare is also the one English author who is equally successful +in depicting the highest type of both comedy and tragedy. He has the +power to describe even a deathbed scene so as to invest it with both +humor and pathos. Dame Quickly's lines in _Henry V_., on the death of +Falstaff, show this capacity. + +The next greatest English writer is lacking in this sense of humor. +John Milton could write the tragedies of a _Paradise Lost_ and a +_Samson Agonistes_, but he could not give us the humor of _A Midsummer +Night's Dream_, _The Comedy of Errors_, or _As You Like It_. We have +seen that the next greatest dramatic genius, Marlowe, has little sense +of humor. Mrs. Browning correctly describes the plays of Shakespeare +as filled-- + + "With tears and laughters for all time." + +Moral Ideals.--To show the moral consequences of acts was the work +which most appealed to him. Banquo voiced the comprehensiveness of +moral law when he said, "In the great hand of God I stand." There is +here great divergence between the views of Shakespeare and of Bacon. +Dowden says:-- + + "While Bacon's sense of the presence of physical law in the universe + was for his time extraordinarily developed, he seems practically to + have acted upon the theory that the moral laws of the world are not + inexorable, but rather by tactics and dexterity may be cleverly + evaded. Their supremacy was acknowledged by Shakespeare in the + minutest as well as in the greatest concerns of human life." + +By employing "tactics" in sending Hamlet on a voyage to England, the +king hoped to avoid the consequences of his crime. Macbeth in vain +tried every stratagem to "trammel up the consequence." Goneril and +Regan drive their white-haired father out into the storm; but even in +_King Lear_, where the forces of evil seem to run riot, let us note +the result:-- + + "Throughout that stupendous Third Act the good are seen growing + better through suffering, and the bad worse through success. The + warm castle is a room in hell, the storm-swept heath a sanctuary... + The only real thing in the world is the soul with its courage, + patience, devotion. And nothing outward can touch that."[27] + +Shakespeare makes no pessimists. He shows how misfortune crowns life +with new moral glory. We rise from the gloom of _King Lear_, feeling +that we would rather be like Cordelia than like either of her sisters +or any other selfish character who apparently triumphs until life's +close. And yet Cordelia lost everything, her portion of her father's +kingdom and her own life. When we realize that Shakespeare found one +hundred and ten lines in _King Lear_ sufficient not only to confer +immortality on Cordelia, but also to make us all eager to pay homage +to her, in spite of the fact that the ordinary standard of the world +has not ceased to declare such a life a failure, we may the better +understand that his greatest power consisted in revealing the moral +victories possible for this rough-hewn human life. + +Shakespeare made a mistake about the seacoast of Bohemia and the +location of Milan with reference to the sea, but he was always sure of +the relative position of right and wrong and of the ultimate failure +of evil. In his greatest plays, for instance, in _Macbeth_, he sought +to impress the incalculable danger of meddling with evil, the +impossibility of forecasting the tragedy that might thereby result, +the certainty that retribution would follow, either here or beyond +"this bank and shoal of time." + +Mastery of his Mother Tongue.--His wealth of expression is another +striking characteristic. In a poem on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson wrote:-- + + "Thou had'st small Latin and less Greek." + +Shakespeare is, however, the mightiest master of the English tongue. +He uses 15,000 different words, while the second greatest writer in +our language employs only 7000. A great novelist like Thackeray has a +vocabulary of about 5000 words, while many uneducated laborers do not +use over 600 words. The combinations that Shakespeare has made with +these 15,000 words are far more striking than their mere number. + +Variety of Style.--The style of Milton, Addison, Dr. Johnson, and +Macaulay has some definite peculiarities, which can easily be +classified. Shakespeare, on the contrary, in holding the mirror up to +nature, has different styles for his sailors, soldiers, courtiers, +kings, and shepherds,--for Juliet, the lover; for Mistress Quickly, +the alewife; for Hamlet, the philosopher; and for Bottom, the weaver. +To employ so many styles requires genius of a peculiar kind. In the +case of most of us, our style would soon betray our individuality. +When Dr. Samuel Johnson tried to write a drama, he made all his little +fishes talk like whales, as Goldsmith wittily remarked. + +In the same play Shakespeare's style varies from the dainty lyric +touch of Ariel's song about the cowslip's bell and the blossoming +bough, to a style unsurpassed for grandeur:-- + + "The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, + The solemn temples, the great globe itself, + Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve + And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, + Leave not a rack behind." + +In the same passage his note immediately changes to the soft _vox +humana_ of-- + + "We are such stuff + As dreams are made on, and our little life + Is rounded with a sleep." + +His Influence on Thought.--With the exception of the _Scriptures_, +Shakespeare's dramas have surpassed all other works in molding modern +English thought. If a person should master Shakespeare and the +_Bible_, he would find most that is greatest in human thought, outside +of the realm of science. + +Even when we do not read him, we cannot escape the influence of others +who have been swayed by him. For generations, certain modes of thought +have crystallized about his phrases. We may instance such expressions +as these: "Brevity is the soul of wit." "What's in a name?" "The wish +was father to the thought." "The time is out of joint." "There's the +rub." "There's a divinity that shapes our ends." "Comparisons are +odorous." It would, perhaps, not be too much to say that the play of +_Hamlet_ has affected the thought of the majority of the +English-speaking race. His grip on Anglo-Saxon thought has been +increasing for more than three hundred years. + +Shakespeare's influence on the thought of any individual has only two +circumscribing factors,--the extent of Shakespearean study and the +capacity of interpreting the facts of life. No intelligent person can +study Shakespeare without becoming a deeper and more varied thinker, +without securing a broader comprehension of human existence,--its +struggles, failures, and successes. If we have before viewed humanity +through a glass darkly, Shakespeare will gradually lead us where we +can see face to face the beauty and the grandeur of the mystery of +existence. His most valuable influence often consists in rendering his +students sympathetic and in making them feel a sense of kinship with +life. Shakespeare's readers more quickly realize that human nature +shows the shaping touch of divinity. They have the rare joy of +discovering the world anew and of exclaiming with Miranda:-- + + "How many goodly creatures are there here! + How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, + That has such people in't!"[28] + +When we have really become acquainted with Shakespeare, our lives will +be less prosaic and restricted. After intimate companionship with him, +there will be, in the words of Ariel, hardly any common thing in +life-- + + "But doth suffer a sea-change + Into something rich and strange."[29] + +BEN JONSON, 1573?-1637 + +[Illustration: BEN JONSON. _From the portrait by Gerard Honthorst, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--About nine years after the birth of Shakespeare his greatest +successor in the English drama was born in London. Jonson outlived +Shakespeare twenty-one years and helped to usher in the decline of the +drama. + +Ben Jonson, the son of a clergyman and the stepson of a master +bricklayer, received a good education at Westminster School. Unlike +Shakespeare, Jonson learned much Latin and Greek. In one respect +Jonson's training was unfortunate for a poet. He was taught to write +prose exercises first and then to turn them into poetry. In this way +he acquired the habit of trying to express unpoetical ideas in verse. +Art could change the prose into metrical riming lines, but art could +not breathe into them the living soul of poetry. In after times Jonson +said that Shakespeare lacked art, but Jonson recognized that the +author of _Hamlet_ had the magic touch of nature. Jonson's pen rarely +felt her all-embracing touch. + +If Jonson served an apprenticeship as a bricklayer, as his enemies +afterward said, he did not continue long at such work. He crossed the +Channel and enlisted for a brief time as a soldier in the Netherlands. +He soon returned to London and became a writer for the theater, and +thenceforth lived the life of an author and a student. He loved to +study and translate the classics. In fact, what a novice might think +original in Jonson's plays was often borrowed from the classics. Of +his relations to the classical writers, Dryden says, "You track him +everywhere in their snow." Jonson was known as the most learned poet +of the age, because, if his plays demanded any special knowledge, no +subject was too hard, dry, or remote from common life for him to +attempt to master it. He knew the boundaries of Bohemia, and he took +pleasure in saying to a friend: "Shakespeare in a play brought in a +number of men saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where is +no sea near, by some hundred miles." + +Jonson's personal characteristics partly explain why he placed himself +in opposition to the spirit of the age. He was extremely combative. It +was almost a necessity for him to quarrel with some person or with +some opinion. He killed two men in duels, and he would probably have +been hanged, if he had not pleaded benefit of clergy. For the greater +part of his life, he was often occupied with pen and ink quarrels. + +When James I. ascended the throne in 1603, Jonson soon became a royal +favorite. He was often employed to write masques, a peculiar species +of drama which called for magnificent scenery and dress, and gave the +nobility the opportunity of acting the part of some distinguished or +supernatural character. Such work brought Jonson into intimate +association with the leading men of the day. + +It is pleasant to think that he was a friend of Shakespeare. Jonson's +pithy volume of prose, known as _Discoveries made upon Men and +Matter_, contains his famous criticism on Shakespeare, noteworthy +because it shows how a great contemporary regarded him, "I loved the +man and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any." Few +English writers have received from a great rival author such +convincing testimony in regard to lovable personality. + +[Illustration: BEN JONSON'S TOMB IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.] + +In 1616, the year in which Shakespeare died, Jonson was made poet +laureate. When he died in 1637, he was buried in an upright position +in Westminster Abbey. A plain stone with the unique inscription, "O +Rare Ben Jonson," marks his grave. + +Plays.--Ben Jonson's comedies are his best dramatic work. From all +his plays we may select three that will best repay reading: _Volpone, +The Alchemist_, and _The Silent Woman_. _Volpone_ is the story of an +old, childless, Venetian nobleman whose ruling passion is avarice. +Everything else in the play is made tributary to this passion. The +first three lines in the first act strike the keynote of the entire +play. Volpone says:-- + + "Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!-- + Open the shrine, that I may see my saint. + Hail the world's soul and mine!" + +_The Alchemist_ makes a strong presentation of certain forms of +credulity in human nature and of the special tricks which the +alchemists and impostors of that day adopted. One character wants to +buy the secret of the helpful influence of the stars; another parts +with his wealth to learn the alchemist's secret of turning everything +into gold and jewels. The way in which these characters are deceived +is very amusing. A study of this play adds to our knowledge of a +certain phase of the times. In point of artistic construction of plot, +_The Alchemist_ is nowhere excelled in the English drama; but the +intrusion of Jonson's learning often makes the play tedious reading, +as when he introduces the technical terms of the so-called science of +alchemy to show that he has studied it thoroughly. One character +speaks to the alchemist of-- + + "Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit," + +and another asks:-- + + "Can you sublime and dulcify? calcine? + Know you the sapor pontic? sapor stiptic, + Or what is homogene, or heterogene?" + +Lines like the following show that Jonson's acute mind had grasped +something of the principle of evolution:-- + + "...'twere absurd + To think that nature in the earth bred gold + Perfect in the instant: something went before. + There must be remote matter." + +_The Silent Woman_ is in lighter vein than either of the plays just +mentioned. The leading character is called Morose, and his special +whim or "humor" is a horror of noise. His home is on a street "so +narrow at both ends that it will receive no coaches nor carts, nor any +of these common noises." He has mattresses on the stairs, and he +dismisses the footman for wearing squeaking shoes. For a long time +Morose does not marry, fearing the noise of a wife's tongue. Finally +he commissions his nephew to find him a silent woman for a wife, and +the author uses to good advantage the opportunity for comic situations +which this turn in the action affords. Dryden preferred _The Silent +Woman_ to any of the other plays. + +Besides the plays mentioned in this section, Jonson wrote during his +long life many other comedies and masques as well as some tragedies. + +Marks of Decline.--A study of the decline of the drama, as shown in +Jonson's plays, will give us a better appreciation of the genius of +Shakespeare. We may change Jonson's line so that it will state one +reason for his not maintaining Shakespearean excellence:-- + + "He was not for all time, but of an age." + +His first play, _Every Man in his Humor_, paints, not the universal +emotions of men, but some special humor. He thus defines the sense in +which he uses humor:-- + + "As when some one peculiar quality + Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw + All his affects, his spirits and his powers, + In their confluctions, all to run one way, + This may be truly said to be a Humor." + +Unlike Shakespeare, Jonson gives a distorted or incomplete picture of +life. In _Volpone_ everything is subsidiary to the humor of avarice, +which receives unnatural emphasis. In _The Alchemist_ there is little +to relieve the picture of credibility and hypocrisy, while _The Silent +Woman_ has for its leading character a man whose principal "humor" or +aim in life is to avoid noise. + +No drama which fails to paint the nobler side of womanhood can be +called complete. In Jonson's plays we do not find a single woman +worthy to come near the Shakespearean characters, Cordelia, Imogen, +and Desdemona. His limitations are nowhere more marked than in his +inability to portray a noble woman. + +Another reason why he fails to present life completely is shown in +these lines, in which he defines his mission:-- + + "My strict hand + Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe + Squeeze out the humor of such spongy souls + As lick up every idle vanity." + +Since the world needs building up rather than tearing down, a remedy +for an ailment rather than fault-finding, the greatest of men cannot +be mere satirists. Shakespeare displays some fellow feeling for the +object of his satire, but Jonson's satire is cold and devoid of +sympathy. + +Jonson deliberately took his stand in opposition to the romantic +spirit of the age. Marlowe and Shakespeare had disregarded the +classical unities and had developed the drama on romantic lines. +Jonson resolved to follow classical traditions and to adhere to unity +of time and place in the construction of his plots. The action in the +play of _The Silent Woman_, for instance, occupies only twelve hours. + +General Characteristics.--Jonson's plays show the touch of a +conscientious artist with great intellectual ability. His vast +erudition is constantly apparent. He is the satiric historian of his +time, and he exhibits the follies and the humors of the age under a +powerful lens. He is also the author of dainty lyrics, and forcible +prose criticism. + +Among the shortcomings of his plays, we may specially note lack of +feeling and of universality. He fails to comprehend the nature of +woman. He is not a sympathetic observer of manifold life, but presents +only what is perceived through the frosted glass of intellect. His art +is self-conscious. He defiantly opposed the romantic spirit of the age +and weakened the drama by making it bear the burden of the classical +unities. + +MINOR DRAMATISTS + +Beaumont and Fletcher.--Next to Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Ben +Jonson, the two most influential dramatists were Francis Beaumont +(1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625). They are usually mentioned +together because they collaborated in writing plays. Fletcher had the +great advantage of working with Shakespeare in producing _Henry VIII_. +Beaumont died nine years before Fletcher, and it is doubtful whether +he collaborated with Fletcher in more than fifteen of the fifty plays +published under their joint names. + +Two of their greatest plays, _Philaster_ and _The Maid's Tragedy_, are +probably their joint production. _The Faithful Shepherdess_ and +_Bonduca_ are among the best of about eighteen plays supposed to have +been written by Fletcher alone. After Beaumont's death, Fletcher +sometimes collaborated with other dramatists. + +[Illustration: FRANCIS BEAUMONT.] + +Almost all the so-called Beaumont and Fletcher plays are well +constructed. These dramatists also have, in common with the majority +of their associates, the ability to produce occasional passages of +exquisite poetry. A character in _Philaster_ speaks of death in lines +that suggest _Hamlet_:-- + + "'Tis less than to be born; a lasting sleep, + A quiet resting from all jealousy; + A thing we all pursue; I know besides + It is but giving over of a game + That must be lost." + +Beaumont and Fletcher's work is noteworthy for its pictures of +contemporary life and manners, for wealth of incident, rapidity of +movement, and variety of characters. + +Not long after the beginning of the seventeenth century there was a +change in the taste of the patrons of the theater. Shakespeare +declined in popularity. The playwrights tried to solve the problem of +interesting audiences that wished only to be entertained. This attempt +led to a change in dramatic methods. + +Changed Moral Ideals.--Under Elizabeth's successors the Puritan +spirit increased and the most religious part of the community seldom +attended the theater. The later dramatists pay little attention to the +moral development of character and its self-revelation through action. +They often merely describe character and paint it from the outside. We +have seen that Shakespeare's great plays are almost a demonstration in +moral geometry, but Beaumont and Fletcher are not much concerned over +the moral consequences of an action. The gravest charge against them +is that they "unknit the sequence of moral cause and effect." After +reading such plays, we do not rise with the feeling that there is a +divinity that shapes our ends. + +[Illustration: JOHN FLETCHER.] + +Coleridge says, "Shakespeare never renders that amiable which religion +and reason alike teach us to detest, or clothes impurity in the garb +of virtue, like Beaumont and Fletcher." Much of the work of their +contemporary dramatists is marred by such blemishes. Unpleasant as are +numbers of these plays, they are less insidious than many which have +appeared on the stage in modern times. + +Love of Surprises.--The dramatists racked their inventive powers to +introduce surprises to interest the audience. Here was a marked +departure from Shakespeare's later method. He plans _Macbeth_ so as to +have his audience forecast the logical result. Consequences of the +most tremendous import, beside which Beaumont and Fletcher's surprises +seem trivial, follow naturally from Macbeth's actions. In his greatest +plays, Shakespeare, unlike the later dramatists, never relies on +illogical surprises to sustain the interest. The witch queen in one of +the plays of Thomas Middleton (1570-1627) suddenly exclaims:-- + + "...fetch three ounces of the red-haired girl + I kill'd last midnight." + +Shakespeare's witches suggest only enough of the weird and the +horrible to transfix the attention and make the beholder realize the +force of the temptation that assails Macbeth. Charles Lamb truly +observes that Middleton's witches "can harm the body," but +Shakespeare's "have power over the soul." + +Middleton could, however, write a passage like the following, which +probably suggested to Milton one of the finest lines in _Lycidas_:-- + + "Upon those lips, the sweet fresh buds of youth, + The holy dew of prayer lies, like pearl + Dropt from the opening eyelids of the morn + Upon a bashful rose." + +Large Number of Playwrights.--Beaumont and Fletcher were only two of +a large number of dramatists who were born in the age of Elizabeth, +and who, with few exceptions, lived into the second quarter of the +seventeenth century. Their work was the result of earlier Elizabethan +impulses, and it is rightly considered a part of the great dramatic +movement of the Elizabethan age. The popularity of the drama continued +to attract many authors who in a different age might have produced +other forms of literature. + +George Chapman (1559?-1634), who is best known for his fine +translation of Homer's _Iliad_, turned dramatist in middle life, but +found it difficult to enter into the feelings of characters unlike +himself. His best two plays, _Bussy D'Ambois_ and _The Revenge of +Bussy D'Ambois_, are tragedies founded on French history. Thomas +Middleton, gifted in dramatic technique and dialogue and noted for +his comedy of domestic manners, was the author of _Michaelmas Term_, +_A Trick to Catch the Old One_, _The Changeling_ (in collaboration +with William Rowley, 1585?-1640?). John Marston (1576?-1634) wrote +_Antonio and Mellida_, a blood and thunder tragedy, and collaborated +with Jonson and Chapman to produce _Eastward Hoe_, an excellent comic +picture of contemporary life. _The Shoemaker's Holiday_ of Thomas +Dekker (1570?-1640) is also a good comedy of London life and manners. +Philip Massinger (1584-1640), a later collaborator with Fletcher, +wrote _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, a play very popular in after +times. Thomas Heywood (1572?-1650), one of the most prolific +dramatists, claimed to have had "either an entire hand or at the least +a main finger," in two hundred and twenty plays. His best work is _A +Woman Killed with Kindness_, a domestic drama that appealed to the +middle classes. + +A Tragic Group.--Three dramatists: John Webster (1602-1624), +Cyril Tourneur (1575?-1626), and John Ford (1586-1640?), had a +love for the most somber tragedy. In tragic power, Webster approaches +nearest to Shakespeare. Webster's greatest play, _The Duchess of +Malfi_ (acted in 1616), and _The White Devil_, which ranks second, +show the working of a master hand, but Webster's genius comes to a +focus only in depicting the horrible. He loves such gloomy metaphors +as the following:-- + + "You speak as if a man + Should know what fowl is _coffined_ in a baked meat + Afore you cut it open." + +Tourneur's _The Atheist's Tragedy_ is in Webster's vein, but far +inferior to _The Duchess of Malfi_. + +Ford's _The Broken Heart_ is a strong, but unpleasant, tragedy. He is +so fascinated with the horrible that he introduces it even when it is +not the logical outcome of a situation. His best but least +characteristic play is _Perkin Warbeck_, which is worthy of ranking +second only to Shakespeare's historical plays. + +End of the Elizabethan Drama.--James Shirley (1596-1666), "the +last of the Elizabethans," endeavored to the best of his ability to +continue the work of the earlier dramatists. _The Traitor_ and _The +Cardinal_ are two of the best of his many productions. He was hard at +work writing new plays in 1642, when the Puritans closed the theaters. +He was thus forced to abandon the profession that he enjoyed and +compelled to teach in order to earn a livelihood. + +The drama has never since regained its Elizabethan ascendancy. The +coarse plays of the Restoration (1660) flourished for a while, but the +treatment of the later drama forms but a minor part of the history of +the best English literature. Few plays produced during the next two +hundred years are much read or acted to-day. _She Stoops to Conquer_ +(1773), by Oliver Goldsmith, and _The Rivals_ (1775) and _The School +for Scandal_ (1777), by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, are the chief +exceptions before 1890. + +SUMMARY + +The Elizabethan age was a period of expansion in knowledge, commerce, +religious freedom, and human opportunities. The defeat of the Armada +freed England from fear of Spanish domination and made her mistress of +the sea. + +England was vivified by the combined influence of the Renaissance and +the Reformation. Knowledge was expanding in every direction and +promising to crown human effort with universal mastery. The greater +feeling of individuality was partly due to the Reformation, which +emphasized the direct responsibility of each individual for all acts +affecting the welfare of his soul. + +Elizabethans were noted for their resourcefulness, their initiative, +their craving for new experiences, and their desire to realize the +utmost out of life. As they cared little for ideas that could not be +translated into action, they were particularly interested in the +drama. + +Although the prose covers a wide field, it is far inferior to the +poetry. Lyly's _Euphues_ suffers from overwrought conceits and forced +antitheses, but it influenced writers to pay more attention to the +manner in which thought was expressed. The flowery prose of Sidney's +_Arcadia_ presents a pastoral world of romance. His _Apologie for +Poetrie_ is a meritorious piece of early criticism. While Hooker +indicates advance in solidity of matter and dignity of style, yet a +comparison of his heavy religious prose with the prayer of the king in +_Hamlet_ or with Portia's words about mercy in _The Merchant of +Venice_ will show the vast superiority of the poetry in dealing with +spiritual ideas. Bacon's _Essays_, celebrated for pithy condensation +of striking thoughts, is the only prose work that has stood the test +of time well enough to claim many readers to-day. + +Poetry, both lyric and dramatic, is the crowning glory of the +Elizabethan age. The lyric verse is remarkable for its wide range and +for beauty of form and sentiment. The lyrics include love sonnets, +pastorals, and miscellaneous verse. Shakespeare's _Sonnets_ and the +songs in his dramas are the best in this field, but many poets wrote +exquisite artistic lyrics. + +Edmund Spenser is the only great poet who was not also a dramatist. +His _Faerie Queene_ fashions an ideal world dominated by a love of +beauty and high endeavor. + +The greatest literary successes of the age were won in writing plays +for the stage. In England the drama had for centuries slowly developed +through Miracle plays, Moralities, and Interludes to the plays of +Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson. These three are the greatest +Elizabethan dramatists, but they are only the central figures of a +group. + +The English drama in the hands of Sackville imitated Seneca and +followed the rules of the classic stage. Marlowe and Shakespeare threw +off the restraints of the classical unities; and the romantic drama, +rejoicing in its freedom, speedily told the story of all life. + +The innyards were used for the public presentation of plays before the +erection of theaters in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The +theaters were a great educational force in Shakespeare's time. They +not only furnished amusement, but they also took the place of +periodicals, lectures, and books. The actors, coming into close +contact with their audience and unable to rely on elaborate scenery as +an offset to poor acting, were equal to the task of so presenting +Shakespeare's great plays as to make them popular. + +Shakespeare's plays, the greatest ever written, reveal wonderful +sympathy, universality, humor, delineation of character, high moral +ideals, mastery of expression, and strength, beauty, and variety of +poetic form. + +Great as is Ben Jonson, he hampered himself by observing the classical +unities and by stressing accidental qualities. He lacks Shakespeare's +universality, broad sympathy, and emotional appeal. + +Other minor dramatists, like Beaumont and Fletcher show further +decline, because they constructed their plays more from the outside, +showed less development of character in strict accordance with moral +law, and relied more for effect on sensational scenes. The drama has +never since taken up the wand that dropped from Shakespeare's hands. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +In addition to the chapters on the time in the histories of Gardiner, +Green, Lingard, Walker, and Traill, see Stephenson's _The Elizabethan +People_, Creighton's _Queen Elizabeth_, Wilson's _Life in +Shakespeare's England_, Stephenson's _Shakespeare's London_, Warner's +_English History in Shakespeare's plays_. + +LITERARY + +General and Non-Dramatic + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vols. IV., V., and VI. + +Courthope's _A History of English Poetry_, Vol. II. + +Schelling's _English Literature during the Lifetime of Shakespeare_. + +Seecombe and Allen's _The Age of Shakespeare_, 2 vols. + +Saintsbury's _A History of Elizabethan Literature_. + +_Dictionary of National Biography_ for lives of Lyly, Sidney, Hooker. + +Bacon, Spenser, and the minor dramatists. + +Walton's _Life of Hooker_. + +Church's _Life of Bacon_. (E.M.L.) + +Church's _Life of Spenser_. (E.M.L.) + +Mackail's _The Springs of Helicon_ (Spenser). + +Dowden's _Transcripts and Studies_ (Spenser). + +Lowell's _Among My Books_ (Spenser). + +Erskine's _The Elizabethan Lyric_. + +The Drama[30] + +Schelling's _Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642_, 2 vols. Ward's _A History +of English Dramatic Literature_, 3 vols. + +Brooke's _The Tudor Drama_. + +Chambers's _The Mediaeval Stage_. + +Allbright's _The Shakespearean Stage_. + +Lawrence's _Elizabethan Playhouse and Other Studies_. + +Smith's _York Plays_ (Clarendon Press). + +Symonds's _Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama_. + +Bates's _The English Religious Drama_. + +Manly's _Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama_. + +Wallace's _The Evolution of the English Drama up to Shakespeare_. + +Ingram's _Christopher Marlowe and his Associates_. + +Dowden's _Transcripts and Studies_ (Marlowe). + +Symonds's _Ben Jonson_. + +Swinburne's _A Study of Ben Jonson_. + +Shakespeare + +Lee's _A Life of William Shakespeare_. + +Furnivall and Munro's _Shakespeare: Life and Work_. + +Harris's _The Man Shakespeare and his Tragic Life Story_. + +Halliwell-Phillipps's _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_. + +Raleigh's _Shakespeare_.(E.M.L.) + +Baker's _The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist_. + +MacCracken, Pierce, and Durham's _An Introduction to Shakespeare_. + +Bradley's _Shakespearean Tragedy_ (excellent). + +Bradley's _Oxford Lectures on Poetry_. + +Dowden's _Shakespeare, His Mind and Art_. + +Coleridge's _Lectures on Shakespeare_ (pp. 21-58 of Beers's +_Selections from the Prose writings of Coleridge_). + +Lowell's _Shakespeare Once More_, in _Among My Books_. + +Wallace's _Shakespeare, the Globe, and Blackfriars_. + +_How Shakespeare's Senses were Trained_, Chap. X. in Halleck's +_Education of the Central Nervous System_. + +Rolfe's _Shakespeare the Boy_. + +Boswell-Stone's _Shakespeare's Holinshed_. + +Brooke's _Shakespeare's Plutarch_, 2 vols. + +Madden's _The Diary of Master William Silence: A Study of Shakespeare +and of Elizabethan Sport_. + +Winter's _Shakespeare on the Stage_. + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Elizabethan Prose.--Good selections from Ascham, Hakluyt, Raleigh, +Holinshed, Stow, Camden, North, Sidney, Foxe, Hooker, Lyly, Greene, +Lodge, and Nashe are given in Craik, I.[31] Chambers, I. and Manly, +II. also give a number of selections. Deloney's _The Gentle Craft_ may +be found in the Clarendon Press edition of his _Works_. For Bacon, see +Craik, II. + +These selections will give the student a broader grasp of the +Elizabethan age. The style and subject matter of Lyly's _Euphues_, +Sidney's _Arcadia_, Hooker's _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_, +and Bacon's _Essays_ should be specially noted. Which one of these +authors exerted the strongest influence on his own age? Which one +makes the strongest appeal to modern times? In what respects does the +style of any Elizabethan prose writer show an improvement over that of +Mandeville and Malory? + +Lyrics.--For specimens of love sonnets, read Nos. 18, 33, 73, 104, +111, and 116 of Shakespeare's _Sonnets_. Compare them with any of +Sidney's Spenser's sonnets. Other love lyrics which should be read are +Spenser's _Prothalamion_, Lodge's _Love in My Bosom Like a Bee_ and +Ben Jonson's _To Celia_. Among pastoral lyrics, read from Spenser's +_Shepherd's Calendar_ for August, 1579, Perigo and Willie's duet, +beginning:-- + + "It fell upon a holy eve," + +and Marlowe's _The Passionate Shepherd to His Love_. The best pastoral +lyrics from the modern point of view are Shakespeare's two songs: +"Under the Greenwood Tree" (_As you like it_) and "When Icicles Hang +by the Wall" (_Love's Labor's Lost_). The best miscellaneous lyrics +are the songs in Shakespeare's _Cymbeline_, _The Tempest_, and _As You +Like It_. Drayton's _Ballad of Agincourt_ and _Sonnet 61_ are his best +lyrical verse. Read Ben Jonson's _An Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy_ and, +from his Pindaric Ode, the stanza beginning:-- + + "It is not growing like a tree." + +From John Donne, read either _The Funeral_, _The Canonization_, or +_The Dream_. + +Good selections from all varieties of Elizabethan lyrics may be found +in Bronson, II., Ward. I., _Oxford, Century_, Manly, I. Nearly all the +lyrics referred to in this list, including the best songs from the +dramatists, are given in Schelling's _Elizabethan Lyrics_ (327 pp., 75 +cents). This work, together with Erskine's _The Elizabethan Lyric_ and +Reed's _English Lyrical Poetry from its Origins to the Present Time_, +will serve for a more exhaustive study of this fascinating subject. + +From your reading, select from each class the lyric that pleases you +most, and give reasons for your choice. Which lyric seems the most +spontaneous? the most artistic? the most inspired? the most modern? +the most quaint? the most and the least instinct with feeling? + +Edmund Spenser.--The _Faerie Queene_, Book I., Canto I., should be +read. Maynard's _English Classic Series_, No. 27 (12 cents) contains +the first two cantos and the _Prothalamion_. Kitchin's edition of Book +I. (Clarendon Press. 60 cents) is an excellent volume. The Globe +edition furnishes a good complete text of Spenser's work. Ample +selections are given in Bronson, II., Ward, I., and briefer ones in +Manly, I., and _Century_. + +THE DRAMA + +The Best Volumes of Selections.--The least expensive volume to cover +nearly the entire field with brief selections is Vol. II. of _The +Oxford Treasury of English Literature_, entitled _Growth of the Drama_ +(Clarendon Press, 412 pp., 90 cents). Pollard's _English Miracle +Plays, Moralities, and Interludes_ (Clarendon Press, 250 pp., $1.90) +is the best single volume of selections from this branch of the drama. +_Everyman and Other Miracle Plays_ (Everyman's Library, 35 cents) is a +good inexpensive volume. Manly's' _Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean +Drama_ (three volumes, $1.25 each) covers this field more fully. +Morley's _English Plays_ (published as Vol. III. of Cassell's _Library +of English Literature_, at eleven and one half shillings) contains +good selections from nearly all the plays mentioned below, except +those by Shakespeare and Jonson. Williams's _Specimens of the +Elizabethan Drama, from Lyly to Shirley_, 1580-1642 (Clarendon Press, +576 pp., $1.90) is excellent for a comprehensive survey of the field +covered. Lamb's _Specimens of English Poets Who Lived about the Time +of Shakespeare_ (Bohn's Library, 552 pp.) contains a large number of +good selections. + +Miracle Plays.--Read the Chester Play of _Noah's Flood_, +Pollard,[32] 8-20, and the Towneley _Play of the Shepherds_, Pollard, +31-43; Manly's _Specimens_, I, 94-119; Morley's _English Plays_, +12-18. These two plays best show the germs of English comedy. + +Moralities.--The best _Morality_ is that known as _Everyman_, +Pollard, 76-96; also in _Everyman's Library_. If _Everyman_ is not +accessible, _Hycke-Scorner_ may be substituted, Morley; 12-18; Manly's +_Specimens_, I., 386-420. + +Court Plays, Early Comedies, and Gorboduc.--The best _Interlude_ is +_The Four P's_. Adequate selections are given in Morley, 18-20, and in +Symonds's Shakespeare's _Predecessors in the English Drama_, 188-201. +Pollard and Manly give several good selections from other +_Interludes_. + +_Ralph Royster Doyster_ may be found in Arber's _Reprints_; in +Morley's _English Plays_, pp. 22-46; in Manly's _Specimens_, II., +5-92; in _Oxford Treasury_, II., 161-174, and in _Temple Dramatists_ +(35 cents). + +_Gorboduc_ is given in _Oxford Treasury_, II. pp., 40-54 (selections); +Morley's _English Plays_, pp. 51-64; and, under the title of _Ferrex +and Porrex_, in Dodsley's _Old Plays_. + +What were some of the purposes for which _Interludes_ were written? +How did they aid in the development of the drama? + +In what different forms are _The Four-P's, Ralph Royster Doyster_, and +_Gorboduc_ written? Why would Shakespeare's plays have been impossible +if the evolution of the drama had stopped with _Gorboduc_? + +Pre-Shakespearean Dramatists.--Selections from Lyly, Peele, Green, +Lodge, Nashe, and Kyd may be found in Williams's _Specimens_. Morley +and _Oxford Treasury_ also contain a number of selections. Peele's +_The Arraignment of Paris_ and Kyd's _The Spanish Tragedy_ are in +_Temple Dramatists_. Greene's best plays are in _Mermaid Series_. + +What are the merits of Lyly's dialogue and comedy? What might +Shakespeare have learned from Lyly, Peele, Greene, and Kyd? In what +different form did these dramatists write? What progress do they show? + +Marlowe.--Read _Dr. Faustus_, in _Masterpieces of the English Drama_ +(American Book Company) or in _Everyman's Library_. This play may also +be found in Morley's _English Plays_, pp. 116-128, or in Morley's +_Universal Library_. Selections from various plays of Marlowe may be +found in _Oxford Treasury_, 61-85, 330-356; and in Williams's +_Specimens_, 25-34. + +Does _Dr. Faustus_ observe the classical unities? In what way does it +show the spirit of the Elizabethan age? Was the poetic form of the +play the regular vehicle of dramatic expression? In what does the +greatness of the play consist? What are its defects? Why do young +people sometimes think Marlowe the greatest of _all_ the Elizabethan +dramatists? + +Shakespeare.--The student should read in sequence one or more of the +plays in each of Shakespeare's four periods of development (pp. 185, +188), such as _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ and _Romeo and Juliet_, for +the first period; _As You Like It_ and _The Merchant of Venice_, for +the second; _Hamlet_ and _King Lear_ or _Macbeth_ or _Julius Caesar_, +for the third; and _The Winter's Tale_ and _The Tempest_, for the +fourth. + +Among the many good annotated editions of separate plays are the +Clarke and Wright, Rolfe, Hudson, Arden, Temple, and Tudor editions. +Furness's _Variorum Shakespeare_ is the best for exhaustive study. The +best portable single volume edition is Craig's _Oxford Shakespeare_, +India paper, 1350 pages. + +The student cannot do better than follow the advice of Dr. Johnson: +"Let him who is unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who +desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read +every play, from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of +all his commentators... Let him read on through brightness and +obscurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his +comprehension of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when +the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness and +read the commentators." + +Shakespeare's three greatest tragedies, _Hamlet, King Lear_, and +_Macbeth_, should be read several times. After becoming familiar with +the story, the student should next determine the general aim of the +play and analyze the personality and philosophy of each of the leading +characters. + +After reading some of all classes of Shakespeare's plays, point out +his (_a_) breadth of sympathy, (_b_) humor, (_c_) moral ideals, (_d_) +mastery of English and variety of style, and (_e_) universality. What +idea of his personality can you form from his plays? If you have read +them in sequence, point out some of the characteristics of each of his +four periods. Why is Shakespeare often called a great dramatic artist? +How did his audience and manner of presentation of his plays modify +his treatment of a dramatic theme? + +Ben Jonson and Minor Dramatists.--The best plays of Ben Jonson, +Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, Middleton, Massinger, Webster, and +Tourneur may be found in _Masterpieces of the English Drama_ edited by +Schellinq (American Book Company). Selections from all the minor +dramatists mentioned may be found in Williams's _Specimens_. The +teacher will need to exercise care in assigning readings. Most of the +minor dramatists are better suited to advanced students. + +Read Jonson's _The Alchemist_ or the selection in Williams's +_Specimens_. A sufficient selection from _Philaster_ may be found in +Vol. II. of _The Oxford Treasury_, in Morley, and in Williams's +_Specimens_. + +What points of difference between Shakespeare and Jonson do you +notice? What is his object in _The Alchemist_? Why is its plot called +unusually fine? Wherein does Jonson show a decline in the drama? + +Who were Beaumont and Fletcher? What movement in the drama do they +illustrate? What are the characteristics of some other minor +dramatists? What are the chief reasons why the minor dramatists fail +to equal Shakespeare? When and why did this period of the drama close? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER IV: + +[Footnote 1: For additional mention of Elizabethan novelists, see p. +317.] + +[Footnote 2: For references to selections from all these prose +writers, see p. 215.] + +[Footnote 3: _Of Youth and Age_.] + +[Footnote 4: Thomas Heywood's _Matin Song_.] + +[Footnote 5: Suggestions for additional study of Elizabethan lyrics +are given on p. 215.] + +[Footnote 6: riding.] + +[Footnote 7: _An Hymne in Honour of Beautie_.] + +[Footnote 8: _Faerie Queene_, Book III., Canto 4.] + +[Footnote 9: _Ibid_., Book I., Canto 3.] + +[Footnote 10: Smith's _York Plays_.] + +[Footnote 11: C.W. Wallace's _The Evolution of the English Drama up to +Shakespeare_.] + +[Footnote 12: Wallace, _op. cit_., p.37.] + +[Footnote 13: _What We Know of the Elizabethan Stage_.] + +[Footnote 14: Performances were often given at night in private +theaters. From the records in a lawsuit over the second Blackfriars +Theater, we learn that there were in 1608 only three private theaters +in London,--Blackfriars, Whitefriars, and a St. Paul's Cathedral +playhouse, in which boys acted.] + +[Footnote 15: This drawing of the Swan Theater, London, was probably +made near the end of the sixteenth century by van Buchell, a Dutchman, +from a description by his friend, J. de Witt. The drawing, found at +the University of Utrecht, although perhaps not accurate in details, +is valuable as a rough contemporary record of an impression +communicated to a draftsman by one who had seen an Elizabethan play.] + +[Footnote 16: The lease of the building for the first Blackfriars +Theater, on Ludgate Hill, London, was taken in 1576 by Richard +Farrant, master of the boys of Windsor Chapel, and canceled in 1584. +In 1595 James Burbage bought a building for the second Blackfriars +Theater, near the site of the first. This was a private theater, +competing with the Globe, with which Shakespeare was connected. The +chief dramatists for the second Blackfriars were Ben Jonson, George +Chapman, and John Marston. James I. suppressed the second Blackfriars +in 1608 because its actors satirized him and the French king. A few +months later, Shakespeare and his associates assumed the management of +the Blackfriars and gave performances there as well as at the Globe. + +These facts explain Wallace's discovery that Shakespeare at the time +of his death owned a one-seventh interest in the second Blackfriars, a +theater that had formerly been a rival to the Globe.] + +[Footnote 17: _Dr. Faustus_, Scene 6.] + +[Footnote 18: _Tamburlaine_, Act II., Scene 7.] + +[Footnote 19: _The Winter's Tale_, Act IV., Scene 4.] + +[Footnote 20: Tradition says that Shakespeare occupied the desk in the +farthest corner.] + +[Footnote 21: Greene's _Groatsworth of Wit_, Grosart's edition of +Greene's _Works_, Vol. XII., p. 144.] + +[Footnote 22: The contract price for building the Fortune Theater was +£440.] + +[Footnote 23: Adapted from Furnivall.] + +[Footnote 24: Entered one year before at Stationers' Hall.] + +[Footnote 25: May be looked on as fairly certain.] + +[Footnote 26: _Henry V_., Act II., Scene 3, line 10.] + +[Footnote 27: Bradley's _Shakespearean Tragedy_, p. 327.] + +[Footnote 28: _The Tempest_, Act V., Scene 1.] + +[Footnote 29: _Ibid_., Act I., Scene 2.] + +[Footnote 30: For a list of books of selections from the drama, see p. +216.] + +[Footnote 31: For full titles, see p. 6.] + +[Footnote 32: For full titles of books of dramatic selections, see the +preceding paragraph.] + + +CHAPTER V: THE PURITAN AGE, 1603-1660 + +History of the Period.--James I. (1603-1625), son of Mary Stuart, +Queen of Scots, and the first of the Stuart line to reign in England, +succeeded Elizabeth. His stubbornness and folly not only ended the +intense patriotic feeling of the previous reign, but laid the +foundation for the deadly conflict that resulted. In fifty-four years +after the defeat of the Armada, England was plunged into civil war. + +The guiding belief of James I. was that kings governed by divine +right, that they received from the Deity a title of which no one could +lawfully deprive them, no matter how outrageously they ruled, and that +they were not in any way responsible to Parliament or to the people. +In acting on this belief, he first trampled on the religious liberty +of his subjects. He drove from their churches hundreds of clergymen +who would not take oath that they believed that the prayer book of the +Church of England agreed in every way with the _Bible_. He boasted +that he would "harry out of the kingdom" those who would not conform. + +During the reign of James I. and that of his son, Charles I. +(1625-1649) a worse ruler on the same lines, thousands of Englishmen +came to New England to enjoy religious liberty. The Pilgrim Fathers +landed at Plymouth in 1620. The exodus was very rapid during the next +twenty years, since those who insisted on worshiping God as they chose +were thrown into prison and sometimes had their ears cut off and their +noses mutilated. In the sixteenth century, the religious struggle was +between Catholics and Protestants, but in this age both of the +contestants were Protestant. The Church of England (Episcopal church) +was persecuting those who would not conform to its beliefs. + +Side by side with the religious strife was a struggle for +constitutional government, for legal taxes, for the right of freedom +of speech in Parliament. James I. and Charles I. both collected +illegal taxes. Finally, when Charles became involved in war with +Spain, Parliament forced him in return for a grant of money to sign +the _Petition of Right_ (1628), which was in some respects a new +_Magna Charta_. + +Charles did not keep his promises. For eleven years he ruled in a +despotic way without Parliament. In 1642 civil war broke out between +the Puritans, on one side, and the king, nobles, landed gentry, and +adherents of the Church of England, on the other. The Puritans under +the great Oliver Cromwell were victorious, and in 1649 they beheaded +Charles as a "tyrant, traitor and murderer." Cromwell finally became +Protector of the Commonwealth of England. The greatest Puritan writer, +John Milton, not only upheld the Commonwealth with powerful +argumentative prose, but also became the government's most important +secretary. Though his blindness would not allow him to write after +1652, he used to translate aloud, either into Latin or the language of +the foreign country, what Cromwell dictated or suggested. Milton's +under-secretary, Andrew Marvel, wrote down this translation. + +[Illustration: CROMWELL DICTATING TO MILTON DISPATCHES TO THE KING OF +FRANCE CONCERNING THE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT.[1] _From the painting by +Ford Madox Brown._] + +The Puritans remained in the ascendancy until 1660, when the Stuart +line was restored in the person of Charles II. + +The Puritan Ideals.--The Renaissance had at first seemed to promise +everything, the power to reveal the secrets of Nature, to cause her to +gratify man's every wish, and to furnish a perpetual fountain of happy +youth. These expectations had not been fulfilled. There were still +poverty, disease, and a longing for something that earth had not +given. The English, naturally a religious race, reflected much on +this. Those who concluded that life could never yield the pleasure +which man anticipates, who determines by purity of living to win a +perfect land beyond the shores of mortality, who made the New World of +earlier dreams a term synonymous with the New Jerusalem, were called +Puritans. + +Their guide to this land was the _Bible_. Our _Authorized Version_ +(1611), the one which is in most common use to-day, was made in the +reign of James I. From this time became much easier to get a copy of +the _Scriptures_, and their influence was now more potent than ever to +shape the ideals of the Puritans. In fact, it is impossible to +estimate the influence which this _Authorized Version_ has had on the +ideals and the literature of the English race. Had it not been for +this _Version_, current English speech and literature would be vastly +different. Such words and expressions as "scapegoat," "a labor of +love," "the eleventh hour," "to cast pearls before swine," and "a +howling wilderness" are in constant use because the language of this +translation of the _Bible_ has become incorporated in our daily +speech, as well as in our best literature. + +The Puritan was so called because he wished to purify the established +church from what seemed to him great abuses. He accepted the faith of +John Calvin, who died in 1564. Calvinism taught that no earthly power +should intervene between a human soul and God, that life was an +individual moral struggle, the outcome of which would land the soul in +heaven or hell for all eternity, that beauty and art and all the +pleasures of the flesh were dangerous because they tended to wean the +soul from God. + +The Puritan was an individualist. The saving of the soul was to him an +individual, not a social, affair. Bunyan's Pilgrim flees alone from +the wrath to come. The twentieth century, on the other hand, believes +that the regeneration of a human being is both a social and an +individual affair,--that the individual, surrounded by the forces of +evil, often has little opportunity unless society comes to his aid. +The individualism of the Puritan accomplished a great task in +preparing the way for democracy, for fuller liberty in church and +state, in both England and America. + +Our study of the Puritan ideals embodied in literature takes us beyond +1660, the date of the Restoration, because after that time two great +Puritan writers, John Milton and John Bunyan, did some of their most +famous work, the one in retirement, the other in jail. Such work, +uninfluenced by the change of ideal after the Restoration, is properly +treated in this chapter. While a change may in a given year seem +sufficiently pronounced to become the basis for a new classification, +we should remember the literary influences never begin or end with +complete abruptness. + +THE PROSE OF THE PURITAN AGE + +Variety of Subject.--Prose showed development in several directions +during this Puritan age:-- + +I. The use of prose in argument and controversy was largely extended. +Questions of government and of religion were the living issues of the +time. Innumerable pamphlets and many larger books were written to +present different views. We may instance as types of this class almost +all the prose writings of John Milton (1608-1674). + +II. English prose dealt with a greater variety of philosophical +subjects. Shakespeare had voiced the deepest philosophy in poetry, but +up to this time such subjects had found scant expression in prose. + +Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is the great philosophical writer of the +age. In his greatest work, _Leviathan; or, The Matter, Form, and Power +of a Commonwealth_, he considers questions of metaphysical philosophy +and of government in a way that places him on the roll of famous +English philosophers. + +III. History had an increasing fascination for prose writers. Sir +Walter Raleigh's _History of the World_ (1614) and Lord Clarendon's +_History of the Great Rebellion_, begun in 1646, are specially worthy +of mention. + +IV. Prose was developing its capacity for expressing delicate shades +of humor. In Chaucer and in Shakespeare, poetry had already excelled +in this respect. Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), an Episcopal clergyman, +displays an almost inexhaustible fund of humor in his _History of the +Worthies of England_. We find scattered through his works passages +like these:-- + + "A father that whipped his son for swearing, and swore at him while + he whipped him, did more harm by his example than good by his + correction." + +[Illustration: THOMAS FULLER.] + +Speaking of a pious short person, Fuller says:-- + + "His soul had but a short diocese to visit, and therefore might the + better attend the effectual informing thereof." + +Of the lark, he writes:-- + + "A harmless bird while living, not trespassing on grain, and + wholesome when dead, then filling the stomach with meat, as formerly + the ear with music." + +Before Fuller, humor was rare in English prose writers, and it was not +common until the first quarter of the next century. + +V. Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), an Oxford graduate and physician, +is best known as the author of three prose works: _Religio Medici +(Religion of a Physician_, 1642), _Vulgar Errors_ (1646), and +_Hydriotaphia_ or _Urn Burial_ (1658). In imagination and poetic +feeling, he has some kinship with the Elizabethans. He says in the +_Religio Medici_:-- + + "Now for my life, it is a miracle of thirty years, which to relate + were not a history but a piece of poetry, and would sound to common + ears like a fable... Men that look upon my outside, perusing only + my condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude; for I am above + Atlas's shoulders... There is surely a piece of divinity in + us--something that was before the elements and owes no homage unto + the sun." + +The _Religio Medici_, however, gives, not the Elizabethan, but the +Puritan, definition of the world as "a place not to live in but to die +in." + +_Urn Burial_, which is Browne's masterpiece, shows his power as a +prose poet of the "inevitable hour":-- + + "There is no antidote against the _opium_ of time... The greater + part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found + in the register of God, not in the record of man... But man is a + Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, + solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal luster, not omitting + ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature." + +Browne's prose frequently suffers from the infusion of too many words +derived from the Latin, but his style is rhythmical and stately and +often conveys the same emotion as the notes of a great cathedral organ +at the evening twilight hour. + +VI. _The Complete Angler_ of Izaak Walton (1593-1683) is so filled +with sweetness and calm delight in nature and life, that one does not +wonder that the book has passed through about two hundred editions. It +manifests a genuine love of nature, of the brooks, meadows, flowers. +In his pages we catch the odor from the hedges gay with wild flowers +and hear the rain falling softly on the green leaves:-- + + "But turn out of the way a little, good + scholar, towards yonder high honeysuckle + hedge; there we'll sit and sing, whilst this + shower falls so gently on the teeming earth, + and gives yet a sweeter smell to the lovely + flowers that adorn these verdant meadows." + +[Illustration: IZAAK WALTON.] + +[Illustration: JEREMY TAYLOR.] + +VII. Of the many authors busily writing on theology, Jeremy Taylor +(1613-1667), an Episcopal clergyman, holds the chief place. His +imagination was so wide and his pen so facile that he has been called +a seventeenth-century prose Shakespeare. Taylor's _Holy Living_ and +_Holy Dying_ used to be read in almost every cottage. This passage +shows his powers of imagery as well as the Teutonic inclination to +consider the final goal of youth and beauty:-- + + "Reckon but from the sprightfulness + of youth, and the fair cheeks and full + eyes of childhood, from the vigorousness + and strong texture of the joints of five-and-twenty, + to the hollowness and dead + paleness, to the loathsomeness and horror of a three days' burial, + and we shall perceive the distance to be very great and very + strange. But so have I seen a rose newly springing from the clefts + of its hood, and at first it was fair as morning, and full with the + dew of heaven as a lamb's fleece ... and at night, having lost some + of its leaves and all its beauty, it fell into the portion of weeds + and outworn faces." + +JOHN BUNYAN, 1628-1688 + +[Illustration: JOHN BUNYAN. _From the painting by Sadler, National +Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--The Bedfordshire village of Elstow saw in 1628 the birth of +John Bunyan who, in his own peculiar field of literature, was to lead +the world. His father, Thomas Bunyan, was a brazier, a mender of pots +and pans, and he reared his son John to the same trade. In his +autobiography, John Bunyan says that his father's house was of "that +rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families in the +land." + +The boy went to school for only a short time and learned but little +from any books except the _Bible_. The father, by marrying a second +time within a year after his wife's death, wounded the feelings of his +sixteen-year-old son sufficiently to cause the latter to enlist as a +soldier in the Civil War. At about the age of twenty, Bunyan married, +though neither he nor his wife had at the time so much as a dish or a +spoon. + +Bunyan tells us that in his youth he was very wicked. Probably he +would have been so regarded from the point of view of a strict +Puritan. His worst offenses, however, seem to have been dancing on the +village green, playing hockey on Sundays, ringing bells to rouse the +neighborhood, and swearing. When he repented, his vivid imagination +made him think that he had committed the unpardonable sin. In the +terror that he felt at the prospect of the loss of his soul, he passed +through much of the experience that enabled him to write the +_Pilgrim's Progress_. + +Bunyan became a preacher of God's word. Under trees, in barns, on the +village green, wherever people resorted, he told them the story of +salvation. Within six months after the Restoration, he was arrested +for preaching without Episcopal sanction. The officers took him away +from his little blind daughter. The roisterers of the Restoration +thought a brazier was too coarse to have feelings; yet Bunyan dropped +tears on the paper when he wrote of "the many hardships, miseries, and +wants that my poor family were like to meet with, should I be taken +from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer to my heart +than all besides. Oh, the thoughts of the hardship my poor blind one +might undergo, would break my heart to pieces." In spite of his +dependent family and the natural right of the freedom of speech, +Bunyan was thrust into Bedford jail and kept a prisoner for nearly +twelve years. Had it not been for his imprisonment in this "squalid +den," of which he speaks in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, we should +probably be without that famous work, a part of which, at least, was +written in the jail. + +In 1672, as a step toward restoring the Catholic religion, Charles II. +suspended all penal statutes against the dissenting clergy; Bunyan was +thereupon released from jail. + +[Illustration: BEDFORD BRIDGE, SHOWING GATES AND JAIL. _From an old +print_.] + +After his release, he settled down to his life's work of spreading the +Gospel by both pen and tongue. When he visited London to preach, it +was not uncommon for twelve hundred persons to come to hear him at +seven o'clock in the morning of a week day in winter. + +The immediate cause of his death was a cold caught by riding in the +rain, on his way to try to reconcile a father and son. In 1688 Bunyan +died as he uttered these words, "Take me, for I come to Thee." + +His Work.--Bunyan achieved the distinction of writing the greatest +of all allegories, the _Pilgrim's Progress_. This is the story of +Christian's journey through this life, the story of meeting Mr. +Worldly Wiseman, of the straight gate and the narrow path, of the +Delectable Mountains of Youth, of the valley of Humiliation, of the +encounter with Apollyon, of the wares of Vanity Fair, "kept all the +year long," of my lord Time-server, of Mr. Anything, of imprisonment +in Doubting Castle by Giant Despair, of the flowery land of Beulah, +lying beyond the valley of the Shadow of Death, through which a deep, +cold river runs, and of the city of All Delight on the other side. +This story still has absorbing interest for human beings, for the +child and the old man, the learned and the ignorant. + +Bunyan wrote many other works, but none of them equals the _Pilgrim's +Progress_. His _Holy War_ is a powerful allegory, which has been +called a prose _Paradise Lost_. Bunyan also produced a strong piece of +realistic fiction, the _Life and Death of Mr. Badman_. This shows the +descent of a soul along the broad road. The story is the counterpart +of his great masterpiece, and ranks second to it in point of merit. + +[Illustration: BUNYAN'S DREAM. _From Fourth Edition Pilgrim's +Progress, 1680_.] + +General Characteristics.--Since the _Pilgrim's Progress_ has been +more widely read in England than any other book except the _Bible_, it +is well to investigate the secret of Bunyan's power. + +In the first place, his style is simple. In the second place, rare +earnestness is coupled with this simplicity. He had something to say, +which in his inmost soul he felt to be of supreme importance for all +time. Only a great man can tell such truths without a flourish of +language, or without straining after effect. At the most critical part +of the journey of the Pilgrims, when they approach the river of death, +note that Bunyan avoids the tendency to indulge in fine writing, that +he is content to rely on the power of the subject matter, simply +presented, to make us feel the terrible ordeal:-- + + "Now I further saw that betwixt + them and the gate was a river; but + there was no bridge to go over, and the + river was very deep... The Pilgrims + then, especially Christian, began + to despond in their minds, and looked + this way and that, but no way could + be found by them by which they might + escape the river... They then addressed + themselves to the water, and + entering, Christian began to sink... + And with that, a great darkness and + horror fell upon Christian, so that he + could not see before him..." + + "Now, upon the bank of the river, on the other side, they saw the + two shining men again, who there waited for them... Now you + must note that the city stood upon a mighty hill; but the Pilgrims + went up that hill with ease, because they had these two men to lead + them up by the arms; they had likewise left their mortal garments + behind them in the river; for though they went in with them, they + came out without them." + +[Illustration: + + Let Badman's broken leg put check + To Badman's course of evil, + Lest, next time, Badman breaks his neck, + And so goes to the devil. + +WOODCUT FROM THE FIRST EDITION OF MR. BADMAN] + +Of all the words in the above selection, eighty per cent are +monosyllables. Few authors could have resisted the tendency to try to +be impressive at such a climax. One has more respect for this world, +on learning that it has set the seal of its approval on such earnest +simplicity and has neglected works that strive with every art to +attract attention. + +Bunyan furthermore has a rare combination of imagination and dramatic +power. His abstractions became living persons. They have warmer blood +coursing in their veins than many of the men and women in modern +fiction. Giant Despair is a living giant. We can hear the clanking of +the chains and the groans of the captives in his dungeon. We are not +surprised to learn that Bunyan imagined that he saw and conversed with +these characters. The _Pilgrim's Progress_ is a prose drama. Note the +vivid dramatic presentation of the tendency to evil, which we all have +at some time felt threatening to wreck our nobler selves:-- + + "Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, + and said, 'I am void of fear in this matter; prepare thyself to die; + for I swear by my infernal den that thou shall go no further; here + will I spill thy soul.'" + +It would be difficult to find English prose more simple, earnest, +strong, imaginative, and dramatic than this. Bunyan's style felt the +shaping influence of the _Bible_ more than of all other works +combined. He knew the _Scriptures_ almost by heart. + +THE POETRY OF THE PURITAN AGE + +Lyrical Verse.--The second quarter of the seventeenth century +witnessed an outburst of song that owed its inspiration to Elizabethan +lyrical verse. + +Soon after 1600 a change in lyric poetry is noticeable. The sonnet +fell into disfavor with the majority of lyrists. The two poets of +greatest influence over this period, Ben Jonson and John Donne, +opposed the sonnet. Ben Jonson complained that it compels all ideas, +irrespective of their worth, to fill a space of exactly fourteen +lines, and that it therefore operates on the same principle as the bed +of Procrustes. The lyrics of this period, with the exception of those +by Milton, were usually less idealistic, ethereal, and inspired than +the corresponding work of the Elizabethans. This age was far more +imitative, but it chose to imitate Jonson and Donne in preference to +Shakespeare. The greatest lyrical poet of this time thus addresses +Jonson as a patron saint:-- + + "Candles I'll give to thee, + And a new altar; + And thou, Saint Ben, shall be + Writ in my psalter."[2] + +Cavalier Poets.--Robert Herrick (1591-1674), Thomas Carew +(1598?-1639?), Sir John Suckling (1609-1642), and Richard Lovelace +(1618--1658) were a contemporary group of lyrists who are often called +Cavalier poets, because they sympathized with the Cavaliers or +adherents of Charles I. + +[Illustration: ROBERT HERRICK.] + +By far the greatest of this school is Robert Herrick, who stands in +the front rank of the second class of lyrical poets. He was a graduate +of Cambridge University, who by an accident of the time became a +clergyman. The parish, or "living," given him by the king, was in the +southwestern part of Devonshire. By affixing the title _Hesperides_ to +his volume of nearly thirteen hundred poems, Herrick doubtless meant +to imply that they were chiefly composed in the western part of +England. In the very first poem of this collection, he announces the +subject of his songs:-- + + "I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers; + Of April, May, of June, and July flowers. + I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes; + Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes + * * * * * + I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing + The court of Mab, and of the Fairie-king. + I write of hell; I sing and ever shall, + Of heaven, and hope to have it after all." + +His lyric range was as broad as these lines indicate. The most of his +poems show the lightness of touch and artistic form revealed in the +following lines from _To the Virgins_:-- + + "Gather ye rose-buds while ye may: + Old Time is still a-flying; + And this same flower that smiles to-day, + To-morrow will be dying." + +His facility in melodious poetic expression is evident in this stanza +from _The Litany_, one of the poems in _Noble Numbers_, as the +collection of his religious verse is called:-- + + "When the passing-bell doth toll + And the furies in a shoal + Come to fright a parting soul, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me." + +The lyric, _Disdain Returned_, of the courtier, Thomas Carew, shows +both a customary type of subject and the serious application often +given:-- + + "He that loves a rosy cheek, + Or a coral lip admires, + Or from starlike eyes doth seek + Fuel to maintain his fires, + As old time makes these decay, + So his flames must waste away." + +Carew could write with facility on the subjects in vogue at court, but +when he ventures afield in nature poetry, he makes the cuckoo +hibernate! In his poem _The Spring_, he says:-- + + "...wakes in hollow tree + The drowsy Cuckoo and the Humble-bee." + +In these lines from his poem _Constancy_, Sir John Suckling shows +that he is a typical Cavalier love poet:-- + + "Out upon it, I have loved + Three whole days together; + And am like to love three more, + If it prove fair weather." + +From Richard Lovelace we have these exquisite lines written in +prison:-- + + "Stone walls do not a prison make + Nor iron bars a cage; + Minds innocent and quiet take + That for an hermitage." + +To characterize the Cavalier school by one phrase, we might call them +lyrical poets in lighter vein. They usually wrote on such subjects as +the color in a maiden's cheek and lips, blossoms, meadows, May days, +bridal cakes, the paleness of a lover, and-- + + "...wassail bowls to drink, + Spiced to the brink." + +but sometimes weightier subjects were chosen, when these lighter +things failed to satisfy. + +Religious Verse.--Three lyrical poets, George Herbert (1593-1633), +Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), and Richard Crashaw (1612?-1650?), usually +chose religious subjects. George Herbert, a Cambridge graduate and +rector of Bemerton, near Salisbury, wrote _The Temple_, a book of +religious verse. His best known poem is _Virtue_:-- + + "Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, + The bridal of the earth and sky: + The dew shall weep the fall to night; + For thou must die." + +The sentiment in these lines from his lyric _Providence_ has the +genuine Anglo-Saxon ring:-- + + "Hard things are glorious; easy things good cheap. + The common all men have; that which is rare, + Men therefore seek to have, and care to keep." + +Henry Vaughan, an Oxford graduate and Welsh physician, shows the +influence of George Herbert. Vaughan would have been a great poet if +he could have maintained the elevation of these opening lines from +_The World_:-- + + "I saw Eternity the other night, + Like a great ring of pure and endless light, + All calm, as it was bright." + +Richard Crashaw, a Cambridge graduate and Catholic mystic, concludes +his poem, _The Flaming Heart_, with this touching prayer to Saint +Teresa:-- + + "By all of Him we have in thee + Leave nothing of myself in me. + Let me so read my life that I + Unto all life of mine may die." + +His verse, like that of his contemporaries, is often marred by +fantastic conceits which show the influence of Donne. Although much of +Crashaw's poem, _The Weeper_, is beautiful, he calls the eyes of Mary +Magdalene:-- + + "Two walking baths, two weeping motions, + Portable and compendious oceans." + +JOHN MILTON, 1608-1674 + +[Illustration: JOHN MILTON. _After a drawing by W. Faithorne, at +Bayfordbury_.] + +His Youth.--The second greatest English poet was born in London, +eight years before the death of Shakespeare. John Milton's father +followed the business of a scrivener and drew wills and deeds and +invested money for clients. As he prospered at this calling, his +family did not suffer for want of money. He was a man of much culture +and a musical composer of considerable note. + +A portrait of the child at the age of ten, the work of the painter to +the court, still exists and shows him to have been "a sweet, serious, +round-headed boy," who gave early promise of future greatness. His +parents, seeing that he acted as if he was guided by high ideals, had +the rare judgment to allow him to follow his own bent. They employed +the best teachers to instruct him at home. At the age of sixteen he +was fully prepared to enter Christ's College. Cambridge, where he took +both the B.A. and M.A. degrees. + +[Illustration: JOHN MILTON, AET. 10.] + +His Early Manhood and Life at Horton.--In 1632 Milton left Cambridge +and went to live with his father in a country home at Horton, about +twenty miles west of London. Milton had been intended for the church; +but he felt that he could not subscribe to its intolerance, and that +he had another mission to perform. His father accordingly provided +sufficient funds for maintaining him for over five years at Horton in +a life of studious leisure. The poet's greatest biographer, David +Masson, says "Until Milton was thirty-two years of age, if even then, +he did not earn a penny for himself." Such a course would ruin +ninety-nine out of every hundred talented young men; but it was the +making of Milton. He spent those years in careful study and in writing +his immortal early poems. + +[Illustration: VISIT OF MILTON TO THE BLIND GALILEO AT THE VILLA +D'ARCETRI NEAR FLORENCE IN 1638. _From the painting by T. Lessi._] + +In 1638, when he was in his thirtieth year, he determined to broaden +his views by travel. He went to Italy, which the Englishmen of his day +still regarded as the home of art, culture, and song. After about +fifteen months abroad, hearing that his countrymen were on the verge +of civil war, he returned home to play his part in the mighty tragedy +of the times. + +Milton's "Left Hand."--In 1642 the Civil War broke out between the +Royalists and the Puritans. He took sides in the struggle for liberty, +not with his sword, but with his pen. During this time he wrote little +but prose. He regretted that the necessity of the time demanded prose, +in the writing of which, he says, "I have the use, as I may account +it, but of my left hand." + +With that "left hand" he wrote much prose. There is one common quality +running through all his prose works, although they treat of the most +varied subjects. Every one of these works strikes a blow for fuller +liberty in some direction,--for more liberty in church, in state, and +in home relations, for the freedom of expressing opinions, and for a +system of education which should break away from the leading strings +of the inferior methods of the past. His greatest prose work is the +_Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing_. + +Much of his prose is poetic and adorned with figures of rhetoric. He +frequently follows the Latin order, and inverts his sentences, which +are often unreasonably long. Sometimes his "left hand" astonishes us +by slinking mud at his opponents, and we eagerly await the loosing of +the right hand which was to give us _Paradise Lost_. + +His Blindness.--The English government from 1649 to 1660 is known as +the Commonwealth. The two most striking figures of the time were +Oliver Cromwell, who in 1653 was styled the Lord Protector, and John +Milton, who was the Secretary for Foreign Tongues. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MILTON'S SIGNATURE IN THE ELEVENTH YEAR +OF HIS BLINDNESS._From his application to wed Elizabeth Minshull. +Feb. 11, 1663._] + +One of the greatest of European scholars, a professor at Leyden, named +Salmasius, had written a book attacking the Commonwealth and upholding +the late king. The Council requested Milton to write a fitting answer. +As his eyes were already failing him, he was warned to rest them; but +he said that he would willingly sacrifice his eyesight on the altar of +liberty. He accordingly wrote in reply his _Pro Populo Anglicano +Defensio_, a Latin work, which was published in 1651. This effort cost +him his eyesight. In 1652, at the age of forty-three, he was totally +blind. In his _Paradise Lost_, he thus alludes to his affliction:-- + + "Thus with the year + Seasons return; but not to me returns + Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, + Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose, + Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; + But clouds instead and ever-during dark + Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men + Cut off." + +Life after the Restoration.--In 1660, when Charles II. was made +king, the leaders of the Commonwealth had to flee for their lives. +Some went to America for safety while others were caught and executed. +The body of Cromwell was taken from its grave in Westminster Abbey, +suspended from the gallows and left to dangle there. Milton was +concealed by a friend until the worst of the storm had blown over. +Then some influential friends interceded for him, and his blindness +probably won him sympathy. + +[Illustration: COMUS TITLE PAGE.] + +During his old age his literary work was largely dependent on the +kindness of friends, who read to him, and acted as his amanuenses. His +ideas of woman having been formed in the light of the old +dispensation, he had not given his three daughters such an education +as might have led them to take a sympathetic interest in his work. +They accordingly resented his calling on them for help. + +During this period of his life, when he was totally blind, he wrote +_Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained_, and _Samson Agonistes_. He died in +1674, and was buried beside his father in the chancel of St. Giles, +Cripplegate, London. + +Minor Poems.--In 1629, while Milton was a student at Cambridge, and +only twenty-one years old, he wrote a fine lyrical poem, entitled _On +the Morning of Christ's Nativity_. These 244 lines of verse show that +he did not need to be taught the melody of song any more than a young +nightingale. + +Four remarkable poems were written during his years of studious +leisure at Horton,--_L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus,_ and _Lycidas. +L'Allegro_ describes the charms of a merry social life, and _Il +Penseroso_ voices the quiet but deep enjoyment of the scholar in +retirement. These two poems have been universal favourites. + +_Comus_ is a species of dramatic composition known as a Masque, and it +is the greatest of its class. It far surpassess any work of a similar +kind by Ben Jonson, that prolific writer of Masques. Some critics, +like Taine and Saintsbury, consider _Comus_ the finest of Milton's +productions. Its 1023 lines can soon be read; and there are few poems +of equal length that will better repay careful reading. + +_Comus_ is an immortal apotheosis of virtue. While in Geneva in 1639, +Milton was asked for his autograph and an expression of sentiment. He +chose the closing lines of _Comus_:-- + + [Illustration: MILTON'S MOTTO FROM COMUS, WITH AUTOGRAPH. _Written + in an album at Geneva_.] + +_Lycidas_, one of the world's great elegies, was written on the death +of Milton's classmate, Edward King. Mark Pattison, one of Milton's +biographers, says: "In _Lycidas_ we have reached the high-water mark +of English poesy and of Milton's own production." + +He is one of the four greatest English sonnet writers. Shakespeare +alone surpasses him in this field. Milton numbers among his pupils +Wordsworth and Keats, whose sonnets rank next in merit. + +Paradise Lost; Its Inception and Dramatic Plan.--Cambridge +University has a list, written by Milton before he was thirty-five, of +about one hundred possible subjects for the great poem which he felt +it was his life's mission to give to the world. He once thought of +selecting Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table; but his final +choice was _Paradise Lost_, which stands first on this special list. +There are in addition four separate drafts of the way in which he +thought this subject should be treated. This proves that the great +work of a man like; Milton was planned while he was young. It is +possible that he may even have written a very small part of the poem +earlier than the time commonly assigned. + +All four drafts show that his early intention was to make the poem a +drama, a gigantic Miracle play. The closing of the theaters and the +prejudice felt against them during the days of Puritan ascendancy may +have influenced Milton to forsake the dramatic for the epic form, but +he seems never to have shared the common prejudice against the drama +and the stage. His sonnet on Shakespeare shows in what estimation he +held that dramatist. + +Subject Matter and Form.--About 1658, when Milton was a widower, +living alone with his three daughters, he began, in total blindness, +to dictate his _Paradise Lost_, sometimes relying on them but more +often on any kind friend who might assist him. The manuscript +accordingly shows a variety of handwriting. The work was published in +1667, after some trouble with a narrow-minded censor who had doubts +about granting a license. + +The subject matter can be best given in Milton's own lines at the +beginning of the poem:-- + + "Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit + Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste + Brought death into the World, and all our woe, + With loss of Eden, till one greater Man + Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, + Sing, Heavenly Muse..." + +The poem treats of Satan's revolt in heaven, of his conflict with the +Almighty, and banishment with all the rebellious angels. Their new +home in the land of fire and endless pain is described with such a +gigantic grasp of the imagination, that the conception has colored all +succeeding theology. + +The action proceeds with a council of the fallen angels to devise +means for alleviating their condition and annoying the Almighty. They +decide to strike him through his child, and they plot the fall of man. +In short, _Paradise Lost_ is an intensely dramatic story of the loss +of Eden. The greatest actors that ever sprang from a poet's brain +appear before us on the stage, which is at one time the sulphurous pit +of hell, at another the bright plains of heaven, and at another the +Elysium of our first parents. + +In form the poem is an epic in twelve books, containing a total of +10,565 lines. It is written in blank verse of wonderful melody and +variety. + +Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes.--After finishing _Paradise +Lost_, Milton wrote two more poems, which he published in 1671. +_Paradise Regained_ is in great part a paraphrase of the first eleven +verses of the fourth chapters of _St. Matthew_. The poem is in four +books of blank verse and contains 2070 lines. Although it is written +with great art and finish, _Paradise Regained_ shows a falling off in +Milton's genius. There is less ornament and less to arouse human +interest. + +_Samson Agonistes_ (Samson the Struggler) is a tragedy containing 1758 +lines, based on the sixteenth chapter of _Judges_. This poem, modeled +after the Greek drama, is hampered by a strict observance of the +dramatic unities. It is vastly inferior to the _Paradise Lost. Samson +Agonistes_ contains scarcely any of the glorious imagery of Milton's +earlier poems. It has been called "the most unadorned poem that can be +found." + +CHARACTERISTICS OF MILTON'S POETRY + +Variety in his Early Work.--A line in _Lycidas_ says:-- + + "He touched the tender stops of various quills," + +and this may be said of Milton. His early poems show great variety. +There are the dirge notes in _Lycidas_; the sights, sounds, and odors +of the country, in _L'Allegro_; the delights of "the studious +cloister's pale," in _Il Penseroso_; the impelling presence of his +"great Task-Master," in the sonnets. + +Although Milton is noted for his seriousness and sublimity, we must +not be blind to the fact that his minor poems show great delicacy of +touch. The epilogue of the Spirit at the end of _Comus_ is an instance +of exquisite airy fancy passing into noble imagination at the close. +In 1638 Sir Henry Wotton wrote to Milton this intelligent criticism of +_Comus_: "I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did +not ravish me with a certain Doric delicacy in your Songs and Odes, +whereunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in +our language _Ipsa mollities_." + +Limitations.--In giving attention to Milton's variety, we should not +forget that when we judge him by Elizabethan standards his limitations +are apparent. As varied as are his excellences, his range is far +narrower than Shakespeare's. He has little sense of humor and less +sympathy with human life than either Shakespeare or Burns. Milton +became acquainted with flowers through the medium of a book before he +noticed them in the fields. Consequently, in speaking of flowers and +birds, he sometimes makes those mistakes to which the bookish man is +more prone than the child who first hears the story of Nature from her +own lips. Unlike Shakespeare and Burns, Milton had the misfortune to +spend his childhood in a large city. Again, while increasing age +seemed to impose no limitations on Shakespeare's genius, his touch +being as delicate in _The Tempest_ as in his first plays, Milton's +style, on the other hand, grew frigid and devoid of imagery toward the +end of his life. + +Sublimity.--The most striking characteristic of Milton's poetry is +sublimity, which consists, first, in the subject matter. In the +opening lines of _Paradise Lost_ he speaks of his "adventurous song"-- + + "That with no middle flight intends to soar + Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues + Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." + +Milton succeeded in his intention. The English language has not +another poem that approaches _Paradise Lost_ in sustained sublimity. + +In the second place, we must note the sublimity of treatment. Milton's +own mind was cast in a sublime mold. This quality of mind is evident +even in his figures of rhetoric. The Milky Way appears to him as the +royal highway to heaven:-- + + "A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold, + And pavement stars."[3] + +When Death and Satan meet, Milton wishes the horror of the scene to +manifest something of the sublime. What other poet could, in fewer +words, have conveyed a stronger impression of the effect of the frown +of those powers? + + "So frowned the mighty combatants, that Hell + Grew darker at their frown."[4] + +George Saintsbury's verdict is approved by the majority of the +greatest modern critics of Milton: "In loftiness--sublimity of +thought, and majesty of expression, both sustained at almost +superhuman pitch, he has no superior, and no rival except Dante." + +Mastery of Verse.--Milton's verse, especially in _Paradise Lost_, is +such a symphony of combined rhythm, poetic expression, and thought; it +is so harmonious, so varied, and yet so apparently simple in its +complexity, that it has never been surpassed in kind. + +His mastery of rhythm is not so evident in a single line as in a group +of lines. The first sentence in _Paradise Lost_ contains sixteen +lines, and yet the rhythm, the pauses, and the thought are so combined +as to make oral reading easy and the meaning apparent. The conception +of the music of the spheres in their complex orbits finds some analogy +in the harmony of the combined rhythmical units of his verse. + +Denied the use of his eyes as a guide to the form of his later verse, +he must have repeated aloud these groups of lines and changed them +until their cadence satisfied his remarkably musical ear. Lines like +these show the melody of which this verse is capable:-- + + "Heaven opened wide + Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound + On golden hinges moving."[5] + +To begin with, he had, like Shakespeare and Keats an instinctive +feeling for the poetic value of words and phrases. Milton's early +poems abound in such poetic expressions as "the frolic wind," "the +slumbring morn," "linkčd sweetness," "looks commercing with the +skies," "dewy-feathered sleep," "the studious cloister's pale," "a dim +religious light," the "silver lining" of the cloud, "west winds with +musky wing," "the laureate hearse where Lycid lies." His poetic +instinct enabled him to take common prosaic words and, by merely +changing the position of the adjective, transmute them into +imperishable verse. His "darkness visible" and "human face divine" are +instances of this power. + +[Illustration: MILTON DICTATING PARADISE LOST TO HIS DAUGHTERS. +_From the painting by Munkacsy_.] + +Twentieth century criticism is more fully recognizing the debt of +subsequent poetic literature to Milton. Saintsbury writes:-- + + "Milton's influence is omnipresent in almost all later English + poetry, and in not a little of later prose English literature. At + first, at second, at third, hand, he has permeated almost all his + successors."[6] + +How the Paradise Lost has affected Thought.--Few people realize how +profoundly this poem has influenced men's ideas of the hereafter. The +conception of hell for a long time current was influenced by those +pictures which Milton painted with darkness for his canvas and the +lightning for his brush. Our pictures of Eden and of heaven have also +felt his touch. Theology has often looked through Milton's imagination +at the fall of the rebel angels and of man. Huxley says that the +cosmogony which stubbornly resists the conclusions of science, is due +rather to the account in _Paradise Lost_ than to _Genesis_. + +Many of Milton's expressions have become crystallized in modern +thought. Among such we may mention:-- + + "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?"[7] + + "To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell + Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."[8] + + "...Who overcomes + By force hath overcome but half his foe."[9] + +The effect of _Paradise Lost_ on English thought is more a resultant +of the entire poem than of detached quotations. _L'Allegro_ and _Il +Penseroso_ have furnished as many current quotations as the whole of +_Paradise Lost_. + +The Embodiment of High Ideals.---No poet has embodied in his verse +higher ideals than Milton. When twenty-three, he wrote that he +intended to use his talents-- + + "As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye."[10] + +Milton's poetry is not universally popular. He deliberately selected +his audience. These lines from _Comus_ show to whom he wished to +speak:-- + + "Yet some there be that by due steps aspire + To lay their just hands on that golden key + That opes the palace of eternity. + To such my errand is." + +He kept his promise of writing something which speaks for liberty and +for nobility of soul and which the world would not willingly let die. +His ideals react on us and raise us higher than we were. To him we may +say with Wordsworth:-- + + "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." [11] + +SUMMARY + +The Puritan age was one of conflict in religious and political ideals. +James I. and Charles I. trampled on the laws and persecuted the +Puritans so rigorously that many of them fled to New England. Civil +war, in which the Puritans triumphed, was the result. + +The Puritans, realizing that neither lands beyond the sea nor the New +Learning could satisfy the aspirations of the soul, turned their +attention to the life beyond. Bunyan's Pilgrim felt that the sole duty +of life was to fight the forces of evil that would hold him captive in +the City of Destruction and to travel in the straight and narrow path +to the New Jerusalem. Life became a ceaseless battle of the right +against the wrong. Hence, much of the literature in both poetry and +prose is polemical. Milton's _Paradise Lost_ is an epic of war between +good and evil. The book that had the most influence in molding the +thought of the time was the King James (1611) version of the _Bible_. + +The minor prose deals with a variety of subjects. There are +argumentative, philosophical, historical, biographical, and +theological prose works; but only the fine presentation of nature and +life in _The Complete Angler_ interests the general reader of to-day, +although the grandeur of Milton's _Areopagitica_, the humor of Thomas +Fuller, the stately rhythmical prose of Sir Thomas Browne, and the +imagery and variety of Jeremy Taylor deserve more readers. + +Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ is the masterpiece of Puritan prose, +written in the simple, direct language of the 1611 version of the +_Bible_. The book is a prose epic of the journey of the Puritan +Christian from the City of Destruction to the New Jerusalem. + +The Cavalier poets wrote much lyrical verse, mostly in lighter vein, +but the religious poets strike a deeper note. The work of these minor +poets is often a reflection of the Elizabethan lyrics of Donne and +Jonson. + +John Milton, who has the creative power of the Elizabethans, is the +only great poet of the period. His greatest poems are _L'Allegro, Il +Penseroso, Lycidas, Comus,_ and _Paradise Lost_. In sublimity of +subject matter and cast of mind, in nobility of ideals, in expression +of the conflict between good and evil, he is the fittest +representative of the Puritan spirit in literature. + +REFERENCES FOR FUTURE STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +Read the chapters on this period in Gardiner,[12] Walker, Cheney, +Lingard, or Green. For the social life, see Traill, IV. The monumental +history of this time has been written in eighteen volumes by Samuel +Rawson Gardiner. His _Oliver Cromwell_, I vol., is excellent, as is +also Frederick Harrison's _Oliver Cromwell_. + +LITERARY + + The _Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vol. VII. + + Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, Vol. III. + + Masterman's _The Age of Milton_. + + Saintsbury's _A History of Elizabethan Literature_ (comes down to + 1660). + + Dowden's _Puritan and Anglican Studies in Literature. + + Dictionary of National Biography_ (for lives of minor writers). + + Froude's _John Bunyan._ + + Brown's _John Bunyan, his Life, Times, and Works._ + + Macaulay's Life of Bunyan in _Encylopaedia Britannica_ or in his + _Essays._ + + Macaulay's _Essay on Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim's Progress._ + + Masson's _The Life of John Milton, Narrated in Connection with the + Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary history of his Time_ (6 + vols.). + + Masson's _Poetical Works of John Milton_, 3 vols., contains + excellent introductions and notes, and is the standard edition. + + Raleigh's _Milton_. + + Pattison's _Milton_. (E.M.L.) + + Woodhull's _The Epic of Paradise Lost_. + + Macaulay's _Essay on Milton_. + + Lowell's _Milton_ (in _Among My Books_). + + Addison's criticisms on Milton, beginning in number 267 of _The + Spectator_, are suggestive. + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Prose.--The student will obtain a fair idea of the prose of this age +by reading Milton's _Areopagitica_, Cassell's _National Library_ (15 +cents), or _Temple Classics_ (45 cents); Craik,[13] II., 471-475; the +selections from Thomas Hobbes, Craik, II., 214-221; from Thomas +Fuller, Craik, II., 377-387; from Sir Thomas Browne, Craik, II., +318-335; from Jeremy Taylor, Craik, II., 529-542; and from Izaak +Walton, Craik, II., 343-349. Manly, II., has selections from all these +writers; the _Oxford Treasury_ and _Century_, from all but Hobbes. The +student who has the time will wish to read _The Complete Angler_ +entire (Cassell's _National Library_, 15 cents; or _Temple Classics_, +45 cents). + +Compare (_a_) the sentences, (_b_) general style, and (_c_) worth of +the subject matter of these authors; then, to note the development of +English prose, in treatment of subject as well as in form, compare +these works with those of (1) Wycliffe and Mandeville in the +fourteenth century, (2) Malory in the fifteenth, and (3) Tyndale, +Lyly, Sidney, Hooker, and Bacon (_e.g._ essay _Of Study_, 1597), in +the sixteenth. + +Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ should be read entire (_Everyman's +Library_, 35 cents; Cassell's _National Library_, 15 cents; _Temple +Classics_, 45 cents). Selections may be found in Craik, III., 148-166; +Manly, II., 139-143; _Oxford Treasury_, 83-85; _Century_, 225-235. + +In what does the secret of Bunyan's popularity consist--in his style, +or in his subject matter, or in both? What is specially noteworthy +about his style? Point out some definite ways in which his style was +affected by another great work. Suppose that Bunyan had held the +social service ideals of the twentieth century, how might his idea of +saving souls have been modified? + +Lyrical Poetry.--Specimens of the best work of Herrick, Carew, +Suckling, Lovelace, Herbert, Vaughan, and Crashaw may be found in +Ward, II.; Bronson, II.; _Oxford Treasury_, III.; Manly, I.; and +_Century_. + +What is the typical subject matter of the Cavalier poets? What subject +do Herbert, Vaughan, and Crashaw choose? Which lyric of each of these +poets pleases you most? What difference do you note between these +lyrics and those of the Elizabethan age? What Elizabethan lyrists had +most influence on these poets? What are some of the special defects of +the lyrists of this age? + +John Milton.--_L'Allegro_, _Il Penseroso_, _Comus_, _Lycidas_ +(American Book Company's _Eclectic English Classics_, 20 cents), and +_Paradise Lost_, Books I. and II. (same series), should be read. These +poems, including his excellent _Sonnets_, may also be found in +Cassell's _National Library_, _Everyman's Library_, and the _Temple +Classics_. Selections are given in Ward, II., 306-379; Bronson, II., +334-423; _Oxford Treasury_, III., 34-70: Manly, I., and _Century_, +_passim_. + +Which is the greatest of his minor poets? Why? Is the keynote of +_Comus_ in accord with Puritan ideals? Are there qualities in +_Lycidas_ that justify calling it "the high-water mark" of English +lyrical poetry? Which poem has most powerfully affected theological +thought? Which do you think is oftenest read to-day? Why? What are the +most striking characteristics of Milton's poetry? Contrast Milton's +greatness, limitations, and ideals of life, with Shakespeare's. + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER V: + +[Footnote 1: See Milton's Sonnet: _On the Late Massacre in Piedmont_.] + +[Footnote 2: Robert Herrick's _Prayer to Ben Jonson_.] + +[Footnote 3: _Paradise Lost_, Book VII., lines 577-578.] + +[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., Book II., lines 719-720.] + +[Footnote 5: _Paradise Lost_, Book VII., lines 207-209.] + +[Footnote 6: The Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. VII., +p.156.] + +[Footnote 7: _Paradise Lost_, Book I., line 254.] + +[Footnote 8: _Ibid_, line 262.] + +[Footnote 9: _Ibid_, line 649.] + +[Footnote 10: Sonnet: _On His Having Arrived at the Age of +Twenty-three_.] + +[Footnote 11: _Milton: A Sonnet._] + +[Footnote 12: For full titles, see list on p. 50.] + +[Footnote 13: For full titles, see p.6.] + + +CHAPTER VI: FROM THE RESTORATION, 1660, TO THE PUBLICATION OF PAMELA, +1740 + +History of the Period.--This chapter opens with the Restoration of +Charles II. (1660-1685) in 1660 and ends before the appearance, in +1740, of a new literary creation, Richardson's _Pamela_, the novel of +domestic life and character. This period is often called the age of +Dryden and Pope, the two chief poets of the time. When Oliver Cromwell +died, the restoration of the monarchy was inevitable. The protest +against the Puritanic view of life had become strong. Reaction always +results when excessive restraint in any direction is removed. + +During his exile, Charles had lived much in France and had become +accustomed to the dissolute habits of the French court. The court of +Charles II. was the most corrupt ever known in England. The Puritan +virtues were laughed to scorn by the ribald courtiers who attended +Charles II. John Evelyn (1620-1706) and Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) +left diaries, which give interesting pictures of the times. The one by +Pepys is especially vivid. + +In 1663 Samuel Butler (1612-1680) published a famous satire, +entitled _Hudibras_. Its object was to ridicule everything that +savored of Puritanism. This satire became extremely popular in court +circles, and was the favorite reading of the king. + +[Illustration: SAMUEL BUTLER.] + +Charles II. excluded all but Episcopalians from holding office, either +in towns or in Parliament. Only those who sanctioned the Episcopal +prayer book were allowed to preach. In order to keep England's +friendship and to be able to look to her for assistance in time of +war, Louis XIV. of France paid Charles II. £100,000 a year to act as a +French agent. In this capacity, Charles II. began against Holland. +From a position of commanding importance under Cromwell, England had +become a third-rate power, a tail to a French kite. + +James II. (1685-1688), who succeeded his brother, Charles II., +undertook to suspend laws and to govern like a despot. He was driven +out in the bloodless revolution of 1688 by his son-in-law, William +(1689-1702), and his daughter Mary. William of Orange, who thus became +king of England, was a prince of Holland. This revolution led to the +_Bill of Rights_ (1689), the "third pillar of the British +Constitution," the two previous being _Magna Charta_ and the _Petition +of Right_. The foundations were now firmly laid for a strictly +constitutional monarchy in England. From this time the king has been +less important, sometimes only a mere figure-head. + +This revolution, coupled with the increasing rivalry of France in +trade and colonial expansion, altered the foreign policy of England. +Holland was the head of the European coalition against France; and +William III. was influential in having England join it. For the larger +part of the eighteenth century there was intermittent war with France. + +Under Anne (1702-1714) the Duke of Marlborough won many remarkable +victories against France. The most worthy goal of French antagonism, +expansion of trade, and displacement of the French in America and +India, was not at this time clearly apparent. + +Anne's successor was the Hanoverian Elector, George I. (1714-1727), a +descendant of the daughter of James I., who had married a German +prince. At the time of his accession, George I. was fifty-four years +old and could speak no English. He seldom attended the meetings of his +cabinet, since he could not understand the deliberations. This +circumstance led to further decline of royal power, so that his +successor, George II. (1727-1760), said: "Ministers are the king in +this country." + +The history of the rest of this period centers around the great prime +minister, Robert Walpole, whose ministry lasted from 1715-1717 and +from 1721-1742. His motto was, "Let sleeping dogs lie"; and he took +good care to offend no one by proposing any reforms, either political +or religious. "Every man has his price" was the succinct statement of +his political philosophy; and he did not hesitate to secure by bribery +the adoption of his measures in Parliament. He succeeded in three +aims: (1) in making the house of Hanover so secure on the throne that +it has not since been displaced, (2) in giving fresh impetus to trade +and industry at home by reducing taxation, and (3) in strengthening +the navy and encouraging colonial commerce. + +Change in Foreign Influence.--Of all foreign influences from the +beginning of the Renaissance to the Restoration, the literature of +Italy had been the most important. French influence now gained the +ascendancy. + +There were several reasons for this change. (1) France under the great +Louis XIV. was increasing her political importance. (2) She now had +among her writers men who were by force of genius fitted to exert wide +influence. Among such, we may instance Moličre (1622-1673), who stands +next to Shakespeare in dramatic power. (3) Charles II. and many +Cavaliers had passed the time of their exile in France. They became +familiar with French literature, and when they returned to England in +1660, their taste had already been influenced by French models. + +Change in the Subject Matter of Literature.--The Elizabethan age +impartially held the mirror up to every type of human emotion. The +writers of the Restoration and of the first half of the eighteenth +century, as a class, avoided any subject that demanded a portrayal of +deep and noble feeling. In this age, we catch no glimpse of a Lady +Macbeth in the grasp of remorse or of a Lear bending over a dead +Cordelia. + +The popular subjects were those which appealed to cold intellect; and +these were, for the most part, satirical, didactic, and argumentative. +The two greatest poets of the period, John Dryden and his successor, +Alexander Pope, usually chose such subjects. John Locke (1632-1704), a +great prose writer of this age, shows in the very title of his most +famous work, _Of the Conduct of the Understanding_, what he preferred +to discuss. That book opens with the statement, "The last resort a man +has recourse to in the conduct of himself is his understanding." This +declaration, which is not strictly true, embodies a pronounced +tendency of the age, which could not understand that the world of +feeling is no less real than that of the understanding. + +One good result of the ascendancy of the intellect was seen in +scientific investigation. The Royal Society was founded in 1662 to +study natural phenomena and to penetrate into the hidden mysteries of +philosophy and life. + +The Advance of Prose.--In each preceding age, the masterpieces were +poetry; but before the middle of the eighteenth century we find the +prose far surpassing the poetry. Dryden, almost immediately after the +Restoration, shows noteworthy advance in modern prose style. He avoids +a Latinized inversion, such as the following, with which Milton begins +the second sentence of his _Areopagitica_ (1644):-- + + "And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject was + whereon I entered, may have at other times variously affected ..." + +Here, the object "me" is eighteen words in advance of its predicate. +The sentence might well have ended with the natural pause at +"affected," but Milton adds fifty-one more words. We may easily +understand by comparison why the term "modern" is applied to the prose +of Dryden and of his successors Addison and Steele. To emphasize the +precedence of these writers in the development of modern prose is no +disparagement to Bunyan's style, which is almost as quaint and as +excellent as that of the 1611 version of the _Bible_. + +French influence was cumulative in changing the cumbersome style of +Milton's prose to the polished, neatly-turned sentences of Addison. +Matthew Arnold says: "The glory of English literature is in poetry, +and in poetry the strength of the eighteenth century does not lie. +Nevertheless the eighteenth century accomplished for us an immense +literary progress, and its very shortcomings in poetry were an +instrument to that progress, and served it. The example of Germany may +show us what a nation loses from having no prose style... French prose +is marked in the highest degree by the qualities of regularity, +uniformity, precision, balance... The French made their poetry also +conform to the law which was molding their prose... This may have been +bad for French poetry, but it was good for French prose." + +The same influence which gave vigor, point, and definiteness to the +prose, necessary for the business of the world, helped to dwarf the +poetry. If both could not have advanced together, we may be thankful +that the first part of the eighteenth century produced a varied prose +of such high excellence. + +The Classic School.--The literary lawgivers of this age held that a +rigid adherence to certain narrow rules was the prime condition of +producing a masterpiece. Indeed, the belief was common that a +knowledge of rules was more important than genius. + +The men of this school are called _classicists_ because they held that +a study of the best works of the ancients would disclose the necessary +guiding rules. No style that did not closely follow these rules was +considered good. Horace, seen through French spectacles, was the +classical author most copied by this school. His _Epistles_ and +_Satires_ were considered models. + +The motto of the classicists was polished regularity. Pope struck the +keynote of the age when he said:-- + + "True wit is nature to advantage dress'd, + What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd."[1] + +These two lines show the form of the "riming couplet," which the +classical poets adopted. There is generally a pause at the end of each +line; and each couplet, when detached from the context, will usually +make complete sense. + +Edmund Waller (1606-1687), remembered today for his single +couplet:-- + + "The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, + Lets in new light through chinks that time has made," + +had used this form of verse before 1630; but it was reserved for +Dryden, and especially for Pope, to bring the couplet to a high degree +of perfection. A French critic advised poets to compose the second +line of the couplet first. No better rule could have been devised for +dwarfing poetic power and for making poetry artificial. + +Voltaire, a French classicist, said, "I do not like the monstrous +irregularities of Shakespeare." An eighteenth-century classicist +actually endeavored to improve Hamlet's soliloquy by putting it in +riming couplets. These lines from _Macbeth_ show that Shakespeare will +not tolerate such leading strings nor allow the ending of the lines to +interfere with his sense:-- + + "...Besides, this Duncan + Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been + So clear in his great office, that his virtues + Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against + The deep damnation of his taking-off." + +A later romantic poet called the riming couplet "rocking-horse meter"; +and said that the reading of many couplets reminded him of round trips +on a rocking-horse. + +Advances are usually made by overstressing some one point. The +classicists taught the saving grace of style, the need of restraint, +balance, clearness, common sense. We should therefore not despise the +necessary lesson which English literature learned from such +teaching,--a lesson which has never been forgotten. + +The Drama.--The theaters were reopened at the time of the +Restoration. It is interesting to read in the vivacious _Diary_ of +Samuel Pepys how he went in 1661 to see Shakespeare's _Romeo and +Juliet_, "a play of itself the worst that I ever heard." The next year +he characterizes _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ as "the most ridiculous +play that I ever saw." He liked the variety in _Macbeth_, and calls +_The Tempest_ "the most innocent play that I ever saw." + +The Restoration dramatists, who were dominated by French influence, so +often sneered at morality and the virtues of the home, that they have +paid the penalty of being little read in after times. The theater has +not yet entirely recovered from the deep-seated prejudice which was so +intensified by the coarse plays which flourished for fifty years after +the Restoration. + +Although John Dryden is best known among a large number of Restoration +dramatists,[2] he did better work in another field. William Congreve +(1670-1729) made the mast distinctive contribution to the new comedy +of manners. Descended from an old landowning family in Staffordshire, +he was for a while a mate of Jonathan Swift at Trinity College, +Dublin. In 1691 Congreve was entered in the Middle Temple, London, to +begin the study of law, but he soon turned playwright. His four +comedies,--_The Old Bachelor, The Double Dealer, Love for Love, The +Way of the World_,--and one tragedy, _The Mourning Bride_, were all +written in the last decade of the seventeenth century. After 1700 he +wrote no more plays, although he lived nearly thirty years longer. On +his death, in 1729, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. + +Congreve attempts to picture the manners of contemporary society, and +he does not penetrate far below the surface of life. He is not read +for the depth of his thought, but for his humor and for the clear, +pointed style of his prose comedies. George Meredith says:-- + + "Where Congreve excels all his English rivals is in his literary + force, and a succinctness of style peculiar to him... He is at once + precise and voluble. If you have ever thought upon style, you will + acknowledge it to be a signal accomplishment. In this he is a + classic, and he is worthy of treading a measure with Moličre." + +Congreve's best comedies are _Love for Love_ and _The Way of the +World_. The majority of critics agree with Meredith in calling Miss +Millimant, who is the heroine of the latter play, "an admirable, +almost a lovable heroine." Meredith illustrates one phase of his own +idea of the comic spirit, by the language which Miss Millimant uses in +accepting her lover: "If I continue to endure you a little longer, I +may by degrees dwindle into a wife." Congreve's peculiar genius is +well shown in his ability to make her manner of speech reveal her +characteristics. His plays are unfortunately disfigured with the +coarseness of the age. + +The blemishes in the drama did not exist, however, without an emphatic +contemporary protest. Jeremy Collier (1650-1729), a non-conforming +bishop, in his _Short View of the Immorality of the Stage_ (1698), +complains that the unworthy hero of one of Congreve's plays "is +crowned for the man of merit, has his wishes thrown into his lap, and +makes the happy exit." + +Such attacks had their weight and prepared the way far the more moral +sentimental comedies of Richard Steele and succeeding playwrights. The +sacrifice of plot to moral purpose and the deliberate introduction of +scenes designed to force an appeal to sentiment caused the later drama +to deteriorate in a different way. We shall see that the natural +hearty humor of Goldsmith's comedy, _She Stoops to Conquer_(1773), +afforded a welcome relief from such plays. + +JOHN DRYDEN, 1631-1700 + +[Illustration: JOHN DRYDEN. _From the painting by Sir Godfrey +Knellwe, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF DRYDEN. _From a print._] + +Life.--John Dryden was born in 1631 in the small village of +Aldwinkle, in the northern part of Northamptonshire. Few interesting +facts concerning his life have come down to us. His father was a +baronet; his mother, the daughter of a rector. Young Dryden graduated +from Cambridge in 1654. + +During his entire life, Dryden was a professional literary man; and +with his pen he made the principal part of his living. This necessity +often forced him against his own better judgment to cater to the +perverted taste of the Restoration. When he found that plays had more +market value than any other kind of literature, he agreed to furnish +three plays a year for the king's actors, but was unable to produce +that number. For fifteen years in the prime of his life, Dryden did +little but write plays, the majority of which are seldom read to-day. +His only important poem during his dramatic period was _Annus +Mirabilis_ (_The Wonderful Year_, 1666), memorable for the great +London fire and for naval victories over the Dutch. + +By writing the greatest political satire in the language at the age of +fifty, he showed the world where his genius lay. During the last +twenty years of his life, he produced but few plays. His greatest +satires, didactic poems, and lyrics belong to this period. In his last +years he wrote a spirited translation of Vergil, and retold in his own +inimitable way various stories from Chaucer and Boccaccio and _Ovid_. +These stories were published in a volume entitled _Fables, Ancient and +Modern_. Dryden died in 1700 and was buried in Westminster Abbey +beside Chaucer. + +It is difficult to speak positively of Dryden's character. He wrote a +poem in honor of the memory of Cromwell, and a little later another +poem, _Astraea Redux_, welcoming Charles II. He argued in stirring +verse in favor of the Episcopal religion when that was the faith of +the court; but after the accession of James II., who was a Catholic, +Dryden wrote another poem to prove the Catholic Church the only true +one. He had been appointed poet laureate in 1670, but the Revolution +of 1688, which drove James from the throne, caused Dryden to lose the +laureateship. He would neither take the oath of fealty to the new +government nor change his religion. In spite of adversity and the loss +of an income almost sufficient to support him, he remained a Catholic +for the rest of his life and reared his sons in that faith. + +He seems to have been of a forgiving disposition and ready to +acknowledge his own faults. He admitted that his plays were disfigured +with coarseness. He was very kind to young writers and willing to help +them with their work. In his chair at Will's Coffee House, discoursing +to the wits of the Restoration about matters of literary art, he was +one of the most prominent figures of the age. + +His Prose.--Although to the majority of people Dryden is known only +as a poet, his influence on prose has been so far-reaching as to +entitle him to be called one of the founders of modern prose style. + +The shortening of sentences has been a striking feature in the +development of modern English prose. Edmund Spenser averages about +fifty words to each of his prose sentences; Richard Hooker, about +forty-one. One of the most striking sentences in Milton's +_Areopagitica_ contains ninety-five words, although he crowds over +three hundred words into some of his long sentences. The sentences in +some of Dryden's pages average only twenty-five words in length. +Turning to Macaulay, one of the most finished masters of modern prose, +we find that his sentences average twenty-two words. Dryden helped +also to free English prose from the inversions, involutions, and +parenthetical intricacies of earlier times. His influence on both +prose and poetry were much the same. In verse he adopted the short, +easily understood unit of the classical couplet; and in prose, the +short, direct sentence. + +Dryden's prose deals chiefly with literary criticism. Most of his +prose is to be found in the prefaces to his plays and poems. His most +important separate prose composition is his _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, +a work which should be read by all who wish to know some of the +foundation principles of criticism. + +Satiric Poetry.--No English writer has surpassed Dryden in satiric +verse. His greatest satire is _Absalom and Achitophel_, in which, +under the guise of Old Testament characters, he satirizes the leading +spirits of the Protestant opposition to the succession of James, the +brother of Charles II., to the English throne. Dryden thus satirizes +Achitophel, the Earl of Shaftesbury:-- + + "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." + +Zimri, the Duke of Buckingham, is immortalized thus:-- + + "Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, + Was everything by starts, and nothing long." + +_Mac Flecknoe_ is another satire of almost as great merit, directed +against a certain Whig poet by the name of Shadwell. He would have +been seldom mentioned in later times, had it not been for two of +Dryden's lines:-- + + "The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, + But Shadwell never deviates into sense." + +_All for Love_, one of Dryden's greatest plays, shows the delicate +keenness of his satire in characterizing the cold-blooded Augustus +Caesar, or Octavius, as he is there called. Antony has sent a +challenge to Octavius, who replies that he has more ways than one to +die. Antony rejoins:-- + + "He has more ways than one; + But he would choose them all before that one. + _Ventidius._ He first would choose an ague or a fever. + _Antony._ No; it must be an ague, not a fever; + He has not warmth enough to die by that." + +Dryden could make his satire as direct and blasting as a thunderbolt. +He thus describes his publisher:-- + + "With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair, + With two left legs, and Judas-colored hair, + And frowsy pores that taint the ambient air." + +Argumentative or Didactic Verse.--Dryden is a master in arguing in +poetry. He was not a whit hampered by the restrictions of verse. They +were rather an advantage to him, for in poetry he could make more +telling arguments in briefer compass than in prose. The best two +examples of his power of arguing in verse are _Religio Laici_, written +in 1682, to uphold the Episcopal religion, and _The Hind and the +Panther_, composed in 1687, to vindicate the Catholic church. Verse of +this order is called didactic, because it endeavors to teach or to +explain something. The age of the Restoration delighted in such +exercises of the intellect vastly more than in flights of fancy or +imagination. + +Lyrical Verse.--While most of Dryden's best poetry is either satiric +or didactic, he wrote three fine lyrical poems: _Alexander's Feast, A +Song for St. Cecilia's Day_, and _An Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew_. All +are distinguished by remarkable beauty and energy of expression. +_Alexander's Feast_ is the most widely read of Dryden's poems. The +opening lines of the Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew seem almost Miltonic +in their conception, and they show great power in the field of lyrical +poetry. Mistress Killigrew was a young lady of rare accomplishments in +both poetry and painting, who died at the age of twenty-five. Dryden +thus begins her memorial ode:-- + + "Thou youngest virgin daughter of the skies, + Made in the last promotion of the blest; + Whose palms, new plucked from Paradise, + In spreading branches more sublimely rise, + Rich with immortal green above the rest: + * * * * * + Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, + Since Heaven's eternal year is thine." + +Some of his plays have songs and speeches instinct with lyrical force. +The following famous lines on the worth of existence are taken from +his tragedy of _Aurengzebe:_-- + + "When I consider'd life, 'tis all a cheat, + Yet, fool'd with hope, men favor the deceit, + Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay: + To-morrow's falser than the former day, + Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest + With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. + Strange cozenage! none would live past years again; + Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain. + And, from the dregs of life, think to receive + What the first sprightly running could not give. + I'm tir'd with waiting for this chemic gold, + Which fools us young and beggars us when old." + +General Characteristics.--In point of time, Dryden is the first +great poet of the school of literary artists. His verse does not +tolerate the unpruned irregularities and exaggerations of many former +English poets. His command over language is remarkable. He uses words +almost as he chooses, but he does not invest them with the warm glow +of feeling. He is, however, something more than a great word artist. +Many of his ideas bear the stamp of marked originality. + +In the field of satiric and didactic poetry, he is a master. The +intellectual, not the emotional, side of man's nature appeals strongly +to him. He heeds not the song of the bird, the color of the rose, nor +the clouds of evening. + +Although more celebrated for his poetry than for his prose, he is the +earliest of the great modern prose stylists, and he displays high +critical ability. + +DANIEL DEFOE, 1659?-1731 + +[Illustration: DANIEL DEFOE. _From a print by Vandergucht_.] + +Varied Experiences.--Daniel Defoe was born in London, probably the +year before the Restoration. His father, a butcher in good +circumstances, sent the boy to a school in which English, instead of +Latin, was the medium of instruction. He was taught how to express +himself in the simple, forceful English for which he became famous. +His education was planned to make him a dissenting minister; but he +preferred a life of varied activity. He became a trader, a +manufacturer of tiles, a journalist, and a writer of fiction. By also +serving as a government agent and spy, he incurred the severe +criticism of contemporaries. It is doubtful if even Shakespeare had +more varied experiences or more vicissitudes in life. + +For writing what would to-day be considered a harmless piece of irony, +_The Shortest Way with Dissenters_, in which Defoe, who was himself a +dissenter, advocated banishment or hanging, he suffered the +mortification of exposure for three days in the pillory and of +imprisonment in the pestilent Newgate jail. His business of making +tiles was consequently ruined. These experiences, with which his +enemies taunted him, colored his entire life and made him realize that +the support of his wife and six children necessitated care in his +choice and treatment of subjects. + +His life was a succession of changing fortunes. He died in poverty in +1731 and was buried in Bunhill Fields, London. His grave was marked by +only a small headstone, but the English boys and girls who had read +_Robinson Crusoe_ in the Victorian age subscribed the money for a +monument with a suitable inscription. It is remarkable that Bunhill +Fields, which contains the graves of so many humble dissenters, should +be the final resting place of both Bunyan and Defoe, the authors of +the first two English prose works most often read to-day. + +A Journalist and a Prolific Writer.--Defoe has at last come to be +regarded as the first great English journalist. He had predecessors in +this field, for as early as 1622 the _Coranto_, or journal of +"current" foreign news, appeared. In 1641, on the eve of the civil +war, the _Diurnall_ of domestic news was issued. In 1643, when +Parliament appointed a licenser, who gave copyright protection to the +"catchword" or newspaper title, journalists became a "recognized +body." "Newsbooks" and especially "newsletters" grew in popularity. +Only a few years after the Restoration, there appeared _The London +Gazette_, which has been continued to the present time as the medium +through which the government publishes its official news. + +From 1704 to 1713 Defoe issued _The Review_, which appeared triweekly +for the greater part of the time, and gave the news current in England +and in much of Europe. _The Review_, an unusual achievement for the +age, shows Defoe to have been a journalist of great ability. This +paper had one department, called _The Scandal Club_, which furnished +suggestions for _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_. + +It has been computed that Defoe wrote for _The Review_ during the nine +years of its publication 5000 pages of essays, in addition to nearly +the same amount of other matter. He also issued many pamphlets, which +performed somewhat the same service as the modern newspaper with its +editorials. It is probable that he was the most prolific of all +English authors. Few have discussed as wide a range of matter. He +wrote more than two hundred and fifty separate works on subjects as +different as social conditions, the promotion of business, human +conduct, travels in England, and ghosts. + +Fiction.--Defoe was nearly sixty when he began to write fiction. In +1719 he published the first part of _Robinson Crusoe_, the story of +the adventures of a sailor wrecked on a solitary island. The Frenchman +Daudet said of this work: "It is as nearly immortal as any book can +ever be." The nineteenth century saw more than one hundred editions of +it published in London alone. It has been repeatedly issued in almost +every language of Europe. The secret of the success of _Robinson +Crusoe_ has puzzled hundreds of writers who have tried to imitate it. + +The world-wide popularity of _Robinson Crusoe_ is chiefly due (1) to +the peculiar genius of the author; (2) to his journalistic training, +which enabled him to seize on the essential elements of interest and +to keep these in the foreground; (3) to the skill with which he +presents matter-of-fact details, sufficient to invest the story with +an atmosphere of perfect reality; (4) to his style, which is as simple +and direct as the speech of real life, and which is made vivid by +specific words describing concrete actions,--such as hewing a tree, +sharpening a stake, hanging up grapes to dry, tossing a biscuit to a +wild cat, taking a motherless kid in his arms; and (5) to the skill +with which he sets a problem requiring for its solution energy, +ingenuity, self-reliance, and the development of the moral power +necessary to meet and overcome difficulties. + +Young and old follow with intense interest every movement of the +shipwrecked mariner when he first swims to the stranded ship, +constructs a raft, and places on it "bread, rice, three Dutch cheeses, +five pieces of dried goat's flesh, a little remainder of European +corn, and the carpenter's chest." Readers do not accompany him +passively as he lands the raft and returns. They work with him; they +are not only made a part of all Crusoe's experience, but they react on +it imaginatively; they suggest changes; they hold their breath or try +to assist him when he is in danger. Defoe's genius in making the +reader a partner in Robinson Crusoe's adventures has not yet received +sufficient appreciation. The author could never have secured such a +triumph if he had not compelled readers to take an active part in the +story. + +It was for a long time thought that Defoe was ignorant, that he +accidentally happened to write _Robinson Crusoe_ because he had been +told of the recent experience of Alexander Selkirk on a solitary +island in the Pacific. It is now known that Defoe was well educated, +versed in several languages, and the most versatile writer of his +time. _Robinson Crusoe_ was no more of an accident than any other +creation of genius. + +Defoe's other principal works of fiction are: _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, +the story of a soldier's adventures in the seventeenth century; _The +Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton_, a +graphic account of adventures in a journey across Africa; _Moll +Flanders_, a story of a well-known criminal; and _A Journal of the +Plague Year_, a vivid, imaginative presentation, in the most realistic +way, of the horrors of the London plague in 1665. These works are +almost completely overshadowed by _Robinson Crusoe_; but they also +show Defoe's narrative power and his ability to make fiction seem an +absolute reality. In writing _Gulliver's Travels_, Swift received +valuable hints from Defoe. Stevenson's _Treasure Island_ is the most +successful of the almost numberless stories of adventure suggested by +_Robinson Crusoe_. + +JONATHAN SWIFT, 1667-1745 + +[Illustration: JONATHAN SWIFT. _From the painting by C. Jervas, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--Swift, one of the greatest prose writers of the eighteenth +century, was born of English parents in Dublin in 1667. It is +absolutely necessary to know something of his life in order to pass +proper judgment on his writings. A cursory examination of his life +will show that heredity and environment were responsible for many of +his peculiarities. Swift's father died a few months before the birth +of his son, and the boy saw but little of his mother. + +Swift's school and college life were passed at Kilkenny School and +Trinity College, Dublin. For his education he was indebted to an +uncle, who made the boy feel the bitterness of his dependence. In +after times he said that his uncle treated him like a dog. Swift's +early experience seems to have made him misanthropic and hardened to +consequences, for he neglected certain studies, and it was only by +special concession that he was allowed to take his A.B. degree in +1686. + +After leaving college, he spent almost ten years as the private +secretary of Sir William Temple, at Moor Park in Surrey, about forty +miles southwest of London. Temple had been asked to furnish some +employment for the young graduate because Lady Temple was related to +Swift's mother. Here Swift was probably treated as a dependent, and he +had to eat at the second table. Finally, this life became so +intolerable that he took holy orders and went to a little parish in +Ireland; but after a stay of eighteen months he returned to Moor Park, +where he remained until Temple's death in 1699. Swift then went to +another little country parish in Ireland. From there he visited London +on a mission in behalf of the Episcopal Church in Ireland. He +quarreled with the Whigs, became a Tory, and assisted that party by +writing many political pamphlets. The Tory ministry soon felt that it +could scarcely do without him. He dined with ministers of state, and +was one of the most important men in London; but he advanced the +interests of his friends much better than his own, for he got little +from the government except the hope of becoming bishop. In 1713 he was +made dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. In 1714, Queen Anne +died, the Tories went out of power, and Swift returned to Ireland, a +disappointed man. He passed the rest of his life there, with the +exception of a few visits to England. + +[Illustration: MOOR PARK. _From a drawing._] + +When English politicians endeavored to oppress Ireland with unjust +laws, Swift championed the Irish cause. A man who knew him well, says: +"I never saw the poor so carefully and conscientiously attended to as +those of his cathedral." He gave up a large part of his income every +year for the poor. In Dublin he was looked upon as a hero. When a +certain person tried to be revenged on Swift for a satire, a +deputation of Swift's neighbors proposed to thrash the man. Swift sent +them home, but they boycotted the man and lowered his income £1200 a +year. + +During the last years of his life, Swift was hopelessly insane. He +died in 1745, leaving his property for an asylum for lunatics and +incurables. + +[Illustration: SWIFT AND STELLA. _From the painting by Dicksee._] + +The mysteries in Swift's life may be partly accounted for by the fact +that during many years he suffered from an unknown brain disease. This +affection, the galling treatment received in his early years, and the +disappointments of his prime, largely account for his misanthropy, for +his coldness, and for the almost brutal treatment of the women who +loved him. + +Swift's attachment to the beautiful Esther Johnson, known in +literature as Stella, led him to write to her that famous series of +letters known as the _Journal to Stella_, in which he gives much of +his personal history during the three sunniest years of his life, from +1710 to 1713, when he was a lion in London. Thackeray says: "I know of +nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some +of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls his 'little +language' in his _Journal to Stella_." + +A Tale of a Tub and the Battle of the Books.--Swift's greatest +satire, the greatest prose satire in English, is known as _A Tale of a +Tub_. The purpose of the work is to uphold the Episcopalians and +satirize opposing religious denominations. For those not interested in +theological arguments, there is much entertaining philosophy, as the +following quotation will show:-- + + "If we take an examination of what is generally understood by + happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the + senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd + under this short definition,--that it is a perpetual possession of + being well deceived. And first, with relation to the mind or + understanding it is manifest what mighty advantages fiction has over + truth; and the reason is just at our elbow, because imagination can + build nobler scenes and produce more wonderful revolutions than + fortune or nature will be at expense to furnish." + +Swift's satiric definition of happiness as the art "of being well +deceived" is a characteristic instance of a combination of his humor +and pessimistic philosophy. + +In the same volume with _A Tale of a Tub_, there was published a prose +satire in almost epic form, _An Account of a Battle between the +Ancient and Modern Books in St. James Library_ (1704). Although this +satire apparently aims to demonstrate the superior merits of the great +classical writers, it is mainly an attack on pretentions to knowledge. +Our greatest surprise in this satire comes not only from discovering +the expression, "sweetness and light," made famous by Matthew Arnold +in the Victorian age, but also from finding that a satirist like Swift +assigned such high rank to these qualities. He says that the +"Ancients" thus expressed an essential difference between themselves +and the "Moderns":-- + + "The difference is that, instead of dirt and poison, we have rather + chosen to fill our lives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind + with the two noblest of things, which are Sweetness and Light." + +Gulliver's Travels.--The world is always ready to listen to any one +who has a good story to tell. Neither children nor philosophers have +yet wearied of reading the adventures of Captain Lemuel Gulliver in +Lilliput and Brobdingnag. _Gulliver's Travels_ is Swift's most famous +work. + +Gulliver makes four remarkable voyages to strange countries. He first +visits Lilliput, which is inhabited by a race of men about six inches +high. Everything is on a corresponding scale. Gulliver eats a whole +herd of cattle for breakfast and drinks several hogsheads of liquor. +He captures an entire fleet of warships. A rival race of pygmies +endeavors to secure his services so as to obtain the balance of power. +The quarrels between these little people seem ridiculous, and so petty +as to be almost beneath contempt. + +Gulliver next visits Brobdingnag, where the inhabitants are sixty feet +tall, and the affairs of ordinary human beings appear petty and +insignificant. The cats are as large as three oxen, and the dogs +attain the size of four elephants. Gulliver eats on a table thirty +feet high, and trembles lest he may fall and break his neck. The baby +seizes Gulliver and tries to swallow his head. Afterward the hero +fights a desperate battle with two rats. A monkey catches him and +carries him to the almost infinite height of the house top. Certainly, +the voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag merit Leslie Stephen's +criticism of being "almost the most delightful children's book ever +written." + +The third voyage, which takes him to Laputa, satirizes the +philosophers. We are taken through the academy at Lagado and are shown +a typical philosopher:-- + + "He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams + out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials, hermetically + sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers. He + told me he did not doubt that in eight years more he should be able + to supply the governor's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable + rate." + +In this voyage the Struldbrugs are described. They are a race of men +who, after the loss of every faculty and of every tie that binds them +to earth, are doomed to continue living. Dante never painted a +stronger or a ghastlier picture. + +On his fourth voyage, he visits the country of the Houyhnhnms and +describes the Yahoos, who are the embodiment of all the detestable +qualities of human beings. The last two voyages are not pleasant +reading, and one might wish that the author of two such inimitable +tales as the adventures in Lilliput and Brobdingnag had stopped with +these. + +Children read _Gulliver's Travels_ for the story, but there is much +more than a story in the work. In its pages the historian finds +allusions that throw much light on the history of the age. Among the +Lilliputians, for example, there is one party, known as the +Bigendians, which insists that all eggs shall be broken open at the +big end, while another party, called the Littleendians, contends that +eggs shall be opened only at the little end. These differences typify +the quarrels of the age concerning religion and politics. The +_Travels_ also contains much human philosophy. The lover of satire is +constantly delighted with the keenness of the thrusts. + +General Characteristics.--Swift is one of the greatest of English +prose humorists. He is noted also for wit of that satiric kind which +enjoys the discomfiture of the victim. A typical instance is shown in +the way in which, under the assumed name of Isaac Bickerstaff, he +dealt with an astrologer and maker of prophetic almanacs, whose name +was Partridge. Bickerstaff claimed to be an infallible astrologer, and +predicted that Partridge would die March 29, 1708, at 11 P.M. When +that day had passed, Bickerstaff issued a pamphlet giving a +circumstantial account of Partridge's death. Partridge, finding that +his customers began to decrease, protested that he was alive. +Bickerstaff promptly replied that Partridge was dead by his own +infallible rules of astrology, and that the man now claiming to be +Partridge was a vile impostor. + +Swift's wit frequently left its imprint on the thought of the time. +The results of this special prank with the astrologer were: first, to +cause the wits of the town to join in the hue and cry that Partridge +was dead; second, to increase the contempt for astrologers; and, +third, in the words of Scott: "The most remarkable consequence of +Swift's frolic was the establishment of the _Tatler_." Richard Steele, +its founder, adopted the popular name of Isaac Bickerstaff. + +Taine says of Swift: "He is the inventor of irony, as Shakespeare of +poetry." The most powerful instance of Swift's irony is shown in his +attempt to better the condition of the Irish, whose poverty forced +them to let their children grow up ignorant and destitute, or often +even die of starvation. His _Modest Proposal_ for relieving such +distress is to have the children at the age of one year served as a +new dish on the tables of the great. So apt is irony to be +misunderstood and to fail of its mark, that for a time Swift was +considered merely brutal; but soon he convinced the Irish that he was +their friend, willing to contribute both time and money to aid them. +His ironical remarks on _The Abolishing of Christianity_ were also +misunderstood. + +His poems, such as _A Description of a City Shower_, and _Cadenus and +Vanessa_, show the same general characteristics as his prose, but are +inferior to it. + +We shall search Swift's work in vain for examples of pathos or +sublimity. We shall find his pages caustic with wit, satire, and +irony, and often disfigured with coarseness. One of the great +pessimists of all time, he is yet tremendously in earnest in whatever +he says, from his _Drapier's Letters_, written to protect Ireland from +the schemes of English politicians, to his _Gulliver's Travels_, where +he describes the court of Lilliput. This earnestness and +circumstantial minuteness throw an air of reality around his most +grotesque creations. He pretended to despise Defoe; yet the influence +of that great writer, who made fiction seem as real as fact, is +plainly apparent in Gulliver's remarkable adventures. + +Although sublimity and pathos are outside of his range, his style is +remarkably well adapted to his special subject matter. While reading +his works, one scarcely ever thinks of his style, unless the attention +is specially directed to it. Only a great artist can thus conceal his +art. A style so natural as this has especial merits which will repay +study. Three of its chief characteristics are simplicity, flexibility, +and energetic directness. + +JOSEPH ADDISON, 1672-1719 + +[Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON. _From the painting by Sir Godfrey +Kneller, National Portrait Gallery._] + +[Illustration: THE BIRTHPLACE OF ADDISON.] + +Life.--Joseph Addison was born in the paternal rectory at Milston, a +small village in the eastern part of Wiltshire. He was educated at +Oxford. He intended to become a clergyman, but, having attracted +attention by his graceful Latin poetry, was dissuaded by influential +court friends from entering the service of the church. They persuaded +him to fit himself for the diplomatic service, and secured for him a +yearly pension of £300. He then went to France, studied the language +of that country, and traveled extensively, so as to gain a knowledge +of foreign courts. The death of King William in 1702 stopped his +pension, however, and Addison was forced to return to England to seek +employment as a tutor. + +The great battle of Blenheim was won by Marlborough in 1704. As +Macaulay says, the ministry was mortified to see such a victory +celebrated by so much bad poetry, and he instances these lines from +one of the poems: + + "Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, + And each man mounted on his capering beast; + Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals." + +The Chancellor of the Exchequer went to Addison's humble lodgings and +asked him to write a poem in honor of the battle. Addison took the +town by storm with a simile in which the great general was likened to +the calm angel of the whirlwind. When people reflected how calmly +Marlborough had directed the whirlwind of war, they thought that no +comparison could be more felicitous. From that time Addison's fortunes +rose. Since his day no man relying on literary talents alone has risen +so high in state affairs. He was made assistant Secretary of State, +Secretary for Ireland, and finally chief Secretary of State. + +Though Addison was a prominent figure in the political world, it is +his literary life that most concerns us. In his prime he wrote for +_The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_, famous newspapers of Queen Anne's +day, many inimitable essays on contemporary life and manners. Most +newspaper work is soon forgotten, but these essays are read by the +most cultivated people of to-day. In his own age his most meritorious +production was thought to be the dull tragedy of _Cato_, a drama +observing the classical unities. Some of his _Hymns_ are much finer. +Lines like these, written of the stars, linger in our memories:-- + + "Forever singing as they shine, + The hand that made us is divine." + +Addison had a singularly pleasing personality. Though he was a Whig, +the Tories admired and applauded him. He was a good illustration of +the truth that if one smiles in the mirror of the world, it will +answer him with a smile. Swift said he believed the English would have +made Addison king, if they had been requested to place him on the +throne. Pope's jealous nature prompted him to quarrel with Addison, +but the quarrel was chiefly on one side. Men like Macaulay and +Thackeray have exerted their powers to do justice to the kindliness +and integrity of Addison. + +Addison died at the age of forty-seven, and was buried in Westminster +Abbey. + +[Illustration: RICHARD STEELE.] + +Collaborates with Steele.--Under the pen name of Isaac Bickerstaff, +Richard Steele (1672-1729), a former schoolmate and friend of Addison, +started in 1709 _The Tatler_, a periodical published three times a +week. This discussed matters of interest in society and politics, and +occasionally published an essay on morals and manners. Steele was a +good-natured, careless individual, with a varied experience as +soldier, playwright, moralist, keeper of the official gazette, and +pensioner. He says that he always "preferred the state of his mind to +that of his fortune"; but his mental state was often fickle, and too +much dependent on bodily luxuries, though he was patriotic enough to +sacrifice his personal fortune for what he considered his country's +interest. + +We find Addison a frequent contributor to _The Tatler_ after its +seventeenth number. Steele says: "I fared like a distressed prince who +calls in a powerful neighbor to his aid; I was undone by my auxiliary; +when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence +on him." + +_The Tatler_ was discontinued in 1711, and Steele projected the more +famous _Spectator_ two months later. Addison wrote the first number, +but the second issue, which came from Steele's pen, contains sketches +of those characters which have become famous in the _Sir Roger de +Coverley Papers_. Steele's first outline of Sir Roger is a creation of +sweetness and light:-- + + "His tenants grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young + women profess to love him, and the young men are glad of his + company. When he comes into a house he calls the servants by their + names, and talks all the way upstairs to a visit." + +The influence of such a character must have been especially wholesome +on the readers of the eighteenth century. Without the suggestive +originality of Steele, we might never have had those essays of +Addison, which we read most to-day; but while Steele should have full +credit for the first bold sketches, the finished portraits in the De +Coverley gallery are due to Addison. Steele says of his associate, "I +claim to myself the merit of having extorted excellent productions +from a person of the greatest abilities, who would not have let them +appear by any other means." + +It is well, however, to remember that Steele did much more work than +is popularly supposed. Beginning with March 1, 1711, there were 555 +issues of _The Spectator_ published on succeeding week days. To these +were added 80 more numbers at irregular intervals. Of these 635 +numbers, Steele wrote 236 and Addison 274. + +In many respects each seemed to be the complement of the other. +Steele's writings have not the polish or delicate humor of Addison's, +but they have more strength and pathos. Addison had the greater +genius, and he was also more willing to spend time in polishing his +prose and making it artistic. From the far greater interest now shown +in Addison, the student should be impressed by the necessity of +artistic finish as well as of excellence in subject matter. + +Addison's Essays--The greatest of Addison's _Essays_ appeared in +_The Spectator_ and charmed many readers in Queen Anne's age. The +subject matter of these _Essays_ is extremely varied. On one day there +is a pleasant paper on witches; on another, a chat about the new +woman; on another, a discourse on clubs. Addison is properly a moral +satirist, and his pen did much more than the pulpit to civilize the +age and make virtue the fashion. In _The Spectator_, he says: "If I +meet with anything in city, court, or country, that shocks modesty or +good manners, I shall use my utmost endeavors to make an example of +it." He accomplished his purpose, not by heated denunciations of vice, +but by holding it up to kindly ridicule. He remembered the fable of +the different methods employed by the north wind and the sun to make a +man lay aside an ugly cloak. + +Addison stated also that one of his objects was to bring "philosophy +out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs +and assemblies, at tea tables and coffeehouses." His papers on Milton +did much to diminish that great poet's unpopularity in an age that +loved form rather than matter, art rather than natural strength. + +The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers.--The most famous of Addison's +productions are his papers that appeared in _The Spectator_, +describing a typical country gentleman, Sir Roger de Coverley, and his +friends and servants. Taine says that Addison here invented the novel +without suspecting it. This is an overstatement; but these papers +certainly have the interest of a novel from the moment Sir Roger +appears until his death, and the delineation of character is far in +advance of that shown in the majority of modern novels. We find +ourselves rereading the _De Coverley Papers_ more than once, a +statement that can be made of but few novels. + +[Illustration: SIR ROGER IN CHURCH. _From a drawing by B. +Westmacott_.] + +General Characteristics.--Addison ranks among the greatest of +English essayists. Some of his essays, like the series on _Paradise +Lost_, deal with literary criticism; but most people to-day read +little from his pen except the _Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_, which +give interesting pictures of eighteenth-century life and manners. + +Before we have read many of Addison's essays, we shall discover that +he is a humorist of high rank. His humor is of the kind that makes one +smile, rather than laugh aloud. Our countenance relaxes when we +discover that his rules for an eighteenth-century club prescribe a +fine for absence except in case of sickness or imprisonment. We are +quietly amused at such touches as this in the delineation of Sir +Roger:-- + + "As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them + in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in it besides + himself; for, if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at + sermon, upon recovering out of it, he stands up and looks about him, + and, if he sees anybody else nodding, either wakes them himself, or + sends his servants to them." + +Addison is remarkable among a satiric group of writers because he +intended his humor to be "remedial,"--not merely to inflict wounds, +but to exert a moral influence, to induce human beings to forsake the +wrong and to become more kindly. We may smile at Sir Roger; but we +have more respect for his kindliness, after reading in _Spectator_ No. +383, how he selected his boatmen to row him on the Thames:-- + + "We were no sooner come to the Temple Stairs, but we were surrounded + with a crowd of watermen, offering us their respective services. + Sir Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one + with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat + ready. As we were walking towards it, 'You must know,' says Sir + Roger, 'I never make use of anybody to row me, that has not either + lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his + oar than not employ an honest man that had been wounded in the + Queen's service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I + would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg.'" + +Such humor, which finds its chief point in a desire to make the world +kindlier, must have appealed to the eighteenth century, or _The +Spectator_ could not have reached a circulation of ten thousand copies +a day. Addison would not now have his legion of warm admirers if his +humor had been personal, like Pope's, or misanthropical, like Swift's. + +Of his style, Dr. Samuel 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 study of Addison." +Benjamin Franklin, as we know from his _Autobiography_, followed this +advice with admirable results. Addison's style seems as natural and +easy as the manners of a well-bred person. When we have given some +attention to dissecting his style, we may indeed discover that a prose +model for to-day should have more variety and energy and occasionally +more precision; but such a conclusion does not mean that any writer of +this century would like the task of surpassing the _De Coverley +Papers_. + +ALEXANDER POPE, 1688-1744 + +[Illustration: ALEXANDER POPE. _From the portrait by William +Hoare_.] + +Life.--Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688. His father, a +devout Catholic, was a linen merchant, who gave his son little formal +schooling, but allowed him to pick up his education by reading such +authors as pleased his fancy. + +He was a very precocious child. At the age of twelve he was writing an +_Ode on Solitude_. He chose his vocation early, for writing poetry was +the business of his life. + +In his childhood, his parents removed from London to Binfield, a +village in Berkshire, nine miles from Windsor. When he was nearly +thirty years old, his translation of the _Iliad_ enabled him to buy a +house and grounds at Twickenham on the Thames, about twelve miles +above London. He lived here for the rest of his life, indulging his +taste for landscape gardening and entertaining the greatest men of the +age. + +After early middle life, his writings made him pecuniarily +independent, but he suffered much from ill health. In his _Lives of +the English Poets_, Dr. Samuel Johnson says of Pope:-- + + "By natural deformity, or accidental distortion, his vital functions + were so much disordered that his life was a long disease... When he + rose, he was invested in a bodice made of stiff canvas, being scarce + able to hold himself erect till they were laced, and he then put on + a flannel waistcoat. One side was contracted. His legs were so + slender that he enlarged their bulk with three pair of stockings... + + "In all his intercourse with mankind, he had great delight in + artifice, and endeavored to attain all his purposes by indirect and + unsuspected methods. _He hardly drank tea without a stratagem._" + +The publication of his correspondence tangled him in a mesh of +deceptions, because his desire to appear in a favorable light led him +to change letters that he had sent to friends. His double-dealing, +intense jealousy, and irritability, due to his physical condition, +caused him to become involved in many quarrels, which gave him the +opportunity to indulge to the utmost his own satiric tendency. In one +of his late satires, _The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_, he charged +Addison with the inclination to-- + + "Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, + And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." + +On the basis of what he wrote, we may divide his life into three +periods. During his first thirty years, he produced various kinds of +verse, like the _Essay on Criticism_ and _The Rape of the Lock_. The +middle period of his life was marked by his translation of Homer's +_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. In his third period, he wrote moral and +didactic poems, like the _Essay on Man_, and satires, like the +_Dunciad_. + +[Illustration: POPE'S VILLA AT TWICKENHAM. _From an old print._] + +Some Poems of the First Period: Essay on Criticism and The Rape of +the Lock.--Pope's first published poem, _The Pastorals_, which +appeared in 1709, was followed in 1711 by _An Essay on Criticism_,--an +exquisite setting of a number of gems of criticism which had for a +long time been current. Pope's intention in writing this poem may be +seen from what he himself says: "It seems not so much the perfection +of sense to say things that have never been said before, as to express +those best that have been said oftenest." + +From this point of view, the poem is remarkable. No other writer, +except Shakespeare, has in an equal number of lines said so many +things which have passed into current quotation. Rare perfection in +the form of statement accounts for this. The poem abounds in such +lines as these:-- + + "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread." + + "To err is human, to forgive divine." + + "All seems infected that th' infected spy, + As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye." + + "In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold, + Alike fantastic if too new or old: + Be not the first by whom the new are tried, + Nor yet the last to lay the old aside." + +_The Rape of the Lock_, which is Pope's masterpiece, is almost a +romantic poem, even though it is written in classical couplets. It was +a favorite with Oliver Goldsmith, and James Russell Lowell rightly say +says: "The whole poem more truly deserves the name of a creation than +anything Pope ever wrote." The poem is a mock epic, and it has the +supernatural machinery which was supposed to be absolutely necessary +for an epic. In place of the gods and goddesses of the great epics, +however, the fairy-like sylphs help to guide the action of this poem. + +The poem, which is founded on an actual incident, describes a young +lord's theft of a lock of hair from the head of a court beauty. Pope +composed _The Rape of the Lock_ to soothe her indignation and to +effect a reconciliation. The whole of this poem should be read by the +student, as it is a vivid satiric picture of fashionable life in Queen +Anne's reign. + +[Illustration: RAPE OF THE LOCK. _From a drawing by B. Westmacott_.] + +Translation of Homer.--Pope's chief work during the middle period of +his life was his translation of the _Iliad_ and of the _Odyssey_ of +Homer. From a financial point of view, these translations were the +most successful of his labors. They brought him in nearly £9000, and +made him independent of bookseller or of nobleman. + +The remarkable success of these works is strange when we remember that +Pope's knowledge of Greek was very imperfect, and that he was obliged +to consult translations before attempting any passage. The Greek +scholar Bentley, a contemporary of Pope, delivered a just verdict on +the translation: "A pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it +Homer." The historian Gibbon said that the poem had every merit except +faithfulness to the original. + +Homer is simple and direct. He abounds in concrete terms. Pope +dislikes a simple term and loves a circumlocution and an abstraction. +We have the concrete "herd of swine" translated into "a bristly care," +"skins," into "furry spoils." The concrete was considered common and +undignified. Homer says in simple language: "His father wept with +him," but Pope translates this: "The father poured a social flood." + +Pope used to translate thirty or forty verses of the _Iliad_ before +rising, and then to spend a considerable time in polishing them. But +half of the translation of the _Odyssey_ is his own work. He employed +assistants to finish the other half; but it is by no means easy to +distinguish his work from theirs. + +[Illustration: ALEXANDER POPE. _From contemporary portrait_.] + +Some Poems of his Third Period: "Essay on Man," and "Satires."--The +_Essay on Man_ is a philosophical poem with the avowed object of +vindicating the ways of God to man. The entire poem is an +amplification of the idea contained in these 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." + +The chief merit of the poem consists in throwing into polished form +many of the views current at the time, so that they may be easily +understood. Before we read very far we come across such old +acquaintances as-- + + "The proper study of mankind is man." + + "An honest man's the noblest work of God." + + "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." + +The _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_ and _The Dunciad_ are Pope's greatest +satires. In _The Dunciad_, an epic of the dunces, he holds up to +ridicule every person and writer who had offended him. These were in +many cases scribblers who had no business with a pen; but in a few +instances they were the best scholars of that day. A great deal of the +poem is now very tiresome reading. Much of it is brutal. Pope was a +powerful agent, as Thackeray says, in rousing that obloquy which has +ever since pursued a struggling author. _The Dunciad_ could be more +confidently consulted about contemporary literary history, if Pope had +avoided such unnecessary misstatements as:-- + + "Earless on high, stood unabash'd De Foe." + +This line is responsible for the current unwarranted belief that the +author of _Robinson Crusoe_ lost his ears in the pillory. + +General Characteristics.---Pope has not strong imagination, a keen +feeling for nature, or wide sympathy with man. Leslie Stephen says: +"Pope never crosses the undefinable, but yet ineffaceable line, which +separates true poetry from rhetoric." The debate in regard to whether +Pope's verse is ever genuine poetry may not yet be settled to the +satisfaction of all; but it is well to recognize the undoubted fact +that his couplets still appeal to many readers who love clearness and +precision and who are not inclined to wrestle with the hidden meaning +of greater poetry. One of his poems, _The Rape of the Lock_, has +become almost a universal favorite because of its humor, good-natured +satire, and entertaining pictures of society in Queen Anne's time. + +He is the poet who best expresses the classical spirit of the +eighteenth century. He excels in satiric and didactic verse. He +expresses his ideas in perfect form, and embodies them in classical +couplets, sometimes styled "rocking-horse meter"; but he shows no +power of fathoming the emotional depths of the soul. + +In the history of literature, he holds an important place, because, +more than any other writer, he calls attention to the importance of +correctness of form and of careful expression. He is the prince of +artificial poets. Though he erred in exalting form above matter, he +taught his age the needed lesson of careful workmanship. + +SUMMARY + +The Restoration and the first part of the eighteenth century display a +low moral standard in both church and state. This standard had its +effect on literature. The drama shows marked decline. We find no such +sublime outbursts of song as characterize the Elizabethan and Puritan +ages. The writers chose satiric or didactic subjects, and avoided +pathos, deep feeling, and sublimity. French influence was paramount. + +The classical school, which loved polished regularity, set the fashion +in literature. An old idea, dressed in exquisite form, was as welcome +as a new one. Anything strange, irregular, romantic, full of feeling, +highly imaginative, or improbable to the intellect, was unpopular. +Even in _Gulliver's Travels_, Swift endeavored to be as realistic as +if he were demonstrating a geometrical proposition. + +Dryden and Pope are the two chief poets of the classical school. Both +use the riming couplet and are distinguished for their satiric and +didactic verse. Their poetry shows more intellectual brilliancy than +imaginative power. They display little sympathy with man and small +love for nature. + +The age is far more remarkable for its prose than for its poetry. +French influence helped to develop a concise, flexible, energetic +prose style. The deterioration in poetry was partly compensated for by +the rapid advances in prose, which needed the influences working +toward artistic finish. Because of its cleverness, avoidance of long +sentences, and of classical inversions, Dryden's prose is essentially +modern. Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ is the world's most popular story of +adventure, told in simple and direct, but seemingly artless, prose. Of +all the prose writers since Swift's time, few have equaled him and +still fewer surpassed him in simplicity, flexibility, directness, and +lack of affectation. The essays of Steele and Addison constitute a +landmark. No preceding English prose shows so much grace of style, +delicate humor, and power of awakening and retaining interest as do +the _Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_. + +The influence of this age was sufficient to raise permanently the +standard level of artistic literary expression. The unpruned, +shapeless, and extravagant forms of earlier times will no longer be +tolerated. + +SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +An account of the history of this period may be found in either +Gardiner,[3] Green, Walker, or Cheney. Vols. VIII. and IX. of the +_Political History of England_ give the history in greater detail. For +the social side, consult Traill, Vols. IV. and V., and Cheney's +_Industrial and Social History of England._ Lecky's _History of +England in the Eighteenth Century_ is an excellent work. + +LITERARY + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature,_ Vols. VIII., IX., X. + +Courthope's _A History of English Poetry_, Vols. III., IV., and V. + +Stephen's _English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_. + +Taine's _History of English Literature_, Book III., Chaps. I., II., +III. + +Gosse's _History of Eighteenth Century Literature_ begins with 1660. + +Garnett's _The Age of Dryden_. + +Phillips's _Popular Manual of English Literature_, Vol. I. + +Minto's _Manual of English Prose Literature_. + +Saintsbury's _Life of Dryden_. (E.M.L.) + +Macaulay's _Essay on Dryden_. + +Lowell's _Essay on Dryden_ in _Among My Books_. + +Dryden's _Essays on the Drama_, edited by Strunk. + +Fowler's _Life of Locke_. (E.M.L.) + +Stephen's _History of Thought in the Eighteenth Century_. + +Dennis's _The Age of Pope_. + +Thackeray's _English Humorists_ (Swift, Addison, Steele, Pope). + +Stephen's _Life of Swift_. (E.M.L.) + +Craik's _Life of Swift_. + +Courthope's _Life of Addison_. (E.M.L.) + +Macaulay's _Essay on Addison_. + +Stephen's _Life of Pope_. (E.M.L.) + +De Quincey's _Essay on Pope_, and _On the Poetry of Pope_. + +Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_ (Dryden, Pope, Addison). + +Lowell's _My Study Windows_ (Pope). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Dryden.--From his lyrical verse, read _Alexander's Feast_ or _A Song +for St. Cecilia's Day_. The opening lines of _Religio Laici_ or of +_The Hind and the Panther_ will serve as a specimen of his +argumentative or didactic verse and _Absalom and Achitophel_ for his +satire. (Cassell's _National Library_, 15 cents.) + +Selections are given in Ward,[4] II., 454-483; Bronson, III., 20-58; +Manly, I., 203-209; _Oxford Treasury_, III., 99-110; _Century_, +266-285. + +For his critical prose, read _An Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ (Strunk's +edition of _Dryden's Essays on the Drama_). For selections see Craik, +III., 148-154; Manly, II., 146-163; _Century_, 276-285. + +What is the chief subject matter of Dryden's verse? Point out typical +qualities in his argumentative and satiric verse. Give definite +instances of his power in argument and satire. + +Why is his prose called modern? Point out some of its qualities. + +Defoe.--Read or reread _Robinson Crusoe_ and point out where he +specially shows the skill of the journalist in the presentation of his +facts. Can you select passages that show the justice of the criticism? +How would the interest in the story have been affected, had Defoe, +like the author of _Swiss Family Robinson_, caused the shipwreck to +occur on an island where tropical fruits would have rendered +unnecessary Crusoe's labor to secure food? + +Swift.--Caik's _English Prose Selections_, Vol. III., pp. 391-424, +contains representative selections from Swift's prose. The best of +these are _The Philosophy of Clothes_, from _A Tale of a Tub_ (Craik, +III., 398); _A Digression concerning Critics_, from the same (Craik, +III., 400); _The Emperor of Lilliput_ (Craik, III., 417) and _The King +of Brobdingnag_ (Craik, III., 419), from _Gulliver's Travels_. + +Selections may be found also in Manly, II., 184-198; _Oxford +Treasury_, III., 125-129; _Century_, 299-323. + +Is Swift's a good prose style? Does he use ornament? Can you find a +passage where he strives after effect? In what respects do the +subjects which he chooses and his manner of treating them show the +spirit of the age? Why is _Gulliver's Travels_ so popular? What are +the most important lessons which a young writer may learn from Swift? +In what is he specially lacking? + +Addison and Steele.--From the _Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_ the +student should not fail to read _Spectator No. 112, A Country Sunday_. +He may then read _Spectator No. 2_, by Steele, which sketches the De +Coverley characters, and compare the style and characteristics of the +two authors. The student who has the time at this point should read +all the _De Coverley Papers_ (_Eclectic English Classics_, American +Book Company). + +Good selections from both Addison and Steele may be found in Craik, +III., 469-535; Manly, II., 198-216; _Century_, 324-349. + +In what did Addison and Steele excel? What qualities draw so many +readers to the _De Coverley Papers_? Why may they be called a prelude +to the modern novel? + +Select passages which will serve to bring into sharp contrast the +style and humor of Swift and of Addison. + +Pope.--Read _The Rape of the Lock_ (printed with the _Essay on Man_ +in _Eclectic English Classics_, American Book Company, 20 cents). +Selections from this are given in Ward, III., 73-82. The _Essay on +Man_, Book I. (Ward, III., 85-91), will serve as a specimen of his +didactic verse. The _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_ (Ward, III., 103-105) +will illustrate his satire, and the lines from the _Iliad_ in Ward, +III., 82, will show the characteristics of his translation. + +_The Rape of the Lock_ and full selections are given in Bronson, III., +89-144; _Century_, 350-368; Manly, I., 228-253. + +How does Pope show the spirit of the classical school? What are his +special merits and defects? Does an examination of his poetry convince +you that Leslie Stephen's criticism is right? Select lines from six +great poets of different periods. Place beside these selections some +of Pope's best lines, and see if you have a clearer idea of the +difference between rhetoric and true poetry. + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VI: + +[Footnote 1: _Essay on Criticism_, lines 297, 298.] + +[Footnote 2: For a list of the chief dramatists of the Restoration and +their best work, see p. 626.] + +[Footnote 3: For full titles, see p. 50.] + +[Footnote 4: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER VII: THE SECOND FORTY YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, +1740-1780 + +The Colonial Expansion of England.--The most important movements in +English history during the second forty years of the eighteenth +century are connected with colonial expansion. In 1739 friction +between England and Spain over colonial trade forced Robert Walpole, +the prime minister, into a war which was not successfully prosecuted, +and which compelled him to resign in 1742. The humorous statement that +he "abdicated," contains a large element of truth, for he had been a +much more important ruler than the king. The contest with Spain was +merged in the unprofitable war of the Austrian Succession (1740-1778), +in which England participated. + +The successors of Walpole were weak and inefficient; but in 1757 +William Pitt, the Elder (1708-1778), although merely secretary of +state, obtained the ascendancy in the government. Walpole had tried in +vain to bribe Pitt, who was in politics the counterpart of Wesley in +religious life. Pitt appealed to the patriotism and to the sense of +honor of his countrymen, and his appeal was heard. His enthusiasm and +integrity, coupled with good judgment of men, enabled him to lead +England to become the foremost power of the world. + +France had managed her colonial affairs in America and in India so +well that it seemed as if she might in both places displace England. +Pitt, however, selected good leaders and planned a comprehensive +method of warfare against France, both in Europe and in the colonies. +Between 1750 and 1760 Clive was making Great Britain mistress of the +vast empire of India. The French and Indian War (1754-1760) in America +resulted in favor of England. In 1759 Wolfe shattered the power of +France in Canada, which has since remained an English colony. England +was expanding to the eastward and the westward and taking her +literature with her. As Wolfe advanced on Quebec, he was reading +Gray's _Elegy_. + +At the beginning of this century England owned one half of the island +of Great Britain and a few colonial settlements. Not until 1707 were +England and Scotland united. In 1763 England had vast dominions in +North America and India. She had become the greatest colonial power in +the world. + +The New Religious Influence.--England could not have taken such a +commanding position unless the patriotism and morals of her citizens +had improved since the beginning of the century. The church had become +too lukewarm and respectable to bring in the masses, who saw more to +attract them in taverns and places of public amusement. + +When religious influence was at the lowest ebb, two eloquent +preachers, John Wesley and George Whitefield, started a movement which +is still gathering force. Wesley did not ask his audience to listen to +a sermon on the favorite bloodless abstractions of the +eighteenth-century pulpit, such as Charity, Faith, Duty, Holiness, +--abstractions which never moved a human being an inch heavenward. His +sermons were emotional. They dealt largely with the emotion of +love,--God's love for man. + +He did not ask his listeners to engage in intellectual disquisitions +about the aspects of infinity: He did not preach free-will metaphysics +or trouble his hearers with a satisfactory philosophical account of +the origin of evil. He spoke about things that reached not only the +understanding but also the feelings of plain men. + +About the same time, Whitefield was preaching to the miners near +Bristol. As he eloquently told them the story of salvation he brought +tears to the eyes of these rude men and made many resolve to lead +better lives. + +This religious awakening may have been accompanied with too much +appeal to the feelings and unhealthy emotional excitement; but some +vigorous movement was absolutely necessary to quicken the spiritual +life of a decadent age. + +The American Revolution.--The second forty years of the eighteenth +century witnessed another movement of great importance to the +world,--the revolt of the American colonies (1775). When George III. +(1760-1820) came to the throne, he determined to be the real ruler of +his kingdom,--to combine in himself the offices of king, prime +minister, and cabinet. He undertook to coerce public opinion at home +and abroad. He repeatedly offended the American colonies by attempts +to tax them and to regulate their trade. They rebelled in 1775 and +signed their Declaration of Independence in 1776. Under the leadership +of George Washington, and with the help of France, they achieved their +independence. The battle of Yorktown (1781), won by Washington and the +French navy, was the last important battle of the American Revolution. +In spite of her great loss, England still retained Canada and her West +India possessions and remained the first colonial power. + +CHANGE IN LITERARY STANDARDS: ROMANTICISM + +What is Romanticism?--In order to comprehend the dominating spirit +of the next age, it is important to understand the meaning of the +romantic movement. Between 1740 and 1780 certain romantic influences +were at work in opposition to the teaching of the great classical +writer, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was almost the literary dictator of +the age. + +The best short definition of romanticism is that of Victor Hugo, who +calls it "liberalism in literature." This has the merit of covering +all kinds of romantic movements. "Liberalism" here means toleration of +departures from fixed standards, such as the classical couplet and +didactic and satiric subjects. Romanticism is characterized by less +regard for form than for matter, by a return to nature, and by +encouragement of deep emotion. Romanticism says: "Be liberal enough +not to sneer at authors when they discard narrow rules. Welcome a +change and see if variety and feeling will not add more interest to +literature." + +In this period and the far more glorious one that followed, +romanticism made its influence felt for the better in four different +ways. An understanding of each of these will make us more intelligent +critics. + +In the first place, the romantic spirit is opposed to the prosaic. The +romantic yearns for the light that never was on sea or land and longs +to attain the unfulfilled ambitions of the soul, even when these in +full measure are not possible. Sometimes these ambitions are so +unrelated to the possible that the romantic has in certain usage +become synonymous with the impractical or the absurd; but this is not +its meaning in literature. The romantic may not always be "of +imagination all compact," but it has a tendency in that direction. To +the romanticists a reality of the imagination is as satisfying as a +reality of the prosaic reason; hence, unlike the classicists, the +romanticists can enjoy _The Tempest_ and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. +The imagination is the only power that can grasp the unseen. Any +movements that stimulate imaginative activity must give the individual +more points of contact with the part of the world that does not +obtrude itself on the physical senses, and especially with many facts +of existence that cold intellectual activity can never comprehend. +Hence, romanticism leads to greater breadth of view. + +In the second place, the romantic is the opposite of the hackneyed. +Hence, too much repetition may take away a necessary quality from what +was once considered romantic. The epithets "ivory" and "raven," when +applied to "brow" and to "tresses," respectively, were at first +romantic; but much repetition has deprived them of this quality. If an +age is to be considered romantic, it must look at things from a point +of view somewhat different from that of the age immediately preceding. +This change may be either in the character of the thought or in the +manner of its presentation, or in both. An example of the formal +element of change which appeared, consists in the substitution of +blank verse and the Spenserian stanza for the classical couplets of +the French school. In the next age, we shall find that the subject +matter is no longer chiefly of the satiric or the didactic type. + +In the third place, the highest type of romanticism encourages each +author to express himself in an individual way, to color the world +according to his own moods. This individual element often appears in +the ideals that we fashion and in our characteristic conceptions of +the spiritual significance of the world and its deepest realities. Two +writers of this period by investing nature with a spirit of melancholy +illustrate one of the many ways in which romantic thought seeks +individuality of expression. + +In the fourth place, the romantic movement encouraged the portrayal of +broader experiences and especially the expression of deeper feeling. +The mid-eighteenth century novels of Richardson and Fielding were +strong agencies in this direction; and they were followed in the next +age by the even more intense appeal of the great romantic poets to +those thoughts and feelings that lie too deep for tears. + +The classic school shunned as vulgar all exhibitions of enthusiasm and +strong emotion, such as the love of Juliet and the jealousy of +Othello; but the romanticists, knowing that the feelings had as much +value and power as the intellect, encouraged their expression. +Sometimes this tendency was carried to an extreme, both in fiction and +in the sentimental drama; but it was necessary for romanticism to call +attention to the fact that great literature cannot neglect the world +of feeling. + +Early Romantic Influences.--The reader and imitators of the great +romantic poet, Edmund Spenser, were growing in number. Previous to +1750, there was only one eighteenth-century edition of Spenser's works +published in England. In 1758 three editions of the _Faerie Queene_ +appeared and charmed readers with the romantic enchantment of bowers, +streams, dark forests, and adventures of heroic knights. + +James Thomson (1700-1748), a Scotch poet, used the characteristic +Spenserian form and subject matter for his romantic poem, _The Castle +of Indolence_ (1748). He placed his castle in "Spenser land":-- + + "A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, + Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; + And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, + Forever flushing round a summer sky." + +The influence of Shakespeare increased. In 1741 the great actor David +Garrick captivated London by his presentation of Shakespeare's plays. + +Milton's poetry, especially his _Il Penseroso_, with its individual +expression of melancholy, its studious spirit, "commercing with the +skies and bringing all Heaven before the eyes," left a strong impress +on the romantic spirit of the age. The subject matter of his _Paradise +Lost_ satisfied the romantic requirement for strangeness and strong +feeling. In the form of his verse, James Thomson shows the influence +of Milton as well as of Spencer. Thomson's greatest achievement is +_The Seasons_ (1730), a romantic poem, written in Miltonic blank +verse. He takes us where-- + + "The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves + Put forth their buds." + +He was one of the earliest poets to place Nature in the foreground, to +make her the chief actor. He reverses what had been the usual poetic +attitude and makes his lovers, shepherds, and harvesters serve largely +as a background for the reflection of her moods instead of their own. +The spring shower, the gusts sweeping over fields of corn, the sky +saddened with the gathering storm of snow, are the very fabric of his +verse. Unlike Wordsworth, Thomson had not sufficient genius to invest +Nature with an intelligent, loving, companionable soul; but his +pictures of her were sufficiently novel and attractive to cause such a +classicist and lover of the town as Dr. Samuel Johnson to say:-- + + "The reader of _The Seasons_ wonders that he never saw before what + Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson + impresses." + +Ossian and "The Castle of Otranto."--Two contemporary works proved a +romantic influence out of all proportion to the worth of their subject +matter. + +Between 1760 and 1764 James Macpherson, a Highland schoolmaster, +published a series of poems, which he claimed to have translated from +an old manuscript, the work of Ossian, a Gaelic poet of the third +century. This so-called translation in prose may have been forged +either in whole or in part; but the weirdness, strange imagery, +melancholy, and "other-world talk of ghosts riding on the tempest at +nightfall," had a pronounced effect on romantic literature. + +[Illustration: HORACE WALPOLE.] + +_The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Romance_ (1765) by Horace Walpole +(1717-1797) tells a story of a Gothic castle where mysterious +labyrinths and trap doors lead to the strangest adventures. The term +"Gothic" had been contemptuously applied to whatever was medieval or +out of date, whether in architecture, literature, or any form of art. +The unusual improbabilities of this Gothic romance were welcomed by +readers weary of commonplace works where nothing ever happens. The +influence of _The Castle of Otranto_ was even felt across the +Atlantic, by Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810), the early American +novelist. Some less pronounced traces of such influence are +discernible also in the work of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel +Hawthorne. + +Mrs. Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823) was a successor of Walpole in the +field of Gothic romance. Her stories, _The Romance of the Forest_ and +_The Mysteries of Udolpho_, have their castle and their thrilling, +unnatural episodes. Lack of portrayal of character and excess of +supernatural incident were causing fiction to suffer severe +deterioration. + +Percy's Reliques and Translation of Mallet's Northern +Antiquities.--In 1765 Thomas Percy (1729-1811) published _The +Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, an epoch-making work in the +history of the romantic movement. The _Reliques_ is a collection of +old English ballads and songs, many of which have a romantic story to +tell. Scott drew inspiration from them, and Wordsworth acknowledged +his indebtedness to their influence. So important was this collection +that it has been called "the Bible of the Romantic Reformation." + +In 1770 appeared Percy's translation of Mallet's _Northern +Antiquities_. For the first time the English world was given an easily +accessible volume which disclosed the Norse mythology in all its +strength and weirdness. As classical mythology had become hackneyed, +poets like Gray rejoiced that there was a new fountain to which they +could turn. Thor and his invincible hammer, the Frost Giants, Bifrost +or the Rainbow Bridge, Odin, the Valkyries, Valhal, the sad story of +Baldur, and the Twilight of the Gods, have appealed strongly to a race +which takes pride in its own mythology, to a race which today loves to +hear Wagner's translation of these myths into the music of _Die +Walküre, Siegfried_, and _Götterdämmerung_. + +Thomas Chatterton, 1772-1770.--This Bristol boy was early in his +teens impressed with Percy's _Reliques_ and with the fact that +Macpherson's claim to having discovered _Ossian_ in old manuscripts +had made him famous. Chatterton spent much time in the interesting old +church of St. + +Mary Redcliffe, of which his ancestors had been sextons for several +generations. He studied the manuscripts in an old chest and began to +write a series of poems, which he claimed to have discovered among the +parchments left by Thomas Rowley, a fifteenth-century monk. + +Chatterton was unsuccessful in finding a publisher, and he determined +to go to London, where he thought that, like other authors, he could +live by his pen. In April, 1770, at the age of seventeen, he left +Bristol for London, where he took poison in August of the same year to +escape a slower death by starvation. + +His romantic poetry and pathetic end appealed to all the great poets. +Wordsworth spoke of him as "the marvelous boy"; Coleridge called him +"young-eyed Poesy"; Shelley honored him in _Adonais_; and Keats +inscribed _Endymion_ to his memory. Traces of his influence may be +found in Coleridge and Keats. + +The greatest charm of Chatterton's verse appears in unusual epithets +and unexpected poetic turns, such, for instance, as may be noted in +these lines from his best "Rowley" poem, _Aella, a Tragycal +Enterlude_:-- + + "Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note; + Quick in dance as thought can be." + + "Hark! the raven flaps his wing + In the briar'd dell below; + Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing, + To the night-mares as they go." + +While Chatterton did not leave enough verse of surpassing merit to +rank him as a great poet, his work nevertheless entitles him to be +chosen from among all his boyish peers to receive the laurel wreath +for song. + +The Literature of Melancholy.--The choice of subjects in which the +emotion of melancholy was given full sway shows one direction taken by +the romantic movement. Here, the influence of Milton's _Il Penseroso_ +can often be traced. The exquisite _Ode to Evening_, by William +Collins (1721-1759), shows the love for nature's solitudes where this +emotion may be nursed. Lines like these:-- + + "...be mine the hut, + That, from the mountain's side, + Views wilds and swelling floods, + And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires; + And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all + Thy dewy fingers draw + The gradual dusky veil," + +caused Swinburne to say: "Corot on canvas might have signed his _Ode +to Evening_." + +[Illustration: THOMAS GRAY.] + +The high-water mark of the poetry of melancholy of this period was +reached in Thomas Gray's (1716-1771) _Elegy Written in a Country +Churchyard_ (1751). The poet with great art selected those natural +phenomena which cast additional gloom upon the scene. We may notice in +the very first stanza that the images were chosen with this end in +view:-- + + "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, + The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, + The plowman homeward plods his weary way, + And leaves the world to darkness and to me" + +Then we listen to the droning flight of the beetle, to the drowsy +tinklings from a distant fold, to the moping owl in an ivy-mantled +tower. Each natural object, either directly or by contrast, reflects +the mind of man. Nature serves as a background for the display of +emotion. + +Gosse says in his _Life of Gray_: "The _Elegy_ has exercised an +influence on all the poetry of Europe, from Denmark to Italy, from +France to Russia. With the exception of certain works of Byron and +Shakespeare, no English poem has been so widely admired and imitated +abroad." + +[Illustration: STOKE POGES CHURCHYARD (SCENE OF GRAY'S ELEGY).] + +The Conflict between Romanticism and Classicism.--The influences of +this period were not entirely in the direction of romanticism. Samuel +Johnson, the literary dictator of the age, was unsparing in his +condemnation of the movement. The weight of his opinion kept many +romantic tendencies in check. Even authors like Gray were afraid to +adopt the new creed in its entirety. In one stanza of his _Hymn to +Adversity_ we find four capitalized abstractions, after the manner of +the classical school: Folly, Noise, Laughter, Prosperity; and the +following two lay figures, little better than abstractions:-- + + "The summer Friend, the flattering Foe." + +These abstractions have little warmth or human interest. After Gray +had studied the Norse mythology, we find him using such strong +expressions as "iron-sleet of arrowy shower." Collins's ode on _The +Passions_ contains seventeen personified abstractions, from "pale +Melancholy" to "brown Exercise." + +The conflict between these two schools continues; and many people +still think that any poetry which shows polished regularity must be +excellent. To prove this statement, we have only to turn to the +magazines and glance at the current poetry, which often consists of +words rather artificially strung together without the soul of feeling +or of thought. + +THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN NOVEL + +The Growth of Prose Fiction.--Authentic history does not take us +back to the time when human beings were not solaced by tales. The +_Bible_ contains stories of marked interest. _Beowulf_, the medieval +romances, the _Canterbury Tales_, and the ballads relate stories in +verse. + +For a long time the knight and his adventures held the place of honor +in fiction; but the time came when improbable or impossible +achievements began to pall. The knight who meets with all kinds of +adventures and rescues everybody, is admirably burlesqued in _Don +Quixote_ by the Spanish author Cervantes, which appeared at the +beginning of the seventeenth century. This world-famous romance shows +by its ridicule that the taste for the impossible adventures of +chivalry was beginning to pall. The following title to one of the +chapters of _Don Quixote_ is sufficiently suggestive: "Chapter +LVIII.--Which tells how Adventures came crowding on Don Quixote in +Such Numbers that they gave him No Breathing Time." + +Much prose fiction was written during the Elizabethan Age. We have +seen that Lyly's _Euphues_ and Sidney's _Arcadia_ contain the germs of +romance. Two of the novelists of the sixteenth century, Robert Greene +(1560?-1592) and Thomas Lodge (1558?-1625), helped to give to +Shakespeare the plots of two of his plays. Greene's novel _Pandosto_ +suggested the plot of _The Winter's Tale_, and Lodge's _Rosalind_ was +the immediate source of the plot of _As You Like It_. + +Although Greene died in want at the age of thirty-two, he was the most +prolific of the Elizabethan novelists. His most popular stories deal +with the passion of love as well as with adventure. He was also the +pioneer of those realistic novelists who go among the slums to study +life at first hand. Greene made a careful study of the sharpers and +rascals of London and published his observations in a series of +realistic pamphlets. + +[Illustration: A BLIND BEGGAR ROBBED OF HIS DRINK. _From a British +Museum MS._] + +Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) was the one who introduced into England the +picaresque novel in _The Unfortunate Traveller, or the Life of Jacke +Wilton_ (1594). The picaresque novel (Spanish, _picaro_, a rogue) is a +story of adventure in which rascally tricks play a prominent part. +This type of fiction came from Spain and attained great popularity in +England. Jacke Wilton is page to a noble house. Many of his sharp +tricks were doubtless drawn from real life. Nashe is a worthy +predecessor of Defoe in narrating adventures that seem to be founded +on actual life. + +In spite of an increasing tendency to picture the life of the time, +Elizabethan prose fiction did not entirely discard the matter and +style of the medieval romances. All types of prose fiction were then +too prone to deal with exceptional characters or unusual events. Even +realists like Greene did not present typical Elizabethan life. The +greatest realist in the prose fiction of the Elizabethan Age was +Thomas Deloney (1543?-1600), who chose his materials from the everyday +life of common people. He had been a traveling artisan, and he knew +how to paint "the life and love of the Elizabethan workshop." He wrote +_The Gentle Craft_, a collection of tales about shoemakers, and _Jack +of Newberry_, a story of a weaver. + +The seventeenth century produced _The Pilgrim's Progress_, a powerful +allegorical story of the journey of a soul toward the New Jerusalem. +Mrs. Aphra Behn (1640-1689), dramatist and novelist, shows the faults +of the Restoration drama in her short tales, which helped to prepare +the way for the novelists of the next century. Her best story is +_Oroonoko_ (1658), a tale of an African slave, which has been called +"the first humanitarian novel in English," and a predecessor of _Uncle +Tom's Cabin_. + +Fiction in the First Part of the Eighteenth Century.--Defoe's +_Robinson Crusoe_ shows a great advance over preceding fiction. In the +hands of Defoe, fiction became as natural as fact. Leslie Stephen +rightly calls his stories "simple history minus the facts." Swift's +_Gulliver's Travels_ (1726) is artfully planned to make its +impossibilities seem like facts. _Robinson Crusoe_ took another +forward step in showing how circumstances and environment react on +character and develop the power to grapple with difficulties and +overcome them. Unlike the majority of modern novels, Defoe's +masterpiece does not contain a love story. + +The essay of life and manners at the beginning of the eighteenth +century presents us at once with various pigments necessary for the +palette of the novelist. Students on turning to the second number of +_The Spectator_ will find sketches of six different types of +character, which are worthy to be framed and hung in a permanent +gallery of English fiction. The portrait of Sir Roger de Coverley may +even claim one of the places of honor on the walls. + +Distinction between the Romance and the Modern Novel.--The romances +and tales of adventure which had been so long in vogue differ widely +from the modern novel. Many of them pay but little attention to +probability; but those which do not offend in this respect generally +rely on a succession of stirring incidents to secure attention. Novels +showing the analytic skill of Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_, or the +development of character in George Eliot's _Silas Marner_ would have +been little read in competition with stirring tales of adventure, if +such novels had appeared before a taste for them had been developed by +habits of trained observation and thought. + +We may broadly differentiate the romance from the modern novel by +saying that the romance deals primarily with incident and adventure +for their own sake, while the novel concerns itself with these only in +so far as they are necessary for a faithful picture of life or for +showing the development of character. + +Again, the novel gave a much more prominent position to that important +class of human beings who do the most of the world's work,--a type +that the romance had been inclined to neglect. + +[Illustration: SAMUEL RICHARDSON. _From an original drawing_.] + +Samuel Richardson, the First Modern English Novelist.--Samuel +Richardson (1689-1761) was born in Derbyshire. When he was only +thirteen years old some of the young women of the neighborhood +unconsciously began to train him for a novelist by employing him to +conduct their love correspondence. This training partly accounts for +the fact that every one of his novels is merely a collection of +letters, written by the chief characters to each other and to their +friends, to narrate the progress of events. + +At the age of fifteen Richardson went to London and learned the +printer's trade, which he followed for the rest of his life. When he +was about fifty years old, some publishers asked him to prepare a +letter writer which would be useful to country people and to others +who could not express themselves with a pen. The idea occurred to him +of making these letters tell a connected story. The result was the +first modern novel, _Pamela_, published in four volumes in 1740. This +was followed by _Clarissa Harlowe_, in seven volumes, in 1747-48, and +this by _Sir Charles Grandison_, in seven volumes, in 1753. + +The affairs in the lives of the leading characters are so minutely +dissected, the plot is evolved so slowly and in a way so unlike the +astonishing bounds of the old romance, that one is tempted to say that +Richardson's novels progress mere slowly than events in life. One +secret of his success depends on the fact that we feel that he is +deeply interested in all his characters. He is as much interested in +the heroine of his masterpiece, _Clarissa Harlowe_, as if she were his +own daughter. He has the remarkable power of so thoroughly identifying +himself with his characters that, after we are introduced to them, we +can name them when we hear selections read from their letters. + +The length and slow development of his novels repel modern readers, +but there was so little genuinely interesting matter in the middle of +the eighteenth century that many were sorry his novels were no longer. +The novelty of productions of this type also added to their interest. +His many faults are largely those of his age. He wearies his readers +with his didactic aims. He is narrow and prosy. He poses as a great +moralist, but he teaches the morality of direct utility. + +The drama and the romance had helped to prepare the way for the novel +of everyday domestic life. While this way seemed simple, natural, and +inevitable, Richardson was the first to travel in it. Defoe had +invested fictitious adventure with reality. Richardson transferred the +real human life around him to the pages of fiction. The ascendancy of +French influence was noteworthy for a considerable period after the +Restoration. England could now repay some of her debt. Richardson +exerted powerful influence on the literature of France as well as on +that of other continental nations. + +[Illustration: HENRY FIELDING. _From the original sketch by +Hogarth_.] + +Henry Fielding, 1707-1754.--The greatest novelist of the eighteenth +century, and one of the greatest that England ever produced, was Henry +Fielding, who was born in Sharpham Park, Somersetshire. After +graduating at the University of Leyden, he became a playwright, a +lawyer, a judge of a police court, and, most important of all, a +novelist, or a historian of society, as he preferred to style himself. + +When Richardson's _Pamela_ appeared, Fielding determined to write a +story caricaturing its morality and sentiment, which he considered +hypocritical. Before he had gone very far he discovered where his +abilities lay, and, abandoning his narrow, satiric aims, he wrote +_Joseph Andrews_ (1742), a novel far more interesting than _Pamela_. +_Jonathan Wild the Great_ (1743) tells the story of a rogue who was +finally hanged. In 1749 appeared Fielding's masterpiece, _Tom Jones_, +and in 1751 his last novel, _Amelia_. + +Richardson lacks humor, but Fielding is one of the greatest humorists +of the eighteenth century. Fielding is also a master of plot. From all +literature, Coleridge selected, for perfection of plot, _The +Alchemist, Oedipus Tyrannus_, and _Tom Jones_. + +Fielding's novels often lack refinement, but they palpitate with life. +His pages present a wonderful variety of characters, chosen from +almost all walks of life. He could draw admirable portraits of women. +Thackeray says of Amelia, the heroine of the novel that bears her +name:-- + + "To have invented that character, is not only a triumph of art, but + it is a good action. They say it was in his own home that Fielding + knew her and loved her, and from his own wife that he drew the most + charming character in English fiction... I admire the author of + _Amelia_, and thank the kind master who introduced me to that sweet + and delightful companion and friend. _Amelia_, perhaps, is not a + better story than _Tom Jones_, but it has the better ethics; the + prodigal repents at least before forgiveness,--whereas that odious + broad-backed Mr. Jones carries off his beauty with scarce an + interval of remorse for his manifold errors and shortcomings... I + am angry with Jones. Too much of the plum cake and rewards of life + fall to that boisterous, swaggering young scapegrace."[1] + +The "prodigal" to whom Thackeray refers is Captain Booth, the husband +of Amelia, and "Mr. Jones" is the hero of _Tom Jones_. Fielding's +wife, under the name of Sophia Western, is also the heroine of _Tom +Jones_. It is probable that in the characters of Captain Booth and Tom +Jones, Fielding drew a partial portrait of himself. He seems, however, +to have changed in middle life, for his biographer, Austin Dobson, +says of him: "He was a loving father and a kind husband; he exerted +his last energies in philanthropy and benevolence; he expended his +last ink in defence of Christianity." + +Fielding shows the eighteenth-century love of satire. He hates that +hypocrisy which tries to conceal itself under a mask of morality. In +the evolution of the plots of his novels, he invariably puts such +characters in positions that tear away their mask. He displays almost +savage pleasure in making them ridiculous. Perhaps the lack of +spirituality of the age finds the most ample expression in his pages; +but Chaucer's Parish Priest and Fielding's Parson Adams are typical of +those persisting moral forces that have bequeathed a heritage of power +to England. + +[Illustration: LAURENCE STERNE.] + +[Illustration: UNCLE TOBY AND CORPORAL TRIM. _From a drawing by B. +Westmacott_.] + +[Illustration: TOBIAS SMOLLETT.] + +Sterne and Smollett.--With Richardson and Fielding it is customary +to associate two other mid-eighteenth century novelists, Lawrence +Sterne (1713-1768) and Tobias Smollett (1721-1771). Between 1759 and +1767 Sterne wrote his first novel, _The Life and Opinions of Tristram +Shandy, Gentleman_, which presents the delightfully comic and +eccentric members of the Shandy family, among whom Uncle Toby is the +masterpiece. In 1768 Sterne gave to the world that compound of +fiction, essays, and sketches of travel known as _A Sentimental +Journey through France and Italy_. The adjective "sentimental" in the +title should be specially noted, for it defines Sterne's attitude +toward everything in life. He is habitually sentimental in treating +not only those things fitted to awaken deep emotion, but also those +trivial incidents which ordinarily cause scarcely a ripple of feeling. +Although he is sometimes a master of pathos, he frequently gives an +exhibition of weak and forced sentimentalism. He more uniformly excels +in subtle humor, which is his next most conspicuous characteristic. + +_Roderick Random_ (1748), _Peregrine Pickle_ (1751), and _The +Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_ (1771) are Smollett's best novels. +They are composed mainly of a succession of stirring or humorous +incidents. In relying for interest more on adventure than on the +drawing of character, he reverts to the picaresque type of story. + +The Relation of Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and +Smollett to Subsequent Fiction.--Although the modern reader +frequently complains that these older novelists often seem heavy, slow +in movement, unrefined, and too ready to draw a moral or preach a +sermon, yet these four men hold an important place in the history of +fiction. With varying degrees of excellence, Richardson, Fielding, and +Sterne all have the rare power of portraying character from within, of +interpreting real life. Some novelists resort to the far easier task +of painting merely external characteristics and mannerisms. Smollett +belongs to the latter class. His effective focusing of external +peculiarities and caricaturing of exceptional individuals has had a +far-reaching influence, which may be traced even in the work of so +great a novelist as Charles Dickens. Fielding, on the other hand, had +great influence of Thackeray, who has recorded in _The English +Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ his admiration for his earlier +fellow-craftsman. + +Although subsequent English fiction has invaded many new fields, +although it has entered the domain of history and of sociology, it is +not too much to say that later novelists have advanced on the general +lines marked out by these four mid-eighteenth century pioneers. We may +even affirm with Gosse that "the type of novel invented in England +about 1740-50 continued for sixty or seventy years to be the only +model for Continental fiction; and criticism has traced in every +French novelist, in particular, the stamp of Richardson, if not of +Sterne, and of Fielding." + +PHILOSOPHICAL, HISTORICAL, AND POLITICAL PROSE + +Philosophy.--Although the majority of eighteenth-century writers +disliked speculative thought and resolutely turned away from it, yet +the age produced some remarkable philosophical works, which are still +discussed, and which have powerfully affected later thought. David +Hume (1711-1776) is the greatest metaphysician of the century. He +took for his starting point the conclusions of a contemporary +philosopher, George Berkeley (1685-1753). + +Berkeley had said that ideas are the only real existing entities, that +matter is merely another term for the ideas in the Mind of the +Infinite and has no existence outside of mind. He maintained that if +every quality should be taken away from matter, no matter would +remain; _e.g._, if color, sweetness, sourness, form, and all other +qualities should be taken away from an apple, there would be no apple. +Now, a quality is a mental representation based on a sensation, and +this quality varies as the sensation varies; in other words, the +object is not a stable immutable thing. It is only a thing as I +perceive it. Berkeley's idealistic position was taken to crush +atheistic materialism. + +Hume attempted to rear on Berkeley's position an impregnable citadel +of skepticism. He accepted Berkeley's conclusion that we know nothing +of matter, and then attempted to show that inferences based on ideas +might be equally illusory. Hume attacked the validity of the reasoning +process itself. He endeavored to show that there is no such thing as +cause and effect in either the mental or the material world. + +Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_ (1739-1740), in which these views +are stated, is one of the world's epoch-making works in philosophy. +Its conclusion startled the great German metaphysician Kant and roused +him to action. The questions thus raised by Hume have never been +answered to the satisfaction of all philosophers. + +Hume's skepticism is the most thoroughgoing that the world has ever +seen; for he attacks the certainty of our knowledge of both mind and +matter. But he dryly remarks that his own doubts disappear when he +leaves his study. He avoids a runaway horse and inquires of a friend +the way to a certain house in Edinburgh, relying as much on the +evidence of his eyes and on the directions of his friend as if these +philosophic doubts had never been raised. + +Historical Prose.--In carefully elaborated and highly finished works +of history, the eighteenth century surpasses its predecessors. _The +History of England_ by David Hume, the philosopher, is the first work +of the kind to add to the history of politics and the affairs of state +an account of the people and their manners. This _History_ is +distinguished for its polished ease and clearness. Unfortunately, the +work is written from a partisan point of view. Hume was a Tory, and +took the side of the Stuarts against the Puritans. He sometimes +misrepresented facts if they did not uphold his views. His _History_ +is consequently read more to-day as a literary classic than as an +authority. + +[Illustration: EDWARD GIBBON. _From the painting by Sir Joshua +Reynolds_.] + +Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) is the greatest historian of the century. +His monumental work, _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman +Empire_, in six volumes, begins with the reign of Trajan, A.D. 98, and +closes with the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople in +1453. Gibbon constructed a "Roman road" through nearly fourteen +centuries of history; and he built it so well that another on the same +plan has not yet been found necessary. E.A. Freeman says: "He remains +the one historian of the eighteenth century whom modern research has +neither set aside nor threatened to set aside." In preparing his +_History_, Gibbon spent fifteen years. Every chapter was the subject +of long-continued study and careful original research. From the +chaotic materials which he found, he constructed a history remarkable +as well for its scholarly precision as for the vastness of the field +covered. + +His sentences follow one another in magnificent procession. One feels +that they are the work of an artist. They are thickly sprinkled with +fine-sounding words derived from the Latin. The 1611 version of the +first four chapters of the _Gospel_ of John averages 96 per cent of +Anglo-Saxon words, and Shakespeare 89 per cent, while Gibbon's average +of 70 per cent is the lowest of any great writer. He has all the +coldness of the classical school, and he shows but little sympathy +with the great human struggles that are described in his pages. He has +been well styled "a skillful anatomical demonstrator of the dead +framework of society." With all its excellences, his work has, +therefore, those faults which are typical of the eighteenth century. + +[Illustration: EDMUND BURKE. _From the painting by Sir Joshua +Reynolds, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Political Prose.--Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was a distinguished +statesman and member of the House of Commons in an important era of +English history,--a time when the question of the independence of the +American colonies was paramount, and when the spirit of revolt against +established forms was in the air. He is the greatest political writer +of the eighteenth century. + +Burke's best productions are _Speech on American Taxation_ (1774) and +_Speech on Conciliation with America_ (1775). His _Reflections on the +Revolution in France_ is also noteworthy. His prose is distinguished +for the following qualities: (1) He is one of the greatest masters of +metaphor and imagery in English prose. Only Carlyle surpasses him in +the use of metaphorical language. (2) Burke's breadth of thought and +wealth of expression enable him to present an idea from many different +points of view, so that if his readers do not comprehend his +exposition from one side, they may from another. He endeavors to +attach what he says to something in the experience of his hearers or +readers; and he remembers that the experience of all is not the same. +(3) It follows that his imagery and figures lay all kinds of knowledge +under contribution. At one time he draws an illustration from +manufacturing; at another, from history; at another, from the butcher +shop. (4) His work displays intense earnestness, love of truth, +strength of logical reasoning, vividness of imagination, and breadth +of view, all of which are necessary qualities in prose that is to mold +the opinions of men. + +It is well to note that Burke's careful study of English literature +contributed largely to his success as a writer. His use of Bible +phraseology and his familiarity with poetry led a critic to say that +any one "neglects the most valuable repository of rhetoric in the +English language, who has not well studied the English Bible... The +cadence of Burke's sentences always reminds us that prose writing is +only to be perfected by a thorough study of the poetry of the +language." + +OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1728-1774 + +[Illustration: OLIVER GOLDSMITH. _From the painting by Sir Joshua +Reynolds, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life and Minor Works.--Oliver Goldsmith was born of English parents +in the little village of Pallas in the center of Ireland. His father, +a poor clergyman, soon moved a short distance to Lissoy, which +furnished some of the suggestions for _The Deserted Village_. + +Goldsmith went as a charity student to Dublin University, where, like +Swift, he graduated at the bottom of his class. Goldsmith tried in +turn to become a clergyman, a teacher, a lawyer, and a doctor, but +failed in all these fields. Then he wandered over the continent of +Europe for a year and accumulated some experiences that he used in +writing _The Traveler_. He returned to London in 1757, and, after an +ineffectual attempt to live by practicing medicine, turned to +literature. In this profession he at first managed to make only a +precarious living, for the most part as a hackwriter, working for +periodicals and filling contracts to compile popular histories of +England, Greece, Rome, and _Animated Nature_. He had so much skill in +knowing what to retain, emphasize, or subordinate, and so much genius +in presenting in an attractive style what he wrote, that his work of +this kind met with a readier sale than his masterpieces. Of the +_History of Animated Nature_, Johnson said: "Goldsmith, sir, will give +us a very fine book on the subject, but if he can tell a horse from a +cow, that I believe may be the extent of his knowledge of natural +history." + +His first literary reputation was gained by a series of letters, +supposed to be written by a Chinaman as a record of his impressions of +England. These letters or essays, like so much of the work of Addison +and Steele, appeared first in a periodical; but they were afterwards +collected under the title, _Citizen of the World_ (1761). The +interesting creation of these essays is Beau Tibbs, a poverty-stricken +man, who derives pleasure from boasting of his frequent association +with the nobility. + +[Illustration: GOLDSMITH GIVES DR. JOHNSON THE MS. OF THE VICAR OF +WAKEFIELD. _From a drawing by B. Westmacott_.] + +It was not until the last ten years of his life that Goldsmith became +famous. He certainly earned enough then to be free from care, had he +but known how to use his money. His improvidence in giving to beggars +and in squandering his earnings on expensive rooms, garments, and +dinners, however, kept him always in debt. + +One evening he gave away his blankets to a woman who told him a +pitiful tale. The cold was so bitter during the night that he had to +open the ticking of his bed and crawl inside. Although this happened +when he was a young man, it was typical of his usual response to +appeals for help. When his landlady had him arrested for failing to +pay his rent, he sent for Johnson to come and extricate him. Johnson +asked him if he had nothing that would discharge the debt, and +Goldsmith handed him the manuscript of _The Vicar of Wakefield_. +Johnson reported his action to Boswell, as follows:-- + + "I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon + return; and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds." + +[Illustration: CANONBURY TOWER, LONDON, WHERE GOLDSMITH WROTE SOME OF +HIS FAMOUS WORK.] + +During his last years, Goldsmith sometimes received as much as £800 in +twelve months; but the more he earned, the deeper he plunged into +debt. When he died, in 1774, at the age of forty-five, he owed £2000. +He was loved because-- + + "...e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side." + +His grave by the Temple Church on Fleet Street, London, is each year +visited by thousands who feel genuine affection for him in spite of +his shortcomings. + +Masterpieces.--His best work consists of two poems, _The Traveler_ +and _The Deserted Village_; a story, _The Vicar of Wakefield_; and a +play,_She Stoops to Conquer_. + +The object of _The Traveler_ (1765), a highly polished moral and +didactic poem, was to show that happiness is independent of climate, +and hence to justify the conclusion:-- + + "Vain, very vain, my weary search to find + That bliss which only centers in the mind." + +_The Deserted Village_ (1770) also has a didactic aim, for which we +care little. Its finest parts, those which impress us most, were +suggested to Goldsmith by his youthful experiences. We naturally +remember the sympathetic portrait of the poet's father, "the village +preacher":-- + + "A man he was to all the country dear + And passing rich with forty pounds a year. + * * * * * + His house was known to all the vagrant train; + He chid their wanderings but relieved their pain." + +The lines relating to the village schoolmaster are almost as well +known as Scripture. Previous to this time, the eighteenth century had +not produced a poem as natural, sincere, and sympathetic in its +descriptions and portraits as _The Deserted Village_. + +_The Vicar of Wakefield_ is a delightful romantic novel, which Andrew +Lang classes among books "to be read once a year." Goldsmith's own +criticism of the story in the _Advertisement_ announcing it has not +yet been surpassed:-- + + "There are an hundred faults in this Thing, and an hundred things + might be said to prove them beauties. But it is needless. A book + may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may he very dull without + a single absurdity. The hero of this piece unites in himself the + three greatest characters upon earth: he is a priest, an husbandman, + and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready to teach and ready + to obey; as simple in affluence, and majestic in adversity." + +[Illustration: DR. PRIMROSE AND HIS FAMILY. _From a drawing by G. +Patrick Nelson._] + +_The Vicar of Wakefield_ has faults of improbability and of plot +construction; in fact, the plot is so poorly constructed that the +novel would have been almost a failure, had other qualities not +insured success. The story lives because Dr. Primrose and his family +show with such genuineness the abiding lovable traits of human +nature,--kindliness, unselfishness, good humor, hope, charity,--the +very spirit of the _Sermon of the Mount_. Goethe rejoiced that he felt +the influence of this story at the critical moment of his mental +development. Goldsmith has added to the world's stock of kindliness, +and he has taught many to avoid what he calls "the fictitious demands +of happiness." + +Goldsmith wrote two plays, both hearty comedies. The less successful, +_The Good-Natured Man_ (acted 1768), brought him in £500. His next +play, _She Stoops to Conquer_, a comedy of manners, is a landmark in +the history of the drama. The taste of the age demanded regular, +vapid, sentimental plays. Here was a comedy that disregarded the +conventions and presented in quick succession a series of hearty +humorous scenes. Even the manager of the theater predicted the failure +of the play; but from the time of its first appearance in 1773, this +comedy of manners has had an unbroken record of triumphs. A century +later it ran one hundred nights in London. Authorities say that it has +never been performed without success, not even by amateurs. Like all +of Goldsmith's best productions, it was based on actual experience. In +his young days a wag directed him to a private house for an inn. +Goldsmith went there and with much flourish gave his orders for +entertainment. The subtitle of the comedy is _The Mistakes of a +Night_; and the play shows the situations which developed when its +hero, Tony Lumpkin, sent two lovers to a pretended inn, which was +really the home of the young ladies to be wooed. + +It is interesting to note that his contemporary, Richard Brinsley +Sheridan (1751-1816), produced, shortly after the great success of +_She Stoops to Conquer_, the only other eighteenth-century comedies +that retain their popularity, _The Rivals_ (1775) and _The School for +Scandal_ (1777), which contributed still further to the overthrow of +the sentimental comedy of the age. + +General Characteristics.--Goldsmith is a romanticist at heart; but +he felt the strong classical influences of Johnson and of the earlier +school. In his poetry, Goldsmith used classical couplets and sometimes +classical subject matter, but the didactic parts of his poems are the +poorest. His greatest successes, such as the pictures of the village +preacher and the schoolmaster in _The Deserted Village_ and of Dr. +Primrose and his family in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, show the warm +human sympathy of the romantic school. + +The qualities for which he is most noted are (1) a sane and saving +altruistic philosophy of life, pervaded with rare humor, and (2) a +style of remarkable ease, grace, and clearness, expressed in copious +and apt language. + +_She Stoops to Conquer_ marks a change in the drama of the time, +because, in Dobson's phrase, it bade "good-bye to sham Sentiment." + + "...this play it appears + Dealt largely in laughter and nothing in tears." + +SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709-1784 + +[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON. _From the painting by Sir Joshua +Reynolds_.] + +[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON'S BIRTHPLACE. _From an old print_.] + +Early Struggles.--Michael Johnson, an intelligent bookseller in +Lichfield, Staffordshire, was in 1709 blessed with a son who was to +occupy a unique position in literature, a position gained not so much +by his writings as by his spoken words and great personality. + +Samuel was prepared for Oxford at various schools and in the paternal +bookstore, where he read widely and voraciously, but without much +system. He said that at the age of eighteen, the year before he +entered Oxford, he knew almost as much as at fifty-three. Poverty kept +him from remaining at Oxford long enough to take a degree. He left the +university, and, for more than a quarter of a century, struggled +doggedly against poverty. When he was twenty-five, he married a widow +of forty-eight. With the money which she brought him, he opened a +private school, but failed. He never had more than eight pupils, one +of whom was the actor, David Garrick. + +In 1737 Johnson went to London and sought employment as a hack writer. +Sometimes he had no money with which to hire a lodging, and was +compelled to walk the streets all night to keep warm. Johnson reached +London in the very darkest days for struggling authors, who were often +subjected to the greatest hardships. They were the objects of general +contempt, to which Pope's _Dunciad_ had largely contributed. + +During this period Johnson did much hack work for the _Gentleman's +Magazine_. He was also the author of two satirical poems, _London_ +(1738) and _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749), which won much praise. + +Later Years.--By the time he had been for ten years in London, his +abilities were sufficiently well known to the leading booksellers for +them to hire him to compile a _Dictionary of the English Language_ for +£1575. He was seven years at this work, finishing it in 1755. Between +1750 and 1760 he wrote the matter for two periodicals, _The Rambler_ +(1750-1752) and _The Idler_ (1758-1760), which contain papers on +manners and morals. He intended to model these papers on the lines of +_The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_, but his essays are for the most part +ponderously dull and uninteresting. + +In 1762, for the first time, he was really an independent man, for +then George III. gave him a life pension of £300 a year. Even as late +as 1759, in order to pay his mother's funeral expenses, Johnson had +been obliged to dash off the romance of _Rasselas_ in a week; but from +the time he received his pension, he had leisure "to cross his legs +and have his talk out" in some of the most distinguished gatherings of +the eighteenth century. During the rest of his life he produced little +besides _Lives of the English Poets_, which is his most important +contribution to literature. In 1784 he died, and was buried in +Westminster Abbey among the poets whose lives he had written. + +A Man of Character.--Any one who will read Macaulay's _Life of +Johnson_[2] may become acquainted with some of Johnson's most striking +peculiarities; but these do not constitute his claims to greatness. He +had qualities that made him great in spite of his peculiarities. He +knocked down a publisher who insulted him, and he would never take +insolence from a superior; but there is no case on record of his +having been unkind to an inferior. Goldsmith said: "Johnson has +nothing of a bear but the skin." When some one manifested surprise +that Johnson should have assisted a worthless character, Goldsmith +promptly replied: "He has now become miserable, and that insures the +protection of Johnson." + +Johnson, coming home late at night, would frequently slip a coin into +the hand of a sleeping street Arab, who, on awakening, was rejoiced to +find provision thus made for his breakfast. He spent the greater part +of his pension on the helpless, several of whom he received into his +own house. + +There have been many broader and more scholarly Englishmen, but there +never walked the streets of London a man who battled more courageously +for what he thought was right. The more we know of him, the more +certain are we to agree with this closing sentence from Macaulay's +_Life of Johnson_: "And it is but just to say that our intimate +acquaintance with what he would himself have called the +anfractuosities of his intellect and of his temper serves only to +strengthen our conviction that he was both a great and a good man." + +A Great Converser and Literary Lawgiver.--By nature Johnson was +fitted to be a talker. He was happiest when he had intelligent +listeners. Accordingly, he and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the artist, +founded the famous Literary Club in 1764. During Johnson's lifetime +this had for members such men as Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, +Charles James Fox, James Boswell, Edward Gibbon, and David Garrick. +Macaulay says: "The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on new books +were speedily known over all London, and were sufficient to sell off a +whole edition in a day, or to condemn the sheets to the service of the +trunk maker and the pastry cook... To predominate over such a society +was not easy; yet even over such a society Johnson predominated." + +He was consulted as an oracle on all kinds of subjects, and his +replies were generally the pith of common sense. So famous had Johnson +become for his conversations that George III. met him on purpose to +hear him talk. A committee from forty of the leading London +booksellers waited on Johnson to ask him to write the _Lives of the +English Poets_. There was then in England no other man with so much +influence in the world of literature. + +Boswell's Life of Johnson.--In 1763 James Boswell (1740-1795), a +Scotchman, met Johnson and devoted much time to copying the words that +fell from the great Doctor's lips and to noting his individual traits. +We must go to Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, the greatest of all +biographies, to read of Johnson as he lived and talked; in short, to +learn those facts which render him far more famous than his written +works. + +[Illustration: JAMES BOSWELL.] + +Leslie Stephen saw: "I would still hope that to many readers Boswell +has been what he has certainly been to some, the first writer who gave +them a love of English literature, and the most charming of all +companions long after the bloom of novelty has departed. I subscribe +most cheerfully to Mr. Lewes's statement that he estimates his +acquaintances according to their estimate of Boswell." + +A Champion of the Classical School.--Johnson was a powerful adherent +of classicism, and he did much to defer the coming of romanticism. His +poetry is formal, and it shows the classical fondness for satire and +aversion to sentiment. The first two lines of his greatest poem, _The +Vanity of Human Wishes_-- + + "Let observation with extensive view + Survey mankind from China to Peru," + +show the classical couplet, which he employs, and they afford an +example of poetry produced by a sonorous combination of words. +"Observation," "view," and "survey" are nearly synonymous terms. Such +conscious effort centered on word building subtracts something from +poetic feeling. + +His critical opinions of literature manifest his preference for +classical themes and formal modes of treatment. He says of +Shakespeare: "It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with +an unwieldy sentiment, which he cannot well express ... the equality +of words to things is very often neglected." + +Although there is much sensible, stimulating criticism in Johnson's +_Lives of the Poets_, yet he shows positive repugnance to the pastoral +references--the flocks and shepherds, the oaten flute, the woods and +desert caves--of Milton's _Lycidas_. "Its form," says Johnson, "is +that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting." + +General Characteristics.--While he is best known in literary history +as the great converser whose full length portrait is drawn by Boswell, +Johnson left the marks of his influence on much of the prose written +within nearly a hundred years after his death. On the whole, this +influence has, for the following reasons, been bad. + +[Illustration: CHESHIRE CHEESE INN, FLEET STREET, LONDON.] + +First, he loved a ponderous style in which there was an excess of the +Latin element. He liked to have his statements sound well. He once +said in forcible Saxon: "_The Rehearsal_! has not wit enough to keep +it sweet," but a moment later he translated this into: "It has not +sufficient vitality to preserve it from putrefaction." In his +_Dictionary_ he defined "network" as "anything reticulated or +decussated at equal distances with interstices between the +intersections." Some wits of the day said that he used long words to +make his _Dictionary_ necessary. + +In the second place, Johnson loved formal balance so much that he used +too many antitheses. Many of his balancing clauses are out of place or +add nothing to the sense. The following shows excess of antithesis:-- + + "If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues + longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of + Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses + expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with + frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight." + +As a rule, Johnson's prose is too abstract and general, and it awakens +too few images. This is a characteristic failing of his essays in _The +Rambler_ and _The Idler_. Even in _Rasselas_, his great work of +fiction, he speaks of passing through the fields and seeing the +animals around him; but he does not mention definite trees, flowers, +or animals. Shakespeare's wounded stag or "winking Mary-buds" would +have given a touch of life to the whole scene. + +Johnson's latest and greatest work, _Lives of the English Poets_, is +comparatively free from most of these faults. The sentences are +energetic and full of meaning. Although we may not agree with some of +the criticism, shall find it stimulating and suggestive. Before +Johnson gave these critical essays to the world, he had been doing +little for years except talking in a straightforward manner. His +constant practice in speaking English reacted on his later written +work. Unfortunately this work has been the least imitated. + +SUMMARY + +The second part of the eighteenth century was a time of changing +standards in church, state, and literature. The downfall of Walpole, +the religious revivals of Wesley, the victories of Clive in India and +of Wolfe in Canada, show the progress that England was making at home +and abroad. Even her loss of the American colonies left her the +greatest maritime and colonial power. + +There began to be a revolt against the narrow classical standards in +literature. A longing gradually manifested itself for more freedom of +imagination, such as we find in _Ossian, The Castle of Otranto_, +Percy's _Reliques_, and translations of the Norse mythology. There was +a departure from the hackneyed forms and subjects of the preceding age +and an introduction of more of the individual and ideal element, such +as can be found in Gray's _Elegy_ and Collins's _Ode to Evening_. Dr. +Johnson, however, threw his powerful influence against this romantic +movement, and curbed somewhat such tendencies in Goldsmith, who, +nevertheless, gave fine romantic touches to _The Deserted Village_ and +to much of his other work. This period was one of preparation for the +glorious romantic outburst at the end of the century. + +In prose, the most important achievement of the age was the creation +of the modern novel in works like Richardson's _Pamela_ and _Clarissa +Harlowe_, Fielding's _Tom Jones_, Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_, +Smollett's _Humphrey Clinker_, and Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_. +There were also noted prose works in philosophy and history by Hume +and Gibbon, in politics by Burke, in criticism by Johnson, and in +biography by Boswell. Goldsmith's comedy of manners, _She Stoops to +Conquer_, won a decided victory over the insipid sentimental drama. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +For contemporary English history, consult Gardiner,[3] Green, Walker, +or Cheney. For the social side, see Traill, V. Lecky's _History of the +Eighteenth Century_ is specially full. + +LITERARY + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature_. + +Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, Vol. V. + +Seccombe's _The Age of Johnson_. + +Gosse's _History of English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_. + +Stephen's _English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_. + +Minto's _Manual of English Prose Literature_. + +Symons's _The Romantic Movement in English Poetry_. + +Beers's _English Romanticism_. + +Phelps's _Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement_. + +Nutt's _Ossian and Ossianic Literature_. + +Jusserand's _The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare_. + +Cross's _The Development of the English Novel_. + +Minto's _Defoe_ (E.M.L.) + +Dobson's _Samuel Richardson_. (E.M.L.) + +Dobson's _Henry Fielding_. (E.M.L.) + +Godden's _Henry Fielding, a Memoir_. + +Stephen's _Hours in a Library_ (Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding). + +Thackeray's _English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ (Fielding, +Smollett, Sterne, Goldsmith). + +Gosse's _Life of Gray_. (E.M.L.) + +Huxley's _Life of Hume_. (E.M.L.) + +Morrison's _Life of Gibbon_. (E.M.L.) + +Woodrow Wilson's _Mere Literature_ (Burke). + +Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. + +Stephen's _Life of Johnson_. (E.M.L.) + +Macaulay's _Essay on Croker's Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson_. + +Irving's, Forster's, Dobson's, Black's (E.M.L.), or B. Frankfort +Moore's _Life of Goldsmith_. + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +The Romantic Movement.--In order to note the difference in feeling, +imagery, and ideals, between the romantic and the classic schools, it +will be advisable for the student to make a special comparison of +Dryden's and Pope's satiric and didactic verse with Spenser's _Faerie +Queene_, Milton's _Il Penseroso_, and with some of the work of the +romantic poets in the next period. What is the difference in the +general atmosphere of these poems? See if the influence of _Il +Penseroso_ is noticeable in Collins's _Ode to Evening_ (Ward[4], III., +287; Bronson, III., 220; _Oxford_, 531; Manly, I., 273; _Century_, +386) and in Gray's _Elegy_ (Ward, III., 331; Bronson, III., 238; +_Oxford_, 516; Manly, I., 267; _Century_, 398). + +What element foreign to Dryden and Pope appears in Thomson's _Seasons_ +(Ward, III., 173; Bronson. III., 179; Manly, I., 255; _Century_, +369-372). + +What signs of a struggle between the romantic and the classic are +noticeable in Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_ (Ward, III., 373-379; +Bronson, III., 282; Manly, I., 278; _Century_, 463). Pick out the +three finest passages in the poem, and give the reasons for the +choice. + +Read pp. 173-176 of _Ossian (Canterbury Poets_ series, 40 cents; +Chambers, II.; Manly, II., 275), and show why it appealed to the +spirit of romanticism. + +For a short typical selection from Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_, see +Chambers. II. Why is this called romantic fiction? + +In Percy's _Reliques_, read the first ballad, that of _Chevy Chase_, +and explain how the age could turn from Pope to read such rude verse. + +In place of Mallet's _Northern Antiquities_, twentieth-century readers +will prefer books like Guerber's _Myths of Northern Lands_ and Mabie's +_Norse Stories Retold from the Eddas_. + +From Chatterton's _Aella_ read nine stanzas from the song beginning: +"O sing unto my roundelay." His _The Bristowe Tragedy_ may be compared +with Percy's _Reliques_ and with Coleridge's _The Ancient Mariner_. +Selections from Chatterton are given in Bronson, III., Ward, III., +_Oxford_, Manly, I., and _Century_. + +The Novel.--Those who have the time to study the beginnings of the +novel will be interested in reading, _Guy, Earl of Warwick_ (Morley's +_Early Prose Romances_) or _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Retold in +Modern Prose, with Introduction and Notes_, by Jessie L. Weston +(London: David Nutt, two shillings). + +Two Elizabethan novels: Lodge's _Rosalynde_ (the original of +Shakespeare's _As You Like It_) and Greene's _Pandosto_ (the original +of _The Winter's Tale_) are published in _The Shakespeare Classics_, +edited by Gollancz (Duffield & Company, New York, $1 each). _Pandosto_ +may be found at the end of the Cassell _National Library_ edition of +_The Winter's Tale_ (15 cents). Selections from Lodge's _Rosalynde_ +are given in Craik, I., 544-549. These should be compared with the +parallel parts of _As You Like It_. Selections from Nashe's _The +Unfortunate Traveller_ are given in Craik, I., 573-576, and selections +from Sidney's _Arcadia_ in the same volume, pp. 409-419. Deloney's +_The Gentle Craft_ and _Jack of Newberry_ are given in his _Works_, +edited by Mann (Clarendon Press). + +For the preliminary sketching of characters that might serve as types +in fiction, read _The Spectator_, No. 2, by Steele. Defoe's _Robinson +Crusoe_ will be read entire by almost every one. + +In Craik, IV., read the following selections from these four great +novelists of the middle of the eighteenth century; from Richardson, +pp. 59-66; from Fielding, pp. 118-125; from Sterne, pp. 213-219; and +from Smollett, pp. 261-264 and 269-272. Manly, II., has brief +selections. + +Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_ should be read entire by the student +(_Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway Series_, American Book +Company). Selections may be found in Craik, IV., 365-370. + +Sketch the general lines of development in fiction, from the early +romance to Smollett. What type of fiction did _Don Quixote_ ridicule? +Compare Greene's _Pandosto_ with Shakespeare's _Winter's Tale_, and +Lodge's _Rosalynde_ with _As You Like It_. In what relation do Steele, +Addison, and Defoe stand to the novel? Why is the modern novel said to +begin with Richardson? + +Philosophy.--Two selections from Berkeley in Craik, IV., 34-39, give +some of that philosopher's subtle metaphysics. The same volume, pp. +189-195, gives a selection from Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_. Try +stating in your own words the substance of these selections. + +Gibbon.--Read Aurelian's campaign against Zenobia, which constitutes +the last third of Chap. XI. of the first volume of _The Decline and +Fall of the Roman Empire_. Other selections may be found in Craik, +IV., 460-472; _Century_, 453-462. + +What is the special merit of Gibbon's work? What period does he cover? +Compare his style, either in description or in narration, with +Bunyan's. + +Burke.--Let the student who has not the time to read all the speech +on _Conciliation with America (Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway +Series_, American Book Company, 20 cents) read the selection in Craik, +IV., 379-385, and also the selection referring to the decline of +chivalry, from _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (Craik, IV., +402). + +Point out in Burke's writings the four characteristics mentioned on p. +331. Compare his style with Bacon's, Swift's, Addison's, and Gibbon's. + +Goldsmith.--Read his three masterpieces: _The Deserted Village, The +Vicar of Wakefield (Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway Series_, +American Book Company), _She Stoops to Conquer_ (Cassell's _National +Library_; _Everyman's Library_). + +Select passages that show (a) altruistic philosophy of life, (b) +humor, (c) special graces of style. What change did _She Stoops to +Conquer_ bring to the stage? What qualities keep the play alive? + +Johnson.--Representative selections are given in Craik, IV., +141-185. Those from _Lives of the English Poets_ (Craik, IV., 175-182; +_Century_, 405-419) will best repay study. Let the student who has the +time read Johnson's _Dryden_ entire. As much as possible of Boswell's +_Life of Johnson_ should be read (Craik, IV., 482-495; Manly, II., +277-292). + +Compare the style of Johnson with that of Gibbon and Burke. For what +reasons does Johnson hold a high position in literature? What special +excellences or defects do you note in his _Lives of the English +Poets_? Why is Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ a great work? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VII: + +[Footnote 1: _The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_.] + +[Footnote 2: To be found in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, or in +Macaulay's collected _Essays_.] + +[Footnote 3: For full titles, see p. 50.] + +[Footnote 4: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER VIII: THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM, 1780-1837 + +History of the Period.--Much of the English history of this period +was affected directly or indirectly by the French Revolution (1789). +The object of this movement was to free men from oppression by the +aristocracy and to restore to them their natural rights. The new +watchwords were "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality." The professed +principles of the French revolutionists were in many respects similar +to those embodied in the American _Declaration of Independence_. + +At first the movement was applauded by the liberal-minded Englishmen; +but the confiscation of property, executions, and ensuing reign of +terror soon made England recoil from this Revolution. When France +executed her king and declared her intention of using force to make +republics out of European powers, England sent the French minister +home, and war immediately resulted. With only a short intermission, +this lasted from 1793 until 1815, the contest caused by the French +Revolution having become merged in the Napoleonic war. The battle of +Waterloo (1815) ended the struggle with the defeat of Napoleon by the +English general, Wellington. + +The War of 1812 with the United States was for England only an +incident of the war with France. England had become so powerful on the +sea, as a result of the victories of Nelson, that she not only forbade +vessels of a neutral power to trade with France, but she actually +searched American vessels and sometimes removed their seamen, claiming +that they were British deserters. The Americans won astonishing naval +victories; but the war was concluded without any very definite +decision on the points involved. + +The last part of the eighteenth century saw the invention of spinning +and weaving machines, the introduction of steam engines to furnish +power, the wider use of coal, the substitution of the factory system +for the home production of cloth, and the impairment of the home by +the employment of women and children for unrestricted hours in the +factories. + +The long reign of George III., interrupted by periods of insanity, +ended in 1820. The next two kings were his sons, George IV. +(1820-1830) and William IV. (1830-1837). During these two reigns the +spirit of reform was in the air. The most important reforms were (1) +the revision of the criminal laws, which had prescribed death for some +two hundred offenses, including stealing as much as five shillings; +(2) the removal of political disabilities from Catholics, so that for +the first time since 1673 they could hold municipal office and sit in +Parliament; (3) the Reform Bill of 1832, which (_a_) extended the +franchise to the well-to-do middle classes but not to those dependent +on day labor, (_b_) gave a fairer apportionment of representatives in +Parliament and abolished the so-called "rotten boroughs," _i.e._ those +districts which with few or no inhabitants had been sending members to +Parliament, while the large manufacturing cities in the north were +without representatives; (4) the final bill in 1833 for the abolition +of slavery; (5) child labor laws, which ordered the textile factories +to cease employing children under nine years of age, prescribed a +legal working day of eight hours for children between nine and +thirteen, and of twelve hours for those between thirteen and eighteen; +(6) the improvement of the poor laws. + +The increased interest in human rights and welfare is the most +important characteristic of this entire period, but most especially of +the reigns of George IV. and William IV. Sir Robert Peel, the elder, +although an employer of nearly a thousand children, felt the spirit of +the time enough to call the attention of Parliament to the abuses of +child labor. As we shall see, this new spirit exerted a strong +influence on literature. + +Influence of the New Spirit on Poetry.--The French Revolution +stirred the young English poets profoundly. They proclaimed the birth +of a new humanity of boundless promise. The possibilities of life +again seemed almost as great as in Elizabethan days. The usually +sober-minded Wordsworth exclaimed:-- + + "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, + But to be young was very heaven!"[1] + +In the age of Pope, the only type of man considered worthy a place in +the best literature was the aristocrat. The ordinary laborer was an +object too contemptible even for satire. Burns placed a halo around +the head of the honest toiler. In 1786 he could find readers for his +_The Cotter's Saturday Night_; and ten years later he proclaimed +thoughts which would have been laughed to scorn early in the +century:-- + + "Is there, for honest poverty, + That hangs his head and a' that? + The coward slave, we pass him by, + We dare be poor for a' that! + * * * * * + The rank is but the guinea stamp; + The man's the gowd[2] for a' that."[3] + +Wordsworth strikes almost the same chord:-- + + "Love had he found in huts where poor men lie."[4] + +The tenderness and sympathy induced by this new interest in human +beings resulted in the annexation to English literature of an almost +unexplored continent,--the continent of childhood. William Blake and +William Wordsworth set the child in the midst of the poetry of this +romantic age. + +More sympathy for animals naturally followed the increased interest in +humanity. The poems of Cowper, Burns, Wordsworth, and Coleridge show +this quickened feeling for a starved bird, a wounded hare, a hart +cruelly slain, or an albatross wantonly shot. The social disorder of +the Revolution might make Wordsworth pause, but he continued with +unabated vigor to teach us-- + + "Never to blend our pleasure or our pride + With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."[5] + +New humanitarian interests affected all the great poets of this age. +Although Keats was cut off while he was making an Aeolian response to +the beauty of the world, yet even he, in his brief life, heard +something of the new message. + +Growth of Appreciation of Nature.--More appreciation of nature +followed the development of broader sympathy, Burns wrote a lyric full +of feeling for a mountain daisy which his plow had turned beneath the +furrow. Wordsworth exclaimed:-- + + "To me the meanest flower that blows can give + Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."[6] + +For more than a century after Milton, the majority of references to +nature were made in general terms and were borrowed from the stock +illustrations of older poets, like Vergil. We find the conventional +lark, nightingale, and turtledove. Nothing new or definite is said of +them. + +Increasing comforts and safety in travel now took more people where +they could see for themselves the beauty of nature. In the new poetry +we consequently find more definiteness. We can hear the whir of the +partridge, the chatter of magpies, the whistle of the quail. Poets +speak of a tree not only in general terms, but they note also the +differences in the shade of the green of the leaves and the +peculiarities of the bark. Previous to this time, poets borrowed from +Theocritus and Vergil piping shepherds reclining in the shade, whom no +Englishman had ever seen. In _Michael_ Wordsworth pictures a genuine +English shepherd. + +The love for mountains and wild nature is of recent growth. One writer +in the seventeenth century considered the Alps as so much rubbish +swept together by the broom of nature to clear the plains of Italy. A +seventeenth century traveler thought the Welsh mountains better than +the Alps because the former would pasture goats. Dr. Johnson asked, +"Who can like the Highlands?" The influence of the romantic movement +developed the love for wild scenery, which is so conspicuous in +Wordsworth and Byron. + +This age surpasses even the Elizabethan in endowing Nature with a +conscious soul, capable of bringing a message of solace and +companionship. The greatest romantic poet of nature thus expresses his +creed:-- + + "...Nature never did betray + The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, + Through all the years of this our life, to lead + From joy to joy."[7] + +The Victory of Romanticism.--We have traced in the preceding age the +beginnings of the romantic movement. Its ascendancy over classical +rules was complete in the period between 1780 and the Victorian age. +The romantic victory brought to literature more imagination, greater +individuality, deeper feeling, a less artificial form of expression, +and an added sense for the appreciation of the beauties of nature and +their spiritual significance. + +Swinburne says that the new poetic school, "usually registered as +Wordsworthian," was "actually founded at midnight by William Blake +(1757-1827) and fortified at sunrise by William Wordsworth." These +lines from Blake's _To the Evening Star_ (1783) may be given to +support this statement:-- + + "Thou fair-haired Angel of the Evening, + * * * * * + Smile on our loves; and while thou drawest the + Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew + On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes + In timely sleep. Let thy West Wind sleep on + The lake." + +We may note in these lines the absence of the classical couplet, the +fact that the end of the lines necessitates no halt in thought, and a +unique sympathetic touch in the lines referring to the flower and the +wind. + +Blake's _Songs of Innocence_ (1789) and _Songs of Experience_ (1793) +show not only the new feeling toward nature, but also a broader +sympathy with children and with all suffering creatures. The chimney +sweeper, the lost child, and even the sick rose are remembered in his +verse. In his poem, _The Schoolboy_, he enters as sympathetically as +Shakespeare into the heart of the boy on his way to school, when he +hears the call of the uncaged birds and the fields. + +These two lines express an oft-recurring idea in Blake's mystical +romantic verse:-- + + "The land of dreams is better far, + Above the light of the morning star." + +The volume of _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798), the joint work of Wordsworth +and Coleridge, marks the complete victory of the romantic movement. + +The Position of Prose.--The eighteenth century, until near its end, +was, broadly speaking, an age of prose. In excellence and variety the +prose surpassed the poetry; but in this age (1780-1837) their position +was reversed and poetry regained almost an Elizabethan ascendancy. +Much good prose was written, but it ranks decidedly below the +enchanting romantic poetry. + +Prose writers were laying the foundations for the new science of +political economy and endeavoring to ascertain how the condition of +the masses could be improved. While investigating this subject, +Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), an Episcopal clergyman, announced +his famous proposition, since known as the Malthusian theorem, that +population tends to increase faster than the means of subsistence. +Political economists and philosophers like Adam Smith (1723-1790), +professor in the University of Glasgow, agreed on the "let-alone" +doctrine of government. They held that individuals could succeed best +when least interfered with by government, that a government could not +set aside natural law, but could only impede it and cause harm, as for +instance, in framing laws to tempt capital into forms of industry less +productive than others and away from the employment that it would +naturally seek. Many did not even believe in legislation affecting the +hours of labor or the work of children. This "let-alone" theory was +widely held until the close of the nineteenth century. + +In moral philosophy, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), lawyer and +philosopher, laid down the principle that happiness is the prime +object of existence, and that the basis of legislation should be the +greatest happiness to the greatest number, instead of to the +privileged few. He measured the morality of actions by their +efficiency in producing this happiness, and he said that pushpin is as +good as poetry, if it gives as much pleasure. He was followed by +James Mill (1773-1836), who maintained that the morality of actions +is measured by their utility. The fault with many of the prevalent +theories of government and morals lay in their narrow standards of +immediate utility, their failure to measure remote spiritual effects. + +[Illustration: ROBERT SOUTHEY.] + +The taste of the age encouraged poetry. Scott, although a natural born +writer of prose romance, made his early reputation by such poems as +_Marmion_ and _The Lady of the Lake_. Robert Southey (1774-1843) +usually classed with Wordsworth and Coleridge as one of the three +so-called Lake Poets, wrote much better prose than poetry. His prose +_Life of Nelson_ outranks the poetry in his _Curse of Kehama_. It is +probable that, had he lived in an age of prose ascendancy, he would +have written little poetry, for he distinctly says that the desire of +making money "has already led me to write sometimes in poetry what +would perhaps otherwise have been better written in prose." This +statement shows in a striking way the spirit of those times. If +Coleridge had not written such good poetry, his excellent critical +prose would probably be more read to-day; but he doubtless continues +to have a thousand readers for _The Ancient Mariner_ to one for his +prose. + +Among the prose writers of this age, the fiction of Scott and Jane +Austen seems destined to the longest lease of life and the widest +circle of readers. De Quincey's work, especially his artistic +presentation of his thrilling dreams, has many admirers. + +[Illustration: CHARLES LAMB. _From a drawing by Maclise_.] + +The _Essays of Elia_ of Charles Lamb (1775-1834) still charms many +readers. For over thirty years he was by day a clerk in the India +House and by night a student of the Elizabethan drama and a writer of +periodical essays, suggestive of the work of Addison and Steele. +Lamb's pervasive humor in discussing trivial subjects makes him very +delightful reading. His well-known _Essays of Elia_ first appeared in +the _London Magazine_ between 1820 and 1833. The peculiar flavor of +his style and humor is shown in his _A Dissertation upon Roast-Pig_, +as one of the most popular of these _Essays_ is called. Lamb relates +how a Chinese boy, Bo-bo, having accidentally set his house an fire +and roasted a litter of pigs, happened to acquire a liking for roast +pig when he sucked his fingers to cool them after touching a crackling +pig. It was considered a crime to eat meat that was not raw; but the +jury fortunately had their fingers burned in the same way and tried +Bo-bo's method of cooling them. The boy was promptly acquitted. Lamb +gravely proceeds:-- + + "The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity + of the decision, and when the court was dismissed, went privily + and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a + few days his lordship's town house was observed to be on fire. The + thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in + every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the + district. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People + built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the + very science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the + world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process + of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made + a discovery that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, + might be cooked (_burnt_ as they called it) without the necessity of + consuming a whole house to dress it. Then began the rude form of a + gridiron." + +[Illustration: BO-BO AND ROAST PIG. _From a drawing by B. +Westmacott_.] + +Other enjoyable essays are _Old China_, a lovable picture of his home +life with his sister, _Dream Children_, _New Year's Eve_, and _Poor +Relations_. + +The results of Lamb's Elizabethan studies appeared in the excellent +_Tales from Shakespeare_, which he wrote with his sister, and in his +_Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who wrote about the Time of +Shakespeare_. + +This age produced much prose criticism. Coleridge remains one of +England's greatest critics, and Lamb and De Quincey are yet two of her +most enjoyable ones. Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) and William +Hazlitt (1778-1830) also deserve mention in the history of English +prose criticism. Both men were unusually combative. Landor was sent +away from Oxford "for criticizing a noisy party with a shot gun," +which he discharged against the closed shutters of the room where the +roisterers were holding their festivities. He went to Italy, where +most of his literary work was done. He avoided people, and even +boasted that he took more pleasure with his own thoughts than with +those of others. For companionship, he imagined himself conversing +with other people. The titles of his best two works are _Imaginary +Conversations_ (1824-1848) and _Pericles and Aspasia_ (1836), the +latter a series of imaginary letters. His writings are notable for +their style, for an unusual combination of dignity with simplicity and +directness. A statement like the following shows how vigorous and +sweeping his criticisms sometimes are: "A rib of Shakespeare would +have made a Milton; the same portion of Milton, all poets born ever +since." In spite of many splendid passages and of a style that +suggests sculpture in marble, twentieth-century readers often feel +that he is under full sail, either bound for nowhere, or voyaging to +some port where they do not care to land. + +Hazlitt is less polished, but more suggestive, and in closer touch +with life than Landor. In seizing the important qualities of an +author's works and summarizing them in brief space, Hazlitt shows the +skill of a trained journalist. His three volumes, _Characters of +Shakespeare's Plays_ (1817), _Lectures on the English Poets_ (1818), +and _Lectures on the English Comic Writers_ (1819) contain criticism +that remains stimulating and suggestive. He loves to arrive somewhere, +to settle his points definitely. His discussion of the frequently +debated question,--whether Pope is a poet, shows this +characteristic:-- + + "The question,--whether Pope was a poet, has hardly yet been + settled, and is hardly worth settling; for if he was not a great + poet, he must have been a great prose writer, that is, he was a + great writer of some sort." + +His two volumes of essays, _The Round Table_ (1817) and _Table Talk_ +(1821-1822), caused him to be called a "lesser Dr. Samuel Johnson." + +While the combative dispositions of Landor and Hazlitt did not make +them ideal critics of their contemporaries, the taste of the age liked +criticism of the slashing type. The newly established periodicals and +reviews, such as _The Edinburgh Review_ (started in 1802), furnished a +new market for critical essays. Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850), editor +of _The Edinburgh Review_, accused Wordsworth of "silliness" in his +_Lyrical Ballads_; and said vehemently of a later volume of the same +poet's verse: "This will never do." _The Quarterly Review_ in 1818 +spoke of the "insanity" of the poetry of Keats. In 1819 _Blackwood's +Edinburgh Magazine_ gave a fatherly warning to Shelley that Keats as a +poet was "worthy of sheer and instant contempt," advised him to select +better companions than "Johnny Keats," and promised that compliance +with this advice would secure him "abundance of better praise." + +Even the more genial Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), the friend of Shelley +and Keats, and the writer of many pleasant essays, called Carlyle's +style "a jargon got up to confound pretension with performance." We +like Hunt best when he is writing in the vein of the _Spectator_ or as +a "miniature Lamb." In such papers as _An Earth upon Heaven_, Hunt +tells us that in heaven "there can be no clergymen if there are no +official duties for them"; that we shall there enjoy the choicest +books, for "Shakespeare and Spenser should write us _new ones_." He +closes this entertaining paper with the novel assurance: "If we +choose, now and then we shall even have inconveniences." + +WILLIAM COWPER, 1731-1800 + +[Illustration: WILLIAM COWPER. _From the portrait by Sir Thomas +Lawrence_.] + +Life.--Cowper's life is a tale of almost continual sadness, caused +by his morbid timidity. He was born at Great Berkhampstead, +Hertfordshire, in 1731. At the age of six, he lost his mother and was +placed in a boarding school. Here his sufferings began. The child was +so especially terrified by one rough boy that he could never raise his +eyes to the bully's face, but knew him unmistakably by his shoe +buckles. + +There was some happiness for Cowper at his next school, the +Westminster School, and also during the twelve succeeding years, when +he studied law; but the short respite was followed by the gloom of +madness. Owing to his ungovernable fear of a public examination, which +was necessary to secure the position offered by an uncle, Cowper +underwent days and nights of agony, during which he tried in many ways +to end his miserable life. The frightful ordeal unsettled his reason, +and he spent eighteen months in an insane asylum. + +Upon his recovery, he was taken into the house of a Rev. Mr. Unwin, +whose wife tended Cowper as a son during the rest of her life. He was +never supremely happy, and he was sometimes again thrown into madness +by the terrible thought of God's wrath; but his life was passed in a +quiet manner in the villages of Weston and Olney, where he was loved +by every one. The simple pursuits of gardening, carpentering, visiting +the sick, caring for his numerous pets, rambling through the lanes, +studying nature, and writing verse, occupied his sane moments when he +was not at prayer. + +Works.--Cowper's first works were the _Olney Hymns_. His religious +nature is manifest again in the volume which consists of didactic +poems upon such subjects as _The Progress of Error, Truth, Charity, +Table Talk_, and _Conversation_. These are in the spirit of the formal +classical poets, and contain sententious couplets such as + + "An idler is a watch that wants both hands, + As useless if it goes as when it stands."[8] + + "Vociferated logic kills me quite; + A noisy man is always in the right."[9] + +[Illustration: COWPER'S COTTAGE AT WESTON.] + +The bare didacticism of these poems is softened and sweetened by the +gentle, devout nature of the poet, and is enlivened by a vein of pure +humor. + +He is one of England's most delightful letter writers because of his +humor, which ripples occasionally over the stream of his +constitutional melancholy. _The Diverting History of John Gilpin_ is +extremely humorous. The poet seems to have forgotten himself in this +ballad and to have given full expression to his sense of the +ludicrous. + +[Illustration: JOHN GILPIN'S RIDE. _From a drawing by R. +Caldecott_.] + +The work that has made his name famous is _The Task_. He gave it this +title half humorously because his friend, Lady Austen, had bidden him +write a poem in blank verse upon some subject or other, the sofa, for +instance; and he called the first book of the poem _The Sofa_. _The +Task_ is chiefly remarkable because it turns from the artificial and +conventional subjects which had been popular, and describes simple +beauties of nature and the joys of country life. Cowper says:-- + + "God made the country, and man made the town." + +To a public acquainted with the nature poetry of Burns, Wordsworth, +and Tennyson, Cowper's poem does not seem a wonderful production. +Appearing as it did, however, during the ascendancy of Pope's +influence, when aristocratic city life was the only theme for verse, +_The Task_ is a strikingly original work. It marks a change from the +artificial style of eighteenth century poetry and proclaims the dawn +of the natural style of the new school. He who could write of-- + + "...rills that slip + Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall + Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length + In matted grass, that with a livelier green + Betrays the secret of their silent course," + +was a worthy forerunner of Shelley and Keats. + +General Characteristics.--Cowper's religious fervor was the +strongest element in both his life and his writings. Perhaps that +which next appealed to his nature was the pathetic. He had +considerable mastery of pathos, as may be seen in the drawing of +"crazed Kate" in _The Task_, in the lines _To Mary_, and in the +touchingly beautiful poem _On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture out +of Norfolk_, beginning with that well-known line:-- + + "Oh that those lips had language!" + +The two most attractive characteristics of his works are refined, +gentle humor and a simple and true manner of picturing rural scenes +and incidents. He says that he described no spot which he had not +seen, and expressed no emotion which he had not felt. In this way, he +restricted the range of his subjects and displayed a somewhat literal +mind; but what he had seen and felt he touched with a light fancy and +with considerable imaginative power. + +ROBERT BURNS, 1759-1796 + +[Illustration: ROBERT BURNS. _From the painting by Nasmyth, National +Portrait Gallery_.] + +[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF BURNS.] + +Life.--The greatest of Scottish poets was born in a peasant's +clay-built cottage, a mile and a half south of Ayr. His father was a +man whose morality, industry, and zeal for education made him an +admirable parent. For a picture of his father and the home influences +under which the boy was reared, _The Cotter's Saturday Night_ should +be read. The poet had little formal schooling, but under paternal +influence he learned how to teach himself. + +Until his twenty-eighth year, Robert Burns was an ordinary laborer on +one or another of the Ayrshire tenant farms which his father or +brothers leased. At the age of fifteen, he was worked beyond his +strength in doing a man's full labor. He called his life on the +Ayrshire farms "the unceasing toil of a galley slave." All his life he +fought a hand-to-hand fight with poverty. + +In 1786, when he was twenty-seven years old, he resolved to abandon +the struggle and seek a position in the far-off island of Jamaica. In +order to secure money for his passage, he published some poems which +he had thought out while following the plow or resting after the day's +toil. Six hundred copies were printed at three shillings each. All +were sold in a little over a month. A copy of this Kilmarnock edition +has since sold in Edinburgh for £572. His fame from that little volume +has grown as much as its monetary value. + +Some Edinburgh critics praised the poems very highly and suggested a +second edition. Burns therefore abandoned the idea of going to Jamaica +and went to Edinburgh to arrange for a new edition. Here he was +entertained by the foremost men, some of whom wished to see how a +plowman would behave in polite society, while others desired to gaze +on what they regarded as a freak of nature. + +The new volume appeared in 1787, and contained but few poems which had +not been published the previous year. The following winter he again +went to Edinburgh; but having shocked society by his intemperate +habits, he was almost totally neglected by the leaders of literature +and fashion. + +In 1788 Burns married Jean Armour and took her to a farm which he +leased in Dumfriesshire. The first part of this new period was the +happiest in his life. She has been immortalized in his songs:-- + + "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."[10] + +As this farm proved unprofitable, Burns appealed to influential +persons for some position that would enable him to support his family +and write poetry. This was an age of pensions, but not a farthing of +pension did he ever get. He was made an exciseman or gauger, at a +salary of £50 a year, and he followed that occupation for the few +remaining years of his life. + +Robert Burns wrote and did some things unworthy of a great poet; but +when Scotland thinks of him, she quotes the lines which he wrote for +_Tam Samson's Elegy_:-- + + "Heav'n rest his saul, whare'er he be! + Is th' wish o' mony mae than me: + He had twa faults, or maybe three, + Yet what remead?[11] + Ae social, honest man want we." + +Burns's Poetic Creed.--We can understand and enjoy Burns much better +if we know his object in writing poetry and the point of view from +which he regarded life. It would be hard to fancy the intensity of the +shock which the school of Pope would have felt on reading this +statement of the poor plowman's poetic creed:-- + + "Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire, + That's a' the learning I desire; + Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire + At pleugh or cart, + My Muse, though hamely in attire, + May touch the heart."[12] + +Burns's heart had been touched with the loves and sorrows of life, and +it was his ambition to sing so naturally of these as to touch the +hearts of others. + +With such an object in view, he did not disdain to use in his best +productions much of the Scottish dialect, the vernacular of the +plowman and the shepherd. The literary men of Edinburgh, who would +rather have been convicted of a breach of etiquette than of a +Scotticism, tried to induce him to write pure English; but the Scotch +words which he first heard from his mother's lips seemed to possess +more "o' Nature's fire." He ended by touching the heart of Scotland +and making her feel more proud of this dialect, of him, and of +herself. + +[Illustration: BURNS AND HIGHLAND MARY. _From the painting by James +Archer_.] + +Union of the Elizabethan with the Revolutionary Spirit.--In no +respect does the poetry of Burns more completely part company with the +productions of the classical school than in the expression of feeling. +The emotional fire of Elizabethan times was restored to literature. No +poet except Shakespeare has ever written more nobly impassioned love +songs. Burns's song beginning:-- + + "Ae fond kiss and then + we sever" + +seemed to both Byron and Scott to contain the essence of a thousand +love tales. This unaffected, passionate treatment of love had long +been absent from our literature; but intensity of genuine feeling +reappeared in Burns's _Highland Mary, I Love My Jean, Farewell to +Nancy, To Mary in Heaven, O Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast_, which last +Mendelssohn thought exquisite enough to set to music. The poetry of +Burns throbs with varying emotions. It has been well said that the +essence of the lyric is to describe the passion of the moment. Burns +is a master in this field. + +The spirit of revolution against the bondage and cold formalism of the +past made the poor man feel that his place in the world was as +dignified, his happiness as important, as that of the rich. A feeling +of sympathy for the oppressed and the helpless also reached beyond man +to animals. Burns wrote touching lines about a mouse whose nest was, +one cold November day, destroyed by his plow. When the wild eddying +swirl of the snow beat around his cot, his heart went out to the poor +sheep, cattle, and birds. + +Burns can, therefore, claim kinship with the Elizabethans because of +his love songs, which in depth of feeling and beauty of natural +utterance show something of Shakespeare's magic. In addition to this, +the poetry of Burns voices the democratic spirit of the Revolution. + +Treatment of Nature.--In his verses, the autumn winds blow over +yellow corn; the fogs melt in limpid air; the birches extend their +fragrant arms dressed in woodbine; the lovers are coming through the +rye; the daisy spreads her snowy bosom to the sun; the "westlin" winds +blow fragrant with dewy flowers and musical with the melody of birds; +the brook flows past the lover's Eden, where summer first unfolds her +robes and tarries longest, because of the rarest bewitching +enchantment of the poet's tale told there. + +In his poetry those conventional birds,--the lark and the +nightingale,--do not hold the chief place. His verses show that the +source of his knowledge of birds is not to be sought in books. We +catch glimpses of grouse cropping heather buds, of whirring flocks of +partridges, of the sooty coot and the speckled teal, of the fisher +herons, of the green-crested lapwing, of clamoring craiks among fields +of flowering clover, of robins cheering the pensive autumn, of +lintwhites chanting among the buds, of the mavis singing drowsy day to +rest. + +It is true that on the poetic stage of Burns, man always stands in the +foreground. Nature is employed in order to give human emotion a proper +background. Burns chose those aspects of nature which harmonized with +his present mood, but the natural objects in his pages are none the +less enjoyable for that reason. Sometimes his songs complain if nature +seems gay when he is sad, but this contrast is employed to throw a +stronger light on his woes. + +General Characteristics.--More people often visit the birthplace of +Burns near Ayr than of Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon. What +qualities in Burns account for such popularity? The fact that the +Scotch are an unusually patriotic people and make many pilgrimages to +the land of Burns is only a partial answer to this question. The +complete answer is to be found in a study of Burns's characteristics. +In the first place, with his "spark o' Nature's fire," he has touched +the hearts of more of the rank and file of humanity than even +Shakespeare himself. The songs of Burns minister in the simplest and +most direct way to every one of the common feelings of the human +heart. Shakespeare surpasses all others in painting universal human +nature, but he is not always simple. Sometimes his audience consists +of only the cultured few. + +Especially enjoyable is the humor of Burns, which usually displays a +kindly and intuitive sympathy with human weakness. _Tam o' Shanter_, +his greatest poem, keeps the reader smiling or laughing from beginning +to end. When the Scottish Muse proudly placed on his brow the holly +wreath, she happily emphasized two of his conspicuous qualities,--his +love and mirth, when she said:-- + + "I saw thee eye the gen'ral mirth + With boundless love."[13] + +Burns is one of the great masters of lyrical verse. He preferred that +form. He wrote neither epic nor dramatic poetry. He excels in "short +swallow flights of song." + +There are not many ways in which a poet can keep larger audiences or +come nearer to them than by writing verses that naturally lend +themselves to daily song. There are few persons, from the peasant to +the lord, who have not sung some of Burns's songs such as _Auld Lang +Syne, Coming through the Rye, John Anderson my Jo_, or _Scots Wha hae +wi' Wallace Bled_. Since the day of his death, the audiences of Robert +Burns have for these reasons continually grown larger. + +WALTER SCOTT, 1771-1832 + +[Illustration: WALTER SCOTT. _From the painting by William +Nicholson._] + +Life.--Walter Scott, the son of a solicitor, was born in Edinburgh +in 1771. In childhood he was such an invalid that he was allowed to +follow his own bent without much attempt at formal education. He was +taken to the country, where he acquired a lasting fondness for animals +and wild scenery. With his first few shillings he bought the +collection of early ballads and songs known as Percy's _Reliques of +Ancient English Poetry_. Of this he says, "I do not believe I ever +read a book half so frequently, or with half the enthusiasm." His +grandmother used to delight him with the tales of adventure on the +Scottish border. + +Later, Scott went to the Edinburgh High School and to the University. +At the High School he showed wonderful genius for telling stories to +the boys. "I made a brighter figure in the _yards_ than in the +_class_," he says of himself at this time. This early practice of +relating tales and noting what held the attention of his classmates +was excellent training for the future Wizard of the North. + +After the apprenticeship to his father, the son was called to the bar +and began the practice of law. He often left his office to travel over +the Scottish counties in search of legendary ballads, songs, and +traditions, a collection of which he published under the title of +_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_. In 1797 he married Miss Charlotte +Carpenter, who had an income of £500 a year. In 1799, having obtained +the office of sheriff of Selkirkshire at an annual salary of £300, +with very light duties, he found himself able to neglect law for +literature. His early freedom from poverty is in striking contrast to +the condition of his fellow Scotsman, Robert Burns. + +During the period between thirty and forty years of age, he wrote his +best poems. Not until he was nearly forty-three did he discover where +his greatest powers lay. He then published _Waverley_, the first of a +series of novels known by that general name. During the remaining +eighteen years of his life he wrote twenty-nine novels, besides many +other works, such as the _Life of Napoleon_ in nine volumes, and an +entertaining work on Scottish history under the title of _Tales of a +Grandfather_. + +[Illustration: ABBOTSFORD, HOME OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.] + +The crisis that showed Scott's sterling character came in the winter +of 1825-1826, when an Edinburgh publishing firm in which he was +interested failed and left an his shoulders a debt of £117,000. Had he +been a man of less honor, he might have taken advantage of the +bankrupt law, which would have left his future earnings free from past +claims; but he refused to take any step that would remove his +obligation to pay the debt. At the age of fifty four, he abandoned his +happy dream of founding the house of Scott of Abbotsford and sat down +to pay off the debt with his pen. The example of such a life is better +than the finest sermon on honor. He wrote with almost inconceivable +rapidity. His novel _Woodstock_, the product of three months' work, +brought him £8228. In four years he paid £70,000 to his creditors. One +day the tears rolled down his cheeks because he could no longer force +his fingers to grasp the pen. The king offered him a man-of-war in +which to make a voyage to the Mediterranean. Hoping to regain his +health, Scott made the trip, but the rest came too late. He returned +to Abbotsford in a sinking condition, and died in 1832, at the age of +sixty-one. + +[Illustration: SCOTT'S GRAVE IN DRYBURGH ABBEY.] + +Poetry.--Scott's three greatest poems are _The Lay of the Last +Minstrel_ (1805), _Marmion_ (1808), and _The Lady of the Lake_ (1810). +They belong to the distinct class of story-telling poetry. Like many +of the ballads in Percy's collection, these poems are stories of old +feuds between the Highlander and the Lowlander, and between the border +lords of England and Scotland. These romantic tales of heroic battles, +thrilling incidents, and love adventures, are told in fresh, vigorous +verse, which breathes the free air of wild nature and moves with the +prance of a war horse. Outside of Homer, we can nowhere find a better +description of a battle than in the sixth canto of _Marmion: A Tale of +Flodden Field_:-- + + "They close, in clouds of smoke and dust, + With sword sway and with lance's thrust; + And such a yell was there, + Of sudden and portentous birth, + As if men fought upon the earth, + And fiends in upper air; + * * * * * + And in the smoke the pennons flew, + As in the storm the white sea mew." + +_The Lady of the Lake_, an extremely interesting story of romantic +love and adventure, has been the most popular of Scott's poems. Loch +Katrine and the Trossachs, where the scene of the opening cantos is +laid, have since Scott's day been thronged with tourists. + +[Illustration: LOCH KATRINE AND ELLEN'S ISLE.] + +The most prominent characteristic of Scott's poetry is its energetic +movement. Many schoolboys know by heart those dramatic lines which +express Marmion's defiance of Douglas, and the ballad of _Lochinvar_, +which is alive with the movements of tireless youth. These poems have +an interesting story to tell, not of the thoughts, but of the deeds, +of the characters. Scott is strangely free from nineteenth century +introspection. + +Historical Fiction.--Seeing that Byron could surpass him as a poet, +and finding that his own genius was best adapted to writing prose +tales, Scott turned to the composition of his great romances. In 1814 +he published _Waverly_, a story of the attempt of the Jacobite +Pretender to recover the English throne in 1745. Seventeen of Scott's +works of fiction are historical. + +When we wish a vivid picture of the time of Richard Coeur de Lion, of +the knight and the castle, of the Saxon swineherd Gurth and of the +Norman master who ate the pork, we may read _Ivanhoe_. If we desire +some reading that will make the Crusaders live again, we find it in +the pages of _The Talisman_. When we wish an entertaining story of the +brilliant days of Elizabeth, we turn to _Kenilworth_. If we are moved +by admiration for the Scotch Covenanters to seek a story of their +times, we have Scott's truest historical tale, _Old Mortality_. +Shortly after this story appeared, Lord Holland was asked his opinion +of it. "Opinion!" he exclaimed; "we did not one of us go to bed last +night--nothing slept but my gout." The man who could thus charm his +readers was called "the Wizard of the North." + +[Illustration: WALTER SCOTT. _From a life sketch by Maclise_.] + +Scott is the creator of the historical novel, which has advanced on +the general lines marked out by him. Carlyle tersely says: "These +historical novels have taught all men this truth, which looks like a +truism, and yet was as good as unknown to writers of history and +others till so taught: that the by-gone ages of the world were +actually filled by living men, not by protocols, state papers, +controversies, and abstractions of men." + +The history in Scott's novels is not always absolutely accurate. To +meet the exigencies of his plot, he sometimes takes liberties with the +events of history, and there are occasional anachronisms in his work. +Readers may rest assured, however, that the most prominent strokes of +his brush will convey a sufficiently accurate idea of certain phases +of history. Although the hair lines in his pictures may be neglected, +most persons can learn more truth from studying his gallery of +historic scenes than from poring over volumes of documents and state +papers. Scott does not look at life from every point of view. The +reader of _Ivanhoe_, for instance, should be cautioned against +thinking that it presents a complete picture of the Middle Ages. It +shows the bright, the noble side of chivalry, but not all the +brutality, ignorance, and misery of the times. + +Novels that are not Historical.--Twelve of Scott's novels contain +but few attempts to represent historic events. The greatest of these +novels are _Guy Mannering, The Heart of Midlothian, The Antiquary, and +The Bride of Lammermoor_. + +Scott said that his most rapid work was his best. _Guy Mannering_, an +admirable picture of Scottish life and manners, was written in six +weeks. Some of its characters, like Dominie Sampson, the pedagogue, +Meg Merrilies, the gypsy, and Dick Hatteraick, the smuggler, have more +life than many of the people we meet. + +A century before, Pope said that most women had no characters at all. +His writings tend to show that this was his real conviction, as it was +that of many others during the time when Shakespeare was little read. +_The Heart of Midlothian_ presents in Jeanie Deans a woman whose +character and feminine qualities have won the admiration of the world. +Scott could not paint women in the higher walks of life. He was so +chivalrous that he was prone to make such women too perfect, but his +humble Scotch lass Jeanie Deans is one of his greatest creations. + +[Illustration: SCOTT'S DESK AT ABBOTSFORD.] + +When we note the vast number of characters drawn by his pen, we are +astonished to find that he repeats so little. Many novelists write +only one original novel. Their succeeding works are merely repetitions +of the first. The hero may have put on a new suit of clothes and the +heroine may have different colored hair, or each may be given a new +mannerism, but there is nothing really new in character, and very +little in incident. Year after year, however, Scott wrote with +wonderful rapidity, without repeating his characters or his plots. + +General Characteristics.--All critics are impressed with the +healthiness of Scott's work, with its freedom from what is morbid or +debasing. His stories display marked energy and movement, and but +little subtle analysis of feelings and motives. He aimed at broad and +striking effects. We do not find much development of character in his +pages. "His characters have the brilliance and the fixity of +portraits." + +Scott does not particularly care to delineate the intense passion of +love. Only one of his novels, _The Bride of Lammermoor_, is aflame +with this overmastering emotion. He delights in adventure. He places +his characters in unusual and dangerous situations, and he has +succeeded in making us feel his own interest in the outcome. He has on +a larger scale many of the qualities that we may note in the American +novelist Cooper, whose best stories are tales of adventure in the +forest or on the sea. Like him, Scott shows lack of care in the +construction of sentences. Few of the most cultured people of to-day +could, however, write at Scott's breakneck speed and make as few +slips. Scott has far more humor and variety than Cooper. + +Scott's romanticism is seen in his love for supernatural agencies, +which figure in many of his stories. His fondness for adventure, for +mystery, for the rush of battle, for color and sharp contrast, and his +love for the past are also romantic traits. Sometimes, however, he +falls into the classical fault of overdescription and of leaving too +little to the imagination. + +In the variety of his creations, he is equaled by no one. He did more +than any other pioneer to aid fiction in dethroning the drama. His +influence can be seen in the historical novels of almost every nation. + +JANE AUSTEN, 1775-1817 + +[Illustration: JANE AUSTEN. _From an original family portrait_.] + +Life and Works.--While Sir Walter Scott was laying the foundations +of his large family estates and recounting the story of battles, +chivalry, and brigandage, a quiet little woman, almost unmindful of +the great world, was enlivening her father's parsonage and writing +about the clergy, the old maids, the short-sighted mothers, the +marriageable daughters, and other people that figure in village life. + +This cheery, sprightly young woman was Jane Austen, who was born in +Steventon, Hampshire, in 1775. + +She spent nearly all her life in Hampshire, which furnished her with +the chief material for her novels. She loved the quiet life of small +country villages and interpreted it with rare sympathy and a keen +sense of humor, as is shown in the following lines from _Pride and +Prejudice_:-- + + "'Oh, Mr. Bennet, you are wanted immediately; we are all in an + uproar! You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she + vows she will not have him; and if you do not make haste he will + change his mind and not have her!' + + "'Come here, child,' cried her father ... 'I understand that Mr. + Collins has made you an offer of marriage. Is it true?' Elizabeth + replied that it was. 'Very well--and this offer of marriage you have + refused?' + + "'I have, sir.' + + "'Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists + upon your accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?' + + "'Yes, or I will never see her again.' + + "'An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day + you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will + never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will + never see you again if you do!'" + +She began her literary work early, and at the age of sixteen she had +accumulated quite a pile of manuscripts. She wrote as some artists +paint, for the pure joy of the work, and she never allowed her name to +appear on a title page. The majority of her acquaintances did not even +suspect her of the "guilt of authorship." + +She disliked "Gothic" romances, such as _The Mysteries of Udolpho_, +and she wrote _Northanger Abbey_ as a burlesque of that type. In this +story the heroine, Catherine Moreland, who has been fed on such +literature, is invited to visit Northanger Abbey in Gloucestershire, +where with an imagination "resolved on alarm," she is prepared to be +agitated by experiences of trapdoors and subterranean passages. On the +first night of her visit, a violent storm, with its mysterious noises, +serves to arouse the most characteristic "Gothic" feelings; but when +the complete awakening comes and the "visions of romance are over," +Catherine realizes that real life is not fruitful of such horrors as +are depicted in her favorite novels. + +_Pride and Prejudice_ is usually considered Jane Austen's best work, +although _Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park_, and +_Persuasion_ have their ardent admirers. In fact, there is an +increasing number of discriminating readers who enjoy almost +everything that she wrote. During the last five years of the +eighteenth century, she produced some of her best novels, although +they were not published until the period between 1811 and 1818. + +The scenes of her stories are laid for the most part in small +Hampshire villages, with which she was thoroughly familiar, the +characters being taken from the middle class and the gentry with whom +she was thrown. Simple domestic episodes and ordinary people, living +somewhat monotonous and narrow lives, satisfy her. She exhibits +wonderful skill in fashioning these into slight but entertaining +narratives. In _Pride and Prejudice_, for example, she creates some +refreshing situations by opposing Philip Darcy's pride to Elizabeth +Bennet's prejudice. She manages the long-delayed reconciliation +between these two lovers with a tact that shows true genius and a +knowledge of the human heart. + +[Illustration: JANE AUSTEN'S DESK.] + +A strong feature of Jane Austen's novels is her subtle, careful manner +of drawing character. She perceives with an intuitive refinement the +delicate shadings of emotion, and describes them with the utmost care +and detail. Her heroines are especially fine, each one having an +interesting individuality, thoroughly natural and womanly. The minor +characters in Miss Austen's works are usually quaint and original. She +sees the oddities and foibles of people with the insight of the true +humorist, and paints them with most dexterous cunning. + +William D. Howells, the chief American realist of the nineteenth +century, wrote in 1891 of her and her novels:-- + + "She was great and they were beautiful because she and they were + honest and dealt with nature nearly a hundred years ago as realism + deals with it to-day. Realism is nothing more and nothing less than + the truthful treatment of material." + +She was, indeed, a great realist, and it seems strange that she and +Scott, the great romanticist, should have been contemporaries. Scott +was both broad and big-hearted enough to sum up her chief +characteristics as follows:-- + + "That young lady has a talent for describing the involvements of + feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most + wonderful I ever met with. The big bow-wow strain I can do myself, + like any one going; but the exquisite touch which renders + commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the + description and the sentiment is denied to me." + +She died in 1817 at the age of forty-one and was buried in Winchester +Cathedral, fourteen miles from her birthplace. The merit of her work +was apparent to only a very few at the time of her death. Later years +have slowly brought a just recognition of the important position that +she holds in the history of the realistic novel of daily life. Of +still greater significance to the majority is the fact that the subtle +charm of her stories continues to win for her an enlarged circle of +readers. + +WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850 + +[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. _After the portrait by B.R. +Haydon_.] + +Early Life and Training.--William Wordsworth was born in +Cockermouth, Cumberland, in 1770. He went to school in his ninth year +at Hawkshead, a village on the banks of Esthwaite Water, in the heart +of the Lake Country. The traveler who takes the pleasant journey on +foot or coach from Windermere to Coniston, passes through Hawkshead, +where he may see Wordsworth's name cut in a desk of the school which +he attended. Of greater interest is the scenery which contributed so +much to his education and aided his development into England's +greatest nature poet. + +We learn from his autobiographical poem, _The Prelude_, what +experiences molded him in boyhood. He says that the-- + + "...common face of Nature spake to me + Rememberable things." + +In this poem he relates how he absorbed into his inmost being the +orange sky of evening, the curling mist, the last autumnal crocus, the +"souls of lonely places," and the huge peak, which terrified him at +nightfall by seeming to stride after him and which awoke in him a-- + + "...dim and undermined sense + Of unknown modes of being." + +[Illustration: BOY OF WINANDER. _From mural painting by H.O. Walker, +Congressional Library, Washington, D.C._] + +In his famous lines on the "Boy of Winander," Wordsworth tells how-- + + "...the voice + Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene + Would enter unawares into his mind + With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, + Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received + Into the bosom of the steady lake." + +At the age of seventeen he entered Cambridge University, from which he +was graduated after a four years' course. He speaks of himself there +as a dreamer passing through a dream. There came to him the strange +feeling that he "was not for that hour nor for that place;" and yet he +says that he was not unmoved by his daily association with the haunts +of his illustrious predecessors, or of-- + + "Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven + With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace," + +and of Milton whose soul seemed to Wordsworth "like a star." + +Influence of the French Revolution.--His travels on the continent in +his last vacation and after his graduation brought him in contact with +the French Revolution, of which he felt the inspiring influence. He +was fond of children, and the sight of a poor little French peasant +girl seems to have been one of the main causes leading him to become +an ardent revolutionist. _The Prelude_ tells in concrete fullness how +he walked along the banks of the Loire with his friend, a French +patriot:-- + + "...And when we chanced + One day to meet a hunger-bitten girl, + Who crept along fitting her languid gait + Unto a heifer's motion, by a cord + Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane + Its sustenance, while the girl with pallid hands + Was busy knitting in a heartless mood + Of solitude, and at the sight my friend + In agitation said, ''Tis against _that_ + That we are fighting.'" + +Just as Wordsworth was prepared to throw himself personally into the +conflict, his relatives recalled him to England. When the Revolution +passed into a period of anarchy and bloodshed, his dejection was +intense. As he slowly recovered from his disappointment, he became +more and more conservative in politics and less in sympathy with +violent agitation; but he never ceased to utter a hopeful though calm +and tempered note for genuine liberty. + +Maturity and Declining Years.--Although Wordsworth was early left an +orphan, he never seemed to lack intelligent care and sympathy. His +sister Dorothy, a rare soul, helped to fashion him into a poet. Their +favorite pastime was walking and observing nature. De Quincey +estimates that Wordsworth, during the course of his life, mast have +walked as many as 175,000 miles. He acted on his belief that-- + + "All things that love the sun are out of doors," + +and he composed his best poetry during his walks, dictating it after +his return. + +He must have had the capacity of impressing himself favorably on his +associates or he might never have had the leisure to write poetry. +When he was twenty-five, a friend left him a legacy of £900 to enable +him to follow his chosen calling of poet. Seven years later, friends +saw that he was appointed distributor of stamps for Westmoreland, at +the annual salary of £400. Years afterward, a friend gave him a +regular allowance to be spent in traveling. + +The summer of 1797 saw him and Dorothy begin a golden year at Alfoxden +in Somersetshire, in close association with Coleridge. The result of +this companionship was _Lyrical Ballads_, an epoch-making volume of +romantic verse, containing such gems as Wordsworth's _Lines composed a +Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, Lines written in Early Spring, We Are +Seven_, and Coleridge's _The Ancient Mariner_. "All good poetry," +wrote Wordsworth in the _Preface_ to the second edition of this +volume, "is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." This is +the opposite of the belief of the classical school. + +In 1797, after a trip to Germany, he and Dorothy settled at Dove +Cottage, Grasmere, in the Lake Country. She remained a member of the +household after he married his cousin, Mary Hutchinson, in 1802. The +history of English authors shows no more ideal companionship than that +of these three kindred souls. Dove Cottage where he wrote the best of +his poetry, remains almost unchanged. It is one of the most +interesting literary homes in England. + +[Illustration: DOVE COTTAGE.] + +In 1813 he moved a short distance away, to Rydal Mount, where he lived +the remainder of his life. In 1843 he was chosen poet laureate. He +died in 1850 and was buried in Grasmere Churchyard. + +A Poet of Nature.--Wordsworth is one of the world's most loving and +thoughtful lyrical poets of Nature. For him she possessed a soul, a +conscious existence, an ability to feel joy and love. In _Lines +written in Early Spring_, he expresses this belief:-- + + "And 'tis my faith that every flower + Enjoys the air it breathes." + +All things seem to him to feel pure joy in existence:-- + + "The moon doth with delight + Look round her when the heavens are bare." + +It was also his poetic creed that Nature could bring to human hearts a +message of solace and companionship. His poem, _Lines composed a Short +Distance above Tintern Abbey_, is a remarkable exposition of this +faith. + +He would have scorned to be considered merely a descriptive poet of +nature. He satirizes those who could do nothing more than correctly +apply the color "yellow" to the primrose:-- + + "A primrose by a river's brim + A yellow primrose was to him + And it was nothing more." + +He interprets the sympathetic soul of Nature, not merely her outward +or her intellectual aspect. He says in _The Prelude_:-- + + "From Nature and her overflowing soul + I had received so much, that all my thoughts + Were steeped in feeling." + +If we compare Wordsworth's line-- + + "This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,"[14] + +with Tennyson's line from _The Princess_-- + + "A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight," + +we may easily decide which shows more feeling and which, more art. + +Many poets have produced beautiful paintings of the external features +of nature. With rare genius, Wordsworth looked beyond the color of the +flower, the outline of the hills, the beauty of the clouds, to the +spirit that breathed through them, and he communed with "Nature's +self, which is the breath of God." He introduced lovers of his poetry +to a new world of nature, a new source of companionship and solace, a +new idea of a Being in cloud and air and "the green leaves among the +groves." + +Poetry of Man: Narrative Poems.--Wordsworth is a poet of man as well +as of nature. The love for nature came to him first; but out of it +grew his regard for the people who lived near to nature. His poetry of +man is found more in his longer narrative poems, although in them as +well as in his shorter pieces, he shows the action of nature on man. +In _The Prelude_, the most remarkable autobiographical poem in +English, not only reveals the power in nature to develop man, but he +also tells how the French revolution made him feel the worth of each +individual soul and a sense of the equality of all humanity at the bar +of character and conscience. As his lyrics show the sympathetic soul +of nature, so his narrative poems illustrate the second dominant +characteristic of the age, the strong sense of the worth of the +humblest man. + +[Illustration: GRASMERE LAKE.] + +_Michael_, one of the very greatest of his productions, displays a +tender and living sympathy with the humble shepherd. The simple +dignity of Michael's character, his frugal and honorable life, his +affection for his son, for his sheep, and for his forefather's old +home, appealed to the heart of the poet. He loved his subject and +wrote the poem with that indescribable simplicity which makes the +tale, the verse, and the tone of thought and feeling form together one +perfect and indissoluble whole. _The Leech-Gatherer_ and the story of +"Margaret" in _The Excursion_ also deal with lowly characters and +exhibit Wordsworth's power of pathos and simple earnestness. He could +not present complex personalities; but these characters, which +belonged to the landscapes of the Lake District and partook of its +calm and its simplicity, he drew with a sure hand. + +His longest narrative poem is _The Excursion_ (1814), which is in nine +books. It contains fine passages of verse and some of his sanest and +maturest philosophy; but the work is not the masterpiece that he hoped +to make. It is tedious, prosy, and without action of any kind. The +style, which is for the most part heavy, becomes pure and easy only in +some description of a mountain peak or in the recital of a tale, like +that of "Margaret." + +An Interpreter of Child Life.--Perhaps the French Revolution and the +unforgettable incident of the pitiable peasant child were not without +influence in causing him to become a great poetic interpreter of +childhood. No poem has surpassed his _Alice Fell, or Poverty_ in +presenting the psychology of childish grief, or his _We Are Seven_ in +voicing the faith of-- + + "...A simple child, + That lightly draws its breath, + And feels its life in every limb," + +or the loneliness of "the solitary child" in _Lucy Gray_:-- + + "The sweetest thing that ever grew + Beside a human door." + +In the poem, _Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower_, Nature seems to +have chosen Wordsworth as her spokesman to describe the part that she +would play in educating a child. Nature says:-- + + "This child I to myself will take; + She shall be mine, and I will make + A lady of my own. + * * * * * + ...She shall lean her ear + In many a secret place + Where rivulets dance their wayward round, + And beauty born of murmuring sound + Shall pass into her face." + +One of the finest similes in all the poetry of nature may be found in +the stanza which likens the charms of a little girl to those of:-- + + "A violet by a mossy stone + Half hidden from the eye! + Fair as a star when only one + Is shining in the sky." + +Finally, in his _Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of +Early Childhood_, he glorifies universal childhood, that "eye among +the blind," capable of seeing this common earth-- + + "Appareled in celestial light, + The glory and the freshness of a dream." + +General Characteristics.--Four of Wordsworth's characteristics go +hand in hand,--sincerity, feeling, depth of thought, and simplicity of +style. The union of these four qualities causes his great poems to +continue to yield pleasure after an indefinite number of readings. In +his garden of poetry, the daffodil blossoms all the year for the +"inward eye," and the "wandering voice of the cuckoo" never ceases to +awaken springtime in the heart. + +His own age greeted with so much ridicule the excessive simplicity of +the presentation of ordinary childish grief in _Alice Fell_, that he +excluded it from many editions of his poems. We now recognize the +special charm of his simplicity in expressing those feelings and +thoughts that "do often lie too deep for tears." + +Wordsworth was most truly great when he seemed to write as naturally +as he breathed, when he appeared unconscious of the power that he +wielded. When he attempted to command it at will, he failed, as in the +dull, lifeless lines of _The Excursion_. Sometimes even his labored +simplicity is no better than prose; but such simple and natural poems +as _Michael, The Solitary Reaper, To My Sister, Three Years She Grew +in Sun and Shower_, and the majority of the poems showing the new +attitude toward childhood, are priceless treasures of English +literature. Of most of these, we may say with Matthew Arnold, "It +might seem that Nature not only gave him the matter for his poem, but +wrote his poem for him." + +[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. _From a life sketch in Fraser's +Magazine_.] + +Wordsworth lacks humor and his compass is limited; but within that +compass he is surpassed by no poet since Milton. On the other hand, no +great poet ever wrote more that is almost worthless. Matthew Arnold +did much for Wordsworth's renown by collecting his priceless poems and +publishing them apart from the mediocre work. Among the fine +productions, his sonnets occupy a high place. Only Shakespeare and +Milton in our language excel him in this form of verse. + +Wordsworth is greatest as a poet of nature. To him nature seemed to +possess a conscious soul, which expressed itself in the primrose, the +rippling lake, or the cuckoo's song, with as much intelligence as +human lips ever displayed in whispering a secret to the ear of love. +This interpretation of nature gives him a unique position among +English poets. Neither Shakespeare nor Milton had any such general +conception of nature. + +[Illustration: RYDAL MOUNT NEAR AMBLESIDE, THE HOME OF WORDSWORTH'S +OLD AGE.] + +The bereaved, the downcast, and those in need of companionship turn +naturally to Wordsworth. He said that it was his aim "to console the +afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight." His critics often say that he +does not recognize the indifference, even the cruelty of nature; but +that he chooses, instead, to present the world as a manifestation of +love and care for all creatures. When he was shown where a cruel +huntsman and his dogs had chased a poor hart to its death, Wordsworth +wrote:-- + + "This beast not unobserved by nature fell; + His death was mourned by sympathy divine. + + "The Being that is in the clouds and air, + That is in the green leaves among the groves, + Maintains a deep and reverential care + For the unoffending creatures whom he loves."[15] + +Whatever view we take of the indifference of nature or of the +suffering in existence, it is necessary for us, in order to live +hopeful and kindly lives, to feel with Wordsworth that the great +powers of the universe are not devoid of sympathy, and that they +encourage in us the development of "a spirit of love" for all earth's +creatures. It was Wordsworth's deepest conviction that any one alive +to the presence of nature's conscious spiritual force, that "rolls +through all things"-- + + "Shall feel an overseeing power + To kindle or restrain." + +SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 1722-1834 + +[Illustration: SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. _From a pencil sketch by +C.R. Leslie_.] + +Life.--The troubled career of Coleridge is in striking contrast to +the peaceful life of Wordsworth. Coleridge, the thirteenth child of a +clergyman, was born in 1772 at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire. Early in +his life, the future poet became a confirmed dreamer, refusing to +participate in the play common to boys of his age. Before he was five +years old, he had read the _Arabian Nights_. Only a few years later, +the boy's appetite for books became so voracious that he devoured an +average of two volumes a day. + +One evening, when he was about nine years old, he had a violent +quarrel with his brother and ran away, sleeping out of doors all +night. A cold October rain fell; but he was not found until morning, +when he was carried home more dead than alive. "I was certainly +injured;" he says of this adventure, "for I was weakly and subject to +ague for many years after." Facts like these help to explain why +physical pain finally led him to use opium. + +After his father's death, young Coleridge became, at the age of ten, a +pupil in Christ's Hospital, London, where he remained eight years. +During the first half of his stay here, his health was still further +injured by continuing as he was in earlier childhood, "a playless +daydreamer," and by a habit of almost constant reading. He says that +the food "was cruelly insufficient for those who had no friends to +supply them." He writes:-- + + "Conceive what I must have been at fourteen; I was in a continual + low fever. My whole being was, with eyes closed to every object of + present sense, to crumple myself up in a sunny corner, and read, + read, read--fancy myself on Robinson Crusoe's island, finding a + mountain of plumcake, and eating a room for myself, and then eating + it into the shapes of tables and chairs--hunger and fancy!" + +A few months after leaving Christ's Hospital, Coleridge went to +Cambridge, but he did not remain to graduate. From this time he seldom +completed anything that he undertook. It was characteristic of him, +stimulated by the spirit of the French Revolution, to dream of +founding with Southey a Pantisocracy on the banks of the Susquehanna. +In this ideal village across the sea, the dreamers were to work only +two hours a day and were to have all goods in common. The demand for +poetry was at this time sufficiently great for a bookseller to offer +Coleridge, although he was as yet comparatively unknown, thirty +guineas for a volume of poems and a guinea and a half for each hundred +lines after finishing that volume. With such wealth in view, Coleridge +married a Miss Fricker of Bristol, because no single people could join +the new ideal commonwealth. Southey married her sister; but the young +enthusiasts were forced to abandon their project because they did not +have sufficient money to procure passage across the ocean. + +The tendency to dream, however, never forsook Coleridge. One of his +favorite poems begins with this line:-- + + "My eyes make pictures when they are shut."[16] + +He recognized his disinclination to remain long at work on prearranged +lines, when he said, "I think that my soul must have preėxisted in the +body of a chamois chaser." + +In 1797-1798 Coleridge lived with his young wife at Nether-Stowey in +Somerset. Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy moved to a house in the +neighborhood in order to be near Coleridge. The two young men and +Dorothy Wordsworth seemed to be exactly fitted to stimulate one +another. Together they roamed over the Quantock Hills, gazed upon the +sea, and planned _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_, which is one of +the few things that Coleridge ever finished. In little more than a +year he wrote nearly all the the poetry that has made him famous. + +Had he, like Keats, died when he was twenty-five, the world would +probably be wondering what heights of poetic fame Coleridge might have +reached; but he became addicted to the use of opium and passed a +wretched existence of thirty-six years longer, partly in the Lake +District, but chiefly in a suburb of London, without adding to his +poetic fame. During his later years he did hack work for papers, gave +occasional lectures, wrote critical and philosophical prose, and +became a talker almost as noted as Dr. Johnson. It is only just to +Coleridge to recognize the fact that even if he had never written a +line of poetry, his prose would entitle him to be ranked among +England's greatest critics. + +[Illustration: COLERIDGE'S COTTAGE AT NETHER-STOWEY.] + +Coleridge's wide reading, continued from boyhood, made his +contemporaries feel that he had the best intellectual equipment of any +man in England since Francis Bacon's time. Once Coleridge, having +forgotten the subject of his lecture, was startled by the announcement +that he would speak on a difficult topic, entirely different from the +one he had in mind; but he was equal to the emergency and delivered an +unusually good address. + +Young men used to flock to him in his old age to draw on his copious +stores of knowledge and especially to hear him talk about German +philosophy. Carlyle visited him for this purpose and speaks of the +"glorious, balmy, sunny islets, islets of the blest and the +intelligible," which occasionally emerged from the mist of German +metaphysics. He spent the last eighteen years of his life in Highgate +with his kind friend, Dr. Gillman, who succeeded in regulating and +decreasing the amount of opium which Coleridge took. He died there in +1834 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. Westminster Abbey does not +have the honor of the grave of a single one of the great poets of this +romantic age. + +Poetry.--_The Ancient Mariner_ (1798) is Coleridge's poetical +masterpiece. It is also one of the world's masterpieces. The +supernatural sphere into which it introduces the reader is a +remarkable creation, with its curse, its polar spirit, the phantom +ship, the seraph band, and the magic breeze. The mechanism of the poem +is a triumph of romantic genius. The meter, the rhythm, and the music +have well-nigh magical effect. Almost every stanza shows not only +exquisite harmony, but also the easy mastery of genius in dealing with +those weird scenes which romanticists love. + +The moral interest of the poem is not inferior to its other charms. +The Mariner killed the innocent Albatross, and we listen to the same +kind of lesson as Wordsworth teaches in his _Hart-Leap Well_:-- + + "The spirit who bideth by himself + In the land of mist and snow, + He loved the bird that loved the man + Who shat him with his bow.'" + +The noble conclusion of the poem has for more than a hundred years +continued to influence human conduct:-- + + "He prayeth best who loveth best + All things both great and small; + For the dear God who loveth us, + He made and loveth all." + +His next greatest poem is the unfinished _Christabel_ (1816). A lovely +maiden falls under the enchantments of a mysterious Lady Geraldine; +but the fragment closes while this malevolent influence continues. We +miss the interest of a finished story, which draws so many readers to +_The Ancient Mariner_, although _Christabel_ is thickly sown with +gems. Lines like these are filled with the airiness of nature:-- + + "There is not wind enough to twirl + The one red leaf, the last of its clan, + That dances as often as dance it can, + Hanging so light, and hanging so high, + On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky." + +In all literature there has been no finer passage written on the +wounds caused by broken friendship than the lines in _Christabel_ +relating to the estrangement of Roland and Sir Leoline. After reading +this poem and _Kubla Khan_, an unfinished dream fragment of fifty-four +lines, we feel that the closing lines of _Kubla Khan_ are peculiarly +applicable to Coleridge:-- + + "For he on honey dew hath fed + And drunk the milk of Paradise." + +Swinburne says of _Christabel_ and _Kubla Khan_: "When it has been +said that such melodies were never heard, such dreams never dreamed, +such speech never spoken, the chief things remain unsaid, unspeakable. +There is a charm upon these poems which can only be felt in silent +submission and wonder." + +General Characteristics of his Poetry.--Unlike Wordsworth, Coleridge +is not the poet of the earth and the common things of life. He is the +poet of air, of the regions beyond the earth, and of dreams. By no +poet has the supernatural been invested with more charm. + +He has rare feeling for the beautiful, whether in the world of morals; +of nature, or of the harmonies of sound. The motherless Christabel in +her time of danger dreams a beautiful truth of this divinely governed +world:-- + + "But this she knows, in joys and woes, + That saints will aid if men will call: + For the blue sky bends over all." + +His references to nature are less remarkable for description or +photographic details than for suggestiveness and diffused charm, such +as we find in these lines:-- + + "...the sails made on + A pleasant noise till noon, + A noise like of a hidden brook + In the leafy month of June, + That to the sleeping woods all night + Singeth a quiet tune." + +Wordsworth wrote few poems simpler than _The Ancient Mariner_. A +stanza like this seems almost as simple as breathing:-- + + "The moving moon went up the sky, + And nowhere did abide; + Softly she was going up, + And a star or two beside." + +Prose.--Coleridge's prose, which is almost all critical or +philosophical, left its influence on the thought of the nineteenth +century. When he was a young man, he went to Germany and studied +philosophy with a continued vigor unusual for him. He became an +idealist and used the idealistic teachings of the German +metaphysicians to combat the utilitarian and sense-bound philosophy of +Bentham, Malthus, and Mill. We pass by Coleridge's _Aids to +Reflection_ (1825), the weightiest of his metaphysical productions, to +consider those works which possess a more vital interest for the +student of literature. + +[Illustration: COLERIDGE AS A YOUNG MAN. _From a sketch made in +Germany_.] + +His _Lectures on Shakespeare_, delivered in 1811, contained +epoch-making Shakespearean criticism. We are told that every +drawing-room in London discussed them. His greatest work on criticism +is entitled _Biographia Literaria_ (2 Vols., 1817). There are parts of +it which no careful student of the development of modern criticism can +afford to leave unread. The central point of this work is the +exposition of his theory of the romantic school of poetry. He thus +gives his own aim and that of Wordsworth in the composition of the +volume of poems, known as _Lyrical Ballads_:-- + + "...it was agreed that my endeavors should be directed to persons + and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to + transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of + truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that + willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes + poetic faith. + + Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his + object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to + excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural by awakening the + mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to + the loveliness and wonders of the world before us."[17] + +Coleridge does not hold Wordsworth's belief that the language of +common speech and of poetry should be identical. He shows that +Wordsworth does better than follow his own theories. Yet, when he +considers both the excellencies and the defects of Wordsworth's verse, +Coleridge's verdict of praise is substantially that of the twentieth +century. This is an unusual triumph for a contemporary critic, sitting +in judgment on an author of an entirely new school and rendering a +decision in opposition to that of the majority, who, he says, "have +made it a business to attack and ridicule Mr. Wordsworth... His _fame_ +belongs to another age and can neither be accelerated nor +retarded."[18] + +GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON, 1788-1824 + +[Illustration: GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON. _From a portrait by +Kramer_.] + +Life.--Byron was born in London in 1788. His father was a reckless, +dissipated spendthrift, who deserted his wife and child. Mrs. Byron +convulsively clasped her son to her one moment and threw the scissors +and tongs at him the next, calling him "the lame brat," in reference +to his club foot. Such treatment drew neither respect nor obedience +from Byron, who inherited the proud, defiant spirit of his race. His +accession to the peerage in 1798 did not tend to tame his haughty +nature, and he grew up passionately imperious and combative. + +Being ambitious, he made excellent progress in his studies at Harrow, +but when he entered Cambridge he devoted much of his time to shooting, +swimming, and other sports, for which he was always famous. In 1809 he +started on a two years' trip through Spain, Greece, and the far East. +Upon his return, he published two cantos of _Childe Harold's +Pilgrimage_, which describe his journey. + +This poem made him immediately popular. London society neglected its +old favorite, Scott, and eagerly sought out the handsome young peer +who had burst suddenly upon it. Poem after poem was produced by this +lion of society, and each one was received with enthusiasm and +delight. Probably no other English poet knew such instant widespread +fame as Byron. + +Suddenly and unexpectedly this adulation turned to hatred. In 1815 +Byron married Miss Milbanke, an heiress, but she left him a year +later. Although no reason for the separation was given, the public +fastened all the blame upon Byron. The feeling against him grew so +strong that he was warned by his friends to prepare for open violence, +and finally, in 1816, he left England forever. + +His remaining eight years were spent mostly in Italy. Here, his great +beauty, his exile, his poetry, and his passionate love of liberty made +him a prominent figure throughout Europe. Notwithstanding this fame, +life was a disappointment to Byron. Baffled but rebellious, he openly +defied the conventions of his country; and seemed to enjoy the shock +it gave to his countrymen. + +[Illustration: BYRON AT SEVENTEEN. _From a painting_.] + +The closing year of his life shone brightest of all. His main +activities had hitherto been directed to the selfish pursuit of his +own pleasure; and he had failed to obtain happiness. But in 1823 Byron +went to Greece to aid the Greeks, who were battling with Turkey for +their independence. Into this struggle for freedom, he poured his +whole energies, displaying "a wonderful aptitude for managing the +complicated intrigues and plans and selfishnesses which lay in the +way." His efforts cost him his life. He contracted fever, and, after +restlessly battling with the disease, said quietly, one April morning +in 1824, "Now I shall go to sleep." His relatives asked in vain for +permission to inter him in Westminster Abbey. He was buried in the +family vault at Hucknall, Notthinghamshire, not far from Newstead +Abbey. + +[Illustration: NEWSTEAD ABBEY, BYRON'S HOME.] + +Early Works.--The poems that Byron wrote during his brilliant +sojourn in London, amid the whirl of social gayeties, are _The Giaour, +The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, Parisina, Lara_, and _The Siege of +Corinth_. These narrative poems are romantic tales of oriental passion +and coloring, which show the influence of Scott. They are told with a +dash and a fine-sounding rhetoric well fitted to attract immediate +attention; but they lack the qualities of sincere feeling, lofty +thought, and subtle beauty, which give lasting fame. + +His next publication, _The Prisoner of Chillon_ (1816), is a much +worthier poem. The pathetic story is feelingly told in language that +often displays remarkable energy and mastery of expression and +versification. His picture of the oppressive vacancy which the +Prisoner felt is a well-executed piece of very difficult word +painting:-- + + "There were no stars, no earth, no time, + No check, no change, no good, no crime-- + But silence, and a stirless breath + Which neither was of life nor death; + A sea of stagnant idleness, + Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!" + +[Illustration: CASTLE OF CHILLON.] + +Dramas.--Byron wrote a number of dramas, the best of which are +_Manfred_ (1817) and _Cain_ (1821). His spirit of defiance and his +insatiable thirst for power are the subjects of these dramas. Manfred +is a man of guilt who is at war with humanity, and who seeks refuge on +the mountain tops and by the wild cataract. He is fearless and untamed +in all his misery, and even in the hour of death does not quail before +the spirits of darkness, but defies them with the cry:-- + + "Back to thy hell! + Thou hast no power upon me, _that_ I feel! + Thou never shall possess me, _that_ I know; + What I have done is done; I bear within + A torture which could nothing gain from thine; + * * * * * + Back, ye baffled fiends! + The hand of death is on me--but not yours!" + +Cain, while suffering remorse for the slaying of Abel, is borne by +Lucifer through the boundless fields of the universe. Cain yet dares +to question the wisdom of the Almighty in bringing evil, sin, and +remorse into the world. A critic has remarked that "Milton wrote his +great poem to justify the ways of God to man; Byron's object seems to +be to justify the ways of man to God." + +The very soul of stormy revolt breathes through both _Manfred_ and +_Cain_, but _Cain_ has more interest as a pure drama. It contains some +sweet passages and presents one lovely woman,--Adah. But Byron could +not interpret character wholly at variance with his own. He possessed +but little constructive skill, and he never overcame the difficulties +of blank verse. A drama that does not show wide sympathy with varied +types of humanity and the constructive capacity to present the +complexities of life is lacking in essential elements of greatness. + +Childe Harold, The Vision of Judgment, and Don Juan.--His best works +are the later poems, which require only a slight framework or plot, +such as _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Vision of Judgement,_ and +_Don Juan_. + +The third and fourth cantos of _Childe Harold_, published in 1816 and +1818, respectively, are far superior to the first two. These later +cantos continue the travels of Harold, and contain some of Byron's +most splendid descriptions of nature, cities, and works of art. Rome, +Venice, the Rhine, the Alps, and the sea inspired the finest lines. He +wrote of Venice as she-- + + "...Sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! + * * * * * + She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, + Rising with her tiara of proud towers + At airy distance." + +He calls Rome-- + + "The Niobe of nations! there she stands. + Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; + An empty urn within her wither'd hands, + Whose holy dust was scattered long ago." + +The following description, from Canto III, of a wild stormy night in +the mountains is very characteristic of his nature poetry and of his +own individuality:-- + + "And this is in the night:--Most Glorious night! + Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be + A sharer in thy fierce and far delight-- + A portion of the tempest and of thee! + How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, + And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! + And now again 'tis black,--and now, the glee + of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth + As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth" + +When George III. died, Southey wrote a poem filled with absurd +flattery of that monarch. Byron had such intense hatred for the +hypocrisy of society that he wrote his _Vision of Judgment_ (1822) to +parody Southey's poem and to make the author the object of satire. +Pungent wit, vituperation, and irony were here handled by Byron in a +brilliant manner, which had not been equaled since the days of Dryden +and Pope. The parodies of most poems are quickly forgotten, but we +have here the strange case of Byron's parody keeping alive Southey's +original. + +_Don Juan_ (1819-1824), a long poem in sixteen cantos, is Byron's +greatest work. It is partly autobiographic. The sinister, gloomy Don +Juan is an ideal picture of the author, who was sore and bitter over +his thwarted hopes of liberty and happiness. Therefore, instead of +strengthening humanity with hope for the future, this poem tears hope +from the horizon, and suggests the possible anarchy and destruction +toward which the world's hypocrisy, cant, tyranny, and universal +stupidity are tending. + +The poem is unfinished. Byron followed Don Juan through all the phases +of life known to himself. The hero has exciting adventures and +passionate loves, he is favored at courts, he is driven to the lowest +depths of society, he experiences a godlike happiness and a demoniacal +despair. + +_Don Juan_ is a scathing satire upon society. All its fondest +idols,--love, faith, and hope,--are dragged in the mire. There is +something almost grand in the way that this Titanic scoffer draws +pictures of love only to mock at them, sings patriotic songs only to +add-- + + "Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung + The modern Greek in tolerable verse," + +and mentions Homer, Milton, and Shakespeare only to show how +accidental and worthless is fame. + +Amid the splendid confusion of pathos, irony, passion, mockery, keen +wit, and brilliant epigram, which display Byron's versatile and +spontaneous genius at its height, there are some beautiful and +powerful passages. There is an ideal picture of the love of Don Juan +and Haidee:-- + + "Each was the other's mirror, and but read + Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem." + + "...they could not be + Meant to grow old, but die in happy spring, + Before one charm or hope had taken wing." + +As she lightly slept-- + + "...her face so fair + Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air; + Or as the stirring of a deep clear stream + Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind + Walks o'er it." + +General Characteristics.--The poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge +shows the revolutionary reaction against classicism in literature and +tyranny in government; but their verse raises no cry of revolt against +the proprieties and moral restrictions of the time. Byron was so +saturated with the revolutionary spirit that he rebelled against these +also; and for this reason England would not allow him to be buried in +Westminster Abbey. + +As Byron frequently wrote in the white heat of passionate revolt, his +verse shows the effects of lack of restraint. Unfortunately he did not +afterwards take the trouble to improve his subject matter, or the mold +in which it was cast. Swinburne says, "His verse stumbles and jingles, +stammers and halts, where is most need for a swift and even pace of +musical sound." + +[Illustration: BYRON'S HOME AT PISA.] + +The great power of Byron's poetry consists in its wealth of +expression, its vigor, its rush and volume of sound, its variety, and +its passion. Lines like the following show the vigorous flow of the +verse, the love for lonely scenery, and a wealth of figurative +expression:-- + + "Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains, + They crowned him long ago + On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds + With a diadem of snow."[19] + +Scattered through his works we find rare gems, such as the following-- + + "...when + Music arose with its voluptuous swell, + Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, + And all went merry as a marriage bell."[20] + +We may also frequently note the working of an acute intellect, as, for +instance, in the lines in which he calls his own gloomy type of mind-- + + "...the telescope of truth, + Which strips the distance of its phantasies, + And brings life near in utter nakedness, + Making the cold reality too real!"[21] + +The answers to two questions which are frequently asked, will throw +more light on Byron's characteristics:-- + +I. Why has his poetic fame in England decreased so much from the +estimate of his contemporaries, by whom he seemed worthy of a place +beside Goethe? The answer is to be sought in the fact that Byron +reflected so powerfully the mood of that special time. That +reactionary period in history has passed and with it much of Byron's +influence and fame. He was, unlike Shakespeare, specially fitted to +minister to a certain age. Again, much of Byron's verse is rhetorical, +and that kind of poetry does not wear well. On the other hand, we +might reread Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, Milton's _Lycidas_, and +Wordsworth's _Intimations of Immortality_ every month for a lifetime, +and discover some new beauty and truth at every reading. + +II. Why does the continent of Europe class Byron among the very +greatest English poets, next even to Shakespeare? It is because Europe +was yearning for more liberty, and Byron's words and blows for freedom +aroused her at an opportune moment. Historians of continental +literature find his powerful impress on the thought of that time. +Georg Brandes, a noted European critic, says:-- + + "In the intellectual life of Russia and Poland, of Spain and Italy, + of France and Germany, the seeds which he had sown, fructified... + The Slavonic nations ...seized on his poetry with avidity... The + Spanish and Italian exile poets took his war cry... Heine's best + poetry is a continuation of Byron's work. French Romanticism and + German Liberalism are both direct descendants of Byron's + Naturalism." + +Swinburne gives as another reason for Byron's European popularity the +fact that he actually gains by translation into a foreign tongue. His +faulty meters and careless expressions are improved, while his +vigorous way of stating things and his rolling rhetoric are easily +comprehended. On the other hand, the delicate shades of thought in +Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ cannot be translated into some European tongues +without distinct loss. + +PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 1792-1822 + +[Illustration: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. _From the portrait by Amelia +Curran, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--Another fiery spirit of the Revolution was Shelley, born in +1792, in a home of wealth, at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex. He +was one of the most ardent, independent, and reckless English poets +inspired by the French Revolution. He was a man who could face infamy +and defy the conventionalities of the world, and, at the same moment, +extend a helpful hand of sympathy to a friend or sit for sixty hours +beside the sick bed of his dying child. Tender, pitying, fearless, +full of a desire to reform the world, and of hatred for any form of +tyranny, Shelley failed to adjust himself to the customs and laws of +his actual surroundings. He was calumniated and despised by the public +at large, and almost idolized by his intimate friends. + +At Eton he denounced the tyranny of the larger boys. At Oxford he +decried the tyranny of the church over freedom of thought, and was +promptly expelled for his pamphlet, _The Necessity of Atheism_. This +act so increased his hatred for despotic authority that he almost +immediately married Harriet Westbrook, a beautiful school girl of +sixteen, to relieve her from the tyranny of her father who wanted her +to return to school. Shelley was then only nineteen and very +changeable. He would make such a sudden departure from a place where +he had vowed "to live forever," that specially invited guests +sometimes came to find him gone. He soon fell in love with Mary +Wollstonecraft Godwin, the brilliant woman who later wrote the weird +romance _Frankenstein_, and he married her after Harriet Shelley had +drowned herself. These acts alienated his family and forced him to +forfeit his right to Field Place. + +[Illustration: SHELLEY'S BIRTHPLACE, FIELD PLACE.] + +His repeatedly avowed ideas upon religion, government, and marriage +brought him into conflict with public opinion. Unpopular at home, he +left England in 1818, never to return. Like Byron, he was practically +an exile. + +The remaining four years of Shelley's life were passed in comparative +tranquillity in the "Paradise of exiles," as he called Italy. He lived +chiefly at Pisa, the last eighteen months of his life. Byron rented +the famous Lanfranchi Palace in Pisa and became Shelley's neighbor, +often entertaining him and a group of English friends, among whom were +Edward Trelawny, the Boswell of Shelley's last days, and Leigh Hunt, +biographer and essayist. + +On July 7, 1822, Shelley said: "If I die to-morrow, I have lived to be +older than my father. I am ninety years of age." The young poet was +right in claiming that it is not length of years that measures life. +He had lived longer than most people who reach ninety. The next day he +started in company with two others to sail across the Bay of Spezzia +to his summer home. Friends watching from the shore saw a sudden +tempest strike his boat. When the cloud passed, the craft could not be +seen. Not many months before, he had written the last stanza of +_Adonais_:-- + + "...my spirit's bark is driven + Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng + Whose sails were never to the tempest given; + The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! + I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; + Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven, + The soul of Adonais, like a star, + Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are." + +Shelley's body was washed ashore, July 18, and it was burned near the +spot, in accordance with Italian law; but the ashes and the unconsumed +heart were interred in the beautiful Protestant cemetery at Rome, not +far from where Keats was buried the previous year. + +Few poets have been loved more than Shelley. Twentieth century +visitors to his grave often find it covered with fresh flowers. The +direction which he wrote for finding the tomb of Keats is more +applicable to Shelly's own resting place:-- + + "Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead + Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, + Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead + A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread."[22] + +Works.--_Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude_ (1816) is a magnificent +expression of Shelley's own restless, tameless spirit, wandering among +the grand solitudes of nature in search of the ineffably lovely dream +maiden, who was his ideal of beauty. He travels through primeval +forests, stands upon dizzy abysses, plies through roaring whirlpools, +all of which are symbolic of the soul's wayfaring, until at last,-- + + "When on the threshold + of the green recess," + +his dying glance rests upon the setting moon and the sufferer finds +eternal peace. The general tone of this poem is painfully despairing, +but this is relieved by the grandeur of the natural scenes and by many +imaginative flights. + +[Illustration: GRAVE OF SHELLEY, PROTESTANT CEMETERY, ROME.] + +The year 1819 saw the publication of a work unique among Shelley's +productions, _The Cenci_. This is a drama based upon the tragic story +of Beatrice Cenci. The poem deals with human beings, human passions, +real acts, and the natural world, whereas Shelley usually preferred to +treat of metaphysical theories, personified abstractions, and the +world of fancy. This strong drama was the most popular of his works +during his lifetime. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF STANZA FROM "TO A SKYLARK".] + +He returned to the ideal sphere again in one of his great poems, the +lyrical drama _Prometheus Unbound_ (1820). This poem is the apotheosis +of the French Revolution. Prometheus, the friend of mankind, lies +tortured and chained to the mountain side. As the hour redemption +approaches, his beloved Asia, the symbol of nature, arouses the soul +of Revolution, represented by Demogorgon. He rises, hurls down the +enemies of progress and freedom, releases Prometheus, and spreads +liberty and happiness through all the world. Then the Moon, the Earth, +and the Voices of the Air break forth into a magnificent chant of +praise. The most delicate fancies, the most gorgeous imagery, and the +most fiery, exultant emotions are combined in this poem with something +of the stateliness of its Greek prototype. The swelling cadences of +the blank verse and the tripping rhythm of the lyrics are the product +of a nature rich in rare and wonderful melodies. + +_The Witch of Atlas_ (1820), _Epipsychidion_ (1821), _Adonais_ (1821), +and the exquisite lyrics, _The Cloud, To a Skylark_ and _Ode to the +West Wind_ are the most beautiful of the remaining works. The first +two mentioned are the most elusive of Shelley's poems. With scarcely +an echo in his soul of the shadows and discords of earth, the poet +paints, in these works, lands-- + + "...'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea, + Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity;" + +where all is-- + + "Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise."[23] + +_Adonais_ is a lament for the early death of Keats, and it stands +second in the language among elegiac poems, ranking next to Milton's +_Lycidas_. Shelley referred to _Adonais as "perhaps the least +imperfect of my compositions." His biographer, Edward Dowden, calls it +"the costliest monument ever erected to the memory of an English +singer," who + + "...bought, with price of purest breath, + A grave among the eternal." + +Mrs. Shelley put some of her most sacred mementos of the poet between +the leaves of _Adonais_, which spoke to her of his own immortality and +omnipresence:-- + + "Naught we know dies. Shall that alone which knows + Be as a sword consumed before the sheath + By sightless lightning? + * * * * * + He is a portion of the loveliness, + Which once he made more lovely." + +Although some of Shelley's shorter poems are more popular, nothing +that he ever wrote surpasses _Adonais_ in completeness, poetic +thought, and perfection of artistic finish. + +Treatment of Nature.--Shelley was not interested in things +themselves, but in their elusive, animating spirit. In the lyric poem, +_To Night_, he does not address himself to mere darkness, but to the +active, dream-weaving "Spirit of Night." The very spirit of the +autumnal wind seems to him to breathe on the leaves and turn them-- + + "Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, + Pestilence-stricken multitudes."[24] + +In his spiritual conception of nature, he was profoundly affected by +Wordsworth; but he goes farther than the older poet in giving +expression to the strictly individual forms of nature. Wordsworth +pictures nature as a reflection of his own thoughts and feelings. In +_The Prelude_ he says:-- + + "To unorganic natures were transferred + My own enjoyments." + +Shelley, on the other hand, is most satisfying and original when his +individual spirit forms in night, cloud, skylark, and wind are made to +sing, not as a reflection of his own mood, but as these spirit forces +might themselves be supposed to sing, if they could express their song +in human language without the aid of a poet. In the lyric, _The +Cloud_, it is the animating spirit of the Cloud itself that sings the +song:-- + + "I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, + From the seas and the streams; + I bear light shade for the leaves when laid + In their noonday dreams. + * * * * * + I sift the snow on the mountains below + And their great pines groan aghast." + +He thus begins the song, _To a Skylark_-- + + "Hail to thee, blithe spirit! + Bird thou never wert," + +and he likens the lark to "an unbodied joy." + +He peoples the garden in his lyric, _The Sensitive Plant_, with +flowers that are definite, individual manifestations of "the Spirit of +Love felt everywhere," the same power on which Shelley +enthusiastically relied for the speedy transformation of the world. + + "A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, + And the young winds fed it with silver dew." + +The "tulip tall," "the Naiad-like lily," "the jessamine faint," "the +sweet tuberose," were all "ministering angels" to the "companionless +Sensitive Plant," and each tried to be a source of joy to all the +rest. No one who had not caught the new spirit of humanity could have +imagined that garden. + +In the exquisite _Ode to the West Wind_, he calls to that "breath of +Autumn's being" to express its own mighty harmonies through him:-- + + "O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, + * * * * * + 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." + +We may fancy that the spirit forms of nature which appear in cloud and +night, in song of bird and western wind, are content to have found in +Shelley a lyre that responded to their touch in such entrancing notes. + +General Characteristics.--Shelley's is the purest, the most hopeful, +and the noblest voice of the Revolution. Wordsworth and Coleridge lost +their faith and became Tories, and Byron was a selfish, lawless +creature; but Shelley had the martyr spirit of sacrifice, and he +trusted to the end in the wild hopes of the revolutionary enthusiasts. +His _Queen Mab, Revolt of Islam, Ode to Liberty, Ode to Naples_, and, +above all, his _Prometheus Unbound_, are some of the works inspired by +a trust in the ideal democracy which was to be based on universal love +and the brotherhood of man. This faith gives a bounding elasticity and +buoyancy to Shelley's thought, but also tinges it with that disgust +for the old, that defiance of restraint, and that boyish disregard for +experience which mark a time of revolt. + +The other subject that Shelley treats most frequently in his verse is +ideal beauty. He yearned all his life for some form beautiful enough +to satisfy the aspirations of his soul. _Alastor, Epipsychidion, The +Witch of Atlas_, and _Prometheus Unbound_, all breathe this insatiate +craving for that "Spirit of Beauty," that "awful Loveliness." + +Many of his efforts to describe in verse this democracy and this ideal +beauty are impalpable and obscure. It is difficult to clothe such +shadowy abstractions in clear, simple form. He is occasionally vague +because his thoughts seem to have emerged only partially from the +cloud lands that gave them birth. At other times, his vagueness +resembles Plato's because it is inherent in the subject matter. Like +Byron, Shelley is sometimes careless in the construction and revision +of his verse. We shall, however, search in vain for these faults in +Shelley's greatest lyrics. He is one of the supreme lyrical geniuses +in the language. Of all the lyric poets of England, he is the greatest +master of an ethereal, evanescent, phantomlike beauty. + +JOHN KEATS, 1795-1821 + +[Illustration: JOHN KEATS. _From the painting by Hilton, National +Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--John Keats, the son of a keeper of a large livery stable, a +man "fine in common sense and native respectability," was born in +Moorfields, London, in 1795. He attended school at Enfield, where he +was a prize scholar. He took special pleasure in studying Grecian +mythology, the influence of which is so apparent in his poetry. While +at school, he also voluntarily wrote a translation of much of Vergil's +_AEneid_. It would seem as if he had also been attracted to +Shakespeare; for Keats is credited with expressing to a young playmate +the opinion that no one, if alone in the house, would dare read +_Macbeth_ at two in the morning. + +When Keats was left an orphan in his fifteenth year, he was taken from +school and apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton, near London. + +When seventeen, he walked some distance to borrow a copy of Spenser's +_Faerie Queene_. A friend says: "Keats ramped through the scenes of +the romance like a young horse turned into a spring meadow." His study +of Grecian mythology and Elizabethan poetry exerted a stronger +influence over him than his medical instructor. One day when Keats +should have been listening to a surgical lecture, "there came," he +says, "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 fairy +land." + +He made a moderately good surgeon; but finding that his heart was +constantly with "Oberon and the fairy land" of poesy, he gave up his +profession in 1817 and began to study hard, preparatory to a literary +career. + +His short life was a brave struggle against disease, poverty, and +unfriendly criticism; but he accomplished more than any other English +author in the first twenty-five years of life. Success under such +conditions would have been impossible unless he had had "flint and +iron in him." He wrote:-- + + "I must think that difficulties nerve the spirit of a man. They make + his Prime Objects a Refuge as well as a Passion." + +Late in 1818, after he had published his first volume of verse, he met +Fanny Brawne, a girl of eighteen, and soon fell desperately in love +with her. The next six months were the happiest and the most +productive period of his life. His health was then such that he could +take long walks with her. In the first spring after he had met her, he +wrote in less than three hours his wonderful _Ode to a Nightingale_, +while he was sitting in the garden of his home at Wentworth Place, +Hampstead, near London, listening to the song of the bird. Most of his +famous poems were written in the year after meeting her. + +In February, 1820, his health began to decline so rapidly that he knew +that his days were numbered. His mother and one of his brothers had +died of consumption, and he had been for some time threatened with the +disease. He offered to release Miss Brawne from her engagement, but +she would not listen to the suggestion. She and her mother tried to +nurse him back to health. Few events in the history of English authors +are tinged with a deeper pathos than his engagement to Miss Brawne. +Some of the letters that he wrote to her or about her are almost +tragic. After he had taken his last leave of her he wrote, "I can bear +to die--I cannot bear to leave her." + +[Illustration: WENTWORTH PLACE, KEATS'S HOME IN HAMPSTEAD.] + +Acting on insistent medical advice, Keats sailed for Italy in +September, 1820, accompanied by a stanch friend, the artist Joseph +Severn. On this voyage, Keats wrote a sonnet which proved to be his +swan song:-- + + "Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art-- + Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night + And watching, with eternal lids apart, + Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, + The moving waters at their priestlike task + Of pure ablution round earth's human shores." + +While he lay on his sick bed in Rome, he said: "I feel the flowers +growing over me." In February, 1821, he died, at the age of +twenty-five years and four months. On the modest stone which marks his +grave in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, there was placed at his +request: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." His most +appropriate epitaph is Shelley's _Adonais_. + +[Illustration: GRAVE OF KEATS, ROME.] + +Poems.--In 1817 he published his first poems in a thin volume, which +did not attract much attention, although it contained two excellent +sonnets: _On First Looking into Chapman's Homer_ and _On the +Grasshopper and Cricket_, which begins with the famous line:-- + + "The poetry of earth is never dead." + +We may also find in this volume such lines of promise as:-- + + "Life is the rose's hope while yet unblown + The reading of an ever changing tale." + +A year later, his long poem, _Endymion_, appeared. The inner purpose +of this poetic romance is to show the search of the soul for absolute +Beauty. The first five lines are a beautiful exposition of his poetic +creed. _Endymion_, however, suffers from immaturity, shown in boyish +sentimentality, in a confusion of details, and in an overabundance of +ornament. This poem met with a torrent of abuse. One critic even +questioned whether Keats was the real name of the author, adding, "we +almost doubt whether any man in his senses would put his real name to +such a rhapsody." Keats showed himself a better critic than the +reviewers. It is unusual for a poet to recognize almost at once the +blemishes in his own work. He acknowledged that a certain critic-- + + "...is perfectly right in regard to the 'slipshod' _Endymion_... + it is as good as I had the power to make it by myself. I have + written independently, _without judgement_, I may write + independently and _with judgement_ hereafter." + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF ORIGINAL MS. OF ENDYMION.] + +The quickness of his development is one of the most amazing facts in +literary history. He was twenty-three when _Endymion_ was published, +but in the next eighteen months he had almost finished his life's +work. In that brief time, he perfected his art and wrote poems that +rank among the greatest of their kind, and that have influenced the +work of many succeeding poets, such as Tennyson, Lowell, and +Swinburne. + +[Illustration: ENDYMION. _From mural painting by H.O. Walker, +Congressional Library, Washington, D.C._] + +Nearly all his greatest poems were written in 1819 and published in +his 1820 volume. _The Eve of St. Agnes_ (January, 1819) and the _Ode +to a Nightingale_ (May, 1819) are perhaps his two most popular poems; +but his other masterpieces are sufficiently great to make choice among +them largely a matter of individual preference. + +_The Eve of St. Agnes_ is an almost flawless narrative poem, romantic +in its conception and artistic in its execution. Porphyro, a young +lover, gains entrance to a hostile castle on the eve of St. Agnes to +see if he cannot win his heroine, Madeline, on that enchanted evening. +The interest in the story, the mastery of poetic language, the wealth +and variety of the imagery, the atmosphere of medieval days, combine +to make this poem unusually attractive. The following lines appeal to +the senses of sight, odor, sound, and temperature,[25] as well as to +romantic human feeling and love of the beautiful:-- + + "...like a throbbing star + Seen mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose; + Into her dream he melted, as the rose + Blendeth its odor with the violet,-- + Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows + Like Love's alarum pattering the sharp sleet + Against the window panes; St. Agnes' moon hath set." + +The fact that Keats could write the _Ode to a Nightingale_ in three +hours is proof of genius. This poem pleases lovers of music, of +artistic expression, of nature, of romance, and of human pathos. Such +lines as these show that the strength and beauty of his verse are not +entirely dependent on images of sense:-- + + "Darkling I listen; and, for many a time + I have been half in love with easeful Death, + Call'd him soft names in many a musčd rhyme, + To take into the air my quiet breath." + +The _Ode on a Grecian Urn, To Autumn, La Belle Dame sans Merci, Ode on +Melancholy, Lamia_, and _Isabella_,--all show the unusual charm of +Keats. He manifests the greatest strength in his unfinished fragment +_Hyperion_, "the Götterdämmerung of the early Grecian gods." The +opening lines reveal the artistic perfection of form and the +effectiveness of the sensory images with which he frames the scene:-- + + "Deep in the shady sadness of a vale + Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, + Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, + Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone, + Still as the silence round about his lair; + Forest on forest hung about his head + Like cloud on cloud." + +General Characteristics.--Keats is the poetic apostle of the +beautiful. He specially emphasizes the beautiful in the world of the +senses; but his definition of beauty grew to include more than mere +physical sensations from attractive objects. In his _Ode to a Grecian +Urn_, he says that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," and he calls to +the Grecian pipes to play-- + + "Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, + Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone." + +Those poets who thought that they could equal Keats by piling up a +medley of sense images have been doomed to disappointment. The +transforming power of his imagination is more remarkable than the +wealth of his sensations. + +His mastery in choosing, adapting, and sometimes even creating, apt +poetic words or phrases, is one of his special charms. Matthew Arnold +says: "No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in +expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats." Some of his +descriptive adjectives and phrases, such as the "deep-damasked wings" +of the tiger-moth, have been called "miniature poems." In the eighty +lines of the _Ode to a Nightingale_, we may note the "_full-throated +ease_" of the nightingale's song, the vintage cooled in the +"_deep-delved_ earth," the "_beaded bubbles winking_ at the brim" of +the beaker "_full of the warm South_," "the coming musk-rose, full of +_dewy wine_," the sad Ruth "amid the _alien_ corn," and the "_faery +lands forlorn_." + +A contemporary critic accused Keats of "spawning" new words, of +converting verbs into nouns, of forming new verbs, and of making +strange use of adjectives and adverbs. Some contemporaries might +object to his "_torchčd_ mines," "_flawblown_ sleet," "_liegeless_ +air," or even to the "_calm-throated_" thrush of the immortals. Modern +lovers of poetry, however, think that he displayed additional proof of +genius by enriching the vocabulary of poetry more than any other +writer since Milton. + +Keats was not, like Byron and Shelley, a reformer. He drew his first +inspiration from Grecian mythology and the romantic world of Spenser, +not from the French Revolution or the social unrest of his own day. It +is, however, a mistake to say that he was untouched by the new human +impulses. There is modern feeling in the following lines which +introduce us to the two cruel brothers in _Isabella_:-- + + "...for them many a weary hand did swelt + In torchčd mines and noisy factories. + * * * * * + For them the Ceylon diver held his breath, + And went all naked to the hungry shark; + For them his ears gushed blood; for them in death + The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark + Lay full of darts." + +In the last quarter of the nineteenth century Matthew Arnold wrote of +Keats: "He is with Shakespeare." Andrew Bradley, a twentieth century +professor of poetry in the University of Oxford, says: "Keats was of +Shakespeare's tribe." These eminent critics do not mean that Keats had +the breadth, the humor, the moral appeal of Shakespeare, but they do +find in Keats much of the youthful Shakespeare's lyrical power, +mastery of expression, and intense love of the beautiful in life. When +Keats said: "If a sparrow comes before my window, I take part in its +existence and pick about the gravel," he showed another Shakespearean +quality in his power to enter into the life of other creatures. At +first he wrote of the beautiful things that appealed to his senses or +his fancies, but when he came to ask himself the question:-- + + "And can I ever bid these joys farewell?" + +he answered:-- + + "Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life, + Where I may find the agonies, the strife + Of human hearts."[26] + +In _Isabella_, the _Ode to a Nightingale, Lamia_, and _Hyperion_, he +was beginning to paint these "agonies" and "the strife"; but death +swiftly ended further progress on this road. Before he passed away, +however, he left some things that have an Elizabethan appeal. Among +such, we may mention his welcome to "easeful death," his artistic +setting of a puzzling truth:-- + + "...Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips, + Bidding adieu," + +his line to which the young world still responds:-- + + "Forever wilt thou love and she be fair," + +and especially the musical call of his own young life, "yearning like +a God in pain." + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY, 1785-1859 + +[Illustration: THOMAS DE QUINCEY. _From the painting by Sir J.W. +Gordon, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.-Thomas de Quincey was born in Manchester in 1785. Being a +precocious child, he became a remarkable student at the age of eight. +When he was only eleven, his Latin verses were the envy of the older +boys at the Bath school, which he was then attending. At the age of +fifteen, he was so thoroughly versed in Greek that his professor said +of him to a friend: "That boy could harangue an Athenian mob better +than you or I could address an English one." De Quincey was sent in +this year to the Manchester grammar school; but his mind was in +advance of the instruction offered there, and he unceremoniously left +the school on his seventeenth birthday. + +For a time he tramped through Wales, living on an allowance of a +guinea a week. Hungering for books, he suddenly posted to London. As +he feared that his family would force him to return to school, he did +not let them know his whereabouts. He therefore received no money from +them, and was forced to wander hungry, sick, and destitute, through +the streets of the metropolis, with its outcasts and waifs. He +describes this part of his life in a very entertaining manner in his +_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_. + +When his family found him, a year later, they prevailed on him to go +to Oxford; and, for the next four years, he lived the life of a +recluse at college. + +In 1808 he took the cottage at Grasmere that Wordsworth had quitted, +and enjoyed the society of the three Lake poets. Here De Quincey +married and lived his happiest years. + +The latter part of his life was clouded by his indulgence in opium, +which he had first taken while at college to relieve acute neuralgia. +At one time he was in the habit of taking an almost incredible amount +of laudanum. Owing to a business failure, his money was lost. It then +became necessary for him to throw off the influence of the narcotic +sufficiently to earn a livelihood, In 1821 he began to write. From +that time until his death, in 1859, his life was devoted mainly to +literature. + +[Illustration: ROOM IN DOVE COTTAGE OCCUPIED BY WORDSWORTH, +COLERIDGE, AND DE QUINCEY.] + +Works.--Nearly all De Quincey's writings were contributed to +magazines. His first and greatest contribution was _The Confessions of +an English Opium-Eater_, published in the _London Magazine_. These +_Confessions_ are most remarkable for the brilliant and elaborate +style in which the author's early life and his opium dreams are +related. His splendid, yet melancholy, dreams are the most famous in +the language. + +De Quincey's wide reading, especially of history, supplied the +material for many of them. In these dreams he saw the court ladies of +the "unhappy times of Charles I.," witnessed Marius pass by with his +Roman legions, "ran into pagodas" in China, where he "was fixed, for +centuries, at the summit, or in secret rooms," and "was buried for a +thousand years, in stone coffins, in narrow chambers at the heart of +eternal pyramids" in Egypt. + +His dreams were affected also by the throngs of people whom he had +watched in London. He was haunted by "the tyranny of the human face." +He says:-- + + "Faces imploring, wrathful, despairing, surged upwards by thousands, + by myriads, by generations, by centuries: my agitation was infinite, + my mind tossed, and surged with the ocean." + +Sound also played a large part in the dreams. Music, heart-breaking +lamentations, and pitiful echoes recurred frequently in the most +magnificent of these nightly pageants. One of the most distressing +features of the dreams was their vastness. The dreamer lived for +centuries in one night, and space "swelled, and was amplified to an +extent of unutterable infinity." + +To present with such force and reality these grotesque and weird +fancies, these vague horrors, and these deep oppressions required a +powerful imaginative grasp of the intangible, and a masterly command +of language. + +In no other work does De Quincey reach the eminence attained in the +_Confessions_, although his scholarly acquirements enabled him to +treat philosophical, critical, and historical subjects with wonderful +grace and ease. His biographer, Masson, says, "De Quincey's sixteen +volumes of magazine articles are full of brain from beginning to end." +The wide range of his erudition is shown by the fact that he could +write such fine literary criticisms as _On Wordsworth's Poetry_ and +_On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth_, such clear, strong, and +vivid descriptions of historical events and characters as _The +Caesars, Joan of Arc_, and _The Revolt of the Tartars_, and such acute +essays on unfamiliar topics as _The Toilette of a Hebrew Lady, The +Casuistry of Roman Meals_, and _The Spanish Military Nun_. + +He had a contemplative, analytic mind which enjoyed knotty +metaphysical problems and questions far removed from daily life, such +as the first principles of political economy, and of German +philosophy. While he was a clear thinker in such fields, he added +little that was new to English thought. + +The works which rank next to _The Confessions of an English +Opium-Eater_ are all largely autobiographical, and reveal charming +glimpses of this dreamy, learned sage. Those works are _Suspiria de +Profundis (Sighs from the Depths), The English Mail Coach_, and +_Autobiographic Sketches_. None of them contains any striking or +unusual experience of the author. Their power rests upon their +marvelous style. _Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow_ in _Suspiria de +Profundis_ and the _Dream Fugue_ in the _Mail Coach_ are among the +most musical, the most poetic, and the most imaginative of the +author's productions. + +General Characteristics.--De Quincey's essays show versatility, +scholarly exactness, and great imaginative power. His fame, however, +rests in a large degree upon his style. One of its most prominent +characteristics is, precision. There are but few English essayists who +can compare with him in scrupulous precision of expression. He +qualifies and elaborates a simple statement until its exact meaning +becomes plainly manifest. His vocabulary is extraordinary. In any of +the multifarious subjects treated by him, the right word seems always +at hand. + +Two characteristics, which are very striking in all his works, are +harmony and stateliness. His language is so full of rich harmonies +that it challenges comparison with poetry. His long, periodic +sentences move with a quiet dignity, adapted to the treatment of lofty +themes. + +De Quincey's work possesses also a light, ironic humor, which is +happiest in parody. The essay upon _Murder Considered as One of the +Fine Arts_ is the best example of his humor. This selection is one of +the most whimsical:-- + + "For, if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he come, + to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to + drinking and Sabbath breaking, and from that to incivility and + procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know + where you are to stop." + +De Quincey's gravest fault is digression. He frequently leaves his +main theme and follows some line of thought that has been suggested to +his well-stored mind. These digressions are often very long, and +sometimes one leads to another, until several subjects receive +treatment in a single paper. De Quincey, however, always returns to +the subject in hand and defines very sharply the point of digression +and of return. Another of his faults is an indulgence in involved +sentences, which weaken the vigor and simplicity of the style. + +Despite these faults, De Quincey is a great master of language. He +deserves study for the three most striking characteristics of his +style,--precision, stateliness, and harmony. + +SUMMARY + +The tide of reaction, which had for same time been gathering force, +swept triumphantly over England in this age of Romanticism. + +Men rebelled against the aristocracy, the narrow conventions of +society, the authority of the church and of the government, against +the supremacy of cold classicism in literature, against confining +intellectual activity to tangible commonplace things, and against the +repression of imagination and of the soul's aspirations. The two +principal forces behind these changes were the Romantic movement, +which culminated in changed literary ideals, and the spirit of the +French Revolution, which emphasized the close kinship of all ranks of +humanity. + +The time was preeminently poetic. The Elizabethan age alone excels it +in the glory of its poetry. The principal subjects of verse in the age +of Romanticism were nature and man. Nature became the embodiment of an +intelligent, sympathetic, spiritual force. Cowper, Burns, Scott, +Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats constitute a group of +poets who gave to English literature a new poetry of nature. The +majority of these were also poets of man, of a more ideal humanity. +The common man became an object of regard. Burns sings of the Scotch +peasant. Wordsworth pictures the life of shepherds and dalesmen. +Byron's lines ring with a cry of liberty for all, and Shelley +immortalizes the dreams of a universal brotherhood of man. Keats, the +poet of the beautiful, passed away before he heard clearly the message +of "the still sad music of humanity." + +While the prose does not take such high rank as the poetry, there are +some writers who will not soon be forgotten. Scott will be remembered +as the great master of the historical novel, Jane Austen as the +skillful realistic interpreter of everyday life, De Quincey for the +brilliancy of his style and the vigor of his imagination in presenting +his opium dreams, and Lamb for his exquisite humor. In philosophical +prose, Mill, Bentham, and Malthus made important contributions to +moral, social, and political philosophy, while Coleridge opposed their +utilitarian and materialistic tendencies, and codified the principles +of criticism from a romantic point of view. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +Gardiner[27], Green, Walker, or Cheney. For the social side, see +Traill, V., VI., and Cheney's _Industrial and Social History of +England_. + +LITERARY + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vols. XI., XII. + +Courthope's _A History of English Poetry_, Vol. VI. + +Elton's _A Survey of English Literature from 1780-1830_, 2 vols. + +Herford's _The Age of Wordsworth_. + +Brandes's _Naturalism in England_ (Vol. IV. of _Main Currents in +Nineteenth Century Literature_.) + +_The Revolution in English Poetry and Fiction_ (Chap. XXII. of Vol. X. +of _Cambridge Modern History_.) + +Hancock's _The French Revolution and the English Poets_. + +Scudder's _Life of the Spirit in the Modern English Poets_. + +Symons's _The Romantic Movement in English Poetry_. + +Reynolds's _The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry between Pope and +Wordsworth_. + +Mackie's _Nature Knowledge in Modern Poetry_. + +Brookes's _Studies in Poetry_ (Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats). + +Symons's _William Blake_. + +Payne's _The Greater English Poets of the Nineteenth Century_ (Keats, +Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth). + +Stephen's _Hours in a Library_, 3 vols. (Scott, De Quincey, Cowper, +Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge). + +Dowden's _Studies in Literature_, 1879-1877. + +Bradley's _Oxford Lectures on Poetry_ (Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats). + +Lowell's _Among my Books, Second Series_ (Wordsworth, Keats). + +Ainger's _Life of Lamb_. (E.M.L.) + +Lucas's _Life of Charles Lamb_. + +Goldwin Smith's _Life of Cowper_. (E.M.L.) + +Wright's _Life of Cowper_. + +Shairp's _Robert Burns_. (E.M.L.) + +Carlyle's _Essay on Burns_. + +Lockhart's _Life of Scott_., Hutton's _Life of Scott_. (E.M.L.) + +Yonge's _Life of Scott_. (G.W.) + +Goldwin Smith's _Life of Jane Austen_. (G.W.) + +Helm's _Jane Austen and her Country House Comedy_. + +Mitton's _Jane Austen and her Times_. + +Adams's _The Story of Jane Austen's Life_. + +Knight's _Life of Wordsworth_, 3 vols., Myers's _Life of Wordsworth_ +(E.M.L.), Raleigh's _Wordsworth_. + +Robertson's _Wordsworth and the English Lake Country_. + +Traill's _Life of Coleridge_ (E.M.L.), Caine's _Life of Coleridge_ +(G.W.), Garnett's _Coleridge_. + +Sneath's _Wordsworth, Poet of Nature and Poet of Man_. + +Mayne's _The New Life of Byron_, 2 vols, Nichol's _Life of Byron_ +(E.M.L.), Noel's _Life of Byron_. (G.W.) + +Trelawney's _Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron_. + +Dowden's _Life of Shelley_, 2 vols., Symonds's _Life of Shelley_ +(E.M.L.), Sharp's _Life of Shelley_ (G.W.). Francis Thompson's +_Shelley_. + +Clutton-Brock's _Shelley: The Man and the Poet_. + +Hogg's _Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley_(contemporary). + +Angeli's _Shelley and his Friends in Italy_. + +Colvin's _Life of Keats_ (E.M.L.), Rossetti's _Life of Keats_ (G.W.), +Hancock's _John Keats_. + +Miller's _Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley, and Keats_. + +Arnold's _Essays in Criticism, Second Series_ (Keats). + +H. Buxton Forman's _Complete Works of John Keats_ (includes the +_Letters_, the best edition). + +Masson's _Life of De Quincey_. (E.M.L.) + +Minto's _Manual of English Prose Literature_ (De Quincey). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Blake.--Some of his best poems are given in Ward, IV., 601-608; +Bronson, III., 385-403; Manly, I., 301-304; _Oxford_, 558-566; +_Century_, 485-489, and in the volume in _The Canterbury Poets_. + +Point out in Blake's verse (_a_) the new feeling for nature, (_b_) +evidences of wide sympathies, (_c_) mystical tendencies, and (_d_) +compare his verses relating to children and nature with Wordsworth's +poems on the same subjects. + +Cowper.--Read the opening stanzas of Cowper's _Conversation_ and +note the strong influence of Pope in the cleverly turned but +artificial couplets. Compare this poem with the one _On the Receipt of +my Mother's Picture_ or with _The Task_, Book IV., lines 1-41 and +267-332, Cassell's _National Library, Canterbury Poets_, or _Temple +Classics_ and point out the marked differences in subject matter and +style. What forward movement in literature is indicated by the change +in Cowper's manner? _John Gilpin_ should be read for its fresh, +beguiling humor. + +For selections, see Bronson,[28] III., 310-329; Ward, III., 422-485; +_Century_, 470-479; Manly, I., 285-294. + +Burns.--Read _The Cotter's Saturday Night, For a' That and a' That, +To a Mouse, Highland Mary, To Mary in Heaven, Farewell to Nancy, I +Love My Jean, A Red, Red Rose_. The teacher should read to the class +parts of _Tam o' Shanter_. + +The _Globe_ edition contains the complete poems of Burns with +Glossary. Inexpensive editions may be found in Cassell's _National +Library, Everyman's Library_, and _Canterbury Poets_. For selections, +see Bronson, III., 338-385; Ward. III., 512-571; _Century_, 490-502; +Manly, I., 309-326; _Oxford_, 492-506. + +In what ways do the first three poems mentioned above show Burns's +sympathy with democracy? Quote some of Burns's fine descriptions of +nature and describe the manner in which he treats nature. How does he +rank as a writer of love songs? What qualities in his poems have +touched so many hearts? Compare his poetry with that of Dryden, Pope, +and Shakespeare. + +Scott.--Read _The Lady of the Lake_, Canto III., stanzas iii.-xxv., +or _Marmion_, Canto VI., stanzas xiii.-xxvii. (American Book Company's +_Eclectic English Classics_, Cassell's _National Library_, or +_Everyman's Library_.) Read in Craik, V., "The Gypsy's Curse" (_Guy +Mannering_), pp. 14-17, "The Death of Madge Wildfire" (_Heart of +Middlothian_), pp. 30-35, and "The Grand Master of the Templars" +(_Ivanhoe_), pp. 37-42. The student should put on his list for reading +at his leisure: _Guy Mannering, Old Mortality, Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, +and The Talisman_. + +In what kind of poetry does Scott excel? Quote some of his spirited +heroes, and point out their chief excellences. How does his poetry +differ from that of Burns? In the history of fiction, does Scott rank +as an imitator or a creator? As a writer of fiction, in what do his +strength and his weakness consist? Has he those qualities that will +cause him to be popular a century hence? What can be said of his +style? + +Jane Austen.--In Craik, V., or Manly. II, read the selections from +_Pride and Prejudice_. The student at his leisure should read all this +novel. + +What world does she describe in her fiction? What are her chief +qualities? How does she differ from Scott? Why is she called +a "realist"? + +Wordsworth.--Read _I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, The Solitary +Reaper, To the Cuckoo, Lines Written in Early Spring, Three Years She +Grew in Sun and Shower, To my Sister, She Dwelt among the Untrodden +Ways, She Was a Phantom of Delight, Alice Fell, Lucy Gray, We Are +Seven, Intimations of Immortality from Recollection of Early +Childhood, Ode to Duty, Hart-Leap Well, Lines Composed a Few Miles +above Tintern Abbey, Michael_ and the sonnets: "It is a beauteous +evening, calm and free," "Milton, thou shouldst be living at this +hour," and "The world is too much with us, late and soon." Some +students will also wish to read _The Prelude_ (_Temple Classics_ or +A.J. George's edition), which describes the growth of Wordsworth's +mind. + +All the above poems (excepting _The Prelude_) may be found in the +volume _Poems of Wordsworth, chosen and edited by Matthew Arnold_ +(_Golden Treasury Series_, 331 pp., $1). Nearly all may also be found +in Page's _British Poets of the Nineteenth Century_ (923 pp., $2). For +selections, see Bronson, IV., 1-54; Ward, IV., 1-88; _Oxford_ 594-618; +_Century_, 503-541; Manly, I., 329-345. + +Refer to Wordsworth's "General Characteristics" (pp. 393-396) and +select the poems that most emphatically show his special qualities. +Which of the above poems seems easiest to write? In which is his +genius most apparent? Which best presents his view of nature? Which +best stand the test of an indefinite number of readings? In what do +his poems of childhood excel? + +Coleridge.--Read _The Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan, Hymn +before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni, Youth and Age_; Bronson, I., +54-93; Ward, IV., 102-154; Page, 66-103; Century, 553-565; Manly, I., +353-364; _Oxford_, 628-656. + +How do _The Ancient Mariner_ and _Christabel_ manifest the spirit of +Romanticism? What are the chief reasons for the popularity of _The +Ancient Mariner_? Would you call this poem didactic? Select stanzas +specially remarkable for melody, for beauty, for telling much in few +words, for images of nature, for conveying an ethical lesson. What +feeling almost unknown in early poetry is common in Coleridge's _The +Ancient Mariner_, Wordsworth's _Hart-Leap Well_, Burns's _To a Mouse, +On Seeing a Wounded Hare Limp by Me, A Winter Night_, and Cowper's _On +a Goldfinch Starved to Death in his Cage_? + +The advanced student should read some of Coleridge's prose criticism +in his _Biographia Literaria_ (_Everyman's Library_). The parts best +worth reading have been selected in George's _Coleridge's Principles +of Criticism_ (226 pp., 60 cents) and in Beers's _Selections for the +Prose Writings of Coleridge_ (including criticisms of Wordsworth and +Shakespeare, 146 pp., 50 cents). + +Note how fully Coleridge unfolds in these essays the principles of +romantic criticism, which have not been superseded. + +Byron.--Read _The Prisoner of Chillon_ (_Selections from Byron, +Eclectic English Classics_), _Childe Harold_, Canto III., stanzas +xxi-xxv. and cxiii., Canto IV., stanzas lxxviii., and lxxix. "Oh, +Snatch'd away in Beauty's Bloom," "There's not a joy the world can +give like that it takes away," and from _Don Juan_, Canto III., the +song inserted between stanzas lxxxvi. and lxxxvii. All these poems +will be found in the two volumes of Byron's works in the _Canterbury +Poets'_ series. + +Selections are given in Bronson, IV., 125-174; Ward, IV., 244-303; +Page, 170-272; Oxford, 688-694; _Century_, 586-613; Manly, I., +378-393. + +From the stanzas indicated in _Childe Harold_, select, first, the +passages which best illustrate the spirit of revolt, and, second, the +passages of most poetic beauty. What natural phenomena appeal most to +Byron? What qualities make _The Prisoner of Chillon_ a favorite? Why +is his poetry often called rhetorical? + +Shelley.--Read _Adonais, To a Skylark, Ode to the West Wind, To +Night, The Cloud, The Sensitive Plant_, and selections from _Alastor_ +and _Prometheus Unbound_. Shelley's _Poetical Works_, edited by Edward +Dowden (_Globe Poets_), contains all of Shelley's extant poetry. Less +expensive editions are in _Canterbury Poets, Temple Classics_, and +_Everyman's Library_. Selections are given in Bronson, IV., 182-227; +Ward, IV., 348-416; Page, 275-369; _Oxford_, 697-717; _Century_, +614-638; Manly, I., 394-411. + +Under what different aspects do _Adonais_ and _Lycidas_ view the life +after death? Has Shelley modified Wordsworth's view of the spiritual +force in nature? Does Shelley use either the cloud or the skylark for +the direct purpose of expressing his own feelings? Why is he sometimes +called a metaphysical poet? What is the most striking quality of +Shelley's poetic gift? + +Keats.--Read _The Eve of St. Agnes_, _Ode to a Nightingale_, _Ode on +a Grecian Urn_, _To Autumn_, _Hyperion_ (first 134 lines), _La Belle +Dame sans Merci_, _Isabella_, and the sonnets: _On First Looking into +Chapman's Homer_, _On the Grasshopper and Cricket_, _When I have Fears +that I May Cease to Be_, _Bright Star! Would I Were Steadfast as Thou +Art_. The best edition of the works of Keats is that by Buxton Forman. +The _Canterbury Poets_ and _Everyman's Library_ have less expensive +editions. All the poems indicated above may be found in Page's +_British Poets of the Nineteenth Century_. For selections, see +Bronson, IV., 230-265; Ward, IV., 427-464; _Oxford_, 721-744; +_Century_, 639-655; Manly, I., 413-425. + +By direct reference to the above poems, justify calling Keats "the +apostle of the beautiful," in both thought and language. Give examples +of his felicitous use of words and phrases. Show by illustrations his +mastery in the use of the concrete. To what special senses do his +images appeal? Was he at all affected by the new human movement? Why +does Arnold say, "Keats is with Shakespeare"? In what respects is he +like the Elizabethans? + +De Quincey.--Read _Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow_ (Craik, V., +264-270). The first chapters of _The Confessions of an English +Opium-Eater_ (_Everyman's Library_; _Temple Classics_; _Century_, +683-690; Manly, II., 357-366) are entertaining and will repay reading. + +Does his prose show any influence of a romantic and poetic age? +Compare his style with that of Addison, Gibbon, and Burke. In what +respects does De Quincey succeed, and in what does he fail, as a model +for a young writer? + +Lamb.--From the _Essays of Elia_ (Cassell's _National Library_; +_Everyman's Library_, _Temple Classics_) read any two of these essays: +_A Dissertation upon Roast Pig, Old China, Dream Children, New Year's +Eve, Poor Relations_. For selections, see Craik, V., 116-126; +_Century_, 575-578; Manly, II., 337-345. + +In what does Lamb's chief charm consist? Point out resemblances and +differences between his _Essays_ and Addison's. + +Landor, Hazlitt, and Hunt.--Good selections are given in Craik, V.; +Chambers, III.; Manly, II. Inexpensive editions of Landor's _Imaginary +Conversations_ and _Pericles and Aspasia_ may be found in the _Camelot +Series_. Hazlitt's _Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, Lectures on the +English Poets, Lectures on the English Comic Writers_, and _Table +Talk_ are published in _Everyman's Library_. The _Camelot Series_ and +the _Temple Classics_ also contain some of Hazlitt's works. A +selection from Leigh Hunt's _Essays_ is published in the _Camelot +Series_. + +What are the main characteristics of Landor's style? Select a passage +which justifies the criticism: "He writes in marble." Give some +striking thoughts from his _Imaginary Conversations_. Compare his +style and subject matter with Hazlitt's. Show that Hazlitt has the +power of presenting in an impressive way the chief characteristics of +authors. Select some pleasing passages from Leigh Hunt's _Essays_. +Compare him with Addison and Lamb. + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VIII: + +[Footnote 1: _Prelude_, Book XI.] + +[Footnote 2: gold.] + +[Footnote 3: _For a' That and a' That_.] + +[Footnote 4: _Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle_.] + +[Footnote 5: _Hart-Leap Well_.] + +[Footnote 6: _Intimations of Immortality_.] + +[Footnote 7: Wordsworth's _Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern +Abbey_.] + +[Footnote 8: _Retirement_.] + +[Footnote 9: _Conversation_.] + +[Footnote 10: _I Love My Jean_.] + +[Footnote 11: remedy.] + +[Footnote 12: _Epistle to John Lapraik_.] + +[Footnote 13: _The Vision_.] + +[Footnote 14: _Sonnet_: "The world is too much with us."] + +[Footnote 15: _Hart Leap Well_.] + +[Footnote 16: _A Day-Dream_.] + +[Footnote 17: _Biographia Literaria_, Chapter XIV.] + +[Footnote 18: _Ibid_., Chapter XXII.] + +[Footnote 19: _Manfred_, Act I.] + +[Footnote 20: _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, Canto III.] + +[Footnote 21: _The Dream_.] + +[Footnote 22: _Adonais_, Stanza xlix] + +[Footnote 23: _Epipsychidion_.] + +[Footnote 24: _Ode to the West Wind_.] + +[Footnote 25: For a discussion of the different sensory images of the +poets, see the author's _Education of the Central Nervous System_, +pages 109-208.] + +[Footnote 26: _Sleep and Poetry_.] + +[Footnote 27: For full titles, see p. 50.] + +[Footnote 28: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER IX: THE VICTORIAN AGE, 1837-1900 + +History of the Period.--In the two periods of English history most +remarkable for their accomplishment, the Elizabethan and the +Victorian, the throne was occupied by women. Queen Victoria, the +granddaughter of George III., ruled from 1837 to the beginning of +1901. Her long reign of sixty-three years may be said to close with +the end of the nineteenth century. + +For nearly fifty years after the battle of Waterloo (1815), England +had no war of magnitude. In 1854 she joined France in a war against +Russia to keep her from taking Constantinople. Tennyson's well-known +poem, _The Charge of the Light Brigade_, commemorates an incident in +this bloody contest, which was successful in preventing Russia from +dismembering Turkey. + +When the Turks massacred the Christians in Bulgaria in 1876, Russia +fought and conquered Turkey. England again intervened, this time after +the war, in the Berlin Congress (1878). In return for her diplomatic +services and for a guaranty to maintain the integrity of certain +Turkish territory, England received from Turkey the island of Cyprus. +As a result of this Congress, the principalities of Roumania, Servia, +and Bulgaria were formed, but the Turk was allowed to remain in +Europe. A later English prime minister, Lord Salisbury (1830-1903), +referring to England's espousal of the Turkish cause, said that she +had "backed the wrong horse." The bloody war of 1912-1913 between +Turkey and the allied armies of Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro, and +Greece was the result of this mistake. + +An important part of England's history during this period centers +around the expansion, protection, and development of her colonies in +Asia, Australia, Africa, and America. England was then constantly +agitated by the fear that Russia might grow strong enough to seize +India or some other English colonial possessions. + +A serious rebellion in India (1857) led England to take from the East +India Company the government of that colony. "Empress of India" was +later (1876) added to the titles of Queen Victoria. Had India not been +an English colony, literature might not have had Kipling's fascinating +_Jungle Books_ and Hindu stories. England's protectorate over Egypt +(1882) was assumed in order to strengthen her control over the newly +completed Suez Canal (1869), which was needed for her communication +with India and her Australian colonies. + +The Boer war in South Africa (1899-1902)required the largest number of +troops that England ever mustered into service in any of her wars. The +final outcome of this desperate struggle was the further extension of +her South African possessions. + +In the nineteenth century, England's most notable political +achievement was "her successful rule over colonies, ranging from +India, with its 280,000,000 subjects, to Fanning Island with its +population of thirty." Her tactful guidance was for the must part +directed toward enabling them to develop and to govern themselves. She +had learned a valuable lesson from the American revolution. + +Ireland, however, failed to secure her share of the benefits that +usually resulted from English rule. She was neither regarded as a +colony, like Australia, nor as an integral part of England. For the +greater part of the century her condition was deplorable. The great +prime minister, William E. Gladstone (1809-1898), tried to secure +needed home rule for her, but did not succeed. Toward the end of the +century, more liberal laws regarding the tenure of the land and more +self-government afforded some relief from unjust conditions. + +During the Victorian age the government of England became more +democratic. Two reform bills (1867 and 1884) gave almost unrestricted +suffrage to men. The extension of the franchise and the granting of +local self-government to her counties (1888) made England one of the +most democratic of all nations. Her monarch has less power than the +president of the United States. + +The Victorian age saw the rise of trades unions and the passing of +many laws to improve the condition of the working classes. As the +tariff protecting the home grower of wheat had raised the price of +bread and caused much suffering to the poor, England not only repealed +this duty (1846) but also became practically a free-trade country. The +age won laurels in providing more educational facilities for all, in +abridging class privileges, and in showing increasing recognition of +human rights, without a bloody revolution such as took place in +France. A rough indication of the amount of social and moral progress +is the decrease in the number of convicts in England, from about +50,000 at the accession of Victoria to less than 6000 at her death. + +An Age of Science and Invention.--In the extent and the variety of +inventions, in their rapid improvement and utilization for human +needs, and in general scientific progress, the sixty-three years of +the Victorian age surpassed all the rest of historic time. + +When Victoria ascended the throne, the stage coach was the common +means of traveling; only two short pieces of railroad had been +constructed; the electric telegraph had not been developed; few +steamships had crossed the Atlantic. The modern use of the telephone +would then have seemed as improbable as the wildest Arabian Nights' +tale. Before her reign ended, the railroad, the telegraph, the +steamship, and the telephone had wrought an almost magical change in +travel and in communication. + +The Victorian age introduced anaesthetics and antiseptic surgery, +developed photography, the sciences of chemistry and physics, of +biology and zoölogy, of botany and geology. The enthusiastic +scientific worker appeared in every field, endeavoring to understand +the laws of nature and to apply them in the service of man. Science +also turned its attention to human progress and welfare. The new +science of sociology had earnest students. + +[Illustration: CHARLES DARWIN.] + +The Influence of Science on Literature.--The Victorian age was the +first to set forth clearly the evolution hypothesis, which teaches the +orderly development from simple to complex forms. While the idea of +evolution had suggested itself to many naturalists, Charles Darwin +(1809-1882) was the first to gain a wide hearing for the theory. After +years of careful study of nature, he published in 1859 _The Origin of +Species by Natural Selection_, an epoch-making work, which had a +far-reaching effect on the thought of the age. + +The influence of his doctrine of evolution is especially apparent in +Tennyson's poetry, in George Eliot's fiction, in religious thought, +and in the change in viewing social problems. In his _Synthetic +Philosophy_, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), philosopher and +metaphysician, applied the doctrine of evolution not only to plants +and animals but also to society, morality, and religion. + +Two eminent scientists, John Tyndall (1820-1893) and Thomas Huxley +(1825-1895), did much to popularize science and to cause the age to +seek a broader education. Tyndall's _Fragments of Science_ (1871) +contains a fine lecture on the _Scientific Use of the Imagination_, in +which he becomes almost poetic in his imaginative conception of +evolution:-- + + "Not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular + or animal life, not alone the nobler + forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite + and wonderful mechanism of the human + body, but the human mind itself,--emotion, + intellect, will, and all their phenomena,--were + once latent in a fiery cloud... All our philosophy, all our poetry, + all our science, and all our art,--Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, and + Raphael,--are potential in the fires of the sun." + +[Illustration: JOHN TYNDALL.] + +Unlike Keats in his _Lamia_, Tyndall is firm in his belief that +science will not clip the wings of imagination. In the same lecture he +says:-- + + "How are we to lay hold of the physical basis of light, since, like + that of life itself, it lies entirely without the domain of the + senses? We are gifted with the power of imagination and by this + power we can lighten the darkness which surrounds the world of the + senses... Bounded and conditioned by coöperant reason, imagination + becomes the mightiest instrument of the physical discoverer. + Newton's passage from a falling apple to a falling moon was at the + outset a leap of the imagination." + +Huxley was even a more brilliant interpreter of science to popular +audiences. His so-called _Lay Sermons_ (1870) are invigorating +presentations of scientific and educational subjects. He awakened many +to a sense of the importance of "knowing the laws of the physical +world" and "the relations of cause and effect therein." Nowhere is he +more impressive than where he forces us to admit that we must all play +the chess game of life against an opponent that never makes an error +and never fails to count our mistakes against us. + +[Illustration: THOMAS HUXLEY. _From the painting by Collier, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + + "The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the + universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. + The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his + play is always fair, just, and patient. But we also know, to our + cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest + allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest + stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which + the strong man shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is + checkmated--without haste, but without remorse. + * * * * * + "Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty + game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect + in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things + and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the + affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move + in harmony with those laws."[1] + +We find the influence of science manifest in much of the general +literature of the age, as well as in the special writings of the +scientists. Science introduced to literature a new interest in +humanity and impressed on writers what is known as the "growth idea." +Preceding literature, with the conspicuous exception of Shakespeare's +work, had for the most part presented individuals whose character was +already fixed. This age loved to show the growth of souls. George +Eliot's novels are frequently Darwinian demonstrations of the various +steps in the moral growth or the perversion of the individual. In +_Rabbi Ben Ezra_, Browning thus expresses this new idea of the working +of the Divine Power:-- + + "He fixed thee mid this dance + Of plastic circumstance." + +The Trend of Prose; Minor Prose Writers.--The prose of this age is +remarkable for amount and variety. In addition to the work of the +scientists, there are the essays and histories of Macaulay and +Carlyle, the essays and varied prose of Newman, the art and social +philosophy of Ruskin, the critical essays of Matthew Arnold and +Swinburne. + +One essayist, Walter Pater (1839-1894), an Oxford graduate and +teacher, who kept himself aloof from contemporary thought, produced +almost a new type of serious prose, distinguished for color, +ornamentation, melody, and poetic thought. Even such prosaic objects +as wood and brick were to his retrospective gaze "half mere +soul-stuff, floated thither from who knows where." His object was to +charm his reader, to haunt him with vague suggestions rather than to +make a logical appeal to him, or to add to his world of vivid fact, +after the manner of Macaulay. A quotation from Pater's most brilliant +essay, _Leonardo Da Vinci_, in the volume, _The Renaissance: Studies +in Art and Poetry_[2] (1873) will show some of the characteristics of +his prose. This description of Da Vinci's masterpiece, the portrait of +Mona Lisa, has added to the world-wide fame of that picture-- + + "Hers is the head upon which all 'the ends of the world are come,' + and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from + within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange + thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a + moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women + of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into + which the soul with its maladies has passed!... She is older than + the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead + many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a + diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and + trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as Leda, + was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of + Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and + flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has molded the + changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands." + +The period from 1780 to 1837 had only two great writers of +fiction,--Scott and Jane Austen; but the Victorian age saw the novel +gain the ascendancy that the drama enjoyed in Elizabethan times. + +In addition to the chief novelists,--Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, +Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, George Meredith, and Kipling,--there were +many other writers who produced one or more excellent works of +fiction. In this class are the Brontė sisters, especially Charlotte +Brontė (1816-1855) and Emily Brontė (1818-1848), the daughters of a +clergyman, who lived in Haworth, Yorkshire. They had genius, but they +were hampered by poverty, lack of sympathy, and peculiar environment. +Charlotte Brontė's _Jane Eyre_ (1847) is a thrilling story, which +centers around the experiences of one of the great nineteenth-century +heroines of fiction. This virile novel, an unusual compound of +sensational romance and of intense realism, lives because the highly +gifted author made it pulsate with her own life. Unlike _Jane Eyre_, +Emily Brontė's powerful novel, _Wuthering Heights_ (1847) is not +pleasant reading. This romantic novel is really her imaginative +interpretation of the Yorkshire life that she knew. If she had +humanized _Wuthering Heights_, it could have been classed among the +greatest novels of the Victorian age. She might have learned this art, +had she not died at the age of thirty. "Stronger than a man, simpler +than a child, her nature stood alone," wrote Charlotte Brontė of her +sister Emily. + +Among the other authors who deserve mention for one or more works of +fiction are: Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873), a versatile writer whose +best-known work is _The Last Days of Pompeii_; Elizabeth Gaskell +(1810-1865), whose _Cranford_ (1853) is an inimitable picture of +mid-nineteenth century life in a small Cheshire village; Anthony +Trollope (1815-1882), whose _Barchester Towers_ is a realistic study +of life in a cathedral town; Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), who stirs +the blood in _Westward Ho!_ (1855), a tale of Elizabethan seamen; +Charles Reade (1814-1884), author of _The Cloister and the Hearth_ +(1861), a careful and fascinating study of fifteenth-century life; +R.D. Blackmore (1825-1900), whose _Lorna Doone_ (1869) is a +thrilling North Devonshire story of life and love in the latter part +of the seventeenth century; J.M. Barrie (1860- ), whose _The Little +Minister_ (1891) is a richly human, sympathetic, and humorous story, +the scene of which is laid in Kirriemuir, a town about sixty miles +north of Edinburgh. His _Sentimental Tommy_ (1896), although not so +widely popular, is an unusually original, semi-autobiographical story +of imaginative boyhood. This entire chapter could be filled with +merely the titles of Victorian novels, many of which possess some +distinctive merit. + +The changed character of the reading public furnished one reason for +the unprecedented growth of fiction. The spread of education through +public schools, newspapers, cheap magazines, and books caused a +widespread habit of reading, which before this time was not common +among the large numbers of the uneducated and the poor. The masses, +however, did not care for uninteresting or abstruse works. The +majority of books drawn from the circulating libraries were novels. + +The scientific spirit of the age impelled the greatest novelists to +try to paint actual life as it impressed them. Dickens chose the lower +classes in London; Thackeray, the clubs and fashionable world; George +Eliot, the country life near her birthplace in Warwickshire; Hardy, +the people of his Wessex; Meredith, the cosmopolitan life of +egotistical man; Kipling, the life of India both in jungle and camp, +as well as the life of the great outer world. These writers of fiction +all sought a realistic background, although some of them did not +hesitate to use romantic touches to heighten the general effect. +Stevenson was the chief writer of romances. + +The Trend of Poetry: Minor Poets.--The Victorian age was dominated +by two great poets,--Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson. Browning +showed the influence of science in his tendency to analyze human +motives and actions. In one line of _Fra Lippo Lippi_, he voices the +new poetic attitude toward the world:-- + + "To find its meaning is my meat and drink." + +Browning advanced into new fields, while Tennyson was more content to +make a beautiful poetic translation of much of the thought of the age. +In his youth he wrote:-- + + "Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime + With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time." + +From merely reading Tennyson's verse, one could gauge quite accurately +the trend of Victorian scientific thought. + +The poetry of both Browning and Tennyson is so resonant with faith +that they have been called great religious teachers. Rudyard Kipling, +the poet of imperialistic England, of her "far-flung battle line," +attributes her "dominion over palm and pine" to faith in the "Lord God +of Hosts." + +In the minor poets, there is often a different strain. Arnold is beset +with doubt, and hears no "clear call," such as Tennyson voices in +_Crossing the Bar_. Swinburne, seeing the pessimistic side of the +shield of evolution, exclaims:-- + + "Thou hast fed one rose with dust of many men." + +Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), Oxford tutor, traveler, and +educational examiner, was a poet who struggled with the doubt of the +age. He loved-- + + "To finger idly some old Gordian knot, + Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, + And with much toil attain to half-believe." + +His verse would be forgotten if it expressed only such an uncertain +note; but his greatest poem thus records his belief in the value of +life's struggle and gives a hint of final victory:-- + + "Say not the struggle naught availeth, + The labor and the wounds are vain, + The enemy faints not, nor faileth, + And as things have been they remain. + + "If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; + It maybe, in yon smoke concealed, + Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, + And, but for you, possess the field." + +Although he paid too little attention to the form of his verse, some +of his poems have the vitality of an earnest, thoughtful sincerity. + +Two poets, W. E. Henley (1849-1903) and Robert Bridges (1844- ), +although they do not possess Robert Browning's genius, yet have much +of his capacity to inspire others with joy in "the mere living." +Henley, a cripple and a great sufferer, was a poet, critic, and London +editor. His message is "the joy of life ":-- + + "...the blackbird sings but a box-wood flute, + But I lose him best of all + For his song is all of the joy of life." + +His verse, which is elemental, full of enthusiasm and beauty, often +reminds us of the work of the thirteenth-century lyrists. + +Robert Bridges, an Oxford graduate, physician, critic, and poet, also +had for his creed: "Life and joy are one." His universe, like +Shelley's, is an incarnation of the spirit of love:-- + + "Love can tell, and love alone, + Whence the million stars were strewn, + Why each atom knows its own, + How, in spite of woe and death, + Gay is life, and sweet is breath." + +He wishes for no happier day than the present one. Bridges has been +called a classical poet because he often selects Greek and Roman +subjects for his verse, and because he writes with a formality, +purity, and precision of style. He is, however, most delightful in +such volumes as _Shorter Poems_ and _New Poems_.[3] wherein he +describes in a simple, artless manner English rural scenes and +fireside joys. In 1913 he was appointed poet laureate, to succeed +Alfred Austin. + +John Davidson (1857-1909), a Scotch poet, who came to London and +wrestled with poverty, produced much uneven work. In his best verse, +there is often a pleasing combination of poetic beauty and vigorous +movement. Lines like these from his _Ballad of a Nun_ have been much +admired:-- + + "On many a mountain's happy head + Dawn lightly laid her rosy hand. + The adventurous son took heaven by storm, + Clouds scattered largesses of rain." + +Davidson later became an offensively shrill preacher of materialism +and lost his early charm. Some of the best of his poetry may be found +in _Fleet Street Ecologues_. + +Francis Thompson (1860-1907), a Catholic poet, who has been called a +nineteenth-century Crashaw, passed much of his short life of suffering +in London, where he was once reduced to selling matches on a street +corner. His greatest poem, _The Hound of Heaven_ (1893), is an +impassioned lyrical rendering of the passage in the _Psalms_ +beginning: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I +flee from thy presence?" While fleeing down "the long savannahs of the +blue," the poet hears a Voice say:-- + + "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me." + +William Watson (1858- ), a London poet, looked to Milton, +Wordsworth, and Arnold as his masters. Some of Watson's best verse, +such as _Wordsworth's Grave_, is written in praise of dead poets. His +early volume _Epigrams_ (1884), containing one hundred poems of four +lines each, shows his power of conveying poetic thought in brief +space. One of these poems is called _Shelley and Harriet Westbrook_:-- + + "A star looked down from heaven and loved a flower, + Grown in earth's garden--loved it for an hour: + Let eyes that trace his orbit in the spheres + Refuse not, to a ruin'd rosebud, tears."[4] + +Many expected to see Watson appointed poet-laureate to succeed +Tennyson. Possibly mental trouble, which had temporarily affected him, +influenced the choice; for Alfred Austin (1835-1913) received the +laureateship in 1896. Like the Pre-Raphaelites, Watson disliked those +whom he called a "phrase-tormenting fantastic chorus of poets." His +best verse shows depth of poetic thought, directness of expression, +and a strong sense of moral values. + +The Victorian age has provided poetry to suit almost all tastes. In +striking contrast with those who wrestled with the eternal verities +are such poets and essayists as Austin Dobson (1840- ), long a clerk +of the London Board of Trade, and Arthur Symons (1865- ), a poet and +discriminating prose critic. Austin Dobson, who is fond of +eighteenth-century subjects, is at his best in graceful society verse. +His poems show the touch of a highly skilled metrical artist who has +been a careful student of French poetry. His ease of expression, +freshness, and humor charm readers of his verse without making serious +demands on their attention. His best poems are found in _Vignettes in +Rhyme_ (1873), _At the Sign of the Lyre_ (1885), and _Collected Poems_ +(1913). + +In choice of subject matter, Arthur Symons sometimes suggests the +Cavalier poets. He has often squandered his powers in acting on his +theory that it is one of the provinces of verse to record any +momentary mood, irrespective of its value. His deftness of touch and +acute poetic sensibility are evident in such short poems as _Rain on +the Down, Credo, A Roundel of Rest_ and _The Last Memory_.[5] + +[Illustration: DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. _From the drawing by himself, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + +The Pre-Raphaelite Movement.--In 1848 three artists, Dante Gabriel +Rossetti (1828-1882), William Holman-Hunt (1827-1910), and John +Everett Millais (1829-1896), formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. +Others soon joined the movement which was primarily artistic, not +literary. Painting had become imitative. The uppermost question in the +artist's mind was, "How would Raphael or some other authority have +painted this picture?" The new school determined to paint things from +a direct study of nature, without a thought of the way in which any +one else would have painted them. They decided to assume the same +independence as the Pre-Raphaelite artists, who expressed their +individuality in their own way. Keats was the favorite author of the +new school. The artists painted subjects suggested by his poems, and +Rossetti thought him "the one true heir of Shakespeare." + +When the Pre-Raphaelite paintings were violently attacked, Ruskin +examined them and decided that they conformed to the principles which +he had already laid down in the first two volumes of _Modern Painters_ +(1843, 1846), so he wrote _Pre-Raphaelitism_ (1851) as the champion of +the new school. It has been humorously said that some of the painters +of this school, before beginning a new picture, took an oath "to paint +the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." + +The new movement in poetry followed this revolt in art. Dante Gabriel +Rossetti, the head of the literary Pre-Raphaelites, though born in +London, was of Italian parentage in which there was a strain of +English blood. His poem, _The Blessed Damozel_ (first published in +1850), has had the greatest influence of any Pre-Raphaelite literary +production. This poem was suggested by _The Raven_ (1845), the work of +the American, Edgar Allan Poe. Rossetti said:-- + + "I saw that Poe had done the utmost it was possible to do with the + grief of the lover an earth, and I determined to reverse the + conditions, and give utterance to the yearnings of the loved one in + heaven." + +His Blessed Damozel, wearing a white rose, "Mary's gift," leaning out +from the gold bar of heaven, watching with sad eyes, "deeper than the +depth of waters stilled at even," for the coming of her lover, has +left a lasting impression on many readers. Simplicity, beauty, and +pathos are the chief characteristics of this poem, which, like +Bryant's _Thanatopsis_, was written by a youth of eighteen. + +Painting was the chief work of Rossetti's life, but he wrote many +other poems. Some of the most characteristic of these are the two +semi-ballads, _Sister Helen_ and _The King's Tragedy, Rose Mary, +Love's Nocturn_, and _Sonnets_. + +One of the earliest of these Sonnets, _Mary's Girlhood_, describes the +child as:-- + + "An angel-watered lily, that near God + Grows and is quiet." + +His sister, Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), the author of much +religious verse, shows the unaffected naturalness of the new movement. +This stanza from her _Amor Mundi_ (_Love of the World_) is +characteristic:-- + + "So they two went together in glowing August weather, + The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right; + And dear she was to doat on, her swift feet seemed to float on + The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight." + +William Morris (1834-1896), Oxford graduate, decorator, +manufacturer, printer, and poet, was born near London. He was +fascinated by _The Blessed Damozel_, and his first and most poetical +volume, _The Defence of Guinevere and Other Poems_ (1858), shows +Rossetti's influence. The simplicity insisted on by the new school is +evident in such lines as these from _Two Red Roses across the Moon_:-- + + "There was a lady lived in a hall, + Large in the eyes and slim and tall; + And ever she sung from noon to noon, + Two red roses across the moon." + +Morris later wrote a long series of narrative poems, called _The +Earthly Paradise_ (1868-1870) and an epic, _Sigurd the Volsung_ +(1876). He turned from Pre-Raphaelitism to become an earnest social +reformer. + +In literature, the Pre-Raphaelite movement disdained the old +conventions and started a miniature romantic revival, which emphasized +individuality, direct expression, and the use of simple words. Its +influence soon became merged in that of the earlier and far greater +romantic school. + +THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, 1800-1859 + +[Illustration: THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. _From the painting by Sir +F. Grant, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--A prominent figure in the social and political life of +England during the first part of the century was Thomas Babington +Macaulay, a man of brilliant intellectual powers, strict integrity of +character, and enormous capacity for work. He loved England and +gloried in her liberties and her commercial prosperity. He served her +for many years in the House of Commons, and he bent his whole energy +and splendid forensic talent in favor of the Reform Bill of 1832, +which secured greater political liberty for England. + +He was not a theorizer, but a practical man of affairs. +Notwithstanding the fact that his political opinions were ready made +for him by the Whig party, his career in the House was never +"inconsistent with rectitude of intention and independence of spirit." +He voted conscientiously for measures, although he personally +sacrificed hundreds of pounds by so doing. + +He was a remarkable talker. A single speech of his has been known to +change an entire vote in Parliament. Unlike Coleridge, he did not +indulge in monologue, but showed to finest advantage in debate. His +power of memory was wonderful. He often startled an opponent by +quoting from a given chapter and page of a book. He repeated long +passages from _Paradise Lost_; and it is said he could have restored +it complete, had it all been lost. + +His disposition was sweet and his life altogether fortunate. His +biographer says of him: "Descended from Scotch Presbyterians +--ministers many of them--on his father's side, and from +a Quaker family on his mother's, he probably united as many guaranties +of 'good birth,' in the moral sense of the word, as could be found in +these islands at the beginning of the century." + +He was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, in 1800. He was +prepared for college at good private schools, and sent to Cambridge +when he was eighteen. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in +1825; but, in the following year, he determined to adopt literature as +a profession, owing to the welcome given to his _Essay on Milton_. As +he had written epics, histories, and metrical romances prior to the +age of ten, his choice of a profession was neither hasty nor +unexpected. + +He continued from this time to write for the _Edinburgh Review_, but +literature was not the only field of his activity. He had a seat in +Parliament, and he held several positions under the Government. He was +never unemployed. Many of his _Essays_ were written before breakfast; +while the other members of the household were asleep. + +He was a voracious reader. If he walked in the country or in London, +he always carried a book to read. He spent some years in the +government's service in India. On the long voyage over, he read +incessantly, and on the return trip he studied the German language. + +He was beyond the age of forty when he found the leisure to begin his +_History of England_. He worked uninterruptedly, but broke down early, +dying at the age of fifty-nine. + +With his large, fine physique, his sturdy common sense, his interest +in practical matters, and his satisfaction in the physical +improvements of the people, Macaulay was a fine specimen of the +English gentleman. + +Essays and Poetry.--Like De Quincey, Macaulay was a frequent +contributor to periodicals. He wrote graphic essays on men of action +and historical periods. The essays most worthy of mention in this +class are _Sir William Temple, Lord Clive, Warren Hastings_, and +_William Pitt, Earl of Chatham_. Some of his essays on English writers +and literary subjects are still classic. Among these are _Milton, +Dryden, Addison, Southey's Edition of Pilgrim's Progress, Croker's +Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson_, and the biographical essays on +_Bunyan, Goldsmith_, and _Johnson_, contributed to the _Encyclopaedia +Britannica_. Although they may lack deep spiritual insight into the +fundamental principles of life and literary criticism, these essays +are still deservedly read by most students of English history and +literature. + +Gosse says: "The most restive of juvenile minds, if induced to enter +one of Macaulay's essays, is almost certain to reappear at the other +end of it gratified, and, to an appreciable extent, cultivated." These +_Essays_ have developed a taste for general reading in many who could +not have been induced to begin with anything dry or hard. Many who +have read Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ during the past fifty years say +that Macaulay first turned their attention to that fascinating work. +In the following quotation from an essay on that great biography, we +may note his love for interesting concrete statements, presented in a +vigorous and clear style:-- + + "Johnson grown old, Johnson in the fullness of his fame and in the + enjoyment of a competent fortune, is better known to us than any + other man in history. Everything about him, his chat, his wig, his + figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus's dance, his rolling + walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs which too clearly marked + his approbation of his dinner, his insatiable appetite for fish + sauce and veal pie with plums, his inextinguishable thirst for tea, + his trick of touching the posts as he walked ... all are as familiar + to us as the objects by which we have been surrounded from + childhood." + +Macaulay wrote some stirring ballad poetry, known as _Lays of Ancient +Rome_, which gives a good picture of the proud Roman Republic in its +valorous days. These ballads have something of Scott's healthy, manly +ring. They contain rhetorical and martial stanzas, which are the +delight of many boys; but they lack the spirituality and beauty that +are necessary for great poetry. + +History of England.--Macaulay had for some time wondered why some +one should not do for real history what Scott had done for imaginary +history. Macaulay accordingly proposed to himself the task of writing +a history that should be more accurate than Hume's and possess +something of the interest of Scott's historical romances. In 1848 +appeared the first two volumes of _The History of England from the +Accession of James II_. Macaulay had the satisfaction of seeing his +work, in sales and popular appreciation, surpass the novels. He +intended to trace the development of English liberty from James II. to +the death of George III.; but his minute method of treatment allowed +him to unfold only sixteen years (from 1685 to 1701) of that period, +so important in the constitutional and religious history of England. + +Macaulay's pages are not a graveyard for the dry bones of history. The +human beings that figure in his chapters have been restored to life by +his touch. We see Charles II. "before the dew was off in St. James's +Park striding among the trees, playing with his spaniels, and flinging +corn to his ducks." We gaze for a moment with the English courtiers at +William III.:-- + + "They observed that the king spoke in a somewhat imperious tone, + even to the wife to whom he owed so much, and whom he sincerely + loved and esteemed. They were amused and shocked to see him, + when the Princess Anne dined with him, and when the first green peas + of the year were put on the table, devour the whole dish without + offering a spoonful to her Royal Highness, and they pronounced that + this great soldier and politician was no better than a low Dutch + bear."[6] + +Parts of the _History_ are masterpieces of the narrator's art. A +trained novelist, unhampered by historical facts, could scarcely have +surpassed the last part of Macaulay's eighth chapter in relating the +trial of the seven Bishops. Our blood tingles to the tips of our +fingers as we read in the fifth chapter the story of Monmouth's +rebellion and of the Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys. + +Macaulay shirked no labor in preparing himself to write the _History_. +He read thousands of pages of authorities and he personally visited +the great battlefields in order to give accurate descriptions. +Notwithstanding such preparation, the value of his _History_ is +impaired, not only because he sometimes displays partisanship, but +also because he fails to appreciate the significance of underlying +social movements. He does not adopt the modern idea that history is a +record of social growth, moral as well as physical. While a graphic +picture of the exterior aspects of society is presented, we are given +no profound insight into the interior movements of a great +constitutional epoch. We may say of both Gibbon and Macaulay that they +are too often mere surveyors, rather than geologists, of the historic +field.[7] The popularity of the _History_ is not injured by this +method. + +Macaulay's grasp of fact never weakens, his love of manly courage +never relaxes, his joy in bygone time never fails, his zeal for the +free institutions of England never falters, and his style is never +dull. + +General Characteristics.--The chief quality of Macaulay's style is +its clearness. Contemporaries said that the printers' readers never +had to read his sentences a second time to understand them. This +clearness is attained, first, by the structure of his sentences. He +avoids entangling clauses, obscure references in his pronouns, and +long sentences whenever they are in danger of becoming involved and +causing the reader to lose his way. In the second place, if the idea +is a difficult one or not likely to be apprehended at its full worth, +Macaulay repeats his meaning from a different point of view and throws +additional light on the subject by varied illustrations. + +In the third place, his works abound in concrete ideas, which are more +readily grasped than abstract ones. He is not content to write: "The +smallest actual good is better than the most magnificent promise of +impossibilities:" but he gives the concrete equivalent: "An acre in +Middlesex is worth a principality in Utopia." + +It is possible for style to be both clear and lifeless, but his style +is as energetic as it is clear. In narration he takes high rank. His +erudition, displayed in the vast stores of fact that his memory +retained for effective service in every direction, is worthy of +special mention. + +While his excellences may serve as a model, he has faults that +admirers would do well to avoid. His fondness for contrast often leads +him to make one picture too bright and the other too dark. His love of +antithesis has the merit of arousing attention in his readers and of +crystallizing some thoughts into enduring epigrammatic form; but he is +often led to sacrifice exact truth in order to obtain fine contrasts, +as in the following:-- + + "The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the + bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators." + +Macaulay is more the apostle of the material than of the spiritual. He +lacked sympathy with theories and aspirations that could not +accomplish immediate practical results. While his vigorous, +easily-read pages exert a healthy fascination, they are not illumined +with the spiritual glow that sheds luster on the pages of the great +Victorian moral teachers, like Carlyle and Ruskin. He has, however, +had more influence on the prose style of the last half of the +nineteenth century than any other writer. Many continue to find in him +their most effective teacher of a clear, energetic form of expression. + +JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN, 1801-1890 + +[Illustration: JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN. _From the painting by +Emmeline Deane_.] + +Life.--Newman, who was born in London the year after Macaulay, +represents a different aspect of English thought. Macaulay was +thrilled in contemplating the great material growth and energy of the +nation. Newman's interest was centered in the development of the +spiritual life. + +This son of a practical London banker was writing verses at nine, a +mock drama at twelve, and at fourteen, "he broke out into periodicals, +_The Spy_ and _Anti-Spy_, intended to answer one another." Of his +tendency toward mysticism in youth, he wrote:-- + + "I used to wish the Arabian Tales were true; my imagination ran on + unknown influences, on magical powers and influences. I thought life + might be a dream, or I an angel, and all this world a deception, my + fellow angels by a playful device concealing themselves from me, and + deceiving me with the semblance of a material world." + +In his youth he imitated the style of Addison, Johnson, and Gibbon. +Few boys of his generation had as much practice in writing English +prose. At the age of fifteen years and ten months he entered Trinity +College, Oxford, from which he was graduated at nineteen. Two years +later he won an Oxford fellowship, and in 1824 he became a clergyman +of the Church of England. + +The rest of his life belongs mainly to theological history. He became +one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement (1833-1841) toward stricter +High-Church principles, as opposed to liberalism, and in 1845 he +joined the Catholic Church. He was rector of the new Catholic +University at Dublin from 1854 to 1858. In 1879 he was made a +cardinal. Most of his later life was spent at Edgbaston (near +Birmingham) at the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. + +Works and General Characteristics.--Newman was a voluminous writer. +An edition of his works in thirty-six volumes was issued during his +lifetime. Most of these properly belong to the history of theological +thought. His _Apologia pro Vita Sua_, which he wrote in reply to an +attack by Charles Kingsley, an Episcopal clergyman, is really, as its +sub-title indicates, _A History of His Religious Opinions_. This +intimate, sympathetic account of his religious experiences won him +many friends. He wrote two novels: _Loss and Gain_ (1848), which gives +an excellent picture of Oxford society during the last days of the +Oxford Movement, and _Callista_ (1852), a vivid story of an early +Christian martyr in Africa. His best-known hymn, _Lead kindly Light_, +remains a favorite with all Christian denominations. _The Dream of +Gerontius_ (1865) is a poem that has been called "the happiest effort +to represent the unseen world that has been made since the time of +Dante." + +Those who are not interested in Newman's Episcopal or Catholic sermons +or in his great theological treatises will find some of his best prose +in the work known as _The Idea of a University_. This volume, +containing 521 pages, is composed of discussions, lectures, and +essays, prepared while he was rector of the University at Dublin. + +Newman's prose is worthy of close study for the following reasons:-- + +(1) His style is a clear, transparent medium for the presentation of +thought. He molded his sentences with the care of an artist. He +said:-- + + "I have been obliged to take great pains with everything I have ever + written, and I often write chapters over and over again, besides + innumerable corrections and interlinear additions." + +His definition of style is "a thinking out into language," not an +ornamental "addition from without." He employs his characteristic +irony in ridiculing those who think that "_one_ man could do the +thought and _another_ the style":-- + + "We read in Persian travels of the way in which young gentlemen + go to work in the East, when they would engage in correspondence + with those who inspire them with hope or fear. They cannot write one + sentence themselves; so they betake themselves to the professional + letter writer... The man of thought comes to the man of words; and + the man of words duly instructed in the thought, dips the pen of + desire into the ink of devotedness, and proceeds to spread it over + the page of desolation. Then the nightingale of affection is heard + to warble to the rose of loveliness, while the breeze of anxiety + plays around the brow of expectation. This is what the Easterns are + said to consider fine writing; + and it seems pretty much the idea of the school of critics to whom I + have been referring."[8] + +It was a pleasure to him to "think out" expressions like the +following:-- + + "Ten thousand difficulties do not make a doubt." + + "Calculation never made a hero." + + "Here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have + changed often." + +(2) Like Macaulay, Newman excelled in the use of the concrete. In his +_Historical Sketches_, he imagines the agent of a London company sent +to inspect Attica:-- + + "He would report that the climate was mild; the hills were + limestone; there was plenty of good marble; more pasture land than + at first survey might have been expected, sufficient certainly for + sheep and goats; fisheries productive; silver mines once, but long + since worked out; figs fair; oil first rate; olives in profusion... + He would not tell how that same delicate and brilliant atmosphere + freshened up the pale olive till the olive forgot its monotony, and + its cheek glowed like the arbutus or the beech of the Umbrian + hills." + +A general statement about superseding "the operation of the laws of +the universe in a multitude of ways" does not satisfy him. He +specifies in those ways when he records his belief that saints have +"raised the dead to life, crossed the sea without vessels, multiplied +grain and bread, cured incurable diseases." + +(3) He modestly called himself a rhetorician, but he possessed also +the qualities of an acute thinker. He displayed unusual sagacity in +detecting the value of different arguments in persuasion. He could +arrange in proper proportion the most complex tangle of facts, so as +to make one clear impression. Such power made him one of the great +Victorian masters of argumentative prose. + +THOMAS CARLYLE, 1795-1881 + +[Illustration: THOMAS CARLYLE. _From the painting by James McNeil +Whistler, Glasgow Art Galleries_.] + +Life.--Thomas Carlyle, who became one of the great tonic forces of +the nineteenth century, was also most interested in spiritual growth. +He specially emphasized the gospel of work as the only agency that +could develop the atmosphere necessary for such growth, and, though +deeply religious, he cared little for any special faith or creed. + +The son of a Scotch stone mason, Thomas Carlyle was born in 1795 at +Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire. At the age of fourteen, the boy was ready +for the University of Edinburgh, and he walked the eighty miles +between it and his home. After he was graduated, he felt that he could +not enter the ministry, as his parents wished. He therefore taught +while he was considering what vocation to follow. + +In 1821 he met Jane Welsh, a brilliant and beautiful girl, descended +on her father's side from John Knox and on her mother's from William +Wallace. With the spirit of Wallace, she climbed in her girlhood up to +places that a boy would have considered perilous. When she was +forbidden to take up such a masculine study as Latin, she promptly +learned to decline a Latin noun. Carlyle had much trouble in winning +her; but she finally consented to be his wife, and they were married +in 1826. In 1828 they went to live for six lonely years on her farm at +Craigenputtock, sixteen miles north of Dumfries, where it was so quiet +that Mrs. Carlyle said she could hear the sheep nibbling the grass a +quarter of a mile away. Ralph Waldo Emerson visited them here and +formed a lifelong friendship with Carlyle. It was here that Carlyle +fought the intense spiritual battle of his early life, here that he +wrote his first great work, _Sartor Resartus_, which his wife +pronounced "a work of genius, dear." + +[Illustration: CRAIGENPUTTOCK.] + +It would be difficult to overestimate the beneficent influence which +Mrs. Carlyle exerted over her husband in those trying days of poverty +and spiritual stress. When her private correspondence was inadvisedly +published after his death, she unwittingly became her husband's +Boswell. For many years after the appearance of her letters, his +personality and treatment of her were more discussed than his +writings. Her references to marital unhappiness were for awhile given +undue prominence; but with the passing of time there came a +recognition of the fact that she was almost as brilliant a writer as +her husband, that, like him, she was frequently ill, and that in +expressing things in a striking way, she sometimes exercised his +prerogative of exaggeration. "Carlyle has to take a journey always +after writing a book," she declared, "and then gets so weary with +knocking about that he has to write another book to recover from it." +She once said that living with him was as bad as keeping a lunatic +asylum. + +[Illustration: MRS. CARLYLE.] + +Unfortunately, his early privations had caused him to have chronic +indigestion. He thought that the worst punishment he could suggest for +Satan would be to compel him to "try to digest for all eternity with +my stomach." This disorder rendered Carlyle peculiarly irascible and +explosive. His wife's quick temper sometimes took fire at his +querulousness; but her many actions, which spoke much louder than her +words, showed how deeply she loved him and how proud she was of his +genius. After their removal to London, she would quietly buy the +neighbors' crowing roosters, which kept him awake, and she prepared +food that would best suit his disordered digestion. She complained of +his seeming lack of appreciation. "You don't want to be praised for +doing your duty," he said. "I did, though," she wrote. + +Carlyle's lack of restraint was most evident in little things. A +German who came from Weimar to see him was unfortunately admitted +during a period of stress in writing. A minute later the German was +seen rapidly descending the stairs and leaving the house. Carlyle +immediately hurried to the room where his wife was receiving a +visitor, and tragically asked what he had done to cause the Almighty +to send a German all the way from Weimar to wrench off the handles of +his cupboard doors. Carlyle did not then appear to realize that the +frightened German had mistaken the locked cupboard doors for the exit +from the room. On the other hand, when the great political economist, +John Stuart Mill, was responsible for the loss of the borrowed +manuscript of the first volume of _The French Revolution_, Carlyle +said to his wife: "Well, Mill, poor fellow, is terribly cut up; we +must endeavor to hide from him how very serious the business is to +us." To rewrite this volume cost Carlyle a year's exhausting labor. + +In 1834 Carlyle went to London, where he lived for the rest of his +life in Cheyne Row, Chelsea. The publication of _The French +Revolution_ in 1837 made him famous. Other works of his soon appeared, +to add to his fame. His essays, collected and published in 1839 under +the title, _Critical and Miscellaneous Essays_, contained his +sympathetic _Essay on Burns_, which no subsequent writer has +surpassed. _Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations_ (1845) +permanently raised England's estimation of that warrior statesman. + +Carlyle's writings, his lectures on such subjects as _Heroes and Hero +Worship_ (1841), and his oracular criticism on government and life +made him as conspicuous a figure as Dr. Samuel Johnson had been in the +previous century. Carlyle's last great work, _History of Friedrich +II_., was fortunately finished in 1865, the year before his great +misfortune. + +In the latter part of 1865 the students of the University of Edinburgh +elected Carlyle Lord Rector of that institution because they +considered him the man most worthy to receive such high honor. In the +spring of 1866, he went to Edinburgh to deliver his inaugural address. +Before he returned, he received a telegram stating that his wife had +died of heart failure while she was taking a drive in London. The blow +was a crushing one. The epitaph that he placed on her monument shows +his final realization of her worth and of his irreparable loss. He +said truly that the light of his life had gone out. + +During his remaining years, he produced little of value except his +_Reminiscences_, a considerable part of which had been written long +before. Honors, however, came to him until the last. The Prussian +Order of Merit was conferred on him in 1874. The English government +offered him the Grand Cross of Bath and a pension, both of which he +declined. On his eightieth birthday, more than a hundred of the most +distinguished men of the English-speaking race joined in giving him a +gold medallion portrait. When he died in 1881, an offer of interment +in Westminster Abbey was declined and he was laid beside his parents +in the graveyard at Ecclefechan. + +Sartor Resartus.--Like Coleridge, Carlyle was a student of German +philosophy and literature. His earliest work was _The Life of +Friedrich Schiller_ (1823-1825), which won for him the appreciation +and friendship of the German poet, Goethe. + +Carlyle's first great original work, the one in which he best delivers +his message to humanity, is _Sartor Resartus_ (_The Tailor Patched_). +This first appeared serially in _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1833-1834. He +feigned that he was merely editing a treatise on _The Philosophy of +Clothes_, the work of a German professor, Diogenes Teufelsdröckh. This +professor is really Carlyle himself; but the disguise gave him an +excuse for writing in a strange style and for beginning many of his +nouns with capitals, after the German fashion. + +When _Sartor Resartus_ first appeared, Mrs. Carlyle remarked that it +was "completely understood and appreciated only by women and mad +people." This work did not for some years receive sufficient attention +in England to justify publication in book form. The case was different +in America, where the first edition with a preface by Emerson was +published in 1836, two years before the appearance of the English +edition. In the year of Carlyle's death, a cheap London edition of +30,000 copies was sold in a few weeks. + +Carlyle calls _Sartor Resartus_ a "Philosophy of Clothes." He uses the +term "Clothes" symbolically to signify the outward expression of the +spiritual. He calls Nature "the Living Garment of God." He teaches us +to regard these vestments only as semblances and to look beyond them +to the inner spirit, which is the reality. The century's material +progress, which was such a cause of pride to Macaulay, was to Carlyle +only a semblance, not a sign of real spiritual growth. He says of the +utilitarian philosophy, which he hated intensely:-- + + "It spreads like a sort of Dog-madness; till the whole World-kennel + will be rabid." + +The majority of readers cared nothing for the symbolism of _Sartor +Resartus_; but they responded to its effective presentation of the +gospel of work and faced the duties of life with increased energy. +Carlyle seemed to stand before them saying:-- + + "_Do the Duty which lies nearest thee_, which thou knowest to be a + Duty! Thy second Duty will already have become clearer... The + Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal was never yet occupied by + man. Yes here, in this poor miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, + wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal: work + it out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the + Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself: thy Condition + is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of ..." + +The French Revolution.--In 1837 when Carlyle finished the third +volume of his historic masterpiece, _The French Revolution_, he handed +the manuscript to his wife for her criticism, saying: "This I could +tell the world: 'You have not had for a hundred years any book that +comes more direct and flamingly from the heart of a living man.'" His +Scotch blood boiled over the injustice to the French peasants. His +temperature begins to rise when he refers to the old law authorizing a +French hunter, if a nobleman, "to kill not more than two serfs." + +Carlyle brings before us a vast stage where the actors in the French +Revolution appear: in the background, "five full-grown millions of +gaunt figures with their hungry faces"; in the foreground, one young +mother of seven children, "looking sixty years of age, although she is +not yet twenty-eight," and trying to respond to the call for seven +different kinds of taxes; and, also in the foreground, "a perfumed +Seigneur," taking part of the children's dinner. The scene changes; +the great individual actors in the Revolution enter: the tocsin +clangs; the stage is reddened with human blood and wreathed in flames. +We feel that we are actually witnessing that great historic tragedy. + +Carlyle had something of Shakespeare's dramatic imagination, which +pierced to the heart of men and movements. More detailed and scholarly +histories of this time have been written; but no other historian has +equaled Carlyle in presenting the French Revolution as a human tragedy +that seems to be acted before our very eyes. + +He did not attempt to write a complete history of the time. He used +the dramatist's legitimate privilege of selection. From a mass of +material that would have bewildered a writer of less ability, he chose +to present on the center of the stage the most significant actors and +picturesque incidents. + +Carlyle's "Real Kings."--Carlyle believed that "universal history, +the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom +the history of the great men who have worked here." In accordance with +this belief, he studied, not the slow growth of the people, but the +lives of the world's great geniuses. + +In his course of lectures entitled _Heroes and Hero Worship_ (1841), +he considers _The Hero as Prophet, The Hero as Poet, The Hero as +Priest_, and _The Hero as King_, and shows how history has been molded +by men like Mohammed, Shakespeare, Luther, and Napoleon. It is such +men as these whom Carlyle calls "kings," beside whom "emperors," +"popes," and "potentates" are as nothing. He believed that there was +always living some man worthy to be the "real king" over men, and such +a kingship was Carlyle's ideal of government. + +Oliver Cromwell was one of these "real kings." In the work entitled +_Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations_, Carlyle was the +first to present the character of the Protector in its full strength +and greatness and to demonstrate once for all that he was a hero whose +memory all Englishmen should honor. + +The _Life of John Sterling_ (1851) is a fair, true, and touching +biography of Carlyle's most intimate friend, the man who had +introduced him to Jane Welsh. After reading this book, George Eliot +said she wished that more men of genius would write biographies. + +Carlyle's next attempt at biography grew into the massive _History of +Friedrich II_. (1858-1865), which includes a survey of European +history in that dreary century which preceded the French Revolution. +"Friedrich is by no means one of the perfect demigods." He is "to the +last a questionable hero." However, "in his way he is a Reality," one +feels "that he always means what he speaks; grounds his actions, too, +on what he recognizes for the truth; and, in short, has nothing of the +Hypocrite or Phantasm." Despite his tyranny and his bloody career, he, +therefore, is another of Carlyle's "real kings." While this work is a +history of modern Europe, Friedrich is always the central figure. He +gives to these six volumes a human note, a glowing interest of +personal adventure, and a oneness that are remarkable in so vast a +work. + +General Characteristics.--Carlyle's writings must be classed among +the great social and democratic influences of the nineteenth century, +in spite of the fact that he did not believe in pure democracy. It was +his favorite theory that a great man, like Oliver Cromwell, could +govern better than the unintelligent multitude. However much he +rebelled against democracy in government, his sympathies were with the +toiling masses. His work entitled _Past and Present_ (1843) suggests +the organization of labor and introduces such modern expressions as "a +fair day's wages for a fair day's work." In _Sartor Resartus_, he +specially honors "the toilworn Craftsman, that with earthmade +implement laboriously conquers the Earth and makes her Man's." + +Carlyle had a large fund of incisive wit and humor, which often appear +in picturesque setting, as when he said to a physician: "A man might +as well pour his sorrows into the long hairy ear of a jackass." As the +satiric censor of his time, Carlyle found frequent occasion for +caustic wit. He lashed the age for its love of the "swine's trough," +of "Pig-science, Pig-enthusiasm and devotion." Although his intentions +were good, his satire was not always just or discriminating, and he +was in consequence bitterly criticized. The following Dutch parable is +in some respects specially applicable to Carlyle:-- + + "There was a man once,--a satirist. In the natural course of time + his friends slew him and he died. And the people came and stood + about his corpse. 'He treated the whole round world as his + football,' they said indignantly, 'and he kicked it.' The dead man + opened one eye. 'But always toward the goal,' he said." + +This goal toward which Carlyle struggled to drive humanity was the +goal of moral achievement. Young people on both sides of the Atlantic +responded vigorously to his appeals. The scientist John Tyndall said +to his students:-- + + "The reading of the works of two men has placed me here to-day. + These men are the English Carlyle and the American Emerson. + I must ever remember with gratitude that through three long, cold + German winters, Carlyle placed me in my tub, even when ice was on + its surface, at five o'clock every morning ... determined, whether + victor or vanquished, not to shrink from difficulty... They told me + what I ought to do in a way that caused me to do it, and all my + consequent intellectual action is to be traced to this purely moral + force... They called out. 'Act!' I hearkened to the summons." + +Huxley aptly defined Carlyle as a "great tonic,--a source of +intellectual invigoration and moral stimulus." + +Carlyle is not only a "great Awakener" but also a great literary +artist. His style is vivid, forceful, and often poetic. He loves to +present his ideas with such picturesqueness that the corresponding +images develop clearly in the reader's mind. Impressive epithets and +phrases abound. His metaphors are frequent and forceful. Mirabeau's +face is pictured as "rough-hewn, seamed, carbuncled." In describing +Daniel Webster, Carlyle speaks of "the tanned complexion, that +amorphous crag-like face; the dull black eyes under their precipice of +brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be blown, the +mastiff-mouth, accurately closed." He formed many new compound words +after the German fashion, such as "mischief-joy"; and when he pleased, +he coined new words, like "dandiacal" and "croakery." + +His frequent exclamations and inversions make his style seem choppy, +like a wave-tossed sea; but his sentences are so full of vigor that +they almost call aloud from the printed page. His style was not an +imitation of the German, but a characteristic form of expression, +natural to him and to his father. + +The gift of verse was denied him, but he is one of the great prose +poets of the nineteenth century. Much of _Sartor Resartus_ is highly +poetic and parts of _The French Revolution_ resemble a dramatic poem. + +JOHN RUSKlN, 1819-1900 + +[Illustration: JOHN RUSKIN. _From a photograph_] + +Life.--The most famous disciple of Carlyle is John Ruskin, the only +child of wealthy parents, who was born in London in 1819. When he was +four years old the family moved to Herne Hill, a suburb south of +London, where his intense love of nature developed as he looked over +open fields, "animate with cow and buttercup," "over softly wreathing +distances of domestic wood," to the distant hills. His entertaining +autobiography, _Praeterita_ (1885-1889), relates how he was reared:-- + + "I had never heard my father's or mother's voice once raised in any + question with each other ... I had never heard a servant scolded ... + I obeyed word or lifted finger, of father or mother, simply as a + ship her helm ...nothing was ever promised me that was not given; + nothing ever threatened me that was not inflicted, and nothing ever + told me that was not true... Peace, obedience, faith; these three + for chief good; next to these, the habit of fixed attention with + both eyes and mind." + +He grew up a solitary child without playmates. This solitude was +relieved when his parents took him on occasional trips through +England, Switzerland, and Italy. In _Praeterita_ he tells in an +inimitable way how the most portentious interruption to his solitude +came in 1836, when his father's Spanish partner came with his four +beautiful daughters to visit Herne Hill. These were the first girls in +his own station to whom he had spoken. "Virtually convent-bred more +closely than the maids themselves," says Ruskin, "I was thrown, bound +hand and foot, in my unaccomplished simplicity, into the fiery +furnace." In four days he had fallen so desperately in love with the +oldest, Clotilde Adčle Domecq, a "graceful blonde" of fifteen, that he +was more than four years in recovering his equilibrium. She laughed at +his protestations of love; but she repeatedly visited his parents, and +he did not give up hope until 1840, when she married a French baron. +His biographer says that the resulting "emotional strain doubtless was +contributory to his breakdown at Oxford" and to his enforced absence +for a recuperative trip on the continent. + +His feminine attachments usually showed some definite results in his +writing. Miss Domecq's influence during the long period of his +devotion inspired him to produce much verse, which received such high +praise that his father desired him to become a poet. Although some of +Ruskin's verse was good, he finally had the penetration to see that it +ranked decidedly below the greatest, and he later laid down the +dictum: "with second-rate poetry _in quality_ no one ought to be +allowed to trouble mankind." In 1886, he had the humor to allude as +follows to Miss Domecq and her influence on his rimes, "...her sisters +called her Clotilde, after the queen-saint, and I, Adčle, because it +rimed to shell, spell, and knell." + +Before he was graduated from Oxford in 1842, he wrote the beautiful +altruistic story, _The King of the Golden River_ (1841) for Euphemia +Gray, the young girl unhappily chosen by his mother to become his +wife. He married her in 1848, but was divorced from her in 1854. In +1855 she was married to the Pre-Raphaelite artist, John Millais. + +Another attachment led to his writing some of the finest parts of his +most popular work, _Sesame and Lilies_ (1864). "I wrote Lilies," he +says, "to please one girl." He is here referring to Rose La Touche, a +bright, ardent, religious enthusiast, to whom he began to teach +drawing when she was ten years old. His affection for her grew so +strong that he finally asked her to become his wife. He was then a man +of forty while she was scarcely grown. Her religious scruples kept her +from definitely accepting him, because his belief was not sufficiently +orthodox. The attachment, however, continued until her early death. +She was in some respects a remarkable character, and he seems to have +had her in mind when he wrote in _Sesame and Lilies_ the "pearly" +passage about Shakespeare's heroines. + +Although Ruskin's wealth relieved him from earning a living, he was +rarely idle. He studied, sketched, arranged collections of minerals, +prepared Turner's pictures for the National Gallery, became professor +of art at Oxford University, and wrote and lectured on art and social +subjects. His later activities, before his health gave way, were in +many respects similar to those of a twentieth-century social-service +worker. The realization of the misery that overwhelmed so much of +human life caused him to turn from art to consider remedies for the +evils that developed as the competitive industries of the nation +expanded. He endeavored to improve the condition of the working +classes in such ways as building sanitary tenements, establishing a +tea shop, and forming an altruistic association, known as St. George's +Guild. Nearly all his inheritance of £180,000 was expended in such +activities. The royalties coming from the sale of his books supported +him in old age. + +Ruskin suffered from periods of mental depression during his last +years, which were spent at Brantwood on Coniston Water in the Lake +District. He died in 1900 at the age of eighty-one and was buried in +the cemetery at Coniston. + +Art Works.--Ruskin published the first volume of _Modern Painters_ +in 1843, the year after he was graduated from Oxford, and the fifth +and last volume, seventeen years later, in 1860. Many of his views +changed during this period; but he honestly declared them and left to +his readers the task of reconciling the divergent ideas in _Modern +Painters_. The purpose of this book was, in his own words, "to declare +the perfectness and eternal beauty of the work of God; and test all +works of man by concurrence with, or subjection to that." + +_Modern Painters_ contains painstaking descriptions of God's handiwork +in cloud formation, mountain structure, tree architecture, and water +forms. In transferring these aspects of nature to canvas, Ruskin shows +the superiority of modern to ancient painting. He emphasizes the moral +basis of true beauty, and the necessity of right living as a +foundation for the highest type of art. Perhaps _Modern Painters_ +achieved its greatest success in freeing men from the bondage of a +conventional criticism that was stifling art, in sending them direct +to nature as a guide, and in developing a love for her varied +manifestations of beauty. + +Two of Ruskin's works on architecture, _The Seven Lamps of +Architecture_ (1849) and _The Stones of Venice_ (1851-1853), had a +decided effect on British taste in building. The three volumes of the +_The Stones of Venice_ give a history of the Venetians and of their +Gothic architecture. He aims to show that the beauty of such buildings +as St. Mark's Cathedral and the Doges' Palace is due to the virtue and +patriotism of the people, the nobility of the designers, and the joy +of the individual workmen, whose chisels made the very stones of +Venice tell beautiful stories. + +The most important of his many other writings on art is the volume +entitled _Lectures on Art, Delivered before the University of Oxford, +1870_. In his famous _Inaugural_ of this series, he thus states what +he considers the central truth of his teaching: "The art of any +country is the exponent of its social and political virtues." + +Social Works.--By turning from the criticism of art to consider the +cause of humanity, Ruskin shows the influence of the ethical and +social forces of the age. In middle life he was overwhelmed with the +amount of human misery and he determined to do his best to relieve it. +He wrote:-- + + "I simply cannot paint, nor read, nor look at minerals, nor do + anything else that I like, and the very light of the morning sky, + when there is any--which is seldom, nowadays, near London--has + become hateful to me, because of the misery that I know of, and see + signs of, where I know it not, which no imagination can interpret + too bitterly."[9] + +After 1860 his main efforts with both pen and purse were devoted to +improving the condition of his fellow men. His attempts to provide a +remedy led him to write _Unto this Last_ (1860), his first and most +complete work on political economy, _Munera Pulveris_ (1863), _Time +and Tide by Weare and Tyne_ (1868), _Fors Clavigera_ (1871-1884), +which is a long series of letters to workingmen, and a number of other +works, that also present his views on social questions. + +He abhorred the old political economy, which he defined as "the +professed and organized pursuit of money." Instead of considering +merely the question of the production and distribution of articles, +his interest lay in the causes necessary to produce healthy, happy +workmen. It seemed to him that the manufacture "of souls" ought to be +"exceedingly lucrative." This statement and his maxim, "There is no +wealth but life," were called "unscientific." In his fine book of +essays, entitled _Sesame and Lilies_ (1864), he actually had printed +in red those pathetic pages describing how an old cobbler and his son +worked night and day to try to keep a little home of one room, until +the father died from exhaustion and the son had a film come over his +eyes. + +John Ruskin, social reformer, has an important place in the social +movement of the nineteenth century. Many of his theories, which were +considered revolutionary, have since become the commonplace +expressions of twentieth-century social economists. + +General Characteristics.--Ruskin was a champion of the +Pre-Raphaelite school of art. He used his powerful influence to free +art from its conventional fetters and to send people direct to nature +for careful loving study of her beautiful forms. His chief strength +lies in his moral enthusiasm and his love of the beautiful in nature. +Like his master, Carlyle, Ruskin is a great ethical teacher; but he +aimed at more definite results in the reformation of art and of social +life. He moralized art and humanized political economy. + +Some of his art criticisms and social theories are fanciful, narrow, +and sometimes even absurd. He did not seem to recognize with +sufficient clearness the fact that immoral individuals might produce +great works of art; but no one can successfully assail his main +contention that there must be a connection between great art and the +moral condition of a people. His rejection of railroads and steam +machinery as necessary factors in modern civilization caused many to +pay little attention to any of his social theories. Much of the gospel +that he preached has, however, been accepted by the twentieth century. +He was in advance of his time when he said in 1870 that the object of +his art professorship would be accomplished if "the English nation +could be made to understand that the beauty which is indeed to be a +joy forever must be a joy for all." + +At the age of fifty-eight, he thus summed up the principal work of his +life:-- + + "_Modern Painters_ taught the claim of all lower nature on the + hearts of men; of the rock, and wave, and herb, as a part of their + necessary spirit life... _The Stories of Venice_ taught the laws of + constructive Art, and the dependence of all human work or edifice, + for its beauty, on the happy life of the workman. _Under this Last_ + taught the laws of that life itself and its dependence on the Sun of + Justice; the _Inaugural Oxford Lectures_, the necessity that it + should be led, and the gracious laws of beauty and labor recognized, + by the upper, no less than the lower classes of England; and, + lastly, _Fors Clavigera_ has declared the relation of these to each + other, and the only possible conditions of peace and honor, for low + and high, rich and poor..." + +Ruskin has written remarkable descriptive prose. A severe English +critic, George Saintsbury, says of Ruskin's works "...they will he +found to contain the very finest prose (without exception and beyond +comparison) which has been written in English during the last half of +the nineteenth century... _The Stones of Venice_ ... is _the_ book of +descriptive prose in English, and all others toil after it in vain." + +Ruskin could be severely plain in expression, but much of his earlier +prose is ornate and almost poetic. The following description of the +Rhone deserves to be ranked with the painter's art:-- + + "There were pieces of wave that danced all day as if Perdita were + looking on to learn; there were little streams that skipped like + lambs and leaped like chamois; there were pools that shook the + sunshine all through them, and were rippled in layers of overlaid + ripples, like crystal sand; here were currents that twisted the + light into golden braids, and inlaid the threads with turquoise + enamel; there were strips of stream that had certainly above the + lake been mill streams, and were busily looking for mills to turn + again."[10] + +CHARLES DICKENS, 1812-1870 + +[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS. _From a photograph taken in America, +1868_.] + +Life.--The first of the great Victorian novelists to make his mark +was Charles Dickens. This great portrayer of child life had a sad +painful childhood. He was born in 1812 at Landport, a district of the +city of Portsmouth, Hampshire, where his father was a clerk in the +Navy Pay Office. John Dickens, the prototype of Mr. Micawber, was a +kind, well-intentioned man, who knew far better how to harangue his +large household of children than how to supply it with the necessities +of life. He moved from place to place, sinking deeper into poverty and +landing finally in a debtors' prison. + +The dreams of a fine education and a brilliant career, which the +future novelist had fondly cherished in his precocious little brain, +had to be abandoned. At the age of eleven the delicate child was +called upon to do his part toward maintaining the family. He was +engaged, at six-pence a week, to paste labels on blacking bottles. He +was poorly clothed, ill fed, forced to live in the cheapest place to +be found, and to associate with the roughest kind of companions. This +experience was so bitter and galling to the sensitive boy that years +after, when he was a successful, happy man, he could not look back +upon it without tears in his eyes. Owing to a rupture between his +employer and the elder Mr. Dickens, Charles was removed from this +place and sent to school. At fifteen, however, he had to seek work +again. This time he was employed in an attorney's office at Gray's +Inn. + +It was impossible, of course, for this ambitious boy to realize that +he was receiving an education in the dirty streets, the warehouses, +the tenements, and the prisons. Yet, for his peculiar bent of mind, +these furnished far richer stores of learning than either school or +college could have given. He had marvelous powers of observation. He +noted everything, from the saucy street waif to the sorrowful prison +child, from the poor little drudge to the brutal schoolmaster, and he +transplanted them from life to fiction, in such characters as Sam +Weller, Little Dorrit, the Marchioness, Mr. Squeers, and a hundred +others. + +While in the attorney's office, Dickens began to study shorthand, in +order to become a reporter. This was the beginning of his success. His +reports were accurate and racy, even when they happened to be written +in the pouring rain, in a shaking stagecoach, or by the light of a +lantern. They were also promptly handed in at the office, despite the +fact that the stages sometimes broke down and left their passengers to +plod on foot through the miry roads leading into London. These reports +and newspaper articles soon attracted attention; and Dickens received +an offer for a series of humorous sketches, which grew into the famous +_Pickwick Papers_, and earned £20,000 for the astonished publishers. +He was able to make his own terms for his future novels. Fame came to +him almost at a bound. He was loved and toasted in England and America +before he had reached the age of thirty. When, late in life, he made +lecture tours through his own country, or through Scotland or America, +they were like triumphal marches. + +In his prime Dickens was an energetic, high-spirited, fun-loving man. +He made a charming host, and was never happier than when engineering +theatrical entertainments at his delightful home, Gads Hill. He was +esteemed by all the literary men of London, and idolized by his +children and friends. As his strong personality was communicated to +his audiences and his readers, his death in 1870 was felt as a +personal loss throughout the English-speaking world. + +[Illustration: DICKENS'S HOME, GADS HILL.] + +Works.--_Pickwick Papers_ (1836-1837), Dickens's first long story, +is one of his best. Mr. Pickwick, with his genial nature, his simple +philosophy, and his droll adventures, and Sam Weller, with his ready +wit, his acute observations, and his almost limitless resources, are +amusing from start to finish. The book is brimful of its author's high +spirits. It has no closely knit plot, but merely a succession of +comical incidents, and vivid caricatures of Mr. Pickwick and his +friends. Yet the fun is so good-natured and infectious, and the +looseness of design is so frankly declared that the book possesses a +certain unity arising from its general atmosphere of frolic and +jollity. + +_Oliver Twist_ (1837-1838) is a powerful story, differing widely from +_Pickwick Papers_. While the earlier work is delightful chiefly for +its humor, _Oliver Twist_ is strong in its pictures of passion and +crime. Bill Sykes the murderer, Fagin the Jew, who teaches the boys +deftness of hand in stealing, and poor Nancy, are drawn with such +power that they seem to be still actually living in some of London's +dark alleys. Little Oliver, born in the poor-house, clothed by +charity, taught by the evil genius of the streets, starved in body and +soul, is one of the many pathetic portraits of children drawn with a +sure and loving hand by Dickens. There are some improbable features +about the plot and some overwrought sentimental scenes in this story. +Dickens reveled in the romantic and found it in robbers' dens, in bare +poverty, in red-handed crime. The touching pathos and thrilling +adventures of _Oliver Twist_ make a strong appeal to the reader's +emotions. + +With the prodigality of a fertile genius, Dickens presented his +expectant and enthusiastic public with a new novel on an average of +once a year for fourteen years; and, even after that, his productivity +did not fall off materially. The best and most representative of these +works are _Nicholas Nickleby_ (1838-1839), _Barnaby Rudge_ (1841), +_Martin Chuzzlewit_ (1843-1844), _Dombey and Son_ (1846-1848), _David +Copperfield_ (1849-1850), _Bleak House_ (1852-1853), _Hard Times_ +(1854), _A Tale of Two Cities_ (1859), and _Our Mutual Friend_ (1864). + +Of these, _David Copperfield_ is at once Dickens's favorite work and +the one which the world acclaims as his masterpiece. The novel is in +part an autobiography. Some incidents are taken directly from +Dickens's early experiences and into many more of David's childish +sorrows, boyish dreams, and manly purposes, Dickens has breathed the +breath of his own life. David Copperfield is thus a vitally +interesting and living character. The book contains many of Dickens's +most human men and women. Petted Little Em'ly with her pathetic +tragedy is handled with deep sympathy and true artistic delicacy. +Peggotty and Mrs. Steerforth are admirably drawn and contrasted. Mrs. +Gummidge's thoughtful care of Peggotty exhibits Dickens's fine +perception of the self-sacrificing spirit among the very poor. Uriah +Heep remains the type of the humble sycophant, and Mr. Micawber, the +representative of the man of big words and pompous manners. These +various characters and separate life histories are bound in same way +to the central story of David. General Characteristics.--England has +produced no more popular novelist than Charles Dickens. His novels +offer sound and healthy entertainment, hearty laughter, a wide range +of emotions, and a wonderful array of personalities. He presents the +universal physical experiences of life that are understood by all men, +and irradiates this life with emotion and romance. He keeps his +readers in an active state of feeling. They laugh at the broad humor +in Sam Weller's jokes; they chuckle over the sly exposure of Mr. +Pecksniff in _Martin Chuzzlewit_; they weep in _Dombey and Son_ over +poor Paul crammed with grown-up learning when he wanted to be just a +child; they rejoice over David Copperfield's escape from his +stepfather into the loving arms of whimsical, clever Aunt Betsey +Trotwood; they shiver with horror in _Our Mutual Friend_ during the +search for floating corpses on the dark river; and they feel more +kindly toward the whole world after reading _A Christmas Carol_ and +taking Tiny Tim into their hearts. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MS. OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL.] + +Dickens excels in the portrayal of humanity born and reared in poverty +and disease. He grasps the hand of these unfortunates in a brother's +clasp. He says in effect "I present to you my friends, the beggar, the +thief, the outcast. They are men worth knowing." He does not probe +philosophically into complex causes of poverty and crime. His social +creed was well formulated by Dowden in these words: "Banish from earth +some few monsters of selfishness, malignity, and hypocrisy, set to +rights a few obvious imperfections in the machinery of society, +inspire all men with a cheery benevolence, and everything will go well +with this excellent world of ours." + +Every student of the science of society, however, owes a debt to +Dickens. He did what no science or knowledge or logic can do alone. He +reached the heart, awoke the conscience, and pierced the obtuseness of +the public. He aroused its protests because his genius painted prisons +and hovels and dens of vice so vividly that his readers actually +suffered from the scenes thus presented and wanted such horrors +abolished. + +Dickens's infectious humor is a remarkable and an unfailing quality of +his works. It pervades entire chapters, colors complete incidents, and +displays the temper of the optimist through the darkest pictures of +human suffering. + +A hypocrite is an abomination to Dickens. Speaking of Mr. Pecksniff in +_Martin Chuzzlewit_, Dickens says: "Some people likened him to a +direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never +goes there." His humor can be fully appreciated only by reading long +passages, such as the scene of Mr. Pickwick's trial, the descriptions +of Mr. Micawber and of Miss Betsey Trotwood, or the chapter on +Podsnappery in _Our Mutual Friend_. Dickens's humor has an exuberant +richness, which converts men and women into entertaining figures of +comedy. + +Closely allied to his fund of humor is his capacity for pathos, +especially manifest in his treatment of childhood. Dickens has a large +gallery of children's portraits, fondly and sympathetically executed. +David Copperfield, enduring Mr. Murdstone's cruel neglect, Florence +Dombey pining for her father's love, the Marchioness starving upon +cold potatoes, Tom and Louise Gradgrind, stuffed with facts and +allowed no innocent amusement, and the waifs of Tom's-All-Alone dying +from abject poverty and disease, are only a few of the sad-eyed +children peering from the pages of Dickens and yearning for love and +understanding. He wrings the heart; but, happily, his books have +improved the conditions of children, not only in public asylums, +factories, and courts, but also in schools and homes. + +Dickens's chief faults arise from an excess of sensibility and humor. +His soft heart and romantic spirit lead him to exaggerate. In such +passages as the death of Little Nell in _The Old Curiosity Shop_ and +the interviews between Dora and David in _David Copperfield_, Dickens +becomes mawkish and sentimental. While his power of portraiture is +amazing, he often overleaps the line of character drawing and makes +side-splitting caricatures of his men and women. They are remembered +too often by a limp or a mannerism of speech, or by some other little +peculiarity, instead of by their human weaknesses and accomplishments. + +Dickens is not a master in the artistic construction of his plots. The +majority of his readers do not, however, notice this failing because +he keeps them in such a delightful state of interest and suspense by +the sprightliness with which he tells a story. + +He was a very rapid writer, and his English is consequently often +careless in structure and in grammar. As he was not a man of books, he +never acquired that half-unconscious knowledge of fine phrasing which +comes to the careful student of literature. No novelist has, however, +told more graphically such appealing stories of helpless childhood and +of the poor and the outcast. + +WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 1811-1863 + +[Illustration: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. _From the painting by +Samuel Laurence, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life_.--Though nearly a year older than Dickens, Thackeray made his +way to popularity much more slowly. These two men, who became friends +and generous rivals, were very different in character and disposition. +Instead of possessing the self-confidence, energy, and industry that +brought Dickens fame in his youth, Thackeray had to contend with a +somewhat shy and vacillating temperament, with extreme modesty, and +with a constitutional aversion to work. + +Born in Calcutta in 1811, he was sent to England to be educated. He +passed through Charter House and went one year to Cambridge. He was +remembered by his school friends for his skill in caricature +sketching. He hoped to make painting a profession and went to Paris to +study; but he never attained correctness in drawing, and when he +offered to illustrate the works of Dickens, the offer was declined. +Thackeray certainly added to the charm of his own writings by his +droll and delightful illustrations. + +When Thackeray came of age in 1832, he inherited a small fortune, +which he soon lost in an Indian bank and in newspaper investments. He +was then forced to overcome his idle, procrastinating habits. He +became a literary hack, and contributed humorous articles to such +magazines as _Fraser_ and _Punch_. While his pen was causing mirth and +laughter in England, his heart was torn by suffering. His wife, whom +he had married in 1837, became insane. He nursed her patiently with +the vain hope that she could recover; but he finally abandoned hope +and put her in the care of a conscientious attendant. His home was +consequently lonely, and the club was his only recourse. Here, his +broad shoulders and kindly face were always greeted with pleasure; +for his affable manners and his sparkling humor, which concealed an +aching heart, made him a charming companion. + +[Illustration: CARICATURE OF THACKERAY BY HIMSELF.] + +It is pleasant to know that the later years of his life were happier. +They were cheered by the presence of his daughters, and were free from +financial worries. He had the satisfaction of knowing that, through +the sales of his book; and the returns from his lectures, he had +recovered his lost fortune. + +Novels.--_Vanity Fair_ (1847-1848) is Thackeray's masterpiece. For +the lifelikeness of its characters, it is one of the most remarkable +creations in fiction. Thackeray called this work "A Novel without a +Hero." He might have added "and without a heroine"; for neither clever +Becky Sharp nor beautiful Amelia Sedley satisfies the requirements for +a heroine. No perfect characters appear in the book, but it is +enlivened with an abundance of genuine human nature. Few people go +through life without meeting a George Osborne, a Mrs. Bute Crawley, or +a Mrs. Sedley. Even a penurious, ridiculous, old Sir Pitt Crawley is +sometimes seen. The greatest stroke of genius in the book, however, is +the masterly portrayal of the artful, scheming Becky Sharp, who +alternately commands respect for her shrewdness and repels by her +moral depravity. + +In _Vanity Fair_ certain classes of society are satirized. Their +intrigues, frivolities, and caprices are mercilessly dealt with. +Thackeray probes almost every weakness, vanity, or ambition that leads +humanity to strive for a place in society, to long for a bow from a +lord, and to stint in private in order to shine in public. He uncovers +the great social farce of life, which is acted with such solemn +gravity by the snobs, the hypocrites, and the other superficial +_dramatis personae_. Amid these satirized frivolities there appear +occasional touches of true pathos and deep human tragedy, which are +strangely effective in their unsympathetic surroundings. + +[Illustration: THACKERAY'S HOME WHERE VANITY FAIR WAS WRITTEN.] + +Thackeray gives in _Henry Esmond_ (1852) an enduring picture of high +life in the eighteenth century. This work is one of the great +historical novels in our language. The time of queen Anne is +reconstructed with remarkable skill. The social etiquette, the ideals +of honor, the life and spirit of that bygone day, reappear with a +powerful vividness. Thackeray even went so far as to disguise his own +natural, graceful style, and to imitate eighteenth-century prose. +_Henry Esmond_ is a dangerous rival of _Vanity Fair_. The earlier work +has a freshness of humor and a spontaneity of manner that are not so +apparent in _Henry Esmond_. On the other hand, _Esmond_ has a superior +plot and possesses a true hero. + +In _The Newcomes_ (1854-1855), Thackeray exhibits again his incisive +power of delineating character. This book would continue to live if +for nothing except the simple-hearted, courtly Colonel Newcome. Few +scenes in English fiction are more affecting than those connected with +his death. The accompanying lines will show what a simple pathos +Thackeray could command:-- + + "At the usual evening hour the chapel bell begin to toll, and + Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat time--and just + as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, + and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, '_Adsum_'--and + fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called; + and, lo! he whose heart was as that of a little child had answered + to his name, and stood in the presence of the Master!" + +_The History of Pendennis_ (1849) and _The Virginians_ (1857-1859) are +both popular novels and take rank inferior only to the author's three +greatest works. _The Virginians_ is a sequel to _Esmond_, and carries +the Castlewood family through adventures in the New World. + +Essays.--Thackeray will live in English literature as an essayist as +well as a novelist. _The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ +(1853) and _The Four Georges_ (1860) are among the most delightful +essays of the age. The author of _Henry Esmond_ knew Swift, Addison, +Fielding, and Smollett, almost as one knows the mental peculiarities +of an intimate friend. In _The English Humorists of the Eighteenth +Century_, Thackeray writes of their conversations, foibles, and strong +points of character, in a most easy and entertaining way. There is a +constant charm about his manner, which, without effort or display of +learning, brings the authors vividly before the reader. In addition to +this presentation of character, the essays contain appreciative +literary criticism. The essence of the humor in these +eighteenth-century writers is distilled in its purest, most delicate +flavor, by this nineteenth-century member of their brotherhood. + +_The Four Georges_ deals with England's crowned heads in a satiric +vein, which caused much comment among Thackeray's contemporaries. The +satire is, however, mild and subdued, never venomous. For example, he +says in the essay on George III.:-- + + "King George's household was a model of an English gentleman's + household. It was early; it was kindly; it was charitable; it was + frugal; it was orderly; it must have been stupid to a degree which I + shudder now to contemplate. No wonder all the princes ran away from + the lap of that dreary domestic virtue. It always rose, rode, dined, + at stated intervals. Day after day was the same. At the same hour at + night the King kissed his daughters' jolly cheeks; the Princesses + kissed their mother's hand; and Madame Thielke brought the royal + nightcap." + +General Characteristics.--Dickens and Thackeray have left graphic +pictures of a large portion of contemporary London life. Dickens +presents interesting pictures of the vagabonds, the outcasts, and the +merchants, and Thackeray portrays the suave, polite leisure class and +its dependents. + +Thackeray is an uncompromising realist and a satirist. He insisted +upon picturing life as he believed that it existed in London society; +and, to his satiric eye, that life was composed chiefly of the small +vanities, the little passions, and the petty quarrels of commonplace +people, whose main objects were money and title. He could conceive +noble men and women, as is proved by Esmond, Lady Castlewood, and +Colonel Newcome; but such characters are as rare in Thackeray as he +believed they were in real life. The following passage upon mankind's +fickleness is a good specimen of his satiric vein in dealing with +human weakness:-- + + "There are no better satires than letters. Take a bundle of your + dear friend's letters of ten years back--your dear friend whom you + hate now. Look at a pile of your sister's! How you clung to each + other until you quarreled about the twenty-pound legacy!... Vows, + love promises, confidence, gratitude,--how queerly they read after a + while!...The best ink for Vanity Fair use would be one that faded + utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper clean and blank, so + that you might write on it to somebody else." + +The phases of life that he describes have had no more subtle +interpreter. He does not label his characters with external marks, but +enters into communion with their souls. His analytic method of laying +bare their motives and actions is strictly modern. His great master, +Fielding, would have been baffled by such a complex personality as +Becky Sharp. Amid the throng of Thackeray's men and women, there are +but few who are not genuine flesh and blood. + +The art of describing the pathetic is unfailing in Thackeray. He never +jars upon the most sensitive feelings nor wearies them by too long a +treatment. With a few simple but powerful expressions he succeeds in +arousing intense emotions of pity or sorrow. He has been wrongly +called a cynic; for no man can be a cynic who shows Thackeray's +tenderness in the treatment of pathos. + +Thackeray is master of a graceful, simple prose style. In its ease and +purity, it most resembles that of Swift, Addison, or Goldsmith. +Thackeray writes as a cultured, ideal, old gentleman may be imagined +to talk to the young people, while he sits in his comfortable armchair +in a corner by the fireplace. The charm of freshness, quaintness, and +colloquial familiarity is seldom absent from the delightfully natural +pages of Thackeray. + +GEORGE ELIOT, 1819-1880 + +[Illustration: GEORGE ELIOT. _From a drawing by Sir E.W. Burton, +National Portrait Gallery._] + +Life.--Mary Ann Evans, known to her family as Marian and to her +readers as George Eliot, was born in 1819, at South Farm, in Arbury, +Warwickshire, about twenty-two miles north of Stratford-on-Avon. A few +months later, the family moved to a spacious ivy-covered farmhouse at +Griff, some two miles east, where the future novelist lived until she +was twenty-two. + +She was a thoughtful, precocious child. She lived largely within +herself, passed much time in reverie, and pondered upon deep problems. +She easily outstripped her schoolmates in all mental accomplishments, +and, from the first, gave evidence of a clear, strong intellect. + +The death of her mother and the marriage of a sister left the entire +care of the house and dairy to Marian before she was seventeen years +old. Her labors were quite heavy for the neat six years. At the end of +that time, she and her father moved to Foleshill, near Coventry, where +she had ample leisure to pursue her studies and music. At Foleshill, +she came under the influence of free-thinking friends and became an +agnostic, which she remained through the rest of her life. This home +was again broken up in 1849 by the death of her father. Through the +advice of friends she sought comfort in travel on the continent. + +Upon her return, she settled in London as assistant editor of the +_Westminster Review_. By this time she had become familiar with five +languages, had translated abstruse metaphysical books from the German +into English, and had so thoroughly equipped her naturally strong +intellect that she was sought after in London by such men as Herbert +Spencer and George Henry Lewes. A deep attachment sprang up between +Mr. Lewes and Miss Evans, and they formed an alliance that lasted +until his death. + +George Eliot's early literary labors were mainly critical and +scientific, being governed by the circle in which she moved. When she +came under the influence of Mr. Lewes, she was induced to attempt +creative work. Her novels, published under the pen name of George +Eliot, quickly became popular. Despite this success, it is doubtful +whether she would have possessed sufficient self-reliance to continue +her work without Mr. Lewes's encouragement and protecting love, which +shielded her from contact with publishers and from a knowledge of +harsh criticisms. + +Their companionship was so congenial that her friends were astonished +when she formed another attachment after his death in 1878, and +married Mr. Cross. Her husband said that her affectionate nature +required some deep love to which to cling. She had never been very +robust, and, during her later years, she was extremely frail. She died +in 1880. + +[Illustration: GEORGE ELIOT'S BIRTHPLACE.] + +Works.--George Eliot was fast approaching forty when she found the +branch of literature in which she was to achieve fame. Her first +volume of stories, _Scenes of Clerical Life_ (1858), showed decisively +that she was master of fiction writing. Three novels followed rapidly, +_Adam Bede_ (1859), _The Mill on the Floss_ (1860), and _Silas Marner_ +(1861). Her mind was stored with memories of the Midland counties, +where her young life was spent; and these four books present with a +powerful realism this rich rural district and its quaint inhabitants, +who seem flushed with the warmth of real life. + +_Adam Bede_ is the freshest, healthiest, and most delightful of her +books. This story leaves upon the memory a charming picture of peace +and contentment, with its clearly drawn and interesting characters, +its ideal dairy, the fertile stretches of meadow lands, the squire's +birthday party, the harvest supper, and the sweet Methodist woman +preaching on the green. + +_The Mill on the Floss_ also gives a fine picture of village life. +This novel is one of George Eliot's most earnest productions. She +exhibits one side of her own intense, brooding girlhood, in the +passionate heroine, Maggie Tulliver. There is in this tragic story a +wonderfully subtle revelation of a young nature, which is morbid, +ambitious, quick of intellect, and strong of will, and which has no +hand firm enough to serve as guide at the critical period of her life. + +_Silas Marner_, artistically considered, is George Eliot's +masterpiece. In addition to the ruddy glow of life in the characters, +there is an idyllic beauty about the pastoral setting, and a poetic, +half mystic charm about the weaver's manner of connecting his gold +with his bright-haired Eppie. The slight plot is well planned and +rounded, and the narrative is remarkable for ease and simplicity. + +_Romola_ (1863) is a much bolder flight. It is an attempt to present +Florence of the fifteenth century, to contrast Savonarola's ardent +Christianity with the Greek aestheticism of the Medicis, and to show +the influence of the time upon two widely different characters, Romola +and Tito Melema. This novel is the greatest intellectual achievement +of its author; but it has neither the warmth of life, nor the vigor of +her English stories. Though no pains is spared to delineate Romola, +Tito, and the inspiring monk, Savonarola, yet they do not possess the +genuineness and reality that are felt in her Warwickshire characters. + +_Middlemarch_ (1871-1872) and _Daniel Deronda_ (1876) marked the +decline of George Eliot's powers. Although she still possessed the +ability to handle dialogue, to analyze subtle complex characters, and +to attain a philosophical grasp of the problems of existence, yet her +weakening powers were shown in the length of tedious passages, in an +undue prominence of ethical purpose, in the more studied and, on the +whole, duller characters, and in the prolixity of style. + +George Eliot's poetry does not bear comparison with her prose. _The +Spanish Gypsy_ (1868) is her most ambitious poem, and it contains some +fine dramatic passages. Her most beautiful poem is the hymn +beginning:-- + + "Oh, may I join the choir invisible + Of those immortal dead who live again + In minds made better by their presence!" + +There is a strain of noble thought and lofty feeling in her poems, and +she rises easily to the necessary passion and fervor of verse; but her +expression is hampered by the metrical form. + +General Characteristics.--George Eliot is more strictly modern in +spirit than either of the other two great contemporary novelists. This +spirit is exhibited chiefly in her ethical purpose, her scientific +sympathies, and her minute dissection of character. + +Her writings manifest her desire to benefit human beings by convincing +them that nature's laws are inexorable, and that an infraction of the +moral law will be punished as surely as disobedience to physical laws. +She strives to arouse people to a knowledge of hereditary influences, +and to show how every deed brings its own results, and works, directly +or indirectly, toward the salvation or ruin of the doer. She throws +her whole strength into an attempt to prove that joy is to be found +only in strict attendance upon duty and in self-renunciation. In order +to carry home these serious lessons of life, she deals with powerful +human tragedies, which impart a somberness of tone to all her novels. +In her early works she treats these problems with artistic beauty; but +in her later books she often forgets the artist in the moralist, and +uses a character to preach a sermon. + +The analytical tendency is pronounced in George Eliot's works, which +exhibit an exhaustive study of the feelings, the thoughts, the dreams, +and purposes of the characters. They become known more through +description than through action. + +A striking characteristic of her men and women is their power to grow. +They do not appear ready-made and finished at the beginning of a +story, but, like real human beings amid the struggles of life, they +change for the better or the worse. Tito Melema in _Romola_ is an +example of her skill in evolving character. At the outset, he is a +beautiful Greek boy with a keen zest for pleasure. His selfishness, +however, which betrays itself first in ingratitude to his benefactor, +leads step by step to his complete moral degradation. The consequences +of his deeds entangle him finally in such a network of lies that he is +forced to betray "every trust that was reposed in him, that he might +keep himself safe." + +George Eliot occasionally brightens the seriousness of her works with +humor. Her stories are not permeated with joyousness, like those of +Dickens, nor do they ripple with quiet amusement, like the novels of +Thackeray; but she puts witty and aphoristic sayings into the +conversations of the characters. The scene at the "Rainbow" inn is +bristling with mother wit. Mr. Macey observes:-- + + "'There's allays two 'pinions; there's the 'pinion a man has of + himsen, and there's the 'pinion other folks have on him. There'd be + two 'pinions about a cracked bell if the bell could hear + itself.'"[11] + +Great precision and scholarlike correctness mark the style of George +Eliot. Her vocabulary, though large, is too full of abstract and +scientific terms to permit of great flexibility and idiomatic purity +of English. She is master of powerful figures of speech, original, +epigrammatic turns of expression, and, sometimes, of a stirring +eloquence. + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, 1850-1894 + +[Illustration: ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _From a photograph_.] + +Life.--By preferring romantic incident to the portrayal of +character, Stevenson differed from his great Victorian predecessors in +the field of fiction. He was born in 1850 in the romantic city of +Edinburgh, which he has described so well in his _Picturesque Notes on +Edinburgh_. Being an invalid from early childhood, he was not sent +regularly to school; yet he was ready at the age of seventeen to enter +Edinburgh University. He says of himself that in college he neglected +all the studies that did not appeal to him, to read with avidity +English poetry and fiction, Scottish legend and history. During his +summer vacations he worked at lighthouse engineering. The out-of-door +life was just what he liked; but the office work was irksome to him. +When finally he made his dislike known, his father, although bitterly +disappointed at his son's aversion to the calling followed by two +generations of Stevensons, nevertheless consented to a change; and +they compromised on the law. In 1875 Stevenson succeeded in gaining +admission to the bar; but he soon realized that he would never feel at +home in this profession. Moreover, he had always wanted to be a +writer. He says:-- + + "All through my boyhood and youth... + I was always busy on my own private end, + which was to learn to write. I kept always + two books in my pocket, one to read, one + to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy + fitting what I saw with appropriate words. + ...Thus I lived with words. And what I + thus wrote was for no ulterior use; it was + written consciously for practice." + +[Illustration: STEVENSON AS A BOY.] + +The next year, therefore, he decided to devote himself entirely to +literature. + +He was by heredity predisposed to weak lungs. For the greater part of +his life he moved from place to place, searching for some location +that would improve his health and allow him to write. He lived for a +while in Switzerland, in the south of France, in the south of England, +in the Adirondack Mountains, and in California. In 1880 he married in +California, Mrs. Fanny Osbourne, of whom he wrote:-- + + "Steel-true and blade-straight, + The great artificer made my mate." + +By a former marriage she had a son, who, at the age of thirteen, +inspired Stevenson to write that exciting romance of adventure, +_Treasure Island_, published in book form in 1883. This and the +remarkable story, _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ +(1886), made him so famous that when he visited New York in 1887, a +newspaper there offered him $10,000 for a weekly article during the +year. + +He preferred to accept an offer of $3500 for twelve monthly articles +for a magazine. + +The most romantic part of his life began in 1888, when he chartered a +yacht in San Francisco for a cruise among the South Sea Islands. He +had the enthusiasm of a boy for this trip, which was planned to +benefit his health. Almost as many adventures befell him as Robinson +Crusoe. At one time Stevenson became so ill that he was left with his +wife on one of the Society Islands while the yacht sailed away for +repairs. Before the boat returned, both his food and money were +exhausted, and he and Mrs. Stevenson were forced to live on the bounty +of the natives, who adopted him into one of their tribes and gave him +the name of Tusitala. + +He wandered for three and a half years among the islands of the +Southern Pacific, visiting Australia twice. On one trip he called at +thirty-three small coral islands, and wrote, "Hackney cabs have more +variety than atolls." + +He finally selected for his residence the island of Samoa, where he +spent the last three and a half years of his life. He died suddenly in +his forty-fifth year, and was buried on the summit of a Samoan +mountain near his home. + +In 1893 he wrote to George Meredith:-- + + "In fourteen years I have not had a day's real health; I have + wakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have done my work + unflinchingly. I have written in bed, and written out of it, written + in sickness, written torn by coughing, written when my head swam for + weakness..." + +Many have found in Stevenson's life an inspiration to overcome +obstacles, to cease complaining, and to bear a message of good cheer. +These lines from his volume of poems called _Underwoods_ (1887), are +especially characteristic:-- + + "If I have faltered more or less + In my great task of happiness; + If I have moved among my race + And shown no glorious morning face; + If beams from happy human eyes + Have moved me not; if morning skies, + Books, and my food, and summer rain + Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:-- + Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take + And stab my spirit broad awake." + +Works.--Stevenson wrote entertaining travels, such as _An Inland +Voyage_ (1878), the record of a canoe journey from Antwerp to +Pontoise, _Travels with a Donkey through the Cévennes_ (1879), and _In +the South Seas_ (published in book form in 1896). Early in life he +wrote many essays, the best of which are included in the volumes, +_Virginibus Puerisque_ (_To Girls and Boys_, 1881) and _Familiar +Studies of Men and Books_ (1882). Valuable papers presenting his views +of the technique of writing may be found in the volumes called +_Memories and Portraits_ (1887) and _Essays in the Art of Writing_ +(collected after his death). There is a happy blending of style, +humor, and thought in many of these essays. Perhaps the most unusual +and original of all is _Child's Play_ (_Virginibus Puerisque_). This +is a psychological study, which reveals one of his strongest +characteristics, the power of vividly recalling the events and +feelings of childhood. + + "When my cousin and I took our porridge of a morning, we had a + device to enliven the course of the meal. He ate his with sugar, and + explained it to be a country continually buried under snow. I took + mine with milk, and explained it to be a country suffering gradual + inundation. You can imagine us exchanging bulletins; how here was an + island still unsubmerged, here a valley not yet covered with + snow; ...and how, in fine, the food was of altogether secondary + importance, and might even have been nauseous, so long as we + seasoned it with these dreams." + +The simplicity and apparent artlessness of his _A Child's Garden of +Verse_ (1885) have caused many critics to neglect these poems; but the +verdict of young children is almost unanimous against such neglect. +These songs + + "Lead onward into fairy land, + Where all the children dine at five, + And all the playthings come alive." + +It is quite possible that the verses in this little volume may in the +coming years appeal to more human beings than all the remainder of +Stevenson's work. He and his American contemporary, Eugene Field +(1850-1895), had the peculiar genius to delight children with a type +of verse in which only a very few poets have excelled. + +Boys and young men love Stevenson best for his short stories and +romances. After a careful study of Poe and Hawthorne, the American +short story masters, Stevenson made the English impressionistic short +story a more artistic creation. Some of the best of his short stories +are _Will o' the Mill_ (1878), _The Sire de Malétroit's Door_ (1878), +and _Markheim_ (1885). His best-known single production, _The Strange +Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, is really a short story that +presents a remarkable psychological study of dual personality. + +The short stories served as an apprenticeship for the longer romances, +of which _Treasure Island_ is the best constructed and the most +interesting. Among a number of other romances, the four which deal +with eighteenth-century Scottish history are the best: _Kidnapped_ +(1886), _The Master of Ballantrae_ (1889), _David Balfour_ +(_Catriona_, 1893), and the unfinished _Weir of Hermiston_, published +two years after his death. + +[Illustration: EDINBURGH MEMORIAL OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _By +Augustus St. Candeus._] + +General Characteristics.--Unlike the majority of the Victorian +writers of fiction, Stevenson preferred the field of romance and +adventure. It is natural to compare him with Scott, who showed a far +wider range, both in subject matter and in the portrayal of human +beings. Stevenson, however, surpassed Scott in swift delineation of +incident, in pictorial vividness, and in literary form. Scott dashed +off some of his long romances in six weeks; while Stevenson said that +his printer's copy was sometimes the result of ten times that amount +of writing. The year before he died, he spent three weeks in writing +twenty-four pages. + +Stevenson's romances are remarkable for artistic style, clearness of +visual image, and boyish love of adventure. He made little attempt to +portray more than the masculine half of the human race. His simple +verses possess rare power to charm children. The most evident quality +of all his prose is its artistic finish. + +GEORGE MEREDITH, 1828-1909 + +[Illustration: GEORGE MEREDITH. _From the painting by G.F. Watts, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--George Meredith was the only child of a Welsh father and an +Irish mother. He was born in 1828 over his grandfather's tailor shop +in Portsmouth, Hampshire. The father proved incompetent in handling +the excellent tailoring business to which he fell heir; and he soon +abandoned his son. The mother died when the boy was five years old, +and he was then cared for by relatives. When he was fourteen, he was +sent to school in Germany for two years; but he did not consider his +schooling of much benefit to him and he was forced to educate himself +for his life's work. + +On his return to England, he was articled to a London solicitor; but +by the age of twenty-one, Meredith had abandoned the law and had begun +the literary life which was to receive his undivided attention for +nearly sixty years. The struggle was at first extremely hard. Some +days, indeed, he is said to have lived on a single bowl of porridge. + +While following his work as a novelist, he tried writing for +periodicals, served as a newspaper correspondent, and later became a +literary adviser for a large London publishing firm. In this capacity, +he proved a sympathetic friend to many a struggling young author. +Thomas Hardy says that he received from Meredith's praise sufficient +encouragement to persevere in the field of literature. + +Meredith's marriage in 1849 was unhappy and resulted in a separation. +Three years after his wife's death, which occurred in 1861, he married +a congenial helpmate and went to live in Flint Cottage, near Burford +Bridge, Surrey, where most of his remaining years were spent. + +Not until late in life were the returns from his writings sufficient +to relieve him from unceasing daily toil at his desk. He was widely +hailed as a literary master and recognized as a force in fiction +before he attained financial independence. After the death of +Tennyson, Meredith was elected president of the Society of British +Authors. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, his reply to the +_Who's Who_ query about his recreations was, "a great reader, +especially of French literature; has in his time been a great walker." +During his last sixteen years of life, he suffered from partial +paralysis and was compelled to abandon these long walks, which had +been a source both of recreation and of health. + +He died in 1909 at the age of eighty-one and was laid beside his wife +in the Dorking cemetery. The following words from his novel, +_Vittoria_, are on his tombstone: "Life is but a little holding, lent +to do a mighty labor." + +Poetry.--During his long career, Meredith wrote much verse, which +was collected in 1912 in a volume of 578 pages. + +The quality of his poetry is very uneven. In such exquisite poems as +_Love in the Valley_, _The Lark Ascending_, and _Melanthus_, the fancy +and melody are artistically intertwined. Many have admired the +felicity of the description and the romance of the sentiment in this +stanza from _Love in the Valley_:-- + + "Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow, + Swift as the swallow along the river's light + Circleting the surface to meet his mirrored winglets, + Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight. + Shy as the squirrel that leaps among the pine-tops, + Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun, + She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, + Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won!" + +Some of his songs are pure music, and an occasional descriptive +passage in his verse shows the deftness of touch of a skilled lyrical +poet. Such poems as _Jump-to-Glory Jane_, _Juggling Jerry_, _The +Beggar's Soliloquy_, and _The Old_ _Chartist_, are character sketches +of humble folk and show genuine pathos and humor. In his poetry, +Meredith is, however, more often the moralist and philosopher than the +singer and simple narrator. He treats of love, life, and death as +metaphysical problems. He ponders over the duties of mankind and the +greatest sources of human strength and courage. He roams through a +region that seems timeless and spaceless. He "neighbors the +invisible." The obscurities in many of these poems are due to the +abstract nature of the subject matter, to excessive condensation of +thought, to frequent omission of connecting words, and to an abundance +of figurative language. + +Novels.--Meredith's novels comprise the largest and most noteworthy +part of his writings. His most important works of fiction are _The +Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ (1859), _The Egoist_ (1879), and _Diana of +the Crossways_ (1885). _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ is the story of +a beautiful first love. The courtship of Richard and Lucy, amid scenes +that inspire poetic descriptions, is in itself a true prose lyric. +Their parting interview is one of the most powerfully handled chapters +to be found in English novels. It is heart-rending in its emotional +intensity and almost faultless in expression. _The Ordeal of Richard +Feverel_, like most of Meredith's works, contains more than a love +story. Many chapters of high-class comedy and epigrammatical wit serve +to explode a fallacious educational theory. + +_The Egoist_ has for its special aim the portrayal and exposure of +masculine egotism. This was a favorite subject with Meredith and it +recurs frequently in his novels. The plot of _The Egoist_ is slight. +The interest is centered on the awakening of Clara Middleton and +Laetitia Dale to the superlative selfishness of Sir Willoughby's +egotism. + +Scintillating repartee, covert side-thrusts, shrewd observations, +subtle innuendoes, are all used to assist in the revelation of this +egotism. One fair April morning, after his return to England from a +three years' absence, Sir Willoughby met Laetitia Dale, an early +sweetheart whom he no longer loved. + + "He sprang out of the carriage and seized her hand. 'Laetitia + Dale!' he said. He panted. 'Your name is sweet English music! + And you are well?' The anxious question permitted him to read deep + in her eyes. He found the man he sought there, squeezed him + passionately, and let her go." + +The delicate irony of this passage is a mild example of the rich vein +of humor running through this work. _The Egoist_ is the most +Meredithian of the author's novels, and it displays most exuberantly +his comic spirit, intent upon photographing mankind's follies. This +book has been called "a comedy in narrative." + +Diana, the heroine of _Diana of the Crossways, is the queen of +Meredith's heroines. She is intellectual, warm-hearted, and +courageous. She thinks and talks brilliantly; but when she acts, she +is often carried away by the momentary impulse. She therefore keeps +the reader alternately scolding and forgiving her. Her betrayal of a +state secret, which cannot be condoned, remains the one flaw in the +plot. With this exception, the story is absorbing. The men and women +belong to the world of culture. Among them are some of Meredith's most +interesting characters, notably Redworth, the noblest man in any of +the novels. The scene of the story is in London's highest political +circle and the discussions sparkle with cleverness. + +_Evan Harrington_ (1861), the story of a young tailor, is one of the +lightest and brightest of Meredith's novels. It presents in the +author's most inimitable manner a comic picture of the struggle for +social position. In two of the characters, Great Mel and Mrs. Mel, are +found the pen portraits of Meredith's grandparents. _Rhoda Fleming_ +(1865) is in its style the simplest of his novels. The humble tragedy +is related in the plain speech of the people, without the Gaelic wit +usually characteristic of Meredith. + +The first half of _The Adventures of Harry Richmond_ has been called +by some critics Meredith's best piece of writing, but the last half +shows less power. + +Meredith grew more introspective in his later years, as is shown in +such long, analytical novels as, _One of Our Conquerors_ (1891), _Lord +Ormont and His Aminta_ (1894), and _The Amazing Marriage_ (1895). + +General Characteristics.-Meredith's novels afford him various +opportunities for an exposition of his views on education, divorce, +personal liberty, conventional narrow-mindedness, egotism, +sentimentalism, and obedience to law. His own personality creeps into +the stories when he has some favorite sermon to preach; and he +sometimes taxes the reader's patience by unduly delaying the narrative +or even directing its course in order to accentuate the moral issue. + +The chief excellences of his novels lie in the strong and subtle +character portrayal, in the brilliant conversations, in the power with +which intense scenes are presented, and in the well-nigh omnipresent +humor. + +Meredith's humor frequently arises from his keen intellectual +perception of the paradoxes in life. One of his egotistical lovers, +talking to the object of his undying affections, "could pledge himself +to eternity, but shrank from being bound to eleven o'clock on the +morrow morning." Meredith does not fly into a passion, like Carlyle, +because society is sentimental and shallow and loves to pose. He +proceeds in the coolest manner to draw with unusual distinctness the +shallow dilettante, the sentimentalist, the egotist, and the +hypocrite. By placing these characters in the midst of men and women +actuated by simple and genuine motives, he develops situations that +seem especially humorous to readers who are alert to detect +incongruity. This veiled humor, which has been aptly styled "the +laughter of the mind," gives to Meredith's works their most +distinctive flavor. + +His prose style is epigrammatic, rich in figures, subtle, sometimes +tortuous and even obscure. He abhors the trite and obvious, and, in +escaping them to indulge in witty riddles, fanciful expressions, and +difficult allusions, he imperils his clearness. In the presence of +genuine emotion, he is always as simple in style as he is serious in +attitude; but there are times when he seems to revel in the +extravagant and grotesque. + +Meredith is the novelist of men and women in the world of learning, of +letters, and of politics; he is the satirist of social shams; and he +is the sparkling epigrammatist; but he is also the optimist with the +sane and vigorous message for his generation, and the realist who +keeps a genuine rainbow of idealism in his sky. + +THOMAS HARDY, 1840- + +[Illustration: THOMAS HARDY. _From the painting by Winifred +Thompson_.] + +Life.--The subtle, comic aspects of cosmopolitan life, which were +such a fascination to Meredith, did not appeal to that somber realist, +Thomas Hardy, whose genius enabled him to paint impressive pictures of +the retired elemental life of Wessex. Hardy was born in 1840 in the +little village of Bockhampton, Dorsetshire, a few miles out of +Dorchester. He received his early education at the local schools, +attended evening classes at King's College, London, and studied Gothic +architecture under Sir Arthur Blomfield. The boy was articled at the +early age of sixteen to an ecclesiastical architect and, like the hero +in his novel, _A Pair of Blue Eyes_, made drawings and measurements of +old churches in rural England and planned their remodeling. He won +medals and prizes in this profession before he turned from it to +authorship. His first published work, _How I Built Myself a House_, +was an outgrowth of some early experiences as an architect. + +Hardy married Miss Emma Lavinia Gifford in 1874 and went to live at +Sturminster Newton. Later he spent some time in London; but he +returned finally to his birthplace, the land of his novels, and built +himself a home at Max Gate, Dorchester, in 1885. His life has been a +retired one. He always shunned publicity, but he was happy to receive +in 1910 the freedom of his native town, an honor bestowed upon him as +a mark of love and pride. + +Works.--Thomas Hardy is one of the greatest realists in modern +England, and also one of the most uncompromising pessimists. His +characters are developed with consummate skill, but usually their +progression is toward failure or death. These men and women are +largely rustics who subsist by means of humble toil, such as tending +sheep or cutting furze. The orbit of their lives is narrow. The people +are simple, primitive, superstitious. They are only half articulate in +the expression of their emotions. In _Far From the Madding Crowd_, for +example, Gabriel Oak wished to have Bathsheba know "his impressions; +but he would as soon have thought of carrying an odor in a net as of +attempting to convey the intangibilities of his feelings in the coarse +meshes of language. So he remained silent." On the other hand, the +speech is sometimes racy, witty, and flavored by the daily occupation +of the speaker. + +The scenes usually selected for Hardy's stories are from his own +county and those immediately adjacent, to which section of country he +has given the name of Wessex. He knows it so intimately and paints it +so vividly that its moors, barrows, and villages are as much a part of +the stories as the people dwelling there. In fact, Egdon Heath has +been called the principal character in the novel, _The Return of the +Native_ (1878). The upland with its shepherd's hut, the sheep-shearing +barn, the harvest storm, the hollow of ferns, and the churchyard with +its dripping water spout are part of the wonderful landscape in _Far +From the Madding Crowd_ (1874) This is the finest artistic product of +Hardy's genius. It contains strongly-drawn characters, dramatic +incidents, a most interesting story, and some homely native humor. The +heroine, Bathsheba, is one of the brainiest and most independent of +all Hardy's women. She has grave faults; but the tragic experiences +through which she passes soften her and finally mold her into a +lovable woman. Steady, resourceful, dumb Gabriel Oak and clever, +fencing Sergeant Troy are delightful foils to each other, and are +every inch human. + +[Illustration: MAX GATE. The Home of Hardy near Dorchester (the +Casterbridge of the Novels).] + +_The Mayor of Casterbridge_ (1886) and _The Woodlanders_ (1886-1887) +deserve mention with _Far from the Madding Crowd_ and The _Return of +the Native_ as comprising the best four novels of the so-called Wessex +stories. + +Hardy's later works exhibit an increasing absorption in ethical and +religious problems. _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ (1892) is one of +Hardy's most powerful novels. It has for its heroine a strong, sweet, +appealing woman, whose loving character and tragic fate are presented +with fearless vigor and deep sympathetic insight. The personal +intensity of the author, which is felt to pervade this book, is +present again in _Jude the Obscure_ (1895), that record of an aspiring +soul, struggling against hopeless odds, heavy incumbrances, and sordid +realities. + +General Characteristics.--Hardy's novels leave a sense of gloom upon +the reader. He explains his view of modern life "as a thing to be put +up with, replacing the zest for existence which was so intense in +early civilization." His pessimistic philosophy strikes at the core of +life and human endeavor. Sorrow appears in his work, not as a +punishment for crime, but as an unavoidable result of human life and +its inevitable mistakes. Events, sometimes comic but generally tragic, +play upon the weaknesses of his characters and bring about +entanglements, misunderstandings, and suffering far in excess of the +deserts of these well-intentioned people. No escape is suggested. +Resignation to misfits, mistakes, and misfortune is what remains. + +Hardy is one of the great Victorian story-tellers. His personality is +never obtruded on his readers. His humor is not grafted on his scenes, +but is a natural outgrowth of his rustic gatherings and conversations. +He relates a straightforward tale, and makes his characters act and +speak for themselves. He selects the human nature, the rural scene, +and the moral issue upon which his whole being can be centered. The +result is a certainty of design, a somberness of atmosphere, and an +intensity of feeling, such as are found in elegiac poetry. Natural +laws, physical nature, and human life are engaged in an uneven +struggle, and the result is usually unsatisfactory for human life. The +novels are pitilessly sad, but they are nevertheless products of a +genuine artist in temperament and technique. His novels show almost as +much unity of plot and mood as many of the greatest short stories. + +MATTHEW ARNOLD, 1822-1888 + +[Illustration: MATTHEW ARNOLD. _From the painting of G.F. Watts, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, A.C. +Swinburne, and the much younger Rudyard Kipling are the most noted +among a large number of Victorian poets. All of these, with the +exception of the two greatest, Browning and Tennyson, also wrote +prose. + +Matthew Arnold was born in 1822, at Laleham, Middlesex. His father, +Dr. Thomas Arnold, was the eminent head master of Rugby School, and +the author of _History of Rome, Lectures on Modern History_, and +_Sermons_. Under the guidance of such a father, Matthew Arnold enjoyed +unusual educational advantages. In 1837 he entered Rugby, and from +there went to Baliol College, Oxford. He was so ambitious and studious +that he won two prizes at Oxford, was graduated with honors, and, a +year later, was elected fellow of Oriel College. Arnold's name, like +Thomas Gray's, is associated with university life. + +From 1847 to 1851, Arnold was private secretary to Lord Lansdowne. In +1851 he married the daughter of Justice Wightman. After relinquishing +his secretaryship, Arnold accepted a position that took him again into +educational fields. He was made lay inspector of schools, a position +which he held to within two years of his death. This office called for +much study in methods of education, and he visited the continent three +times to investigate the systems in use there. In addition, he held +the chair of poetry at Oxford for ten years, between 1857 and 1867. +One of the most scholarly courses of lectures that he delivered there +was _On Translating Homer_. From this time until his death, in 1888, +he was a distinguished figure in English educational and literary +circles. + +Poetical Works.--Matthew Arnold's poetry belongs to the middle of +the century, that season of doubt, perplexity, and unrest, when the +strife between the church and science was bitterest and each +threatened to overthrow the other. In his home, Arnold was taught a +devout faith in revealed religion, and at college he was thrown upon a +world of inquiring doubt. Both influences were strong. His feelings +yearned after the early faith, and his intellect sternly demanded +scientific proof and explanation. He was, therefore, torn by a +conflict between his emotions and reason, and he was thus eminently +fitted to be the poetic exponent of what he calls-- + + "...this strange disease of modern life, + With its sick hurry, its divided aims, + Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts."[12] + +Arnold felt that there were too much hurry and excitement in the age. +In the midst of opposing factions, theories, and beliefs, he cries out +for rest and peace. We rush from shadow to shadow-- + + "And never once possess our soul + Before we die."[13] + +Again, in the _Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann"_, he +voices the unrest of the age-- + + "What shelter to grow ripe is ours? + What leisure to grow wise? + Like children bathing on the shore, + Buried a wave beneath, + The second wave succeeds, before + We have had time to breathe." + +But Arnold is not the seer to tell us how to enter the vale of rest, +how to answer the voice of doubt. He passes through life a lonely +figure-- + + "Wandering between two worlds, one dead, + The other powerless to be born." [14] + +The only creed that he offers humanity is one born of the scientific +temper, a creed of stoical endurance and unswerving allegiance to the +voice of duty. Many readers miss in Arnold the solace that they find +in Wordsworth and the tonic faith that is omnipresent in Browning. +Arnold himself was not wholly satisfied with his creed; but his cool +reason refused him the solace of an unquestioning faith. Arnold has +been called "the poet of the Universities," because of the reflective +scholarly thought in his verse. It breathes the atmosphere of books +and of the study. Such poetry cannot appeal to the masses. It is for +the thinker. + +The style of verse that lends itself best to Arnold's genius is the +elegiac lyric. _The Scholar Gypsy_ and its companion piece _Thyrsis, +Memorial Verses, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse,_ and _Stanzas in +Memory of the Author of "Obermann"_ are some of his best elegies. + +_Sohrab and Rustam_ and _Balder Dead_ are Arnold's finest narrative +poems. They are stately, dignified recitals of the deeds of heroes and +gods. The series of poems entitled _Switzerland_ and _Dover Beach_ are +among Arnold's most beautiful lyrics. A fine description of the surf +is contained in the last-named poem:-- + + "Listen! you hear the grating roar + Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, + At their return, up the high strand, + Begin, and cease, and then again begin, + With tremulous cadence slow, and bring + The eternal note of sadness in." + +Neither the movement of the narrative nor the lightness of the lyric +is wholly congenial to Arnold's introspective melancholy muse. + +Prose Works.--Although Arnold's first works were in poetry, he won +recognition as a prose writer before he was widely known as a poet. +His works in prose comprise such subjects as literary criticism, +education, theology, and social ethics. As a critic of literature, he +surpasses all his great contemporaries. Neither Macaulay nor Carlyle +possessed the critical acumen, the taste, ana the cultivated judgment +of literary works, in such fullness as Matthew Arnold. + +His greatest contributions to critical literature are the various +magazine articles that were collected in the two volumes entitled +_Essays in Criticism_ (1865-1888). In these essays Arnold displays +great breadth of culture and fairness of mind. He rises superior to +the narrow provincialism and racial prejudices that he deprecates in +other criticisms of literature. He gives the same sympathetic +consideration to the German Heine and the Frenchman Joubert as to +Wordsworth. Arnold further insists that Frenchmen should study English +literature for its serious ethical spirit, and that Englishmen would +be benefited by a study of the lightness, precision, and polished form +of French literature. + +Arnold's object in all his criticism is to discover the best in both +prose and poetry, and his method of attaining this object is another +illustration of his scholarship and mental reach. He says in his +_Introduction to Ward's English Poets_:-- + + "Indeed, there can be no more useful help for discovering what + poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can + therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines + and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a + touchstone to other poetry." + +When Arnold seeks to determine an author's true place in literature, +his keen critical eye seems to see at a glance all the world's great +writers, and to compare them with the man under discussion. In order +to ascertain Wordsworth's literary stature, for example, Arnold +measures the height of Wordsworth by that of Homer, of Dante, of +Shakespeare, and of Milton. + +Another essential quality of the critical mind that Arnold possessed +is "sweet reasonableness." His judgments of men are marked by a +moderation of tune. His strong predilections are sometimes shown, but +they are more often restrained by a clear, honest intellect. Arnold's +calm, measured criticisms are not marred by such stout partisanship as +Macaulay shows for the Whigs, by the hero worship that Carlyle +expresses, or by the exaggerated praise and blame that Ruskin +sometimes bestows. On the other hand, Arnold loses what these men +gain; for while his intellect is less biased than theirs, it is also +less colored and less warmed by the glow of feeling. + +The analytical quality of Arnold's mind shows the spirit of the age. +His subjects are minutely classified and defined. Facts seem to divide +naturally into brigades, regiments, and battalions of marching order. +His literary criticisms note subtleties of style, delicate shadings in +expression, and many technical excellences and errors that Carlyle +would have passed over unheeded. In addition to the _Essays in +Criticism,_ the other works of Arnold that possess his fine critical +dualities in highest degree are _On Translating Homer_ (1861) and _The +Study of Celtic Literature_ (1867). + +General Characteristics.--The impression that Arnold has left upon +literature is mainly that of a keen, brilliant intellect. In his +poetry there is more emotion than in his prose; but even in his poetry +there is no passion or fire. The sadness, the loneliness, the unrest +of life, and the irreconcilable conflict between faith and doubt are +most often the subjects of his verse. His range is narrow, but within +it he attains a pure, noble beauty. His introspective, analytical +poetry is distinguished by a "majesty of grief," depth of thought, +calm, classic repose, and a dignified simplicity. + +In prose, Arnold attains highest rank as a critic of literature. His +culture, the breadth of his literary sympathies, his scientific +analyses, and his lucid literary style make his critical works the +greatest of his age. He has a light, rather fanciful, humor, which +gives snap and spice to his style. He is also a master of irony, which +is galling to an opponent. He himself never loses his suavity or good +breeding. Arnold's prose style is as far removed from Carlyle's as the +calm simplicity of the Greeks is from the powerful passion of the +Vikings. The ornament and poetic richness of Ruskin's style are also +missing in Arnold's. His style has a classic purity and refinement. He +has a terseness, a crystalline clearness, and a precision that have +been excelled in the works of few even of the greatest masters of +English prose. + +ROBERT BROWNING, 1812-1889 + +[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING. _From the painting by G. F. Watts, +National Portrait Gallery._] + +Life.--The long and peaceful lives of Browning and Tennyson, the two +most eminent poets of the Victorian age, are in marked contrast to the +short and troubled careers of Byron, Shelley, and Keats. + +Robert Browning's life was uneventful but happy. He inherited a +magnificent physique and constitution from his father, who never knew +a day's illness. With such health, Robert Browning felt a keen relish +for physical existence and a robust joyousness in all kinds of +activity. Late in life he wrote, in the poem _At the Mermaid_:-- + + "Have you found your life distasteful? + My life did, and does, smack sweet. + * * * * * + I find earth not gray but rosy, + Heaven not grim but fair of hue. + Do I stoop? I pluck a posy. + Do I stand and stare? All's blue." + +Again, in _Saul_, he burst forth with the lines:-- + + "How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ + All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy?" + +These lines, vibrant with life and joy, could not have been written by +a man of failing vitality or physical weakness. + +Robert Browning was born in 1812 at Camberwell, whose slopes overlook +the smoky chimneys of London. In this beautiful suburb he spent his +early years in the companionship of a brother and a sister. A highly +gifted father and a musical mother assisted intelligently in the +development of their children. Browning's education was conducted +mainly under his father's eye. The boy attended neither a large school +nor a college. After he had passed from the hands of tutors, he spent +some time in travel, and was wont to call Italy his university. +Although his training was received in an irregular way, his +scholarship cannot be doubted by the student of his poetry. + +He early determined to devote his life to poetry, and his father +wisely refrained from interfering with his son's ambitions. + +[Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. From the painting by +Field Talfourd, National Portrait Gallery._] + +Romantic Marriage with Elizabeth Barrett Barrett,--Her Poetry.--In +1845, after Browning had published some ten volumes of verse, among +which were _Paracelsus_ (1835), _Pippa Passes_ (1841), and _Dramatic +Lyrics_ (1842), he met Miss Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (1806-1861), +whose poetic reputation was then greater than his own. The publication +in 1898 of _The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett +Barrett_ disclosed an unusual romance. When he first met her, she was +an invalid in her father's London house, passing a large part of her +time on the couch, scarcely able to see all the members of her own +family at the same time. His magnetic influence helped her to make +more frequent journeys from the sofa to an armchair, then to walk +across the room, and soon to take drives. + +Her father, who might have sat for the original of Meredith's +"Egoist," had decided that his daughter should be an invalid and +remain with him for life. When Browning proposed to Miss Barrett that +he should ask her father for her hand, she replied that such a step +would only make matters worse. "He would rather see me dead at his +feet than yield the point," she said. In 1846 Miss Barrett, +accompanied by her faithful maid, drove to a church and was married to +Browning. The bride returned home; but Browning did not see her for a +week because he would not indulge in the deception of asking for "Miss +Barrett." Seven days after the marriage, they quietly left for Italy, +where Mrs. Browning passed nearly all her remaining years. She +repeatedly wrote to her father, telling him of her transformed health +and happy marriage, but he never answered her. + +Before Miss Barrett met Browning, the woes of the factory children had +moved her to write _The Cry of the Children_. After Edgar Allan Poe +had read its closing lines:-- + + "...the child's sob in the silence curses deeper + Than the strong man in his wrath," + +he said that she had depicted "a horror, sublime in its simplicity, of +which Dante himself might have been proud." + +Her best work, _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, written after Browning +had won her affection, is a series of love lyrics, strong, tender, +unaffected, true, from the depth of a woman's heart. Sympathetic +readers, who know the story of her early life and love, are every year +realizing that there is nothing else in English literature that could +exactly fill their place. Browning called them "the finest sonnets +written in any language since Shakespeare's." Those who like the +simple music of the heart strings will find it in lines like these:-- + + "I love thee to the level of every day'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." + +After fifteen years of happy married life, she died in 1861, and was +buried in Florence. When thinking of her, Browning wrote his poem +_Prospice_ (1861) welcoming death as-- + + "...a peace out of pain, + Then a light, then thy breast, + O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, + And with God be the rest." + +His Later Years.--Soon after his wife's death, he began his long +poem of over twenty thousand lines, _The Ring and the Book_. He +continued to write verse to the year of his death. + +In 1881 the Browning Society was founded for the study and discussion +of his works,--a most unusual honor for a poet during his lifetime. +The leading universities gave him honorary degrees, he was elected +life-governor of London University, and was tendered the rectorship of +the Universities of Glasgow and St. Andrew's and the presidency of the +Wordsworth Society. + +During the latter part of his life, he divided most of his time +between London and Italy. When he died, in 1889, he was living with +his son, Robert Barrett Browning, in the Palazzo Rezzonico, Venice. +Over his grave in Westminster Abbey was chanted Mrs. Browning's +touching lyric:-- + + "He giveth his belovčd, sleep." + +Dramatic Monologues.--Browning was a poet of great productivity. +From the publication of _Pauline_ in 1833 to _Asolando_ in 1889, there +were only short pauses between the appearances of his works. Unlike +Tennyson, Browning could not stop to revise and recast; but he +constantly sought expression, in narratives, dramas, lyrics, and +monologues, for new thoughts and feelings. + +The study of the human soul held an unfailing charm for Browning. He +analyzes with marked keenness and subtlety the experiences of the +soul, its sickening failures, and its eager strivings amid complex, +puzzling conditions. In nearly all his poems, whether narrative, +lyric, or dramatic, the chief interest centers about some "incidents +in the development of a soul." + +The poetic form that he found best adapted to "the development of a +soul" was the dramatic monologue, of which he is one of the greatest +masters. Requiring but one speaker, this form narrows the interest +either to the speaker or to the one described by him. Most of his best +monologues are to be found in the volumes known as _Dramatic Lyrics_ +(1842), _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_ (1845), _Men and Women_ (1855), +_Dramatis Personae_ (1864). + +_My Last Duchess, Andrea del Sarto, Saul, Abt Vogler_, and _The Last +Ride Together_ are a few of his strong representative monologues. The +speaker in _My Last Duchess_ is the widowed duke, who is describing +the portrait of his lost wife. In his blind conceit, he is utterly +unconscious that he is exhibiting clearly his own coldly selfish +nature and his wife's sweet, sunny disposition. The chief power of the +poem lies in the astonishing ease with which he is made to reveal his +own character. + +The interest in _Andrea del Sarto_ is in the mental conflict of this +"faultless painter." He wishes, on the one hand, to please his wife +with popular pictures, and yet he yearns for higher ideals of his art. +He says:-- + + "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, + Or what's a heaven for?" + +As he sits in the twilight, holding his wife's hand, and talking in a +half-musing way, it is readily seen that his love for this beautiful +but soulless woman has caused many of his failures and sorrows in the +past, and will continue to arouse conflicts of soul in the future. + +_Abt Vogler_, one of Browning's noblest and most melodious poems, +voices the exquisite raptures of a musician's soul:-- + + "But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear; + The rest may reason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know." + +The beautiful song of David in the poem entitled _Saul_ shows a +wonderful sympathy with the old Hebrew prophecies. _Cleon_ expresses +the views of an early Greek upon the teachings of Christ and St. Paul. +_The Soliloquy of a Spanish Cloister_ describes the development of a +coarse, jealous nature in monastic life. _The Last Ride Together_ is +one of Browning's many passionate poems on the ennobling power of +love. That remarkable, grotesque poem, _Caliban upon Setebos_, +transcends human fields altogether, and displays the brutelike +theology of a fiend. + +In these monologues, Browning interprets characters of varying faiths, +nationalities, stations, and historic periods. He shows a wide range +of knowledge and sympathy. One type, however, which he rarely +presents, is the simple, commonplace man or woman. Browning excels in +the portrayal of unusual, intricate, and difficult characters that +have complicated problems to face, weaknesses to overcome, or lofty +ambitions to attain. + +The Ring and the Book.--When Browning was asked what he would advise +a student of his poetry to read first, he replied: "_The Ring and the +Book_, of course." He worked on this masterly study of human souls for +many years in the decade in which his wife died. This poem (1868), +which has been facetiously called "a Roman murder story," was +suggested to him by a "square old yellow book," which he purchased for +a few cents at Florence in 1860. This manuscript, dated 1698, gives an +account of the trial of Guido Franceschini for the murder of his wife. +Out of this "mere ring metal," Browning fashioned his "Ring," a poem +twice the length of _Paradise Lost_. + +The subject of the story is an innocent girl, Pompilia, who, under the +protection of a noble priest, flees from her brutal husband and seeks +the home of her foster parents. Her husband wrathfully pursues her and +kills both her and her parents. While this is but the barest outline, +yet the story in its complete form is very simple. As is usual with +Browning, the chief stress is laid upon the character portrayal. + +He adopted the bold and unique plan of having different classes of +people in Rome and the various actors in the tragedy tell the story +from their own point of view and thus reveal their own bias and +characteristics. Each relation makes the story seem largely new. +Browning shows that all this testimony is necessary to establish a +complete circle of evidence in regard to the central truth of the +tragedy. The poem thus becomes a remarkable analytic study of the +psychology of human minds. + +The four important characters,--Guido, the husband; Caponsacchi, the +priest; Pompilia, the girl-wife; and the Pope,--stand out in strong +relief. The greatest development of character is seen in Guido, who +starts with a defiant spirit of certain victory, but gradually becomes +more subdued and abject, when he finds that he is to be killed, and +finally shrieks in agony for the help of his victim, Pompilia. In +Caponsacchi there is the inward questioning of the right and the +wrong. He is a strongly-drawn character, full of passion and noble +desires. Pompilia, who has an intuitive knowledge of the right, is one +of Browning's sweetest and purest women. From descriptions of Mrs. +Browning, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne gave, we may conclude that she +furnished the suggestion for many of Pompilia's characteristics. The +Pope, with his calm, wise judgment and his lofty philosophy, is +probably the greatest product of Browning's intellect. + +The books containing the monologues of these characters take first +place among Browning's writings and occupy a high position in the +century's work. They have a striking originality, intensity, vigor, +and imaginative richness. The remaining books are incomparably +inferior, and are marked at times by mere acuteness of reason and +thoroughness of legal knowledge. + +A Dramatic Poet.--Although Browning's genius is strongly dramatic, +his best work is not found in the field of the drama. _Strafford_ +(1837), _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_ (1843), and _Colombe's Birthday_ +(1844) have been staged successfully, but they cannot be called great +acting plays. The action is slight, the characters are complex, the +soliloquies are lengthy, and the climaxes are too often wholly +dependent upon emotional intensity rather than upon great or exciting +deeds. The strongest interest of these dramas lies in their +psychological subtlety, which is more enjoyable in the study than in +the theater. + +Browning's dramatic power is well exhibited in poems like _In a +Balcony_ or _Pippa Passes_, in which powerful individual scenes are +presented without all the accompanying details of a complete drama. +The great force of such scenes lies in his manner of treating moments +of severe trial. He selects such a moment, focuses his whole attention +upon it, and makes the deed committed stand forth as an explanation of +all the past emotions and as a prophecy of all future acts. _In a +Balcony_ shows the lives of three characters converging toward a +crisis. The hero of this drama thus expresses his theory of life's +struggles in the development of the soul:-- + + "...I count life just stuff + To try the soul's strength on, educe the man." + +_Pippa Passes_ is one of Browning's most artistic presentations of +such dramatic scenes. The little silk weaver, Pippa, rises on the +morning of her one holiday in the year, with the intention of enjoying +in fancy the pleasures "of the Happiest Four in our Asolo," not +knowing, in her innocence, of their misery and guilt. She wanders from +house to house, singing her pure, significant refrains, and, in each +case, her songs arrest the attention of the hearer at a critical +moment. She thus becomes unconsciously a means of salvation. The first +scene is the most intense. She approaches the home of the lovers, +Sebald and Ottima, after the murder of Ottima's husband. As Sebald +begins to reflect on the murder, there comes this song of Pippa's, +like the knocking at the gate in Macbeth, to loose the floodgates of +remorse:-- + + [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MS. FROM PIPPA PASSES.] + +His Optimistic Philosophy.--It has been seen that the Victorian age, +as presented by Matthew Arnold, was a period of doubt and negation. +Browning, however, was not overcome by this wave of doubt. Although he +recognized fully the difficulties of religious faith in an age just +awakening to scientific inquiry, yet he retained a strong, fearless +trust in God and in immortality. + +Browning's reason demanded this belief. In this earthly life he saw +the evil overcome the good, and beheld injustice, defeat, and despair +follow the noblest efforts. If there exists no compensation for these +things, he says that life is a cheat, the moral nature a lie, and God +a fiend. In _Asolando_, Browning thus presents his attitude toward +life:-- + + "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." + +There is no hesitancy in this philosophy of Browning's. With it, he +does not fear to face all the problems and mysteries of existence. No +other poet strikes such a resonant, hopeful note as he. His _Rabbi Ben +Ezra_ is more a song of triumphant faith than anything written since +the Puritan days:-- + + "Our times are in His hand + Who saith, 'A whole I planned, + Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!' + * * * * * + "Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: + What entered into thee, + _That_ was, is, and shall be: + Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure." + +General Characteristics.--Browning is a poet of striking originality +and impelling force. His writings are the spontaneous outpourings of a +rich, full nature, whose main fabric is intellect, but intellect +illumined with the glittering light of spiritual hopefulness and +flushed with the glow of deep human passion. + +The subject of his greatest poetry is the human soul. While he +possesses a large portion of dramatic suggestiveness, he nevertheless +does not excel in setting off character against character in movement +and speech, but rather in a minute, penetrating analysis, by which he +insinuates himself into the thoughts and sensations of his characters, +and views life through their eyes. + +He is a pronounced realist. His verse deals not only with the +beautiful and the romantic, but also with the prosaic and the ugly, if +they furnish true pictures for the panorama of real life. The +unconventionality and realism of his poetic art will be made manifest +by merely reading through the titles of his numerous works. + +Browning did not write to amuse and entertain, but to stimulate +thought and to "sting" the conscience to activity. The meaning of his +verse is, therefore, the matter of paramount importance, far +overshadowing the form of expression. In the haste and carelessness +with which he wrote many of his difficult abstruse poems, he laid +himself open to the charge of obscurity. + +His style has a strikingly individual stamp, which is marked far more +by strength than by beauty. The bare and rugged style of his verse is +often made profoundly impressive by its strenuous earnestness, its +burning intensity, which seems to necessitate the broken lines and +halting, interrupted rhythm. The following utterance of Caponsacchi, +as he stands before his judges, will show the intensity and ruggedness +of Browning's blank verse:-- + + "Sirs, how should I lie quiet in my grave + Unless you suffer me wring, drop by drop, + My brain dry, make a riddance of the drench + Of minutes with a memory in each?" + +His lines are often harsh and dissonant. Even in the noble poem _Rabbi +Ben Ezra_, this jolting line appears:-- + + "Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?" + +and in _Sordello_, Browning writes:-- + + "The Troubadour who sung + Hundreds of songs, forgot, its trick his tongue, + Its craft his brain." + +No careful artist tolerates such ugly, rasping inversions. + +In spite of these inharmonious tendencies in Browning, his poetry at +times shows a lyric lightness, such as is heard in these lines:-- + + "Oh, to be in England + Now that April's there, + And whoever wakes in England + Sees, some morning, unaware, + That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf + Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, + While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough + In England--now!"[15] + +His verse often swells and falls with a wavelike rhythm as in _Saul_ +or in these lines in _Abt Vogler_:-- + + "There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; + The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; + What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; + On the earth the broken arc; in the heaven, a perfect round." + +While, therefore, Browning's poetry is sometimes harsh, faulty, and +obscure, at times his melodies can be rhythmically simple and +beautiful. He is one of the subtlest analysts of the human mind, the +most original and impassioned poet of his age, and one of the most +hopeful, inspiring, and uplifting teachers of modern times. + +ALFRED TENNYSON, 1809-1892 + +[Illustration: ALFRED TENNYSON. _From a photograph by Mayall._] + +Life.--Alfred Tennyson, one of the twelve children of the rector of +Somersby, Lincolnshire, was born in that hamlet in 1809, a year +memorable, both in England and America for the birth of such men as +Charles Darwin, William E. Gladstone, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edgar +Allan Poe, and Abraham Lincoln. + +Visitors to the Somersby rectory, in which Tennyson was born, note +that it fits the description of the home in his fine lyric, _The +Palace of Art_:-- + + "...an English home,--gray twilight pour'd + On dewy pastures, dewy trees, + Softer than sleep--all things in order stored, + A haunt of ancient peace." + +His mother, one of the beauties of Lincolnshire, had twenty-five +offers of marriage. Of her Tennyson said in _The Princess:_-- + + "Happy he + With such a mother! faith in womankind + Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high + Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall, + He shall not blind his soul with clay." + +It is probable that Tennyson holds the record among English poets of +his class for the quantity of youthful verse produced. At the age of +eight, he was writing blank verse in praise of flowers; at twelve, he +began an epic which extended to six thousand lines. + +In 1828 he entered Cambridge University; but in 1831 his father's +sickness and death made it impossible for him to return to take his +degree. Before leaving Cambridge, Tennyson had found a firm friend in +a young college mate of great promise, Arthur Henry Hallam, who became +engaged to the poet's sister, Emily Tennyson. Hallam's sudden death in +1832 was a profound shock to Tennyson and had far-reaching effects on +his poetic development. For a long time he lived in comparative +retirement, endeavoring to perfect himself in the poetic art. + +His golden year was 1850, the year of the publication of _In +Memoriam_, of his selection as poet laureate, to succeed Wordsworth, +and of his marriage to Emily Sellwood. He had been in love with her +for fourteen years, but insufficient income had hitherto prevented +marriage. + +[Illustration: FARRINGFORD.] + +In 1855 Oxford honored him by bestowing on him the degree of D.C.L. +The students gave him an ovation and they properly honored his +greatest poem, _In Memoriam_ by mentioning it first in their loud +calls; but they also paid their respects to his _May Queen_, asking in +chorus: "Did they wake and call you early, call you early, Alfred +dear?" + +The rest of his life was outwardly uneventful. He became the most +popular poet of his age. Schools and colleges had pupils translate his +poems into Latin and Greek verse. Of _Enoch Arden_ (1864), at that +time his most popular narrative poem, sixty thousand copies were sold +almost as as soon as it was printed. He made sufficient money to be +able to maintain two beautiful residences, a winter home at +Farringford on the Isle of Wight, and a summer residence at Aldworth +in Sussex. In 1884 he was raised to the peerage, with the title of +Baron of Aldworth and Farringford. He died in 1892, at the age of +eighty-three, and was buried beside Robert Browning in Westminster +Abbey. + +Early Verse.--Tennyson published a small volume of poems in 1830, +the year before he left college, and another volume in 1832. Although +these contained some good poems, he was too often content to toy with +verse that had exquisite melody and but little meaning. The "Airy, +fairy Lilian" and "Sweet, pale Margaret" type of verse had charmed him +overmuch. The volumes of 1830 and 1832 were severely criticized. +_Blackwood's Magazine_ called same of the lyrics "drivel," and Carlyle +characterized the aesthetic verse as "lollipops." This adverse +criticism and the shock from Hallam's death caused him to remain +silent for nearly ten years. His son and biographer says that his +father during this period "profited by friendly and unfriendly +criticism, and in silence, obscurity, and solitude, perfected his +art." + +In his thirty-third year (1842), Tennyson broke his long silence by +publishing two volumes of verse, containing such favorites as _The +Poet, The Lady of Shalott, The Palace of Art, The Lotos Eaters, A +Dream of Fair Women, Morte d'Arthur, Oenone, The Miller's Daughter, +The Gardener's Daughter, Dora, Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Two +Voices_, and _Sir Galahad_. + +Unsparing revision of numbers of these poems that had been published +before, entitles them to be classed as new work. Some critics think +that Tennyson never surpassed these 1842 volumes. His verse shows the +influence of Keats, of whom Tennyson said: "There is something of the +innermost soul of poetry in almost everything that he wrote." + +One of Tennyson's most distinctive qualities, his art in painting +beautiful word-pictures, is seen at its best in stanzas from _The +Palace of Art_. His mastery over melody and the technique of verse is +evident in such lyrics as _Sir Galahad,_ and _The Lotos Eaters_. When +the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, read from _Ulysses_ the passage +beginning:-- + + "I am a part of all that I have met," + +he gave Tennyson a much-needed annual pension of £200. + +These volumes show that he was coming into touch with the thought of +the age. _Locksley Hall_ communicates the thrill which he felt from +the new possibilities of science:-- + + "For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, + Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. + * * * * * + I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time." + +Hallam's death had also developed in him the human note, resonant in +the lyric, _Break, break, break:_-- + + "But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, + And the sound of a voice that is still." + +The Princess, In Memoriam, and Maud.--Tennyson had produced only +short poems in his 1842 volumes, but his next three efforts, _The +Princess_ (1847), _In Memoriam_ (1850), and _Maud_ (1855), are of +considerable length. + +_The Princess: A Medley_, as Tennyson rightly called it, contains 3223 +lines of blank verse. This poem, which is really a discussion of the +woman question, relates in a half humorous way the story of a princess +who broke off her engagement to a prince, founded a college for women, +and determined to elevate her life to making them equal to men. The +poem abounds in beautiful imagery and exquisite melody; but the +solution of the question by the marriage of the princess has not +completely satisfied modern thought. The finest parts of the poem are +its artistic songs. + +_In Memoriam_, an elegy in memory of Arthur Henry Hallam, was begun at +Somersby in 1833, the year of Hallam's death, and added to at +intervals for nearly sixteen years. When Tennyson first began the +short lyrics to express his grief, he did not intend to publish them; +but in 1850 he gave them to the world as one long poem of 725 +four-line stanzas. + +_In Memoriam_ was directly responsible for Tennyson's appointment as +poet-laureate. Queen Victoria declared that she received more comfort +from it than from any other book except the _Bible_. The first stanza +of the poem (quoted on page 9) has proved as much of a moral stimulus +as any single utterance of Carlyle or of Browning. + +This work is one of the three great elegies of a literature that +stands first in elegiac poetry. Milton's _Lycidas_ has more of a +massive commanding power, and Shelley's _Adonais_ rises at times to +poetic heights that Tennyson did not reach; but neither _Lycidas_ nor +_Adonais_ equals _In Memoriam_ in tracing every shadow of bereavement, +from the first feeling of despair until the mourner can realize that-- + + "...the song of woe + Is after all an earthly song," + +and can express his unassailable faith in-- + + "One God, one law, one element, + And one far-off divine event + To which the whole creation moves." + +With this hopeful assurance closes Tennyson's most noble and beautiful +poem. + +_Maud_, a lyrical melodrama, paints the changing emotions of a lover +who passes from morbid gloom to ecstasy. Then, in a moment of anger, +he murders Maud's brother. Despair, insanity, and recovery follow, but +he sees Maud's face no more. While the poem as a whole is not a +masterpiece, it contains some of Tennyson's finest lyrics. The eleven +stanzas of the lover's song to Maud, the-- + + "Queen Rose of the rosebud garden of girls," + +are such an exquisite blending of woodbine spice and musk of rose, of +star and daffodil sky, of music of flute and song of bird, of the soul +of the rose with the passion of the lover, of meadows and +violets,--that we easily understand why Tennyson loved to read these +lines. + +The Idylls of the King.--In 1859 Tennyson published _Lancelot and +Elaine_, one of a series of twelve _Idylls_, the last of which +appeared in 1855. Together these form an epic on the subject of King +Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. Tennyson relied mainly on +Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_ for the characters and the stories. + +These _Idylls_ show the struggle to maintain noble ideals. Arthur +relates how he collected-- + + "In that fair order of my Table Round, + A glorious company, the flower of men, + To serve as model for the mighty world, + And be the fair beginning of a time." + +He made his knights swear to uphold the ideals of his court-- + + "To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, + To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, + To honor his own word as if his God's, + To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, + To love one maiden only, cleave to her, + And warship her by years of noble deeds + Until they won her." + +The twelve _Idylls_ have as a background those different seasons of +the year that accord with the special mood of the story. In _Gareth +and Lynette_, the most interesting of the _Idylls_, the young hero +leaves his home in spring, when the earth is joyous with birds and +flowers. In the last and most nobly poetic of the series, _The Passing +of Arthur_, the time is winter, when the knights seem to be clothed +with their own frosty breath. + +Sin creeps into King Arthur's realm and disrupts the order of the +"Table Round." He receives his mortal wound, and passes to rule in a +kindlier realm that welcomed him as "a king returning from the wars." + +Although the _Idylls of the King_ are uneven in quality and sometimes +marred by overprofusion of ornament and by deficiency of dramatic +skill, their limpid style, many fine passages of poetry, appealing +stories, and high ideals have exerted a wider influence than any other +of Tennyson's poems. + +Later Poetry.--Tennyson continued to write poetry until almost the +time of his death; but with the exception of his short swan song, +_Crossing the Bar_, he did not surpass his earlier efforts. His +_Locksley Hall Sixty Year After_ (1886) voices the disappointments of +the Victorian age and presents vigorous social philosophy. Some of his +later verse, like _The Northern Farmer_ and _The Children's Hospital_, +are in closer touch with life than many of his earlier poems. + +He wrote also several historical dramas, the best of which is _Becket_ +(1884); but his genius was essentially lyrical, not dramatic. +_Crossing the Bar_, written in his eighty-first year, is not only the +finest product of his later years, but also one of the very best of +Victorian lyrics. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MS. OF CROSSING THE BAR.] + +General Characteristics.--Tennyson is a poetic interpreter of the +thought of the Victorian age. Huxley called him "the first poet since +Lucretius who understood the drift of science." In these four lines +from _The Princess_, Tennyson gives the evolutionary history of the +world, from nebula to man:-- + + "This world was once a fluid haze of light. + Till toward the center set the starry tides, + And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast + The planets: then the monster, then the man." + +Tennyson's poetry of nature is based on almost scientific observation +of natural phenomena. Unlike Wordsworth, Tennyson does not regard +nature as a manifestation of the divine spirit of love. He sees her +more from the new scientific point of view, as "red in tooth and claw +with rapine." The hero of _Maud_ says:-- + + "For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; + The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the + shrike. + And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and + prey." + +The constant warfare implied in the evolutionary theory of the +survival of the fittest did not keep Tennyson from also presenting +nature in her gentler aspects. In _Maud_, the lover sings-- + + "...whenever a March-wind sighs, + He sets the jewel-print of your feet + In violets blue as your eyes," + +and he tells how "the soul of the rose" passed into his blood, and how +the sympathetic passion-flower dropped "a splendid tear." As beautiful +as is much of Tennyson's nature poetry, he has not Wordsworth's power +to invest it with "the light of setting suns," or to cause it to +awaken "thoughts that do lie too deep for tears." + +The conflict between science and religion, the doubts and the sense of +world-pain are mirrored in Tennyson's verse. _The Two Voices_ +begins:-- + + "A still small voice spoke unto me, + Thou art so full of misery + Were it not better not to be?" + +His poetry is, however, a great tonic to religious faith. The closing +lines of _In Memoriam_ and _Crossing the Bar_ show how triumphantly he +met all the doubts and the skepticism of the age. + +Like Milton, Tennyson received much of his inspiration from books, +especially from the classical writers; but this characteristic was +more than counterbalanced by his acute observation and responsiveness +to the thought of the age. _Locksley Hall Sixty Years After_ shows +that he was keenly alive to the social movements of the time. + +Tennyson said that the scenes in his poems were so vividly conceived +that he could have drawn them if he had been an artist. A twentieth +century critic[16] says that Tennyson is almost the inventor of such +pictorial lyrics as _A Dream of Fair Women_ and _The Palace of Art_. + +The artistic finish of Tennyson's verse is one of its great charms. He +said to a friend: "It matters little what we say; it is how we say +it--though the fools don't knew it." His poetry has, however, often +been criticized for lack of depth. The variety in his subject matter, +mode of expression, and rhythm renders his verse far more enjoyable +than that of the formal age of Pope. + +Tennyson's extraordinary popularity in his own time was largely due to +the fact that he voiced so clearly and attractively the thought of the +age. As another epoch ushers in different interests, they will +naturally be uppermost in the mind of the new generation. We no longer +feel the intense interest of the Victorians in the supposed conflict +between science and religion. Their theory of evolution has been +modified and has lost the force of novelty. Theories of government and +social ideals have also undergone a gradual change. For these reasons +much of Tennyson's verse has ceased to have its former wide appeal. + +Tennyson has, however, left sufficient work of abiding value, both for +its exquisite form and for its thought, to entitle him to be ranked as +a great poet. We cannot imagine a time when _Crossing the Bar_, _The +Passing of Arthur_, and the central thought of _In Memoriam_-- + + "'Tis better to have loved and lost + Than never to have loved at all," + +will no longer interest readers. To Tennyson belong-- + + "Jewels five words long + That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time + Sparkle forever." + +ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, 1837-1909 + +[Illustration: ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, 1837-1909. _From the +painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti_.] + +Life.--Swinburne was born in London in 1837. His father was an +admiral in the English navy, and his mother, the daughter of an earl. +The boy passed his summers in Northumberland and his winters in the +Isle of Wight. He thus acquired that fondness for the sea, so +noticeable in his poetry. His early experiences are traceable in lines +like these:-- + + "Our bosom-belted billowy-blossoming hills, + Whose hearts break out in laughter like the sea." + +He went to Oxford for three years, but left without taking his degree. +The story is current that he knew more Greek than his teachers but +that he failed in an examination on the _Scriptures_. He sought to +complete his education by wide reading and by travel, especially in +France and Italy. + +When he was twenty-five, he went to live for a short time at 16 Cheyne +Walk, Chelsea, in the western part of London, in the same house with +Dante Gabriel Rossetti and George Meredith. Swinburne admired +Rossetti's poetry and was much impressed with the Pre-Raphaelite +virtues of simplicity and directness. + +Swinburne never married. His deafness caused him to pass much of his +long life in comparative retirement. His last thirty years were spent +with his friend, the critic and poet, Theodore Watts-Dunton, at Putney +on the Thames, a few miles southwest of London. Swinburne died in 1909 +and was buried at Bonchurch in the Isle of Wight. + +Works.--In 1864 England was enchanted with the melody of the +choruses in his _Atalanta in Calydon_, a dramatic poem in the old +Greek form. Lines like the following from the chorus, _The Youth of +the Year_, show the quality for which his verse is most famous:-- + + "When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, + The mother of months in meadow or plain + Fills the shadows and windy places + With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain." + +The first series of his _Poems and Ballads_ (1866) contains _The +Garden of Proserpine_, one of his best known poems. Proserpine +"forgets the earth her mother" and goes to her "bloomless" garden:-- + + "And spring and seed and swallow + Take wing for her and follow + Where summer song rings hollow + And flowers are put to scorn." + +Many volumes came in rapid succession from his pen. In 1904 his poems +were collected in six octavo volumes containing 2357 pages. This +collection includes the long narrative poems, _Tristram of Lyonesse_ +and _The Tale of Balen_, a faithful retelling of famous medieval +stories. He, however, had more ability as a writer of lyrics than of +narrative verse. + +His poetic dramas fill five additional volumes. _Chastelard_ (1865), +one of the three dramas relating to Mary Queen of Scots, is the best +of his plays. He had, however, neither the power to draw character nor +the repression of speech necessary for a great dramatist. The best +parts of his plays are really lyrical verse. + +Many critics think that Swinburne's reputation would be as great as it +now is, if he had ceased to write verse in 1866, at the age of +twenty-nine, after producing _Atalanta in Calydon_ and the first +series of his _Poems and Ballads_. Although his interests widened and +his poetic range increased, much of his work during his last forty +years is a repetition of earlier successes. His _Songs before +Sunrise_, however (1871), and the next two volumes of _Poems and +Ballads_ (1878 and 1889) contain some poems that rank among his best. + +Later in life he wrote a large amount of prose criticism, much of +which deals with the Elizabethan dramatists. His _A Study of +Shakespeare_ (1880) and his shorter _Shakespeare_ (1905) are +especially suggestive. In spite of the fact that the reader must make +constant allowance for his habit of using superlatives, he was an able +critic. + +General Characteristics.--Swinburne's poetry suffers from his +tendency to drown his ideas in a sea of words. + +Sometimes we gain no more definite ideas from reading many lines of +his verse than from hearing music without words. Much of his poetry +was suggested by wide reading, not by close personal contact with +life. His verse sometimes offends from disregarding moral proprieties +and from so expressing his atheism as to wound the feelings of +religious people. His idea of a Supreme Power was colored by the old +Grecian belief in Fate. In exact opposition to Wordsworth, Swinburne's +youthful poems show that he regarded Nature as the incarnation of a +Power malevolent to man. He lacked the optimism of Browning and the +faith of Tennyson. The mantle of Byron and Shelley fell on Swinburne +as the poet of revolt against what seemed to be religious or political +tyranny. + +After Tennyson's death, in 1892, Swinburne was the greatest living +English poet; but, even if his verse had not offended Queen Victoria +for the foregoing reasons, she would not have appointed him +poet-laureate after the misery of the Russians had moved him in 1890 +to write, referring to the Czar:-- + + "Night hath naught but one red star--Tyrannicide. + + "God or man, be swift; hope sickens with delay: + Smite and send him howling down his father's way." + +Swinburne's crowning glory is his unquestioned mastery, unsurpassed by +any poet since Milton, of the technique of varied melodious verse. +This quality is evident, no matter whether he is describing the +laughter of a child:-- + + "Sweeter far than all things heard, + Hand of harper, tone of bird, + Sound of woods at sundawn stirr'd, + Welling water's winsome ward, + Wind in warm wan weather," + +or expressing his fierce hatred for any condition or place where-- + + "...a curse was or a chain + A throne for torment or a crown for bane + Rose, moulded out of poor men's molten pain," + +or singing the song of a lover-- + + "If love were what the rose is, + And I were like the leaf, + Our lives would grow together + In sad or singing weather, + Blown fields or flowerful closes, + Green pleasure or grey grief; + If love were what the rose is, + And I were like the leaf;" + +or voicing his early creed-- + + "That no life lives forever; + That dead men rise up never; + That even the weariest river + Winds somewhere safe to sea," + +or chanting in far nobler strains the Anglo-Saxon belief in the +molding power of an infinite presence-- + + "I am in thee to save thee, + As my soul in thee saith, + Give thou as I gave thee, + Thy life-blood and breath, + Green leaves of thy labor, white flowers of thy thought, and red + fruit of thy death." + +RUDYARD KIPLING, 1865- + +[Illustration: RUDYARD KIPLING. _From the painting by John +Collier_.] + +Life.--Rudyard Kipling, the youngest of the great Victorians, was +born in Bombay, India, in 1865. His parents were people of culture and +artistic training, the father, John Lockwood Kipling, being a +recognized authority on Indian art. Like most English children born in +India, Kipling, when very small, was sent to England to escape the +fatal Indian heat. Afterwards in the story _Baa, Baa, Black Sheep_, +Kipling told the tragic experience of two Anglo-Indian children when +separated from their parents. If it is true that this story is largely +autobiographical, the separation must have been a trying ordeal in +Kipling's childhood. Later he spent several years at Westward Ho, +Devonshire, in a school conducted mainly for the sons of Indian +officials. _Stalky and Co._, a broadly humorous book of schoolboy +life, gives the Kipling of this period, in the character of the +"egregious Beetle." + +When only seventeen, he returned to India and immediately began +journalistic work. For seven years, first at Lahore and later at +Allahabad, he was busy with the usual hackwork of a small newspaper. +During these impressionable years, from seventeen to twenty-four, he +gained his intimate knowledge of the strangely-colored, many-sided +Indian life. His first stories and poems, often written in hot haste, +to fill the urgent need of more copy, appeared as waifs and strays in +the papers for which he wrote. A collection of verse, _Departmental +Ditties_, published at Lahore in 1886, was well received; and it was +quickly followed by several volumes of short stories. His ability thus +gained early recognition in India. + +At the age of twenty-four, he left India for London. Here his books +found a publisher almost at once, and he was hailed as a new literary +genius. His work became so popular that he was able to devote his +whole time to writing. It is doubtful whether any writer since Dickens +has received such quick and enthusiastic recognition from all classes +of the English-speaking race. Even the street-car conductors were +heard quoting him. + +In 1892 he married Miss Caroline Balestier, an American, and +afterwards lived for four years at Brattleboro, Vermont. Later he +settled in Sussex, England, whence he has made long journeys to South +Africa, Canada, and Egypt, amassing more knowledge of the English +"around the Seven Seas." + +Probably the most remarkable feature of Kipling's career is the early +age at which his genius developed. Before he left India he had +published one book of verse and seven prose collections. By the time +he was thirty, he had written _The Jungle Books_, most of his best +short stories, and some of his finest verse. + +Prose.--As a master of the modern short story, Kipling stands +unsurpassed. His journalistic work helped him to acquire a direct, +concentrated style of narrative, to find interest in an astonishing +variety of subjects, and to seize on the right details for vivid +presentation. He was fortunate in discovering in India a new literary +field, in which his genius appears at its best. Some of his early +tales of Indian life are marred by crudeness and by lack of feeling; +but these faults decreased as he matured. + +Kipling's stories depend for their interest on incident, not on +analysis. He embodies romantic adventure and action in masterpieces as +different as the terrible tragedy of _The Man Who would be King_ +(1888), the tender love story of _Without Benefit of Clergy_ (1890), +and the mystic dream-land of _The Brushwood Boy_ (1895). He specially +enjoyed portraying the English soldier. Perhaps his best-known +characters are the privates Mulvaney, Ortheris, and Learoyd, whom we +meet in such tales of mingled comedy and tragedy as _With the Main +Guard_ (1888), _On Greenhow Hill_ (1891), _The Incarnation of Krishna +Mulvaney_ (1891), _The Courting of Dinah Shadd_ (1981). + +When Kipling traveled to new lands, he wrote stories of America, +Africa, and the deep sea; but his later tales show an unfortunate +increase in the use of technical terms and a lessening of his former +dash and spontaneity. There are, however, readers who prefer such a +delicate, subtle, story as _They_ (1905), to his earlier masterpieces +of strenuous action. + +In _The Jungle Book_ (1894) and _The Second Jungle Book_ (1895), +Kipling has accomplished the greatest of feats,--an original creation. +From the moment the little brown baby, Mowgli, crawls into Mother +Wolf's cave away from Shere Khan, the tiger, until the time for him to +graduate from the jungle, we follow him under the spell of a +fascination different from any that we have known before. The animals +of the jungle have real personalities, from the chattering Bandar-log +to the lumbering kindly Baloo. With all their intense individuality, +they remain animals, each one true to his kind, hating or loving men, +thinking mainly through their instincts, and surpassing human +schoolmasters in teaching Mowgli the great laws of the jungle,--that +obedience is "the head and the hoof of the Law," that nothing was ever +yet lost by silence, that, in the jungle, life and food depend on +keeping one's temper, that no one shall kill for the pleasure of +killing. + +[Illustration: MOWGLI AND HIS BROTHERS. _By permission of Century +Company._] + +Above all stands the character of Mowgli, the wolf-adopted man-cub, +human and yet brother to the animals. With a touch of genius, Kipling +revealed the kinship between Mowgli and the denizens of the jungle. +Kipling's eyes could see both the harsh realism of animal existence +and the genuine idealism of Mother Wolf and the Pack and the +Jungle-law. + +_Just So Stories_ (1902), written primarily for children, but +entertaining to all, is a collection of romantic stories, mostly of +animals, illustrated by Kipling himself. One of the best of these +tales is _The Cat that Walked by Himself_, which has distinct ethical +value in showing how the cat through service won his place by the +fireside. + +Though Kipling has written four novels, only two, _The Light that +Failed_ (1891) and _Kim_ (1901), can compare with his best short +stories. _The Light that Failed_, the tragedy of an artist who becomes +blind, proves that Kipling was able to handle a long plot sufficiently +well to sustain interest. _Kim_ is an attempt to present as a more +completed whole that India of which the stories give only glimpses. On +the slenderest thread of plot is strung a bewildering array of scenes, +characters, and incidents. His intimate knowledge of India and his +photographic power of description are here used with remarkable +picturesque effect. + +[Illustration: THE CAT THAT WALKED. _Copyright, 1902, by Rudyard +Kipling._] + +Verse.--Kipling's poetry has many of the same qualities as his +prose,--originality, force, love of action. In _Barrack Room Ballads_ +(1892), the soldier is again celebrated in vigorous songs with +swinging choruses. _Mandalay, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, Danny Deever_, show what +spirited verse can be fashioned from a common ballad meter and a bold +use of dialect. + + "So 'ere's _to_ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan; + You're a pore benighted 'eathen, but a first class fightin' man; + An' 'ere's _to_ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'air-- + You big black boundin' beggar--for you broke a British square!" + +Much of his verse is political. His opinion of questions at issue is +sometimes given with much heat, but always with sincerity and true +patriotism. The best known of his patriotic songs, and perhaps his +noblest poetic effort, _The Recessional_ (1897), was inspired by the +fiftieth anniversary of Victoria's reign. _The Truce of the Bear_ +(1898) is a warning against Russia. _The Native-Born_ is a toast to +the colonies in every clime. + +Kipling's verse breaks with many of the accepted standards of English +verse. He does not aim at such pure beauty of form as we find in +Tennyson. He can handle skillfully many kinds of meter, as is shown in +_The Song of the English_, _The Ballad of East and West_, _The Song of +the Banjo_, and many sea lyrics. Yet he uses mostly the common +measures, attaining with these a free swing, a fitting of sound to +sense, that are irresistible to the many-- + + "Common tunes that make you choke and blow your nose, + Vulgar tunes that bring the laugh that brings the groan-- + I can rip your very heart-strings out with those."[17] + +Some of his later work shows increasing seriousness of tone. _The +Recessional_ and the _Hymn before Action_ are elevated in thought and +expression. The bigness of _L'Envoi_ shows poetic power capable of +higher flights:-- + + "And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall + blame; + And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame; + But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, + Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They + Are!"[18] + +General Characteristics.--Kipling has carried to their highest +development the principles of the Bret Harte School of short story +writers. His style possesses those qualities necessary for telling a +short tale,--directness, force, suggestiveness. Rarely has any writer +so mastered the technique, the craftsmanship of this particular +literary form. He has the gift of force and dramatic power, rather +than of beauty and delicacy. + +He excels in suggestive vivid description, and he draws wonderful +pictures of all out-of-doors, especially of the sea; but nature +remains merely the background for the human figures. Much of his +vividness lies in the use of specific words. If he should employ the +phraseology of his jungle laws to frame the first commandment for +writers, it would be: "_Seven times never_ be vague." Few authors have +at the very beginning of their career more implicitly heeded such a +commandment, obedience to which is evident in the following +description from _The Courting of Dinah Shadd_:-- + + "Over our heads burned the wonderful Indian stars, which are not + all pricked in on one plane, but preserving an orderly perspective, + draw the eye through the velvet darkness of the void up to the + barred doors of heaven itself. The earth was a grey shadow more + unreal than the sky. We could hear her breathing lightly in the + pauses between the howling of the jackals, the movement of the wind + in the tamarisks, and the fitful mutter of musketry-fire leagues + away to the left. A native woman from some unseen hut began to sing, + the mail train thundered past on its way to Delhi, and a roosting + crow cawed drowsily." + +Abundant and vivid use of metaphors serves to render his concreteness +more varied and impressive. We find these in such expressions as "the +velvet darkness," "the kiss of the rain," "the tree-road." His +celestial artists splash at a ten-league canvas "with brushes of +comet's hair." Five words from Mulvaney explain why he does not wish +to leave his tent: "'Tis rainin' intrenchin' tools outside." + +Kipling's spirit is essentially masculine. He prefers to write of men, +work, and battle, rather than of women and love. Since his interest is +mainly in action, he shows small ability in character drawing. His +people are clear-cut and alive, but we do not see them grow and +develop as do George Eliot's characters. + +Above all, he stands as the interpreter of the ideals and the +interests of the Anglo-Saxons of his time. Those tendencies of the +age, which seem to others so dangerously materialistic, are the very +causes of his zest in life. In an age of machinery, he writes of the +romance of steam, the soul of an engine, the flight of an airship. + +His is a work-a-day world; but in work well done, in obedience to the +established law, and in courage, he sees the proving of manhood, the +test of the true gentleman-- + + "Who had done his work and held his peace and had no fear to die." + +Underlying all his thought is a deep belief in the "God of our +fathers," a God just to punish or reward, whom the English have +reverenced through all their history. Linked with this faith is an +intense feeling of patriotism toward that larger England of his +imperialistic vision. + +These qualities justly brought Kipling the 1907 Nobel prize for +idealism in literature. He is truly the idealist of a practical age, +teaching the romance, the joy, the vision in the common facts and +virtues of present-day life. + +SUMMARY + +The history and literature of the Victorian age show the influence of +science. Darwin's conception of evolution affected all fields of +thought. The tendency toward analysis and dissection is a result of +scientific influence. + +In describing the prose of the Victorian age, we have considered the +work of thirteen writers; namely, Macaulay, the brilliant essayist and +historian of the material advancement of England; Newman, essayist and +theologian, who is noted for clear style, acute thought, and +argumentative power; Carlyle, who awoke in his generation a desire for +greater achievement, and who championed the spiritual interpretation +of life in philosophy and history; Ruskin, the apostle of the +beautiful and of more ideal relations in social life; the essayist +Pater, whose prose is tinged with poetic color and mystic thought; +Arnold, the great analytical critic; Dickens, educational and social +reformer, whose novels deal chiefly with the lower classes; Thackeray, +whose fiction is not surpassed in keen, satiric analysis of the upper +classes of society; George Eliot, whose realistic stories of +middle-class life show the influence of science in her conception of +character as an orderly ethical growth; Stevenson, an artist in style, +writer of romances, essays, and poems for children; Meredith, subtle +novelist, distinguished for his comic spirit and portrayal of male +egotism; Hardy, realistic novelist of the lowly life of Wessex; +Kipling, whose _Jungle Books_ are an original creation, and whose +short stories surpass those of all other contemporaries. + +In poetry, the age is best represented by five men; namely, Arnold, +who voices the feeling of doubt and unrest; Browning, who, by his +optimistic philosophy, leads to impregnable heights of faith, who +analyzes emotions and notes the development of souls as they struggle +against opposition from within and without, until they reach moments +of supreme victory or defeat; Tennyson, whose careful art mirrors in +beautiful verse much of the thought of the age, the influence of +science, the unrest, the desire to know the problems of the future, as +well as to steal occasional glances at beauty for its own sake; +Swinburne, the greatest artist since Milton in the technique of verse; +and Kipling, the poet of imperialistic England, whose ballads sing of +her soldiers and sailors, and whose lyrics proclaim the Anglo-Saxon +faith and joy in working. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +Walker's _Essentials in English History_, Cheney's _A Short History of +England_, McCarthy's _History of Our Own Times_, Cheney's _Industrial +and Social History of England_, Traill's _Social England_, VI. + +LITERARY + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature_. + +Walker's _The Literature of the Victorian Era_. + +Magnus's _English Literature in the Nineteenth Century_. + +Saintsbury's _A History of English Literature in the Nineteenth +Century_. + +Kennedy's _English Literature_, 1880-1905. + +Walker's _Greater Victorian Poets_. + +Brownell's _Victorian Prose Masters_. + +Payne's _The Greater English Poets of the Nineteenth Century_. + +Brooke's _Four Victorian Poets_ (Rossetti, Arnold, Morris). + +Perry's _A Study of Prose Fiction_. + +Benson's _Rossetti_. (E.M.L.) + +Noyes's _William Morris_. (E.M.L.) + +Trevelyan's _Life and Letters of Macaulay_. Morrison's _Macaulay_. +(E.M.L.) + +Minto's _English Prose Literature_ (Macaulay and Carlyle). + +Barry's _Newman_. + +Ward's _The Life of John Henry, Cardinal Newman_, 2 vols. + +Newman's _Letters and Correspondence, with a Brief Autobiography_. + +Carlyle's _Reminiscences_. + +Froude's _Thomas Carlyle_, 2 vols. Nichol's _Carlyle_. (E.M.L.) + +Garnett's _Thomas Carlyle_. (G.W.) + +Froude's _Jane Welsh Carlyle_, 2 vols. + +T. and A. Carlyle's _New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle_. + +Cook's _The Life of John Ruskin_, 2 vols. + +Ruskin's _Praeterita, Scenes and Thoughts of My Past Life_. + +Benson's _Ruskin: A Study in Personality_. + +Earland's _Ruskin and his Circle_. + +Harrison's _John Ruskin_. (E.M.L.) + +Birrell's _Life of Charlotte Brontė_. + +Foster's _Life of Dickens_ (abridged and revised by Gissing). + +Kitton's _Dickens, his Life, Writings, and Personality_. + +Gissing's _Charles Dickens: A Critical Study_. + +Chesterton's _Charles Dickens_. Hughes's _Dickens as an Educator_. + +Philip's _A Dickens Dictionary_. + +Melville's _William Makepeace Thackeray_, 2 vols. + +Trollope's _Thackeray_. (E.M.L.) + +Merivale and Marzials's _Life of Thackeray_. (G.W.) + +Mudge and Sears's _A Thackeray Dictionary_. + +Cross's _George Eliot's Life as Related in her Letters and Journals_. + +Browning's _Life of George Eliot_. (G.W.) Stephens's _George Eliot_. +(E.M.L.) + +Cook's _George Eliot: A Critical Study of her Life, Writings, and +Philosophy_. + +Olcott's _George Eliot: Scenes and People in Her Novels_. + +Hamilton's _Robert Louis Stevenson_. + +Balfour's _The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson_, 2 vols. + +_The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson_, edited by Sidney Colvin. + +Raleigh's _Robert Louis Stevenson_. Hamerton's _Stevensoniana_. + +Japp's _Robert Louis Stevenson_. + +Hamerton's _George Meredith: His Life and Art in Anecdote and +Criticism_. + +_Letters of George Meredith_, 2 vols. + +Sturge Henderson's _George Meredith_. + +Bailey's _The Novels of George Meredith: A Study_. + +Trevelyan's _The Poetry and Philosophy of George Meredith_. + +Beach's _The Comic Spirit in George Meredith_. + +Lionel Johnson's _The Art of Thomas Hardy_. + +Macdonell's _Thomas Hardy_. + +Abercrombie's _Thomas Hardy: A Critical Study_. + +Saxelby's _Thomas Hardy Dictionary_. + +Phelps's _Essays on Modern Novelists_ (Hardy, Kipling, Stevenson). + +Benson's _Walter Pater_. (E.M.L.) + +Paul's _Matthew Arnold_. (E.M.L.) + +Saintsbury's _Matthew Arnold_. + +_Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett_. + +Griffin and Minchin's _The Life of Robert Browning_. + +Chesterton's _Robert Browning_. (E.M.L.) + +Sharp's _Life of Browning_. (G.W.) + +Symons's _An Introduction to the Study of Browning_. + +Foster's _The Message of Robert Browning_. + +Orr's _A Handbook to the works of Robert Browning_. + +_Alfred, Lord Tennyson, A Memoir_, by his son. + +Benson's _Alfred Tennyson_ (the best brief work). + +Lyall's _Tennyson_. (E.M.L.) + +Brooke's _Tennyson: His Art and Relation to Modern Life_. + +Van Dyke's _The Poetry of Tennyson_. + +Gordon's _The Social Ideals of Alfred Tennyson_. + +Lackyer's _Tennyson as a Student and Poet of Nature_. + +Luce's _Handbook to the Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson_. + +Woodberry's _Swinburne_. + +Thomas's _Algernon Charles Swinburne: A Critical Study_. + +Knowles's _Kipling Primer_. + +Le Galliene's _Rudyard Kipling, A Criticism_. + +Clemens's _A Ken of Kipling_. + +Young's _Dictionary of the Characters and Scenes in the Stories and +Poems of Rudyard Kipling_. + +Canby's _The Short Story in English_ (Kipling). + +Cooper's _Some English Story Tellers_ (Kipling). + +Leeb-Lundberg's _Word Formation in Kipling_ (excellent). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +The Pre-Raphaelites.--Read Rossetti's _The Blessed Damozel_, _Sister +Helen_, _The King's Tragedy_, _Love's Nocturne_, and _Mary's +Girlhood_. All of these are given in Page's _British Poets of the +Nineteenth Century_. Selections may be found in Bronson,[19] IV., +_Century_, _Oxford Book of Victorian verse_, and Manly, I. Selections +from Christina Rossetti's Pre-Raphaelite verse are given in all except +Page. + +From William Morris, read _Two Red Roses Across the Moon_, _The_ +_Defence of Guenevere_ (Page's _British Poets_), and the selections +from _The Earthly Paradise_ in either Page, _Century_, Bronson, IV., +or Manly, I. + +What part did Ruskin play in this new movement? Point out the +simplest, the most affecting, and the most pleasing stanza in _The +Blessed Damozel_. What Pre-Raphaelite qualities in this poem have made +it such a favorite? What are the chief characteristics of Rossetti's +other verse? Note specially Miss Rossetti's religious verse. + +What Pre-Raphaelite qualities do Morris's _Two Red Roses across the +Moon_ (1858) and _The Defence of Guenevere_ (1858) show? Compare this +early verse with the selections from _The Earthly Paradise_ +(1868-1870). + +Macaulay.--Read either the _Essay on Milton_ or the _Essay on +Addison_ (_Eclectic English Classics_ or _Gateway Series_) or the +selections in Craik, V., Manly, II., _Century_, or Dickinson and Roe's +_Nineteenth Century Prose_. + +Read _History of England_, Chap. IX., or the selections in Craik V., +or _Century_, or Manly, II. + +What are some of the qualities that cause Macaulay's writings to +outstrip in popularity other works of a similar nature? What qualities +in his style may be commended to young writers? What are his special +defects? Contrast his narrative style in Chap. IX. of the _History_ +with Carlyle's in _The French Revolution_, Vol. I., Book V., Chap. VI. + +Newman.--The best volume of selections is edited by Lewis E. Gates +(228 pages, 75 cents). Dickinson and Roe's _Nineteenth Century English +Prose_ contains Newman's essay on _Literature_. Selections are given +in Craik V., _Century_, and Manly, II. + +Compare his style with Macaulay's and note the resemblance and the +difference. Why did Newman call himself a rhetorician? What qualities +does he add to those of a rhetorician? Select passages that show his +special clearness, concreteness, also his rhetorical and argumentative +power. + +Carlyle.--Read the _Essay on Robert Burns_ (_Eclectic English +Classics_ or _Gateway Series_); _Sartor Resartus_, Book III., Chap. +VI. (_Everyman's Library_); _The French Revolution_, Vol. I., Book V., +Chap. VI. (_Everyman's Library_). Selections may be found in Craik, +V., _Century_, Manly, II., and Evans's Carlyle (_Masters of +Literature_). + +What marked difference in manner of treatment is shown in Macaulay's +_Milton_ or _Addison_ and Carlyle's _Burns_? What was Carlyle's +message in _Sartor Resartus_? What did Huxley and Tyndale say of his +influence? What are the most noteworthy qualities of _The French +Revolution_? What are the chief characteristics of Carlyle's style? + +Ruskin.--In Vol. I., Part II., of _Modern Painters_, read the first +part of Chap. I. of Sec. III., Chap. I. of Sec. IV., and Chap. I. of +Sec. V., and note Ruskin's surprising accuracy of knowledge in dealing +with aspects of the natural world. _The Stones of Venice_, Vol. III., +Chap. IV., states Ruskin's theory of art and its close relation to +morality. Excellent selections from the various works of Ruskin will +be found in _An Introduction to the Writings of John Ruskin_, by Vida +D. Scudder. Selections are also given in _Century_, Manly, II., +_Riverside Literature Series_, and Bronson's _English Essays (Modern +Painters and Fors Clavigera). Sesame and lilies, The King of the +Golden River_, and _The Stones of Venice_ are published in _Everyman's +Library_. + +What was the message of _Modern Painters_? of _The Stones of Venice_? +of _Fors Clavigera_? Why is Ruskin called a disciple of Carlyle? +Select a passage from Ruskin's descriptive prose and indicate its +chief qualities. + +Brontė, Bulwer Lytton, Gaskell, Trollope, Kingsley, Reade, Blackmore, +and Barrie.--_Jane Eyre_ (Charlotte Brontė), _Wuthering Heights_ +(Emily Brontė), _Last Days of Pompeii_ (Lytton), _Cranford_ (Gaskell), +_Barchester Towers_ (Trollope), _Westward Ho!_ (Kingsley), _The +Cloister and the Hearth_ (Reade), and _Lorna Doone_ (Blackmore) are +all published in _Everyman's Library_. Barrie's _The Little Minister_ +is included in Burt's _Home Library_. The works of the Brontė sisters +will be much more appreciated if Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte +Brontė (Everyman's Library)_ is read first. The novels by the Brontė +sisters, Mrs. Gaskell, Trollope, and Barrie record their impressions +of contemporary life. The other novels are historical. Lytton gives a +vivid account of the last days of Pompeii. Kingsley thrills with his +story of the sailors of Elizabeth's time. Reade, who studied libraries +to insure the accuracy of _The Cloister and the Hearth_, portrays +vividly the oncoming of the Renaissance in he fifteenth century. +Blackmore's great story, which records some incidents of the Monmouth +rebellion (1685), is written more to interest than to throw light on +history. + +Dickens.--The first works of Dickens to be read are _Pickwick +Papers, A Christmas Carol, and David Copperfield_. These are all +published in _Everyman's Library_. Craik, V., gives "Mr. Pickwick on +the Ice," "Christmas at the Cratchit's," and two scenes from _David +Copperfield_. + +Select passages that show (a) humor, (b) pathos, (c) sympathy with +children, (d) optimism. Describe some one of the characters. Can you +instance a case here a mannerism is made to take the place of other +characterization? Is Dickens a master of plot? of style? + +Thackeray.--Read _Henry Esmond (Eclectic English Classics)_ and _The +English Humorists of the Fifteenth Century_ (Macmillan's _Pocket +Classics_). Craik, V., and Manly, II. give selections. + +Contrast the manner of treatment in Thackeray's historical novel, +_Henry Esmond_, and in Scott's historical romance, _Ivanhoe_. +Thackeray says: "The best humor is that which contains most +humanity--that which is flavored throughout with tenderness and +kindness." Would this serve as a definition of Thackeray's own style +of humor? State definitely how he differs from Dickens in portraying +character. Compare Thackeray's _English Humorists_ with Macaulay's +_Milton_ and Carlyle's _Burns_. Which essay leaves the most definite +ideas? Which is the most interesting? Which has the most atmosphere? +How should you characterize Thackeray's style? + +George Eliot.--Read _Silas Marner_ (_Eclectic English Classics_ or +_Gateway Series_), or selections in Craik, V., or Manly, II. In what +does the chief strength of _Silas Marner_ consist,--in the plot, the +characters, or the description? Does the ethical purpose of this novel +grow naturally out of the story? Is the inner life or only the outward +appearance of the characters revealed? Wherein do they show growth? + +Stevenson.--Read _Treasure Island_ (_Eclectic English Classics_ or +_Gateway Series_), _Inland Voyage_, and _Travels with a Donkey_ +(_Gateway Series_). From the essays read _Child's Play, Aes Triplex_ +(both in _Virginibus Puerisque_). Some of the essays and best short +stories (including _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_) are given in Canby and +Pierce's _Selections from Robert Louis Stevenson_. From the volume of +poems called _Underwoods_, read _The Celestial Surgeon and Requiem. A +Child's Garden of Verse_ may be read entire in an hour. + +_Compare Treasure Island_ with _Robinson Crusoe_. What are the chief +characteristics of _An Inland Voyage_ and _Travels with a Donkey_? Why +is he called a romantic writer? As an essayist, compare him with +Thackeray. What are the special qualities of his style? + +George Meredith.--_The Egoist_ is Meredith's most representative +novel. _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ and _Diana of the Crossways_ +are also masterpieces. From the _Poems_ read _Love in the Valley, The +Lark Ascending, Melanthus, Jump-to-Glory Jane_. + +What is the central purpose of The Egoist? Select specially +Meredithian passages which show his general characteristics. Can you +find any other author whose humor resembles Meredith's? Would he +naturally be more popular with men or with women? + +Hardy.--Hardy's most enjoyable novel is _Far from the Madding Crowd. +The Return of the Native_ is one of his strongest works. + +What are some of the most striking differences between him and +Meredith? Which one is naturally the better story-teller? Where are +the scenes of most of Hardy's novels laid? What is his theory of life? + +Arnold.--Read _Dover Beach, Memorial Verses, Stanzas in Memory of +the Author of "Obermann" and Sohrab and Rustum_ (Page's _British Poets +of the Nineteenth Century_, Bronson, IV., Manly, I.). + +Is Arnold the poet of fancy or of reflection? How does his poetry show +one phase of nineteenth-century thought? + +Arnold's _Essays, Literary and Critical_ are published in _Everyman's +Library_. The best volume of selections from the prose writings of +Arnold is the one edited by Lewis E. Gates (348 pages, 75 cents). Good +selections are given in Craik, V., Manly, I. (_Sweetness and light_), +_Century_ (_The Study of Poetry_). Arnold's _Introduction_ to Ward, +I., is well worth reading. + +What quality specially marks Arnold's criticism? Compare him as a +critic with Coleridge, Macaulay, Carlyle, and Thackeray. What are the +advantages and disadvantages of a style like Arnold's? + +Pater.--Read the essay, _Leonardo da Vinci_ (Dickinson and Roe's +_Nineteenth Century Prose_, pp. 338-368), from Pater's "golden book," +_The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Literature_. E.E. Hale's +_Selections from Walter Pater_ (268 pages, 75 cents) gives +representative selections. Manly, II., and _Century_ give the essay on +_Style_. + +What are the chief characteristics of Pater's style? Compare it with +Macaulay's, Newman's, Ruskin's, and Matthew Arnold's. Has Pater a +message? Does he show the spirit of the time? + +The Brownings.--From Elizabeth Barrett Browning, read _Cowper's +Grave, the Cry of the Children_, and from her _Sonnets from the +Portuguese_, Nos. I., III., VI., X., XVIII., XX., XXVI., XXVIII., +XLI., XLIII. + +Mrs. Browning's verse comes from the heart and should be felt rather +than criticized. Fresh interest may, however, by given to a study of +her _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, by comparing them with any other +series of love sonnets, excepting Shakespeare's. + +Robert Browning's shorter poems are best for the beginner, who should +read _Rabbi Ben Ezra, Abt Vogler, Home Thoughts from Abroad, Prospice, +Saul, The Pied Piper of Hamelin._ Baker's _Browning's Shorter Poems +(Macmillan's Pocket Classics)_ contains a very good collection of his +shorter poems. Representative selections from Browning's poems are +given in Page's _British Poets of the Nineteenth Century, Oxford Book +of Victorian Verse_, Bronson, IV., Manly, I., and _Century_. + +Browning's masterpiece, _The Ring and the Book (Oxford Edition_, +Oxford University Press) would be apt to repel beginners. This should +be studied only after a previous acquaintance with his shorter poems. + +Define Browning's creed as found in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_. Is he an ethical +teacher? Is there any similarity between his teaching and Carlyle's? +What most interests Browning,--word-painting, narration, action, +psychological analysis, or technique of verse? See whether a +comparison of his _Prospice_ with Tennyson's _Crossing the Bar_ does +not help you to understand Browning's peculiar cast of mind. What +qualities in Browning entitle him to be ranked as a great poet? + +Tennyson.--From his 1842 volume, read the poems mentioned on page +556. From _The Princess_, read the lyrical songs; from _In Memoriam_, +the parts numbered XLI., LIV., LVII., and CXXXI.; from _Maud_, the +eleven stanzas beginning: "Come into the garden, Maud"; from _The +Idylls of the King_, read _Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, +The Passing of Arthur_ (Van Dyke's edition in _Gateway Series_); from +his later poems, _The Higher Pantheism, Locksley Hall Sixty Years +After_, and _Crossing the Bar_. + +The best single volume edition of Tennyson's works is published in +Macmillan's _Globe Poets_. Selections are given in Page's _British +Poets of the Nineteenth Century_, Bronson, IV., _Oxford Book of +Victorian Verse_, Manly, I., and _Century_. + +In _The Palace of Art_, study carefully the stanzas from XIV. to +XXIII., which are illustrative of Tennyson's characteristic style of +description. Compare _Locksley Hall_ with _Locksley Hall Sixty Years +After_, and note the difference in thought and metrical form. Does the +later poem show a gain over the earlier? Compare Tennyson's nature +poetry with that of Keats and Wordsworth. To what is chiefly due the +pleasure in reading Tennyson's poetry: to the imagery, form, thought? +What idea of his faith do you gain from _In Memoriam_ and _The Passing +of Arthur_? In what is Tennyson the poetic exponent of the age? Is it +probable that Tennyson's popularity will increase or wane? Select some +of his verse that you think will be as popular a hundred years hence +as now. + +Swinburne.--Read _A Song in Time of Order, The Youth of the Year +(Atlanta in Calydon), A Match, The Garden of Proserpine, Hertha, By +the North Sea, The Hymn of Man, The Roundel, A Child's Laughter_. + +The most of the above are given in Page's _British Poets of the +Nineteenth Century_, Bronson, IV., Manly, I., _Century, Oxford Book of +Victorian Verse_. + +Compare both the metrical skill and poetic ideas of Swinburne and +Tennyson. Can you find any poet who surpasses Swinburne in the +technique of verse? What are his chief excellencies and faults? + +Kipling.--Read _The Jungle Books_. The following are among the best +of his short stories: _The Man Who Would be King, The Brushwood Boy, +The Courting of Dinah Shadd, Drums of the Fore and Aft, Without +Benefit of Clergy, On Greenhow Hill_. + +From his poems read _Mandalay, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, Danny Deever, The 'Eathen, +Ballad of East and West, Recessional, The White Man's Burden_; also +_Song of the Banjo_, and _L'Envoi_ from _Seven Seas_, published by +Doubleday, Page and Company. + +Why is _The Jungle Book_ called an original creation? What are the +most distinctive dualities of Kipling's short stories? Point out in +what respects they show the methods of the journalist. How does +Kipling sustain the interest? What limitations do you notice? What is +specially remarkable about his style? What are the principal +characteristics of his verse? What subjects appeal to him? Why is his +verse so popular? + +Minor Poets.--Read the selections from Clough, Henley, Bridges, +Davidson, Thompson, Watson, Dobson and Symons in either _The Oxford +Book of Victorian Verse_ or Stevenson's _The Home Book of Verse. The +Poetical Works of Robert Bridges_ is inexpensively published by the +Oxford University Press. Dobson's verse has been gathered into the +single volume _Collected Poems_ (1913). + +What are the chief characteristics of each of the above authors? Do +these minor versifiers fill a want not fully supplied by the great +poets? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER IX: + +[Footnote 1: _A Liberal Education and Where to Find It_ (_Lay +Sermons_).] + +[Footnote 2: For suggested readings in Pater, see p. 584.] + +[Footnote 3: Pp. 225-364 of the Oxford University Press edition of his +_Poetical Works_.] + +[Footnote 4: Printed by permission of The Macmillan Company.] + +[Footnote 5: Given in Stevenson's _Home Book of Verse_ and _The Oxford +Book of Victorian Verse_.] + +[Footnote 6: _History of England_, Vol. III, Chap. XI.] + +[Footnote 7: Morison's _Life of Macaulay_, p. 139.] + +[Footnote 8: _The Idea of a University_ (_Literature: A Lecture_).] + +[Footnote 9: _For Claviers_, Letter I.] + +[Footnote 10: _Praeterita_, Vol. II., Chap. V.] + +[Footnote 11: _Silas Marner_, Chap. VI.] + +[Footnote 12: _The Scholar Gypsy_.] + +[Footnote 13: _A Southern Light_.] + +[Footnote 14: _The Grande Chartreuse_.] + +[Footnote 15: _Home Thoughts from Abroad_.] + +[Footnote 16: A.C. Benson's _Alfred Tennyson_, p. 157.] + +[Footnote 17 & 18: Printed by permission of Rudyard Kipling and +Doubleday, Page and Company.] + +[Footnote 19: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER X: TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE + +Interest in the Present.--One result of the growing scientific +spirit has been an increasing interest in contemporary problems and +literature. At the beginning of the Victorian age, the chief part of +the literature studied in college was nearly two thousand years old. +When English courses were finally added, they frequently ended with +Milton. To-day, however, many colleges have courses in strictly +contemporary literature. The scientific attitude toward life has +caused a recognition of the fact that he who disregards current +literature remains ignorant of a part of the life and thought of +to-day and that he resembles the mathematician who neglects one factor +in the solution of a problem. + +It is true that the future may take a different view of all +contemporary things, including literature; but this possibility does +not justify neglect of the present. We should also remember that +different stages in the growth of nations and individuals constantly +necessitate changes in estimating the relative importance of the +thought of former centuries. + +The Trend of Contemporary Literature.--The diversity of taste in the +wide circle of twentieth-century readers has encouraged authors of +both the realistic and the romantic schools. The main tendency of +scientific influence and of the new interest in racial welfare is +toward realism. In his stories of the "Five Towns," Arnold Bennett +shows how the dull industrial life affects the character of the +individual. Much of the fiction of H.G. Wells presents matter of +scientific or sociological interest. Poets like John Masefield and +Wilfrid Gibson sing with an almost prosaic sincerity of the life of +workmen and of the squalid city streets. The drama is frequently a +study of the conditions affecting contemporary life. + +Twentieth-century writers are not, however, neglecting the other great +function of literature,--to charm life with romantic visions and to +bring to it deliverance from care. The poetry of Noyes takes us back +to the days of Drake and to the Mermaid Inn, where we listen to +Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Jonson. The Irish poets and dramatists +disclose a world of the "Ever-Young," where there is:-- + + "A laughter in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass." + +The influence of the great German skeptic, Friedrich Nietzsche +(1844-1900), appears in some of Shaw's dramas, as well as in the +novels of Wells; but the poets of this age seem to have more faith +than Swinburne or Matthew Arnold or some of the minor versifiers of +the last quarter of the nineteenth century. + +Two prominent essayists, Arthur Christopher Benson (1862- ) and +Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874- ) are sincere optimists. Such volumes +of Benson's essays as _From a College Window_ (1906), _Beside Still +Waters_ (1907), and _Thy Rod and Thy Staff_ (1912) have strengthened +faith and proved a tonic to many. Chesterton is a suggestive and +stimulating essayist in spite of the fact that he often bombards his +readers with too much paradox. Early in life he was an agnostic and a +follower of Herbert Spencer, but he later became a champion of +Christian faith. Sometimes Chesterton seems to be merely clever, but +he is usually too thought-provoking to be read passively. His _Robert +Browning_ (1903), _Varied Types_ (1903), _Heretics_ (1905), _George +Bernard Shaw_ (1909), and _The Victorian Age in Literature_ (1913) +keep most readers actively thinking. + +THE NOVEL + +Joseph Conrad.--This son of distinguished Polish exiles from Russia, +Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski, as he was originally named, was born in +the Ukraine, in 1857. Until his nineteenth year he was unfamiliar with +the English language. Instead of following the literary or military +traditions of his family, he joined the English merchant marine. +Sailing the seas of the world, touching at strange tropical ports and +uncharted islands, elbowing all the races of the globe, hearing all +the languages spoken by man,--such were Conrad's activities between +his twentieth and thirty-seventh years. + +[Illustration: JOSEPH CONRAD.] + +At thirty-seven, needing a little rest, he settled in England and +began to write. Short stories, novels, and an interesting +autobiographical volume, _A Personal Record_ (1912), represent +Conrad's production. Among his ablest books are _Tales of Unrest_ +(1898), a volume of sea stories, and _Lord Jim_ (1900), a novel full +of the fascination of strange seas and shores, but still more +remarkable for its searching analysis of a man's recovery of +self-respect after a long period of remorse for failure to meet a +momentary crisis. _Youth, A Narrative, and Two Other Tales_ (1902), +contains one of Conrad's strongest stories, _The End of the Tether_. +This is a tender story of an old sea captain, who for the sake of a +cherished daughter holds his post against terrific odds, including +blindness and disgrace. _Typhoon_ (1903) is an almost unrivaled +account of a ship's fight against mad hurricanes and raging seas. + +One of Conrad's prime distinctions is his power to visualize scenes. +The terror, beauty, caprice, and mercilessness of the sea; the silence +and strangeness of the impenetrable tropical forest; atmospheres tense +with storm or brilliant with sunshine,--these he records with strong +effect. But though he has gained his fame largely as a chronicler of +remote seas and shores, his handling of the human element is but +little less impressive. + +Conrad's method is unusual. Though his sentences are sufficiently +direct and terse, his general order of narration is not +straightforward. He often seems to progress slowly at the start, but +after the characters have been made familiar, the story proceeds to +its powerful and logical conclusion. + +Arnold Bennett.--Bennett was born in Hanley, North Staffordshire, in +1867. He studied law, but abandoned it to become for seven years an +editor of _Woman_, a London periodical. In 1900 he resigned this +position to devote himself entirely to literature. He went to France +to live, and began to write novels under the influence of the French +and Russian realistic novelists. + +[Illustration: ARNOLD BENNETT.] + +Bennett is the author of many works of uneven merit. Some of these +were written merely to strike the popular taste and to sell. His +serious, careful work is seen at its best in his stories of the _Five +Towns_, so called from the small towns of his native Staffordshire. +One of the best of these novels, _The Old Wives' Tale_ (1908), is a +painstaking record of the different temperaments and experiences of +two sisters, from their happy childhood to a pathetic, disillusioned +old age. The intimate, homely revelations and the literal fidelity to +life in _The Old Wives' Tale_ give it a high rank among +twentieth-century English novels. + +_Clayhanger_ (1910) is another strong story of life in the "Five +Towns" pottery district of Staffordshire. Although the hero, Edwin +Clayhanger, is not a strong personality, Bennett's art makes us keenly +interested in Edwin's simple, impressionable nature, in his eagerness +for life, and in his experiences as a young dreamer, lover, son, and +brother. _Hilda Lessways_ (1911), a companion volume to _Clayhanger_, +but a story of less power, continues the history of the same +characters. Bennett reveals in these novels one of his prime +gifts,--the skill to paint domestic pictures vividly and to invest +them with a distinct local atmosphere. His art has won a signal +triumph in arousing interest in simple scenes and average characters. +He can present the romance of the commonplace,--of gray, dull +monotonous, almost negative existence. + +He has enlivened the contemporary stage with a few brisk comedies. +_Milestones_ was written in collaboration with Edward Knoblauch, an +American author. Its characters, representing three generations, +illustrate humorously the truth that what is to-day's innovation +becomes to-morrow's August convention. _The Honeymoon_ (1911) is a +farce of misunderstandings adroitly handled. + +Although Bennett has shown great versatility, yet his individual, +strong, and vital work is found in the one field where he brings us +face to face with the circumscribed, but appealing life of the "Five +Towns" district of his youth. + +John Galsworthy.--John Galsworthy was born in Coombe, Surrey, in +1867. He was graduated from Oxford with an honor degree in law in 1889 +and was called to the bar in 1890. He traveled for a large part of two +years, visiting, among other places, Russia, Canada, Australia, South +Africa, and the Fiji Islands. On one of these trips he met Joseph +Conrad, then a sailor, and they became warm friends. Galsworthy was +twenty-eight when he began to write. + +[Illustration: JOHN GALSWORTHY.] + +Four of his novels deal with the upper classes of English society. +_The Man of Property_ (1906) treats of the wealthy class, _The Country +House_ (1907) presents the conservative country squire, _Fraternity_ +(1909) portrays the intellectual class, and _The Patrician_ (1911) +pictures the aristocrat. Galsworthy is the relentless analyist of +well-to-do, conventional English society. As Frederic Taber Cooper +well says, "British stolidity, British conservatism, the unvarying +fixity of the social system, the sacrifice of individual needs and +cravings to caste and precedent and public opinion,--these are the +themes which Mr. Galsworthy never wearies of satirizing with a mordant +irony." + +Since his object is to present problems of life, many of his +characters are but types. On the other hand, Soames Forsyte in _The +Man of Property_, Lord Miltoun, Mrs. Noel, and Lady Casterley in _The +Patrician_, are among the most brilliant and real characters in modern +fiction. Galsworthy's style is clear, his plot construction is +excellent, and his humor in caricaturing social types has many of the +qualities of Dickens's. + +Herbert George Wells.--Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, in 1866. He +expected to be a shopkeeper and was apprenticed in his fourteenth year +to a chemist; but this did not satisfy his ambition. Later, however, +he won scholarships that enabled him to take a degree in science. +While preparing himself to graduate from the University of London, he +worked in Huxley's laboratory. The experiments there inspired him to +write stories based on scientific facts and hypotheses, such as _The +Time Machine_ (1895) and _In the Days of the Comet_ (1906). Wells is +also vitally interested in problems of sociology. The _Discovery of +the Future_ (1902) and _The Future in America_ (1906) present +possibilities of scientifically planning man's further development. +_Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul_ (1905) and _Marriage_ (1912) are +his best works, considered as actual novels of character. _Kipps_ is a +bitter but strong portrayal of the pretense and hypocrisy of society +and of its inertia in responding to human needs, and _Marriage_ is a +subtle, psychological analysis of a conjugal misunderstanding and an +attempted readjustment. Wells's study of man as a biological +development and his preference of actual facts to sentimental +conclusions are in accord with the trend of modern social science. + +[Illustration: HERBERT GEORGE WELLS.] + +The work of Wells covers a wide range of subjects. He has written +scientific romances, blood-curdling tales, strange phantasies, +prophetic Utopias, and sociological novels. He shows an increasing +tendency to depict the human struggle with environment, heredity, and +the manifold forces that affect the earning of a livelihood. His +characters are more often remembered as specimens exhibiting some +phase of life than as attractive or repellent personalities. +Increasing power of portraying character, however, is evident in his +later work. He has a daring imagination, a sense of humor, satiric +power, and a capacity for expressing himself in vivid and picturesque +English. + +Eden Phillpotts was born in India in 1862. His novels, however, are +as definitely associated with Devonshire as Hardy's are with Wessex, +and Bennett's with North Staffordshire. Phillpotts is noted for his +power to paint "landscapes with figures." The "figures" are the +farmers, villagers, and shepherds of that part of Devon, known as +Dartmoor; and the landscapes are the granite crags, the moors; and +farmlands of "good red earth." _Widecombe Fair_ (1913) is the +twentieth volume that he has published as a result of twenty years' +work among these children of Devon. Sometimes the roughness and +untutored emotions of the Dartmoor characters repel the readers; but +these characters form strong, picturesque groups of human beings, and +their dialect adds a pleasant flavor to the novels. Phillpotts's +frequent use of coincidences weakens the effect and mars the +naturalness of the plot, since their recurrence comes to be +anticipated. _Children of the Mist_ (1898) and _Demeter's Daughter_ +(1911) are among his ablest novels. + +Maurice Hewlett was born in Kent in 1861, of an old Somerset family. +He began writing in his boyhood, giving proof even then of his skill +in catching the manner of other writers. His style to-day reėchoes his +reading of many authors in Latin, French, Italian, and English. + +_The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay_ (1900) shows Hewlett's +romantic fancy and love for historical characters and pageants. While +this novel is full of life, color, and movement, it displays his +proneness to allow the romantic vein to run to the fantastic in both +episode and style. _The Stooping Lady_ (1907) deals with the love of a +lady of high degree for a humble youth whom her devotion ennobles. + +Hewlett's style is finished and richly poetical, but often too ornate +and too encrusted with archaic terms and other artificial forms. + +Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, born in Cornwall in 1863, is a fiction +writer, critic, poet, and anthologist. Having much of Stevenson's love +for romantic adventure, he was chosen to finish _St. Ives_, left +incomplete by Stevenson. _The Splendid Spur_ (1889), a spirited tale +of romance and war in the perturbed time of Charles I., is one of his +best stories of adventure. + +Among his books on simple Cornish life may be mentioned _The +Delectable Duchy_ (1893). It is a collection of short stories and +sketches. Quiller-Couch sees life without a touch of morbid somberness +and he commands a vivacious, highly-trained style. + +William Frend De Morgan was born in London, in 1839. He published +his first novel, _Joseph Vance_ (1906), at the age of sixty-seven. +This plain, straightforward story of a little boy befriended by a +generous-hearted London doctor won for De Morgan wide and hearty +applause. While some contemporary writers fashion their style and +select their material on the models of French or Russian realists, De +Morgan goes to the great English masters, Thackeray and Dickens. Like +them, De Morgan writes copiously and leisurely. + +_Alice-for-Short_ (1907) and _Somehow Good_ (1908) are strong novels, +but _Joseph Vance_, with its carelessly constructed plot and power to +awaken tears and smiles, remains De Morgan's best piece of fiction. + +William John Locke was born in the Barbados in 1863. He gained much +of his reputation from his tenth book, _The Beloved Vagabond_ (1906). +The book takes its charm from the whimsical and quixotic temperament +of the hero. He is typical of Locke's other leading characters, who, +like Hamlet's friend, Horatio, take "fortune's buffets and rewards +with equal thanks." Like other novels by the same author, this story +is pervaded by a distinctly Bohemian atmosphere, wherein the ordinary +conventions of society are disregarded. + +Locke's humor, his deft characterization, his toleration of human +failings, largely compensate for his lack of significant plots. He is +sometimes whimsical to the point of eccentricity, and his high spirits +often verge on extravagance; but at his best he has the power of +refreshing the reader with gentle irony, genial laughter, and love for +human kind. + +Israel Zangwill, the Jewish writer, was born in London in 1864. He +first won fame by interpreting the Jewish temperament as he saw it +manifested in London's dingy, pitiful Ghetto quarter. "This Ghetto +London of ours," he says, "is a region where, amid uncleanness and +squalor, the rose of romance blows yet a little longer in the raw air +of English reality, a world of dreams as fantastic and poetic as the +mirage of the Orient where they were woven." + +In his volume, _The Children of the Ghetto_ (1892), Zangwill admirably +chronicles the lives of these people and the sharp contrasts between +their quaint traditions and a great modern commercial city's customs. + +POETRY + +The Celtic Renaissance.--Some of the best recent English verse has +been written by poets of Irish birth or sympathies. Because of the +distinctive quality of both the poetry and prose of these Celtic +writers, the term "Celtic Renaissance" has been applied to their work, +which glows with spiritual emotion and discloses a world of dreams, +fairies, and romantic aspiration. As Richard Wagner received from the +Scandinavian folk-lore the inspiration for his great music, as +Tennyson found the incentive for _The Idylls of the Kings_ in Malory's +_Morte d'Arthur_, so the modern Celtic poets turned back to the +primitive legends of their country for tales of Cuchulain who fought +the sea, Caolte who besieged the castle of the gods, Oisin, who +wandered three hundred years in the land of the immortals, and Deirdre +who stands in the same relation to Celtic literature as Helen to Greek +and Brunnhilde to German literature. Some of the fascination that the +past and its fairy kingdom exerted over these poets may be found in +this stanza from Russell's _The Gates of Dreamland_:-- + + "Oh, the gates of the mountain have opened once again + And the sound of song and dancing falls upon the ears of men, + And the Land of Youth lies gleaming, flushed with rainbow light and + mirth. + And the old enchantment lingers in the honey-heart of earth."[1] + +William Butler Yeats.--One of the most talented and active workers +in this Celtic Renaissance is William Butler Yeats, born in 1865 in +Dublin, Ireland. He came from an artistic family, his father, brother, +and sisters being either artists or identified with the arts and +crafts movement. Yeats himself studied art in Dublin, but poetry was +more attractive to him than painting. + +He was greatly influenced by spending his youthful days with his +grandparents in County Sligo, where he heard the old Irish legends +told by the peasants, who still believed them. He translated these +stories from Irish into English and wrote poems and essays relating to +them. After reaching the age of thirty-four, he became engaged in +writing dramas and in assisting to establish the Irish National +Theater in Dublin. In thus reviving Ireland's heroic history, Yeats +has served his country and his art. + +[Illustration: WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS.] + +_The Wanderings of Oisin_ (1889) is his best narrative poem. Oisin, +one of the ancient Celtic heroes, returns, after three hundred years +of adventure, to find Ireland Christianized. St. Patrick hears him +relate that he had been carried by his immortal wife, Niamh, to the +land of the Ever-Young,-- + + "Where broken faith has never been known, + And the blushes of first love never have flown,"[2] + +that he had battled for a hundred years with an undying foe, and that +his strength had not waned during his stay on those immortal shores, +although he had felt the effect of age when his foot again touched his +native land. The days of "gods and fighting" men are brought back in +this romantic poem. The battles, however, are not such gory conflicts +as Scott and Kipling can paint. Yeats's contemplative genius presents +bloodless battles, symbolic of life's continued fight, and accentuates +the eternal hope and peace in the land of immortal youth. + +Among his shorter narrative poems, which show some of the power of +_The Wanderings of Oisin_, are _The Death of Cuchulain_, _The Old Age +of Queen Maeve_, and _Baile and Aillinn_. Baille and Aillinn are the +Irish Romeo and Juliet, each of whom hears from the baleful Aengus the +false report that the other is dead. Each lover unhesitatingly seeks +death in order to meet the other at once beyond these mortal shores. +Yeats has also told simple stories in simple verse, as may be seen in +_The Ballad of Father Gilligan_ or _The Fiddler of Dooney_. + +The most striking characteristic of Yeats's work is the pensive +yearning for a spiritual love, for an unchecked joy, and an unchanging +peace beyond what mortal life can give. These qualities are strikingly +illustrated by such poems as _Into the Twilight_, _The Everlasting +Voices_, _The Hosting of the Sidhe_ (Fairies), _The Stolen Child_. The +very spirit of Celtic poetry is seen in these lines from _The Lake +Isle of Innisfree_:-- + + "And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, + Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; + There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, + And evening full of the linnet's wings."[3] + +Yeats's verse has been called "dream-drenched poems." The term is +admirably descriptive of his romantic, lyrical verse. + +George W. Russell.--Among the most prominent of these Celtic +imaginative writers is George W. Russell (1867- ), "the Irish +Emerson," popularly known as "A.E." He is a poet, a painter, a mystic, +and a dramatist. With Lady Gregory and Yeats, he has been one of the +most active workers for the Irish National Theater. He is an efficient +member of those coöperative societies which are trying to improve +Ireland's industrial and agricultural conditions. + +Russell's poetry is highly spiritual. Sometimes it is so mystical that +like Prospero's messenger, Ariel, it vanishes into thin air. His +shadowy pictures of nature and his lyrical beauty and tenderness are +evident in two little volumes of his verse, _Homeward Songs by the +Way_ (1894) and _The Divine Vision_ (1904). This Stanza from _Beauty_, +in _The Divine Vision_, shows his spiritual longing for quiet, peace, +and beauty, in which to worship his Creator:-- + + "Oh, twilight, fill in pearl dew, each healing drop may bring + Some image of the song the Quiet seems to sing. + + My spirit would have beauty to offer at the shrine, + And turn dull earth to gold and water into wine, + And burn in fiery dreams each thought till thence refined + It may have power to mirror the mighty Master's mind."[4] + +Fiona Macleod.--All the work of William Sharp that he published +under the pseudonym of "Fiona Macleod" belongs to this Celtic +Renaissance. Born in 1856 at Paisley, Scotland, he settled in London +in 1878, and became widely known as William Sharp, the critic. When he +turned to his boyhood's home, the West Highlands of Scotland, for +inspiration, he wrote, under the pen-name of Fiona Macleod, poetic +prose stories and many poems about these Scotch Celts. He kept the +secret of his identity so well that not until his death in 1905 was it +known that Fiona Macleod, the mystic, was William Sharp, the critic. + +_Mountain Lovers_ (1895), a romantic novel of primitive people who +live with nature in her loneliness, mystery, and terror, and who +possess an instinctive, speechless, and poetic knowledge of her moods, +is one of the earliest and most interesting of his long novels. He +excels in the short story. Some of his finest work in this field is in +_The Sin Eater_ (1895), which contains uncanny tales of quaint, +strongly-marked highland characters with their weird traditions. + +_From the Hills of Dream_ (1901) and _The Hour of Beauty_ (1907) are +two small volumes of short poems full of the witchery of dreams, of +death, of youth, and of lonely scenes. These poems come from a land +far off from our common world. Delicacy of fancy, a freedom from any +touch of impurity, a beauty as of "dew-sweet moon-flowers glimmering +white through the mirk of a dust laden with sea-mist," are the +qualities of Fiona Macleod's best verse. + +John Masefield.--Instead of looking to the land of dreams and the +misty past, like the Celtic writers, Masefield and Gibson, two younger +English poets, have found in the everyday life of the present time the +themes for their verse. Masefield was born in 1875 in Shropshire. He +was a seafarer in his youth, and later, a traveler by land and sea. +These varied experiences contributed color and vividness to his +narrative verse. + +[Illustration: JOHN MASEFIELD.] + +He has written several long narrative poems on unromantic subjects. +_Dauber_ (1912) contains some of his best lines and its story is the +most poetic. This poem follows the fortunes of a poor youth who, +wishing to be a painter of ships, went to sea to study his mode at +first hand. Masefield describes, with much power, the young artist's +ambition, his rough handling by the uncouth sailors, and his perilous +experiences while rounding Cape Horn. _Dauber_ exhibits the poet's +power of vividly picturing human figures and landscapes. This poem, +like most of Masefield's long narrative poems, is a story of human +failure,--a dull prosaic failure, such as prose fiction presents in +its pessimistic moods. + +A strong and cheerful note is struck in some of Masefield's short +lyrics, notably in _Laugh and be Merry_, _Roadways_, _The Seekers_, +and _Being Her Friend_. In _Laugh and be Merry_, the song is almost +triumphant:-- + + "Laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man. + * * * * * + Laugh and battle, and work, and drink of the wine outpoured + In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord."[5] + +Masefield's fancy does not busy itself with dreams and impossible +visions. He paints life in its grayness and sordidness and dull +mediocrity. Sometimes his verse is merely plain rimed prose, but again +it becomes vigorous, picturesque, and vivid in description, as in the +following lines from _Dauber_:-- + + "...then the snow + Whirled all about, dense, multitudinous cold, + Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust and shriek + Which whiffled out men's tears, deafened, took hold, + Flattening the flying drift against the cheek."[6] + +Wilfred W. Gibson.--Gibson, who was born in Hexham in 1878, sings of +the struggling oppressed work-a-day people:-- + + "Crouched in the dripping dark + With steaming shoulders stark + The man who hews the coal to feed the fires."[7] + +His poem, _The Machine_, awakens sympathy for the printer of Christmas +story books and reveals Gibson as the twentieth-century Thomas Hood of +_The Song of the Shirt_. One of the most richly human of his poems is +_The Crane_, the story of the seamstress mother and her lame boy. His +realistic volume of verse bearing the significant title, _Daily Bread_ +(1910), contains a number of narrative poems, which endeavor to set to +music the "one measure" to which all life moves,--the earning of daily +bread. + +Gibson owes much of his popularity to his spirit of democracy and to +the story form of his verse. Like Masefield, he sacrifices beauty to +dull realism. Gibson manifests less range, less dramatic feeling, than +Masefield, but avoids Masefield's uncouthness and repellent dramatic +episodes. + +These two poets illustrate a tendency to introduce a new realistic +poetry. Wordsworth wrote of Michael and the Westmoreland peasantry, +but Masefield and Gibson have taken as subjects of verse the toilers +of factory, foundry, and forecastle. Closeness to life and simplicity +of narration characterize these authors. They approximate the subject +matter and technique of realistic fiction. + +Alfred Noyes.--Alfred Noyes was born in 1880 in Wolverhampton +Staffordshire. He wrote verse while an Oxford undergraduate and he has +since become one of the leading poets of the twentieth century. He has +traveled in England and in America, reading his poems and lecturing on +literary subjects. + +[Illustration: ALFRED NOYES.] + +_The Flower of Old Japan_ (1903) is a fairy tale of children who dream +of the pictures on blue china plates and Japanese fans. The poem is +symbolic. The children are ourselves; and Japan is but the "kingdom of +those dreams which ...are the sole reality worth living and dying +for." + +The poet says of this kingdom:-- + + "Deep in every heart it lies + With its untranscended skies; + For what heaven should bend above + Hearts that own the heaven of love?"[8] + +_The Forest of Wild Thyme_ (1905) affords another + + "Hour to hunt the fairy gleam + That flutters through this childish dream."[9] + +There is also a deeper meaning to be read into this poem. The mystery +of life, small as well as great, is found simply told in these +lines:-- + + "What does it take to make a rose, + Mother-mine? + The God that died to make it knows + It takes the world's eternal wars, + It takes the moon and all the stars, + It takes the might of heaven and hell + And the everlasting Love as well, + Little child."[10] + +Noyes has published several volumes of lyrical verse. Some of it +possesses the lightness of these elfish tales. _The Barrel Organ_, +_The Song of Re-Birth_, and _Forty Singing Seamen_ are among his +finest lyrics. They display much rhythmic beauty and variety. He +strikes a deeply sorrowful and passionate note in _The Haunted Palace_ +and _De Profundis_. A line like this in _The Haunted Palace_-- + + "...I saw the tears + Bleed through her eyes with the slow pain of years,"[11] + +indicates the strong emotional metaphor that occasionally deepens the +passion of his verse. + +England's sea power, immortalized in song from Beowulf to Swinburne, +often inspires Noyes. His finest long poem is _Drake: An English Epic_ +(1908), which relates the adventures of this Elizabethan sea-captain +and his victory over the Armada. The spirit of a daring romantic age +of discovery is shown in these lines that tell how Drake and his men-- + + "...went out + To danger as to a sweetheart far away, + Who even now was drawing the western clouds + Like a cymar of silk and snow-white furs + Close to her, till her body's beauty seemed + Clad in a mist of kisses."[12] + +Another volume of poems, _Tales of the Mermaid Tavern_ (1913), brings +us into the company of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spencer, Jonson, Raleigh, +and others of the great Elizabethan group that made the Mermaid Tavern +their chosen resort. Greene's farewell to Shakespeare,-- + + "You took my clay and made it live,"[13] + +shows that Noyes has caught something of the spirit that animated +Elizabethan England. + +Noyes is one of the most spontaneous and fluent writers of modern +English poetry. Whether he is mystical, dramatic, playful, or marching +along the course of a long narrative poem, he handles his verse with +ease and facility. His language, his rhythm, and his thought are most +happily blended in his graceful singing lyrics. The work of Noyes is +inspired by the desire to show that all things and all souls are-- + + "One with the dream that triumphs beyond the light of the spheres, + We come from the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of + Years."[14] + +THE MODERN DRAMA + +The revival of the drama is a characteristic feature of the latter +part of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The +plays of the Norwegian, Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), affected England +profoundly in the last decade of the nineteenth century and proved an +impetus to a new dramatic movement, seen in the work of men like Shaw. + +The great literary school of dramatists passed away soon after the +death of Shakespeare. While it is true that the writing of plays has +been practically continuous since the time of the Restoration, yet for +more than two hundred years after that event, the history of the drama +has had little memorable work to record. There were two brief +interesting comic periods: (1) the period of Congreve at the close of +the seventeenth century, and (2) of Goldsmith and Sheridan nearly a +hundred years later. The literary plays of the Victorians,--Browning, +Tennyson, and Swinburne,--were lacking in dramatic essentials. + +The modern drama has accomplished certain definite results. Pinero's +work is typical of vast improvement in technique. Shaw is noted for +his power of "investing modern conversation with vivacity and point." +J.M. Synge has won distinction for presenting the great elemental +forces that underlie the actions of primitive human beings. The +playwrights are making the drama perform some of the functions that +have been filled by the novel. The modern drama is also wrestling with +the problem of combining literary form, poetic spirit, and good +dramatic action. Some of the modern plays deal with unpleasant +subjects, and some of the least worthy are immoral in their +tendencies. Such plays will be forgotten, for the Anglo-Saxon race has +never yet immortalized an unwholesome drama. Fortunately, however, the +influence of a large proportion of the plays is pure and wholesome. In +this class may be included the dramas of the Irish school and of +Barrie, the majority by Galsworthy, and a number by Phillips and Shaw. + +Jones and Pinero.--The work of Henry Arthur Jones and Sir Arthur +Wing Pinero marks the advance of the English drama from artificiality +and narrowness of scope toward a wider, closer relation to life. Henry +Arthur Jones, both a playwright and a critic, was born in +Grandborough, Buckinghamshire, in 1851. Contemporary English life is +the subject of his numerous plays. _The Manoeuvers of Jane_ (1898) and +_Mrs. Dane's Defence (1900), are among his best works. + +[Illustration: HENRY ARTHUR JONES.] + +Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, born in 1855 in London, began his career as an +actor. + +[Illustration: ARTHUR WING PINERO.] + +His real ambition, however, was to write for the stage. More than +forty works, including farces, comedies of sentiment, and serious +dramas of English life, attest his zeal as a dramatist. Among his most +successful farces are _The Magistrate_ (1885), _The School Mistress_ +(1886), and _The Amazons_ (1893). Clever invention of absurd +situations and success in starting infectious laughter are the prime +qualities of these plays. + +_The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ (1893) is by most critics considered +Pinero's masterpiece. The failure of a character to regain +respectability once forfeited supplies the nucleus for the dramatic +situations. Excellent in craftsmanship as it is disagreeable in theme, +this play contains no superfluous word to retard the action or mar the +technical economy. Adolphus William Ward says: "With _The Second Mrs. +Tanqueray_ the English acted drama ceased to be a merely insular +product, and took rank in the literature of Europe. Here was a play +which, whatever its faults, was ...an epoch-marking play." + +One great service of Pinero and Jones to the twentieth-century drama +has been excellent craftsmanship. Their technical skill may be +specifically noted in the naturalness of the dialogues, in the +movement of the characters about the stage, in the performance of some +acts apparently trivial but really significant, and in the +substitution of devices to take the place of the old soliloquies and +"asides." Of the two, Pinero is the better craftsman, since Jones, in +his endeavor to paint a moral, sometimes weakens his dramatic effect. + +George Bernard Shaw.--Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1856. He +was willful and took "refuge in idleness" at school. His education +consisted mainly in studying music with his talented mother, in +haunting picture galleries, and in wide reading. At the age of twenty, +he went to London and began his literary career. He was at various +times a journalist, a critic of art, music, and the drama, a lecturer, +a novelist, and a playwright. Shaw describes himself as a man "up to +the chin in the life of his times." He is a vegetarian, an +anti-vivisectionist, an advocate for woman's suffrage, and a +socialist. + +[Illustration: GEORGE BERNARD SHAW.] + +_Arms and the Man, Candida, You Never Can Tell_, and _The Man of +Destiny_, published (1898) in the second volume of _Plays, Pleasant +and Unpleasant_; and _The Devil's Disciple_, published (1900) in +_Three Plays for Puritans_, are among his best dramas. With their +stage directions and descriptions, they are as delightful to read as +novels. Of these plays, _Candida_ is first in character drawing and +human interest. The dramatic action is wholly within the mental states +of the three chief actors, but the situations are made intense through +a succession of unique, absorbing, entertaining, and well-developed +conversations. + +Shaw is more destructive than constructive in his philosophy as +expressed in his plays; and he criticizes so many of the institutions +held sacred by society that people have refused to accept him +seriously, even when he has written expository prefaces to his dramas. +In _Arms and the Man_, he satirizes the romantic admiration for the +soldier's calling; in _The Doctor's Dilemma_ (1906), he attacks the +professional man; in _Widowers' Houses_ (1898), he assails the rich +property holder with his high rents on poor people's houses: and in +_Man and Superman_ (1903), he dissects love and home until the +sentiment is entirely taken out of them. + +Shaw's chief object is to place before his audience facts, reasons, +and logical conclusions. He will not tolerate romantic emotions or +sentimentalism, which he ridicules with a reckless audacity, a literal +incisiveness, and a satiric wit that none of his contemporaries can +excel. His chief claim to his present important position among +playwrights is based on his originality and fearlessness of thought, +the unfailing sprightliness of his conversation, the infectious spirit +of raillery in his comedies, and his mastery of the requirements of +the modern stage. + +J.M. Barrie.--With the successful stage production of _The Little +Minister_ (1897), Barrie passed from novelist to playwright. The +qualities of humor, fancy, and quaint characterization, which were +such a charm in his novels, reappear in his plays. + +[Illustration: JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE.] + +_The Admirable Crichton_, produced in 1903, is one of Barrie's most +successful comedies. He displays skill and humor in handling the +absurd situation of a peer's family wrecked on a desert island, where +the butler, as the most resourceful member of the party, takes +command. In _Peter Pan_ (1904), the dramatization of the novel, _The +Little White Bird_, care-free, prankish Peter Pan visits three +children in their sleep and teaches them to fly away with him. He +carries them to the little people of the fairy world, to the pirate +ship, to other scenes dear to children's hearts, and finally to his +home in the tree tops. The play is a mixture of fancy, symbolism, and +realism. These are woven into a bright phantasy by an imagination that +is near to childhood and has not lost its morning's brightness. + +_What Every Woman Knows_ (produced in 1908) shows Barrie's dramatic +art at its height. He knows how to introduce variety and to give his +characters an opportunity to reveal themselves. Every word, every +movement of the heroine, Maggie Shand, adds to the unfolding of a +fascinating personality. A period of intensely dramatic action may be +followed by a comparative pause, such as occurs when the audience sees +Maggie's husband slowly realize her cleverness and helpfulness, +--qualities that had been long apparent to every one else. + +Barrie shows the ability to present dramatically situations that are +emotionally appealing or delightfully humorous. His plays exhibit +admirably the deep feelings, the momentary moods, the resourcefulness, +or the peculiar whimsicalities of men and women. + +John Galsworthy.--As a means of presenting social problems, +Galsworthy utilizes the drama even more than the novel. Faulty prison +systems, discords between labor and capital, discrepancies between law +and justice, are some of the themes he chooses to dramatize. _The +Silver Box_ (1906) ironically interprets Justice as blind rather than +impartial. The poor man is often punished while the more fortunate man +goes free. _Strife_ (1909), in some respects the most powerful of his +plays, illustrates the clash between capital and labor. In _The Eldest +Son_ (1912), the conflict is between two social orders. _Justice_ +(1910), which secured reforms in the English prison system, shows how +a young man is affected by an inflexible but legal punishment; and how +such a method fails to assist him humanely to a better manhood, but +drives him to lower and lower depths. + +In _Joy_ (1907), a delightful play, Galsworthy momentarily +relinquishes social problems for a drama of more personal emotion. In +the mystical, poetical composition, _The Little Dream_ (1911), he +presents an allegory of the maiden in the Alps, dreaming first of the +simple mountain life and then of the life in cities. With its +spiritual note and delicate fancy, _The Little Dream_ turns a golden +key on the ideal world beyond the strife and gloom dramatized in the +sociological plays. + +Galsworthy has good stagecraft. His characterization is distinct and +consistent. His plays are simple in construction and direct in +movement. He strictly avoids rhetorical and theatrical effects, but +his dramatic economies often sacrifice all charm and aesthetic appeal. +His gray world leaves no hope save the desperate one that conditions +so grim may shame and spur society to reform. + +Stephen Phillips.--This dramatist and poet was born at Somerton, +near Oxford, in 1864. The boy was sent to Shakespeare's birthplace, +Stratford-on-Avon, to attend school. He entered Cambridge, but at the +end of his first term he left the university to join a company of +Shakespearean players. His six years with them initiated him into the +technique of stagecraft, which he later applied in the writing of his +poetic dramas. + +[Illustration: STEPHEN PHILLIPS.] + +Before producing the plays for which he is known, he wrote some +narrative and lyric verse. _Marpessa_ (1890), a blank verse poem, is a +beautiful treatment of the old Greek myth, in which Apollo, the god, +and Idas, the mortal, woo Marpessa. Marlowe might have written the +lines in which Apollo promises to take her to a home above the world, +where movement is ecstasy and repose is thrilling. In some of his +non-dramatic poems, _Christ in Hades_ (1896), _Cities of Hell_ (1907), +and _The New Inferno_ (1896), Phillips shows how the subject of life +and punishment after death attracts him. + +With the appearance of his _Paolo and Francesca_ in 1899, the poetic +drama seemed phoenix-like to arise from its ashes. Tennyson and +Browning had failed to write successful plays. In fact, since the +death of Dryden, poetry and drama had seemed to be afraid to approach +each other. Phillips effected at least a temporary union. His several +plays have distinctly dramatic qualities and many passages of poetic +beauty. From both a dramatic and a poetic point of view, _Paolo and +Francesca_ is Phillips's best play. Its dramatic values lie chiefly in +its power to create and sustain a sense of something definitely +progressing toward a certain point. The poetic elements of the play +consist in the beauty of atmosphere and the charm of the lines. +Giovanni Malatesta, the ugly tyrant of Rimini, being at war when his +marriage draws near, sends his young brother Paolo to escort Francesca +to Rimini. On the journey Paolo and Francesca fall in love with each +other. When Giovanni discovers this, his jealous hand slays them. To +such a tragic climax, Phillips drives steadily onward from the first +scene, thus focusing the interest on a concrete dramatic situation. + +_Herod_ (1900) is a drama of ambition versus love. Herod, the great +historic king of the Jews, though passionately in love with his wife +Mariamne, sacrifices her brother Aristobulus to his suspicions, +fearing that this young prince, the last of the Maccabees, may +supplant him on the throne. This sacrifice, prompted by evil +counselors, results in a train of tragic episodes, including +Mariamne's death and Herod's madness. The lines in which Herod speaks +of thinking in gold and dreaming in silver call to mind the hyperbole +and music of Marlowe's mighty line. + +_Ulysses_ (1902), more of a panorama than a play, is founded on the +Homeric story. Its scenes are laid in Olympus, in Hades, on Calypso's +isle, and finally in Ithaca. Calypso tries to retain Ulysses upon her +isle, beautiful-- + + "With sward of parsley and of violet + And poplars shimmering in a silvery dream."[15] + +He struggles against her enchantment, returns home, finds his wife +surrounded by her suitors, joins in their bow-drawing contest, and, in +a most exciting and dramatic scene, surpasses all rivals and claims +his faithful, beautiful Penelope. + +The plays of Phillips not infrequently lack that clinching power that +stretches the interest taut. Many scenes are admirably spectacular, +suggestive of richly decorated tapestries, which hang separately in +spacious rooms; but the plays need more forceful dramatic action, +moving through changes to a climax. Phillips's diction, though +sometimes rhetorical, is also often ornately beautiful and highly +poetical. We feel that even in his plays, he is greater as a poet than +as a dramatist. + +CELTIC DRAMATISTS + +Strong national feeling, interest in the folklore and peasant life of +Ireland, and ambition to establish a national theater, have led to a +distinct and original Irish drama. In 1899, with a fund of two hundred +and fifty dollars, Lady Gregory, William Butler Yeats, G.W. Russell, +and other playwrights and patrons succeeded in establishing in Dublin +the Irish Literary Theater now known as the Irish National Theater. + +The object of this theater is twofold. In the first place, it aims to +produce "literary" plays, not the vapid, panoramic kind that merely +pass away the time. In the second place, the Irish plays present +fabled and historical Irish heroes and the humble Irish peasant. + +Patriotism inspired many writers to assist in this national movement. +Some gathered stories from the lips of living Irish-speaking peasants; +others collected and translated into English the old legends of +heroes. Dr. Douglas Hyde's translations of _The Five Songs of +Connacht_ (1894) and _The Religious Songs of Connacht_ (1906) are +valuable works and have greatly influenced the Irish writers. + +Lady Augusta Gregory.--Lady Gregory, born in 1852, in Roxborough, +County Galway, has made some of the best of these translations in her +works, _Cuchulain of Muirthemma_, and _Gods and Fighting Men_. "These +two books have come to many as a first revelation of the treasures +buried in Gaelic literature, and they are destined to do much for the +floating of old Irish story upon the world. They aim to do for the +great cycles of Irish romance what Malory did for the Arthurian +stories."[16] + +[Illustration: LADY GREGORY.] + +Lady Gregory wrote also for the Irish Theater plays that have been +acted successfully not only in Ireland but in England and in America. +Among her best serious plays are _The Gaol Gate_ (1906), a present-day +play, the hero of which dies to save a neighbor, _The Rising of the +Moon_ (1907), and _Grania_ (1912). _McDonough's Wife_ (1913) is an +excellent brief piece with an almost heroic note at the close. The +great vagabond piper, McDonough, master of wonderful music, returns +from wandering, to find his wife dead, and, because of his +thriftlessness, about to be denied honorable burial. McDonough steps +to the door, pipes his marvelous tunes, and immediately the village +flocks to do homage to his wife. + +Lady Gregory's farces have primarily made her fame. _Spreading the +News_ (1904), _Hyacinth Halvey_ (1906), _The Image_ (1910), and _The +Bogie Men_ (1913) are representative of her vigorous and +well-constructed farces. They are varied in subject, the incidents are +well developed, the characters are genuine Irish peasants and +villagers, and the humor is infectious. It is interesting to note that +Lady Gregory has continued to write farces because of the demand for +them in the Irish National Theater, in order to offset the large +number of tragedies by other authors. + +William Butler Yeats.--In addition to delightful poetic fancy, Yeats +possesses considerable dramatic ability and stagecraft. In _The +Countess Cathleen_ (rewritten in 1912), the poor peasants are driven +by a famine to the verge of starvation. Many die; but some are fed by +the Countess Cathleen, while others sell their souls for the price of +food to demons disguised as merchants. When these demons steal +Countess Cathleen's stores in order to stop her charities, with +instant Irish quickness and generosity, she sells her soul for a great +price to the demons, in order to save her people here and hereafter. +Such a tremendous sacrifice, however, is not permitted. Because of the +purity of her motive, armed angels save her soul in the last +impressive act. Supernatural powers, both pagan and Christian, +participate in the play. Spirits haunt the woods, enter the peasants' +cottages, and cast spells on the inhabitants. The play is Irish in +story, in symbolism, and in the fancifulness of the conception. + +_The Land of Heart's Desire_ is another drama that has sprung from the +soil and folklore of Ireland. This play was one of the first Celtic +dramas to be produced, and in its present revised form (1912) it is +one of the most engaging of the Irish plays. Partly in prose and +partly in verse, it is the story of a young bride who tires of her +monotonous life and calls upon the fairies to release her. The old +parents tell her that duty comes before love of the fairies. + +The good priest begs her not to forsake her faithful young husband; +but the fairy wins, and, leaving a dead bride in the cottage, bears +away the living bride to a land where-- + + "The fairies dance in a place apart, + Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring, + Tossing their milk-white arms in the air; + For they have heard the wind laugh and murmur and sing + Of a land where even the old are fair, + And even the wise are merry of tongue."[17] + +Patriotic love for Ireland is the very breath of _Cathleen ni +Hoolihan_ (1902), a one-act prose play in which Cathleen symbolizes +Ireland. _The Shadowy Waters_ (1900) and _Deirdre_ (1907) are more +poetic than dramatic. The first of these with the mysterious harper, +the far-sailing into unknown seas, the parting with everything but the +loved one, shows Yeats in his deeply mystical mood. In _Deirdre_ is +dramatized part of a popular legend of the great queen by that name, +who was too beautiful for happiness. She has seven long years of joy +and then accepts her fate in the calm, triumphant way of the old +heroic times. + +Yeats's plays reflect the childlike superstitions and lively +imagination of his country. He loves the fairies, the dreams of +eternal youth, the symbolizing of things of the spirit by lovely +things of earth. His plays are poetical, fanciful, and romantic. + +John Millington Synge.--One of the most notable of the Irish +writers, J.M. Synge, was born near Dublin in 1871 and died in that +city in 1909. His brief span of life has yielded only scanty +biographical data. He came of an old Wicklow family; he was graduated +from Trinity College, Dublin; afterwards he wandered through much of +Europe, finally settling in France. + +[Illustration: JOHN SYNGE.] + +In 1899, William Butler Yeats discovered him in Paris, a "man all +folded up in brooding intellect," writing essays on French +authors,--on Moličre, for example, from whom he learned the trick of +characterization; on Racine, who taught him concentration; on +Rabelais, who infected him with love of deep laughter. Yeats, +suspecting that Synge could be an original writer as well as an +interpreter of others, persuaded him to go back to Ireland, to the +Aran Islands, off Galway. Synge discovered there a lost kingdom of the +imagination, a place where spontaneous feeling and primitive +imagination had not been repressed by the outside world's customs and +discipline, and where the constant voice of the ocean, the touch of +the mysterious, all-embracing mist, and the gleam of the star through +a rift in the clouds banished all sense of difference between the +natural and the supernatural. + +When Synge died in his thirty-eighth year, he had written only six +short plays, all between 1903 and 1909. Two of these, _In the Shadow +of the Glen_ and _Riders to the Sea_, contain only one act. _The +Tinker's Wedding_ has two acts, and the rest are three-act plays. + +_In the Shadow of the Glen, Riders to the Sea_, and _The Well of the +Saints_, produced respectively in 1903, 1904, and 1905, show that +Synge came at once into full possession of his dramatic power. Even in +his earliest written play, _The Well of The Saints_, we find a style +stripped of superfluous verbiage and vibrant with emotion. _In the +Shadow of the Glen_, his first staged play, consumes only a half hour. +The scene is laid in a cabin far off in a lonely glen, and the four +actors,--a woman oppressed by loneliness, an unfeeling husband who +feigns death, and two visitors,--make a singularly well-knit +impressive drama. + +_Riders to the Sea_ has been pronounced the greatest drama of the +modern Celtic school. Some critics consider this the most significant +tragedy produced in English since Shakespeare. Simple and impressive +as a Greek tragedy, it has for its central figure an old mother whose +husband and five sons have been lost at sea. The simple but poignant +feeling of the drama focuses on the death of Maurya's sixth and last +son, Bartley. This tragic episode, simply presented, touches the +depths of human sympathy. In old Maurya, Synge created an impressive +figure of what Macbeth calls "rooted sorrow." + +_The Playboy of the Western World_, produced first in 1907, is a +three-act play. It is as fantastically humorous as the _Riders to the +Sea_ is tragical. Dread of his father ties this peasant to his stupid +toil. A fearful deed frees the youth and throws him into the company +of the lovely maiden, Pegeen, and admiring friends. The latent poetry +and wild joy of living awake in him, and, under the spur of praise, he +performs great feats. He who had never before dared to face girls, +makes such love to Pegeen that poesy itself seems to be talking. The +Playboy is one of the wildest conceptions of character in modern +drama. His very extravagance compels interest. Pegeen is a fitting +sweetheart for him. Her father is a stalwart figure, possessing a +shrewd philosophy and rare strength of speech, as "fully flavored as +nut or apple." Some critics object to such a boisterous play, but they +should remember that it is intended to be an extravagant peasant +fantasia. + +_Deirdre of the Sorrows_, another three-act play, produced first in +1910, tells the story of the beautiful princess Deirdre, of her +isolated young life, and her seven years of perfect union with her +lover Naisi. When her lover is slain, this true and tender queen of +the North loosens the knot of life to accompany him. + +Synge belongs in the first rank of modern dramatists. The forty Irish +characters that he has created reveal the basal elements of universal +human nature. His purpose is like Shakespeare's,--to reveal throbbing +life, not to talk in his own person, nor to discuss problems. Synge +has dramatized the primal hope, fear, sorrow, and loneliness of life. +Although his plays are written in prose and have the distinctive +flavor of his lowly characters, yet a recent critic justly says that +Synge "for the first time sets English dramatic prose to a rhythm as +noble as the rhythms of blank verse." + +SUMMARY + +The twentieth century shows two main lines of development,--the +realistic and the romantic. The two leading essayists of the period, +A.C. Benson and G.K. Chesterton, are both idealists and champions of +religious faith. + +Among the novelists, Conrad tells impressive stories of distant seas +and shores; Bennett's strongest fiction gives realistic pictures of +life in English industrial towns; Galsworthy's novels present the +problems that affect the upper class of Englishmen; Wells writes +scientific romances and sociological novels. + +Some of the best poetry, full of the fascination of a dreamy far-off +world, has been written by the Celtic poets, Yeats, Russell, and Fiona +Macleod. Masefield and Gibson have produced much realistic verse about +the life of the common toiler. Noyes has written _Drake_, a romantic +epic, and a large amount of graceful lyrical verse, in some of which +there is much poetic beauty. + +The most distinctive work of recent times has been in the field of the +drama. Pinero has improved its technique; Shaw has given it remarkable +conversational brilliancy; Barrie has brought to it fancy and humor +and sweetness; Galsworthy has used it to present social problems; +Phillips has tried to restore to it the Elizabethan poetic spirit. The +Celtic dramatists form a separate school. Lady Gregory, Yeats, and +Synge have all written plays based on Irish life, folklore, or +mythology. The plays of Synge, the greatest member of the group, +reveal the universal primitive emotions of human beings. + +CONCLUSION + +Three distinctive moral influences in English literature specially +impress us,--the call to strenuous manhood:-- + + "...this thing is God, + To be man with thy might," + +the increasing sympathy with all earth's children:-- + + "Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call, + Ye to each other make," + +and the persistent expression of Anglo-Saxon faith. As we pause in our +study, we may hear in the twentieth-century song of Alfred Noyes, the +echo of the music from the loom of the Infinite Weaver:-- + + "Under the breath of laughter, deep in the tide of tears, + I hear the loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years."[18] + +REFERENCE FOR FURTHER STUDY + +Kennedy's _English Literature_, 1880-1895 (Shaw, Wells, Fiona Macleod, +Yeats). + +Kelman's _Mr. Chesterton's Point of View_ (in _Among Famous Books_). + +Cooper's _Some English Story Tellers_. + +Conrad's _A Personal Record_. + +Phelps's _Essays on Modern Novelists_ (De Morgan). + +Yeats's _Celtic Twilight_. + +Figgis's _Studies and Appreciations_ (_Mr. W.B. Yeats's Poetry_. _The +Art of J.M. Synge_.) + +More's _Drift of Romanticism_ (Fiona Macleod). + +Borsa's _The English Stage of To-day_. + +Jones's (Henry Arthur) _The Foundation of a National Drama: A +Collection of Essays, Lectures, and Speeches, Delivered and Written in +the Years 1896-1912_. + +Hamilton's _The Theory of the Theater_. + +Hunt's _The Play of To-day_. + +Hale's _Dramatists of To-day_. + +Henderson's _George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works_, 2 vols. + +Chesterton's _George Bernard Shaw_. + +Weygandt's _Irish Plays and Playwrights_ (excellent). + +Krans's _William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary Revival_. + +Howe's _J.M. Synge: A Critical Study_. + +Yeats's _J.M. Synge and the Ireland of His Time_ (in _The Cutting of +an Agate_, 1912). + +Bickley's _J.M. Synge and the Irish Dramatic Movement_. + +Elton's _Living Irish Literature_ (in _Modern Studies_). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Essays.--From A.C. Benson, read one of these collections of essays: +_The Altar Fire, Beside Still Waters, Thy Rod and Thy Staff_, and one +or more of these biographies: _Tennyson, John Ruskin, Rossetti_ +(E.M.L.), _Walter Pater_ (E.M.L.); from Chesterton, one of these +collections of essays: _Varied Types, Heretics, Orthodoxy_, and one or +more of these biographies: _George Bernard Shaw, Charles Dickens, +Robert Browning_ (E.M.L.). For other twentieth-century essays, see the +preceding bibliography and the paragraph following this. + +The Novel.--From Conrad, read _Youth, Typhoon, Lord Jim_; from +Bennett, _The Old Wives' Tale, Clayhanger_; from Galsworthy, _The Man +of Property, The Patrician_; from Wells, _The Time Machine, +Kipps, The Future in America_ (essay); from Phillpotts, _Children of +the Mist, Demeter's Daughter_; from Hewlett, _Life and Death of +Richard Yea and Nay, The Stooping Lady_; from Quiller-Couch, _The +Splendid Spur, The Delectable Duchy_; from De Morgan, _Joseph Vance, +Somehow Good_; from Locke, _The Beloved Vagabond, The Adventures of +Aristide Pujol_; from Zangwill, _The Children of the Ghetto, The +Melting Pot_ (play). + +Poetry.--From _The Poetical Works of William B. Yeats_ (Macmillan), +read _The Wanderings of Oisin, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, The Hosting +of the Sidhe, The Voice of the Waters_; from Fiona Macleod's _Poems +and Dramas_ (Duffield), _The Vision, The Lonely Hunter, The Rose of +Flame_; from Masefield, the part of _Dauber_ describing the rounding +of Cape Horn, beginning p. 119, in _The Story of a Round-House_ +(Macmillan); from Gibson's _Fires_ (Macmillan), _The Crane, The +Machine_; from Noyes's _Poems_ (Macmillan, 1906), _The Song of +Re-Birth, The Barrel Organ, Forty Singing Seamen, The Highwayman_; +Book II from his _Drake: An English Epic_ (Stokes). + +The Drama.--From Jones, read _The Manoeuvers of Jane, Mrs. Dane's +Defence_ (Samuel French); from Pinero, _The Amazons, The School +Mistress_, or _Sweet Lavender_ (W.H. Baker); from Shaw's _Plays +Pleasant and Unpleasant_ (Brentano), _Candida, You Never Can Tell, +Arms and the Man_ from Barrie, _Peter Pan, What Every Woman Knows_; +from Galsworthy, _Strife, Joy, The Little Dream_; from Phillips, +_Marpessa_ (poem), _Ulysses_ (Macmillan), _Herod_; from Lady +Gregory's, _Seven Short Plays_ (Putnam), _The Gaol Gate, Spreading the +News_; from her _New Comedies_ (Putnam, 1913), _McDonough's Wife, The +Bogie Men_; from Yeats's _Poetical Works_, Vol. II. (Macmillan), _The +Land of Heart's Desire, Countess Cathleen_; from Synge, _Riders to the +Sea, The Playboy of the Western World, Deirdre of the Sorrows_ (John +W. Luce). + +Questions and Suggestions.--Stevenson's _The Home Book of Verse_ and +_The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse_ contain selections from a number +of the poets. McCarthy's _Irish Literature_, 10 vols., gives +selections from work written prior to 1904. The majority of the +indicated readings can be found only in the original works of the +authors. + +Give an outline of the most important thoughts from one essay and one +biography, by both Benson and Chesterton. + +What distinctive subject matter do you find in each of the novelists? +How do same reflect the spirit of the age? + +What are the chief characteristics of each of the poets? What does the +phrase "Celtic Renaissance" signify? + +In brief, what had the drama accomplished from the time of the closing +of the theaters in 1642 to 1890? What distinctive contributions to the +modern drama have Pinero, Shaw, and Barrie made? Describe the work of +Lady Gregory, Yeats, and Synge. In what does Synge's special power +consist? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER X: + +[Footnotes 1-11: Printed by permission of The Macmillan Company.] + +[Footnotes 12-13: Printed by permission of Frederick A. Stokes +Company.] + +[Footnotes 14-15: Printed by permission of the Macmillan Company.] + +[Footnote 16: Krans's _William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary +Revival_.] + +[Footnotes 17-18: Printed by permission of The Macmillan Company.] + +SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS AND THEIR CHIEF WORKS: + +1400-1558: + +John Lydgate (1370?-1451?): _Falls of Princes_. Thomas Occleve +(1370?-1450?): _Mother of God_; _Governail of Princes_. Sir John +Fortescue (1394?-1476?): _Difference between an Absolute and Limited +Monarchy_. _The Paston Letters_ (1422-1509). Stephen Hawes (d. 1523?): +_Pastime of Pleasure_. John Skelton (1460?-1529): _Bowge of Court_; +_Philip Sparrow_. Alex. Barclay (1475?-1552): _Ship of Fools_. Sir +Thomas More (1478-1535): _Utopia_; _History of Edward V. and Richard +III_. Hugh Latimer (1485?-1555): _Sermon on the Ploughers_. Sir David +Lindsay (1490-1555): _Satire of the Three Estates_. + +1558-1603: + +John Knox(1505-1572): _Admonition_; _History of the Reformation of +Religion within the Realm of Scotland_; _Sermons_. George Puttenham +(d. 1590?): _Art of English Poesie_. Edward Dyer (1550?-1607): _My +Mind to Me a Kingdom Is_. Samuel Daniel (1562-1619): _The Complaint of +Rosamund_; _A Defence of Rhyme_ (prose). Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke, +1554-1628): _Caelica_. Stephen Gosson (1555-1624): _The School of +Abuse_. George Gascoigne (1525?-1577):_The Steele Glas_. William +Warner (1558?-1609): _Albion's England_. + +1603-1660: + +Prose Writers.--Robert Burton (1577-1640): _The Anatomy of +Melancholy_. John Selden (1584-1654): _Table Talk_. Richard Baxter +(1615-1691): _The Saints' Everlasting Rest_. + +Poets and Dramatists.--Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650?): _The Purple +Island_. William Drummond (1585-1649): _Sonnets_; _The Cypresse Grove_ +(prose). Giles Fletcher (1588?-1623): _Christ's Victory and Triumph_. +George Wither (1588-1667): _Juvenilia_. William Browne (1591-1643?) +_Britannia's Pastorals_. Sir William D'Avenant (1606-1668): +_Gondibert_. Edmund Waller (1606-1687): _Poems; Song_--"Go, lovely +Rose." Richard Crashaw (1613?--1649): _Steps to the Temple; The +Delights of the Muses_. Sir John Denham (1615-1669): _Cooper's Hill_. +Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): _Anacreontiques_. Andrew Marvell +(1621-1678): _The Garden_. + +1660-1740: + +Dramatists of the Restoration.--Sir William D'Avenant (1606-1668): +_Love and Honor_. George Etherege (1635?-1691?): _The Man of Mode_. +William Wycherley (1640-1715): _The Plain Dealer_. Thomas Shadwell +(1642?-1692): _Epson Wells_. Thomas Otway (1652-1685): _Venice +Preserved_. John Vanbrugh (1666?-1726): _The Confederacy_. Colley +Cibber (1671-1757): _The Careless Husband_. George Farquhar +(1678-1707): _The Beaux' Stratagem_. + +Prose Writers.--Sir William Temple (1628-1699): _Essays_. Isaac +Barrow (1630-1677): _Sermons_. Robert South (1634-1716): _Sermons_. +Richard Bentley (1662-1742): _Epistles of Phalaris_. Gilbert Burnet +(1643-1715): _Sermons_. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735): _The History of +John Bull_. Lord Bolingbroke (1678-1751): _Letter to Sir William +Windham_. Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753): _Alciphron or the Minute +Philosopher_. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762): _Letters_. Bishop +Butler (1692-1752): _Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion_. +William Warburton (1698-1779): _The Divine Legation of Moses_. + +Poets.--Matthew Prior (1664-1721): _Shorter Poems_. Isaac Watts +(1673-1748): _Psalms and Hymns_. Thomas Parnell (1679-1718): _A +Night-Piece on Death; The Hermit_. John Gay (1685-1732): _Fables; The +Beggar's Opera_. Allan Ramsay (1686-1758): _The Gentle Shepherd_. John +Dyer (1700?-1758): _Grongar Hill_. + +1740-1780: + +Prose Writers.--Gilbert White (1720-1793): _Natural History of +Selborne._ William Robertson (1721-1793): _History of the Reign of +Charles V._ Adam Smith (1723-1790): _Wealth of Nations._ Sir Joshua +Reynolds (1723-1792): _Discourses on Painting._ Thomas Warton +(1728-1790): _History of English Poetry._ Sir Philip Francis +(1740-1818): _Letters of Junius._ Fanny Burney (1752-1840): _Evelina._ + +Poets.--Edward Young (1681-1765): _Night Thoughts._ Charles Wesley +(1708-1788): _Hymns._ Mark Akenside (1721-1803): _The Minstrel._ +Robert Fergusson (1750-1774): _Braid Claith; Ode to the Gowdspink._ + +1780-1837: + +Philosophers.--William Paley (1743-1805): _Natural Theology._ Jeremy +Bentham (1748-1832): _Principles of Morals and Legislation._ William +Godwin (1756-1836): _Inquiry concerning Political Justice._ Thomas +Robert Malthus (1766-1834): _Essay on the Principle of Population._ +David Ricardo (1772-1823): _Principles of Political Economy._ James +Mill (1773-1836): _Analysis of the Human Mind._ + +Historians.--John Lingard (1771-1851): _History of England._ Henry +Hallam (1777-1859): _Constitutional History of England._ Sir William +Napier (1785-1860): _History of the Peninsular War._ + +Essayists.--William Cobbett (1762-1835): _Rural Rides in England._ +Sydney Smith (1771-1845): _Letters of Peter Plymley._ Francis Jeffrey +(1773-1850): _Essays._ John Wilson (1785-1854): _Noctes Ambrosianae._ +John Gibson Lockhard (1794-1854): _Life of Sir Walter Scott._ + +Novelists and Dramatists.--William Beckford (1759-1844): _Vathek._ +Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849): _Castle Rackrent._ Jane Porter +(1776-1850): _Scottish Chiefs._ John Galt (1779-1839): _The Annals of +the Parish._ James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862): _The Hunchback; The +Love Chase._ Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866): _Nightmare Abbey_. Mary +Russell Mitford (1787-1855): _Our Village_. + +Poets.--George Crabbe (1754-1832): _The Borough_. Joanna Baillie +(1762-1851): _Poems_. James Hogg (1770-1835): _Queen's Wake_. Thomas +Campbell (1777-1844): _The Pleasures of Hope_. Thomas Moore +(1779-1852): _Irish Melodies; Lalla Rookh_. Ebenezer Elliott +(1781-1849): _Corn Law Rhymes_. Bryan W. Procter (1787-1874): _English +Songs_. John Keble (1792-1866) _The Christian Year_. Felicia Hemans +(1793-1835): _Songs of the Affections_. Thomas Hood (1799-1845): _The +Song of the Shirt; The Bridge of Sighs_. Winthrop Praed (1802-1839): +_The Season; The Letter of Advice_. Thomas Beddoes (1803-1849): +_Lyrics from Death's Jest Book and from The Bride's Tragedy_. + +1837-1900: + +Philosophers and Scientists.--Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856) +_Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic_. Michael Faraday (1791-1867): +_Experimental Researches_. Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875): _Principles +of Geology; Antiquity of Man_. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873): _System +of Logic; Utilitarianism_. George Henry Lewes (1817-1878): _A +Biographical History of Philosophy; Problems of Life and Mind_. Sir +Henry Maine (1822-1888): _Ancient Law; Village Communities_. + +Historians.--Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868): _History of Latin +Christianity down to the Death of Pope Nicholas V_. George Grote +(1794-1871): _History of Greece. James Anthony Froude (1818-1894): +_History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the +Spanish Armada_. Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862): _History of +Civilization_. Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-1892): _The History of +the Norman Conquest_. William Stubbs (1825-1901): _The Constitutional +History of England in its Origin and Development_. Samuel Rawson +Gardiner (1829-1902): _History of England from the Accession of James +I. to the Outbreak of Civil War, 1603-1642; History of the Great Civil +War, 1642-1649; History of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, +1649-1660. Justin M'Carthy (1830-1912): _A History of Our Own Times_. +John Richard Green (1837-1883): _A Short History of the English +People_. William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838-1903): _History of +England in the Eighteenth Century_. James Bryce (1838- ): _The Holy +Roman Empire; The American Commonwealth_. Rt. Rev. Abbot Gasquet, +D.D., O.S.B. (1846- ): _Henry VIII and the English Monasteries; The +Greater Abbeys of England_. Wilfrid Ward (1856- ): _Aubrey de Vere; +Life and Times of Cardinal Newman_. + +Essayists and Critics.--George Barrow (1803-1881): _The Bible in +Spain; Lavengro_. Walter Bagehot (1826-1877): _Literary Studies; The +English Constitution_. Leslie Stephen (1832-1904): _Hours in a +Library; History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century_. John +Morley (1838- ): _Studies in Literature; Edmund Burke; Life of +Gladstone_. John Addington Symonds (1840-1893): _The History of the +Renaissance in Italy_. Austin Dobson (1840- ): _Eighteenth Century +Vignettes; Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Oliver Goldsmith;_ also +_Collected Poems_. Edward Dowden (1843-1913): _Shakespeare, His Mind +and Art; Life of Shelley; Studies in Literature, 1789-1877_. Andrew +Lang (1844-1912): _Letters to Dead Authors; Essays in Little; The +Iliad in English Prose_ (assisted by Leaf and Myers); also _Ballads +and Lyrics of old France_. Augustine Birrell (1850- ): _Obiter Dicta; +Men, Women, and Books; In the Name of the Bodleian_ A. C. Bradley +(1851- ): _Shakespearean Tragedy; Oxford Lectures on Poetry_ Alice +Meynell (1855- ): _The Rhythm of Life; The Spirit of Place;_ also +_Collected Poems_. William Archer (1856- ): _Poets of the Younger +Generation; Masks or Faces: A Study in the Psychology of Acting_. John +W. Mackail (1859- ): _The Springs of Helicon; Life of William Norris_. + +Novelists.--Wilkie Collins (1824-1899): _The Moonstone_. Dinah Maria +Craik (1826-1877): _John Halifax, Gentleman_. Charles L. Dodgson +(Lewis Carroll 1832-1898): _Alice in Wonderland; Through the Looking +Glass_. Joseph H. Shorthouse (1834-1903): _John Inglesant_. Walter +Besant (1836-1901): _All Sorts and Conditions of Men_. William Black +(1841-1898): _A Daughter of Heth_. Canon W. Barry, D.D. (1849- ): _The +Two Standards_. Mrs. Humphry Ward (1851- ): _Marcella_. Canon P.A. +Sheehan, D.D. (1852- ): _My New Curate; The Queen's Fillet_. Hall +Caine (1853- ): _The Manxman_. Rider Haggard (1856- ): _King Solomon's +Mines_. George Gissing (1857-1903): _New Grub Street; The Private +Papers of Henry Ryecroft_. John Ascough (Rt. Rev. Mgr. +Bicherstaffe-Drew, 1858- ): _Marotz_. Kenneth Grahame (1859- ): _The +Golden Age; Dream Days_. A. Conan Doyle (1859- ): _The White Company; +Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_. R.H. Benson (1871- ): _By What +Authority; The Queen's Tragedy_. Mrs. Wilfrid Ward: _Great +Possessions_. + +Poets.--Richard H. Barham (1788-1845): _Ingoldsby Legends_. James C. +Mangan (1803-1849): _Selected Poems_. Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883): +_Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_ (translation). Aubrey de Vere (1814-1902): +_Irish Odes_. Coventry Patmore (1823-1896): _The Angel in the House; +Amelia_. Sidney Dobell (1824-1874): _The Roman; Balder_. Adelaide Anne +Procter (1825-1864): _Legends and Lyrics_. Jean Ingelow (1830-1897): +_Poems_. Edwin Arnold (1832-1904): _The Light of Asia_. Lewis Morris +(1833-1907): _Epic of Hades_. James Thompson (1834-1882): _The City of +Dreadful Night_. J.B.L. Warren (Lord de Tabley, 1835-1895): _Poems: +Dramatic and Lyrical_. Alfred Austin (1835-1913, appointed +poet-laureate in 1896): _English Lyrics_, edited by William Watson. +Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832- ): _The Coming of Love_. Philip Bourke +Marston (1850-1887): _Song-Tide and Other Poems; Wind Voices_. Oscar +Wilde (1854-1900): _Ave Imperatrix; The Ballad of Reading Gaol; De +Profundis_ (prose). + +1900- + +Essayists.--Vernon Lee (Violet Paget, 1857- ): _The Enchanted Woods +and Other Essays; The Sentimental Traveler_. Lawrence Pearsall Jacks +(1860- ): _Mad Shepherds, and Other Human Studies_. Arthur Symons +(1865- ): _William Blake; The Romantic Movement in English Poetry_. +Edward Verrall Lucas (1868- ): _Life of Charles Lamb; Old Lamps for +New_; also the stories _Over Bemerton's_ and _Mr. Ingleside_. Hilaire +Belloc (1870- ): _On Everything_. + +Novelists.--Justin Huntley M'Carthy (1860- ): _The Proud Prince; If +I Were King_. W.W. Jacobs (1863- ): _Many Cargoes; Ship's Company_. +Anthony Hope Hawkins (Anthony Hope, 1863- ): _The Prisoner of Zenda; +Rupert of Hentzau_. Marie Corelli (1864- ): _Thelma; Ardath_. Robert +S. Hichens (1864- ): _The Garden of Allah_. G.W. Birmingham (rev. J.O. +Hannay, 1865- ): _Spanish Gold_. Seumas Macmanus (1870- ): _The +Chimney Corner; Donegal Fairy Stories_. J.C. Snaith (1876- ): +_Araminta; Broke of Covenden_. May Sinclair: _The Divine Fire_. + +Poets.--A.E. Housman (1859- ): _A Shropshire Lad_. Katherine Tynan +Hinkson (1861- ): _Collected Poems; New Poems_ (1911). Arthur +Christopher Benson (1862- ): _Collected Poems; Paul The Minstrel_. +Henry Newbolt (1862- ): _Admirals All_. Herbert Trench (1865- ): +_Deirdre Wedded and Nineteen Other Poems; Collected Poems_. Ethna +Carberry (1866-1902): _The Passing of the Gael_. Richard Le Gallienne +(1866- ): _Robert Louis Stevenson and Other Poems; Attitudes and +Avowals_ (essays); _The End of the Rainbow_ (stories). Lionel Johnson +(1867-1902): _Poems_. Lawrence Binyon (1869- ): _London Visions; +Atilla_ (poetic drama). Nora Hopper Chesson (1871-1906): _Under +Quicken Boughs_. Dora Sigerson Shorter (1873- ): _Collected Poems_. +John Drinkwater (1882- ): _Poems of Love and Death; King Cophetua_. +Richard Middleton. (1882-1911): _Poems and Songs_. Lascelles +Abercrombie: _Interludes_. James Stephens: _Hill of Vision; Crock of +Gold_ (prose fiction). T. Sturge Moore: _Aphrodite against Artemis; +Poems_. + +Celtic Dramatists.--George Moore (1853- ): _The Bending of the +Bough_. Edward Martyn (1859- ): _The Heather Field_. William Boyle: +_The Building Fund_. Padric Colum: _Thomas Muskerry; the Fiddler's +House_. Lennox Robinson: _Patriots_. Rutherford Mayne: _The Turn of +the Road_. H. Granville Barker (English dramatist, 1877- ): _The +Voysey Inheritance_. + +INDEX + +Abercrombie, Lascelles + +_Absalom and Achitophel_ + +_Abt Vogler_ + +Actors, in early plays + in Elizabethan theater + +_Adam Bede_ + +Addison, Joseph, collaborates with Steele + incidental reference to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Admirable Crichton, The_ + +_Adonais_ + +_Advancement of Learning_ + +_Adventures of Harry Richmond_ + +AElfric + +_Aids to Reflection_ + +Akenside, Mark + +_Alastor_ + +_Alchemist, The_ + +_Alexander's Feast_ + +Alfred, King + +_Alice-for-Short_ + +_All for Love_ + +_Alysoun_ + +_Amazing Marriage, The_ + +_Amazone, The_ + +_Amelia_ + +_American Taxation, Speech on_ + +Amorists + +_Ancient Mariner_ + +_Ancren Riwle_ + +_Andrea del Sarto_ + +_Andreas_ + +Anglo-Norman period and Chaucer's Age + characteristics of Normans + history + language + metrical romances + poets + prose writers + references on + suggested readings and question + summary + +_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ + +Anglo-Saxon language + +Anglo-Saxon period + history + home, migrations and religion of Anglo-Saxons + language + mission of English literature + poetry + prose + references on + subject matter and aim + suggested readings and questions + summary + +Anglo-Saxons, earliest literature of + +_Annus Mirabilis_ + +_Antiquary, The_ + +_Apologia, Newman's_ + +_Apologie for Poetrie_ + +Arbuthnot, John + +_Arcadia_ + +Archer, William + +_Areopagitica_ + +Arnold, Edwin + +Arnold, Matthew + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + poetical works + prose works + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + +Arnold, Thomas + +Arthur, King + +Ascham, Roger + +_Astraea Redux_ + +_As You Like It_ + +_Atalanta in Calydon_ + +Atterbury, Francis + +_Aurengzebe_ + +Austen, Jane, incidental references to + life and works of + references on + suggested readings in + +Austin, Alfred + +_Autobiography_, Franklin's + +Ayseough, John + +Bacon, Francis, incidental references to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Bacon, Roger + +Bagehot, Walter + +Baillie, Joanna + +_Balder Dead_ + +Bale, John + +_Ballad of Agincourt_ + +Ballads, English + in fifteenth century + +_Barchester Towers_ + +Barclay, Alexander + +Barham, Richard H. + +Barker, H. Granville + +_Barnaby Rudge_ + +_Barrack Room Ballads_ + +Barrie, incidental references to + suggested readings in + +Barrow, Isaac + +_Battle of Brunänburh_ + +_Battle of the Books_ + +Baxter, Richard + +Beattie, James + +Beaumont, Frances + +_Becket_ + +Becket, Thomas ą + +Beckford, William + +Beddoes, Thomas + +Bede, _Ecclesiastical History_ + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Behn, Mrs. Aphra + +Belloc, Hilaire + +Bennett, Arnold + suggested readings in + +Benson, Arthur Christopher + suggested readings in + +Benson, R.H. + +Bentham, Jeremy + +Bentley, Richard + +_Beowulf_ + suggested readings in + +Berkeley, George + +Besant, Walter + +_Bible_, King James version + Tyndale's translation of + Wycliffe's translation of + +Bickerstaff, Isaac + +Bickerstaffe-Drew, Rt. Rev. Mgr. + +Binyon, Lawrence + +_Biographia Literaria_ + +Birmingham, G.W. (Hanney, Rev. J.O.) + +Birrell, Augustine + +Black, William + +Blackmore, Richard D. + suggested readings in + +_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_ + +Blake, William + references on + suggested readings in + +Blank verse + in eighteenth century + introduction into England + Shakespeare's and Marlowe's use of + +_Bleak House_ + +_Blessed Damozel, The_ + +_Blot in the 'Scutcheon_ + +Bolingbroke, Lord + +_Bonduca_ + +_Book of Martyrs_ + +Borrow, George + +Boswell, James + +Boy actors + +Boyle, William + +Bradley, Andrew + +Brandes, Georg, quoted + +Bret Harte + +_Bride of Lammermoor_ + +Bridges, Robert + suggested readings in + +Brontė, Charlotte + references for + suggested readings in + +Brontė, Emily + +Brooke, Stopford, quoted + +Brown, Charles Brockden + +Browne, Sir Thomas + +Browne, William + +Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, life of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + +Browning, Robert + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + optimistic philosophy of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Brut_ + Layamon's + Wace's + +Bryce, James + +Buckle, Henry Thomas + +Bulwer Lytton + suggested readings in + +Bunyan + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + references for + suggested readings in + works of + +Burke, Edmund + references for + suggested readings in + +Burnet, Gilbert + +Burney, Fanny + +Burns, Robert + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + love songs of + poetic creed of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Burton, Robert + +Butler, Bishop + +Butler, Samuel + +Byron, Lord + compared with Shakespeare + dramas of + general characteristics + incidental references to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Caedmon + compared with Milton + +Caedmonian Cycle + +_Cain_ + +Caine, hall + +_Caliban upon Setebos_ + +Camden, William + +Campbell, Thomas + +_Canterbury Tales_ + +Carberry, Ethna + +Carew, Thomas + suggested readings in + +Carlyle, Thomas + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + quoted + references on + Sartor Resartus + suggested readings in + works of + +Carols of fifteenth century + +Carroll, Lewis + +_Castle of Indolence_ + +_Castle of Otranto_ + +Cathedrals, Gothic + +_Cato_ + +Cavalier poets + +Caxton, William + +Celtic dramatists + +Celtic imagery + +Celtic Renaissance + +_Cenci_, _The_ + +Cčrvantes + +Chapel Royal + +Chapman, George + +_Charge of the Light Brigade_ + +Chatterton, Thomas + suggested readings in + +Chaucer, Geoffrey + _Canterbury Tales_ + compared with Spenser + earlier poems of + incidental references to + influence on English language + life of + qualitites of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + +Chaucer's age. _See_ Anglo-Norman period + +Chesson, Nora Hopper + +Chester plays + +Chesterton, Gilbert K. + references on + suggested readings in + +_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_ + +_Child's Garden of Verse, A_ + +_Christ_, Cynewulf's + +_Christabel_ + +_Christmas Carol, A_ + +_Chronicle, The_, Stow's + +_Chronicles of England, Ireland and Scotland_ + +Cibber, Colley + +_Citizen of the World_ + +Clarendon, Lord + +_Clarissa Harlowe_ + +Classical couplet + +Classic school + +Clive, Robert + +_Cloister and the Hearth_ + +_Cloud, The_ + +Clough, Arthur Hugh + suggested readings in + +Cobbett, William + +Coleridge, Samuel Taylor + association with Wordsworth + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + poetry of + prose of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + +Collier, Jeremy + +Collins, Wilkie + suggested readings in + +Collins, William + +_Colloquium_ + +_Colombe's Birthday_ + +Colum, Padric + +Comedies, early + +_Comedy of Errors, The_ + +_Complete Angler_ + +_Comus_ + +_Conciliation with America_, Burke's speech on + +_Conduct of the Understanding_ + +_Confessio Amantis_ + +_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_ + +Congreve, William + +Conrad, Joseph + references on + suggested 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(Lewis Carroll) + +_Dombey and Son_ + +_Don Juan_ + +Donne, John + opposes sonnet + suggested readings in + +_Don Quixote_ + +_Double Dealer, The_ + +Douglas, Gawain + +_Dover Beach_ + +Dowden, Edward + quoted + +Doyle, A. Conan + +Dr. Faustus + +_Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ + +_Drake: An English Epic_ + +Drama, English + and the unities + actors in early + Beaumont and Fletcher in + comedies, early + court plays + decline of + during Restoration + early religious + end of Elizabethan + interlude + Irish + Marlowe, founder of English + miracle and mystery plays + modern + morality plays + suggested readings in + _See also_ Elizabethan Age, Jonson, Marlowe, Shakespeare, etc. + +_Dramatic Lyrics_, Browning's + +_Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_, Browning's + +Dramatic unities + +_Dramatis Personae_ + +_Drapier's Letters_ + +Drayton, Michael + suggested readings in + +_Dream Children_ + +_Dream of Fair Women, A_ + +_Dream of Gerontius_ + +Drinkwater, John + +Drummond, William + +Dryden, John + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + prose of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + Spenser's influence on + works of + +_Duchess of Malfi, The_ + +Dunbar, William + +_Dunciad_ + +Dyer, Edward + +Dyer, John + +_Earthly Paradise_ + +Edgeworth, Maria + +_Edinburgh Review_ + +_Edward II_ + +_Egoist, The_ + +Eighteenth century, early literature. _See_ Restoration period, etc. + +Eighteenth century, later literature + history + literary characteristics + novelists + poets + prose writers + references on + romanticism + suggested readings and questions + summary + +_Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard_ + +_Elene_ + +Eliot, George + general characteristics + incidental references to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Elizabeth, Queen + +Elizabethan age + history + Jonson + life of + Marlowe + minor dramatists + miracle and mystery plays + morality plays + poetry (non-dramatic) + presentation of Elizabethan plays + prose writers + references on + Shakespeare + suggested readings in + summary + +Elliott, Ebenezer + +_Emma_ + +_Endymion_ + +England, origin of name of + +_English humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ + +English language, Chaucer's influence on + emergence of modern + +English literature + mission of + subject matter and aim of + +_Epigrams_, Watson's + +_Epipsychidion_ + +_Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_ + +_Epithalamion_ + +_Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ + +_Essay on Criticism_ + +_Essay on Man_ + +Essays + Addison's + Arnold's + Bacon's + Benson's + Carlyle's + Chesterton's + De Quincey's + Goldsmith's + Johnson's + Lamb's + Macaulay's + Newman's + Pater's + Pope's + Stevenson's + Swinburne's + Thackeray's + +_Essays in Criticism_ + +_Essays of Elia_ + +Etherege, George + +Ethical purposes, in literature. _See_ Moral ideals + +_Euphues_ + +Euphuism + +_Evan Harrington_ + +_Eve of St. Agnes_ + +Evelyn, John + +_Every Man in His Humor_ + +_Excursion_ + +_Exeter Book_ + +_Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_ + +_Fables, Ancient and modern_ + +_Faerie Queene_ + +_Faithful Shepherdess_ + +_Familiar Studies of Men and Books_ + +_Far From the Madding Crowd_ + +_Far Traveler, The_ + +Faraday, Michael + +Farquhar, George + +_Faustus, Dr._ + +Fergusson, Robert + +Field, Eugene + +Fielding, Henry + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Fight at Finnsburg_ + +Fiona Macleod. _See_ Sharp, William + +Fitzgerald, Edward + +_Fleet Street Eclogues_ + +Fletcher, Giles + +Fletcher, John + +Fletcher, Phineas + +_Flower of Old Japan_ + +Ford + +_Forest of Wild Thyme_ + +_Fors Clavigera_ + +Fortescue, Sir John + +_Fortunes of Men_ + +_Four Georges_ + +_Four P's_ + +Fox, Charles James + +Foxe, John + +_Fragments of Science_ + +Francis, Sir Philip + +_Frankenstein_ + +Franklin, Benjamin + +Freeman, Edward Augustus + quoted + +French element in English + +French Revolution, influence on literature + +_French Revolution_ (Carlyle's) + +Fronde, James Anthony + +Fuller, Thomas + +_Funeral Elegy_ + +Galsworthy, John + suggested readings in + +Galt, John + +_Gammer Gurton's Needle_ + +_Gaol Gate_ + +Gardiner, Samuel Rawson + +_Gardiner's Daughter, The_ + +Garrick, David + +Gascoigne, George + +Gaskell, Elizabeth C. + suggested readings in + +Gasquet, Rt. Rev. Abbot + +_Gates of Dreamland_ + +_Gawayne and the Green Knight_ + +Gay, John + +General reference list for English literature + +_Gentle Craft_ + +Geoffrey of Monmouth + +Gibbon, Edward + quoted + suggested readings in + +Gibson, Wilfrid + suggested readings in + +Gissing, George + +Gladstone, William E. + +Gleeman + songs of + +Globe Theater + +Godwin, William + +Goldsmith, Oliver + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Good-Natured Man, The_ + +_Gorboduc_ + +Gosse. 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+ +Ingelow, Jean + +_Inland Voyage_ + +Interlude + +Invention, age of + +Irish drama + +Irish National Theater + +_Isabella_ + +_Ivanhoe_ + +_Jack of Newberry_ + +Jacks, Lawrence Pearsall + +Jacobs, W.W. + +James I of Scotland + +_Jane Eyre_ + +Jeffrey, Francis + +_Jew of Malta_ + +_John Gilpin_ + +Johnson, Lionel + +Johnson Samuel + Boswell's life of + converser and literary lawgiver + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Jonathan Wild the Great_ + +Jones, Henry Arthur + suggested readings in + +Jonson, Ben + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + opposes sonnet + plays of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + +_Joseph Andrews_ + +_Joseph Vance_ + +_Journal of the Plague Year_ + +_Journal to Stella_ + +_Jude the Obscure_ + +_Judith_ + +_Juliana_ + +_Julius Caesar_ + +_Jungle Books_ + +Jury system, development of + +_Just So Stories_ + +Kant + +Keats, John + general characteristics + incidental references to + life of + poems of + references on + suggested readings in + +Keble, John + +Kenilworth + +_Kidnapped_ + +_Kim_ + +_King Lear_ + +_King of the Golden River, The_ + +_King's Quair, The_ + +Kingsley, Charles + suggested readings in + +Kipling, Rudyard + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + Nobel prize awarded to + prose of + references on + suggested readings in + verse of + +_Knighte's Tale, Chaucer's_ + +Knoblauch, Edward + +Knowles, James Sheridan + +Knox, John + +_Kubla Khan_ + +Kyd, Thomas + +_Lady of the Lake_ + +Lake Poets + +_L'Allegro_ + +Lamb, Charles + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + +_Lamia_ + +Landor, Walter Savage + suggested readings in + +Lang, Andrew + +Längland, William + references on + suggested readings in + +Language, new English + +Languages, after Norman Conquest + +_Last Days of Pompeii_ + +Latimer, Hugh + +Layamon + suggested readings in + +_Lay of the Last Minstrel_ + +_Lay Sermons_, Huxley's + +_Lays of Ancient Rome_ + +Lecky, William Edward Hartpole + +_Lectures on Art_ + +_Lectures on Shakespeare_ + +Lee, Vernon (Violet Paget) + +Le Gallienne, Richard + +_Legende of Good Women_ + +_Leviathan_ + +Lewes, George Henry + +_Life and Death of Mr. Badman_ + +_Life of Johnson_ + Boswell's + Macaulay's + +_Life of Nelson_ + +_Light that Failed, The_ + +Lindsay, Sir David + +Lingard, John + +Literary Club + +Literary England + literary itinerary + references on + +Literature + change in subject-matter after Restoration + childhood introduced into + definitions of + influence of spirit of reform on + Pre-Raphaelite movement + Reformation influences + +_Little Minister_ + +_Little White Bird_ + +_Lives of the English Poets_ + +_Lives of the Saints_ + +Locke, John + references on + +Locke, William John + suggested readings in + +Lockhart, John Gibson + +_Locksley Hall_ + +_Locksley Hall Sixty Years After_ + +Lodge, Thomas + suggested readings in + +_London_ + +_Lord Ormont and His Aminta_ + +_Lorna Doone_ + +Lounsbury, T.R., quoted + +Love lyrics + +Lovelace, Richard + +_Love's Labor's Lost_ + +Lowell, James Russell, quoted + +Lucas, Edward Verrall + +_Lucrece_ + +Luther, Martin + +_Lycidas_ + +Lydgate, john + +Lyell, Sir Charles + +Lyly, John + references on + suggested readings in + +_Lyrical Ballads_, Coleridge's + Wordsworth's + +Lyrical verse in Elizabethan age + +Lytton, Edward Bulwer + +Macaulay, Thomas Babington + general characteristics of + _History of England_ + incidental references to + life of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Macbeth_ + +M'Carthy, Justin Huntley + +_Mac Flecknoe_ + +Mackail, John w. + +Macleod, Fiona. _See_ Sharp, William + +Macmanus, Seumas + +Macpherson, James + +Magna Charta + +_Maid's Tragedy_ + +Maine, Sir Henry + +Malory, Sir Thomas + +Malthus, Thomas Robert + +Malthusian theorem + +Mandeville, Sir John + +_Manfred_ + +Mangan, James C. + +_Mansfield Park_ + 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characteristics of poetry + compared with Shakespeare + incidental references to + influence of _Paradise Lost_ + life of + Macaulay's essay on + _Paradise Lost_ + quoted + references on + Spenser's influence on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ + +Miracle plays + suggested readings in + +Mitford, Mary Russell + +_Modern Painters_ + +_Modest Proposal_ + +Moličre + +_Moll Flanders_ + +Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley + +Moore, George + +Moore, Thomas + +Moore, T. Sturge + +Moral ideals, Addison's + Browning's + Carlyle's + Dickens's + George Eliot's + in Beowulf + Meredith's + Milton's + of Alfred the Great + of Puritan age + Richardson's + Ruskin's + Shakespeare's + Swinburne's + under minor dramatists + +Moralitites, suggested readings for + +Morality play + +More, Sir Thomas + suggested readings in + +Morley, Henry, quoted + +Morley, John + +Morris, Lewis + +Morris, William + references on + suggested readings in + +_Morte d'Arthur_ + +_Mourning Bride_ + +_Much Ado About Nothing_ + +_Mysteries of Udolpho_ + +Mystery plays + +Napier, Sir William + +Nashe, Thomas + suggested readings in + +Nature + as depicted in Scottish poetry + Burns's, treatment of + Byron's, poetry of + Chaucer's love of + Coleridge's treatment of + Cowper's poems of + Dunbar a student of + Gray's poetry of + growth of appreciation of + Keats's treatment of + poetry of + Ruskin's love of + Scott's treatment of + Shakespeare's treatment of + Shelley's treatment of + Tennyson's poetry of + Thomason's poetry of + Walton's love of + Wordsworth's poetry of + +_Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation_ + +_Necessity of Atheism_ + +_New Atlantis_ + +_New Year's Eve_ + +Newbolt, Henry + +_Newcomes, The_ + +Newman, Cardinal John Henry + general characteristics of + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +"News books" + +"News letters" + +Newspapers + +_Nicholas Nickleby_ + +Nietzsche, Friedrich + +_Nightingale, To a_ + +_Noble Numbers_ + +Norman conquest + +North, Sir Thomas + +_Northanger Abbey_ + +Novel, development of + development of modern + in eighteenth century + in sixteenth century + in twentieth century + in Victorian age + (_See_ also Scott, Dickens, Eliot, Thackeray, etc.) + picaresque + suggested readings for + +_Novum Organum_ + +Noyes, Alfred + suggested readings in + +_Nut-Brown maid, The_ + +Oberämmergau _Passion Play_ + +Occleve, Thomas + +_Ode on a Grecian Urn_ + +_Ode on the Passions_ + +_Ode to 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+_Seasons, The_ + +_Second Mrs. Tanqueray, The_ + +Selden, John + +_Sense and Sensibility_ + +_Sentimental Journey through France and Italy_ + +_Sentimental Tommy_ + +_Sesame and Lilies_ + +_Seven Lamps of Architecture_ + +Shadwell, Thomas + +Shakespeare, William + amount and classification of work + connection with London stage + development as dramatist + general characteristics of + incidental references to + influence of Bible on + life of + publication of plays + quoted + references on + sonnets + sources of plots + suggested readings in + table of plays + variety of style + +Sharp, William (Fiona Macleod) + references on + suggested readings in + +Shaw, George Bernard + references on + suggested readings in + +_She Stoops to Conquer_ + +Sheehan, Canon, P.A. + +Shelley, Mrs. + +Shelley, Percy Bysshe + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + lyrical genius + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Shepherd's Calendar_ + +Sheridan, Richard Brinsley + +Shirley, James + +_Shoemaker's Holiday_ + +_Short View of the Immorality of the Stage_ + +Shorter, Dora Sigerson + +Shorthouse, Joseph H. + +Sidney, Sir Philip + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Sigurd, the Volsung_ + +_Silas Marner_ + +_Silent Woman, The_ + +Sinclair, May + +_Sir Charles Grandison_ + +_Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_ + +Skeltin, John + +_Skylark, To a_ + +Smith, Adam + +Smith, Sydney + +Smollett, Tobias + references on + +Smollett, suggested readings in + +Snaith, J.C. + +Social movement of nineteenth century + +_Sohrab and Rustum_ + +_Somehow Good_ + +_Song of Roland_ + +_Songs before Sunrise_ + +_Songs of Experience_ + +_Songs of Innocence_ + +Sonnets + in Elizabethan Age + introduction of + Jonson and Donne oppose + Keats's + Milton's + Shakespeare's + Sidney's + Spenser's + Wordsworth's + +_Sonnets from the Portuguese_ + +_Sordello_ + +Southey, Robert + +_Spanish Gypsy, The_ + +_Spanish Tragedy, The_ + +_Specimens of English Dramatic Poets_ + +_Spectator, The_ + +Spodding, James, quoted + +_Speech on American Taxation_ (Burke's) + +_Speech on Conciliation with America_ (Burke's) + +Spencer, Herbert + +Spenser, Edmund, chief characteristics of poetry of + _Faerie Queene_ + incidental references to + life of + references on + sonnets of + subjective poet + suggested readings in + +St. Francis + +Stage, in early English theater + +_Stalky and Co._ + +Steele, Richard + suggested readings in + +Stephen, Leslie + quoted + +Stephens, James + +Sterne, Laurence + references on + suggested reading in + +Stevenson, Robert Louis + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Stevenson, William + +_Stones of Venice, The_ + +Story, short + +Stow, John + +_Strafford_ + +_Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ + +Stubbs, William + +_Study of Celtic Literature_ + +Suckling, Sir John + suggested readings in + +Suggested readings + +Summaries + +_Summer's Last Will and Testament_ + +Surrey, Earl of + sonnets of + suggested readings in + +_Survey of London_ + +Sweet, Professor, quoted + +Swift, Jonathon + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Swinburne, Algernon Charles + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Switzerland_ + +Symonds, John Addington + quoted + +Symons, Arthur + suggested readings in + +Synge, John Millington + references on + +_Synthetic Philosophy_ + +_Table Talk_ + +Taine, H.A., quoted + +_Tale of a Tub_ + +_Tale of Two Cities_ + +_Tales from Shakespeare_ + +_Tales of a Grandfather_ + +_Tales of a Mermaid Tavern_ + +_Talisman_ + +_Tam o'Shanter_ + +_Tamburlaine_ + +_Task, The_ + +_Tatler_ + +Taylor, Jeremy + +_Tempest, The_ + +Ten Brink, quoted + +Tennyson, Alfred + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Tess of the D'Urberville's_ + +Thackeray, William Makepeace + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Theater, Elizabethan + +Thompson, Frances + suggested readings in + +Thompson, James + +Thomson, James + suggested readings in + +Thoreau, quoted + +_Thyrnie_ + +_Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne_ + +_Tom Jones_ + +Tottel's _Miscellany_ + +Tourneur, Cyril + +_Traitor, The_ + +_Traveller, The_ + +_Travels_, Mandeville's + +_Travels with a Donkey_ + +_Treasure Island_ + +_Treatise of Human Nature_ + +Trelawny, Edward + +Trench, Herbert + +_Trick to Catch the Old One_ + +_Tristram and Iseule_ + +_Tristram of Lioness_ + +_Tristram Shandy_ + +_Troilus and Criseyde_ + +Trollope, Anthony + suggested readings in. + +_Twelfth Night_ + +Twentieth-century literature + dramatists + essayists + novelists + poets + references on + suggested readings and questions + summary + trend of contemporary literature + +_Two Voices, The_ + +Tyndale, William + suggested readings in + +Tyndall, John + quoted + +Udall, Nicholas + +_Ulysses_ + +_Underwoods_ + +_Unfortunate Traveler_ + +Unities, dramatic + +"University wits" + +_Unto this Last_ + +_Urn Burial_ + +_Utopia_ + +Vanbrugh, John + +_Vanity Fair_ + +_Vanity of Human Wishes_ + +Vaughan, Henry + +_Venus and Adonis_ + +_Vercelli Book_ + +_Vicar of Wakefield_ + +Vice, in old plays + +Victorian age + essayists + history of + novelists + poets + references on + scientific writers + short stories + suggested readings and questions + summary + +_Vignettes in Rhyme_ + +_Virginians_ + +_Vision of Judgement_ + +_Volpone_ + +Voltaire + +_Vox Clamantis_ + +_Vulgar Errors_ + +Wace + +Wagner, Richard + +Wallace, Professor C.W. + quoted + +Waller, Edmund + +Walpole, Horace + suggested readings in + +Walpole, Herbert + +Walton, Izaak + +_Wanderer, The_ + +Warburton, William + +Ward, Mrs. Humphry + +Ward, Mrs. Wilfrid + +Ward, Wilfrid + +Warner, William + +Warren, J.B.L. (Lord de Tabley) + +War of the Roses + +Warton, Thomas + +Watson, William + suggested readings in + +Watts, Isaac + +Waits-Dunton, Theodore + +_Waverly_ + +_Way of the World_ + +Webster, John + +_War of Hermiston_ + +Wells, Herbert George + references on + suggested readings in + +Wesley, Charles + +Wesley, John + +_Westward Ho_ + +_What Every Woman Knows_ + +_White Devil, The_ + +White, Gilbert + +Whitefield, George + +_Widecombe Fair_ + +_Widsiš_ + +Wilde, Oscar + +Wilson, John + +_Winter's Tale_ + +_Witch of Atlas_ + +Wither, George + +_Woman Killed with Kindness, A_ + +_Woodlanders, The_ + +_Woodstock_ + +Wordsworth, William + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + poet of child life + poet of man + poet of nature + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_World, The_ + +Wotton, Sir Henry, quoted + +_Wounds of Civil War_ + +Wright + +_Wuthering Heights_ + +Wyatt, Sir Thomas + suggested readings in + +Wycherley, William + +Wycliffe, John + +Yeats, William Butler + references on + suggested reading in + +York plays + +Young, Edward + +_Youth of the Year_ + +Zangwill, Israel + suggested readings in + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Halleck's New English Literature +by Reuben P. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10631-8.zip b/old/10631-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe81845 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10631-8.zip diff --git a/old/10631.txt b/old/10631.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..72436a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10631.txt @@ -0,0 +1,23679 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Halleck's New English Literature, by Reuben P. Halleck + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Halleck's New English Literature + +Author: Reuben P. Halleck + +Release Date: January 8, 2004 [EBook #10631] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HALLECK'S NEW ENGLISH LITERATURE *** + + + + +Produced by Stan Goodman, Keith M. Eckrich and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +HALLECKS'S NEW ENGLISH LITERATURE + +by REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A., LL.D. + +Author of "History of English Literature" and "History of American +Literature" + + +PREFACE + +In this _New English Literature_ the author endeavors to preserve the +qualities that have caused his former _History of English Literature_ +to be so widely used; namely, suggestiveness, clearness, organic +unity, interest, and the power to awaken thought and to stimulate the +student to further reading. + +The book furnishes a concise account of the history and growth of +English literature from the earliest times to the present day. It lays +special emphasis on literary movements, on the essential qualities +that differentiate one period from another, and on the spirit that +animates each age. Above all, the constant purpose has been to arouse +in the student an enthusiastic desire to read the works of the authors +discussed. Because of the author's belief in the guide-book function +of a history of literature, he has spent much time and thought in +preparing the unusually detailed _Suggested Readings_ that follow each +chapter. + +It was necessary for several reasons to prepare a new book. Twentieth +century research has transformed the knowledge of the Elizabethan +theater and has brought to light important new facts relating to the +drama and to Shakespeare. The new social spirit has changed the +critical viewpoint concerning authors as different as Wordsworth, +Keats, Ruskin, Dickens, and Tennyson. Wordsworth's treatment of +childhood, for instance, now requires an amount of space that would a +short time ago have seemed disproportionate. Later Victorian writers, +like Meredith, Hardy, Swinburne, and Kipling, can no longer be +accorded the usual brief perfunctory treatment. Increased modern +interest in contemporary life is also demanding some account of the +literature already produced by the twentieth century. An entire +chapter is devoted to showing how this new literature reveals the +thought and ideals of this generation. + +Other special features of this new work are the suggestions and +references for a literary trip through England, the historical +introductions to the chapters, the careful treatment of the modern +drama, the latest bibliography, and the new illustrations, some of +which have been specially drawn for this work, while others have been +taken from original paintings in the National Portrait Gallery, +London, and elsewhere. The illustrations are the result of much +individual research by the author during his travels in England. + +The greater part of this book was gradually fashioned in the +classroom, during the long period that the author has taught this +subject. Experience with his classes has proved to him the +reasonableness of the modern demand that a textbook shall be definite +and stimulating. + +The author desires to thank the large number of teachers who have +aided him by their criticism. Miss Elizabeth Howard Spaulding and Miss +Sarah E. Simons deserve special mention for valuable assistance. The +entire treatment of Rudyard Kipling is the work of Miss Mary Brown +Humphrey. The greater part of the chapter, _Twentieth-Century +Literature_, was prepared by Miss Anna Blanche McGill. Some of the +best and most difficult parts of the book were written by the author's +wife. R.P.H. + + +CONTENTS + +INTRODUCTION--LITERARY ENGLAND + +CHAPTERS: + + I. FROM 449 A.D. TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066 + + II. FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066, TO CHAUCER'S DEATH 1400 + + III. FROM CHAUCER'S DEATH 1400, TO THE ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH, 1558 + + IV. THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 1558-1603 + + V. THE PURITAN AGE, 1603-1660 + + VI. FROM THE RESTORATION, 1660, TO THE PUBLICATION OF PAMELA, 1740 + + VII. THE SECOND FORTY YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 1740-1780 + +VIII. THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM, 1780-1837 + + IX. THE VICTORIAN AGE, 1837-1900 + + X. TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE + + +SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS AND THEIR CHIEF WORKS + +INDEX + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS: + + 1. Woden. + 2. Exeter Cathedral. + 3. Anglo-Saxon Gleeman. (From the tapestry designed by H.A. Bone). + 4. Facsimile of beginning of Cotton MS. of Beowulf.(British Museum). + 5. Facsimile of Beginning of Junian MS. of Caedmon. + 6. Anglo-Saxon Musicians. (From illuminated MS., British Museum). + 7. The Beginning of Alfred's Laws. (From illuminated MS., British + Museum). + 8. The Death of Harold at Hastings. (From the Bayeux tapestry). + 9. What Mandeville Saw. (From Edition of 1725). + 10. John Wycliffe. (From an old print). + 11. Treuthe's Pilgryme atte Plow. (From a MS. in Trinity College, + Cambridge). + 12. Gower Hearing the Confession of a Lover. (From Egerton MS., + British Museum). + 13. Geoffrey Chaucer. (From an old drawing in the MS. of Occleve's + Poems, British Museum). + 14. Canterbury Cathedral. + 15. Pilgrims Leaving the Tabard Inn. (From Urry's Chaucer). + 16. Facsimile of Lines Describing the Franklyn. (From the Cambridge + University MS.). + 17. Franklyn, Friar, Knight, Prioress, Squire, Clerk of Oxford. (From + the Ellesmere MS.). + 18. Morris Dancers. (From MS. of Chaucer's Time). + 19. Henry VIII, giving Bibles to Clergy and Laity. (From frontispiece + to Coverdale Bible). + 20. Book Illustration, Early Fifteenth Century. (British Museum). + 21. Facsimile of Caxton's Advertisement of his Books. (Bodleian + Library, Oxford). + 22. Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_. (From DeWorde's Edition, 1529). + 23. Early Title Page of _Robin Hood_. (Copland Edition, 1550). + 24. William Tyndale. (From an old print). + 25. Sir Thomas Wyatt. (After Holbein). + 26. Facsimile of Queen Elizabeth's Signature. + 27. Sir Philip Sidney. (After the miniature by Isaac Oliver, Windsor + Castle). + 28. Francis Bacon. (From the painting by Van Somer, National Portrait + Gallery). + 29. Title page of _Bacon's Essays_, 1597. + 30. John Donne. (From the painting by Jansen, South Kensington + Museum). + 31. Edmund Spenser. (From a painting in Dublin Castle). + 32. Miracle Play at Coventry. (From an old print). + 33. Hell Mouth in the Old Miracle Play. From a Columbia University + Model. + 34. Fool's Head. + 35. Air-Bag Flapper and Lath Dagger. + 36. Fool of the Old Play. + 37. Thomas Sackville. + 38. Theater in Inn Yard. (From Columbia University model). + 39. Reconstructed Globe Theater, Earl's Court, London. + 40. The Bankside and its Theaters. (From the Hollar engraving, about + 1620). + 41. Contemporary Drawing of Interior of an Elizabethan Theater. + 42. Marlowe's Memorial Statue at Canterbury. + 43. William Shakespeare. (From the Chandos portrait, National + Portrait Gallery). + 44. Shakespeare's Birthplace. Stratford-on-Avon. + 45. Classroom in Stratford Grammar School. + 46. Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Shottery. + 47. View of Stratford-on-Avon. + 48. Inscription over Shakespeare's Tomb. + 49. Shakespeare--The D'Avenant Bust. (Discovered in 1845). + 50. Henry Irving as Hamlet. + 51. Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (From the painting by Sargent). + 52. Falstaff and his Page. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott). + 53. Ben Jonson. (From the portrait by Honthorst, National Portrait + Gallery). + 54. Ben Jonson's Tomb in Westminster Abbey. + 55. Francis Beaumont. + 56. John Fletcher. + 57. Cromwell Dictating Dispatches to Milton. (From the painting by + Ford Maddox Brown). + 58. Thomas Fuller. + 59. Izaak Walton. + 60. Jeremy Taylor. + 61. John Bunyan. (From the painting by Sadler, National Portrait + Gallery). + 62. Bedford Bridge, Showing Gates and Jail. (From an old print). + 63. Bunyan's Dream. (From Fourth Edition _Pilgrim's Progress_, 1680). + 64. Woodcut from the First Edition of Mr. Badman. + 65. Robert Herrick. + 66. John Milton. (After a drawing by W. Faithorne, at Bayfordbury). + 67. John Milton, AEt. 10. + 68. Milton's Visit to Galileo in 1638. (From the painting by T. + Lessi). + 69. Facsimile of Milton's Signature. 1663. + 70. Title Page to _Comus_, 1637. + 71. Milton's Motto from _Comus_, with Autograph, 1639. + 72. Milton Dictating _Paradise Lost_ to his Daughter. (From the + painting by Munkacsy). + 73. Samuel Butler. + 74. John Dryden. (From the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller, National + Portrait Gallery). + 75. Birthplace of Dryden. (From a print). + 76. Daniel Defoe. (From a print by Vandergucht). + 77. Jonathan Swift. (From the painting by C. Jervas, National + Portrait Gallery). + 78. Moor Park. (From a drawing). + 79. Swift and Stella. (From the painting by Dicksee). + 80. Joseph Addison. (From the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller, + National Portrait Gallery.) + 81. Birthplace of Addison. + 82. Richard Steele. + 83. Sir Roger de Coverley in Church. (From a drawing by B. + Westmacott). + 84. Alexander Pope. (From the portrait by William Hoare). + 85. Pope's Villa at Twickenham. (From an old print). + 86. Rape of the Lock. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott). + 87. Alexander Pope. (From a contemporary portrait). + 88. Horace Walpole. + 89. Thomas Gray. + 90. Stoke Poges Churchyard. + 91. A Blind Beggar Robbed of his Drink. (From a British Museum MS.) + 92. Samuel Richardson. (From an original drawing). + 93. Henry Fielding. (From the drawing by Hogarth). + 94. Laurence Sterne. + 95. Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott). + 96. Tobias Smollett. + 97. Edward Gibbon. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds). + 98. Edmund Burke. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, National + Portrait Gallery). + 99. Oliver Goldsmith. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, + National Portrait Gallery). +100. Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott). +101. Goldsmith's Lodgings, Canonbury Tower, London. +102. Dr. Primrose and his Family. (From a drawing by G. Patrick + Nelson). +103. Samuel Johnson. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds). +104. Samuel Johnson's Birthplace. (From an old print). +105. James Boswell. +106. Cheshire Cheese Inn To-day. +107. Robert Southey. +108. Charles Lamb. (From a drawing by Maclise). +109. Bo-Bo and Roast Pig. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott). +110. William Cowper. (From the portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence). +111. Cowper's cottage at Weston. +112. John Gilpin's Ride. (From a drawing by R. Caldecott). +113. Robert Burns. (From the painting by Nasmyth National Portrait + Gallery). +114. Birthplace of Burns. +115. Burns and Highland Mary. (From the painting by James Archer). +116. Sir Walter Scott. (From the painting by William Nicholson). +117. Abbotsford, Home of Sir Walter Scott. +118. Scott's Grave in Dryburgh Abbey. +119. Loch Katrine and Ellen's Isle. +120. Walter Scott. (From a life sketch by Maclise). +121. Scott's Desk and "Elbow Chair" at Abbotsford. +122. Jane Austen. (From an original family portrait). +123. Jane Austen's Desk. +124. William Wordsworth. (From the portrait by B.R. Haydon). +125. Boy of Winander. (From the painting by H.O. Walker, Congressional + Library). +126. Wordsworth's Home at Grasmere--Dove Cottage. +127. Grasmere Lake. +128. William Wordsworth. (From a sketch in _Fraser's Magazine_). +129. Rydal Mount near Ambleside. +130. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (From a pencil sketch by C.R. Leslie). +131. Coleridge's Cottage at Nether-Stowey. +132. Coleridge as a Young Man. (From a sketch made in Germany). +133. Lord Byron. (From a portrait by Kramer). +134. Byron at Seventeen. (From a painting). +135. Newstead Abbey, Byron's Home. +136. Castle of Chillon. +137. Byron's Home at Pisa. +138. Percy Bysshe Shelley. (From the portrait by Amelia Curran, + National Portrait Gallery). +139. Shelley's Birthplace, Field Place. +140. Grave of Shelley, Protestant Cemetery, Rome. +141. Facsimile of Stanza from _To a Skylark_. +142. John Keats. (From the painting by Hilton, National Portrait + Gallery). +143. Keats's Home, Wentworth Place. +144. Grave of Keats, Rome. +145. Facsimile of Original MS. of _Endymion_. +146. Endymion. (From the painting by H.O. Walker, Congressional + Library). +147. Thomas de Quincy. (From the painting by Sir J.W. Gordon, National + Portrait Gallery). +148. Room in Dove Cottage. +149. Charles Darwin. +150. John Tyndall. +151. Thomas Huxley. (From the painting by John Collier, National + Portrait Gallery). +152. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (From the drawing by himself, National + Portrait Gallery). +153. Thomas Babington Macaulay. (From the painting by Sir. F. Grant, + National Portrait Gallery). +154. Cardinal Newman. (From the painting by Emmeline Deane). +155. Thomas Carlyle. (From the painting by James McNeill Whistler). +156. Craigenputtock. +157. Mrs. Carlyle. (From a miniature portrait). +158. John Ruskin. (From a photograph). +159. Charles Dickens. (From a photograph taken in America, 1868). +160. Dicken's Home, Gads Hill. +161. Facsimile of MS. of _A Christmas Carol_. +162. William Makepeace Thackeray. (From the painting by Samuel + Laurence, National Portrait Gallery). +163. Caricature of Thackeray by Himself. +164. Thackeray's Home where _Vanity Fair_ was Written. +165. George Eliot. (From a drawing by Sir F.W. Burton, National + Portrait Gallery). +166. George Eliot's Birthplace. +167. Robert Louis Stevenson. (From a photograph). +168. Stevenson as a Boy. +169. Edinburgh Memorial of Robert Louis Stevenson. (By St. Gaudens). +170. George Meredith. (From the painting by G.F. Watts, National + Portrait Gallery). +171. Thomas Hardy. (From the painting by Winifred Thompson). +172. Max Gate. (The Home of Hardy). +173. Matthew Arnold. (From the painting by G.F. Watts, National + Portrait Gallery). +174. Robert Browning. (From the painting by G.F. Watts, National + Portrait Gallery). +175. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (From the painting by Field Talfourd, + National Portrait Gallery). +176. Facsimile of MS. from _Pippa Passes_. +177. Alfred Tennyson. (From a photograph by Mayall). +178. Farringford. +179. Facsimile of MS. of _Crossing the Bar_. +180. Algernon Charles Swinburne. (From the painting by Dante Gabriel + Rossetti). +181. Rudyard Kipling. (From the painting by John Collier). +182. Mowgli and his Brothers. (From _The Jungle Book_). +183. The Cat That Walked. (From Kipling's drawing for _Just-So + Stories_). +184. Joseph Conrad. +185. Arnold Bennett. +186. John Galsworthy. +187. Herbert George Wells. +188. William Butler Yeats. +189. John Masefield. +190. Alfred Noyes. +191. Henry Arthur Jones. +192. Arthur Wing Pinero. +193. George Bernard Shaw. (From the bust by Rodin). +194. James Matthew Barrie. +195. Stephen Phillips. +196. Lady Gregory. +197. John Synge. + +[Illustration: LITERARY MAP OF ENGLAND] + +[Illustration: LITERARY MAP OF ENGLAND] + +NEW ENGLISH LITERATURE + +INTRODUCTION + +LITERARY ENGLAND + +Some knowledge of the homes and haunts of English authors is necessary +for an understanding of their work. We feel in much closer touch with +Shakespeare after merely reading about Stratford-on-Avon; but we seem +to share his experiences when we actually walk from Stratford-on-Avon +to Shottery and Warwick. The scenery and life of the Lake Country are +reflected in Wordsworth's poetry. Ayr and the surrounding country +throw a flood of light on the work of Burns. The streets of London are +a commentary on the novels of Dickens. A journey to Canterbury aids us +in recreating the life of Chaucer's Pilgrims. + +Much may be learned from a study of literary England. Whether one does +or does not travel, such study is necessary. Those who hope at some +time to visit England should acquire in advance as much knowledge as +possible about the literary associations of the places to be visited; +for when the opportunity for the trip finally comes, there is usually +insufficient time for such preparation as will enable the traveler to +derive the greatest enjoyment from a visit to the literary centers in +which Great Britain abounds. + +Whenever an author is studied, his birthplace should be located on the +literary map. Baedeker's _Great Britain_ will be indispensable in +making an itinerary. The _Reference List for Literary England_ is +sufficiently comprehensive to enable any one to plan an enjoyable +literary pilgrimage through Great Britain and to learn the most +important facts about the places connected with English authors. + +The following suggestions from the author's experience are intended to +serve merely as an illustration of how to begin an itinerary. The +majority of east-bound steamships call at Plymouth, a good place to +disembark for a literary trip. From Plymouth, the traveler may go to +Exeter (a quaint old town with a fine cathedral, the home of _Exeter +Book_,) thence by rail to Camelford in Cornwall and by coach four +miles to the fascinating Tintagel (King Arthur), where, as Tennyson +says in his _Idylls of the King_:-- + + "All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos, + There came a day as still as heaven, and then + They found a naked child upon the sands + Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea, + And that was Arthur." + +Next, the traveler may go by coach to Bude (of which Tennyson +remarked, "I hear that there are larger waves at Bude than at any +other place. I must go thither and be alone with God") and to unique +Clovelly and Bideford (Kingsley), by rail to Ilfracombe, by coach to +Lynton (Lorna Doone), and the adjacent Lynmouth (where Shelley passed +some of his happiest days and alarmed the authorities by setting +afloat bottles containing his _Declaration of Rights_), by coach to +Minehead, by rail to Watchet, driving past Alfoxden (Wordsworth) to +Nether-Stowey (Coleridge) and the Quantock Hills, by motor and rail to +Glastonbury (Isle of Avalon, burial place of King Arthur and Queen +Guinevere), by rail to Wells (cathedral), to Bath (many literary +associations), to Bristol (Chatterton, Southey), to Gloucester (fine +cathedral, tomb of Edward II), and to Ross, the starting point for a +remarkable all day's row down the river Wye to Tintern Abbey +(Wordsworth), stopping for dinner at Monmouth (Geoffrey of Monmouth). + +After a start similar to the foregoing, the traveler should begin to +make an itinerary of his own. He will enjoy a trip more if he has a +share in planning it. From Tintern Abbey he might proceed, for +instance, to Stratford-on-Avon (Shakespeare); then to Warwick, +Kenilworth, and the George Eliot Country in North Warwickshire and +Staffordshire. + +Far natural beauty, there is nothing in England that is more +delightful than a coaching trip through Wordsworth's Lake Country +(Cumberland and Westmoreland). From there it is not far to the Carlyle +Country (Ecclefechan, Craigenputtock), to the Burns Country (Dumfries, +Ayr), and to the Scott Country (Loch Katrine, The Trossachs, +Edinburgh, and Abbotsford). In Edinburgh, William Sharp's statement +about Stevenson should be remembered, "One can, in a word, outline +Stevenson's own country as all the region that on a clear day one may +in the heart of Edinburgh descry from the Castle walls." + +If the traveler lands at Southampton, he is on the eastern edge of +Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Dorchester in Dorsetshire being the center. The +Jane Austen Country (Steventon, Chawton) is in Hampshire. To the east, +in Surrey, is Burford Bridge near Dorking, where Keats wrote part of +his _Endymion_, where George Meredith had his summer home, and where +"the country of his poetry" is located. + +In London, it is a pleasure to trace some of the greatest literary +associations in the world. We may stand at the corner of Monkwell and +Silver streets, on the site of a building in which Shakespeare wrote +some of his greatest plays. Milton lived in the vicinity and is buried +not far distant in St. Giles Church. In Westminster Abbey we find the +graves of many of the greatest authors, from Chaucer to Tennyson. +London is not only Dickens Land and Thackeray Land, but also the +"Land" of many other writers. We may still eat in the Old Cheshire +Cheese, where Johnson and Goldsmith dined. + +Those interested in literary England ought to include the cathedral +towns in their itinerary, so that they may visit the wonderful "poems +in stone," some of which, _e.g_., Canterbury (Chaucer), Winchester +(Izaak Walton, Jane Austen), Lichfield (Johnson), have literary +associations. For this reason, all of the cathedral towns in England +have been included in the literary map. + +REFERENCE LIST FOR LITERARY ENGLAND: + +Baedeker's _Great Britain_ (includes England and Scotland). + +Baedeker's _London and its Environs_. + +Adcock's _Famous Houses and Literary Shrines of London_. + +Lang's _Literary London_. + +Hutton's _Literary Landmarks in London_. + +Lucas's _A Wanderer in London_. + +Shelley's _Literary By-Paths in Old England_. + +Baildon's _Homes and Haunts of Famous Authors_. + +Bates's _From Gretna Green to Land's End_. + +Masson's _In the Footsteps of the Poets_. + +Wolfe's _A Literary Pilgrimage among the Haunts of Famous British +Authors_. + +Salmon's _Literary Rambles in the West of England_. + +Hutton's _A Book of the Wye_. + +Headlam's _Oxford (Medieval Towns Series)_. + +Winter's _Shakespeare's England_. + +Murray's _Handbook of Warwickshire_. + +Lee's _Stratford-on-Avon, from the Earliest Times to the Death of +Shakespeare_. + +Tompkins's _Stratford-on-Avon_ (Dent's _Temple Topographies_). + +Brassington's _Shakespeare's Homeland_. + +Winter's _Grey Days and Gold_ (Shakespeare). + +Collingwood's _The Lake Counties_ (Dent's County Guides). + +Wordsworth's _The Prelude_ (Books I.-V.). + +Rawnsley's _Literary Associations of the English Lakes_. + +Knight's _Through the Wordsworth Country_. + +Bradley's _Highways and Byways in the English Lakes_. + +Jerrold's _Surrey_ (Dent's County Guides). + +Dewar's _Hampshire with Isle of Wight_ (Dent's County Guides). + +Ward's _The Canterbury Pilgrimage_. + +Harper's _The Hardy Country_. + +Snell's _The Blackmore Country_. + +Melville's _The Thackeray Country_. + +Kitton's _The Dickens Country_. + +Sloan's _The Carlyle Country_. + +Dougall's _The Burns Country_. + +Crockett's _The Scott Country_. + +Hill's _Jane Austen: Her Homes and Her Friends_. + +Cook's _Homes and Haunts of John Ruskin_. + +William Sharp's _Literary Geography and Travel Sketches_ (Vol. IV. of +_Works_) contains chapters on _The Country of Stevenson, The Country +of George Meredith, The Country of Carlyle, The Country of George. + +Eliot, The Bronte Country, Thackeray Land_, The Thames from Oxford to +the Nore_. + +Hutton's _Literary Landmarks of Edinburgh_. + +Stevenson's _Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh_. + +Loftie's _Brief Account of Westminster Abbey_. + +Parker's _Introduction to the Study of Gothic Architecture_. + +Stanley's _Memorials of Westminster Abbey_. + +Kimball's _An English Cathedral Journey_. + +Singleton's _How to Visit the English Cathedrals_. + +Bond's _The English Cathedrals_ (200 illustrations). + +Cram's _The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain_ (6 illustrations). + +Home's _What to See in England_. + +Boynton's _London in English Literature_. + +GENERAL REFERENCE LIST FOR THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE[1]: + +_Cambridge History of English Literature_, 14 vols. + +Garnett and Gosse's _English Literature_, 4 vols. + +Morley's _English Writers_, 11 vols. + +Jusserand's _Literary History of the English People_. + +Taine's _English Literature_. + +Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, 6 vols. + +Stephens and Lee's _Dictionary of National Biography_ (dead authors). + +_New International Cyclopedia_ (living and dead authors). + +_English Men of Letters Series_ (abbreviated reference, E.M.L.) + +_Great Writers' Series_ (abbreviated reference. G.W.). + +Poole's _Index_ (and continuation volumes for reference to critical +articles in periodicals). + +_The United States Catalogue_ and _Cumulative Book Index_. + +SELECTIONS FROM ENGLISH LITERATURE[2]: + +*Pancoast and Spaeth's _Early English Poems_. (P. & S.)[3] + +*Warren's _Treasury of English Literature, Part I_. (Origins to +Eleventh Century: London, One Shilling.) (Warren.) + +*Ward's _English Poets_, 4 vols. (Ward.) + +*Bronson's _English Poems_, 4 vols. (Bronson.) + +_Oxford Treasury of English Literature_, Vol. I., _Beowulf to +Jacobean_; + +*Vol. II., _Growth of the Drama_; Vol. III., _Jacobean to Victorian_. + (Oxford Treasury.) + +*_Oxford Book of English Verse_. (Oxford.) + +*Craik's _English Prose_, 5 vols. (Craik.) + +*Page's _British Poets of the Nineteenth Century_. (Page.) + +Chambers's _Cyclopedia of English Literature_. (Chambers.) + +Manly's _English Poetry_ (from 1170). (Manly I.) + +Manly's _English Prose_ (from 1137). (Manly II.) + +_Century Readings for a Course in English Literature_. (Century.) + + +CHAPTER I: FROM 449 A.D. TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066 + +Subject Matter and Aim.--The history of English literature traces +the development of the best poetry and prose written in English by the +inhabitants of the British Isles. For more than twelve hundred years +the Anglo-Saxon race has been producing this great literature, which +includes among its achievements the incomparable work of Shakespeare. + +This literature is so great in amount that the student who approaches +the study without a guide is usually bewildered. He needs a history of +English literature for the same reason that a traveler in England +requires a guidebook. Such a history should do more than indicate +where the choicest treasures of literature may be found; it should +also show the interesting stages of development; it should emphasize +some of the ideals that have made the Anglo-Saxons one of the most +famous races in the world; and it should inspire a love for the +reading of good literature. + +No satisfactory definition of "literature" has ever been framed. +Milton's conception of it was "something so written to after times, as +they should not willingly let it die." Shakespeare's working +definition of literature was something addressed not to after times +but to an eternal present, and invested with such a touch of nature as +to make the whole world kin. When he says of Duncan:-- + + "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well," + +he touches the feelings of mortals of all times and opens the door for +imaginative activity, causing us to wonder why life should be a fitful +fever, followed by an incommunicable sleep. Much of what we call +literature would not survive the test of Shakespeare's definition; but +true literature must appeal to imagination and feeling as well as to +intellect. No mere definition can take the place of what may be called +a feeling for literature. Such a feeling will develop as the best +English poetry and prose: are sympathetically read. Wordsworth had +this feeling when he defined the poets as those:-- + + "Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares." + +The Mission of English Literature.--It is a pertinent question to +ask, What has English literature to offer? + +In the first place, to quote Ben Jonson:-- + + "The thirst that from the soul cloth rise + Doth ask a drink divine." + +English literature is of preeminent worth in helping to supply that +thirst. It brings us face to face with great ideals, which increase +our sense of responsibility for the stewardship of life and tend to +raise the level of our individual achievement. We have a heightened +sense of the demands which life makes and a better comprehension of +the "far-off divine event" toward which we move, after we have heard +Swinburne's ringing call:-- + + "...this thing is God, + To be man with thy might, + To grow straight in the strength + of thy spirit, and live out thy life + as the light." + +We feel prompted to act on the suggestion of-- + + "...him who sings + To one clear harp in divers tones, + That men may rise on striping-stones + Of their dead selves to higher things."[4] + +In the second place, the various spiritual activities demanded for the +interpretation of the best things in literature add to enjoyment. This +pleasure, unlike that which arises from physical gratification, +increases with age, and often becomes the principal source of +entertainment as life advances. Shakespeare has Prospero say:-- + + "...my library + Was dukedom large enough." + +The suggestions from great minds disclose vistas that we might never +otherwise see. Browning truly says:-- + + "...we're made so that we love + First when we see them painted, things we have passed + Perhaps a hundred tunes nor cared to see." + +Sometimes it is only after reading Shakespeare that we can see-- + + "...winking Mary buds begin + To ope their golden eyes. + With everything that pretty is." + +and only after spending some time in Wordsworth's company that the +common objects of our daily life become invested with-- + + "The glory and the freshness of a dream." + +In the third place, we should emphasize the fact that one great +function of English literature is to bring deliverance to souls weary +with routine, despondent, or suffering the stroke of some affliction. +In order to transfigure the everyday duties of life, there is need of +imagination, of a vision such as the poets give. Without such a vision +the tasks of life are drudgery. The dramas of the poets bring relief +and incite to nobler action. + + "The soul hath need of prophet and redeemer. + Her outstretched wings against her prisoning bars + She waits for truth, and truth is with the dreamer + Persistent as the myriad light of stars."[5] + +We need to listen to a poet like Browning, who-- + + "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." + +In the fourth place, the twentieth century is emphasizing the fact +that neither happiness nor perpetuity of government is possible +without the development of a spirit of service,--a truth long since +taught by English literature. We may learn this lesson from _Beowulf_, +the first English epic, from Alfred the Great, from William Langland, +and from Chaucer's _Parish Priest_. All Shakespeare's greatest and +happiest characters, all the great failures of his dramas, are sermons +on this text. In _The Tempest_ he presents Ariel, tendering his +service to Prospero:-- + + "All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come + To answer thy best pleasure." + +Shakespeare delights to show Ferdinand winning Miranda through +service, and Caliban remaining an abhorred creature because he +detested service. Much of modern literature is an illuminated text on +the glory of service. Coleridge voiced for all the coming years what +has grown to be almost an elemental feeling to the English-speaking +race:-- + + "He prayeth best who loveth best + All things both great and small." + +The Home and Migrations of the Anglo-Saxon Race.--Just as there was +a time when no English foot had touched the shores of America, so +there was a period when the ancestors of the English lived far away +from the British Isles. For nearly four hundred years prior to the +coming of the Anglo-Saxons, Britain had been a Roman province. In 410 +A.D. the Romans withdrew their legions from Britain to protect Rome +herself against swarms of Teutonic invaders. About 449 a band of +Teutons, called Jutes, left Denmark, landed on the Isle of Thanet (in +the north-eastern part of Kent), and began the conquest of Britain. +Warriors from the tribes of the Angles and the Saxons soon followed, +and drove westward the original inhabitants, the Britons or Welsh, +_i.e._ foreigners, as the Teutons styled the natives. + +Before the invasion of Britain, the Teutons inhabited the central part +of Europe as far south as the Rhine, a tract which in a large measure +coincides with modern Germany. The Jutes, Angles, and Saxons were +different tribes of Teutons. These ancestors of the English dwelt in +Denmark and in the lands extending southward along the North Sea. + +The Angles, an important Teutonic tribe, furnished the name for the +new home, which was called Angle-land, afterward shortened into +England. The language spoken by these tribes is generally called +Anglo-Saxon or Saxon. + +The Training of the Race.--The climate is a potent factor in +determining the vigor and characteristics of a race. Nature reared the +Teuton like a wise but not indulgent parent. By every method known to +her, she endeavored to render him fit to colonize and sway the world. +Summer paid him but a brief visit. His companions were the frost, the +fluttering snowflake, the stinging hail. For music, instead of the +soft notes of a shepherd's pipe under blue Italian or Grecian skies, +he listened to the north wind whistling among the bare branches, or to +the roar of an angry northern sea upon the bleak coast. + +The feeble could not withstand the rigor of such a climate, in the +absence of the comforts of civilization. Only the strongest in each +generation survived; and these transmitted to their children +increasing vigor. Warfare was incessant not only with nature but also +with the surrounding tribes. Nature kept the Teuton in such a school +until he seemed fit to colonize the world and to produce a literature +that would appeal to humanity in every age. + +The Early Teutonic Religion.--In the early days on the continent, +before the Teuton had learned of Christianity, his religious beliefs +received their most pronounced coloring from the rigors of his +northern climate, from the Frost Giants, the personified forces of +evil, with whom he battled. The kindly, life-bringing spring and +summer, which seemed to him earth's redeeming divinity, were soon +slain by the arrows that came from the winter's quivers. Not even +Thor, the wielder of the thunderbolt, nor Woden, the All-Father, +delayed the inevitable hour when the dusk of winter came, when the +voice of Baldur could no longer be heard awaking earth to a new life. +The approach of the "twilight of the gods," the _Goetterdaemmerung_, was +a stern reality to the Teuton. + +[Illustration: WODEN.] + +Although instinct with gloomy fatalism, this religion taught bravery. +None but the brave were invited to Valhalla to become Woden's guest. +The brave man might perish, but even then he won victory; for he was +invited to sit with heroes at the table of the gods. "None but the +brave deserves the fair," is merely a modern softened rendering of the +old spirit. + +The Christian religion, which was brought to the Teuton after he had +come to England, found him already cast in a semi-heroic mold. But +before he could proceed on his matchless career of world conquest, +before he could produce a Shakespeare and plant his flag in the +sunshine of every land, it was necessary for this new faith to develop +in him the belief that a man of high ideals, working in unison with +the divinity that shapes his end, may rise superior to fate and be +given the strength to overcome the powers of evil and to mold the +world to his will. The intensity of this faith, swaying an energetic +race naturally fitted to respond to the great moral forces of the +universe, has enabled the Anglo-Saxon to produce the world's greatest +literature, to evolve the best government for developing human +capabilities, and to make the whole world feel the effect of his +ideals and force of character. At the close of the nineteenth century, +a French philosopher wrote a book entitled _Anglo-Saxon Superiority, +In What Does it Consist?_ His answer was, "In self-reliance and in the +happiness found in surmounting the material and moral difficulties of +life." A study of the literature in which the ideals of the race are +most artistically and effectively embodied will lead to much the same +conclusion. + +The History of Anglo-Saxon England.--The first task of the +Anglo-Saxons after settling in England was to subdue the British, the +race that has given King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table to +English literature. By 600 A.D., after a century and a half of +struggle, the Anglo-Saxons had probably occupied about half of +England. + +They did not build on the civilization that Rome had left when she +withdrew in 410, but destroyed the towns and lived in the country. The +typical Englishman still loves to dwell in a country home. The work of +Anglo-Saxon England consisted chiefly in tilling the soil and in +fighting. + +The year 597 marks an especially important date, the coming of St. +Augustine, who brought the Christian faith to the Anglo-Saxons. +Education, literature, and art followed finding their home in the +monasteries. + +For nearly 400 years after coming to England, the different tribes +were not united under one ruler. Not until 830 did Egbert, king of the +West Saxons, become overlord of England. Before and after this time, +the Danes repeatedly plundered the land. They finally settled in the +eastern part above the Thames. Alfred (849-900), the greatest of +Anglo-Saxon rulers, temporarily checked them, but in the latter part +of the tenth century they were more troublesome, and in 1017 they made +Canute, the Dane, king of England. Fortunately the Danes were of the +same race, and they easily amalgamated with the Saxons. + +These invasions wasted the energies of England during more than two +centuries, but this long period of struggle brought little change to +the institutions or manner of life in Anglo-Saxon England. The +_witan_, or assembly of wise men, the forerunner of the present +English parliament, met in 1066 and chose Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon +king. + +During these six hundred rears, the Anglo-Saxons conquered the +British, accepted Christianity, fought the Danes, finally amalgamating +with them, brought to England a lasting representative type of +government, established the fundamental customs of the race, surpassed +all contemporary western European peoples in the production of +literature, and were ready to receive fresh impetus from the Normans +in 1066. + +The Anglo-Saxon Language.--Our oldest English literature is written +in the language spoken by the Angles and the Saxons. This at first +sight looks like a strange tongue to one conversant with modern +English only; but the language that we employ to-day has the +framework, the bone and sinew, of the earlier tongue. Modern English +is no more unlike Anglo-Saxon than a bearded man is unlike his former +childish self. A few examples will show the likeness and the +difference. "The noble queen" would in Anglo-Saxon be _s=eo aeethele +cw=en_; "the noble queen's," _eth=aere aeethelan cw=ene_. _S=eo_ is the +nominative feminine singular, _eth=aere_ the genitive, of the definite +article. The adjective and the noun also change their forms with the +varying cases. In its inflections, Anglo-Saxon resembles its sister +language, the modern German. + +After the first feeling of strangeness has passed away, it is easy to +recognize many of the old words. Take, for instance, this from +_Beowulf_:-- + + "...eth=y h=e ethone f=eond ofercw=om, + gehn=aegde helle g=ast." + +Here are eight words, apparently strange, but even a novice soon +recognizes five of them: _h=e, f=eond_ (fiend), _ofercw=om_ +(overcame), _helle_ (hell), _g=ast_ (ghost). The word _ethone_, strange +as it looks, is merely the article "the." + + ...therefore he overcame the fiend, + Subdued the ghost of hell. + +Let us take from the same poem another passage, containing the famous +simile:-- + + "...l=eoht inne st=od, + efne sw=a of hefene h=adre sc=ineeth + rodores candel." + +Of these eleven words, seven may be recognized: _l=eoht_ (light), +_inne_ (in), _st=od_ (stood), _of_, _hefene_ (heaven),_sc=ineeth_ +(shineth), _candel_ (candle). + + ...a light stood within, + Even so from heaven serenely shineth + The firmament's candle. + +Some prefer to use "Old English" in place of "Anglo-Saxon" in order to +emphasize the continuity of the development of the language. It is, +however, sometimes convenient to employ different terms for different +periods of development of the same entity. We do not insist on calling +a man a "grown boy," although there may be no absolute line of +demarcation between boy and man. + +Earliest Anglo-Saxon Literature.--As with the Greeks and Romans, so +with the Teutons, poetry afforded the first literary outlet for the +feelings. The first productions were handed down by memory. Poetry is +easily memorized and naturally lends itself to singing and musical +accompaniment. Under such circumstances, even prose would speedily +fall into metrical form. Poetry is, furthermore, the most suitable +vehicle of expression for the emotions. The ancients, unlike modern +writers, seldom undertook to make literature unless they felt so +deeply that silence was impossible. + +The Form of Anglo-Saxon Poetry.--Each line is divided Into two parts +by a major pause. Because each of these parts was often printed as a +complete line in old texts, _Beowulf_ has sometimes been called a poem +of 6368 lines, although it has but 3184. + +A striking characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry is consonantal +alliteration; that is, the repetition of the same consonant at the +beginning of words in the same line:-- + + "Grendel gongan; Godes yrre baer." + Grendel going; God's anger bare. + +The usual type of Anglo-Saxon poetry has two alliterations in the +first half of the line and one in the second. The lines vary +considerably in the number of syllables. The line from _Beowulf_ +quoted just above has nine syllables. The following line from the same +poem has eleven:-- + + "Flota f=amig-heals, fugle gel=icost." + The floater foamy-necked, to a fowl most like. + +This line, also from _Beowulf_ has eight syllables:-- + + "N=ipende niht, and norethan wind." + Noisome night, and northern wind. + +Vowel alliteration is less common. Where this is employed, the vowels +are generally different, as is shown in the principal words of the +following line:-- + + "On =ead, on =aeht, on eorcan st=an." + On wealth, on goods, on precious stone. + +End rime is uncommon, but we must beware of thinking that there is no +rhythm, for that is a pronounced characteristic. + +Anglo-Saxon verse was intended to be sung, and hence rhythm and accent +or stress are important. Stress and the length of the line are varied; +but we usually find that the four most important words, two in each +half of the line, are stressed on their most important syllable. +Alliteration usually shows where to place three stresses. A fourth +stress generally falls on a word presenting an emphatic idea near the +end of the line. + +[Illustration: EXETER CATHEDRAL.] + +The Manuscripts that have handed down Anglo-Saxon Literature.--The +earliest Anglo-Saxon poetry was transmitted by the memories of men. +Finally, with the slow growth of learning, a few acquired the art of +writing, and transcribed on parchment a small portion of the current +songs. The introduction of Christianity ushered in prose translations +and a few original compositions, which were taken down on parchment +and kept in the monasteries. + +The study of Anglo-Saxon literature is comparatively recent, for its +treasures have not been long accessible. Its most famous poem, +_Beowulf_, was not printed until the dawn of the nineteenth century. +In 1822 Dr. Blume, a German professor of law, happened to find in a +monastery at Vercelli, Italy, a large volume of Anglo-Saxon +manuscript, containing a number of fine poems and twenty-two sermons. +This is now known as the _Vercelli Book_. No one knows how it happened +to reach Italy. Another large parchment volume of poems and miscellany +was deposited by Bishop Leofric at the cathedral of Exeter in +Devonshire, about 1050 A.D. This collection, one of the prized +treasures of that cathedral, is now called the _Exeter Book_. + +Many valuable manuscripts were destroyed at the dissolution of the +monasteries in the time of Henry VIII., between 1535 and 1540. John +Bale, a contemporary writer, says that "those who purchased the +monasteries reserved the books, some to scour their candlesticks, some +to rub their boots, some they sold to the grocers and soap sellers, +and some they sent over sea to the bookbinders, not in small numbers, +but at times whole ships full, to the wonder of foreign nations." + +The Anglo-Saxon Scop and Gleeman.--Our earliest poetry was made +current and kept fresh in memory by the singers. The kings and nobles +often attached to them a _scop_, or maker of verses. When the +warriors, after some victorious battle, were feasting at their long +tables, the banquet was not complete without the songs of the _scop_. +While the warriors ate the flesh of boar and deer, and warmed their +blood with horns of foaming ale, the _scop_, standing where the blaze +from a pile of logs disclosed to him the grizzly features of the men, +sang his most stirring songs, often accompanying them with the music +of a rude harp. As the feasters roused his enthusiasm with their +applause, he would sometimes indulge in an outburst of eloquent +extempore song. Not infrequently the imagination of some king or noble +would be fired, and he would sing of his own great deeds. + +We read in _Beowulf_ that in Hrothgar's famous hall-- + + "...eth=aer was hearpan sw=eg, + swutol sang scopes." + + ...there was sound of harp + Loud the singing of the scop. + +In addition to the _scop_, who was more or less permanently attached +to the royal court or hall of a noble, there was a craft of gleemen +who roved from hall to hall. In the song of _Widsieth_ we catch a +glimpse of the life of a gleeman:-- + + "Sw=a scriethende gesceapum hweorfaeth + gl=eomen gumena geond grunda fela." + + Thus roving, with shaped songs there wander + The gleemen of the people through many lands. + +The _scop_ was an originator of poetry, the gleeman more often a mere +repeater, although this distinction in the use of the terms was not +observed in later times. + +The Songs of Scop and Gleeman.--The subject matter of these songs +was suggested by the most common experiences of the time. These were +with war, the sea, and death. + +[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON GLEEMAN. _From the tapestry designed by +H.A. Bone_.] + +The oldest Anglo-Saxon song known, which is called _Widsieth_ or the +_Far Traveler_, has been preserved in the _Exeter Book_. This song was +probably composed in the older Angle-land on the continent and brought +to England in the memories of the singers. The poem is an account of +the wanderings of a gleeman over a great part of Europe. Such a song +will mean little to us unless we can imaginatively represent the +circumstances under which it was sung, the long hall with its tables +of feasting, drinking warriors, the firelight throwing weird shadows +among the smoky rafters. The imagination of the warriors would be +roused as similar experiences of their own were suggested by these +lines in Widsieth's song:-- + + "Ful oft of eth=am h=eape hw=inende fl=eag + giellende g=ar on grome eth=eode." + + Full oft from that host hissing flew + The whistling spear on the fierce folk. + +The gleeman ends this song with two thoughts characteristic of the +poets of the Saxon race. He shows his love fur noble deeds, and he +next thinks of the shortness of life, as he sings:-- + + "In mortal court his deeds are not unsung, + Such as a noble man mill show to men, + Till all doth flit away, both life and light." + +A greater _scop_, looking at life through Saxon eyes, sings:-- + + "We are such stuff + As dreams are made on; and our little life + Is rounded with a sleep."[6] + +The _scop_ in the song called _The Wanderer (Exeter Book)_ tells how +fleeting are riches, friend, kinsman, maiden,--all the "earth-stead," +and he also makes us think of Shakespeare's "insubstantial pageant +faded" which leaves "not a rack behind." + +Another old song, also found in the _Exeter Book_, is the _Seafarer_. +We must imagine the _scop_ recalling vivid experiences to our early +ancestors with this song of the sea:-- + + "Hail flew in hard showers. + And nothing I heard + But the wrath of the waters, + The icy-cold way + At times the swan's song; + In the scream of the gannet + I sought for my joy, + In the moan of the sea whelp + For laughter of men, + In the song of the sea-mew + For drinking of mead."[7] + +To show that love of the sea yet remains one of the characteristics of +English poetry, we may quote by way of comparison a song sung more +than a thousand years later, in Victoria's reign:-- + + "The wind is as iron that rings, + The foam heads loosen and flee; + It swells and welters and swings, + The pulse of the tide of the sea. + + Let the wind shake our flag like a feather, + Like the plumes of the foam of the sea! + * * * * * + In the teeth of the hard glad a weather, + In the blown wet face of the sea."[8] + +Kipling in _A Song of the English_ says of the sea:-- + + "...there's never a wave of all her waves + But marks our English dead." + +Another song from the _Exeter Book_ is called _The Fortunes of Men_. +It gives vivid pictures of certain phases of life among the +Anglo-Saxons:-- + + "One shall sharp hunger slay; + One shall the storms beat down; + One be destroyed by darts, + One die in war. + Orre shall live losing + The light of his eyes, + Feel blindly with his fingers; + And one lame of foot. + With sinew-wound wearily + Wasteth away. + Musing and mourning; + With death in his mind. + * * * * * + One shall die by the dagger, + In wrath, drenched with ale, + Wild through the wine, on the mead bench + Too swift with his words + Too swift with his words; + Shall the wretched one lose."[9] + +The songs that we have noted, together with _Beowulf_, the greatest of +them all, will give a fair idea of _scopic_ poetry. + +BEOWULF + +The Oldest Epic of the Teutonic Race.--The greatest monument of +Anglo-Saxon poetry is called _Beowulf_, from the name of its hero. His +character and exploits give unity and dignity to the poem and raise it +to the rank of an epic. + +The subject matter is partly historical and partly mythical. The deeds +and character of an actual hero may have furnished the first +suggestions for the songs, which were finally elaborated into +_Beowulf_, as we now have it. The poem was probably a long time in +process of evolution, and many different _scops_ doubtless added new +episodes to the song, altering it by expansion and contraction under +the inspiration of different times and places. Finally, it seems +probable that some one English poet gave the work its present form, +making it a more unified whole, and incorporating in it Christian +opinions. + +We do not know when the first _scop_ sang of Beowulf's exploits; but +he probably began before the ancestors of the English came to England. +We are unable to ascertain how long _Beowulf_ was in process of +evolution; but there is internal evidence for thinking that part of +the poem could not have been composed before 500 A.D. Ten Brink, a +great German authority, thinks that Beowulf was given its present form +not far from 700 A.D. The unique manuscript in the British Museum is +written in the West Saxon dialect of Alfred the Great's time +(849-901). + +The characters, scenery, and action of _Beowulf_ belong to the older +Angle-land on the continent of Europe; but the poem is essentially +English, even though the chief action is laid in what is now known as +Denmark and the southern part of Sweden. Hrothgar's hall, near which +the hero performed two of his great exploits, was probably on the +island of Seeland. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF BEGINNING OF COTTON MS. OF BEOWULF.] + +TRANSLATION + + Lo! we, of the Gar-Danes in distant days, + The folk-kings' fame have found. + How deeds of daring the aethelings did. + Oft Scyld-Scefing from hosts of schathers, + From many men the mead seats [reft]. + +The student who wishes to enter into the spirit of the poem will do +well to familiarize himself with the position of these coasts, and +with a description of their natural features in winter as well as in +summer. Heine says of the sea which Beowulf sailed:-- + + "Before me rolleth a waste of water ... and above me go rolling + the storm clouds, the formless dark gray daughters of air, which + from the sea in cloudy buckets scoop up the water, ever wearied + lifting and lifting, and then pour it again in the sea, a mournful, + wearisome business. Over the sea, flat on his face, lies the + monstrous, terrible North Wind, sighing and sinking his voice as in + secret, like an old grumbler; for once in good humor, unto the ocean + he talks, and he tells her wonderful stories." + +Beowulf's Three Great Exploits.--The hero of the poem engaged in +three great contests, all of which were prompted by unselfishness and +by a desire to relieve human misery. Beowulf had much of the spirit +that animates the social worker to-day. If such a hero should live in +our time, he would probably be distinguished fur social service, for +fighting the forces of evil which cripple or destroy so many human +beings. + +Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, built a hall, named Heorot, where his +followers could drink mead, listen to the scop, enjoy the music of the +harp, and find solace in social intercourse during the dreary winter +evenings. + + "So liv'd on all happy the host of the kinsmen + In game and in glee, until one night began, + A fiend out of hell-pit, the framing of evil, + And Grendel forsooth the grim guest was hight, + The mighty mark-strider the holder of moorland, + The fen and the fastness."[10] + +This monster, Grendel, came from the moors and devoured thirty of the +thanes. For twelve winters he visited Heorot and killed some of the +guests whenever he heard the sound of festivity in the hall, until at +length the young hero Beowulf, who lived a day's sail from Hrothgar, +determined to rescue Heorot from this curse. The youth selected +fourteen warriors and on a "foamy-necked floater, most like to a +bird," he sailed to Hrothgar. + +Beowulf stated his mission, and he and his companions determined to +remain in Heorot all night. Grendel heard them and came. + + "...he quickly laid hold of + A soldier asleep, suddenly tore him, + Bit his bone-prison, the blood drank in currents, + Swallowed in mouthfuls."[11] + +Bare-handed, Beowulf grappled with the monster, and they wrestled up +and down the hall, which was shaken to its foundations. This terrible +contest ended when Beowulf tore away the arm and shoulder of Grendel, +who escaped to the marshes to die. + +In honor of the victory, Hrothgar gave to Beowulf many presents and a +banquet in Heorot. After the feast, the warriors slept in the hall, +but Beowulf went to the palace. He had been gone but a short time, +when in rushed Grendel's mother, to avenge the death of her son. She +seized a warrior, the king's dearest friend, and carried him away. In +the morning, the king said to Beowulf:-- + + "My trusty friend AEschere is dead... The cruel hag has wreaked + on him her vengeance. The country folk said there were two of them, + one the semblance of a woman; the other the specter of a man. Their + haunt is in the remote land, in the crags of the wolf, the + wind-beaten cliffs, and untrodden bogs, where the dismal stream + plunges into the drear abyss of an awful lake, overhung with a dark + and grizzly wood rooted down to the water's edge, where a lurid + flame plays nightly on the surface of the flood--and there lives not + the man who knows its depth! So dreadful is the place that the + hunted stag, hard driven by the hounds, will rather die on the bank + than find a shelter there. A place of terror! When the wind rises, + the waves mingle hurly-burly with the clouds, the air is stifling + and rumbles with thunder. To thee alone we look for relief."[12] + +Beowulf knew that a second and harder contest was at hand, but without +hesitation he followed the bloody trail of Grendel's mother, until it +disappeared at the edge of a terrible flood. Undaunted by the dragons +and serpents that made their home within the depths, he grasped a +sword and plunged beneath the waves. After sinking what seemed to him +a day's space, he saw Grendel's mother, who came forward to meet him. +She dragged him into her dwelling, where there was no water, and the +fight began. The issue was for a time doubtful; but at last Beowulf +ran her through with a gigantic sword, and she fell dead upon the +floor of her dwelling. A little distance away, he saw the dead body of +Grendel. The hero cut off the head of the monster and hastened away to +Hrothgar's court. After receiving much praise and many presents, +Beowulf and his warriors sailed to their own land, where he ruled as +king for fifty years. + +He engaged in his third and hardest conflict when he was old. A +firedrake, angered at the loss of a part of a treasure, which he had +for three hundred years been guarding in a cavern, laid waste the land +in the hero's kingdom. Although Beowulf knew that this dragon breathed +flames of fire and that mortal man could not long withstand such +weapons, he sought the cavern which sheltered the destroyer and fought +the most terrible battle of his life. He killed the dragon, but +received mortal hurt from the enveloping flames. The old hero had +finally fallen; but he had through life fought a good fight, and he +could say as the twilight passed into the dark:-- + + "I have ruled the people fifty years; no folk-king was there of them + that dwelt about me durst touch me with his sword or cow me through + terror. I bided at home the hours of destiny, guarded well mine own, + sought not feuds with guile, swore not many an oath unjustly."[13] + +The poem closes with this fitting epitaph for the hero:-- + + "Quoth they that he was a world-king forsooth, + The mildest of all men, unto men kindest, + To his folk the most gentlest, most yearning of fame."[14] + +Wherein Beowulf is Typical of the Anglo-Saxon Race.--_Beowulf_ is by +far the most important Anglo-Saxon poem, because it presents in the +rough the persistent characteristics of the race. This epic shows the +ideals of our ancestors, what they held most dear, the way they lived +and died. + +I. We note the love of liberty and law, the readiness to fight any +dragon that threatened these. The English _Magna Charta_ and _Petition +of Right_ and the American _Declaration of Independence_ are an +extension of the application of the same principles embodied in +_Beowulf_. The old-time spirit of war still prevails in all branches +of the race; but the contest is to-day directed against dragons of a +different type from Grendel,--against myriad forms of industrial and +social injustice and against those forces which have been securing +special privileges for some and denying equal opportunity for all. + +II. _Beowulf_ is a recognition in general of the great moral forces of +the universe. The poem upholds the ideals of personal manliness, +bravery, loyalty, devotion to duty. The hero has the ever-present +consciousness that death is preferable to dishonor. He taught his +thane to sing:-- + + "Far better stainless death + Than life's dishonored breath." + +III. In this poem, the action outweighs the words. The keynote to +_Beowulf_ is deeds. In New England, more than a thousand years later, +Thoreau wrote, "Be not simply good; be good for something." In reading +other literatures, for instance the Celtic, we often find that the +words overbalance the action. The Celt tells us that when two bulls +fought, the "sky was darkened by the turf thrown up by their feet and +by the foam from their mouths. The province rang with their roar and +the inhabitants hid in caves or climbed the hills." + +Again, more attention is paid to the worth of the subject matter and +to sincerity of utterance than to mere form or polish. The literature +of this race has usually been more distinguished for the value of the +thought than for artistic presentation. Prejudice is felt to-day +against matter that relies mainly on art to secure effects. + +IV. Repression of sentiment is a marked characteristic of _Beowulf_ +and it still remains a peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon race. Some +people say vastly more than they feel. This race has been inclined to +feel more than it expresses. When it was transplanted to New England, +the same characteristic was prominent, the same apparent contradiction +between sentiment and stern, unrelenting devotion to duty. In _Snow +Bound_, the New England poet, Whittier, paints this portrait of a New +England maiden, still Anglo-Saxon to the core:-- + + "A full, rich nature, free to trust, + Truthful and almost sternly just, + Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, + And make her generous thought a fact, + Keeping with many a light disguise + The secret of self-sacrifice." + +No matter what stars now shine over them, the descendants of the +English are still truthful and sternly just; they still dislike to +give full expression to their feelings; they still endeavor to +translate thoughts into deeds, and in this world where all need so +much help, they take self-sacrifice as a matter of course. The spirit +of _Beowulf_, softened and consecrated by religion, still persists in +Anglo-Saxon thought and action. + +THE CAEDMONIAN CYCLE + +Caedmon.--In 597 St. Augustine began to teach the Christian religion +to the Anglo-Saxons. The results of this teaching were shown in the +subsequent literature. In what is known as Caedmon's _Paraphrase_, the +next great Anglo-Saxon epic, there is no decrease in the warlike +spirit. Instead of Grendel, we have Satan as the arch-enemy against +whom the battle rages. + +Caedmon, who died in 680, was until middle life a layman attached to +the monastery at Whitby, on the northeast coast of Yorkshire. Since +the _Paraphrase_ has been attributed to Caedmon on the authority of +the Saxon historian Bede, born in 673, we shall quote Bede himself on +the subject, from his famous _Ecclesiastical History_:-- + + "Caedmon, having lived in a secular habit until he was well advanced + in years, had never learned anything of versifying; for which + reason, being sometimes at entertainments, where it was agreed for + the sake of mirth that all present should sing in their turns, when + he saw the instrument come toward him, he rose from table and + returned home. + + "Having done so at a certain time, and gone out of the house where + the entertainment was, to the stable, where he had to take care of + the horses that night, he there composed himself to rest at the + proper time; a person appeared to him in his sleep, and, saluting + him by his name, said, 'Caedmon, sing some song to me.' He answered, + 'I cannot sing; for that was the reason why I left the entertainment + and retired to this place, because I could not sing.' The other who + talked to him replied, 'However, you shall sing.' 'What shall I + sing?' rejoined he. 'Sing the beginning of created beings,' said the + other. Hereupon he presently began to sing verses to the praise of + God." + +Caedmon remembered the poetry that he had composed in his dreams, and +repeated it in the morning to the inmates of the monastery. They +concluded that the gift of song was divinely given and invited him to +enter the monastery and devote his time to poetry. + +Of Caedmon's work Bede says:-- + + "He sang the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the + history of Genesis: and made many verses on the departure of the + children of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the land of + promise, with many other histories from Holy Writ; the incarnation, + passion, resurrection of our Lord, and his ascension into heaven; + the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the preaching of the Apostles; + also the terror of future judgment, the horror of the pains of hell, + and the delights of heaven." + +The Authorship and Subject Matter of the Caedmonian Cycle.--The +first edition of the _Paraphrase_ was published in 1655 by Junius, an +acquaintance of Milton. Junius attributed the entire _Paraphrase_ to +Caedmon, on the authority of the above quotations from Bede. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF BEGINNING OF JUNIAN MANUSCRIPT OF +CAEDMON.] + +TRANSLATION + + For us it is mickle right that we should praise with words, love + with our hearts, the Lord of the heavens, the glorious King of the + people. He is the mighty power, the chief of all exalted creatures, + Lord Almighty. + +The _Paraphrase_ is really composed of three separate poems: the +_Genesis_, the _Exodus_, and the _Daniel_; and these are probably the +works of different writers. Critics are not agreed whether any of +these poems in their present form can be ascribed to Caedmon. The +_Genesis_ shows internal evidence of having been composed by several +different writers, but some parts of this poem may be Caedmon's own +work. The _Genesis_, like Milton's _Paradise Lost_, has for its +subject matter the fall of man and its consequences. The _Exodus_, the +work of an unknown writer, is a poem of much originality, on the +escape of the children of Israel from Egypt, their passage through the +Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh's host. The _Daniel_, an +uninteresting poem of 765 lines, paraphrases portions of the book of +_Daniel_ relating to Nebuchadnezzar's dreams, the fiery furnace, and +Belshazzar's feast. + +Characteristics of the Poetry.--No matter who wrote the +_Paraphrase_, we have the poetry, a fact which critics too often +overlook. Though the narrative sometimes closely follows the Biblical +account in _Genesis_, _Exodus_, and _Daniel_, there are frequent +unfettered outbursts of the imagination. The _Exodus_ rings with the +warlike notes of the victorious Teutonic race. + +The _Genesis_ possesses special interest for the student, since many +of its strong passages show a marked likeness to certain parts of +Milton's _Paradise Lost_. As some critics have concluded that Milton +must have been familiar with the Caedmonian _Genesis_, it will be +instructive to note the parallelism between the two poems. Caedmon's +hell is "without light and full of flame." Milton's flames emit no +light; they only make "darkness visible." The following lines are from +the _Genesis_:-- + + "The Lord made anguish a reward, a home + In banishment, hell groans, hard pain, and bade + That torture house abide the joyless fall. + When with eternal night and sulphur pains, + Fullness of fire, dread cold, reek and red flames, + He knew it filled."[15] + +With this description we may compare these lines from Milton:-- + + "A dungeon horrible, on all sides round. + As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames + No light; but rather darkness visible. + ...a fiery deluge, fed + With ever burning sulphur unconsumed."[16] + +In Caedmon "the false Archangel and his band lay prone in liquid fire, +scarce visible amid the clouds of rolling smoke." In Milton, Satan is +shown lying "prone on the flood," struggling to escape "from off the +tossing of these fiery waves," to a plain "void of light," except what +comes from "the glimmering of these livid flames." The older poet +sings with forceful simplicity:-- + + "Then comes, at dawn, the east wind, keen with frost." + +Milton writes:-- + + "...the parching air + Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire."[17] + +When Satan rises on his wings to cross the flaming vault, the +_Genesis_ gives in one line an idea that Milton expands into two and a +half:-- + + "Swang ethaet f=yr on tw=a f=eondes craefte." + Struck the fire asunder with fiendish craft. + + "...on each hand the flames, + Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, rolled + In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale."[18] + +It is not certain that Milton ever knew of the existence of the +Caedmonian _Genesis_; for he was blind three years before it was +published. But whether he knew of it or not, it is a striking fact +that the temper of the Teutonic mind during a thousand years should +have changed so little toward the choice and treatment of the subject +of an epic, and that the first great poem known to have been written +on English soil should in so many points have anticipated the greatest +epic of the English race. + +THE CYNEWULF CYCLE + +Cynewulf is the only great Anglo-Saxon poet who affixed his name to +certain poems and thus settled the question of their authorship. We +know nothing of his life except what we infer from his poetry. He was +probably born near the middle of the eighth century, and it is not +unlikely that he passed part of his youth as a thane of some noble. He +became a man of wide learning, well skilled in "wordcraft" and in the +Christian traditions of the time. Such learning could then hardly have +been acquired outside of some monastery whither he may have retired. + +[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON MUSICIANS. _Illuminated MS., British +Museum._] + +In variety, inventiveness, and lyrical qualities, his poetry shows an +advance over the Caedmonian cycle. He has a poet's love for the beauty +of the sun and the moon (_heofon-condelle_), for the dew and the rain, +for the strife of the waves (_holm-ethroece_), for the steeds of the sea +(_sund-hengestas_), and for the "all-green" (_eal-gr=ene_) earth. "For +Cynewulf," says a critic, "'earth's crammed with heaven and every +common bush afire with God.'" + +Cynewulf has inserted his name in runic characters in four poems: +_Christ_, _Elene_, _Juliana_, a story of a Christian martyr, and the +least important, _The Fates of the Apostles_. The _Christ_, a poem on +the Savior's Nativity, Ascension, and Judgment of the world at the +last day, sometimes suggests Dante's _Inferno_ or _Paradiso_, and +Milton's _Paradise Lost_. We see the-- + + "Flame that welters up and of worms the fierce aspect, + With the bitter-biting jaws--school of burning creatures."[19] + +Cynewulf closes the _Christ_ with almost as beautiful a conception of +Paradise as Dante's or Milton's,--a conception that could never have +occurred to a poet of the warlike Saxon race before the introduction +of Christianity:-- + + "...Hunger is not there nor thirst, + Sleep nor heavy sickness, nor the scorching of the Sun; + Neither cold nor care."[20] + +_Elene_ is a dramatic poem, named from its heroine, Helena, the mother +of the Roman emperor Constantine. A vision of the cross bearing the +inscription, "With this shalt thou conquer," appeared to Constantine +before a victorious battle and caused him to send his mother to the +Holy Land to discover the true cross. The story of her successful +voyage is given in the poem _Elene_. The miraculous power of the true +cross among counterfeits is shown in a way that suggests kinship with +the fourteenth century miracle plays. A dead man is brought in contact +with the first and the second cross, but the watchers see no divine +manifestation until he touches the third cross, when he is restored to +life. + +_Elene_ and the _Dream of the Road_, also probably written by +Cynewulf, are an Anglo-Saxon apotheosis of the cross. Some of this +Cynewulfian poetry is inscribed on the famous Ruthwell cross in +Dumfriesshire. + +Andreas and Phoenix.--Cynewulf is probably the author of _Andreas_, +an unsigned poem of special excellence and dramatic power. The poem, +"a romance of the sea," describes St. Andrew's voyage to Mermedonia to +deliver St. Matthew from the savages. The Savior in disguise is the +Pilot. The dialogue between him and St. Andrew is specially fine. The +saint has all the admiration of a Viking for his unknown Pilot, who +stands at the helm in a gale and manages the vessel as he would a +thought. + +Although the poet tells of a voyage in eastern seas, he is describing +the German ocean:-- + + "Then was sorely troubled, + Sorely wrought the whale-mere. Wallowed there the Horn-fish, + Glode the great deep through; and the gray-backed gull + Slaughter-greedy wheeled. Dark the storm-sun grew, + Waxed the winds up, grinded waves; + Stirred the surges, groaned the cordage, + Wet with breaking sea."[21] + +Cynewulf is also the probable author of the _Phoenix_, which is in +part an adaptation of an old Latin poem. The _Phoenix_ is the only +Saxon poem that gives us the rich scenery of the South, in place of +the stern northern landscape. He thus describes the land where this +fabulous bird dwells:-- + + "Calm and fair this glorious field, flashes there the sunny grove; + Happy is the holt of trees, never withers fruitage there. + Bright are there the blossoms... + In that home the hating foe houses not at all, + * * * * * + Neither sleep nor sadness, nor the sick man's weary bed, + Nor the winter-whirling snow... + ...but the liquid streamlets, + Wonderfully beautiful, from their wells upspringing, + Softly lap the land with their lovely floods."[22] + +GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ANGLO-SAXON POETRY + +Martial Spirit.--The love of war is very marked in Anglo-Saxon +poetry. This characteristic might have been expected in the songs of a +race that had withstood the well-nigh all-conquering arm of the vast +Roman Empire. + +Our study of _Beowulf_ has already shown the intensity of the martial +spirit in heathen times. These lines from the _Fight at Finnsburg_, +dating from about the same time as _Beowulf_, have only the flash of +the sword to lighten their gloom. They introduce the raven, for whom +the Saxon felt it his duty to provide food on the battlefield:-- + + "...hraefen wandrode + sweart and sealo-br=un; swurd-l=eoma st=od + swylce eal Finns-buruh f=yrenu w=aere." + + ...the raven wandered + Swart and sallow-brown; the sword-flash stood + As if all Finnsburg were afire. + +The love of war is almost as marked in the Christian poetry. There are +vivid pictures of battle against the heathen and the enemies of God, +as shown by the following selection from one of the poems of the +Caedmonian cycle:-- + + "Helmeted men went from the holy burgh, + At the first reddening of dawn, to fight: + Loud stormed the din of shields. + For that rejoiced the lank wolf in the wood, + And the black raven, slaughter-greedy bird."[23] + +_Judith_, a fragment of a religious poem, is aflame with the spirit of +war. One of its lines tells how a bird of prey-- + + "Sang with its horny beak the song of war." + +This very line aptly characterizes one of the emphatic qualities of +Anglo-Saxon poetry. + +The poems often describe battle as if it were an enjoyable game. They +mention the "Play of the spear" and speak of "putting to sleep with +the sword," as if the din of war were in their ears a slumber melody. + +One of the latest of Anglo-Saxon poems, _The Battle of Brunanburh_, +937, is a famous example of war poetry. We quote a few lines from +Tennyson's excellent translation:-- + + "Grimly with swords that were sharp from the grindstone, + Fiercely we hack'd at the flyers before us. + * * * * * + Five young kings put asleep by the sword-stroke + Seven strong earls of the army of Anlaf + Fell on the war-field, numberless numbers." + +Love of the Sea.--The Anglo-Saxon fondness for the sea has been +noted, together with the fact that this characteristic has been +transmitted to the more recent English poetry. Our forefathers rank +among the best seamen that the world has ever known. Had they not +loved to dare an unknown sea, English literature might not have +existed, and the sun might never have risen on any English flag. + +The _scop_ sings thus of Beowulf's adventure on the North Sea:-- + + "Swoln were the surges, of storms 'twas the coldest, + Dark grew the night, and northern the wind, + Rattling and roaring, rough were the billows."[24] + +In the _Seafarer_, the _scop_ also sings:-- + + "My mind now is set, + My heart's thought, on wide waters, + The home of the whale; + It wanders away + Beyond limits of land. + * * * * * + And stirs the mind's longing + To travel the way that is trackless."[25] + +In the _Andreas_, the poet speaks of the ship in one of the most +charming of Saxon similes:-- + + "Foaming Ocean beats our steed: full of speed this boat is; + Fares along foam-throated, flieth on the wave, + Likest to a bird."[26] + +Some of the most striking Saxon epithets are applied to the sea. We +may instance such a compound as _=ar-ge-bland_ (_=ar_, "oar"; +_blendan_, "to blend"), which conveys the idea of the companionship of +the oar with the sea. From this compound, modern poets have borrowed +their "oar-disturbed sea," "oared sea," "oar-blending sea," and +"oar-wedded sea." The Anglo-Saxon poets call the sun rising or setting +in the sea the _mere-candel_. In Beowulf, _mere-str=aeta_, +"sea-streets," are spoken of as if they were the easily traversed +avenues of a town. + +Figures of Rhetoric.--A special characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry +is the rarity of similes. In Homer they are frequent, but Anglo-Saxon +verse is too abrupt and rapid in the succession of images to employ +the expanded simile. The long poem of _Beowulf_ contains only five +similes, and these are of the shorter kind. Two of them, the +comparison of the light in Grendel's dwelling to the beams of the sun, +and of a vessel to a flying bird, have been given in the original +Anglo-Saxon on pages 16, 17. Other similes compare the light from +Grendel's eyes to a flame, and the nails on his fingers to steel: +while the most complete simile says that the sword, when bathed in the +monster's poisonous blood, melted like ice. + +On the other hand, this poetry uses many direct and forcible +metaphors, such as "wave-ropes" for ice, the "whale-road" or +"swan-road" for the sea, the "foamy-necked floater" for a ship, the +"war-adder" for an arrow, the "bone-house" for the body. The sword is +said to sing a war song, the slain to be put to sleep with the sword, +the sun to be a candle, the flood to boil. War is appropriately called +the sword-game. + +Parallelisms.--The repetition of the same ideas in slightly +differing form, known as parallelism, is frequent. The author, wishing +to make certain ideas emphatic, repeated them with varying +phraseology. As the first sight of land is important to the sailor, +the poet used four different terms for the shore that met Beowulf's +eyes on his voyage to Hrothgar: _land, brimclifu, beorgas, +saen=aessas_ (land, sea-cliffs, mountains, promontories). + +This passage from the _Phoenix_ shows how repetition emphasizes the +absence of disagreeable things:-- + + "...there may neither snow nor rain, + Nor the furious air of frost, nor the flare of fire, + Nor the headlong squall of hail, nor the hoar frost's fall, + Nor the burning of the sun, nor the bitter cold, + Nor the weather over-warm, nor the winter shower, + Do their wrong to any wight."[27] + +The general absence of cold is here made emphatic by mentioning +special cold things: "snow," "frost," "hail," "hoar frost," "bitter +cold," "winter shower." The absence of heat is emphasized in the same +way. + +Saxon contrasted with Celtic Imagery.--A critic rightly says: "The +gay wit of the Celt would pour into the song of a few minutes more +phrases of ornament than are to be found in the whole poem of +_Beowulf_." In three lines of an old Celtic death song, we find three +similes:-- + + "Black as the raven was his brow; + Sharp as a razor was his spear; + White as lime was his skin." + +We look in Anglo-Saxon poetry in vain for a touch like this:-- + + "Sweetly a bird sang on a pear tree above the head of Gwenn before + they covered him with a turf."[28] + +Celtic literature shows more exaggeration, more love of color, and a +deeper appreciation of nature in her gentler aspects. The Celt could +write:-- + + "More yellow was her head than the flower of the broom, and her + skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands + and fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray + of the meadow fountain."[29] + +King Arthur and his romantic Knights of the Round Table are Celtic +heroes. Possibly the Celtic strain persisting in many of the Scotch +people inspires lines like these in more modern times:-- + + "The corn-craik was chirming + His sad eerie cry [30] + And the wee stars were dreaming + Their path through the sky." + +In order to produce a poet able to write both _A Midsummer Night's +Dream_ and _Hamlet_, the Celtic imagination must blend with the +Anglo-Saxon seriousness. As we shall see, this was accomplished by the +Norman conquest. + +ANGLO-SAXON PROSE + +When and where written.--We have seen that poetry normally precedes +prose. The principal part of Anglo-Saxon poetry had been produced +before much prose was written. The most productive poetic period was +between 650 and 825. Near the close of the eighth century, the Danes +began their plundering expeditions into England. By 800 they had +destroyed the great northern monasteries, like the one at Whitby, +where Caedmon is said to have composed the first religious song. As +the home of poetry was in the north of England, these Danish inroads +almost completely silenced the singers. What prose there was in the +north was principally in Latin. On the other hand, the Saxon prose was +produced chiefly in the south of England. The most glorious period of +Anglo-Saxon prose was during Alfred's reign, 871-901. + +Bede.--This famous monk (673-735) was probably the greatest teacher +and the best known man of letters and scholar in all contemporary +Europe. He is said to have translated the _Gospel of St. John_ into +Saxon, but the translation is lost. He wrote in Latin on a vast range +of subjects, from the _Scriptures_ to natural science, and from +grammar to history. He has given a list of thirty-seven works of which +he is the author. His most important work is the _Ecclesiastical +History of the English People_, which is really a history of England +from Julius Caesar's invasion to 731. The quotation from Bede's work +relative to Caedmon shows that Bede could relate things simply and +well. He passed almost all his useful life at the monastery of Jarrow +on the Tyne. + +Alfred (849-901).--The deeds and thoughts of Alfred, king of the +West Saxons from 871 until his death in 901, remain a strong moral +influence an the world, although he died more than a thousand years +ago. Posterity rightly gave him the surname of "the Great," as he is +one of the comparatively few great men of all time. E.A. Freeman, the +noted historian of the early English period, says of him:-- + + "No man recorded in history seems ever to have united so many + great and good qualities... A great part of his reign was taken up + with warfare with an enemy [the Danes] who threatened the national + being; yet he found means personally to do more for the general + enlightenment of his people than any other king in English history." + +After a Danish leader had outrageously broken his oaths to Alfred, the +Dane's two boys and their mother fell into Alfred's hands, and he +returned them unharmed. "Let us love the man," he wrote, "but hate his +sins." His revision of the legal code, known as _Alfred's Laws_, shows +high moral aim. He does not forget the slave, who was to be freed +after six years of service. His administration of the law endeavored +to secure the same justice for the poor as for the rich. + +Alfred's example has caused many to stop making excuses for not doing +more for their kind. If any one ever had an adequate excuse for not +undertaking more work than his position absolutely demanded, that man +was Alfred; yet his ill health and the wars with the Danes did not +keep him from trying to educate his people or from earning the title, +"father of English prose." Freeman even says that England owes to +Alfred's prose writing and to the encouragement that he gave to other +writers the "possession of a richer early literature than any other +people of western Europe" and the maintenance of the habit of writing +after the Norman conquest, when English was no longer used in courtly +circles. + +[Illustration: THE BEGINNING OF ALFRED'S LAWS. _Illuminated MS., +British Museum_.] + +Although most of his works are translations from the Latin, yet he has +left the stamp of his originality and sterling sense upon them all. +Finding that his people needed textbooks in the native tongue, he +studied Latin so that he might consult all accessible authorities and +translate the most helpful works, making alterations and additions to +suit his plan. For example, he found a Latin work on history and +geography by Orosius, a Spanish Christian of the fifth century; but as +this book contained much material that was unsuited to Alfred's +purposes, he omitted some parts, changed others, and, after +interviewing travelers from the far North, added much original matter. +These additions, which even now are not uninteresting reading, are the +best material in the book. This work is known as Alfred's _Orosius_. + +Alfred also translated Pope Gregory's _Pastoral Rule_ in order to show +the clergy how to teach and care for their flocks. Alfred's own words +at the beginning of the volume show how great was the need for the +work. Speaking of the clergy, he says:-- + + "There were very few on this side Humber who would know how to + render their services in English, or so much as translate an epistle + out of Latin into English; and I ween that not many would be on the + other side Humber. So few of them were there, that I cannot think of + so much as a single one, south of Thames, when I took to the + realm."[31] + +Alfred produced a work on moral philosophy, by altering and amending +the _De Consolatione Philosophiae_ of Boethius, a noble Roman who was +brutally thrown into prison and executed about 525 A.D. In simplicity +and moral power, some of Alfred's original matter in this volume was +not surpassed by any English writer for several hundred years. We +frequently find such thoughts as, "If it be not in a man's power to do +good, let him have the good intent." "True high birth is of the mind, +not of the flesh." His _Prayer_ in the same work makes us feel that he +could see the divine touch in human nature:-- + + "No enmity hast Thou towards anything... Thou, O Lord, + bringest together heavenly souls and earthly bodies, and minglest + them in this world. As they came hither from Thee, even so they also + seek to go hence to Thee." + +AElfric, 955?-1025?--The most famous theologian who followed +Alfred's example in writing native English prose, and who took Alfred +for his model, was a priest named AElfric. His chief works are his +_Homilies_, a series of sermons, and the _Lives of the Saints_. +Although much of his writing is a compilation or a translation from +the Latin Fathers, it is often remarkably vigorous in expression and +stimulating to the reader. We find such thoughts as:-- + + "God hath wrought many miracles, and He performs them every day, + but these miracles have become much less important in the sight of + men because they are very common... Spiritual miracles are greater + than the physical ones." + +To modern readers the most interesting of Aelfric's writings is his +_Colloquium_, designed to teach Latin in the monastery at Winchester. +The pupils were required to learn the Latin translation of his +dialogues in the Anglo-Saxon vernacular. Some of these dialogues are +today valuable illustrations of the social and industrial life of the +time. The following is part of the conversation between the Teacher +and the Plowman:-- + + "_Teacher_. What have you to say, plowman? How do you carry on + your work? + + "_Plowman_. O master, I work very hard; I go out at dawn, drive + the oxen to the field, and yoke them to the plow. There is no storm + so severe that I dare to hide at home, for fear of my lord, but when + the oxen are yoked, and the share and coulter have been fastened to + the plow, I must plow a whole acre or more every day. + * * * * * + "_Teacher_. Oh! oh! the labor must be great! + + "_Plowman_. It is indeed great drudgery, because I am not free."[32] + +The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.--This is the first history of any branch +of the Teutonic people in their own tongue. The _Chronicle_ has come +down to us in several different texts, according as it was compiled or +copied at different monasteries. The _Chronicle_ was probably begun in +Alfred's reign. The entries relating to earlier events were copied +from Bede's _Ecclesiastical History_ and from other Latin authorities. +The _Chronicle_ contains chiefly those events which each year +impressed the clerical compilers as the most important in the history +of the nation. This work is a fountainhead to which writers of the +history of those times must turn. + +A few extracts (translated) will show its character:-- + + "A.D. 449. This year ... Hengist and Horsa, invited by Vortigern, + King of Britons, landed in Britain, on the shore which is called + Wappidsfleet; at first in aid of the Britons, but afterwards they + fought against them." + + "806. This year the moon was eclipsed on the Kalends of September; + and Eardulf, King of the Northumbrians. was driven from his + kingdom; and Eanbert, Bishop of Hexham, died." + +Sometimes the narrative is extremely vivid. Those who know the +difficulty of describing anything impressively in a few words will +realize the excellence of this portraiture of William the Conqueror:-- + + "1087. If any would know what manner of man King William was, + the glory that he obtained, and of how many lands he was lord; then + will we describe him as we have known him... He was mild to + those good men who loved God, but severe beyond measure to those + withstood his will... So also was he a very stern and a wrathful + man, so that none durst do anything against his will, and he kept + in prison those earls who acted against his pleasure. He removed + bishops from their sees, and abbots from their offices, and he + imprisoned thanes, and at length he spared not his own brother. + Odo... Amongst other things, the good order that William + established is not to be forgotten; it was such that any man, who + was himself aught, might travel over the kingdom with a bosom-full + of gold, unmolested; and no man durst kill another... He made large + forests for the deer, and enacted laws therewith, so that whoever + killed a hart or a hind should be blinded ... and he loved the tall + stags as if he were their father." + +SUMMARY + +The Anglo-Saxons, a branch of the Teutonic race, made permanent +settlements in England about the middle of the fifth century A.D. Like +modern German, their language is highly inflected. The most +flourishing period of Anglo-Saxon poetry was between 650 and 825 A.D. +It was produced for the most part in the north of England, which was +overrun by the Danes about 800. These marauders destroyed many of the +monasteries and silenced the voices of the singers. The prose was +written chiefly in the south of England after the greatest poetic +masterpieces had been produced. The Norman Conquest of England, +beginning in 1066, brought the period to a close. + +Among the poems of this age, we may emphasize: (1) the shorter +_scopic_ pieces, of which the _Far Traveler, The Wanderer, The +Seafarer, The Fortunes of Men_, and _The Battle of Brunanburh_ are +important examples; (2) _Beowulf_, the greatest Anglo-Saxon epic poem, +which describes the deeds of an unselfish hero, shows how the +ancestors of the English lived and died, and reveals the elemental +ideals of the race; (3) the _Caedmonian Cycle_ of scriptural +paraphrases, some of which have Miltonic qualities; and (4) the +_Cynewulf Cycle_, which has the most variety and lyrical excellence. +Both of these _Cycles_ show how the introduction of Christianity +affected poetry. + +The subject matter of the poetry is principally war, the sea, and +religion. The martial spirit and love of the sea are typical of the +nation that has raised her flag in every clime. The chief qualities of +the poetry are earnestness, somberness, and strength, rather than +delicacy of touch, exuberance of imagination, or artistic adornment. + +The golden period of prose coincides in large measure with Alfred's +reign, 871-901, and he is the greatest prose writer. His translations +of Latin works to serve as textbooks for his people contain excellent +additions by him. AElfric, a tenth century prose writer, has left a +collection of sermons, called _Homilies_, and an interesting +_Colloquium_, which throws strong lights on the social life of the +time. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ is an important record of +contemporaneous events for the historian. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +In connection with the progress of literature, students should obtain +for themselves a general idea of contemporary historical events from +any of the following named works:-- + +Gardiner's_ Students' History of England_. + +Green's _Short History of the English People_. + +Walker's _Essentials in English History_. + +Cheney's _A Short History of England_. + +Lingard's _History of England_. + +Traill's _Social England_, Vol. I. + +Ramsay's _The Foundations of England_. + +LITERARY + +_Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vol. I. + +Brooke's _History of Early English Literature to the Accession of King +Alfred_. + +Morley's _English Writers_, Vols. I. and II. + +Earle's _Anglo-Saxon Literature_. + +Ten Brink's Early English Literature, Vol. I. + +_The Exeter Book_, edited and translated, by Gollancz (Early English +Text Society). + +Gurteen's _The Epic of the Fall of Man: A Comparative Study of +Caedmon, Dante, and Milton_. + +Cook's _The Christ of Cynewulf_. (The _Introduction of 97 pages gives +a valuable account of the life and writings of Cynewulf.) + +Kennedy's_ Translation of the Poems of Cynewulf_. + +Bede's _Ecclesiastical History of England and the Anglo-Saxon +Chronicle_, I vol., translated by Giles in Bohn's _Antiquarian +Library_. + +Snell's _The Age of Alfred._ + +Pauli's _Life of Alfred_ (Bohn's Antiquarian Library). + +Gem's _An Anglo-Saxon Abbot: AElfric of Eynsham_. + +_Mabinogion_ (a collection of Welsh fairy tales and romances, +_Everyman's Library_), translated by Lady Charlotte Guest. + +Pancoast and Spaeth's _Early English Poems_ (abbreviated reference) +("P & S."). + +Cook and Tinker's _Select Translations from Old English Poetry_ ("C. & +T."). + +Cook & Tinker's _Select Translations from Old English Prose_ +("C. & T. _Prose_"). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +The student who is not familiar with the original Anglo-Saxon should +read the translations specified below:-- + +Scopic Poetry.[33]--_Widsieth_ or the _Far Traveler_, translated in +Morley's _English Writers_, Vol. II, 1-11, or in C. & T.,[34] 3-8. + +_The Wanderer_, translated in P. & S., 65-68; C. & T., 50-55; Brooke, +364-367. + +_The Seafarer_, translated in P. & S., 68-70; C. & T., 44-49; Morley, +II., 21-26; Brooke, 362, 363. + +_The Fortunes of Men_, trans. in P. & S., 79-81; Morley, II., 32-37. + +_Battle of Brunanburh_, Tennyson's translation. + +What were the chief subjects of the songs of the scop? How do they +reveal the life of the time? Is there any common quality running +through them? What qualities of this verse appear in modern poetry? + +Beowulf.--This important poem should be read entire in one of the +following translations: + + Child's _Beowulf (Riverside Literature Series)_; + + Earle's _The Deeds of Beowulf, Done into Modern Prose_ (Clarendon + Press); + + Gummere's _The Oldest English Epic_; + + Morris and Wyatt's _The Tale of Beowulf_; + + Hall's _Beowulf, Translated into Modern Metres_; + + Lumsden's _Beowulf, an Old English Poem, Translated into Modern + Rhymes_ (the most readable poetic translation). + + Translations of many of the best parts of _Beowulf_ may be found in + P. & S. 5-29; C. & T., 9-24; Morley, I. 278-310; Brooke 26-73. + +Where did the exploits celebrated in the poem take place? Where was +Heorot? What was the probably time of the completion of _Beowulf_? +Describe the hero's three exploits. What analogy is there between the +conflict of natural forces in the Norseland and Beowulf's fight with +Grendel? What different attitude toward nature is manifest in modern +poetry? What is the moral lesson of the poem? Show that its chief +characteristics are typical of the Anglo-Saxon race. + +Caedmonian Cycle.--Some of the strongest passages may be found in P. +& S., 30-45; C. & T., 104-120; Morley, II. 81-101; Brooke, 290-340. +Read at the same time from Milton's _Paradise Lost_, Book I., lines +44-74, 169-184, 248-263, and _passim_. + +What evidence do we find in this cycle of the introduction of +Christianity? Who takes the place of Grendel? What account of Caedmon +does Bede give? What is the subject matter of this cycle? + +Cynewulf Cycle.--_The Poems of Cynewulf_, translated by C.W. +Kennedy. Translations of parts of this cycle may be found in Whitman's +_The Christ of Cynewulf_, and _The Exeter Book_, translated by +Gollancz. Good selections are translated in P. & S., 46-55; C. & T., +79-103; and 132-142: Morley, II., 206-241; Brooke, 371-443. For +selections from the _Phoenix_, see P & S, 54-65; C.& T., 143-163. + +What new qualities does this cycle show? What is the subject matter of +its most important poems? What is especially noticeable about the_ +Andreas and the Phoenix_? + +_General Characteristics of the Verse._--What is its usual form? What +most striking passages (a) in Beowulf; (b) elsewhere, show the Saxon +love of war and of the sea? Instance some similes and make a list of +vivid metaphors. What are the most striking parallelisms found in your +readings? What conspicuous differences are there between Saxon and +Celtic imagery? (See Morley, l, 165-239, or Guest's _Mabinogion_). +What excellencies and defects seem to you most pronounced in +Anglo-Saxon verse? + +Prose_--The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ and Bede's _Ecclesiastical +History_ are both translated in one volume of Bohn's _Antiquarian +Library_. The most interesting part of Bede for the student of +literature is the chapter relating to Caedmon (Chap. XXIV., pp. +217-220). + +In the _Chronicle_, read the entries for the years 871, 878, 897, 975, +1087, and 1137. + +Alfred's _Orosius_ is translated into modern English in the volume of +Bohn's_ Antiquarian Library_ entitled, _Alfred the Great, his Life and +Anglo-Saxon Works_, by Pauli. Sedgefield's translation of the_ +Consolations of Boethius_ distinguishes the original matter by Alfred +from the translation. Selections from Alfred's works are given in C. & +T.(_Prose_), 85-146, and in Earle's _Anglo-Saxon Literature_, 186-206. + +For selections from AElfric, see C. & T. (_Prose_), 149-192. Read +especially the _Colloquies_, 177-186. + +What was Bede's principal work? Why has Alfred been called the "father +of English prose"? What were his ideals? Mention his chief works and +their object. What is the character of AElfric's work? Why are modern +readers interested in his _Colloquium_? + +Why is the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ important? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER I: + +[Footnote 1: For special references to authors, movements and the +history of the period, see the lists under the heading, _Suggestions +for Further Study_, at the end of each chapter.] + +[Footnote 2: School libraries should own books marked *.] + +[Footnote 3: The abbreviation in parentheses after titles will be used +in the _Suggested Readings_ in place of the full title.] + +[Footnote 4: Tennyson's _In Memoriam_.] + +[Footnote 5: Florence Earls Coates's _Dream the Great Dream_.] + +[Footnote 6: Shakespeare's _The Tempest_, Act IV., Scene 1.] + +[Footnote 7: Morley's translation, _English Writers_, Vol. II., p. +21.] + +[Footnote 8: Swinburne's _A Song in Time of Order_.] + +[Footnote 9: Morley's _English Writers_, Vol. II., pp. 33, 34.] + +[Footnote 10: _Beowulf_, translated by William Morris and A.J. Wyatt.] + +[Footnote 11: Translated by J.L. Hall.] + +[Footnote 12: Earle's Translation.] + +[Footnote 13: Translated by Childs.] + +[Footnote 14: Translated by Morris and Wyatt.] + +[Footnote 15: Morley's translation.] + +[Footnote 16: _Paradise Lost_, Book I., lines 61-69.] + +[Footnote 17: _Paradise Lost_, II., 594.] + +[Footnote 18: _Ibid_., I., 222-224.] + +[Footnotes 19-22: Brooke's translation.] + +[Footnote 23: Morley's translation.] + +[Footnote 24: Brooke's translation.] + +[Footnote 25: Morley's translation.] + +[Footnotes 26-27: Brooke's translation.] + +[Footnote 28: _Llywarch's Lament for his Son Gwenn_.] + +[Footnote 29: Guest's _Mabinogion_.] + +[Footnote 30: William Motherwell's _Wearie's Well_.] + +[Footnote 31: Earle's translation.] + +[Footnote 32: Cook and Tinker's _Select Translations from Old English +Prose.] + +[Footnote 33: In his _Education of the Central Nervous System_, Chaps. +VII.-X., the author has endeavored to give some special directions for +securing definite ideas in the study of poetry.] + +[Footnote 34: For full titles, see page 50.] + + +CHAPTER II: FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066, TO CHAUCER'S DEATH, 1400 + +[Illustration: THE DEATH OF HAROLD AT HASTINGS. _From the Bayeaux +tapestry_.] + +The Norman Conquest.--The overthrow of the Saxon rule in England by +William the Conqueror in 1066 was an event of vast importance to +English literature. The Normans (Norsemen or Northmen), as they were +called, a term which shows their northern extraction, were originally +of the same blood as the English race. They settled in France in the +ninth century, married French wives, and adopted the French language. +In 1066 their leader, Duke William, and his army crossed the English +Channel and won the battle of Hastings, in which Harold, the last +Anglo-Saxon king, was killed. William thus became king of England. + +Characteristics of the Normans.--The intermixture of Teutonic and +French blood had given to the Normans the best qualities of both +races. The Norman was nimble-witted, highly imaginative, and full of +northern energy. The Saxon possessed dogged perseverance, good common +sense, if he had long enough to think, and but little imagination. +Some one has well said that the union of Norman with Saxon was like +joining the swift spirit of the eagle to the strong body of the ox, +or, again, that the Saxon furnished the dough, and the Norman the +yeast. Had it not been for the blending of these necessary qualities +in one race, English literature could not have become the first in the +world. We see the characteristics of both the Teuton and the Norman in +Shakespeare's greatest plays. A pure Saxon could not have turned from +Hamlet's soliloquy to write:-- + + "Where the bee sucks, there suck I."[1] + +Progress of the Nation, 1066-1400.--The Normans were specially +successful in giving a strong central government to England. The +feudal system, that custom of parceling out land in return for +service, was so extended by William the Conqueror, that from king +through noble to serf there was not a break in the interdependence of +one human being on another. At first the Normans were the ruling +classes and they looked down on the Saxons; but intermarriage and +community of interests united both races into one strong nation before +the close of the period. + +There was great improvement in methods of administering justice. +Accused persons no longer had to submit to the ordeal of the red-hot +iron or to trial by combat, relying on heaven to decide their +innocence. Ecclesiastical courts lost their jurisdiction over civil +cases. In the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189), great grandson of +William the Conqueror, judges went on circuits, and the germ of the +jury system was developed. + +Parliament grew more influential, and the first half of the fourteenth +century saw it organized into two bodies,--the Lords and the Commons. +Three kings who governed tyrannically or unwisely were curbed or +deposed. King John (1199-1216) was compelled to sign the _Magna +Charta_, which reduced to writing certain foundation rights of his +subjects. Edward II. (1307-1327) and Richard II. (1377-1399) were both +deposed by Parliament. One of the reasons assigned far the deposition +of Richard II. was his claim that "he alone could change and frame the +laws of the kingdom." + +The ideals of chivalry and the Crusades left their impress on the age. +One English Monarch, Richard the Lion-Hearted (1189-1199) was the +popular hero of the Third Crusade. In _Ivanhoe_ and _The Talisman_ Sir +Walter Scott presents vivid pictures of knights and crusaders. + +We may form some idea of the religious spirit of the Middle Ages from +the Gothic cathedrals, which had the same relative position in the +world's architecture as Shakespeare's work does in literature. +Travelers often declare that there is to-day nothing in England better +worth seeing than these cathedrals, which were erected in the twelfth, +thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries.[2] + +The religious, social, and intellectual life of the time was +profoundly affected by the coming of the friars (1220), who included +the earnest followers of St. Francis (1182-1226), that Good Samaritan +of the Middle Ages. The great philosopher and scientist, Roger Bacon +(1214-1294), who was centuries in advance of his time, was a +Franciscan friar. He studied at Oxford University, which had in his +time become one of the great institutions of Europe. + +The church fostered schools and learning, while the barons were +fighting. Although William Langland, a fourteenth-century cleric, +pointed out the abuses which had crept into the church, he gave this +testimony in its favor:-- + + "For if heaven be on this earth or any ease for the soul, it is in + cloister or school. For in cloister no man cometh to chide or fight, + and in school there is lowliness and love and liking to learn." + +The rise of the common people was slow. During all this period the +tillers of the soil were legally serfs, forbidden to change their +location. The Black Death (1349) and the Peasants' Revolt (1381), +although seemingly barren of results, helped them in their struggle +toward emancipation. Some bought their freedom with part of their +wages. Others escaped to the towns where new commercial activities +needed more labor. Finally, the common toiler acquired more commanding +influence by overthrowing even the French knights with his long bow. +This period laid the foundation for the almost complete disappearance +of serfdom in the fifteenth century. France waited for the terrible +Revolution of 1789 to free her serfs. England anticipated other great +modern nations in producing a literature of universal appeal because +her common people began to throw off their shackles earlier. + +This period opens with a victorious French army in England, followed +by the rule of the conquerors, who made French the language of high +life. It closes with the ascendancy of English government and speech +at home and with the mid-fourteenth century victories of English +armies on French soil, resulting in the rapture of Calais, which +remained for more than two hundred years in the possession of England. + +At the close of this period we find Wycliffe, "the morning star of the +Reformation," and Chaucer, the first great singer of the welded +Anglo-Norman race. His wide interest in human beings and his knowledge +of the new Italian literature prefigure the coming to England of the +Revival of Learning in the next age. + +It will now be necessary to study the changes in the language, which +were so pronounced between 1066 and Chaucer's death. + +THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN ENGLISH + +Three Languages used in England--For three hundred years after the +Norman Conquest, three languages were widely used in England. The +Normans introduced French, which was the language of the court and the +aristocracy. William the Conqueror brought over many Norman priests, +who used Latin almost exclusively in their service. The influence of +this book Latin is generally underestimated by those who do not +appreciate the power of the church. The Domesday survey shows that in +1085 the church and her dependents held more than one third of some +counties. + +In addition to the Latin and the French (which was itself principally +of Latin origin), there was, thirdly, the Anglo-Saxon, to which the +middle and the lower classes of the English stubbornly adhered. The +Loss of Inflections.--Anglo-Saxon was a language with changing +endings, like modern German. If a Saxon wished to say, "good gifts," +he had to have the proper case endings for both the adjective and the +noun, and his expression was _g=ode giefa_. For "the good gifts," he +said _eth=a g=odan giefa_, inflecting "the" and at the same time +changing the case ending of "good." + +The Norman Conquest helped to lop off these endings, which German has +never entirely lost. We, however, no longer decline articles or +ordinary adjectives. Instead of having our attention taken up with +thinking of the proper endings, we are left free to attend to the +thought rather than to the vehicle of its expression. Although our +pronouns are still declined, the sole inflection of our nouns, with +the exception of a few like _ox, oxen_, or _mouse, mice_, is the +addition of _'s, s,_ or _es_ for the possessive and the plural. Modern +German, on the other hand, still retains these troublesome case +endings. How did English have the good fortune to lose them? + +Whenever two peoples, speaking different languages, are closely +associated, there is a tendency to drop the terminations and to use +the stem word in all grammatical relations. If an English-speaking +person, who knows only a little German, travels in Germany, he finds +that he can make himself understood by using only one form of the noun +or adjective. If he calls for "two large glasses of hot milk," +employing the incorrect expression, _zwei gross Glass heiss Milch_, he +will probably get the milk as quickly as if he had said correctly, +_zwei grosse Glaeser heisse Milch_. Neglect of the proper case endings +may provoke a smile, but the tourist prefers that to starvation. +Should the Germans and the English happen to be thrown together in +nearly equal numbers on an island, the Germans would begin to drop the +inflections that the English could not understand, and the German +language would undergo a change. + +If there were no books or newspapers to circulate a fixed form of +speech, the alteration in the spoken tongue would be comparatively +rapid. + +Such dropping of terminations is precisely what did happen before the +Norman Conquest in those parts of England most overrun by the Danes. +There, the adjectives lost their terminations to indicate gender and +case, and the article "the" ceased to be declined. + +Even if the Normans had not come to England, the dropping of the +inflections would not have ceased. Many authorities think that the +grammatical structure of English would, even in the absence of that +event, have evolved into something like its present form. Of course +the Norman Conquest hastened many grammatical changes that would +ultimately have resulted from inherent causes, but it did not exercise +as great an influence as was formerly ascribed to it. Philologists +find it impossible to assign the exact amount of change due to the +Conquest and to other causes. Let us next notice some changes other +than the loss of inflections. + +Change in Gender.--Before any one could speak Anglo-Saxon correctly, +he had first to learn the fanciful genders that were attached to +nouns: "trousers" was feminine; "childhood," masculine; "child," +neuter. During this period the English gradually lost these fanciful +genders which the German still retains. A critic thus illustrates the +use of genders in that language: "A German gentleman writes a +masculine letter of feminine love to a neuter young lady with a +feminine pen and feminine ink on masculine sheets of neuter paper, and +incloses it in a masculine envelope with a feminine address to his +darling, though neuter, Gretchen. He has a masculine head, a feminine +hand, and a neuter heart." + +Prefixes, Suffixes, and Self-explaining Compounds.--The English +tongue lost much of its power of using prefixes. A prefix joined to a +well-known word changes its meaning and renders the coining of a new +term unnecessary. The Anglo-Saxons, by the use of prefixes, formed ten +compounds from their verb _fl=owan_, "to flow." Of these, only one +survives in our "overflow." From _sittan_, "to sit," thirteen +compounds were thus formed, but every one has perished. A larger +percentage of suffixes was retained, and we still have many words like +"wholesome-ness," "child-hood," "sing-er." + +The power of forming self-explaining compounds was largely lost. The +Saxon compounded the words for "tree," and "worker," and said +_tr=eow-wyrhta_, "tree-wright," but we now make use of the single word +"carpenter." We have replaced the Saxon _b=oc-craeft_, "book-art," by +"literature"; _=aefen-gl=om_, "evening-gloom," by "twilight"; +mere-sw=in, "sea-swine," by "porpoise"; _=eag-wraec_, "eye-rack," by +"pain in the eye"; _leornung-cild_, "learning-child," by "pupil." The +title of an old work, _Ayen-bite of In-wit_, "Again-bite of In-wit," +was translated into "Remorse of Conscience." _Grund-weall_ and +_word-hora_ were displaced by "foundation" and "vocabulary." The +German language still retains this power and calls a glove a +"hand-shoe," a thimble a "finger-hat," and rolls up such clumsy +compound expressions as _Unabhaengigkeits-erklaerung_. + +We might lament this loss more if we did not remember that Shakespeare +found our language ample for his needs, and that a considerable number +of the old compounds still survive, as _home-stead, man-hood, +in-sight, break-fast, house-hold, horse-back, ship-man, sea-shore, +hand-work_, and _day-light_. + +Introduction of New Words and Loss of Old Ones.--Since the Normans +were for some time the governing race, while many of the Saxons +occupied comparatively menial positions, numerous French words +indicative of rank, power, science, luxury, and fashion were +introduced. Many titles were derived from a French source. English +thus obtained words like "sovereign," "royalty," "duke," "marquis," +"mayor," and "clerk." Many terms of government are from the French; +for instance, "parliament," "peers," "commons." The language of law +abounds in French terms, like "damage," "trespass," "circuit," +"judge," "jury," "verdict," "sentence," "counsel," "prisoner." Many +words used in war, architecture, and medicine also have a French +origin. Examples are "fort," "arch," "mason," "surgery." In fact, we +find words from the French in almost every field. "Uncle" and +"cousin," "rabbit" and "falcon," "trot" and "stable," "money" and +"soldier," "reason" and "virtue," "Bible" and "preach," are instances +in point. + +French words often displaced Saxon ones. Thus, the Saxon _Haelend_, +the Healer, gave way to the French _Savior_, _wanhope_ and _wonstead_ +were displaced by _despair_ and _residence_. Sometimes the Saxon +stubbornly kept its place beside the French term. The English language +is thus especially rich in synonyms, or rather in slightly +differentiated forms of expression capable of denoting the exact shade +of thought and feeling. The following words are instances:-- + + SAXON FRENCH + + body corpse + folk people + swine pork + calf veal + worth value + green verdant + food nourishment + wrangle contend + fatherly paternal + workman laborer + +English was enriched not only by those expressions, gained from the +daily speech of the Normans, but also by words that were added from +literary Latin. Thus, we have the Saxon "ask," the Norman-French +"inquire" and "question," and the Latin "interrogate." "Bold," +"impudent," "audacious"; "bright," "cheerful," "animated"; "earnings," +"wages," "remuneration," "short," "brief," "concise," are other +examples of words, largely synonymous, from the Saxon, the +Norman-French, and the Latin, respectively. These facts explain why +modern English has such a wealth of expression, although probably more +than one half of the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary has been lost. + +The Superiority of the Composite Tongue.--While we insist on the +truth that Anglo-Saxon gained much of its wonderful directness and +power from standing in close relations to earnest life, it is +necessary to remember that many words of French origin did, by an +apprenticeship at the fireside, in the field, the workshop, and the +laboratory, equally fit themselves for taking their place in the +language. Such words from French-Latin roots as "faith," "pray," +"vein," "beast," "poor," "nurse," "flower," "taste," "state," and +"fool" remain in our vocabulary because they were used in everyday +life. + +Pure Anglo-Saxon was a forcible language, but it lacked the wealth of +expression and the flexibility necessary to respond to the most +delicate touches of the master-musicians who were to come. When +Shakespeare has Lear say of Cordelia:-- + + "Her voice was ever soft, + Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman," + +we find that ten of the thirteen words are Saxon, but the other three +of Romance (French) origin are as necessary as is a small amount of +tin added to copper to make bronze. Two of these three words express +varying shades of quality. + +Lounsbury well says: "There result, indeed, from the union of the +foreign and native elements, a wealth of phraseology and a +many-sidedness in English, which give it in these respects a +superiority over any other modern cultivated tongue. German is +strictly a pure Teutonic speech, but no native speaker of it claims +for it any superiority over the English as an instrument of +expression, while many are willing to concede its inferiority." + +The Changes Slowly Accomplished.--For over a hundred years after the +Conquest, but few French words found their way into current English +use. This is shown by the fact that the _Brut_, a poem of 32,250 +lines, translated from a French original into English about 1205, has +not more than a hundred words of Norman-French origin. + +At first the Normans despised the tongue of the conquered Saxons, but, +as time progressed, the two races intermarried, and the children could +hardly escape learning some Saxon words from their mothers or nurses. +On the other hand, many well-to-do Saxons, like parents in later +times, probably had their children taught French because it was +considered aristocratic. + +Until 1204 a knowledge of French was an absolute necessity to the +nobles, as they frequently went back and forth between their estates +in Normandy and in England. In 1204 King John lost Normandy, and in +the next reign both English and French kings decreed that no subject +of the one should hold land in the territory of the other. This +narrowing of the attention of English subjects down to England was a +foundation stone in building up the supremacy of the English tongue. + +In 1338 began the Hundred Years' War between France and England. In +Edward the Third's reign (1327-1377), it was demonstrated that one +Englishman could whip six Frenchmen; and the language of a hostile and +partly conquered race naturally began to occupy a less high position. +In 1362 Parliament enacted that English should thereafter be used in +law courts, "because the laws, customs, and statutes of this realm, be +not commonly known in the same realm, for that they be pleaded, +shewed, and judged in the French tongue, which is much unknown in the +said realm." + +LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 1066-1400 + +Metrical Romances.--For nearly three hundred years after the Norman +Conquest the chief literary productions were metrical romances, which +were in the first instance usually written by Frenchmen, but sometimes +by Englishmen (_e.g._ Layamon) under French influence. There were four +main cycles of French romance especially popular in England before the +fifteenth century. These were tales of the remarkable adventures of +King Arthur and his Knights, Charlemagne and his Peers, Alexander the +Great, and the heroes at the siege of Troy. At the battle of Hastings +a French minstrel is said to have sung the _Song of Roland_ from the +Charlemagne cycle. + +These long stories in verse usually present the glory of chivalry, the +religious faith, and the romantic loves of a feudal age. In _Beowulf_, +woman plays a very minor part and there is no love story; but in these +romances we often find woman and love in the ascendancy. One of them, +well known today in song, _Tristram and Iseult_ (Wagner's _Tristan und +Isolde_), "a possession of our composite race," is almost entirely a +story of romantic love. + +The romances of this age that have most interest for English readers +are those which relate to King Arthur and his Knights of the Round +Table. The foundation suggestions for the most of this cycle are of +British (Welsh) origin. This period would not have existed in vain, if +it had given to the world nothing, but these Arthurian ideals of +generosity, courage, honor, and high endeavour, which are still a +potent influence. In his _Idylls of the King_, Tennyson calls Arthur +and his Knights:-- + + "A glorious company, the flower of men, + To serve as model for the mighty world, + And be the fair beginning of a time." + +The _Quest of the Holy Grail_ belongs to the Arthurian cycle. Percival +(Wagner's Parsifal), the hero of the earlier version and Sir Galahad +of the later, show the same spirit that animated the knights in the +Crusades. Tennyson introduces Sir Galahad as a knight whose strength +is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure, undertaking "the +far-quest after the divine." The American poet Lowell chose Sir +Launfal, a less prominent figure in Arthurian romance, for the hero of +his version of the search for the Grail, and had him find it in every +sympathetic act along the common way of life. + +The story of _Gawayne and the Green Knight_, "the jewel of English +medieval literature," tells how Sir Gawayne, Arthur's favorite, fought +with a giant called the Green Knight. The romance might almost be +called a sermon, if it did not reveal in a more interesting way a +great moral truth,--that deception weakens character and renders the +deceiver vulnerable in life's contests. In preparing for the struggle, +Sir Gawayne is guilty of one act of deceit. But for this, he would +have emerged unscathed from the battle. One wound, which leaves a +lasting scar, is the result of an apparently trivial deception. His +purity and honor in all things else save him from death. This story, +which reminds us of Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, presents in a new garb +one of the oft-recurring ideals of the race, "keep troth" (truth). +Chaucer sings in the same key:-- + + "Hold the hye wey, and let thy gost thee lede, + And trouthe shall delivere, it is no drede." + +We should remember that these romances are the most characteristic +literary creations of the Middle Ages, that they embody the new spirit +of chivalry, religious faith, and romantic love in a feudal age, that +they had a story to tell, and that some of them have never lost their +influence on human ideals. + +A Latin Chronicler.--One chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth, +although he wrote in Latin, must receive some attention because of his +vast influence on English poetry. He probably acquired his last name +from being archdeacon of Monmouth. He was appointed Bishop of St. +Asaph in 1152 and died about 1154. Unlike the majority of the monkish +chroniclers, he possessed a vivid imagination, which he used in his +so-called _History of the Kings of Britain_. + +Geoffrey pretended to have found an old manuscript which related the +deeds of all British kings from Brutus, the mythical founder of the +kingdom of Britain, and the great-grandson of Aeneas, to Caesar. +Geoffrey wrote an account of the traditionary British kings down to +Cadwallader in 689 with as much minuteness and gravity as Swift +employed in the _Voyage to Lilliput_. Other chroniclers declared that +Geoffrey lied saucily and shamelessly, but his book became extremely +popular. The monks could not then comprehend that the world's greatest +literary works were to be products of the imagination. + +In Geoffrey of Monmouth's _History of the Kings of Britain_ we are +given vivid pictures of King Lear and his daughters, of Cymbeline, of +King Arthur and his Knights, of Guinevere and the rest of that company +whom later poets have immortalized. It is probable that Geoffrey was +not particular whether he obtained his materials from old chroniclers, +Welsh bards, floating tradition, or from his own imagination. His book +left its impress on the historical imagination of the Middle Ages. Had +it not been for Geoffrey's _History_, the dramas of _King Lear_ and +_Cymbeline_ might never have been suggested to Shakespeare. + +Layamon's Brut.--About 1155 a Frenchman named Wace translated into +his own language Geoffrey of Monmouth's works. This translation fell +into the hands of Layamon, a priest living in Worcestershire, who +proceeded to render the poem, with additions of his own, into the +Southern English dialect. Wace's _Brut_ has 15,300 lines; Layamon's, +32,250. As the matter which Layamon added is the best in the poem, he +is, in so far, an original author of much imaginative power. He is +certainly the greatest poet between the Conquest and Chaucer's time. + +A selection from the _Brut_ will give the student an opportunity of +comparing this transition English with the language in its modern +form:-- + + "And Ich wulle varan to Avalun: And I will fare to Avalon, + To vairest alre maidene To the fairest of all maidens, + To Argante ethere quene, To Argante the queen, + Alven swiethe sceone; Elf surpassing fair; + And heo scal mine wunden And she shall my wounds + Makien alle isunde, Make all sound, + Al hal me makien All hale me make + Mid halweige drenchen. With healing draughts. + And seoethe Ich cumen wulle And afterwards I will come + To mine kineriche To my kingdom + And wunien mid Brutten And dwell with Britons + Mid muchelere wunne." With much joy. + +With this, compare the following lines from Tennyson's _The Passing of +Arthur_:-- + + "...I am going a long way + * * * * * + To the island-valley of Avilion, + Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, + Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies + Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns + And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, + Where I will heal me of my grievous wound. + * * * * * + He passes to be King among the dead, + And after healing of his grievous wound + He comes again." + +Layamon employed less alliteration than is found in Anglo-Saxon +poetry. He also used an occasional rime, but the accent and rhythm of +his verse are more Saxon than modern. When reading Tennyson's _Idylls +of the King_, we must not forget that Layamon was the first poet to +celebrate in English King Arthur's deeds. The _Brut_ shows little +trace of French influences, not more than a hundred French words being +found in it. + +Orm's Ormulum.--A monk named Orm wrote in the Midland dialect a +metrical paraphrase of those parts of the _Gospels_ used in the church +on each service day throughout the year. After the paraphrase comes +his metrical explanation and application of the _Scripture_. + +He says:-- + + "Diss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum + Forrethi ethatt Ormm itt wrohhte." + + This book is named Ormulum + For that Orm it wrote. + +There was no fixed spelling at this time. Orm generally doubled the +consonant after a short vowel, and insisted that any one who copied +his work should be careful to do the same. We shall find on counting +the syllables in the two lines quoted from him that the first line has +eight; the second, seven. This scheme is followed with great precision +throughout the poem, which employs neither rime nor regular +alliteration. Orm used even fewer French words than Layamon. The date +of the _Ormulum_ is probably somewhere between 1200 and 1215. + +The Ancren Riwle.--About 1225 appeared the most notable prose work +in the native tongue since the time of Alfred, if we except the +_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_. Three young ladies who had secluded +themselves from the world in Dorsetshire, wished rules for guidance in +their seclusion. An unknown author, to oblige them, wrote the _Ancren +Riwle_ (Rule of Anchoresses). This book not only lays down rules for +their future conduct in all the affairs of life, but also offers much +religious consolation. + +The following selection shows some of the curious rules for the +guidance of the anchoresses, and furnishes a specimen of the Southern +dialect of transitional English prose in the early part of the +thirteenth century:-- + + "sse, mine leoue sustren, + ne schulen habben no best + bute kat one... sse schulen + beon i-dodded four siethen, + iethe ssere, uorto lihten ower + heaued... Of idelnesse awakeneeth + muchel flesshes fondunge... + Iren ethet lieth stille gedereeth + sone rust." + + Ye, my beloved sisters, + shall have no beast + but one cat... Ye shall + be cropped four times + in the year for to lighten your + head... Of idleness ariseth + much temptation of the flesh... + Iron that lieth still soon gathereth + rust. + +The keynote of the work is the renunciation of self. Few productions +of modern literature contain finer pictures of the divine love and +sympathy. The following simile affords an instance of this quality in +the work:-- + + "De sixte kunfort is ethet + ure Louerd, hwon he ietholeth + ethet we beoeth itented, he plaieeth mid + us, ase ethe moder mid hire ssunge + deorlinge; vliheth from him, and + hut hire, and let hit sitten one, + and loken sseorne abuten, and cleopien + Dame! dame! and weopen + one hwule; and etheonne mid ispredde + ermes leapeeth lauhwinde + voreth, and cluppeeth and cusseeth and + wipeeth his eien. Riht so ure + Louerd let us one iwurethen oether + hwules, and wiethdraweeth his grace + and his kunfort, ethet we ne ivindeeth + swetnesse in none ethinge ethet we wel + doeth, ne savor of heorte; and ethauh, + iethet ilke point ne luveeth he us + ure leove veder never ethe lesce, + auh he deeth hit for muchel luve + ethet he haveeth to us." + + The sixth comfort is that + our Lord, when he suffers + that we be tempted, he plays with + us, as the mother with her young + darling; she flees from it, and + hides herself, and lets it sit alone + and look anxiously about and cry + "Dame! dame!" and weep + awhile; and then with outspread + arms leaps laughing + forth and clasps and kisses it and + wipes its eyes. Exactly so our + Lord leaves us alone once in a + while and withdraws his grace + and his comfort, that we find + sweetness in nothing that we do well, + no relish of heart; and notwithstanding, + at the same time, he, our dear + Father, loves us nevertheless, + but he does it for the great love + that he has for us. + +Professor Sweet calls the _Ancren Riwle_ "one of the most perfect +models of simple, natural, eloquent prose in our language." For its +introduction of French words, this work occupies a prominent place in +the development of the English language. Among the words of French +origin found in it, we may instance: "dainty," "cruelty," "vestments," +"comfort," "journey," "mercer." + +Lyrical Poetry.--A famous British Museum manuscript, known as +_Harleian MS., No. 2253_. which was transcribed about 1310, contains a +fine anthology of English lyrics, some of which may have been composed +early in the thirteenth century. The best of these are love lyrics, +but they are less remarkable for an expression of the tender passion +than for a genuine appreciation of nature. Some of them are full of +the joy of birds and flowers and warm spring days. + +A lover's song, called _Alysoun_, is one of the best of these +lyrics:-- + + "Bytuene Mershe ant[3] Averil[4] + When spray biginneth to spring, + The lutel[5] foul hath hire wyl + On hyre lud[6] to synge." + +A famous spring lyric beginning:-- + + "Lenten[7] ys come with love to toune,[8] + With blosmen ant with briddes[9] roune."[10] + +is a symphony of daisies, roses, "lovesome lilies," thrushes, and +"notes suete of nyhtegales." + +The refrain of one love song is invigorating with the breath of the +northern wind:-- + + "Blou, northerne wynd! + Send thou me my suetyng! + Blou norterne wynd! blou, blou, blou!" + +The _Cuckoo Song_, which is perhaps older than any of these, is the +best known of all the early lyrics:-- + + "Sumer is i-cumen in + Lhude sing cuccu + Groweth sed and bloweth med + And springeth the wde nu. + Sing cuccu, cuccu." + + Summer is a-coming in, + Loud sing cuckoo, + Groweth seed and bloometh mead, + And springeth the wood now. + Sing cuckoo, cuckoo. + +A more somber note is heard in the religious lyrics:-- + + "Wynter wakeneth al my care, + Nou this leves waxeth bare; + Ofte I sike[11] ant mourne sare[12] + When hit cometh in my thoht + Of this worldes joie, hou hit goth al to noht." + +We do not know the names of any of these singers, but they were worthy +forerunners of the later lyrists of love and nature. + +Robert Manning of Brunne.--We have now come to fourteenth-century +literature, which begins to wear a more modern aspect. Robert Manning, +generally known as Robert of Brunne, because he was born at Brunne, +now called Bourn, in Lincolnshire, adapted from a Norman-French +original a work entitled _Handlyng Synne_ (_Manual of Sins_). This +book, written in the Midland dialect in 1303, discourses of the Seven +Deadly Sins and the best ways of living a godly life. + +A careful inspection of the following selection from the _Handlyng +Synne_ will show that, aside from the spelling, the English is +essentially modern. Most persons will be able to understand all but a +few words. He was the first prominent English writer to use the modern +order of words. The end rime is also modern. A beggar, seeing a beast +laden with bread at the house of a rich man, asks for food. The poem +says of the rich man:-- + + "He stouped down to seke a stone, + But, as hap was, than fonde he none. + For the stone he toke a lofe, + And at the pore man hyt drofe. + The pore man hente hyt up belyue, + And was thereof ful ferly blythe, + To hys felaws fast he ran + With the lofe, thys pore man." + + He stooped down to seek a stone, + But, as chance was, then found he none. + For the stone he took a loaf, + And at the poor man it drove. + The poor man caught it up quickly, + And was thereof full strangely glad, + To his fellows fast he ran + With the loaf this poor man. + +Oliphant says: "Strange it is that Dante should have been compiling +his _Inferno_, which settled the course of Italian literature forever, +in the selfsame years that Robert of Brunne was compiling the earliest +pattern of well-formed New English... Almost every one of the Teutonic +changes in idiom, distinguishing the New English from the Old, the +speech of Queen Victoria from the speech of Hengist, is to be found in +Manning's work." + +Mandeville's Travels.--Sir John Mandeville, who is popularly +considered the author of a very entertaining work of travels, states +that he was born in St. Albans in 1300, that he left England in 1322, +and traveled in the East for thirty-four years. His _Travels_ relates +what he saw and heard in his wanderings through Ethiopia, Persia, +Tartary, India, and Cathay. What he tells on his own authority, he +vouches for as true, but what he relates as hearsay, he leaves to the +reader's judgment for belief. + +[Illustration: WHAT MADEVILLE SAW. _Old print from Edition of +1725._] + +No such single traveler as Mandeville ever existed. The work +attributed to him has been proved to be a compilation from the +writings of other travelers. A French critic says wittily: "He first +lost his character as a truthful writer; then out of the three +versions of his book, French, English, and Latin, two were withdrawn +from him, leaving him only the first. Existence has now been taken +from him, and he is left with nothing at all." No matter, however, who +the author was, the book exists. More manuscripts of it survive than +of any other work except the _Scriptures_. It is the most entertaining +volume of English prose that we have before 1360. The sentences are +simple and direct, and they describe things vividly:-- + + "In Ethiope ben many dyverse folk: and Ethiope is clept[13] Cusis. + In that contree ben folk, that han but o foot: and thei gon so fast, + that it is marvaylle: and the foot is so large, that it schadewethe + alle the body azen[14] the Sonne whanne thei wole[15] lye and reste + hem."[16] + +Mandeville also tells of a bird that used to amuse itself by flying +away with an elephant in its talons. In the land of Prester John was a +valley where Mandeville says he saw devils jumping about as thick as +grasshoppers. Stories like these make the work as interesting as +_Gulliver's Travels_. + +The so-called Mandeville's _Travels_ was one of the few works that the +unlearned of that age could understand and enjoy. Consequently its +popularity was so great as to bring large number of French words into +familiar use. The native "againbought" is, however, used instead of +the foreign "redeemed." + +[Illustration: JOHN WYCLIFFE. _From an old print_.] + +John Wycliffe.--Wycliffe (1324-1384) was born at Hipswell, near +Richmond, in the northern part of Yorkshire. He became a doctor of +divinity and a master of one of the colleges at Oxford. Afterward he +was installed vicar of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where he died. +In history he is principally known as the first great figure in the +English Reformation. He preceded the other reformers by more than a +century. In literature he is best known for the first complete +translation of the _Bible_,--a work that exerted great influence on +English prose. All the translation was not made by him personally, but +all was done under his direction. The translation of most of the _New +Testament_ is thought to be his own special work. He is the most +important prose writer of the fourteenth century. His prose had an +influence as wide as the circulation of the _Bible_. The fact that it +was forced to circulate in manuscript, because printing had not then +been invented, limited his readers; but his translation was, +nevertheless, read by many. To help the cause of the Reformation, he +wrote argumentative religious pamphlets, which are excellent specimens +of energetic fourteenth-century prose. + +Of his place in literature, Ten Brink says: "Wycliffe's literary +importance lies in the fact that he extended the domain of English +prose and enhanced its powers of expression. He accustomed it to terse +reasoning, and perfected it as an instrument for expressing rigorous +logical thought and argument; he brought it into the service of great +ideas and questions of the day, and made it the medium of polemics and +satire. And above all, he raised it to the dignity of the national +language of the _Bible_." + +The following is a specimen verse of Wycliffe's translation. We may +note that the strong old English word "againrising" had not then been +displaced by the Latin "resurrection." + + "Jhesu seith to hir, I am agenrisyng and lyf; he that bileueth in + me, he, if he schal be deed, schall lyue." + +Piers Plowman.--_The Vision of William Concerning Piers the +Plowman_, popularly called _Piers Plowman_, from its most important +character, is the name of an allegorical poem, the first draft ("A" +text) of which was probably composed about 1362. Later in the century +two other versions, known as texts "B" and "C" appeared. Authorities +differ in regard to whether these are the work of the same man. _The +Vision_ is the first and the most interesting part of a much longer +work, known as _Liber de Petro Plowman_ (_The Book of Piers the +Plowman_). + +The authorship of the poem is not certainly known, but it has long +been ascribed to William Langland, born about 1322 at Cleobury +Mortimer in Shropshire. The author of _Piers Plowman_ seems to have +performed certain functions connected with the church, such as singing +at funerals. + +_Piers Plowman_ opens on a pleasant May morning amid rural scenery. +The poet falls asleep by the side of a brook and dreams. In his dream +he has a vision of the world passing before his eyes, like a drama. +The poem tells what he saw. Its opening lines are:-- + + "In a _s_omer _s_eson * whan _s_oft was the _s_onne + I _sh_ope[17] me in _sh_roudes[18] * as I a _sh_epe[19] were + In _h_abite as an _h_eremite[20] - un_h_oly of workes + _W_ent _w_yde in is _w_orld - _w_ondres to here + Ac on a _M_ay _m_ornynge - on _M_aluerne hulles[21] + Me by_f_el a _f_erly[22] - of _f_airy me thouss te + I _w_as _w_ery for_w_andred[23] - and _w_ent me to reste + Under a _b_rode _b_ank - _b_i a _b_ornes[24] side, + And as I _l_ay and _l_ened[25] - and _l_oked in e wateres + I _s_lombred in a _s_lepyng - it _s_weyved[26] so merye." + +[Illustration: TREUTHE'S PILGRYME ATTE PLOW. _From a manuscript in +Trinity College, Cambridge._] + +The language of _Piers Plowman_ is a mixture of the Southern and +Midland dialects. It should be noticed that the poem employs the old +Anglo-Saxon alliterative meter. There is no end rime. _Piers Plowman_ +is the last great poem written in this way. + +The actors in this poem are largely allegorical. Abstractions are +personified. Prominent characters are Conscience, Lady Meed or +Bribery, Reason, Truth, Gluttony, Hunger, and the Seven Deadly Sins. +In some respects, the poem is not unlike the _Pilgrim's Progress_, for +the battle in passing from this life to the next is well described in +both; but there are more humor, satire, and descriptions of common +life in Langland. Piers is at first a simple plowman, who offers to +guide men to truth. He is finally identified with the Savior. + +Throughout the poem, the writer displays all the old Saxon +earnestness. His hatred of hypocrisy is manifest on every page. His +sadness, because things are not as they ought to be, makes itself +constantly felt. He cannot reconcile the contradiction between the +real and the ideal. In attacking selfishness, hypocrisy, and +corruption; in preaching the value of a life of good deeds; in showing +how men ought to progress toward higher ideals; in teaching that "Love +is the physician of life and nearest our Lord himself,--" _Piers +Plowman_ proved itself a regenerating spiritual force, a +stepping-stone toward the later Reformation. + +The author of this poem was also a fourteenth-century social reformer, +protesting against the oppression of the poor, insisting on mutual +service and "the good and loving life." In order to have a +well-rounded conception of the life of the fourteenth century, we must +read _Piers Plowman_. Chaucer was a poet for the upper classes. _Piers +Plowman_ gives valuable pictures of the life of the common people and +shows them working-- + + "To kepe kyne In e field, e corne fro e bestes, + Diken[27] or deluen[28] or dyngen[29] vppon sheues,[30] + Or helpe make mortar or here mukke a-felde." + +We find in the popular poetry of _Piers Plowman_ almost as many words +of French derivation as in the work of the more aristocratic Chaucer. +This fact shows how thoroughly the French element had become +incorporated in the speech of all classes. The style of the author of +_Piers Plowman_ is, however, remarkable for the old Saxon sincerity +and for the realistic directness of the bearer of a worthy message. + +John Gower.--Gower, a very learned poet, was born about 1325 and +died in 1408. As he was not sure that English would become the +language of his cultivated countrymen, he tried each of the three +languages used in England. His first important work, the _Speculum +Meditantis_, was written in French; his second, the _Vox Clamantis_, +in Latin; his third, the _Confessio Amantis_, in English. + +[Illustration: EARLY PORTRAIT OF GOWER HEARING THE CONFESSION OF A +LOVER (CONFESSIO AMANTIS). _From the Egerton MS., British Museum._] + +The _Confessio Amantis_ (_Confession of a Lover_) is principally a +collection of one hundred and twelve short tales. An attempt to unify +them is seen in the design to have the confessor relate, at the +lover's request, those stories which reveal the causes tending to +hinder or to further love. Gower had ability in story-telling, as is +shown by the tales about Medea and the knight Florent; but he lacked +Chaucer's dramatic skill and humor. Gower's influence has waned +because, although he stood at the threshold of the Renaissance, his +gaze was chiefly turned backward toward medievalism. His contemporary, +Chaucer, as we see, was affected by the new spirit. + +GEOFFREY CHAUCER, 1340?-1400. + +[Illustration: GEOFFREY CHAUCER. _From an old drawing in Occleve's +Poems, British Museum._] + +Life.--Chaucer was born in London about 1340. His father and +grandfather were vintners, who belonged to the upper class of +merchants. Our first knowledge of Geoffrey Chaucer is obtained from +the household accounts of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter-in-law of +Edward III., in whose family Chaucer was a page. An entry shows that +she bought him a fine suit of clothes, including a pair of red and +black breeches. Such evidence points to the fact that he was early +accustomed to associating with the nobility, and enables us to +understand why he and the author of _Piers Plowman_ regard life from +different points of view. + +In 1359 Chaucer accompanied the English army to France and was taken +prisoner. Edward III. thought enough of the youth to pay for his +ransom a sum equivalent to-day to about $1200. After his return he was +made valet of the king's chamber. The duties of that office "consisted +in making the royal bed, holding torches, and carrying messages." +Later, Chaucer became a squire. + +In 1370 he was sent to the continent on a diplomatic mission. He seems +to have succeeded so well that during the next ten years he was +repeatedly sent abroad in the royal service. He visited Italy twice +and may thus have met the Italian poet Petrarch. These journeys +inspired Chaucer with a desire to study Italian literature,--a +literature that had just been enriched by the pens of Dante and +Boccaccio. + +We must next note that Chaucer's life was not that of a poetic +dreamer, but of a stirring business man. For more than twelve years he +was controller of customs for London. This office necessitated +assessing duties on wools, skins, wines, and candles. Only a part of +this work could be performed by deputy. He was later overseeing clerk +of the king's works. The repeated selection of Chaucer for foreign and +diplomatic business shows that he was considered sagacious as well as +trustworthy. Had he not kept in close touch with life, he could never +have become so great a poet. In this connection we may remark that +England's second greatest writer, Milton, spent his prime in attending +to affairs of state. Chaucer's busy life did not keep him from +attaining third place on the list of England's poets. + +There are many passages of autobiographical interest in his poems. He +was a student of books as well as of men, as is shown by these lines +from the _Hous of Fame_:-- + + "For whan thy labour doon al is, + And halt y-maad thy rekeninges, + In stede of rest and newe thinges, + Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon, + And, also domb as any stoon, + Thou sittest at another boke, + Til fully daswed[31] is thy loke, + And livest thus as an hermyte."[32] + +Chaucer was pensioned by three kings,--Edward III., Richard II., and +Henry IV. Before the reign of Henry IV., Chaucer's pensions were +either not always regularly paid, or they were insufficient for +certain emergencies, as he complained of poverty in his old age. The +pension of Henry IV. in 1399 must have been ample, however; since in +that year Chaucer leased a house in the garden of a chapel at +Westminster for as many of fifty-three years as he should live. He had +occasion to use this house but ten months, for he died in 1400. + +He may be said to have founded the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, +as he was the first of the many great authors to be buried there. + +Chaucer's Earlier Poems.--At the age of forty, Chaucer had probably +written not more than one seventh of a total of about 35,000 lines of +verse which he left at his death. Before he reached his poetic prime, +he showed two periods of influence,--French and Italian. + +During his first period, he studied French models. He learned much +from his partial translation of the popular French _Romaunt of the +Rose_. The best poem of his French period is _Dethe of Blanche the +Duchesse_, a tribute to the wife of John of Gaunt, the son of Edward +III. + +Chaucer's journey to Italy next turned his attention to Italian +models. A study of these was of especial service in helping him to +acquire that skill which enabled him to produce the masterpieces of +his third or English period. This study came at a specially opportune +time and resulted in communicating to him something of the spirit of +the early Renaissance. + +The influence of Boccaccio and, sometimes, of Dante is noticeable in +the principal poems of the Italian period,--the _Troilus and Criseyde, +Hous of Fame_, and _Legende of Good Women_. The _Troilus and Criseyde_ +is a tale of love that was not true. The _Hous of Fame_, an unfinished +poem, gives a vision of a vast palace of ice on which the names of the +famous are carved to await the melting rays of the sun. The _Legende +of Good Women_ is a series of stories of those who, like Alcestis, are +willing to give up everything for love. In _A Dream of Fair Women_ +Tennyson says:-- + + "'The Legend of Good Women,' long ago + Sung by the morning star of song, who made + His music heard below; + Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath + Preluded those melodious bursts that fill + The spacious times of great Elizabeth + With sounds that echo still." + +In this series of poems Chaucer learned how to rely less and less on +an Italian crutch. He next took his immortal ride to Canterbury on an +English Pegasus. + +General Plan of the Canterbury Tales.--People in general have always +been more interested in stories than in any other form of literature. +Chaucer probably did not realize that he had such positive genius for +telling tales in verse that the next five hundred years would fail to +produce his superior in that branch of English literature. + +[Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.] + +All that Chaucer needed was some framework into which he could fit the +stories that occurred to him, to make them something more than mere +stray tales, which might soon be forgotten. Chaucer's great +contemporary Italian storyteller, Boccaccio, conceived the idea of +representing some of the nobility of Florence as fleeing from the +plague, and telling in their retirement the tales that he used in his +_Decameron_. It is not certain that Chaucer received from the +_Decameron_ his suggestions for the _Canterbury Tales_, although he +was probably in Florence at the same time as Boccaccio. + +In 1170 Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered at the +altar. He was considered both a martyr and a saint, and his body was +placed in a splendid mausoleum at the Cathedral. It was said that +miracles were worked at his tomb, that the sick were cured, and that +the worldly affairs of those who knelt at his shrine prospered. It +became the fashion for men of all classes to go on pilgrimages to his +tomb. As robbers infested the highways, the pilgrims usually waited at +some inn until there was a sufficient band to resist attack. In time +the journey came to be looked on as a holiday, which relieved the +monotony of everyday life. About 1385 Chaucer probably went on such a +pilgrimage. To furnish amusement, as the pilgrims cantered along, some +of them may have told stories. The idea occurred to Chaucer to write a +collection of such tales as the various pilgrims might have been +supposed to tell on their journey. The result was the _Canterbury +Tales_. + +Characters in the Tales.--Chaucer's plan is superior to Boccaccio's; +for only the nobility figure as story-tellers in the _Decameron_, +while the Canterbury pilgrims represent all ranks of English life, +from the knight to the sailor. + +The _Prologue_ to the _Tales_ places these characters before us almost +as distinctly as they would appear in real life. At the Tabard Inn in +Southwark, just across the Thames from London, we see that merry band +of pilgrims on a pleasant April day. We look first upon a manly figure +who strikes us as being every inch a knight. His cassock shows the +marks of his coat of mail. + + "At mortal batailles hadde he been fiftene. + * * * * * + And of his port as meke as is a mayde. + He never yet no vileinye ne sayde + In al his lyf, un-to no maner wight. + He was a verray parfit gentil knight." + +His son, the Squire, next catches our attention. We notice his curly +locks, his garments embroidered with gay flowers, and the graceful way +in which he rides his horse. By his side is his servant, the Yeoman, +"clad in cote and hood of grene," with a sheaf of arrows at his belt. +We may even note his cropped head and his horn suspended from green +belt. We next catch sight of a Nun's gracefully pleated wimple, +shapely nose, small mouth, "eyes greye as glas," well-made cloak, +coral beads, and brooch of gold. She is attended by a second Nun and +three Priests. The Monk is a striking figure:-- + + "His heed was balled, that shoon as any glas, + And eek his face, as he hadde been anoint. + He was a lord ful fat and in good point." + +[Illustration: PILGRIMS LEAVING THE TABARD INN. _From Urry's +Chaucer._] + +There follow the Friar with twinkling eyes, "the beste beggere in his +hous," the Merchant with his forked beard, the Clerk (scholar) of +Oxford in his threadbare garments, the Sergeant-at-Law, the Franklyn +(country gentleman), Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Tapycer +(tapestry maker), Cook, Shipman, Physician, Wife of Bath, Parish +Priest, Plowman, Miller, Manciple (purchaser of provisions), Reeve +(bailiff of a farm), Summoner (official of an ecclesiastical court), +and Pardoner. These characters, exclusive of Baily (the host of Tabard +Inn) and Chaucer himself, are alluded to in the _Prologue_ to the +_Tales_ as-- + + "Wel nyne and twenty in a companye, + Of sondry folk, by aventure y-falle + In felawshipe, and pilgrims were they alle, + That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde." + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF LINES DESCRIBING THE FRANKLYN[33]. _From +the Cambridge University MS._] + +[Illustration: THE FRANKLYN[34].] + +[Illustration: THE FRIAR.] + +The completeness of the picture of fourteenth century English life in +the _Canterbury Tales_ makes them absolutely necessary reading for the +historian as well as for the student of literature. + +Certainly no one who has ever read the _Prologue_ to the _Tales_ will +question Chaucer's right to be considered a great _original_ poet, no +matter how much he may have owed to foreign teachers. + +The Tales.--Harry Baily, the keeper of the Tabard Inn, who +accompanied the pilgrims, proposed that each member of the party +should tell four tales,--two going and two returning. The one who told +the best story was to have a supper at the expense of the rest. The +plan thus outlined was not fully executed by Chaucer, for the +collection contains but twenty-four tales, all but two of which are in +verse. + +[Illustration: THE KNIGHT.] + +[Illustration: THE PRIORESS.] + +[Illustration: THE SQUIRE.] + +The _Knightes Tale_, which is the first, is also the best. It is a +very interesting story of love and chivalry. Two young Theban +nobleman, Palamon and Arcite, sworn friends, are prisoners of war at +Athens. Looking through the windows of their dungeon, they see walking +in the garden the beautiful sister of the queen. Each one swears that +he will have the princess. Arcite is finally pardoned on condition +that he will leave Athens and never return, on penalty of death; but +his love for Emily lures him back to the forbidden land. Reduced +almost to a skeleton, he disguises himself, goes to Athens, and +becomes a servant in the house of King Theseus. Finally, Palamon +escapes from prison, and by chance encounters Arcite. The two men +promptly fight, but are interrupted by Theseus, who at first condemns +them to death, but later relents and directs them to depart and to +return at the end of a year, each with a hundred brave knights. The +king prescribes that each lover shall then lead his forces in mortal +battle and that the victor shall wed the princess. + +[Illustration: THE CLERK OF OXFORD.] + +On the morning of the contest, Palamon goes before dawn to the temple +of Venus to beseech her aid in winning Emily, while Arcite at the same +time steals to the temple of Mars to pray for victory in war. Each +deity not only promises but actually grants the suppliants precisely +what they ask; for Arcite, though fatally wounded, is victorious in +the battle, and Palamon in the end weds Emily. Although Boccaccio's +_Teseide_ furnished the general plot for this _Knightes Tale_, +Chaucer's story is, as Skeat says, "to all intents, a truly original +poem." + +The other pilgrims tell stories in keeping with their professions and +characters. Perhaps the next best tale is the merry story of +_Chanticleer and the Fox_. This is related by the Nun's Priest. The +Clerk of Oxford tells the pathetic tale of _Patient Griselda_, and the +Nun relates a touching story of a little martyr. + +Chief Qualities of Chaucer.--I. Chaucer's descriptions are unusually +clear-cut and vivid. They are the work of a poet who did not shut +himself in his study, but who mingled among his fellow-men and noticed +them acutely. He says of the Friar:-- + + "His eyes twinkled in his heed aright, + As doon the sterres in the frosty night." + +Our eyes and ears distinctly perceive the jolly Monk, as he canters +along:-- + + "And, whan he rood, men might his brydel here + Ginglen in a whistling wind as clere, + And eek as loude as dooth the chapel-belle." + +II. Chaucer's pervasive, sympathetic humor is especially +characteristic. We can see him looking with twinkling eyes at the +Miller, "tolling thrice"; at the Monk, "full fat and in good point," +hunting with his greyhounds, "swift as fowl in flight," or smiling +before a fat roast swan; at the Squire, keeping the nightingale +company; at the Doctor, prescribing the rules of astrology. The Nun +feels a touch of his humor:-- + + "Ful wel she song the service divyne, + Entuned in hir nose ful semely." + +Of the lawyer, he says:-- + + "No-wher so bisy a man as he ther nas, + And yet he semed bisier than he was." + +Sometimes Chaucer's humor is so delicate as to be lost on those who +are not quick-witted. Lowell instances the case of the Friar, who, +"before setting himself softly down, drives away the cat," and adds +what is true only of those who have acute understanding: "We know, +without need of more words, that he has chosen the snuggest corner." + +His humor is often a graceful cloak for his serious philosophy of +existence. The humor in the _Prologue_ does not impair its worth to +the student of fourteenth-century life. + +III. Although Chaucer's humor and excellence in lighter vein are such +marked characteristics, we must not forget his serious qualities; for +he has the Saxon seriousness as well as the Norman airiness. As he +looks over the struggling world, he says with a sympathetic heart:-- + + "Infinite been the sorwes and the teres + Of olde folk, and folk of tendre yeres."[35] + +In like vein, we have:-- + + "This world nis but a thurghfare ful of wo, + And we ben pilgrimes, passinge to and fro; + Deeth is an ende of every worldly sore."[36] + + "Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse. + Forthe, pylgrime, forthe! forthe, beste out of thi stal! + Knowe thi contree, look up, thank God of al!"[37] + +The finest character in the company is that of the Parish Priest, who +attends to his flock like a good Samaritan:-- + + "But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, + He taughte, and first he folwed it him-selve." + +IV. The largeness of his view of human nature is remarkable. Some +poets, either intentionally or unintentionally, paint one type of men +accurately and distort all the rest. Chaucer impartially portrays the +highest as well as the lowest, and the honest man as well as the +hypocrite. The pictures of the roguish Friar and the self-denying +Parish Priest, the Oxford Scholar and the Miller, the Physician and +the Shipman, are painted with equal fidelity to life. In the breadth +and kindliness of his view of life, Chaucer is a worthy predecessor of +Shakespeare. Dryden's verdict on Chaucer's poetry is: "Here is God's +plenty." + +V. His love of nature is noteworthy for that early age. Such lines as +these manifest something more than a desire for rhetorical effect in +speaking of nature's phenomena:-- + + "Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, + That hast this wintres weders over-shake, + And driven awey the longe nightes blake[38]!"[39] + +His affection for the daisy has for five hundred years caused many +other people to look with fonder eyes upon that flower. + +VI. He stands in the front rank of those who have attempted to tell +stories in melodious verse. Lowell justly says: "One of the world's +three or four great story-tellers, he was also one of the best +versifiers that ever made English trip and sing with a gayety that +seems careless, but where every foot beats time to the tune of the +thought." + +[Illustration: MORRIS DANCERS._From a Manuscript of Chaucer's +Time._] + +VII. He is the first great English author to feel the influence of the +Renaissance, which did not until long afterward culminate in England. +Gower has his lover hear tales from a confessor in cloistered quiet. +Chaucer takes his Pilgrims out for jolly holidays in the April +sunshine. He shows the spirit of the Renaissance in his joy in varied +life, in his desire for knowledge of all classes of men as well as of +books, in his humor, and in his general reaching out into new fields. +He makes us feel that he lives in a merrier England, where both the +Morris dancer and the Pilgrim may show their joy in life. + +What Chaucer did for the English Language.--Before Chaucer's works, +English was, as we have seen, a language of dialects. He wrote in the +Midland dialect, and aided in making that the language of England. +Lounsbury says of Chaucer's influence: "No really national language +could exist until a literature had been created which would be admired +and studied by all who could read, and taken as a model by all who +could write. It was only a man of genius that could lift up one of +these dialects into a preeminence over the rest, or could ever give to +the scattered forces existing in any one of them the unity and vigor +of life. This was the work that Chaucer did." For this reason he +deserves to be called our first modern English poet. At first sight, +his works look far harder to read than they really are, because the +spelling has changed so much since Chaucer's day. + +SUMMARY + +The period from the Norman Conquest to 1400 is remarkable (1) for +bringing into England French influence and closer contact with the +continent; (2) for the development of (_a_) a more centralized +government, (_b_) the feudal system and chivalry, (_c_) better civil +courts of justice and a more representative government, _Magna Charta_ +being one of the steps in this direction; (3) for the influence of +religion, the coming of the friars, the erection of unsurpassed Gothic +cathedrals; (4) for the struggles of the peasants to escape their +bondage, for a striking decline in the relative importance of the +armored knight, and for Wycliffe's movement for a religious +reformation. + +This period is also specially important because it gave to England a +new language of greater flexibility and power. The old inflections, +genders, formative prefixes, and capability of making self-explaining +compounds were for the most part lost. To supply the places of lost +words and to express those new ideas which came with the broader +experiences of an emancipated, progressive nation, many new words were +adopted from the French and the Latin. When the time for literature +came, Chaucer found ready for his pen the strongest, sincerest, and +most flexible language that ever expressed a poet's thought. + +In tracing the development of the literature of this period, we have +noted (1) the metrical romances; (2) Geoffrey of Monmouth's (Latin) +_History of the Kings of Britain_, and Layamon's _Brut_, with their +stories of Lear, Cymbeline and King Arthur; (3) the _Ormulum_, a +metrical paraphrase of those parts of the _Gospels_ used in church +service; (4) the _Ancren Riwle_, remarkable for its natural eloquent +prose and its noble ethics, as well as for showing the development of +the language; (5) the lyrical poetry, beginning to be redolent of the +odor of the blossom and resonant with the song of the bird; (6) the +_Handlyng Synne_, in which we stand on the threshold of modern +English; (7) Mandeville's _Travels_, with its entertaining stories; +(8) Wycliffe's monumental translation of the _Bible_ and vigorous +religious prose pamphlets; (9) _Piers Plowman_, with its pictures of +homely life, its intense desire for higher ideals and for the +reformation of social and religious life; (10) Gower's _Confessio +Amantis_, a collection of tales about love; and (11) Chaucer's poetry, +which stands in the front rank for the number of vivid pictures of +contemporary life, for humor, love of nature, melody, and capacity for +story-telling. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +An account of the history of this period may be found in either +Gardiner[40], Green, Lingard, Walker, or Cheney. Volumes II. and III. +of the _Political History of England_, edited by Hunt (Longmans), give +the history in greater detail. For the social side, consult Traill, I. +and II. See also Rogers's _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_. Freeman's +_William the Conqueror_, Green's _Henry II_., and Tout's _Edward I_. +(_Twelve English Statesmen Series_) are short and interesting. +Kingsley's _Hereward the Wake_ deals with the times of William the +Conqueror and Scott's _Ivanhoe_ with those of Richard the +Lion-Hearted. Archer and Kingsford's _The Story of the Crusades_, +Cutt's _Parish Priests and their People in the Middle Ages in +England_, and Jusserand's _English Wayfaring Life in the fourteenth +Century_ are good works. + +LITERARY + +_Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vols. I. and II. + +Bradley's _Making of English_. + +Schofield's _English Literature from the Conquest to Chaucer_. + +Ker's _Epic and Romance_. + +Saintsbury's _The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory_. + +Lawrence's _Medieval Story_ (excellent). + +Weston's _The Romance Cycle of Charlemagne and his Peers_. + +Weston's _King Arthur and his Knights_. + +Maynadier's _The Arthur of the English Poets_. + +Nutt's _The Legends of the Holy Grail_. + +Jusserand's _Piers Plowman_. + +Warren's _Langland's Vision of Piers the Plowman, Done into Modern +Prose_. + +Savage's _Old English Libraries_. + +Schofield's _Chivalry in English Literature_. + +Snell's _The Age of Chaucer_. + +Root's _The Poetry of Chaucer_. + +Tuckwell's _Chaucer_ (96 pp.). + +Pollard's _Chaucer_ (142 pp.). + +Legouis's _Chaucer_. + +Coulton's _Chaucer and his England_. + +Lowell's _My Study Windows_ contains one of the best essays ever +written on Chaucer. + +Mackail's _The Springs of Helicon_ (Chaucer). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Romances.--The student will be interested in reading from Lawrence's +_Medieval Story_, Chapters III., _The Song of Roland_; IV., _The +Arthurian Romances_; V., _The Legend of the Holy Grail_; VI., _The +History of Reynard the Fox_. Butler's _The Song of Roland_ (_Riverside +Literature Series_) is an English prose translation of a popular story +from the Charlemagne cycle. _Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight_ has +been retold in modern English prose by J.L. Weston (London: David +Nutt). A long metrical selection from this romance is given in +Bronson.[41] I., 83-100, in _Oxford Treasury_, I., 60-81, and a prose +selection in _Century_, 1000-1022. + +Stories from the Arthurian cycle may he found in Newell's _King Arthur +and the Table Round_. See also Maynadier's _The Arthur of the English +Poets_, and Tennyson's _The Idylls of the King_. + +Geoffrey of Monmouth's _History of the Kings of Britain_ is translated +in Giles's _Six Old English Chronicles_ (Bohn Library). + +Selections from Layamon's _Brut_ may be found in Bronson, I.; P. & S.; +and Manly, I. + +What were the chief subjects of the cycles of Romance? Were they +mostly of English or French origin? What new elements appear, not +found in Beowulf? Which of these cycles has the most interest for +English readers? How does this cycle still influence twentieth-century +ideals? In what respect is the romance of _Gawayne_ like a sermon? + +What Shakespearean characters does Geoffrey of Monmouth introduce? How +is Layamon's _Brut_ related to Geoffrey's chronicle? Point out a +likeness between the _Brut_ and the work of a Victorian poet. + +Ormulum, Lyrics, and Robert Manning of Brunne.--Selections may be +found in P. & S.; Bronson, I.; Oxford (lyrics, pp. 1-10); Manly, I.; +Morris's _Specimens of Early English_. Among the lyrics, read +specially, "Sumer is i-cumen in," "Alysoun," "Lenten ys come with love +to toune," and "Blow, Northern Wind." + +What was the purpose of the _Ormulum_? What is its subject matter? +Does it show much French influence? + +What new appreciation of nature do the thirteenth-century lyrics show? +Point out at least twelve definite concrete references to nature in +"Lenten ys come with love to toune." How many such references are +there in the _Cuckoo Song_? + +What difference do you note between the form of Robert Manning of +Brunne's _Handling Synne_ and Anglo-Saxon poetry? Can you find an +increasing number of words of French derivation in his work? + +Prose.--Manly's _English Prose_, Morris's _Specimens of Early +English_, Parts I. and II., Chambers, I., Craik, I., contain specimens +of the best prose, including Mandeville and Wycliffe. Mandeville's +_Travels_ may be found in modern English in Cassell's _National +Library_ (15c). Bosworth and Waring's edition of the _Gospels_ +contains the Anglo-Saxon text, together with the translations of +Wycliffe and Tyndale. No. 107 of Maynard's _English Classics_ contains +selections from both Wycliffe's _Bible_ and Mandeville's _Travels_. + +What is the subject matter of the _Ancren Riwle_? What is the keynote +of the work? Mention some words of French origin found in it. What is +the character of Mandeville's _Travels_? Why was it so popular? + +In what does Wycliffe's literary importance consist? Compare some +verses of his translation of the _Bible_ with the 1611 version. + +Piers Plowman and Gower.--Selections are given in P. & S.; Bronson, +I.; Ward, I.; Chambers, I.; and Manly, I. Skeat has edited a small +edition of _Piers the Plowman_ ("B" text) and also a larger edition, +entitled _The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, in Three +Parallel Texts_. G.C. Macaulay has a good volume of selections from +Gower's _Confessio Amantis_. + +What is the difference between the form of the verse in _Piers +Plowman_ and _Handling Synne_? Who is Piers? Who are some of the other +characters in the poem? What type of life is specially described? In +what sort of work are the laborers engaged? Why may the author of +_Piers Plowman_ be called a reformer? + +Why was Gower undecided in what language to write? What is the subject +matter of the _Confessio Amantis_? + +Chaucer.--Read the _Prologue_ and if possible also the _Knightes +Tale_ (Liddell's, or Morris-Skeat's, or Van Dyke's, or Mather's +edition). Good selections may be found in Bronson, I.; Ward, I.; P. +and S., and _Oxford Treasury_, I. Skeat's Complete Works, 6 vols., is +the best edition. Skeat's _Oxford Chaucer_ in one volume has the same +text. The _Globe Edition of Chaucer_, edited by Pollard, is also a +satisfactory single volume edition. Root's _The Poetry of Chaucer_, +292 pp., is a good reference work in connection with the actual study +of the poetry. + +Give a clear-cut description of the six of Chaucer's pilgrims that +impress you most strongly. How has the _Prologue_ added to our +knowledge of life in the fourteenth century? Give examples of +Chaucer's vivid pictures. What specimens of his humor does the +_Prologue_ contain? Do any of Chaucer's lines in the _Prologue_ show +that the Reformation spirit was in the air, or did Wycliffe and +Langland alone among contemporary authors afford evidence of this +spirit? Compare Chaucer's verse with Langland's in point of subject +matter. What qualities in Chaucer save him from the charge of cynicism +when he alludes to human faults? Does the _Prologue_ attempt to +portray any of the nobler sides of human nature? Is the _Prologue_ +mainly or entirely concerned with the personality of the pilgrims? Has +Chaucer any philosophy of life? Are there any references to the +delights of nature? Note any passages that show special powers of +melody and mastery over verse. Does the poem reveal anything of +Chaucer's personality? In your future reading see if you can find +another English story-teller in verse who can be classed with Chaucer. + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER II: + +[Footnote 1: _The Tempest_, V., I.] + +[Footnote 2: For the location of all the English cathedral towns, see +the _Literary Map_, p. XII.] + +[Footnote 3: and.] + +[Footnote 4: April.] + +[Footnote 5: little.] + +[Footnote 6: in her language.] + +[Footnote 7: Spring.] + +[Footnote 8: in its turn.] + +[Footnote 9: birds.] + +[Footnote 10: song.] + +[Footnote 11: sigh.] + +[Footnote 12: sorely.] + +[Footnote 13: called.] + +[Footnote 14: against.] + +[Footnote 15: will.] + +[Footnote 16: them.] + +[Footnote 17: arrayed.] + +[Footnote 18: garments.] + +[Footnote 19: shepherd.] + +[Footnote 20: hermit.] + +[Footnote 21: hills.] + +[Footnote 22: wonder.] + +[Footnote 23: tired out with wandering.] + +[Footnote 24: brook.] + +[Footnote 25: reclined.] + +[Footnote 26: sounded.] + +[Footnote 27: to make dykes or ditches.] + +[Footnote 28: to dig.] + +[Footnote 29: to thrash (ding).] + +[Footnote 30: sheaves.] + +[Footnote 31: dazed.] + +[Footnote 32: hermit.] + +[Footnote 33: _The Prologue_, Lines 331-335.] + +[Footnote 34: The cuts of the Pilgrims are from the Fourteenth Century +Ellesmere MS. of _Canterbury Tales_.] + +[Footnotes 35-36: _Knightes Tale_.] + +[Footnote 37: _Truth: Balade de bon Conseyl_.] + +[Footnote 38: black.] + +[Footnote 39: _The Parlement of Foules_.] + +[Footnote 40: For full titles, see p. 50.] + +[Footnote 41: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER III: FROM CHAUCER'S DEATH, 1400, TO THE ACCESSION OF +ELIZABETH, 1558 + +The Course of English History.--The century and a half that followed +the death of Chaucer appealed especially to Shakespeare. He wrote or +helped to edit five plays that deal with this period,--_Henry IV., +Henry V., Henry VI., Richard III._, and _Henry VIII_. While these +plays do not give an absolutely accurate presentation of the history +of the time, they show rare sympathy in catching the spirit of the +age, and they leave many unusually vivid impressions. + +Henry IV. (1399-1413), a descendant of John of Gaunt, Duke of +Lancaster, one of the younger sons of Edward III., and therefore not +in the direct line of succession, was the first English king who owed +his crown entirely to Parliament. Henry's reign was disturbed by the +revolt of nobles and by contests with the Welsh. Shakespeare gives a +pathetic picture of the king calling in vain for sleep, "nature's +tired nurse," and exclaiming:-- + + "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." + +Henry V. (1413-1422) is one of Shakespeare's romantic characters. The +young king renewed the French war, which had broken out in 1337 and +which later became known as the Hundred Years' War. By his victory +over the French at Agincourt (1415), he made himself a national hero. +Shakespeare has him say:-- + + "I thought upon one pair of English legs + Did march three Frenchmen." + +In the reign of Henry VI. (1422-1461), Joan of Arc appeared and saved +France. + +The setting aside of the direct succession in the case of Henry IV. +was a pretext for the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) to settle the +royal claims of different descendants of Edward III. While this war +did not greatly disturb the common people, it occupied the attention +of those who might have been patrons of literature. Nearly all the +nobles were killed during this prolonged contest; hence when Henry +VII. (1485-1509), the first of the Tudor line of monarchs, came to the +throne, there were no powerful nobles with their retainers to hold the +king in check. He gave a strong centralized government to England. + +The period following Chaucer's death opens with religious persecution. +In 1401 the first Englishman was burned at the stake for his religious +faith. From this time the expenses of burning heretics are sometimes +found in the regular accounts of cities and boroughs. Henry VIII. +(1509-1547) broke with the Pope, dissolved the monasteries, proclaimed +himself head of the church, and allowed the laity to read the _Bible_, +but insisted on retaining many of the old beliefs. In Germany, Martin +Luther (1483-1546) was in the same age issuing his famous protests +against religious abuses. Edward VI. (1547-1553) espoused the +Protestant cause. An order was given to introduce into all the +churches an English prayer book, which was not very different from +that in use to-day in the Episcopal churches. Mary (1553-1558) sought +the aid of fagots and the stake to bring the nation back to the old +beliefs. + +[Illustration: HENRY VIII. GIVING BIBLES TO CLERGY AND LAITY. _From +frontispiece to Coverdale Bible_.] + +While this period did not produce a single great poet or a statesman +of the first rank, it witnessed the destruction of the majority of the +nobility in the Wars of the Roses, the increase of the king's power, +the decline of feudalism, the final overthrow of the knight by the +yeoman with his long bow at Agincourt(1415), the freedom of the serf, +and the growth of manufactures, especially of wool. English trading +vessels began to displace even the ships of Venice. + +In spite of the religious persecution with which the period began and +ended, there was a remarkable change in religious belief, the +dissolution of the monasteries and the subordination of church to +state being striking evidences of this change. An event that had +far-reaching consequences on literature and life was the act of Henry +VIII. in ordering a translation of the _Bible_ to be placed in every +parish church in England. The death of Mary may in a measure be said +to indicate the beginning of modern times. + +Contrast between the Spirit of the Renaissance and of the Middle +Ages.--One of the most important intellectual movements of the world +is known as the Renaissance or Revival of Learning. This movement +began in Italy about the middle of the fourteenth century and spread +slowly westward. While Chaucer's travels in Italy; and his early +contact with this new influence are reflected in his work, yet the +Renaissance did not reach its zenith in England until the time of +Shakespeare. This new epoch followed a long period, known as the +Middle ages, when learning was mostly confined to the church, when +thousands of the best minds retired to the cloisters, when many +questions, like those of the revolution of the sun around the earth or +the cause of disease, were determined, not by observation and +scientific proof, but by the assertion of those in spiritual +authority. Then, scientific investigators, like Roger Bacon, were +thought to be in league with the devil and were thrown into prison. In +1258 Dante's tutor visited Roger Bacon, and, after seeing his +experiments with the mariner's compass, wrote to an Italian friend:-- + + "This discovery so useful to all who travel by sea, must remain + concealed until other times, because no mariner dare use it, lest he + fall under imputation of being a magician, nor would sailors put to + sea with one who carried an instrument so evidently constructed by + the devil." + +Symonds says: "During the Middle Ages, man had lived enveloped in a +cowl. He had not seen the beauty of the world, or had seen it only to +cross himself and turn aside, to tell his beads and pray." Before the +Renaissance, the tendency was to regard with contempt mere questions +of earthly progress and enjoyment, because they were considered +unimportant in comparison with the eternal future of the soul. It was +not believed that beauty, art, and literature might play a part in +saving souls. + +The Schoolmen of the Middle Ages often discussed such subjects as +these: whether the finite can comprehend the infinite at any point, +since the infinite can have no finite points; whether God can make a +wheel revolve and be stationary at the same time; whether all children +in a state of innocence are masculine. Such debates made remarkable +theologians and metaphysicians, developed precision in defining terms, +accuracy in applying the rules of deductive logic, and fluency in +expression. As a result, later scientists were able to reason more +accurately and express themselves with greater facility. + +The chief fault of the studies of the Middle Ages consisted in +neglecting the external world of concrete fact. The discussions of the +Schoolmen would never have introduced printing or invented the +mariner's compass or developed any of the sciences that have +revolutionized life. + +The coming of the Renaissance opened avenues of learning outside of +the church, interested men in manifold questions relating to this +world, caused a demand for scientific investigation and proof, and +made increasing numbers seek for joy in this life as well as in that +to come. + +Causes and Effects of the Renaissance.--Some of the causes of this +new movement were the weariness of human beings with their lack of +progress, their dissatisfaction with the low estimate of the value of +this life, and their yearning for fuller expansion of the soul, for +more knowledge and joy on this side of the grave. + +Another cause was the influence of Greek literature newly discovered +in the fifteenth century by the western world. In 1423 an Italian +scholar brought 238 Greek manuscripts to Italy. In 1453 the Turks +captured Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and +the headquarters of Grecian learning. Because of the remoteness of +this capital, English literature had not been greatly influenced by +Greece. When Constantinople fell, many of her scholars went to Italy, +taking with them precious Grecian manuscripts. As Englishmen often +visited Italy, they soon began to study Grecian masterpieces, and to +fall under the spell of Homer and the Athenian dramatists. + +The renewed study of Greek and Latin classics stimulated a longing for +the beautiful in art and literature. Fourteenth-century Italian +writers, like Petrarch and Boccaccio, found increasing interest in +their work. Sixteenth-century artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci, +Michael Angelo, and Raphael show their magnificent response to a world +that had already been born again. + +Many of the other so-called causes of the Renaissance should strictly +be considered its effects. The application of the modern theory of the +solar system, the desire for exploration, the use of the mariner's +compass, the invention and spread of printing, were more effects of +the new movement than its causes. + +Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), inspired by the spirit of the +Renaissance, wrote in Latin a remarkable book called _Utopia_ (1516), +which presents many new social ideals. In the land of Utopia, society +does not make criminals and then punish them for crime. Every one +worships as he pleases. Only a few hours of work a day are necessary, +and all find genuine pleasure in that. In Utopia life is given to be a +joy. No advantage is taken of the weak or the unfortunate. +Twentieth-century dreams of social justice are not more vivid and +absorbing than Sir Thomas More's. It is pleasant to think that the +Roman Catholic church in 1886 added to her list of saints this lovable +man, "martyr to faith and freedom." + +When the full influences of the Renaissance reached England, +Shakespeare answered their call, and his own creations surpass the +children of Utopia. + +The Invention of Printing.--In 1344, about the time of Chaucer's +birth, a _Bible_ in manuscript cost as much as three oxen. A century +later an amount equal to the wages of a workman for 266 days was paid +for a manuscript _Bible_. At this time a book on astronomy cost as +much as 800 pounds of butter. One page of a manuscript book cost the +equivalent of from a dollar to a dollar and a half to-day. When a +member of the Medici family in Florence desired a library, he sent for +a book contractor, who secured forty-five copyists. By rigorous work +for nearly two years they produced two hundred volumes. + +[Illustration: BOOK ILLUSTRATION, EARLY FIFTEENTH CENTURY. _British +Museum_.] + +One of the most powerful agencies of the Renaissance was the invention +of printing, which multiplied books indefinitely and made them +comparatively cheap. People were alive with newly awakened curiosity, +and they read books to learn more of the expanding world. + +About 1477 William Caxton, who had set up his press at the Almonry, +near Westminster Abbey, printed the first book in England, _The Dictes +and Notable Wish Sayings of the Philosophers_. Among fully a hundred +different volumes that he printed were Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, +Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, and an English translation of Vergil's +_AEneid_. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF CAXTON'S ADVERTISEMENT OF HIS BOOKS._ +Bodleian Library, Oxford._] + +Malory's Morte d'Arthur.--The greatest prose work of the fifteenth +century was completed in 1470 by a man who styles himself Sir Thomas +Malory, Knight. We know nothing of the author's life; but he has left +as a monument a great prose epic of the deeds of King Arthur and his +Knights of the Round Table. From the various French legends concerning +King Arthur, Malory selected his materials and fashioned than into the +completest Arthuriad that we possess. While his work cannot be called +original, he displayed rare artistic power in arranging, abridging, +and selecting the various parts from different French works. + +Malory's prose is remarkably simple and direct. Even in the impressive +scene where Sir Bedivere throws the dying King Arthur's sword into the +sea, the language tells the story simply and shows no straining after +effect:-- + + "And then he threw the sword as far into the water as he might, + and there came an arm and an hand above the water, and met it, and + caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and then vanished + away the hand with the sword in the water... 'Now put me into + the barge,' said the king; and so he did softly. And there received + him three queens with great mourning, and so they set him down, and + in one of their laps King Arthur laid his head, and then that queen + said, 'Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me?'" + +After the dusky barge has borne Arthur away from mortal sight, Malory +writes: "Here in this world he changed his life." A century before, +Chaucer had with equal simplicity voiced the Saxon faith:-- + + "His spirit chaunged hous."[1] + +Sometimes this prose narrative, in its condensation and expression of +feeling, shows something of the poetic spirit. When the damsel on the +white palfrey sees that her knightly lover has been killed, she +cries:-- + + "O Balin! two bodies + hast thou slain and one + heart, and two hearts in + one body, and two souls + thou hast lost.' And + therewith she took the + sword from her love that + lay dead, and as she took + it, she fell to the ground + in a swoon." + +[Illustration: MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR. _From De Worde's Ed., +1529_.] + +Malory's work, rather than Layamon's _Brut_, has been the storehouse +to which later poets have turned. Many nineteenth-century poets are +indebted to Malory. Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_, Matthew Arnold's +_Death of Tristram_, Swinburne's _Tristram of Lyonesse_, and William +Morris's _Defense of Guinevere_ were inspired by the _Morte d'Arthur_. +Few English prose works have had more influence on the poetry of the +Victorian age. + +Scottish Poetry.--The best poetry of the fifteenth century was +written in the Northern dialect, which was spoken north of the river +Humber. This language was just as much English as the Midland tongue +in which Chaucer wrote. Not until the sixteenth century was this +dialect called Scotch. + +James I. of Scotland (1406-1437) spent nineteen years of his youth +as a prisoner in England. During his captivity in Windsor Castle, he +fell in love with a maiden, seen at her orisons in the garden, and +wrote a poem, called the _King's Quair_, to tell the story of his +love. Although the _King's Quair_ is suggestive of _The Knightes +Tale_, and indeed owes much to Chaucer, it is a poetic record of +genuine and successful love. These four lines from the spring song +show real feeling for nature:-- + + "Worshippe, ye that lovers be, this May, + For of your bliss the kalends are begun, + And sing with us, 'Away, Winter, away, + Come, Summer, come, the sweet season and sun!'" + +Much of this Scotch poetry is remarkable for showing in that early age +a genuine love of nature. Changes are not rung on some typical +landscape, copied from an Italian versifier. The Northern poet had his +eye fixed on the scenery and the sky of Scotland. About the middle of +the century, Robert Henryson, a teacher in Dunfermline, wrote.-- + + "The northin wind had purifyit the air + And sched the misty cloudis fra the sky."[2] + +This may lack the magic of Shelley's rhythm, but the feeling for +nature is as genuine as in the later poet's lines:-- + + "For after the rain when, with never a stain + The pavilion of heaven is bare."[3] + +William Dunbar, the greatest poet of this group, who lived in the +last half of the fifteenth century, was a loving student of the nature +that greeted him in his northland. No Italian poet, as he wandered +beside a brook, would have thought of a simile like this:-- + + "The stones clear as stars in frosty night."[4] + +Dunbar takes us with him on a fresh spring morning, where-- + + "Enamelled was the field with all colours, + The pearly droppes shook in silver showers,"[5] + +where we can hear the matin song of the birds hopping among the buds, +while-- + + "Up rose the lark, the heaven's minstrel fine."[6] + +Both Dunbar and Gawain Douglas (1474?-1522), the son of a Scotch +nobleman, had keen eyes for all coloring in sky, leaf, and flower. In +one line Dunbar calls our attention to these varied patches of color +in a Scotch garden: "purple, azure, gold, and gules [red]." In the +verses of Douglas we see the purple streaks of the morning, the +bluish-gray, blood-red, fawn-yellow, golden, and freckled red and +white flowers, and-- + + "Some watery-hued, as the blue wavy sea."[7] + +Outside the pages of Shakespeare, we shall for the next two hundred +years look in vain for so genuine a love of scenery and natural +phenomena as we find in fifteenth-century Scottish poetry. These poets +obtained many of their images of nature at first hand, an achievement +rare in any age. + +[Illustration: EARLY TITLE PAGE OF ROBIN HOOD.] + +"Songs for Man or Woman, of All Sizes."--When Shakespeare shows us +Autolycus offering such songs at a rustic festival,[8] the great poet +emphasizes the fondness for the ballad which had for a long time been +developing a taste for poetry. While it is difficult to assign exact +dates to the composition of many ballads, we know that they flourished +in the fifteenth century. They were then as much prized as the novel +is now, and like it they had a story to tell. The verse was often +halting, but it succeeded in conveying to the hearer tales of love, of +adventure, and of mystery. These ballads were sometimes tinged with +pathos; but there was an energy in the rude lines that made the heart +beat faster and often stirred listeners to find in a dance an outlet +for their emotions. Even now, with all the poetry of centuries from +which to choose, it is refreshing to turn to a Robin Hood ballad and +look upon the greensward, hear the rustle of the leaves in Nottingham +forest, and follow the adventures of the hero. We read the opening +lines:-- + + "There are twelve months in all the year, + As I hear many say, + But the merriest month in all the year + Is the merry month of May." + + "Now Robin Hood is to Nottingham gone, + With a link a down, and a day, + And there he met a silly old woman + Was weeping on the way." + +Of our own accord we finish the ballad to see whether Robin Hood +rescued her sons, who were condemned to death for shooting the fallow +deer. The ballad of the _Nut-Brown Maid_ has some touches that are +almost Shakespearean. + +Some of the carols of the fifteenth century give a foretaste of the +Elizabethan song. One carol on the birth of the Christ-child contains +stanzas like these, which show artistic workmanship, imaginative +power, and, above all, rare lyrical beauty:-- + + "He cam also stylle + to his moderes bowr, + As dew in Aprille + that Fallyt on the flour." + + "He cam also stylle + ther his moder lay, + As dew in Aprille + that fallyt on the spray"[9] + +We saw that the English tongue during its period of exclusion from the +Norman court gained strength from coming in such close contact with +life. Although the higher types of poetry were for the most part +wanting during the fifteenth century, yet the ballads multiplied and +sang their songs to the ear of life. Critics may say that the rude +stanzas seldom soar far from the ground, but we are again reminded of +the invincible strength of Antaeus so long as he kept close to his +mother earth. English poetry is so great because it has not withdrawn +from life, because it was nurtured in such a cradle. When Shakespeare +wrote his plays, he found an audience to understand and to appreciate +them. Not only those who occupied the boxes, but also those who stood +in the pit, listened intelligently to his dramatic stories. The ballad +had played its part in teaching the humblest home to love poetry. +These rude fireside songs were no mean factors in preparing the nation +to welcome Shakespeare. + +William Tyndale, 1490?-1536.--The Reformation was another mighty +influence, working side by side with all the other forces to effect a +lasting change in English history and literature. In the early part of +the sixteenth century, Martin Luther was electrifying Germany with his +demands for church reformation. In order to decide which religious +party was in the right, there arose a desire for more knowledge of the +_Scriptures_. The language had changed much since Wycliffe's +translation of the _Bible_, and, besides, this was accessible only in +manuscript. William Tyndale, a clergyman and an excellent linguist, +who had been educated at both Oxford and Cambridge, conceived the idea +of giving the English people the Bible in their own tongue. As he +found that he could not translate and print the Bible with safety in +England, he went to the continent, where with the help of friends he +made the translation and had it printed. He was forced to move +frequently from place to place, and was finally betrayed in his hiding +place near Brussels. After eighteen months' imprisonment without pen +or books, he was strangled and his body was burned at the stake. + +Of his translation, Brooke says: "It was this _Bible_ which, revised +by Coverdale, and edited and reedited as _Cromwell's Bible_, 1539, and +again as _Cranmer's Bible_, 1540, was set up in every parish church in +England. It got north into Scotland and made the Lowland English more +like the London English. It passed over into the Protestant +settlements in Ireland. After its revival in 1611 it went with the +Puritan Fathers to New England and fixed the standard of English in +America. Many millions of people now speak the English of Tyndale's +_Bible_, and there is no other book which has had, through the +_Authorized Version_, so great an influence on the style of English +literature and on the standard of English prose." + +[Illustration: WILLIAM TYNDALE. _From an old print_.] + +The following verses from Tyndale's version show its simplicity +directness, and similarity to the present version:-- + + "Jesus sayde unto her, Thy brother shall ryse agayne. + + "Martha sayde unto hym, I knowe wele, he shall ryse agayne in the + resurreccion att the last day. + + "Jesus sayde unto her, I am the resurreccion and lyfe; whosoever + beleveth on me, ye, though he were deed, yet shall he lyve." + +Italian Influence: Wyatt and Surrey.--During the reign of Henry +VIII. (1509-1547), the influence of Italian poetry made itself +distinctly felt. The roots of Elizabethan poetry were watered by many +fountains, one of the chief of which flowed from Italian soil. To Sir +Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and to the Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) belongs +the credit of introducing from Italian sources new influences, which +helped to remodel English poetry and give it a distinctly modern cast. + +These poets were the first to introduce the sonnet, which Shakespeare, +Milton, and Wordsworth employed with such power in after times. Blank +verse was first used in England by the Earl of Surrey, who translated +a portion of Vergil's _AEneid_ into that measure. When Shakespeare +took up his pen, he found that vehicle of poetic expression ready for +his use. + +[Illustration: SIR THOMAS WYATT._After Holbein_.] + +Wyatt and Surrey adopted Italian subject matter as well as form. They +introduced the poetry of the amorists, that is, verse which tells of +the woes and joys of a lover. We find Shakespeare in his _Sonnets_ +turning to this subject, which he made as broad and deep as life. In +1557, the year before Elizabeth's accession, the poems of Wyatt and +Surrey appeared in Tottel's _Miscellany_, one of the earliest printed +collections of modern English poetry. + +SUMMARY + +The first part of the century and a half following the death of +Chaucer saw war with France and the Wars of the Roses, in which most +of the nobles were killed. The reign of Henry VII. and his successors +in the Tudor line shows the increased influence of the crown, freed +from the restraint of the powerful lords. The period witnessed the +passing of serfdom and the extension of trade and manufactures. + +The changes in religious views were far-reaching. Henry VIII. +superseded the Pope as head of the English church, dissolved the +monasteries, and placed an English translation of the _Bible_ in the +churches. Henry's son and successor Edward VI., established the +Protestant form of worship, but his half-sister Mary used persecution +in an endeavor to bring back the old faith. + +The influences of the Renaissance, moving westward from Italy, were +tending toward their culmination in the next period. The study of +Greek literature, the discovery of the new world, the decline of +feudalism, the overthrow of the armed knight, the extension of the use +of gunpowder, the invention of printing, the increased love of +learning, the demand for scientific investigation, the decline of +monastic influence, shown in the new interest in this finite world and +life,--all figured as causes or effects of the new influence. + +The most important prose works are Sir Thomas Malory's _Morte +d'Arthur_, a masterly retelling of the Arthurian legends; Sir Thomas +More's _Utopia_, a magnificent Renaissance dream of a new social +world; and Tyndale's translation of the _Bible_. The best poetry was +written in Scotland, and this verse anticipates in some measure that +love of nature which is a dominant characteristic of the last part of +the eighteenth century. The age is noted for its ballads, which aided +in developing among high and low a liking for poetry. At the close of +the period, we find Italian influences at work, as may be seen in the +verse of Wyatt and Surrey. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +An account of the history of this period may be found in either +Gardiner,[10] Green, Lingard, Walker, or Cheney. Vols. IV. and V. of +_The Political History of England_, edited by Hunt (Longmans), gives +the history in greater detail. For the social side, consult Traill's +_Social England_, Vols. II. and III., also Cheney's _Industrial and +Social History of England_, Field's _Introduction to the Study of the +Renaissance_, Einstein's _The Italian Renaissance in England_, +Symonds's _A Short History of the Renaissance_. + +LITERARY + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vol. II. + +Snell's _The Age of Transition_, 1400-1580. + +Morley's _English Literature_, Vols. VI. and VII. + +Minto's _Characteristics of English Poets_, pp. 69-130. + +Saintsbury's _Short History of English Literature_, pp. 157-218. + +_Dictionary of National Biography_, articles on _Malory, Caxton, +Henryson, Gawain Douglas, Dunbar, Tyndale, Wyatt_, and _Surrey_. + +Veitch's _The Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry_. + +Percy's _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_. + +Gummere's _Old English Ballads_. + +Child's _The English and Scotch Popular Ballads_. + +Collins's _Greek Influence on English Poetry_. + +Tucker's _The Foreign Debt of English Literature_. + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Malory.--Craik,[11] _Century_, 19-33; Swiggett's _Selections from +Malory_; Wragg's _Selections from Malory_,--all contain good +selections. The Globe Edition is an inexpensive single volume +containing the complete text. The best edition is a reproduction of +the original in three volumes with introductions by Oscar Sommer and +Andrew Lang (London: David Nutt). Howard Pyle has retold Malory's best +stories in simple form (Scribner). + +Compare the death (or passing) of Arthur in Malory with Tennyson's +_The Passing of Arthur._ What special dualities do you notice in the +manner of Malory's telling a story? Is his work original? Why has it +remained so popular? What age specially shows its influence? + +More.--The English translation of the _Utopia_ may be found entire +in _Everyman's Library_ (35c). There are good selections in Craik, I., +162-167. + +What is the etymological meaning of _Utopia_? What is its modern +significance? Did More really give a new word to literature and +speech? The _Utopia_ should be read for an indication of the influence +of the Renaissance and for comparison with twentieth-century ideas of +social improvement. + +Tyndale.--Bosworth and Waring's _Gospels_, containing the +Anglo-Saxon, Wycliffe, and Tyndale versions. Specimens of Tyndale's +prose are given in Chambers, I., 130; Craik, I., 185-187. + +Why is Tyndale's translation of the _Bible_ important to the student +of literature? What are some special dualities of this translation? + +Early Scottish Poetry.--Selections from fifteenth-century Scottish +poetry may be found in Bronson, I, 170-197; Ward, I, _passim_; P. & +S., 246-277; _Oxford_, 16-33. + +From the _King's Quair_ and the poems of Henryson, Dunbar, and Gawain +Douglas, select passages that show first-hand intimacy with nature. +Compare these with lines from any poet whose knowledge of nature seems +to you to be acquired from books. + +Ballads.--Ward. I., _passim_, contains among others three excellent +ballads,--_Sir Patrick Spens, The Twa Corbies, Robin Hood Rescuing the +Widow's Three Sons_. Bronson, I., 203-254; P. & S., 282-301; _Oxford_, +33-51; and Maynard's _English Classics_, No. 96, _Early English +Ballads_ also have good selections. The best collection is Child's +_The English and Scotch Popular Ballads_, 5 vols. + +What are the chief characteristics of the old ballads? Why do they +interest us today? Which of those indicated for reading has proved +most interesting? What influence impossible for other forms of +literature, was exerted by the ballad? What did Autolycus mean +(_Winter's Tale_, IV., 4) when he offered "songs for man or woman, of +all sizes"? Have any ballads been written in recent times? + +Wyatt and Surrey.--Read two characteristic love sonnets by Wyatt and +Surrey, P. & S., 313-319; Ward, I., 251, 257; Bronson, II., 1-4. A +specimen of the first English blank verse employed by Surrey in +translating Vergil's, _AEneid_ is given in Bronson, II., 4, 5; in P. & +S., 322, 323; and Chambers, I., 162. + +Why are Wyatt and Surrey called amourists? What contributions did they +make to the form of English verse? What foreign influences did they +help to usher in? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER III: + +[Footnote 1: _Knightes Tale_.] + +[Footnote 2: _Testament of Cresseid_.] + +[Footnote 3: _The Cloud_.] + +[Footnotes 4-6: _The Golden Targe_.] + +[Footnote 7: _Prologue to AEneid_, Book XII.] + +[Footnote 8: _The Winter's Tale_, IV., 4.] + +[Footnote 9: Wright's _Songs and Carols of the Fifteenth Century_, p. +30.] + +[Footnote 10: For full titles, see p. 50.] + +[Footnote 11: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER IV: THE AGE OF ELIZABETH, 1558-1603 + +The Reign of Elizabeth.--Queen Elizabeth, who ranks among the +greatest of the world's rulers, was the daughter of Henry VIII. and +his second wife Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth reigned as queen of England +from 1558 until her death in 1603. The remarkable allowances which she +made for difference of opinion showed that she felt the spirit of the +Renaissance. She loved England, and her most important acts were +guided, not by selfish personal motives, but by a strong desire to +make England a great nation. + +She had a law passed restoring the supremacy of the monarch, "as well +in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things as temporal." The prayer +book of Edward VI. was again introduced and the mass was forbidden. +She was broad enough not to inquire too closely into the private +religious opinions of her subjects, so long as they went to the +established church. For each absence they were fined a shilling. Next +to churchgoing and her country, she loved and encouraged plays. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF ELIZABETH'S SIGNATURE TO A LICENSE +FOR THE EARL OF LEICESTER'S COMPANY OF PLAYERS, 1574.] + +For more than twenty years she was worried by fear that either France +or Spain would put her Catholic cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, on the +English throne. With masterly diplomacy, Elizabeth for a long time +managed to retain the active friendship of at least one of these great +powers, in order to restrain the other from interfering. She had kept +Mary a prisoner for nineteen years, fearing to liberate her. At last +an active conspiracy was discovered to assassinate Elizabeth and put +Mary on the throne. Elizabeth accordingly had her cousin beheaded in +1587. Spain thereupon prepared her fleet, the Invincible Armada, to +attack England. When this became known, the outburst of patriotic +feeling was so intense among all classes in England that the queen did +not hesitate to put Lord Howard, a Catholic, in command of the English +fleet. The Armada was utterly defeated, and England was free to enter +on her glorious period of influencing the thought and action of the +world. + +In brief, Elizabeth's reign was remarkable for the rise of the middle +classes, for the growth of manufactures, for the appearance of English +ships in almost all parts of the world, for the extension of commerce, +for greater freedom of thought and action, for what the world now +calls Elizabethan literature, and for the ascendancy of a great mental +and moral movement to which we must next call attention. + +Culmination of the Renaissance and the Reformation.--We have seen +that the Renaissance began in Italy in the fourteenth century and +influenced the work of Chaucer. In the same century, Wycliffe's +influence helped the cause of the Reformation. Elizabethan England +alone had the good fortune to experience the culmination of these two +movements at one and the same time. At no other period and in no other +country have two forces, like the Renaissance and the Reformation, +combined at the height of their ascendancy to stimulate the human +mind. One result of these two mighty influences was the work of +William Shakespeare, which speaks to the ear of all time. + +The Renaissance, having opened the gates of knowledge, inspired the +Elizabethans with the hope of learning every secret of nature and of +surmounting all difficulties. The Reformation gave man new freedom, +imposed on him the gravest individual responsibilities, made him +realize the importance of every act of his own will, and emphasized +afresh the idea of the stewardship of this present life, for which he +would be held accountable. In Elizabethan days, these two forces +cooeperated; in the following Puritan age they were at war. + +Some Characteristics of Elizabethan Life.--It became an ambition to +have as many different experiences as possible, to search for that +variety craved by youth and by a youthful age. Sir Walter Raleigh was +a courtier, a writer, a warden of the tin mines, a vice admiral, a +captain of the guard, a colonizer, a country gentleman, and a pirate. +Sir Philip Sidney, who died at the age of thirty-two, was an envoy to +a foreign court, a writer of romances, an officer in the army, a poet +and a courtier. Shakespeare left the little town where he was born, to +plunge into the more complex life of London. The poet, Edmund Spenser, +went to turbulent Ireland, where he had enough experiences to suggest +the conflicts in the _Faerie Queene_. + +The greater freedom and initiative of the individual and the +remarkable extension of trade with all parts of the world naturally +led to the rise of the middle class. The nobility were no longer the +sole leaders in England's rapid progress. Many of Elizabeth's +councilors were said to have sprung from the masses, but no reign +could boast of wiser ministers. It was then customary for the various +classes to mingle much more freely than they do now. There was absence +of that overspecialization which today keeps people in such sharply +separated groups. This mingling was further aided by the tendency to +try many different pursuits and by the spirit of patriotism in the +air. All classes were interested in repelling the Spanish Armada and +in maintaining England's freedom. It was fortunate for Shakespeare +that the Elizabethan age gave him unusual opportunity to meet and to +become the spokesman of all classes of men. The audience that stood in +the pit or sat in the boxes to witness the performance of his plays, +comprised not only lords and wealthy merchants, but also weavers, +sailors, and country folk. + +Initiative and Love of Action.--The Elizabethans were distinguished +for their initiative. This term implies the possession of two +qualities: (1) ingenuity or fertility in ideas, and (2) ability to +pass at once from an idea to its suggested action. Never did action +habitually follow more quickly on the heels of thought. The age loved +to translate everything into action, because the spirit of the +Renaissance demanded the exercise of youthful activity to its fullest +capacity in order that the power which the new knowledge promised +could be acquired and enjoyed before death. As the Elizabethans felt +that real life meant activity in exploring a new and interesting +world, both physical and mental, they demanded that their literature +should present this life of action. Hence, all their greatest poets, +with the exception of Spenser, were dramatists. Even Spenser's _Faerie +Queene_, with its abstractions, is a poem of action, for the virtues +fight with the vices. + +ELIZABETHAN PROSE LITERATURE + +Variety in the Prose.--The imaginative spirit of the Elizabethans +craved poetry, and all the greatest authors of this age, with the +exception of Francis Bacon, were poets. If, however, an Elizabethan +had been so peculiarly constituted as to wish to stock his library +with contemporary prose only, he could have secured good works in many +different fields. He could, for instance, have obtained (1) an +excellent book on education, the _Scholemaster_ of Roger Ascham +(1515-1568); (2) interesting volumes of travel, such as the +_Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation_, by +Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616); and _The Discovery of Guiana_, by Sir +Walter Raleigh (1552-1618); (3) history, in the important _Chronicles +of England, Ireland, and Scotland_ (1578), by Raphael Holinshed; the +_Chronicle (Annals of England)_ and _Survey of London_, by John Stow +(1525-1604); and the _Brittania_, by William Camden (1551-1623); (4) +biography, in the excellent translation of _Plutarch's Lives_, by Sir +Thomas North (1535-1601?); (5) criticism, in _The Apologie for +Poetrie_, by Sir Philip Sidney; (6) essays on varied subjects by +Francis Bacon; (7) works dealing with religion and faith: (_a_) John +Foxe's (1516-1587) _Book of Martyrs_, which told in simple prose +thrilling stories of martyrs and served as a textbook of the +Reformation; (_b_) Hooker's _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_, a +treatise on theology; (8) fiction,[1] in John Lyly's _Euphues_ (1579), +Robert Greene's _Pandosto_ (1588), Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcardia_ +(1590), Thomas Lodge's _Rosalynde_ (1590), Nashe's _The Unfortunate +Traveler_ (1594), and Thomas Deloney's _The Gentle Craft_ (1597).[2] + +Shakespeare read Holinshed, North, Greene, Sidney, and Lodge and +turned some of their suggestions into poetry, which we very much +prefer to their prose. We are nearly certain that Shakespeare studied +Lyly's _Euphues_, because we can trace the influence of that work in +his style. + +It was the misfortune of Elizabethan prose to be almost completely +overshadowed by the poetry. This prose was, however, far more varied +and important than that of any preceding age. The books mentioned on +page 123 constitute only a small part of the prose of this period. + +Lyly, Sidney, Hooker.--In 1579, when Shakespeare was fifteen years +old, there appeared the first part of an influential prose work, John +Lyly's (1554?-1606) _Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit_, followed in 1580 by +a second part, _Euphues and his England_. Much of Lyly's subject +matter is borrowed, and his form reflects the artificial style then +popular over Europe. + +Euphues, a young Athenian, goes to Naples, where he falls in love and +is jilted. This is all the action in the first part of the so-called +story. The rest is moralizing. In the second part, Euphues comes to +England with a friend, who falls in love twice, and finally marries; +but again there is more moralizing than story. Euphues returns to +Athens and retires to the mountains to muse in solitude. + +In its use of a love story, _Euphues_ prefigures the modern novel. In +_Euphues_, however, the love story serves chiefly as a peg on which to +hang discussions on fickleness, youthful follies, friendship, and +divers other subjects. + +Lyly aimed to produce artistic prose, which would render his meaning +clear and impressive. To achieve this object, he made such excessive +use of contrast, balanced words and phrases, and far-fetched +comparisons, that his style seems highly artificial and affected. This +quotation is typical:-- + + "Achilles spear could as well heal as hurt, the scorpion though he + sting, yet he stints the pain, through the herb _Nerius_ poison the + sheep, yet is a remedy to man against poison... There is great + difference between the standing puddle and the running stream, yet + both water: great odds between the adamant and the pomice, yet both + stones, a great distinction to be put between _vitrum_ and the + crystal, yet both glass: great contrariety between Lais and + Lucretia, yet both women." + +Although this selection shows unnatural or strained antithesis, there +is also evident a commendable desire to vary the diction and to avoid +the repetition of the same word. To find four different terms for +nearly the same idea "difference," "odds," "distinction," and +"contrariety," involves considerable painstaking. While it is true +that the term "euphuism" has come to be applied to any stilted, +antithetical style that pays more attention to the manner of +expressing a thought than to its worth, we should remember that +English prose style has advanced because some writers, like Lyly, +emphasized the importance of artistic form. Shakespeare occasionally +employs euphuistic contrast in an effective way. The sententious +Polonius says in _Hamlet_:-- + + "Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice." + +[Illustration: PHILIPPE SIDNEY. _After the miniature by Isaac +Oliver, Windsor Castle._] + +Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) wrote for his sister, the Countess of +Pembroke, a pastoral romance, entitled _Arcadia_ (published in 1590). +Unlike Lyly, Sidney did not aim at precision, emphatic contrast, and +balance. For its effectiveness, the _Arcadia_ relies on poetic +language and conceptions. The characters in the romance live and love +in a Utopian Arcadia, where "the morning did strow Roses and Violets +in the heavenly floor against the coming of the Sun," and where the +shepherd boy pipes "as though he should never be old." + +Passages like the following show Sidney's poetic style and as much +exuberant fancy as if they had been written by a Celt:-- + + "Her breath is more sweet than a gentle southwest wind, which + comes creeping over flowery fields and shadowed waters in the + extreme heat of summer and yet is nothing compared to the + honey-flowing speech that breath doth carry." + +The _Arcadia_ furnished Shakespeare's _King Lear_ with the auxiliary +plot of Gloucester and his two sons and inspired Thomas Lodge to write +his novel _Rosalynde_, which in turn suggested Shakespeare's _As You +Like It_. + +To Sidney belongs the credit of having written the first meritorious +essay on criticism in the English language, _The Apologie for +Poetrie_. This defends the poetic art, and shows how necessary such +exercise of the imagination is to take us away from the cold, hard +facts of life. + +Richard Hooker's (1554?-1600) _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_ +shows a third aim in Elizabethan prose,--to express carefully reasoned +investigation and conclusion in English that is as thoroughly +elaborated and qualified as the thought. Lyly's striking contrasts and +Sidney's flowery prose do not appeal to Hooker, who uses Latin +inversions and parenthetical qualifications, and adds clause after +clause whenever he thinks it necessary to amplify the thought or to +guard against misunderstanding. Hooker's prose is as carefully wrought +as Lyly's and far more rhythmical. Both were experimenting with +English prose in different fields, serving to teach succeeding writers +what to imitate and to avoid. + +Unlike _Euphues_ and the _Arcadia_, _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical +Polity_ is more valuable for its thought than for its form of +expression. This work, which is still studied as an authority, is an +exposition of divine law in its relations to both the world and the +church. Hooker was personally a compound of sweetness and light, and +his philosophy is marked by sweet reasonableness. He was a clergyman +of the Church of England, but he shows a spirit of toleration toward +other churches. He had much of the modern idea of growth in both +government and religion, and he "accepts no system of government +either in church or state as unalterable." + +FRANCIS BACON, 1561-1626 + +[Illustration: FRANCIS BACON. _From the painting by Van Somer, +National Portrait Gallery._] + +Life.--A study of Bacon takes us beyond the limits of the reign of +Elizabeth, but not beyond the continued influences of that reign. +Francis Bacon, the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great +Seal under Elizabeth, was born in London and grew up under the +influences of the court. In order to understand some of Bacon's +actions in later life, we must remember the influences that helped to +fashion him in his boyhood days. Those with whom he early associated +and who unconsciously molded him were not very scrupulous about the +way in which they secured the favor of the court or the means which +they took to outstrip an adversary. They also encouraged in him a +taste for expensive luxuries. These unfortunate influences were +intensified when, at the age of sixteen, he went with the English +ambassador to Paris, and remained there for two and a half years, +studying statecraft and diplomacy. + +When Bacon was nineteen, his father died. The son, being without +money, returned from Paris and appealed to his uncle, Lord Burleigh, +one of Elizabeth's ministers, for some lucrative position at the +court. In a letter to his uncle, Bacon says: "I confess I have as vast +contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends; for I have taken all +knowledge to be my province." This statement shows the Elizabethan +desire to master the entire world of the New Learning. Instead of +helping his nephew, however, Lord Burleigh seems to have done all in +his power to thwart him. Bacon thereupon studied law and was admitted +to the bar in 1582. + +Bacon entered Parliament in 1584 and distinguished himself as a +speaker. Ben Jonson, the dramatist, says of him "There happened in my +time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking. No man +ever spoke more neatly, more presly, more weightily, or suffered less +emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. His hearers could not +cough or look aside from him without loss. The fear of every man that +heard him was lest he should make an end." This speaking was valuable +training for Bacon in writing the pithy sentences of his _Essays_. A +man who uses the long, involved sentences of Hooker can never become a +speaker to whom people will listen. The habit of directness and +simplicity, which Bacon formed in his speaking, remained with him +through Life. + +Among the many charges against Bacon's personal code of ethics, two +stand out conspicuously. The Earl of Essex, who had given Bacon an +estate then worth L1800, was influential in having him appointed to +the staff of counselors to Queen Elizabeth. When Essex was accused of +treason, Bacon kept the queen's friendship by repudiating him and +taking an active part in the prosecution that led to the earl's +execution. After James I. had made Bacon Lord High Chancellor of +England, he was accused of receiving bribes as a judge. He replied +that he had accepted only the customary presents given to judges and +that these made no difference in his decisions. He was tried, found +guilty, fined L40,000, and sentenced to be imprisoned in the Tower +during the king's pleasure. After a few days, however, the king +released him, forgave the fine, and gave him an annual pension of +L1200. + +The question whether he wrote Shakespeare's plays needs almost as much +discussion on the moral as on the intellectual side. James Spedding, +after studying Bacon's life and works for thirty years, said: "I see +no reason to suppose that Shakespeare did not write the plays. But if +somebody else did, then I think I am in a position to say that it was +not Lord Bacon." + +After his release, Bacon passed the remaining five years of his life +in retirement,--studying and writing. His interest in observing +natural objects and experimenting with them was the cause of his +death. He was riding in a snowstorm when it occurred to him to test +snow as a preservative agent. He stopped at a house, procured a fowl, +and stuffed it with snow. He caught cold during this experiment and, +being improperly cared for, soon died. + +The Essays.--The first ten of his _Essays_, his most popular work, +appeared in the year 1597. At the time of his death, he had increased +them to fifty-eight. They deal with a with range of subjects, from +_Studies_ and _Nobility_, On the one hand, to _Marriage and Single +Life_ and _Gardens_ on the other. The great critic Hallam say: "It +would be somewhat derogatory to a man of the slightest claim to polite +letters, were he unacquainted with the _Essays_ of Bacon. It is, +indeed, little worth while to read this or any other book for +reputation's, sake; but very few in our language so well repay the +pains, or afford more nourishment to the thoughts." + +[Illustration: TITLE PAGE OF BACON'S ESSAYS, 1597.] + +The following sentence from the essay _Of Studies_ will show some of +the characteristics of his way of presenting thought:-- + + "Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing + an exact man: and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need + have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present + wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to + know that he doth not." + +We may notice here (1) clearness, (2) conciseness, (3) breadth of +thought and observation. + +A shrewd Scotchman says: "It may be said that to men wishing to rise +in the world by politic management of their fellowmen, Bacon's +_Essays_ are the best handbook hitherto published." In justification +of this criticism, we need only quote from the essay _Of +Negotiating_:-- + + "It is generally better to deal by speech than by letter... Letters + are good, when a man would draw an answer by letter back again, or + when it may serve, for a man's justification, afterwards to produce + his own letter, or where it may he danger to be interrupted or heard + by pieces. To deal in person is good, when a man's face breedeth + regard, as commonly with inferiors, or in tender cases, where a + man's eye upon the countenance of him with whom he speaketh may give + him a direction how far to go, and generally, where a man will + reserve to himself liberty either to disavow or to expound." + +Scientific and Miscellaneous Works.--_The Advancement of Learning_ +is another of Bacon's great works. The title aptly expresses the +purpose of the took. He insists on the necessity of close observation +of nature and of making experiments with various forms of matter. He +decries the habit of spinning things out of one's inner consciousness, +without patiently studying the outside world to see whether the facts +justify the conclusions. In other words, he insists on induction. +Bacon was not the father of the inductive principle, as is sometimes +wrongly stated; for prehistoric man was compelled to make inductions +before he could advance one step from barbarism. The trouble was that +this method was not rigorously applied. It was currently believed that +our valuable garden toad is venomous and that frogs are bred from +slime. For his knowledge of bees, Lyly consulted classical authors in +preference to watching the insects. Bacon's writings exerted a +powerful influence in the direction of exact inductive method. + +Bacon had so little faith in the enduring qualities of the English +language, that he wrote the most of his philosophical works in Latin. +He planned a Latin work in six parts, to cover the whole field of the +philosophy of natural science. The most famous of the parts completed +is the _Novum Organum_, which deals with certain methods for searching +after definite truth, and shows how to avoid some ever present +tendencies toward error. + +Bacon wrote an excellent _History of the Reign of Henry VII_., which +is standard to this day. He is also the author of _The New Atlantis_, +which may be termed a Baconian Utopia, or study of an ideal +commonwealth. + +General Characteristics.--In Bacon's sentences we may often find +remarkable condensation of thought in few words. A modern essayist has +taken seven pages to express, or rather to obscure, the ideas in these +three lines from Bacon:-- + + "Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, + repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, + but content themselves with a mediocrity of success."[3] + +His works abound in illustrations, analogies, and striking imagery; +but unlike the great Elizabethan poets, he appeals more to cold +intellect than to the feelings. We are often pleased with his +intellectual ingenuity, for instance, in likening the Schoolmen to +spiders, spinning such stuff as webs are made of "out of no great +quantity of matter." + +He resembles the Elizabethans in preferring magnificent to commonplace +images. It has been often noticed that if he essays to write of +buildings in general, he prefers to describe palaces. His knowledge of +the intellectual side of human nature is especially remarkable, but, +unlike Shakespeare, Bacon never drops his plummet into the emotional +depths of the soul. + +THE NON-DRAMATIC POETRY--LYRICAL VERSE + +A Medium of Artistic Expression.--No age has surpassed the +Elizabethan in lyrical poems, those "short swallow flights of song," +as Tennyson defines them. The English Renaissance, unlike the Italian, +did not achieve great success in painting. The Englishman embodied in +poetry his artistic expression of the beautiful. Many lyrics are +merely examples of word painting. The Elizabethan poet often began his +career by trying to show his skill with the ingenious and musical +arrangement of words, where an Italian would have used color and +drawing on an actual canvas. + +We have seen that in the reign of Henry VIII. Wyatt and Surrey +introduced into England from Italy the type of lyrical verse known as +the sonnet. This is the most artificial of lyrics, because its rules +prescribe a length of exactly fourteen lines and a definite internal +structure. + +The sonnet was especially popular with Elizabethan poets. In the last +ten years of the sixteenth century, more than two thousand sonnets +were written. Even Shakespeare served a poetic apprenticeship by +writing many sonnets as well as semi-lyrical poems, like _Venus and +Adonis_. + +We should, however, remember that the sonnet is only one type of the +varied lyric expression of the age. Many Elizabethan song books show +that lyrics were set to music and used on the most varied occasions. +There were songs for weddings, funerals, dances, banquets,--songs for +the tinkers, the barbers, and other workmen. If modern readers chance +to pick up an Elizabethan novel, like Thomas Lodge's _Rosalynde_ +(1590), they are surprised to find that prose will not suffice for the +lover, who must "evaporate" into song like this:-- + + "Love in my bosom like a bee, + Doth suck his sweet. + Now with his wings he plays with me, + Now with his feet." + +There are large numbers of Elizabethan lyrics apparently as +spontaneous and unfettered as the song of the lark. The seeming +artlessness of much of this verse should not blind us to the fact that +an unusual number of poets had really studied the art of song. + +Love Lyrics.--The subject of the Elizabethan sonnets is usually +love. Sir Philip Sidney wrote many love sonnets, the best of which is +the one beginning:-- + + "With how sad steps. O Moon, thou climb'st the Skies!" + +Edmund Spencer composed fifty-eight sonnets in one year to chronicle +his varied emotions as a lover. We may find among Shakespeare's 154 +sonnets some of the greatest love lyrics in the language, such, for +instance, as CXVI., containing the lines:-- + + "Love is not love + Which alters when it alteration finds"; + +or, as XVIII.:-- + + "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? + Thou art more lovely and more temperate: + Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, + And summer's lease bath all too short a date. + * * * * * + But thy eternal summer shall not fade." + +Sonnets came to be used in much the same way as a modern love letter +or valentine. In the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, sonnets were +even called "merchantable ware." Michael Drayton (1563-1631), a +prolific poet, author of the _Ballad of Agincourt_, one of England's +greatest war songs, tells how he was employed by a lover to write a +sonnet which won the lady. Drayton's best sonnet is, _Since there's no +help, come let us kiss and part_. + +Outside of the sonnets, we shall find love lyrics in great variety. +One of the most popular of Elizabethan songs is Ben Jonson's:-- + + "Drink to me only with thine eyes, + And I will pledge with mine; + Or leave a kiss but in the cup, + And I'll not look for wine." + +The Elizabethans were called a "nest of singing birds" because such +songs as the following are not unusual in the work of their minor +writers:-- + + "Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft + To give my love good morrow! + Winds from the wind to please her mind, + Notes from the lark I'll borrow."[4] + +Pastoral Lyrics.--In Shakespeare's early youth it was the fashion to +write lyrics about the delights of rustic life with sheep and +shepherds. The Italians, freshly interesting in Vergil's _Georgics_ +and _Bucolics_, had taught the English how to write pastoral verse. +The entire joyous world had become a Utopian sheep pasture, in which +shepherds piped and fell in love with glorified sheperdesses. A great +poet named one of his productions, _Shepherd's Calendar_ and Sir +Philip Sidney wrote in poetic prose the pastoral romance _Arcadia_. + +Christopher Marlowe's _The Passionate Shepherd to his Love_ is a +typical poetic expression of the fancied delight in pastoral life:-- + + "...we will sit upon the rocks, + Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks + By shallow rivers, to whose falls + Melodious birds sing madrigals." + +Miscellaneous Lyrics.--As the Elizabethan age progressed, the +subject matter of the lyrics became broader. Verse showing consummate +mastery of turns expressed the most varied emotions. Some of the +greatest lyrics of the period are the songs interspersed in the plays +of the dramatists, from Lyly to Beaumont and Fletcher. The plays of +Shakespeare, the greatest and most varied of Elizabethan lyrical +poets, especially abound in such songs. Two of the best of these occur +in his _Cymbeline_. One is the song-- + + "Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings," + +and the other is the dirge beginning:-- + + "Fear no more the heat o' the sun." + +Ariel's songs in _The Tempest_ fascinate with the witchery of +untrammeled existence. Two lines of a song from _Twelfth Night_ give +an attractive presentation of the Renaissance philosophy of the +present as opposed to an elusive future:-- + + "What is love? 'tis not hereafter; + Present mirth hath present laughter." + +[Illustration: JOHN DONNE. _From the painting ascribed to Cornelius +Jansen, South Kensington Museum._] + +Two of the later Elizabethan poets, Ben Jonson and John Donne +(1573-1631), specially impress us by their efforts to secure ingenious +effects in verse. Ben Jonson often shows this tendency, as in trying +to give a poetic definition of a kiss as something-- + + "So sugar'd, so melting, so soft, so delicious," + +and in showing so much ingenuity of expression in the cramping limits +of an epitaph:-- + + "Underneath this stone doth lie + As much beauty as could die, + Which in life did harbor give + To more virtue than doth live." + +The poet most famous for a display of extreme ingenuity in verse is +John Donne, a traveler, courtier, and finally dean of St. Paul's +Cathedral, who possessed, to quote his own phrase, an "hydroptic +immoderate desire of human learning." He paid less attention to +artistic form than the earlier Elizabethans, showed more cynicism, +chose the abstract rather than the concrete, and preferred involved +metaphysical thought to simple sensuous images. He made few references +to nature and few allusions to the characters of classical mythology, +but searched for obscure likenesses between things, and for conceits +or far-fetched comparisons. In his poem, _A Funeral Elegy_, he shows +these qualities in characterizing a fair young lady as:-- + + "One whose clear body was so pure and thin, + Because it need disguise no thought within; + 'Twas but a through-light scarf her mind to enroll, + Or exhalation breathed out from her soul." + +The idea in Shakespeare's simpler expression, "the heavenly rhetoric +of thine eye," was expanded by Donne into:-- + + "Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread + Our eyes upon one double string." + +Donne does not always show so much fine-spun ingenuity, but this was +the quality most imitated by a group of his successors. His claim to +distinction rests on the originality and ingenuity of his verse, and +perhaps still more on his influence over succeeding poets.[5] + +EDMUND SPENSER, 1552-1599 + +[Illustration: EDMUND SPENSER._From a painting in Duplin Castle_.] + +Life and Minor Poems.--For one hundred and fifty-two years after +Chaucer's death, in 1400, England had no great poet until Edmund +Spenser was born in London in 1552. Spenser, who became the greatest +non-dramatic poet of the Elizabethan age, was twelve years older than +Shakespeare. + +His parents were poor, but fortunately in Elizabethan times, as well +as in our own days, there were generous men who found their chief +pleasure in aiding others. Such a man assisted Spenser in going to +Cambridge. Spenser's benefactor was sufficiently wise not to give the +student enough to dwarf the growth of self-reliance. We know that +Spenser was a sizar at Cambridge, that is, one of those students who, +to quote Macaulay, "had to perform some menial services. They swept +the court; they carried up the dinner to the fellows' table, and +changed the plate and poured out the ale of the rulers of society." We +know further that Spenser was handicapped by ill health during a part +of his course, for we find records of allowances paid "Spenser +_aegrotanti_." + +After leaving Cambridge Spenser went to the north of England, probably +in the capacity of tutor. While there, he fell in love with a young +woman whom he calls Rosalind. This event colored his after life. +Although she refused him, she had penetration enough to see in what +his greatness consisted, and her opinion spurred him to develop his +abilities as a poet. He was about twenty-five years old when he fell +in love with Rosalind; and he remained single until he was forty-two, +when he married an Irish maiden named Elizabeth. In honor of that +event, he composed the _Epithalamion_, the noblest marriage song in +any literature. So strong are early impressions that even in its lines +he seems to be thinking of Rosalind and fancying that she is his +bride. + +After returning from the north, he spent some time with Sir Philip +Sidney, who helped fashion Spenser's ideals of a chivalrous gentleman. +Sidney's influence is seen in Spenser's greatest work, the _Faerie +Queene_. Sir Walter Raleigh was another friend who left his imprint on +Spenser. + +In 1579, Spenser published the _Shepherd's Calendar_. This is a +pastoral poem, consisting of twelve different parts, one part being +assigned to each of the twelve months. Although inferior to the +_Faerie Queene_, the _Shepherd's Calendar_ remains one of the greatest +pastoral poems in the English language. + +In 1580 he was appointed secretary to Lord Gray, Lord Lieutenant of +Ireland. In one capacity or another, in the service of the crown, +Spenser passed in Ireland almost the entire remaining eighteen years +of his life. In 1591 he received in the south of Ireland a grant of +three thousand acres, a part of the confiscated estate of an Irish +earl. Sir Walter Raleigh was also given forty-two thousand acres near +Spenser. Ireland was then in a state of continuous turmoil. In such a +country Spenser lived and wrote his _Faerie Queene_. Of course, this +environment powerfully affected the character of that poem. It has +been said that to read a contemporary's account of "Raleigh's +adventures with the Irish chieftains, his challenges and single +combats, his escapes at fords and woods, is like reading bits of the +_Faerie Queene_ in prose." + +In 1598 the Irish, infuriated by the invasion of their country and the +seizure of their lands, set fire to Spenser's castle. He and his +family barely escaped with their lives. He crossed to England and died +the next year, according to some accounts, in want. He was buried, at +the expense of Lord Essex, in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer. + +The Faerie Queene.--In 1590 Spenser published the first three books +of the _Faerie Queene_. The original plan was to have the poem contain +twelve books, like Vergil's _AEneid_, but only six were published. If +more were written, they have been lost. + +The poem is an allegory with the avowed moral purpose of fashioning "a +gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline." Spenser +says: "I labour 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." Twelve Knights personifying +twelve Virtues were to fight with their opposing Vices, and the twelve +books were to tell the story of the conflict. The Knights set out from +the court of Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, in search of their enemies, +and meet with divers adventures and enchantments. + +The hero of the tale is Arthur, who has figured so much in English +song and legend. Spenser makes him typical of all the Virtues taken +together. The first book, which is really a complete poem by itself, +and which is generally admitted to be the finest, contains an account +of the adventures of the Red Cross Knight who represents Holiness. +Other books tell of the warfare of the Knights who typify Temperance, +Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. + +The poem begins thus:-- + + "A gentle Knight was pricking[6] on the plaine, + Ycladd 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. + * * * * * + "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. + * * * * * + "Upon a great adventure he was bond. + That greatest Gloriana to him gave, + That greatest glorious Queene of Faerie lond." + +The entire poem really typifies the aspirations of the human soul for +something nobler and better than can be gained without effort. In +Spenser's imaginative mind, these aspirations became real persons who +set out to win laurels in a fairyland, lighted with the soft light of +the moon, and presided over by the good genius that loves to uplift +struggling and weary souls. + +The allegory certainly becomes confused. A critic well says: "We can +hardly lose our way in it, for there is no way to lose." We are not +called on to understand the intricacies of the allegory, but to read +between the lines, catch the noble moral lesson, and drink to our fill +at the fountain of beauty and melody. + +Spenser a Subjective Poet.--The subjective cast of Spenser's mind +next demands attention. We feel that his is an ideal world, one that +does not exist outside of the imagination. In order to understand the +difference between subjective and objective, let us compare Chaucer +with Spenser. No one can really be said to study literature without +constantly bringing in the principle of comparison. We must notice the +likeness and the difference between literary productions, or the faint +impression which they make upon our minds will soon pass away. + +Chaucer is objective; that is, he identifies himself with things that +could have a real existence in the outside world. We find ourselves +looking at the shiny bald head of Chaucer's Monk, at the lean horse +and threadbare clothes of the Student of Oxford, at the brown +complexion of the Shipman, at the enormous hat and large figure of the +Wife of Bath, at the red face of the Summoner, at the hair of the +Pardoner "yelow as wex." These are not mere figments of the +imagination. We feel that they are either realities or that they could +have existed. + +While the adventures in the Irish wars undoubtedly gave the original +suggestions for many of the contests between good and evil in the +_Faerie Queene_, Spenser intentionally idealized these knightly +struggles to uphold the right and placed them in fairyland. This great +poem is the work of a mind that loved to elaborate purely subjective +images. The pictures were not painted from gazing at the outside +world. We feel that they are mostly creations of the imagination, and +that few of them could exist in a real world. There is no bower in the +bottom of the sea, "built of hollow billowes heaped hye," and no lion +ever follows a lost maiden to protect her. We feel that the principal +part of Shakespeare's world could have existed in reality as well as +in imagination. Spenser was never able to reach this highest type of +art. + +The world, however, needs poets to create images of a higher type of +beauty than this life can offer. These images react on our material +lives and cast them in a nobler mold. Spenser's belief that the +subjective has power to fashion the objective is expressed in two of +the finest lines that he ever wrote:-- + + "For of the soule the bodie forme doth take; + For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make."[7] + +Chief Characteristics of Spenser's Poetry.--We can say of Spencer's +verse that it stands in the front rank for (1) melody, (2) love of the +beautiful, and (3) nobility of the ideals presented. His poetry also +(4) shows a preference for the subjective world, (5) exerts a +remarkable influence over other poets, and (6) displays a peculiar +liking for obsolete forms of expression. + +Spencer's melody is noteworthy. If we read aloud correctly such lines +as these, we can scarcely fail to be impressed with their harmonious +flow:-- + + "A teme of Dolphins raunged in aray + Drew the smooth charett of sad Cymoent: + They were all taught by Triton to obay + To the long raynes at her commaundement: + As swifte as swallowes on the waves they went. + * * * * * + "Upon great Neptune's necke they softly swim, + And to her watry chamber swiftly carry him. + Deepe in the bottome of the sea her bowre + Is built of hollow billowes heaped hye."[8] + +The following lines will show Spenser's love for beauty, and at the +same time indicate the nobility of some of his ideal characters. He is +describing Lady Una, the fair representative of true religion, who has +lost through enchantment her Guardian Knight, and who is wandering +disconsolate in the forest:-- + + "...Her angel's face, + As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, + And made a sunshine in the shady place; + Did never mortall eye behold such heavenly grace. + + "It fortuned out of the thickest wood + A ramping Lyon rushed suddeinly, + Hunting full greedy after salvage blood. + Soone as the royall virgin he did spy, + With gaping mouth at her ran greedily, + To have att once devoured her tender corse; + But to the pray when as he drew more ny, + His bloody rage aswaged with remorse, + And with the sight amazd, forgat his furious forse. + + "In stead thereof he kist her wearie feet, + And lickt her lilly hands with fawning tong, + As he her wronged innocence did weet. + O, how can beautie maister the most strong, + And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!"[9] + +The power of beauty has seldom been more vividly described. As we read +the succeeding stanzas and see the lion following her, like a faithful +dog, to shield her from harm, we feel the power of both beauty and +goodness and realize that with Spenser these terms are +interchangeable, Each one of the preceding selections shows his +preference for the subjective and the ideal to the actual. + +Spenser searched for old and obsolete words. He used "eyne" for +"eyes," "fone" for "foes," "shend" for "shame." He did not hesitate to +coin words when he needed them, like "mercify" and "fortunize." He +even wrote "wawes" in place of "waves" because he wished it to rime +with "jaws." In spite of these peculiarities, Spenser is not hard +reading after the first appearance of strangeness has worn away. + +A critic rightly says that Spenser repels none but the anti-poetical. +His influence upon other poets has been far-reaching. Milton, Dryden, +Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley show traces of his influence. +Spenser has been called the poet's poet, because the more poetical one +is, the more one will enjoy him. + +THE ENGLISH DRAMA + +The Early Religious Drama.--It is necessary to remember at the +outset that the purpose of the religious drama was not to amuse, but +to give a vivid presentation of scriptural truth. On the other hand, +the primary aim of the later dramatist has usually been to entertain, +or, in Shakespeare's exact words, "to please." Shakespeare was, +however, fortunate in having an audience that was pleased to be +instructed, as well as entertained. + +Before the sixteenth century, England had a religious drama that made +a profound impression on life and thought. The old religious plays +helped to educate the public, the playwrights, and the actors for the +later drama. + +Any one may to-day form some idea of the rise of the religious drama, +by attending the service of the Catholic church on Christmas or Easter +Sunday. In many Catholic churches there may still be seen at Christmas +time a representation of the manger at Bethlehem. Sometimes the +figures of the infant Savior, of Joseph and Mary, of the wise men, of +the sheep and cattle, are very lifelike. + +The events clustering about the Crucifixion and the Resurrection +furnished the most striking material for the early religious drama. +Our earliest dramatic writers drew their inspiration from the _New +Testament_. + +Miracle and Mystery Plays.--A Miracle play is the dramatic +representation of the life of a saint and of the miracles connected +with him. A Mystery play deals with gospel events which are concerned +with any phase of the life of Christ, or with any Biblical event that +remotely foreshadows Christ or indicates the necessity of a Redeemer. +In England there were few, if any, pure Miracle plays, but the term +"Miracle" is applied indiscriminately to both Miracles and Mysteries. + +The first Miracle play in England was acted probably not far from +1100. In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries these +plays had become so popular that they were produced in nearly every +part of England. Shakespeare felt their influence. He must have had +frequent opportunities in his boyhood to witness their production. +They were seldom performed in England after 1600, although visitors to +Germany have, every ten years, the opportunity of seeing a modern +production of a Mystery in the _Passion Play_ at Oberammergau. + +The Subjects.--Four great cycles of Miracle plays have been +preserved: the York, Chester, and Coventry plays, so called because +they were performed in those places, and the Towneley plays, which +take their name from Towneley Hall in Lancashire, where the manuscript +was kept for some time. It is probable that almost every town of +importance had its own collection of plays. + +[Illustration: MIRACLE PLAY AT COVENTRY. _From an old print_] + +The York cycle contains forty-eight plays. A cycle or circle of plays +means a list forming a complete circle from Creation until Doomsday. +The York collection begins with Creation and the fall of Lucifer and +the bad angels from Heaven,--a theme which was later to inspire the +pen of one of England's greatest poets. The tragedies of Eden and the +Flood, scenes from the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses, the manger +at Bethlehem, the slaughter of the Innocents, the Temptation, the +resurrection of Lazarus, the Last Supper, the Trial, the Crucifixion, +and the Easter triumph are a few of the Miracle plays that were acted +in the city of York. + +The Actors and Manner of Presentation.--At first the actors were +priests who presented the plays either in the church or in its +immediate vicinity on sacred ground. After a while the plays became so +popular that the laity presented them. When they were at the height of +their popularity, that is, during the fourteenth and fifteenth +centuries, the actors were selected with great care from the members +of the various trades guilds. Each guild undertook the entire +responsibility for the presentation of some one play, and endeavored +to surpass all the other guilds. + +[Illustration: HELL MOUTH._From a Columbia University Model_.] + +Considerable humor was displayed in the allotment of various plays. +The tanners presented the fall of Lucifer and the bad angels into the +infernal regions; the ship carpenters, the play of Noah and the +building of the ark; the bakers, the Last Supper; the butchers, the +Crucifixion. In their prime, the Miracle plays were acted on wooden +platforms mounted on wheels. There were two distinct stories in these +movable stages, a lower one in which the actors dressed, and an upper +one in which they played. The entrance to the lower story, known as +Hell Mouth, consisted of a terrible pair of dragonlike jaws, painted +red. From these jaws issued smoke, flame, and horrible outcries. From +the entrance leaped red-coated devils to tempt the Savior, the saints, +and men. Into it the devils would disappear with some wicked soul. +They would torture it and make it roar with pain, as the smoke poured +faster from the red jaws. + +In York on Corpus Christi Day, which usually fell in the first week in +June, the actors were ordered to be in their places on these movable +theaters at half past three in the morning. Certain stations had been +selected throughout the city, where each pageant should stop and, in +the proper order, present its own play. In this way the enormous +crowds that visited York to see these performances were more evenly +scattered throughout the city. + +The actors did not always remain on the stage. Herod, for example, in +his magnificent robes used to ride on horseback among the people, +boast of his prowess, and overdo everything. Shakespeare, who was +evidently familiar with the character, speaks of out-Heroding Herod. +The Devil also frequently jumped from the stage and availed himself of +his license to play pranks among the audience. + +Much of the acting was undoubtedly excellent. In 1476 the council at +York ordained that four of the best players in the city should examine +with regard to fitness all who wished to take part in the plays. So +many were desirous of acting that it was much trouble to get rid of +incompetents. The ordinance ran: "All such as they shall find +sufficient in person and cunning, to the honor of the City and worship +of the said Crafts, for to admit and able; and all other insufficient +persons, either in cunning, voice, or person, to discharge, ammove and +avoid." A critic says that this ordinance is "one of the steps on +which the greatness of the Elizabethan stage was built, and through +which its actors grew up."[10] + +Introduction of the Comic Element in the Miracle Plays.--While the +old drama generally confined itself to religious subjects, the comic +element occasionally crept in, made its power felt, and disclosed a +new path for future playwrights. In the _Play of Noah's Flood_, when +the time for the flood has come, Noah's wife refuses to enter the ark +and a domestic quarrel ensues. Finally her children pull and shove her +into the ark. When she is safe on board, Noah bids her welcome. His +enraged wife deals him resounding blows until he calls to her to stop, +because his back is nearly broken. + +The _Play of the Shepherds_ includes a genuine comedy, the first +comedy worthy of the name to appear in England. While watching their +flocks on Christmas Eve, the shepherds are joined by Mak, a neighbor +whose reputation for honesty is not good. Before they go to sleep, +they make him lie down within their circle; but he rises when he hears +them begin to snore, steals a sheep, and hastens home. His wife is +alarmed, because in that day the theft of a sheep was punishable by +death. She finally concludes that the best plan will be to wrap the +animal in swaddling clothes and put it in the cradle. If the shepherds +come to search the house, she will pretend that she has a child; and, +if they approach the cradle, she will caution them against touching it +for fear of waking the child and causing him to fill the house with +his cries. She speedily hurries Mak away to resume his slumbers among +the shepherds. When they wake, they miss the sheep, suspect Mak, and +go to search his house. His wife allows them to look around +thoroughly, but she keeps them away from the cradle. They leave, +rather ashamed of their suspicion. As they are going out of the door, +a thought strikes one of them whereby they can make partial amends. +Deciding to give the child sixpence, he returns, lifts up the covering +of the cradle, and discovers the sheep. Mak and his wife both declare +that an elf has changed their child into a sheep. The shepherds +threaten to have the pair hanged. They seize Mak, throw him on a +canvas, and toss him into the air until they are exhausted. They then +lie down to rest and are roused with the song of an angel from +Bethlehem. + +To produce this comedy required genuine inventive imagination; for +there is nothing faintly resembling this incident in the sacred +narrative. These early exercises of the imagination in our drama may +resemble the tattering footsteps of a child; but they were necessary +antecedents to the strength, beauty, and divinity of movement in +Elizabethan times. + +[Illustration: FOOL'S HEAD. State properties of the Vice and Fool.] + +The Morality.--The next step in the development of the drama is +known as the Morality play. This personified abstractions. Characters +like Charity, Hope, Faith, Truth, Covetousness, Falsehood, Abominable +Living, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil,--in short, all the +Virtues and the Vices,--came on the stage in the guise of persons, and +played the drama of life. + +Critics do not agree about the precise way in which the Morality is +related to the Miracle play. It is certain that the Miracle play had +already introduced some abstractions. + +In one very important respect, the Morality marks an advance, by +giving more scope to the imagination. The Miracle plays had their +general treatment absolutely predetermined by the Scriptural version +of the action or by the legends of the lives of saints, although +diverting incidents could be introduced, as we have seen. In the +Morality, the events could take any turn which the author chose to +give. + +[Illustration: AIR-BAG FLAPPER. Stage properties of the Vice and +Fool.] + +In spite of this advantage, the Morality is in general a synonym for +what is uninteresting. The characters born of abstractions are too +often bloodless, like their parents. The Morality under a changed name +was current a few years ago in the average Sunday-school book. +Incompetent writers of fiction today often adopt the Morality +principle in making their characters unnaturally good or bad, mere +puppets who do not develop along the line of their own emotional +prompting, but are moved by machinery in the author's hands. + +[Illustration: LATH DAGGER. Stage properties of the Vice and Fool.] + +A new character, the Vice, was added as an adjunct to the Devil, to +increase the interest of the audience in the Morality play. The Vice +represented the leading spirit of evil in any particular play, +sometimes Fraud, Covetousness, Pride, Iniquity, or Hypocrisy. It was +the business of the Vice to annoy the Virtues and to be constantly +playing pranks. The Vice was the predecessor of the clown and the fool +upon the stage. The Vice also amused the audience by tormenting the +Devil, belaboring him with a sword of lath, sticking thorns into him, +and making him roar with pain. Sometimes the Devil would be kicked +down Hell Mouth by the offended Virtues; but he would soon reappear +with saucily curled tail, and at the end of the play he would delight +the spectators by plunging into Hell Mouth with the Vice on his back. + +[Illustration: FOOL OF THE OLD PLAY.] + +Court Plays.--In the first part of the sixteenth century, the court +and the nobility especially encouraged the production of plays whose +main object was to entertain. The influence of the court in shaping +the drama became much more powerful than that of the church. Wallace +says of the new materials which his researches have disclosed in the +twentieth century:-- + + "They throw into the lime-light a brilliant development of this new + drama through the Chapel Royal, a development that took place + primarily under the direction of the great musicians who served as + masters of the children of the Chapel and as court entertainers, the + first true poets-laureate, through the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward + VI., Mary, and Elizabeth."[11] + +In 1509 Henry VIII. appointed William Cornish (died 1523) to be Master +of the Children of the Chapel Royal. This court institution with its +choral body of men and boys not only ministered "by song to the +spiritual well-being of the sovereign and his household," but also +gave them "temporal" enjoyment in dances, pageants, and plays. We must +not forget, however, that the Chapel Royal was originally, as its name +implies, a religious body. Cornish was a capable dramatist, as well as +a musician and a poet; and he, unlike the author of _Everyman_, wrote +plays simply to amuse the court and its guests. He has even been +called the founder of the secular English drama.[12] + +The court of Henry VIII. became especially fond of the Interlude, +which was a short play, often given in connection with a banquet or +other entertainment. Any dramatic incident, such as the refusal of +Noah's wife to enter the ark, or Mak's thievery in _The Play of the +Shepherds_, might serve as an Interlude. Cornish and John Heywood +(1497?--1580?), a court dramatist of much versatility, incorporated in +the Interlude many of the elements of the five-act drama. _The Four +P's_, the most famous Interlude, shows a contest between a Pardoner, +Palmer, Pedlar, and Poticary, to determine who could tell the greatest +lie. Wallace thinks that the best Interludes, such as _The Four P's_ +and _The Pardoner and the Frere_, were written by Cornish, although +they are usually ascribed to Heywood. + +Cornish had unusual ability as a deviser of masques and plays. One of +his interludes for children has allegorical characters that remotely +suggest some that appear in the modern _Bluebird_, by Maeterlinck. +Cornish had Wind appear "in blue with drops of silver"; Rain, "in +black with silver honeysuckles"; Winter, "in russet with flakes of +silver snow"; Summer, "in green with gold stars"; and Spring, "in +green with gold primroses." In 1522 Cornish wrote and presented before +Henry VIII. and his guest, the Roman emperor, a political play, +especially planned to indicate the attitude of the English monarch +toward Spain and France. Under court influences, the drama enlarged +its scope and was no longer chiefly the vehicle for religious +instruction. + +Early Comedies.--Two early comedies, divided, after the classical +fashion, into acts and scenes, show close approximation to the modern +form of English plays. + +_Ralph Royster Doyster_ was written not far from the middle of the +sixteenth century by Nicholas Udall (1505-1556), sometime master of +Eton College and, later, court poet under Queen Mary. This play, +founded on a comedy of Plautus, shows the classical influence which +was so powerful in England at this time. Ralph, the hero, is a +conceited simpleton. He falls in love with a widow who has already +promised her hand to a man infinitely Ralph's superior. Ralph, +however, unable to understand why she should not want him, persists in +his wooing. She makes him the butt of her jokes, and he finds himself +in ridiculous positions. The comedy amuses us in this way until her +lover returns and marries her. The characters of the play, which is +written in rime, are of the English middle class. + +_Gammer Gurton's Needle_, the work of William Stevenson, a +little-known pre-Shakespearean writer, was acted at Christ's College, +Cambridge, shortly after the middle of the sixteenth century. This +play borrows hardly anything from the classical stage. Most of the +characters of _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ are from the lowest English +working classes, and its language, unlike that of _Ralph Royster +Doyster_, which has little to offend, is very coarse. + +Gorboduc and the Dramatic Unities.--The tragedy of _Gorboduc_, the +first regular English tragedy written in blank verse, was acted in +1561, three years before the birth of Shakespeare. This play is in +part the work of Thomas Sackville (1536-1608), a poet and diplomat, +the author of two powerful somber poems, the _Induction_ and +_Complaint of the Duke of Buckingham_. In spite of their heavy +narrative form, these poems are in places even more dramatic than the +dull tragedy of Gorboduc, which was fashioned after the classical +rules of Seneca and the Greeks. _Gorboduc_ requires little action on +the stage. There is considerable bloodshed in the play; but the +spectators are informed of the carnage by a messenger, as they are not +permitted to witness a bloody contest on the stage. + +[Illustration: THOMAS SACKVILLE.] + +If Gorboduc had been taken for a model, the English drama could never +have attained Shakespearean greatness. Our drama would then have been +crippled by following the classical rules, which prescribed unity of +place and time in the plot and the action. The ancients held that a +play should not represent actions which would, in actual life, require +much more than twenty-four hours for their performance. If one of the +characters was a boy, he had to be represented as a boy throughout the +play. The next act could not introduce him as one who had grown to +manhood in the interval. The classical rules further required that the +action should be performed in one place, or near it. Anything that +happened at a great distance had to be related by a messenger, and not +acted on the stage. + +Had these rules been followed, the English drama could never have +painted the growth and development of character, which is not the work +of a day. The genius of Marlowe and Shakespeare taught them to +disregard these dramatic unities. In _As You Like It_, the action is +now at the court, and now in the far-off Forest of Arden. Shakespeare +knew that the imagination could traverse the distance. At the +beginning of the play Oliver is an unnatural, brutal brother; but +events change him, so that in the fourth act, when he is asked if he +is the man who tried to kill his brother, Oliver replies:-- + + "'Twas I; but 'tis not I." + +THE PRESENTATION OF ELIZABETHAN PLAYS + +[Illustration: THEATER IN INN YARD. _From Columbia University +model._] + +The Elizabethan Theater.--Before considering the work of the +Elizabethan dramatists, we should know something of the conditions +which they had to meet in order to produce plays for the contemporary +stage. The courtyard of London inns often served as a playhouse before +sufficient regular theaters were built. The stage was in one end of +the yard, and the unused ground space in front served as the pit. Two +or three tiers of galleries or balconies around the yard afforded +additional space for both actors and spectators. These inn yards +furnished many suggestions which were incorporated in the early +theaters. + +The first building in England for the public presentation of plays was +known as The Theater. It was built in London in 1576. In 1598 +Shakespeare and his associates, failing to secure a lease of the +ground on which this building stood, pulled it down, carried the +materials across the river, and erected the famous Globe Theater on +the Bankside, as the street running along the south side of the Thames +was called. In late years a careful study of the specifications (1599) +for building the Fortune Theater (see Frontispiece) has thrown much +light on the Globe, which is unusually important from its association +with Shakespeare. Although the Fortune was square, while the Globe was +octagonal, the Fortune was in many essentials modeled after the Globe. +A part of the specifications of the Fortune read as follows:-- + + + "...the frame of the saide howse to be sett square and to conteine + fowerscore foote of lawful assize everye waie square, without, and + fiftie five foote of like assize square, everye waie within ... and + the saide frame to conteine three stories in heigth ... [the] stadge + shall conteine in length fortie and three foote of lawfull assize, + and in breadth to extende to the middle of the yarde of the said + howse: the same stadge to be paled in belowe with goode stronge and + sufficyent new oken boardes... And the said stadge to be in all + other proportions contryved and fashioned like unto the stadge + of the wide Playhowse called the Globe." + +[Illustration: RECONSTRUCTED GLOBE THEATER, "SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND," +EARL'S COURT, LONDON, 1912. _From an original drawing._] + +The first part of the twentieth century has made a detailed study of +the stage on which the Great Elizabethan plays were acted. G.F. +Reynolds says:-- + + "Most students agree that the 'typical' Elizabethan stage consisted + of a platform, uncurtained in front, open as well at the sides, + carpeted, it is generally said, with rushes, and surrounded with a + railing, a space behind this platform closed by a sliding curtain, + and a balcony with its own curtains and entrances. There were also a + space below the stage reached by trap doors, a dressing room behind + the stage, machinery by which characters ascended to and descended + from some place above, and in some theaters at least, a 'heavens,' + or roof over part or all of the stage."[13] + +Possibly no single stage had every feature mentioned in the above +description, which gives, however, a good general idea of a typical +stage of the time. We must remember that no one has the right to +assert that different Elizabethan stages did not differ in details. We +are not sure that every stage was so planned as to be divided into two +parts by a sliding curtain. The drawing of the Swan Theater shows no +place for such a curtain, although it is possible that the draftsman +forgot to include it. The specifications of the stage of the Fortune +Theater make no mention of a railing. + +The Play and the Audience.--It is impossible to criticize +Elizabethan plays properly from the point of view of the +twentieth-century stage. Many modern criticisms are shown to be +without reason when we understand the wishes of the audience and the +manner of presenting the plays. The conditions of the entry or the +reentry of a player might explain some of those lengthy monologues +that seem so inartistic to modern dramatists. The Elizabethan theaters +and the tastes of their patrons had certain important characteristics +of their own. + +I. In the public theaters,[14] the play began in the early afternoon, +usually between two and three o'clock, and lasted for about two hours. +The audience was an alert one, neither jaded by a long day's business +nor rendered impatient by waiting for the adjustment of scenery. The +Elizabethans constituted a vigorous audience, eager to meet the +dramatist and actors more than half way in interpreting what was +presented. + +II. In the case of such public theaters as the Globe and the Fortune, +even their roofed parts, which extended around the pit and back of the +stage and which contained the galleries and the boxes, were all +exposed to the open air on the inner side. The pit, which was +immediately in front of the stage, had the sky for a roof and the +ground for a floor. The frequenters of the pit, who often jostled each +other for standing room, were sometimes called the "groundlings." +Occasionally a severe rain would drive them out of the theater to seek +shelter. Those who attended the Elizabethan public theater were in no +danger of being made drowsy or sick by its bad air. + +[Illustration: THE BANKSIDE AND ITS THEATERS + +1. The Swan Theater. 3. The Hope Theater. 5. Old St. Paul's. +2. The Bear Gardens. 4. The Globe Theater. 6. The Temple.] + +III. The audiences did not attend merely for relaxation or amusement. +They often came for information and education, and they were probably +glad to learn about alchemy from one of Ben Jonson's plays. The +audience doubtless welcomed long monologues if they were well +delivered and presented ideas of worth. The theater took the place of +lectures, newspapers, magazines, and, to a certain extent, of books. +We know that in 1608 the Blackfriars Theater acted the part of a +newspaper in presenting a scandal about the French king and that at +another time it gave some humorous information concerning the English +monarch's newly discovered silver mine in Scotland. + +IV. The Elizabethans loved good poetry for its imaginative appeal. +Shakespeare was a poet before he was a dramatist. Beautiful poetry +presenting high ideals must have met with vigorous appreciation, or +Shakespeare could not have continued to produce such great work. + +V. The Elizabethans also demanded story and incident. Modern critics +have often noticed that the characterization in Shakespeare's fourth +acts, _e.g._, in _Macbeth_, does not equal that in the preceding part +of the play; but the fourth act of _Macbeth_ interested the +Elizabethans because there was progress in the complicated story. To +modern theatergoers this fourth act seems to drag because they have +acquired through novel reading a liking for analysis and dissection. + +Shakespeare succeeded in interesting the Elizabethans by embodying in +story and incident his portrayal of character. Because of admiration +for the revelation of character in his greatest plays, modern readers +forget their moving incidents,--for instance, the almost +blood-curdling appearances of a ghost, the actions of a crazed woman, +the killing of an eavesdropper on the stage, two men fighting at an +open grave, the skull and bones of a human being dug from a grave in +full view of the audience, the fighting to the death on the stage, +which is ghastly with corpses at the close. When we add to this the +roar of cannon whenever the king drinks, as well as when there is some +more noteworthy action, and remember that the very last words of +_Hamlet_ are: "Go, bid the soldiers shoot," we shall realize that +there was not much danger of going to sleep even during a performance +of _Hamlet_. + +Scenery.--The conditions under which early Elizabethan plays were +sometimes produced are thus described by Sir Philip Sidney:-- + + "You shall have Asia of the one side, and Africa of the other, and + so many other under-kingdoms, that the player when he comes in, must + ever begin with telling you where he is, or else the tale will not + be conceived. Now shall you have three ladies walk to gather + flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and + by we hear news of a shipwreck in the same place, then we are to + blame if we accept it not for a rock." + +[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY DRAWING OF INTERIOR OF AN ELIZABETHAN +THEATER[15].] + +Those who remember this well-known quotation too often forget that +Sidney wrote before Shakespeare's plays were produced. We do not know +whether Sidney was describing a private or a public stage, but the +private theaters had the greater amount of scenery. + +Modern research has shown that the manner of presenting plays did not +remain stationary while the drama was rapidly evolving. Before +Shakespeare died, there were such stage properties as beds, tables, +chairs, dishes, fetters, shop wares, and perhaps also some artificial +trees, mossy banks, and rocks. A theatrical manager in an inventory of +stage properties (1598) mentions "the sittie of Rome," which was +perhaps a cloth so painted as to present a perspective of the city. He +also speaks of a "cloth of the Sone and Mone." The use of such painted +cloths was an important step toward modern scenery. We may, however, +conclude that the scenery of any Elizabethan theater would have seemed +scant to one accustomed to the detailed setting of the modern stage. + +The comparatively little scenery in Elizabethan theaters imposed +strenuous imaginative exercise on the spectators. This effort was +fortunate for all concerned--for the dramatist and for the actor, but +especially for the spectator, who became accustomed to give an +imaginative interpretation and setting to a play that would mean +little to a modern theatergoer. + +Actors.--Those who have seen some of the recent performances of +plays under Elizabethan conditions, on a stage modeled after that of +Shakespeare's time have been surprised at the increase of the actors' +power. The stage projects far enough into the pit to bring the actors +close to the audience. Their appeal thus becomes far more personal, +direct, and forceful. The spectator more easily identifies himself +with them and almost feels as if he were a part of the play. This has +been the experience of those who have seen the old-time reproduction +of plays as different as _The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The +Merchant of Venice_, and _Much Ado About Nothing_. In the case of _The +Tempest_, a very interesting act was presented when all the scenery +consisted of a board on which was painted "Prospero Isle." + +In Shakespeare's times, the plays were probably well acted. While the +fame of Elizabethan actors like Edward Alleyn and Richard Burbage has +come down to modern times, the success of plays did not depend on +single stars. Shakespeare is said to have played in minor roles. The +audience discouraged bad acting. The occupants of the pit would throw +apples or worse missiles at an unsatisfactory player, and sometimes +the disgusted spectators would suddenly leap on the stage and chase an +incompetent actor off the boards. + +Prior to the Restoration in 1660, the women's parts were taken by +boys. While this must have hampered the presentation of characters +like Lady Macbeth, it is now known to have been less of a handicap +than was formerly thought. The twentieth century has seen feminine +parts so well played by carefully trained boys that the most astute +women spectators never detected the deception. Boys, especially those +of the Chapel Royal, had for a long time acted masculine, as well as +feminine, parts. As late as the beginning of the seventeenth century, +the choir boys were presenting some of the great Elizabethan plays in +a private theater connected with St. Paul's Cathedral. Rosencrantz in +the second act of _Hamlet_ bears witness to the popularity of these +boy actors, when he calls them "little eyases, that cry on the top of +question and are most tyrannically clapped for it." Ben Jonson's +touching lyrical epitaph on a boy actor, Salathiel Pavy, who had for +"three fill'd zodiacs" been "the stage's jewel," shows how highly the +Elizabethans sometimes regarded boy actors. The regular theaters found +the companies of boys such strong rivals that, in 1609, Shakespeare +and other theatrical managers used modern business methods to suppress +competition and agreed to pay the master of the boys of St. Paul's +enough to cause him to withdraw them permanently from competing with +the other theaters. + +PRE-SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMATISTS + +The "University Wits" and Thomas Kyd.--Five authors, John Lyly, +George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge, and Thomas Nashe, all +graduates of Oxford or Cambridge, were sufficiently versatile to be +called "university wits." Amid various other activities, all of them +were impelled by the spirit of the age to write plays. These +intellectual aristocrats hurled the keen shafts of their wit at those +dramatists, who, without a university education, were arrogant enough +to think that they could write plays. Because Shakespeare had never +attended a university, Greene called him "an upstart Crow beautified +with our feathers." + +On New Year's, 1584, John Lyly, the author of _Euphues_, presented +in the first Blackfriars Theater[16] his prose comedy, entitled +_Campaspe_. This play relates the love story of Alexander the Great's +fair Theban captive, Campaspe. The twenty-eight characters necessary +to produce this play were obtained from the boys of the Chapel Royal +and St. Paul's Cathedral. Two months later Lyly's _Sapho and Phao_ was +given in the same theater with a cast of seventeen boys. It should be +remembered that these plays, so important in the evolution of the +drama, were acted by boys under royal patronage. _Campaspe_ is little +more than a series of episodes, divided into acts and scenes, but, +unlike _Gorboduc, Campaspe_ has many of the characteristics of an +interesting modern play. + +Lyly wrote eight comedies, all but one in prose. In the history of the +drama, he is important for (1) finished style, (2) good dialogue, (3) +considerable invention in the way he secured interest, by using +classical matter in combination with contemporary life, (4) subtle +comedy, and (5) influence on Shakespeare. It is doubtful whether +Shakespeare could have produced such good early comedies, if he had +not received suggestions from Lyly's work in this field. + +The chapel boys also presented at Blackfriars in the same year George +Peele's (1558-1597) _The Arraignment of Paris_, a pastoral drama in +riming verse. In Juno's promise to Paris, Peele shows how the +possibilities of the New World affected his imagination:-- + + "Xanthus shall run liquid gold for thee to wash thy hands; + And if thou like to tend thy flock and not from them to fly, + Their fleeces shall be curled gold to please their master's eye." + +While _The Arraignment of Paris_ and his two other plays, _David and +Bathsabe_ and _The Old Wives' Tale_, are not good specimens of +dramatic construction, the beauty of some of Peele's verse could +hardly have failed to impress both Marlowe and Shakespeare with the +poetic possibilities of the drama. Peele writes without effort-- + + "Of moss that sleeps with sound the waters make," + +and has David build-- + + "...a kingly bower, + Seated in hearing of a hundred streams." + +Robert Greene (1560-1592) showed much skill in (1) the construction +of plots, (2) the revelation of simple and genuine human feeling, and +(3) the weaving of an interesting story into a play. His best drama is +the poetic comedy _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_. In this play, he +made the love story the central point of interest. + +Thomas Lodge (1558-1625), author of the story _Rosalynde_, which +Shakespeare used to such good advantage, wrote in collaboration with +Greene, _A Looking Glass for London and England_, and an independent +play, _The Wounds of Civil War_. Thomas Nashe (1567-1601), best +known for his picaresque novel, _The Unfortunate Traveler_, wrote a +play, _Summer's Last Will and Testament_, but he and Lodge had little +dramatic ability. + +Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), although lacking a university education, +succeeded in writing, about 1586, the most popular early Elizabethan +play, _The Spanish Tragedy_, a blank verse drama, in which blood flows +profusely. Although this play is not free from classical influences, +yet its excellence of construction, effective dramatic situations, +vigor of movement, and romantic spirit helped to prepare the way for +the tragedies of Marlowe and Shakespeare. + +CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, 1564-1593 + +Life.--The year 1564 saw the birth of the two greatest geniuses in +the English drama, Marlowe and Shakespeare. Marlowe, the son of a +shoemaker, was born at Canterbury, and educated at Cambridge. When he +was graduated, the dramatic profession was the only one that gave full +scope to genius like his. He became both playwriter and actor. All his +extant work was written in about six years. When he was only +twenty-nine he was fatally stabbed in a tavern quarrel. Shakespeare +had at that age not produced his greatest plays. Marlowe unwittingly +wrote his own epitaph in that of Dr. Faustus:-- + + "Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, + And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough." + +[Illustration: MARLOWE'S MEMORIAL STATUE AT CANTERBURY.] + +Works.--Marlowe's great tragedies are four in number _Timberline, +Dr. Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Edward, II._. No careful student of +English literature can afford to be unacquainted with any of them. +Shakespeare's work appears less miraculous when we know that a +predecessor at the age of twenty-four had written plays like +_Timberline_ and _Dr. Faustus_. + +_Timberline_ shows the supreme ambition for conquest, for controlling +the world with physical force. It is such a play as might have been +suggested to an Elizabethan by watching Napoleon's career. _Dr. +Faustus_, on the other hand, shows the desire for knowledge that would +give universal power, a desire born of the Renaissance. _The Jew of +Malta_ is the incarnation of the passion for the world's wealth, a +passion that towers above common greed only by the magnificence of its +immensity. In that play we see that Marlowe-- + + "Without control can pick his riches up, + And in his house heap pearl like pebble stones, + * * * * * + Infinite riches in a little room." + +_Edward II._ gives a pathetic picture of one of the weakest of kings. +This shows more evenness and regularity of construction than any of +Marlowe's other plays; but it is the one least characteristic of him. +The others manifest more intensity of imagination, more of the spirit +of the age. + +_Dr. Faustus_ shows Marlowe's peculiar genius at its best. The legend +on which the play is based came from Germany, but Marlowe breathed his +own imaginative spirit into the tragedy. Faustus is wearied with the +barren philosophy of the past. He is impatient to secure at once the +benefits of the New Learning, which seems to him to have all the +powers of magic. If he can immediately enjoy the fruits of such +knowledge, he says:-- + + "Had I as many souls as there be stars, + I'd give them all." + +In order to acquire this knowledge and the resulting power for +twenty-four years, he sells his soul to Mephistopheles. Faustus then +proceeds to enjoy all that the new order of things promised. He +commands Homer to come from the realm of shades to sing his entrancing +songs. He summons Helen to appear before him in the morning of her +beauty. The apostrophe to her shows the vividness and exuberance of +his imagination:-- + + "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships + And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? + Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. + * * * * * + Oh! thou art fairer than the evening air + Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars." + +Marlowe left a fragment of a lyrical poem, entitled _Hero and +Leander_, which is one of the finest productions of its kind in the +language. Shakespeare accorded him the unusual honor of quoting from +this poem. + +In What Sense is Marlowe a Founder of the English Drama?--His +success with blank verse showed Shakespeare that this was the proper +versification for the drama. Before Marlowe, rime or prose had been +chiefly employed in writing plays. Sackville had used blank verse in +_Gorboduc_, but his verse and Marlowe's are as unlike as the movements +of the ox and the flight of the swallow. The sentences of _Gorboduc_ +generally end with the line, and the accents usually fall in the same +place. Marlowe's blank verse shows great variety, and the major pause +frequently does not come at the end of the line. + +Marlowe cast the dramatic unities to the wind. The action in _Dr. +Faustus_ occupies twenty-four years, and the scene changes from +country to country. He knew that he was speaking to a people whose +imaginations could accompany him and interpret what he uttered. The +other dramatists followed him in placing imaginative interpretation +above measurements by the foot rule of the intellect. Symonds says of +him: "It was he who irrevocably decided the destinies of the romantic +drama; and the whole subsequent evolution of that species, including +Shakespeare's work, can be regarded as the expansion, rectification, +and artistic ennoblement of the type fixed by Marlowe's epoch-making +tragedies. In very little more than fifty years from the publication +of _Tamburlaine_, our drama had run its course of unparalleled energy +and splendor." + +_General Characteristics_.--As we sum up Marlowe's general qualities, +it is well to note that they exhibit in a striking way the +characteristics of the time. In the morning of that youthful age the +superlative was possible. _Tamburlaine_, _The Jew of Malta_, and _Dr. +Faustus_ show in the superlative degree the love of conquest, of +wealth, and of knowledge. Everything that Marlowe wrote is stamped +with a love of beauty and of the impossible. + +Tamburlaine speaks like one of the young Elizabethans-- + + "That in conceit bear empires on our spears, + Affecting thoughts co-equal with the clouds." + +Marlowe voices the new sense of worth of enfranchised man:-- + + "Thinkest thou heaven glorious thing? + I tell thee, 'tis not half so fair as thou, + Or any man that breathes on earth. + * * * * * + 'Twas made for man, therefore is man more excellent."[17] + +Marlowe's faults are the faults of youth and of his time. Exaggeration +and lack of restraint are shown in almost all his work. In +_Tamburlaine_, written when he was twenty-two, he is often bombastic. +He has hardly any sense of humor. He does not draw fine distinctions +between his characters. + +On the other hand, using the words of Tamburlaine, we may say of all +his dramatic contemporaries, excepting Shakespeare-- + + "If all the heavenly quintessence they still + From their immortal flowers of poesy," + +were gathered into one vial, it could not surpass the odor from +patches of flowers in Marlowe's garden. + +These seven lines represent better than pages of description the +aspiring spirit of the new Elizabethan Renaissance. + + "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 + Until we reach the ripest fruit of all."[18] + +WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616 + +[Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. _From the Chandos portrait in +the National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Birthplace and Parents.--William Shakespeare, the greatest of the +world's writers, was born in Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. The name +originally meant one skilled in wielding a spear. The first William +Shakespeare of whom mention is made in the records was hanged for +robbery near Stratford; but it is only fair to state that in those +days hanging was inflicted for stealing even a sheep. + +[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE, STRATFORD-ON-AVON.] + +The great dramatist's birthplace lies in the midst of England's +fairest rural scenery. When two Englishmen were asked to name the +finest walk in England, one chose the walk from Stratford to Coventry, +the other, the walk from Coventry to Stratford. A short distance +northeast of Stratford are Warwick with its castle, the home of the +famous king-maker, and Kenilworth Castle, whose historic associations +were romantic enough to stir the imagination of a boy like +Shakespeare. + +He was the son of John Shakespeare, an influential merchant, who in +1571 was elected chief alderman of Stratford. The poet's mother was +the daughter of Robert Arden, a well-to-do farmer. We are told that +she was her father's favorite among seven children. Perhaps it was due +to her influence that he had a happy childhood. His references to +plays and sports and his later desire to return to Stratford are +indicative of pleasant boyhood days. + +Probably his mother was the original of some of her son's noblest +conceptions of women. His plays have more heroines than heroes. We may +fancy that it was his mother who first pointed out to him-- + + "...daffodils, + That come before the swallow dares, and take + The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, + But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes."[19] + +We may imagine that from her teaching, as she walked with him over the +Stratford fields, he obtained suggestions which enabled him to hold +captive the ear of the world, when he sang of the pearl in the +cowslip's ear, of the bank where the wild thyme blows, of the +greenwood tree and the merry note of the bird. Many of the references +to nature in his plays are unsurpassed in English verse. + +[Illustration: CLASSROOM IN STRATFORD GRAMMAR SCHOOL[20].] + +What He Learned at School.--In all probability Shakespeare entered +the Stratford Grammar School at about the age of seven and continued +there until he was nearly fourteen. The typical course in grammar +schools of that period consisted principally of various Latin authors. +One school in 1583 had twenty-five Latin books on its list of studies, +while the only required works in English were the _Catechism, Psalter, +Book of Common Prayer_, and _New Testament_. Children were required to +study Lilly's _Latin Grammar_ instead of their mother tongue. Among +the works that Shakespeare probably read in Latin, AEsop's _Fables_ +and Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ may be mentioned. + +Although English was not taught, Shakespeare shows wonderful mastery +in the use of his mother tongue. We have the testimony of the +schoolmaster, Holofernes, in _Love's Labor's Lost_ to show that the +study of Latin led to facility in the use of English synonyms:-- + + "The deer was, as you know, _sanguis_, in blood, ripe as the + pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of _caelo_, the + sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on the + face of _terra_, the soil, the land, the earth." + +Three English equivalents are here given for each of the Latin terms +_caelo_ and _terra_. The same schoolmaster uses seven synonyms in +describing the "fashion" of speech of the ignorant constable, +--"undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, +or, rather unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed, fashion." When we +remember that it was really Shakespeare who wrote this, we know that +he had been led to study variety of expression. His large vocabulary +could not have been acquired by any one without hard work. + +A good translation of the English _Bible_ was accessible to him. +Scriptural phrases and references appear in his plays, and volumes +have been written to show the influence of the _Bible_ on his thought. + +Financial Reverses of the Shakespeare Family.--It is probable that +Shakespeare at about the age of fourteen was taken from school to +assist his father in the store. The elder Shakespeare was then +overtaken by financial reverses and compelled to mortgage his wife's +land. His affairs went from bad to worse; he was sued for debt, but +the court could not find any property to satisfy the claim. It is +possible that he was for a short time even imprisoned for debt. +Finally he was deprived of his alderman's gown. + +These events must have made a deep impression on the sensitive boy, +and they may have led him to an early determination to try to master +fortune. In after years he showed a business sagacity very rare for a +poet. + +Marriage and Departure from Stratford.--The most famous lovers' walk +in England is the footpath from Stratford, leading about one mile +westward through meadows to the hamlet of Shottery. Perhaps William +Shakespeare had this very walk in mind when he wrote the song:-- + + "Journeys end in lovers' meeting + Every wise man's son doth know." + +[Illustration: ANNE HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE, SHOTTERY.] + +The end of his walk led to Anne Hathaway's home in Shottery. She was +nearly eight years his senior, but in 1582 at the age of eighteen he +married her. + +There is a record that Shakespeare's twin children, Hamnet and Judith, +were baptized in 1585. From this we know that before he was twenty-one +Shakespeare had a wife and family to support. + +We have no positive information to tell us what he did for the next +seven years after the birth of his twins. Tradition says that he +joined a group of hunters, killed some of the deer of Sir Thomas Lucy +at Charlecote Park, and fled from Stratford to London in consequence +of threatened prosecution. There is reason to doubt the truth of this +story, and Shakespeare may have sought the metropolis merely because +it offered him more scope to provide for his rapidly increasing +family. + +Connects Himself with the London Stage.--The next scene of +Shakespeare's life is laid in London. In 1592 Robert Greene, a London +poet, dramatist, and hack-writer, wrote:-- + + "There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with + his _Tyger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide_, supposes he is as + well able to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being + an absolute _Iohannes fac-totum_, is in his owne conceit the only + Shake-scene in a countrie."[21] + +The best critics agree that the "upstart Crow" and "Shake-scene" refer +to Shakespeare. The allusion to "Tyger's heart" is from the third part +of _King Henry VI_. and is addressed by the Duke of York to Queen +Margaret of Anjou:-- + + "O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!" + +Greene's satiric thrust shows that Shakespeare was becoming popular as +a playwright. We can only imagine the steps by which he rose to his +ascendancy as a dramatist. Perhaps he first served the theater in some +menial capacity, then became an actor, and assisted others in revising +or adapting plays before he acquired sufficient skill to write a play +entirely by himself. + +In 1593 he published the non-dramatic poem, _Venus and Adonis_, which +he dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. This nobleman is said to have +given Shakespeare, on one occasion, "a thousand pounds to enable him +to make a purchase which he heard he had a mind to." This would show +that Shakespeare had a capacity for attracting people and making +lasting friendships. In 1597 he purchased "New Place," the stateliest +house in Stratford, and we hear no more of his father's financial +troubles. + +Twentieth-century Discoveries.--In the first decade of the twentieth +century, Professor C.W. Wallace discovered in the London Record Office +a romantic story in which Shakespeare was an important figure. This +story opens in the year 1598 in the London house of a French Huguenot, +Christopher Mountjoy, wig-maker, with whom Shakespeare lived. Mountjoy +took as apprentice for six years, Stephen Bellott, a young Frenchman. +Beside him worked Mary Mountjoy, the proprietor's only daughter, who +looked with favor upon the young apprentice. At the end of his +apprenticeship Stephen left without proposing marriage to Mary; but on +his return Mrs. Mountjoy asked Shakespeare to make a match between +Stephen and Mary,--a task in which he was successful. + +Seven and a half years later Shakespeare was called into court to +testify to all the facts leading to the marriage. After a family +quarrel, Mr. Mountjoy declared that he would never leave Stephen and +Mary a groat, and the son-in-law brought suit for a dowry. +Shakespeare's testimony shows that he remembered Mrs. Mountjoy's +commission and the part that he played in mating the pair, but he +forgot the amount of the dowry and when it was to be paid. The puzzled +court turned the matter over for settlement to the French church in +London, but it is not known what decision was reached. + +The documents in the case show that Shakespeare was on familiar terms +with tradesmen, that they thought well of him, that he was willing to +undertake to try to make two people happy, and that he lived in the +Mountjoy house at the corner of Silver and Monkwell streets. During +the period of Stephen's apprenticeship (1598-1604), Shakespeare wrote +some of his greatest plays, such as _Hamlet_ and _Othello_. From its +connection with Shakespeare, this is the most important corner in +London for literary associations. + +Wallace also found documents showing that Shakespeare owned at the +time of his death a one-seventh interest in the Blackfriars Theater +and a one-fourteenth interest in the Globe. The hitherto unknown fact +that he continued to hold to the end of his life these important +interests, requiring such skilled supervision, makes more doubtful the +former assumption that he spent the last years of his life entirely at +Stratford. + +Last Years and Death.--Shakespeare probably bought New Place in +Stratford as a residence for his family and a retreat for himself out +of the theatrical season, but he doubtless continued to live in London +for the greater part of his time until a few years before his death in +1616. The Mountjoy testimony proves that he was in London in May, +1612. + +We are positive, however, that he was living in Stratford at the time +of his death. He may for several years have taken only occasional +trips to London to look after his interests in his theaters. It is not +improbable that his health forced him to retire to Stratford, for it +is difficult to see how any one could have produced nearly two +Shakespearean plays a year for almost twenty years without breaking +down under the strain. He had in addition almost certainly helped to +manage the production of the plays, and tradition says that he was +also an actor. Some of the parts which he is said to have played are +the ghost in _Hamlet_, Adam in _As You Like It_, and Old Knowell in +Ben Jonson's _Every Man in his Humor_. + +[Illustration: STRATFORD-ON-AVON, SHOWING CHURCH WHERE SHAKESPEARE IS +BURIED.] + +In 1616, at the age of fifty-two, this master-singer of the world, +who, in De Quincey's phrase, was "a little lower than the angels," +died and was buried in the parish church at Stratford. Shakespeare +knew that in the course of time graves were often opened and the bones +thrown into the charnel house. The world is thankful that he +deliberately planned to have his resting place remain unmolested. His +grave was dug seventeen feet deep and over it was placed the following +inscription, intended to frighten those who might think of moving his +bones:-- + +[Illustration: INSCRIPTION OVER SHAKESPEARE'S TOMB.] + +Publication of his Plays.--It is probable that Shakespeare himself +published only two early poems. Sixteen of his plays appeared in print +during his lifetime; but the chances are that they were taken either +from notes or from stage copies, more or less imperfect and +surreptitiously obtained. The twentieth century has seen one of these +careless reprints of a single play sell for more than three times as +much as it cost to build a leading Elizabethan theater.[22] If +Shakespeare himself had seen to the publication of his plays, +succeeding generations would have been saved much trouble in puzzling +over obscurities due to an imperfect text. We must remember, however, +that publishing a play was thought to injure its success on the stage. +One manager offered a printer a sum now equal to $100 not to publish a +copy of a play that he had secured. + +The _First Folio_ edition of Shakespeare's works was published in +1623, seven years after his death, by two of his friends, John Heming +and Henry Condell. In their dedication of the plays they say:-- + + "We have but collected them and done an office to the dead ... + without ambition either of self profit or fame, only to keep the + memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive, as was our + Shakespeare, by humble offer of his plays." + +If Shakespeare had not possessed the art of making friends, we might +to-day be without such plays as _Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The +Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, Antony and +Cleopatra, and Macbeth_. These were printed for the first time in the +1623 _Folio_. + +Amount and Classification of his Work.--The _First Folio_ edition +contained thirty-five plays, containing 100,120 lines. The Globe +edition, one of the best modern texts of Shakespeare, has thirty-seven +plays. Even if we give him no credit for the unknown dramas which he +assisted in fashioning, and if we further deduct all doubtful plays +from this number, the amount of dramatic work of which he is certainly +the author is only less astonishing than its excellence. His +non-dramatic poetry, comprising _Venus and Adonis, Lucrece_, 154 +_Sonnets_, and some other short pieces, amounts to more than half as +many lines as Milton's _Paradise Lost_. + +Mere genius without wonderful self-control and a well-ordered use of +time would not have enabled Shakespeare to leave such a legacy to the +world. The pressure for fresh plays to meet exigencies is sufficient +to explain why he did not always do his best work, even if we suppose +that his health was never "out of joint." + +The _First Folio_ gives the current contemporary classification of the +plays into "Comedies," "Histories," and "Tragedies." We indicate the +following as some of the best in each class:-- + +Comedies: _A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, +The Merchant of Venice, The Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest_. + +Histories: _Richard III., Henry IV., Henry V., Julius Caesar_. + +Tragedies: _Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet_. + +Four Periods of his Life.--We may make another classification from a +different point of view, according to the period of his development at +the time of writing special plays. In order to study his growth and +changing ideals, it will assist us to divide his work into four +periods. + +(1) There was the sanguine period, showing the exuberance of youthful +love and imagination. Among the plays that are typical of these years +are _The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and +Juliet, Richard II._, and _Richard III_. These were probably all +composed before 1595. + +(2) The second period, from 1595 to 1601, shows progress in dramatic +art. There is less exaggeration, more real power, and a deeper insight +into human nature. There appears in his philosophy a vein of sadness, +such as we find in the sayings of Jaques in _As You Like It_, and more +appreciation of the growth of character, typified by his treatment of +Orlando and Adam in the same play. Among the plays of this period are +_The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV., Henry V.,_ and _As You Like It_. + +(3) We may characterize the third period, from 1601 to 1608, as one in +which he felt that the time was out of joint, that life was a fitful +fever. His father died in 1601, after great disappointments. His best +friends suffered what he calls, in _Hamlet,_ "the slings and arrows of +outrageous fortune." In 1601 Elizabeth executed the Earl of Essex for +treason, and on the same charge threw the Earl of Southampton into the +Tower. Even Shakespeare himself may have been suspected. The great +plays of this period are tragedies, among which we may instance +_Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth,_ and _King Lear_. + +(4) The plays of his fourth period, 1608-1613, are remarkable for calm +strength and sweetness. The fierceness of _Othello_ and _Macbeth_ is +left behind. In 1608 Shakespeare's mother died. Her death and the +vivid recollection of her kindness and love may have been strong +factors in causing him to look on life with kindlier eyes. The +greatest plays of this period are _Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale_, and +_The Tempest_. + +While the dates of the composition of these plays are not exactly +known, the foregoing classification is probably approximately correct. +It should be followed in studying the development and the changing +phases of Shakespeare's mind. (See table, pp. 188 and 189.) + +Development as a Dramatist.--It is possible to study some of +Shakespeare's plays with increased interest, if we note the reasons +for assigning them to certain periods of his life. We conclude that +_Love's Labor's Lost_, for instance, is an early play, because of its +form,--excess of rime, small proportion of blank verse, lack of +mastery of poetic expression,--and also because it suffers from the +puns, conceits, and overdrawn wit and imagery of his early work. +Almost one half of the 2789 lines of _Love's Labor's Lost_ rime, while +there are only 579 lines of blank verse. Of the 2064 lines in _The +Tempest_, one of the last of his plays, 1458 are in blank verse. The +plays of his first period show less freedom in the use of verse. He +dislikes to let his meaning run over into the next line without a +pause, and he hesitates to introduce those extra syllables which give +such wonderful variety to his later work. As he grows older, he also +uses more prose. _Romeo and Juliet_ has 405 lines of prose in a total +of 3052 lines, while _Hamlet_, a tragedy of 3931 lines, has 1208 lines +of prose. + +His treatment of his characters is even a more significant index to +his growth than the form of his dramas. In the earlier plays, his men +and women are more engaged with external forces than with internal +struggles. In as excellent an early tragedy as _Romeo and Juliet_, the +hero fights more with outside obstacles than with himself. In the +great later tragedies, the internal conflict is more emphasized, as in +the cases of Hamlet and Macbeth. "See thou character" became in an +increasing degree Shakespeare's watchword. He grew to care less for +mere incident, for plots based on mistaken identity, as in _The Comedy +of Errors_; but he became more and more interested in the delineation +of character, in showing the effect of evil on Macbeth and his wife, +of jealousy on Othello, of indecision on Hamlet, as well as in +exploring the ineffectual attempts of many of his characters to escape +the consequences of their acts. + +Sources of his Plots.--We should have had fewer plays from +Shakespeare, if he had been compelled to take the time to invent new +plots. The sources of the plots of his plays may usually be found in +some old chronicle, novel, biography, or older play. Holinshed's +_Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland_, published when +Shakespeare was fourteen years old, gives the stories of Lear, +Cymbeline, Macbeth, and of all the English kings who are the heroes of +the historical plays. As Holinshed is very dry reading, if Shakespeare +had followed him closely, for instance, in _King Lear_, the play would +have lost its most impressive parts. There is not in Holinshed even a +suggestion of the Falstaff of _Henry IV_., that veritable "comic +Hamlet," who holds a unique place among the humorous characters of the +world. + +North's translation of Plutarch's _Lives_, published when Shakespeare +was fifteen years old, became his textbook of ancient history and +furnished him the raw material for plays like _Julius Caesar_ and +_Antony and Cleopatra_. + +TABLE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS[23] + +Play Total Prose Blank Penta- Rimes, Songs Publ- Supp- + of meter Short ished osed + Lines Rimes Lines Date + + I.--PLAYS OF FIRST (RIMING) PERIOD + +Love's Labor's 2789 1086 579 1028 54 32 1598 1588-9 + Lost +Comedy of 1778 240 1150 380 --- --- 1623 1589-91 + Errors [24] +Midsummer 2174 441 878 731 138 63 1600 1590-1 + Night's Dream +Two Gentlemen 2294 409 1510 116 --- 15 1623 1590-2 + of Verona +Romeo and 3052 405 2111 486 --- --- 1597 1591-3 + Juliet +Richard II. 2756 --- 2107 537 --- --- 1597 ? 1593 +Richard III. 3619 55? 3374 170 --- --- 1597 ? 1594-5 + + II.--HISTORIES AND COMEDIES OF SECOND PERIOD + +King John 2570 --- 2403 150 --- --- 1623 1594-5 +Merchant of 2660 673 1896 93 34 9 1600[24]? 1595-6 + Venice +1 Henry IV. 3176 1464 1622 84 --- --- 1598 1596-7[25] +2 Henry IV. 3446 1860 1417 74 7 15 1600 1598-9 +Henry V. 3380 1531 1678 101 2 8 1600 1599[25] +Merry Wives 3018 2703 227 69 --- 19 1602 1599 +Much Ado, &c. 2826 2106 643 40 18 16 1600 1599-1600 +As You Like It 2857 1681 925 71 130 97 1623 1599-1600[25] +Twelfth Night 2690 1741 763 120 --- 60 1623 1601[25] +All's Well 2966 1453 1234 280 2 12 1623 1601-2 + (Love's Labor's Won, 1590) + + III.--TRAGEDIES AND COMEDY OF THIRD PERIOD + +Julius Caesar 2478 165 2241 34 --- --- 1623 1601[3] +Hamlet 3931 1208 2490 81 --- 60 1603[24]1602-3[25] +Measure for 2821 1134 1574 73 22 6 1623 ? 1603 + Measure +Othello 3316 541 2672 86 --- 25 1622 ? 1604 +Macbeth 2108 158 1588 118 129 --- 1623 1605-6[25] +King Lear 3334 903 2238 74 --- 83 1608[24]1605-6[25] +Antony and 3063 255 2761 42 --- 6 1623 1606-7 + Cleopatra +Coriolanus 3410 829 2521 42 --- --- 1623 ? 1607-8 + + IV.--PLAYS OF FOURTH PERIOD + +Tempest 2064 458 1458 2 --- 96 1623 1609-10 +Cymbeline 3339 638 2585 107 --- 32 1623 1609-10 +Winter's Tale 3075 844 1825 --- --- 57 1623 ? 1611 + + V.--DOUBTFUL PLAYS + +Titus 2523 43 2338 144 --- --- 1594 1588-90 + Andronicus +1 Henry VI. 2677 --- 2379 314 --- --- 1623 1592-4 +2 Henry VI. 3162 448 2562 122 --- --- 1623 1592-4 +3 Henry VI. 2904 --- 2749 155 --- --- 1623 1592-4 +Contention 1952 381 1571 44 --- --- 1594 1586-8 +True Tragedy 2101 --- 2035 66 --- --- 1595 1586-8 + + VI.--PLAYS IN WHICH SHAKESPEARE WAS NOT SOLE AUTHOR + +Taming of the 2649 516 1971 169 15 --- 1623 1596-7 + Shrew +Troilus and 3496 1186 2025 196 --- 16 1609 1603 + Cressida +Timon of 2373 596 1560 184 18 --- 1623 1607-8 + Athens +Pericles 2389 418 1436 225 89 --- 1609[23]1608-9[24] +Henry VIII. 2822 67? 2613 16 --- 12 1623 1610-12[24] + +Poems published.--_Venus and Adonis_, 1593; _Lucrece_, 1594; +_Passionate Pilgrim_, 1599; _Phoenix and Turtle_ in Chester's _Loves +Martyr_, 1601; _Sonnets_, 1609, with _A Lover's Complaint_. + +Shakespeare recognized the greatness of North's _Plutarch_ and paid it +the compliment of following its thought more closely than that of any +other of his sources. + +Shakespeare found suggestions for _As You Like It_ in Thomas Lodge's +contemporary novel _Rosalynde_, but Touchstone and Adam are original +creations. + +Our astonishment is often increased to find that the merest hint led +to an imperishable creation, such as the character of Lady Macbeth, +the reference to whom in Holinshed is confined to these twenty-eight +words, "...specially his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing, +as she that was very ambitious, burning in unquenchable desire to bear +the name of a queen." His plays are almost as different from the old +chronicles or tales as the rose from the soil which nourished it. + +[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE--THE D'AVENANT BUST. _Discovered in 1845 +on site of Duke's Theater_.] + +GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS + +Sympathy.---His most pronounced characteristic is the broadest +sympathy ever shown by an author. He seems to have been able to +sympathize with every kind of human soul in every emergency. He plays +with the simple rustics in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. The portrait +of the serving man Adam, in _As You Like It_, is as kindly and as +discriminating as that of king or nobleman. Though he is the scholar +and philosopher in _Hamlet_, he can afterward roam the country with +the tramp Autolycus in _The Winter's Tale_. Women have marveled at the +ease with which his sympathy crosses the barriers of sex, at his +portraits of Portia, Rosalind, Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, Miranda, +Cleopatra, and Cordelia. Great actresses have testified to their +amazement at his discovery of feminine secrets which they had thought +no man could ever divine. + +[Illustration: HENRY IRVING AS HAMLET.] + +Universality.--Shakespeare's sympathy might have been broad enough +to include all the people of his own time and their peculiar +interests, but might have lacked the power to project itself into the +universal heart of humanity. Sometimes a writer voices the ideals and +aspirations of his own day so effectively that he is called the +spokesman of his age, but he makes slight appeal to future +generations. Shakespeare was the spokesman of his own time, but he had +the genius also to speak to all ages. He loved to present the eternal +truths of the human heart and to invest them with such a touch of +nature as to reveal the kinship of the entire world. + +His contemporary, the dramatist, Ben Jonson, had the penetration to +say of Shakespeare:-- + + "He was not of an age but for all time." + +He meant that Shakespeare does not exhibit some popular conceit, +folly, or phase of thought, which is merely the fashion of the hour +and for which succeeding generations would care nothing; but that he +voices those truths which appeal to the people of all ages. The grief +of Lear over the dead Cordelia, the ambition of Lady Macbeth, the +loves of Rosalind and Juliet, the questionings of Hamlet, interest us +as much today as they did the Elizabethans. Fashions in literature may +come and go, but Shakespeare's work remains. + +[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS LADY MACBETH. _From the painting by +Sargent_.] + +Humor.--Shakespeare had the most comprehensive sense of humor of any +of the world's great writers,--a humor that was closely related to his +sympathy. It has been said that he saved his tragedies from the fatal +disease of absurdity, by inoculating them with his comic virus, and +that his sense of humor kept him from ever becoming shrill. This +faculty enabled him to detect incongruity, to keep from overstressing +a situation, to enter into the personality of others, to recover +quickly from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and in one +of his last plays, _The Tempest_, to welcome the "brave young world" +as if he would like to play the game of life again. It was largely +because of his humor that the tragedies and pain of life did not sour +and subdue Shakespeare. + +He soon wearies of a vacant laugh. He has only one strictly farcical +play, _The Comedy of Errors_. There are few intellects keen enough to +extract all the humor from Shakespeare. For literal minds the full +comprehension of even a slight display of his humor, such as the +following dialogue affords, is better exercise than the solution of an +algebraic problem. Dogberry, a constable in _Much Ado About Nothing_, +thus instructs the Watch:-- + + "_Dogberry_. You shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid + any man stand in the prince's name. + + "_Watch_. How if a' will not stand? + + "_Dogberry_. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go, and + presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are + rid of a knave." + +Of all Shakespeare's qualities, his humor is the hardest to describe +because of its protean forms. Falstaff is his greatest humorous +creation. So resourceful is he that even defeat enables him to rise +like Antaeus after a fall. His humor is almost a philosophy of +existence for those who love to use wit and ingenuity in trying to +evade the laws of sober, orderly living. Perhaps it was for this very +reason that Shakespeare consented to send so early to "Arthur's +bosom"[26] a character who had not a little of the complexity of +Hamlet. + +[Illustration: FALSTAFF AND HIS PAGE. _From a drawing by B. +Westmacott_.] + +Much of Shakespeare's humor is delicately suffused through his plays. +Many of them either ripple with the laughter of his characters or are +lighted with their smiles. We may pass pleasant hours in the company +of his joyous creations, such as Rosalind in _As You Like It_, or +Portia in _The Merchant of Venice_, or Puck as the spokesman for _A +Midsummer Night's Dream_, who good naturedly exclaims:-- + + "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" + +or Viola and her companions in _Twelfth Night_, or Beatrice and +Benedict in _Much Ado About Nothing_, or Ariel in _The Tempest_ +playing pranks on the bewildered mariners and singing of the joys of +life which come as a reward for service:-- + + "Merrily, merrily shall I live now + Under the blossom that hangs on the bough." + +Shakespeare is also the one English author who is equally successful +in depicting the highest type of both comedy and tragedy. He has the +power to describe even a deathbed scene so as to invest it with both +humor and pathos. Dame Quickly's lines in _Henry V_., on the death of +Falstaff, show this capacity. + +The next greatest English writer is lacking in this sense of humor. +John Milton could write the tragedies of a _Paradise Lost_ and a +_Samson Agonistes_, but he could not give us the humor of _A Midsummer +Night's Dream_, _The Comedy of Errors_, or _As You Like It_. We have +seen that the next greatest dramatic genius, Marlowe, has little sense +of humor. Mrs. Browning correctly describes the plays of Shakespeare +as filled-- + + "With tears and laughters for all time." + +Moral Ideals.--To show the moral consequences of acts was the work +which most appealed to him. Banquo voiced the comprehensiveness of +moral law when he said, "In the great hand of God I stand." There is +here great divergence between the views of Shakespeare and of Bacon. +Dowden says:-- + + "While Bacon's sense of the presence of physical law in the universe + was for his time extraordinarily developed, he seems practically to + have acted upon the theory that the moral laws of the world are not + inexorable, but rather by tactics and dexterity may be cleverly + evaded. Their supremacy was acknowledged by Shakespeare in the + minutest as well as in the greatest concerns of human life." + +By employing "tactics" in sending Hamlet on a voyage to England, the +king hoped to avoid the consequences of his crime. Macbeth in vain +tried every stratagem to "trammel up the consequence." Goneril and +Regan drive their white-haired father out into the storm; but even in +_King Lear_, where the forces of evil seem to run riot, let us note +the result:-- + + "Throughout that stupendous Third Act the good are seen growing + better through suffering, and the bad worse through success. The + warm castle is a room in hell, the storm-swept heath a sanctuary... + The only real thing in the world is the soul with its courage, + patience, devotion. And nothing outward can touch that."[27] + +Shakespeare makes no pessimists. He shows how misfortune crowns life +with new moral glory. We rise from the gloom of _King Lear_, feeling +that we would rather be like Cordelia than like either of her sisters +or any other selfish character who apparently triumphs until life's +close. And yet Cordelia lost everything, her portion of her father's +kingdom and her own life. When we realize that Shakespeare found one +hundred and ten lines in _King Lear_ sufficient not only to confer +immortality on Cordelia, but also to make us all eager to pay homage +to her, in spite of the fact that the ordinary standard of the world +has not ceased to declare such a life a failure, we may the better +understand that his greatest power consisted in revealing the moral +victories possible for this rough-hewn human life. + +Shakespeare made a mistake about the seacoast of Bohemia and the +location of Milan with reference to the sea, but he was always sure of +the relative position of right and wrong and of the ultimate failure +of evil. In his greatest plays, for instance, in _Macbeth_, he sought +to impress the incalculable danger of meddling with evil, the +impossibility of forecasting the tragedy that might thereby result, +the certainty that retribution would follow, either here or beyond +"this bank and shoal of time." + +Mastery of his Mother Tongue.--His wealth of expression is another +striking characteristic. In a poem on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson wrote:-- + + "Thou had'st small Latin and less Greek." + +Shakespeare is, however, the mightiest master of the English tongue. +He uses 15,000 different words, while the second greatest writer in +our language employs only 7000. A great novelist like Thackeray has a +vocabulary of about 5000 words, while many uneducated laborers do not +use over 600 words. The combinations that Shakespeare has made with +these 15,000 words are far more striking than their mere number. + +Variety of Style.--The style of Milton, Addison, Dr. Johnson, and +Macaulay has some definite peculiarities, which can easily be +classified. Shakespeare, on the contrary, in holding the mirror up to +nature, has different styles for his sailors, soldiers, courtiers, +kings, and shepherds,--for Juliet, the lover; for Mistress Quickly, +the alewife; for Hamlet, the philosopher; and for Bottom, the weaver. +To employ so many styles requires genius of a peculiar kind. In the +case of most of us, our style would soon betray our individuality. +When Dr. Samuel Johnson tried to write a drama, he made all his little +fishes talk like whales, as Goldsmith wittily remarked. + +In the same play Shakespeare's style varies from the dainty lyric +touch of Ariel's song about the cowslip's bell and the blossoming +bough, to a style unsurpassed for grandeur:-- + + "The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, + The solemn temples, the great globe itself, + Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve + And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, + Leave not a rack behind." + +In the same passage his note immediately changes to the soft _vox +humana_ of-- + + "We are such stuff + As dreams are made on, and our little life + Is rounded with a sleep." + +His Influence on Thought.--With the exception of the _Scriptures_, +Shakespeare's dramas have surpassed all other works in molding modern +English thought. If a person should master Shakespeare and the +_Bible_, he would find most that is greatest in human thought, outside +of the realm of science. + +Even when we do not read him, we cannot escape the influence of others +who have been swayed by him. For generations, certain modes of thought +have crystallized about his phrases. We may instance such expressions +as these: "Brevity is the soul of wit." "What's in a name?" "The wish +was father to the thought." "The time is out of joint." "There's the +rub." "There's a divinity that shapes our ends." "Comparisons are +odorous." It would, perhaps, not be too much to say that the play of +_Hamlet_ has affected the thought of the majority of the +English-speaking race. His grip on Anglo-Saxon thought has been +increasing for more than three hundred years. + +Shakespeare's influence on the thought of any individual has only two +circumscribing factors,--the extent of Shakespearean study and the +capacity of interpreting the facts of life. No intelligent person can +study Shakespeare without becoming a deeper and more varied thinker, +without securing a broader comprehension of human existence,--its +struggles, failures, and successes. If we have before viewed humanity +through a glass darkly, Shakespeare will gradually lead us where we +can see face to face the beauty and the grandeur of the mystery of +existence. His most valuable influence often consists in rendering his +students sympathetic and in making them feel a sense of kinship with +life. Shakespeare's readers more quickly realize that human nature +shows the shaping touch of divinity. They have the rare joy of +discovering the world anew and of exclaiming with Miranda:-- + + "How many goodly creatures are there here! + How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, + That has such people in't!"[28] + +When we have really become acquainted with Shakespeare, our lives will +be less prosaic and restricted. After intimate companionship with him, +there will be, in the words of Ariel, hardly any common thing in +life-- + + "But doth suffer a sea-change + Into something rich and strange."[29] + +BEN JONSON, 1573?-1637 + +[Illustration: BEN JONSON. _From the portrait by Gerard Honthorst, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--About nine years after the birth of Shakespeare his greatest +successor in the English drama was born in London. Jonson outlived +Shakespeare twenty-one years and helped to usher in the decline of the +drama. + +Ben Jonson, the son of a clergyman and the stepson of a master +bricklayer, received a good education at Westminster School. Unlike +Shakespeare, Jonson learned much Latin and Greek. In one respect +Jonson's training was unfortunate for a poet. He was taught to write +prose exercises first and then to turn them into poetry. In this way +he acquired the habit of trying to express unpoetical ideas in verse. +Art could change the prose into metrical riming lines, but art could +not breathe into them the living soul of poetry. In after times Jonson +said that Shakespeare lacked art, but Jonson recognized that the +author of _Hamlet_ had the magic touch of nature. Jonson's pen rarely +felt her all-embracing touch. + +If Jonson served an apprenticeship as a bricklayer, as his enemies +afterward said, he did not continue long at such work. He crossed the +Channel and enlisted for a brief time as a soldier in the Netherlands. +He soon returned to London and became a writer for the theater, and +thenceforth lived the life of an author and a student. He loved to +study and translate the classics. In fact, what a novice might think +original in Jonson's plays was often borrowed from the classics. Of +his relations to the classical writers, Dryden says, "You track him +everywhere in their snow." Jonson was known as the most learned poet +of the age, because, if his plays demanded any special knowledge, no +subject was too hard, dry, or remote from common life for him to +attempt to master it. He knew the boundaries of Bohemia, and he took +pleasure in saying to a friend: "Shakespeare in a play brought in a +number of men saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where is +no sea near, by some hundred miles." + +Jonson's personal characteristics partly explain why he placed himself +in opposition to the spirit of the age. He was extremely combative. It +was almost a necessity for him to quarrel with some person or with +some opinion. He killed two men in duels, and he would probably have +been hanged, if he had not pleaded benefit of clergy. For the greater +part of his life, he was often occupied with pen and ink quarrels. + +When James I. ascended the throne in 1603, Jonson soon became a royal +favorite. He was often employed to write masques, a peculiar species +of drama which called for magnificent scenery and dress, and gave the +nobility the opportunity of acting the part of some distinguished or +supernatural character. Such work brought Jonson into intimate +association with the leading men of the day. + +It is pleasant to think that he was a friend of Shakespeare. Jonson's +pithy volume of prose, known as _Discoveries made upon Men and +Matter_, contains his famous criticism on Shakespeare, noteworthy +because it shows how a great contemporary regarded him, "I loved the +man and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any." Few +English writers have received from a great rival author such +convincing testimony in regard to lovable personality. + +[Illustration: BEN JONSON'S TOMB IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.] + +In 1616, the year in which Shakespeare died, Jonson was made poet +laureate. When he died in 1637, he was buried in an upright position +in Westminster Abbey. A plain stone with the unique inscription, "O +Rare Ben Jonson," marks his grave. + +Plays.--Ben Jonson's comedies are his best dramatic work. From all +his plays we may select three that will best repay reading: _Volpone, +The Alchemist_, and _The Silent Woman_. _Volpone_ is the story of an +old, childless, Venetian nobleman whose ruling passion is avarice. +Everything else in the play is made tributary to this passion. The +first three lines in the first act strike the keynote of the entire +play. Volpone says:-- + + "Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!-- + Open the shrine, that I may see my saint. + Hail the world's soul and mine!" + +_The Alchemist_ makes a strong presentation of certain forms of +credulity in human nature and of the special tricks which the +alchemists and impostors of that day adopted. One character wants to +buy the secret of the helpful influence of the stars; another parts +with his wealth to learn the alchemist's secret of turning everything +into gold and jewels. The way in which these characters are deceived +is very amusing. A study of this play adds to our knowledge of a +certain phase of the times. In point of artistic construction of plot, +_The Alchemist_ is nowhere excelled in the English drama; but the +intrusion of Jonson's learning often makes the play tedious reading, +as when he introduces the technical terms of the so-called science of +alchemy to show that he has studied it thoroughly. One character +speaks to the alchemist of-- + + "Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit," + +and another asks:-- + + "Can you sublime and dulcify? calcine? + Know you the sapor pontic? sapor stiptic, + Or what is homogene, or heterogene?" + +Lines like the following show that Jonson's acute mind had grasped +something of the principle of evolution:-- + + "...'twere absurd + To think that nature in the earth bred gold + Perfect in the instant: something went before. + There must be remote matter." + +_The Silent Woman_ is in lighter vein than either of the plays just +mentioned. The leading character is called Morose, and his special +whim or "humor" is a horror of noise. His home is on a street "so +narrow at both ends that it will receive no coaches nor carts, nor any +of these common noises." He has mattresses on the stairs, and he +dismisses the footman for wearing squeaking shoes. For a long time +Morose does not marry, fearing the noise of a wife's tongue. Finally +he commissions his nephew to find him a silent woman for a wife, and +the author uses to good advantage the opportunity for comic situations +which this turn in the action affords. Dryden preferred _The Silent +Woman_ to any of the other plays. + +Besides the plays mentioned in this section, Jonson wrote during his +long life many other comedies and masques as well as some tragedies. + +Marks of Decline.--A study of the decline of the drama, as shown in +Jonson's plays, will give us a better appreciation of the genius of +Shakespeare. We may change Jonson's line so that it will state one +reason for his not maintaining Shakespearean excellence:-- + + "He was not for all time, but of an age." + +His first play, _Every Man in his Humor_, paints, not the universal +emotions of men, but some special humor. He thus defines the sense in +which he uses humor:-- + + "As when some one peculiar quality + Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw + All his affects, his spirits and his powers, + In their confluctions, all to run one way, + This may be truly said to be a Humor." + +Unlike Shakespeare, Jonson gives a distorted or incomplete picture of +life. In _Volpone_ everything is subsidiary to the humor of avarice, +which receives unnatural emphasis. In _The Alchemist_ there is little +to relieve the picture of credibility and hypocrisy, while _The Silent +Woman_ has for its leading character a man whose principal "humor" or +aim in life is to avoid noise. + +No drama which fails to paint the nobler side of womanhood can be +called complete. In Jonson's plays we do not find a single woman +worthy to come near the Shakespearean characters, Cordelia, Imogen, +and Desdemona. His limitations are nowhere more marked than in his +inability to portray a noble woman. + +Another reason why he fails to present life completely is shown in +these lines, in which he defines his mission:-- + + "My strict hand + Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe + Squeeze out the humor of such spongy souls + As lick up every idle vanity." + +Since the world needs building up rather than tearing down, a remedy +for an ailment rather than fault-finding, the greatest of men cannot +be mere satirists. Shakespeare displays some fellow feeling for the +object of his satire, but Jonson's satire is cold and devoid of +sympathy. + +Jonson deliberately took his stand in opposition to the romantic +spirit of the age. Marlowe and Shakespeare had disregarded the +classical unities and had developed the drama on romantic lines. +Jonson resolved to follow classical traditions and to adhere to unity +of time and place in the construction of his plots. The action in the +play of _The Silent Woman_, for instance, occupies only twelve hours. + +General Characteristics.--Jonson's plays show the touch of a +conscientious artist with great intellectual ability. His vast +erudition is constantly apparent. He is the satiric historian of his +time, and he exhibits the follies and the humors of the age under a +powerful lens. He is also the author of dainty lyrics, and forcible +prose criticism. + +Among the shortcomings of his plays, we may specially note lack of +feeling and of universality. He fails to comprehend the nature of +woman. He is not a sympathetic observer of manifold life, but presents +only what is perceived through the frosted glass of intellect. His art +is self-conscious. He defiantly opposed the romantic spirit of the age +and weakened the drama by making it bear the burden of the classical +unities. + +MINOR DRAMATISTS + +Beaumont and Fletcher.--Next to Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Ben +Jonson, the two most influential dramatists were Francis Beaumont +(1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625). They are usually mentioned +together because they collaborated in writing plays. Fletcher had the +great advantage of working with Shakespeare in producing _Henry VIII_. +Beaumont died nine years before Fletcher, and it is doubtful whether +he collaborated with Fletcher in more than fifteen of the fifty plays +published under their joint names. + +Two of their greatest plays, _Philaster_ and _The Maid's Tragedy_, are +probably their joint production. _The Faithful Shepherdess_ and +_Bonduca_ are among the best of about eighteen plays supposed to have +been written by Fletcher alone. After Beaumont's death, Fletcher +sometimes collaborated with other dramatists. + +[Illustration: FRANCIS BEAUMONT.] + +Almost all the so-called Beaumont and Fletcher plays are well +constructed. These dramatists also have, in common with the majority +of their associates, the ability to produce occasional passages of +exquisite poetry. A character in _Philaster_ speaks of death in lines +that suggest _Hamlet_:-- + + "'Tis less than to be born; a lasting sleep, + A quiet resting from all jealousy; + A thing we all pursue; I know besides + It is but giving over of a game + That must be lost." + +Beaumont and Fletcher's work is noteworthy for its pictures of +contemporary life and manners, for wealth of incident, rapidity of +movement, and variety of characters. + +Not long after the beginning of the seventeenth century there was a +change in the taste of the patrons of the theater. Shakespeare +declined in popularity. The playwrights tried to solve the problem of +interesting audiences that wished only to be entertained. This attempt +led to a change in dramatic methods. + +Changed Moral Ideals.--Under Elizabeth's successors the Puritan +spirit increased and the most religious part of the community seldom +attended the theater. The later dramatists pay little attention to the +moral development of character and its self-revelation through action. +They often merely describe character and paint it from the outside. We +have seen that Shakespeare's great plays are almost a demonstration in +moral geometry, but Beaumont and Fletcher are not much concerned over +the moral consequences of an action. The gravest charge against them +is that they "unknit the sequence of moral cause and effect." After +reading such plays, we do not rise with the feeling that there is a +divinity that shapes our ends. + +[Illustration: JOHN FLETCHER.] + +Coleridge says, "Shakespeare never renders that amiable which religion +and reason alike teach us to detest, or clothes impurity in the garb +of virtue, like Beaumont and Fletcher." Much of the work of their +contemporary dramatists is marred by such blemishes. Unpleasant as are +numbers of these plays, they are less insidious than many which have +appeared on the stage in modern times. + +Love of Surprises.--The dramatists racked their inventive powers to +introduce surprises to interest the audience. Here was a marked +departure from Shakespeare's later method. He plans _Macbeth_ so as to +have his audience forecast the logical result. Consequences of the +most tremendous import, beside which Beaumont and Fletcher's surprises +seem trivial, follow naturally from Macbeth's actions. In his greatest +plays, Shakespeare, unlike the later dramatists, never relies on +illogical surprises to sustain the interest. The witch queen in one of +the plays of Thomas Middleton (1570-1627) suddenly exclaims:-- + + "...fetch three ounces of the red-haired girl + I kill'd last midnight." + +Shakespeare's witches suggest only enough of the weird and the +horrible to transfix the attention and make the beholder realize the +force of the temptation that assails Macbeth. Charles Lamb truly +observes that Middleton's witches "can harm the body," but +Shakespeare's "have power over the soul." + +Middleton could, however, write a passage like the following, which +probably suggested to Milton one of the finest lines in _Lycidas_:-- + + "Upon those lips, the sweet fresh buds of youth, + The holy dew of prayer lies, like pearl + Dropt from the opening eyelids of the morn + Upon a bashful rose." + +Large Number of Playwrights.--Beaumont and Fletcher were only two of +a large number of dramatists who were born in the age of Elizabeth, +and who, with few exceptions, lived into the second quarter of the +seventeenth century. Their work was the result of earlier Elizabethan +impulses, and it is rightly considered a part of the great dramatic +movement of the Elizabethan age. The popularity of the drama continued +to attract many authors who in a different age might have produced +other forms of literature. + +George Chapman (1559?-1634), who is best known for his fine +translation of Homer's _Iliad_, turned dramatist in middle life, but +found it difficult to enter into the feelings of characters unlike +himself. His best two plays, _Bussy D'Ambois_ and _The Revenge of +Bussy D'Ambois_, are tragedies founded on French history. Thomas +Middleton, gifted in dramatic technique and dialogue and noted for +his comedy of domestic manners, was the author of _Michaelmas Term_, +_A Trick to Catch the Old One_, _The Changeling_ (in collaboration +with William Rowley, 1585?-1640?). John Marston (1576?-1634) wrote +_Antonio and Mellida_, a blood and thunder tragedy, and collaborated +with Jonson and Chapman to produce _Eastward Hoe_, an excellent comic +picture of contemporary life. _The Shoemaker's Holiday_ of Thomas +Dekker (1570?-1640) is also a good comedy of London life and manners. +Philip Massinger (1584-1640), a later collaborator with Fletcher, +wrote _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, a play very popular in after +times. Thomas Heywood (1572?-1650), one of the most prolific +dramatists, claimed to have had "either an entire hand or at the least +a main finger," in two hundred and twenty plays. His best work is _A +Woman Killed with Kindness_, a domestic drama that appealed to the +middle classes. + +A Tragic Group.--Three dramatists: John Webster (1602-1624), +Cyril Tourneur (1575?-1626), and John Ford (1586-1640?), had a +love for the most somber tragedy. In tragic power, Webster approaches +nearest to Shakespeare. Webster's greatest play, _The Duchess of +Malfi_ (acted in 1616), and _The White Devil_, which ranks second, +show the working of a master hand, but Webster's genius comes to a +focus only in depicting the horrible. He loves such gloomy metaphors +as the following:-- + + "You speak as if a man + Should know what fowl is _coffined_ in a baked meat + Afore you cut it open." + +Tourneur's _The Atheist's Tragedy_ is in Webster's vein, but far +inferior to _The Duchess of Malfi_. + +Ford's _The Broken Heart_ is a strong, but unpleasant, tragedy. He is +so fascinated with the horrible that he introduces it even when it is +not the logical outcome of a situation. His best but least +characteristic play is _Perkin Warbeck_, which is worthy of ranking +second only to Shakespeare's historical plays. + +End of the Elizabethan Drama.--James Shirley (1596-1666), "the +last of the Elizabethans," endeavored to the best of his ability to +continue the work of the earlier dramatists. _The Traitor_ and _The +Cardinal_ are two of the best of his many productions. He was hard at +work writing new plays in 1642, when the Puritans closed the theaters. +He was thus forced to abandon the profession that he enjoyed and +compelled to teach in order to earn a livelihood. + +The drama has never since regained its Elizabethan ascendancy. The +coarse plays of the Restoration (1660) flourished for a while, but the +treatment of the later drama forms but a minor part of the history of +the best English literature. Few plays produced during the next two +hundred years are much read or acted to-day. _She Stoops to Conquer_ +(1773), by Oliver Goldsmith, and _The Rivals_ (1775) and _The School +for Scandal_ (1777), by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, are the chief +exceptions before 1890. + +SUMMARY + +The Elizabethan age was a period of expansion in knowledge, commerce, +religious freedom, and human opportunities. The defeat of the Armada +freed England from fear of Spanish domination and made her mistress of +the sea. + +England was vivified by the combined influence of the Renaissance and +the Reformation. Knowledge was expanding in every direction and +promising to crown human effort with universal mastery. The greater +feeling of individuality was partly due to the Reformation, which +emphasized the direct responsibility of each individual for all acts +affecting the welfare of his soul. + +Elizabethans were noted for their resourcefulness, their initiative, +their craving for new experiences, and their desire to realize the +utmost out of life. As they cared little for ideas that could not be +translated into action, they were particularly interested in the +drama. + +Although the prose covers a wide field, it is far inferior to the +poetry. Lyly's _Euphues_ suffers from overwrought conceits and forced +antitheses, but it influenced writers to pay more attention to the +manner in which thought was expressed. The flowery prose of Sidney's +_Arcadia_ presents a pastoral world of romance. His _Apologie for +Poetrie_ is a meritorious piece of early criticism. While Hooker +indicates advance in solidity of matter and dignity of style, yet a +comparison of his heavy religious prose with the prayer of the king in +_Hamlet_ or with Portia's words about mercy in _The Merchant of +Venice_ will show the vast superiority of the poetry in dealing with +spiritual ideas. Bacon's _Essays_, celebrated for pithy condensation +of striking thoughts, is the only prose work that has stood the test +of time well enough to claim many readers to-day. + +Poetry, both lyric and dramatic, is the crowning glory of the +Elizabethan age. The lyric verse is remarkable for its wide range and +for beauty of form and sentiment. The lyrics include love sonnets, +pastorals, and miscellaneous verse. Shakespeare's _Sonnets_ and the +songs in his dramas are the best in this field, but many poets wrote +exquisite artistic lyrics. + +Edmund Spenser is the only great poet who was not also a dramatist. +His _Faerie Queene_ fashions an ideal world dominated by a love of +beauty and high endeavor. + +The greatest literary successes of the age were won in writing plays +for the stage. In England the drama had for centuries slowly developed +through Miracle plays, Moralities, and Interludes to the plays of +Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson. These three are the greatest +Elizabethan dramatists, but they are only the central figures of a +group. + +The English drama in the hands of Sackville imitated Seneca and +followed the rules of the classic stage. Marlowe and Shakespeare threw +off the restraints of the classical unities; and the romantic drama, +rejoicing in its freedom, speedily told the story of all life. + +The innyards were used for the public presentation of plays before the +erection of theaters in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The +theaters were a great educational force in Shakespeare's time. They +not only furnished amusement, but they also took the place of +periodicals, lectures, and books. The actors, coming into close +contact with their audience and unable to rely on elaborate scenery as +an offset to poor acting, were equal to the task of so presenting +Shakespeare's great plays as to make them popular. + +Shakespeare's plays, the greatest ever written, reveal wonderful +sympathy, universality, humor, delineation of character, high moral +ideals, mastery of expression, and strength, beauty, and variety of +poetic form. + +Great as is Ben Jonson, he hampered himself by observing the classical +unities and by stressing accidental qualities. He lacks Shakespeare's +universality, broad sympathy, and emotional appeal. + +Other minor dramatists, like Beaumont and Fletcher show further +decline, because they constructed their plays more from the outside, +showed less development of character in strict accordance with moral +law, and relied more for effect on sensational scenes. The drama has +never since taken up the wand that dropped from Shakespeare's hands. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +In addition to the chapters on the time in the histories of Gardiner, +Green, Lingard, Walker, and Traill, see Stephenson's _The Elizabethan +People_, Creighton's _Queen Elizabeth_, Wilson's _Life in +Shakespeare's England_, Stephenson's _Shakespeare's London_, Warner's +_English History in Shakespeare's plays_. + +LITERARY + +General and Non-Dramatic + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vols. IV., V., and VI. + +Courthope's _A History of English Poetry_, Vol. II. + +Schelling's _English Literature during the Lifetime of Shakespeare_. + +Seecombe and Allen's _The Age of Shakespeare_, 2 vols. + +Saintsbury's _A History of Elizabethan Literature_. + +_Dictionary of National Biography_ for lives of Lyly, Sidney, Hooker. + +Bacon, Spenser, and the minor dramatists. + +Walton's _Life of Hooker_. + +Church's _Life of Bacon_. (E.M.L.) + +Church's _Life of Spenser_. (E.M.L.) + +Mackail's _The Springs of Helicon_ (Spenser). + +Dowden's _Transcripts and Studies_ (Spenser). + +Lowell's _Among My Books_ (Spenser). + +Erskine's _The Elizabethan Lyric_. + +The Drama[30] + +Schelling's _Elizabethan Drama, 1558-1642_, 2 vols. Ward's _A History +of English Dramatic Literature_, 3 vols. + +Brooke's _The Tudor Drama_. + +Chambers's _The Mediaeval Stage_. + +Allbright's _The Shakespearean Stage_. + +Lawrence's _Elizabethan Playhouse and Other Studies_. + +Smith's _York Plays_ (Clarendon Press). + +Symonds's _Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama_. + +Bates's _The English Religious Drama_. + +Manly's _Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama_. + +Wallace's _The Evolution of the English Drama up to Shakespeare_. + +Ingram's _Christopher Marlowe and his Associates_. + +Dowden's _Transcripts and Studies_ (Marlowe). + +Symonds's _Ben Jonson_. + +Swinburne's _A Study of Ben Jonson_. + +Shakespeare + +Lee's _A Life of William Shakespeare_. + +Furnivall and Munro's _Shakespeare: Life and Work_. + +Harris's _The Man Shakespeare and his Tragic Life Story_. + +Halliwell-Phillipps's _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_. + +Raleigh's _Shakespeare_.(E.M.L.) + +Baker's _The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist_. + +MacCracken, Pierce, and Durham's _An Introduction to Shakespeare_. + +Bradley's _Shakespearean Tragedy_ (excellent). + +Bradley's _Oxford Lectures on Poetry_. + +Dowden's _Shakespeare, His Mind and Art_. + +Coleridge's _Lectures on Shakespeare_ (pp. 21-58 of Beers's +_Selections from the Prose writings of Coleridge_). + +Lowell's _Shakespeare Once More_, in _Among My Books_. + +Wallace's _Shakespeare, the Globe, and Blackfriars_. + +_How Shakespeare's Senses were Trained_, Chap. X. in Halleck's +_Education of the Central Nervous System_. + +Rolfe's _Shakespeare the Boy_. + +Boswell-Stone's _Shakespeare's Holinshed_. + +Brooke's _Shakespeare's Plutarch_, 2 vols. + +Madden's _The Diary of Master William Silence: A Study of Shakespeare +and of Elizabethan Sport_. + +Winter's _Shakespeare on the Stage_. + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Elizabethan Prose.--Good selections from Ascham, Hakluyt, Raleigh, +Holinshed, Stow, Camden, North, Sidney, Foxe, Hooker, Lyly, Greene, +Lodge, and Nashe are given in Craik, I.[31] Chambers, I. and Manly, +II. also give a number of selections. Deloney's _The Gentle Craft_ may +be found in the Clarendon Press edition of his _Works_. For Bacon, see +Craik, II. + +These selections will give the student a broader grasp of the +Elizabethan age. The style and subject matter of Lyly's _Euphues_, +Sidney's _Arcadia_, Hooker's _Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity_, +and Bacon's _Essays_ should be specially noted. Which one of these +authors exerted the strongest influence on his own age? Which one +makes the strongest appeal to modern times? In what respects does the +style of any Elizabethan prose writer show an improvement over that of +Mandeville and Malory? + +Lyrics.--For specimens of love sonnets, read Nos. 18, 33, 73, 104, +111, and 116 of Shakespeare's _Sonnets_. Compare them with any of +Sidney's Spenser's sonnets. Other love lyrics which should be read are +Spenser's _Prothalamion_, Lodge's _Love in My Bosom Like a Bee_ and +Ben Jonson's _To Celia_. Among pastoral lyrics, read from Spenser's +_Shepherd's Calendar_ for August, 1579, Perigo and Willie's duet, +beginning:-- + + "It fell upon a holy eve," + +and Marlowe's _The Passionate Shepherd to His Love_. The best pastoral +lyrics from the modern point of view are Shakespeare's two songs: +"Under the Greenwood Tree" (_As you like it_) and "When Icicles Hang +by the Wall" (_Love's Labor's Lost_). The best miscellaneous lyrics +are the songs in Shakespeare's _Cymbeline_, _The Tempest_, and _As You +Like It_. Drayton's _Ballad of Agincourt_ and _Sonnet 61_ are his best +lyrical verse. Read Ben Jonson's _An Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy_ and, +from his Pindaric Ode, the stanza beginning:-- + + "It is not growing like a tree." + +From John Donne, read either _The Funeral_, _The Canonization_, or +_The Dream_. + +Good selections from all varieties of Elizabethan lyrics may be found +in Bronson, II., Ward. I., _Oxford, Century_, Manly, I. Nearly all the +lyrics referred to in this list, including the best songs from the +dramatists, are given in Schelling's _Elizabethan Lyrics_ (327 pp., 75 +cents). This work, together with Erskine's _The Elizabethan Lyric_ and +Reed's _English Lyrical Poetry from its Origins to the Present Time_, +will serve for a more exhaustive study of this fascinating subject. + +From your reading, select from each class the lyric that pleases you +most, and give reasons for your choice. Which lyric seems the most +spontaneous? the most artistic? the most inspired? the most modern? +the most quaint? the most and the least instinct with feeling? + +Edmund Spenser.--The _Faerie Queene_, Book I., Canto I., should be +read. Maynard's _English Classic Series_, No. 27 (12 cents) contains +the first two cantos and the _Prothalamion_. Kitchin's edition of Book +I. (Clarendon Press. 60 cents) is an excellent volume. The Globe +edition furnishes a good complete text of Spenser's work. Ample +selections are given in Bronson, II., Ward, I., and briefer ones in +Manly, I., and _Century_. + +THE DRAMA + +The Best Volumes of Selections.--The least expensive volume to cover +nearly the entire field with brief selections is Vol. II. of _The +Oxford Treasury of English Literature_, entitled _Growth of the Drama_ +(Clarendon Press, 412 pp., 90 cents). Pollard's _English Miracle +Plays, Moralities, and Interludes_ (Clarendon Press, 250 pp., $1.90) +is the best single volume of selections from this branch of the drama. +_Everyman and Other Miracle Plays_ (Everyman's Library, 35 cents) is a +good inexpensive volume. Manly's' _Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean +Drama_ (three volumes, $1.25 each) covers this field more fully. +Morley's _English Plays_ (published as Vol. III. of Cassell's _Library +of English Literature_, at eleven and one half shillings) contains +good selections from nearly all the plays mentioned below, except +those by Shakespeare and Jonson. Williams's _Specimens of the +Elizabethan Drama, from Lyly to Shirley_, 1580-1642 (Clarendon Press, +576 pp., $1.90) is excellent for a comprehensive survey of the field +covered. Lamb's _Specimens of English Poets Who Lived about the Time +of Shakespeare_ (Bohn's Library, 552 pp.) contains a large number of +good selections. + +Miracle Plays.--Read the Chester Play of _Noah's Flood_, +Pollard,[32] 8-20, and the Towneley _Play of the Shepherds_, Pollard, +31-43; Manly's _Specimens_, I, 94-119; Morley's _English Plays_, +12-18. These two plays best show the germs of English comedy. + +Moralities.--The best _Morality_ is that known as _Everyman_, +Pollard, 76-96; also in _Everyman's Library_. If _Everyman_ is not +accessible, _Hycke-Scorner_ may be substituted, Morley; 12-18; Manly's +_Specimens_, I., 386-420. + +Court Plays, Early Comedies, and Gorboduc.--The best _Interlude_ is +_The Four P's_. Adequate selections are given in Morley, 18-20, and in +Symonds's Shakespeare's _Predecessors in the English Drama_, 188-201. +Pollard and Manly give several good selections from other +_Interludes_. + +_Ralph Royster Doyster_ may be found in Arber's _Reprints_; in +Morley's _English Plays_, pp. 22-46; in Manly's _Specimens_, II., +5-92; in _Oxford Treasury_, II., 161-174, and in _Temple Dramatists_ +(35 cents). + +_Gorboduc_ is given in _Oxford Treasury_, II. pp., 40-54 (selections); +Morley's _English Plays_, pp. 51-64; and, under the title of _Ferrex +and Porrex_, in Dodsley's _Old Plays_. + +What were some of the purposes for which _Interludes_ were written? +How did they aid in the development of the drama? + +In what different forms are _The Four-P's, Ralph Royster Doyster_, and +_Gorboduc_ written? Why would Shakespeare's plays have been impossible +if the evolution of the drama had stopped with _Gorboduc_? + +Pre-Shakespearean Dramatists.--Selections from Lyly, Peele, Green, +Lodge, Nashe, and Kyd may be found in Williams's _Specimens_. Morley +and _Oxford Treasury_ also contain a number of selections. Peele's +_The Arraignment of Paris_ and Kyd's _The Spanish Tragedy_ are in +_Temple Dramatists_. Greene's best plays are in _Mermaid Series_. + +What are the merits of Lyly's dialogue and comedy? What might +Shakespeare have learned from Lyly, Peele, Greene, and Kyd? In what +different form did these dramatists write? What progress do they show? + +Marlowe.--Read _Dr. Faustus_, in _Masterpieces of the English Drama_ +(American Book Company) or in _Everyman's Library_. This play may also +be found in Morley's _English Plays_, pp. 116-128, or in Morley's +_Universal Library_. Selections from various plays of Marlowe may be +found in _Oxford Treasury_, 61-85, 330-356; and in Williams's +_Specimens_, 25-34. + +Does _Dr. Faustus_ observe the classical unities? In what way does it +show the spirit of the Elizabethan age? Was the poetic form of the +play the regular vehicle of dramatic expression? In what does the +greatness of the play consist? What are its defects? Why do young +people sometimes think Marlowe the greatest of _all_ the Elizabethan +dramatists? + +Shakespeare.--The student should read in sequence one or more of the +plays in each of Shakespeare's four periods of development (pp. 185, +188), such as _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ and _Romeo and Juliet_, for +the first period; _As You Like It_ and _The Merchant of Venice_, for +the second; _Hamlet_ and _King Lear_ or _Macbeth_ or _Julius Caesar_, +for the third; and _The Winter's Tale_ and _The Tempest_, for the +fourth. + +Among the many good annotated editions of separate plays are the +Clarke and Wright, Rolfe, Hudson, Arden, Temple, and Tudor editions. +Furness's _Variorum Shakespeare_ is the best for exhaustive study. The +best portable single volume edition is Craig's _Oxford Shakespeare_, +India paper, 1350 pages. + +The student cannot do better than follow the advice of Dr. Johnson: +"Let him who is unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who +desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read +every play, from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of +all his commentators... Let him read on through brightness and +obscurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his +comprehension of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when +the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness and +read the commentators." + +Shakespeare's three greatest tragedies, _Hamlet, King Lear_, and +_Macbeth_, should be read several times. After becoming familiar with +the story, the student should next determine the general aim of the +play and analyze the personality and philosophy of each of the leading +characters. + +After reading some of all classes of Shakespeare's plays, point out +his (_a_) breadth of sympathy, (_b_) humor, (_c_) moral ideals, (_d_) +mastery of English and variety of style, and (_e_) universality. What +idea of his personality can you form from his plays? If you have read +them in sequence, point out some of the characteristics of each of his +four periods. Why is Shakespeare often called a great dramatic artist? +How did his audience and manner of presentation of his plays modify +his treatment of a dramatic theme? + +Ben Jonson and Minor Dramatists.--The best plays of Ben Jonson, +Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, Middleton, Massinger, Webster, and +Tourneur may be found in _Masterpieces of the English Drama_ edited by +Schellinq (American Book Company). Selections from all the minor +dramatists mentioned may be found in Williams's _Specimens_. The +teacher will need to exercise care in assigning readings. Most of the +minor dramatists are better suited to advanced students. + +Read Jonson's _The Alchemist_ or the selection in Williams's +_Specimens_. A sufficient selection from _Philaster_ may be found in +Vol. II. of _The Oxford Treasury_, in Morley, and in Williams's +_Specimens_. + +What points of difference between Shakespeare and Jonson do you +notice? What is his object in _The Alchemist_? Why is its plot called +unusually fine? Wherein does Jonson show a decline in the drama? + +Who were Beaumont and Fletcher? What movement in the drama do they +illustrate? What are the characteristics of some other minor +dramatists? What are the chief reasons why the minor dramatists fail +to equal Shakespeare? When and why did this period of the drama close? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER IV: + +[Footnote 1: For additional mention of Elizabethan novelists, see p. +317.] + +[Footnote 2: For references to selections from all these prose +writers, see p. 215.] + +[Footnote 3: _Of Youth and Age_.] + +[Footnote 4: Thomas Heywood's _Matin Song_.] + +[Footnote 5: Suggestions for additional study of Elizabethan lyrics +are given on p. 215.] + +[Footnote 6: riding.] + +[Footnote 7: _An Hymne in Honour of Beautie_.] + +[Footnote 8: _Faerie Queene_, Book III., Canto 4.] + +[Footnote 9: _Ibid_., Book I., Canto 3.] + +[Footnote 10: Smith's _York Plays_.] + +[Footnote 11: C.W. Wallace's _The Evolution of the English Drama up to +Shakespeare_.] + +[Footnote 12: Wallace, _op. cit_., p.37.] + +[Footnote 13: _What We Know of the Elizabethan Stage_.] + +[Footnote 14: Performances were often given at night in private +theaters. From the records in a lawsuit over the second Blackfriars +Theater, we learn that there were in 1608 only three private theaters +in London,--Blackfriars, Whitefriars, and a St. Paul's Cathedral +playhouse, in which boys acted.] + +[Footnote 15: This drawing of the Swan Theater, London, was probably +made near the end of the sixteenth century by van Buchell, a Dutchman, +from a description by his friend, J. de Witt. The drawing, found at +the University of Utrecht, although perhaps not accurate in details, +is valuable as a rough contemporary record of an impression +communicated to a draftsman by one who had seen an Elizabethan play.] + +[Footnote 16: The lease of the building for the first Blackfriars +Theater, on Ludgate Hill, London, was taken in 1576 by Richard +Farrant, master of the boys of Windsor Chapel, and canceled in 1584. +In 1595 James Burbage bought a building for the second Blackfriars +Theater, near the site of the first. This was a private theater, +competing with the Globe, with which Shakespeare was connected. The +chief dramatists for the second Blackfriars were Ben Jonson, George +Chapman, and John Marston. James I. suppressed the second Blackfriars +in 1608 because its actors satirized him and the French king. A few +months later, Shakespeare and his associates assumed the management of +the Blackfriars and gave performances there as well as at the Globe. + +These facts explain Wallace's discovery that Shakespeare at the time +of his death owned a one-seventh interest in the second Blackfriars, a +theater that had formerly been a rival to the Globe.] + +[Footnote 17: _Dr. Faustus_, Scene 6.] + +[Footnote 18: _Tamburlaine_, Act II., Scene 7.] + +[Footnote 19: _The Winter's Tale_, Act IV., Scene 4.] + +[Footnote 20: Tradition says that Shakespeare occupied the desk in the +farthest corner.] + +[Footnote 21: Greene's _Groatsworth of Wit_, Grosart's edition of +Greene's _Works_, Vol. XII., p. 144.] + +[Footnote 22: The contract price for building the Fortune Theater was +L440.] + +[Footnote 23: Adapted from Furnivall.] + +[Footnote 24: Entered one year before at Stationers' Hall.] + +[Footnote 25: May be looked on as fairly certain.] + +[Footnote 26: _Henry V_., Act II., Scene 3, line 10.] + +[Footnote 27: Bradley's _Shakespearean Tragedy_, p. 327.] + +[Footnote 28: _The Tempest_, Act V., Scene 1.] + +[Footnote 29: _Ibid_., Act I., Scene 2.] + +[Footnote 30: For a list of books of selections from the drama, see p. +216.] + +[Footnote 31: For full titles, see p. 6.] + +[Footnote 32: For full titles of books of dramatic selections, see the +preceding paragraph.] + + +CHAPTER V: THE PURITAN AGE, 1603-1660 + +History of the Period.--James I. (1603-1625), son of Mary Stuart, +Queen of Scots, and the first of the Stuart line to reign in England, +succeeded Elizabeth. His stubbornness and folly not only ended the +intense patriotic feeling of the previous reign, but laid the +foundation for the deadly conflict that resulted. In fifty-four years +after the defeat of the Armada, England was plunged into civil war. + +The guiding belief of James I. was that kings governed by divine +right, that they received from the Deity a title of which no one could +lawfully deprive them, no matter how outrageously they ruled, and that +they were not in any way responsible to Parliament or to the people. +In acting on this belief, he first trampled on the religious liberty +of his subjects. He drove from their churches hundreds of clergymen +who would not take oath that they believed that the prayer book of the +Church of England agreed in every way with the _Bible_. He boasted +that he would "harry out of the kingdom" those who would not conform. + +During the reign of James I. and that of his son, Charles I. +(1625-1649) a worse ruler on the same lines, thousands of Englishmen +came to New England to enjoy religious liberty. The Pilgrim Fathers +landed at Plymouth in 1620. The exodus was very rapid during the next +twenty years, since those who insisted on worshiping God as they chose +were thrown into prison and sometimes had their ears cut off and their +noses mutilated. In the sixteenth century, the religious struggle was +between Catholics and Protestants, but in this age both of the +contestants were Protestant. The Church of England (Episcopal church) +was persecuting those who would not conform to its beliefs. + +Side by side with the religious strife was a struggle for +constitutional government, for legal taxes, for the right of freedom +of speech in Parliament. James I. and Charles I. both collected +illegal taxes. Finally, when Charles became involved in war with +Spain, Parliament forced him in return for a grant of money to sign +the _Petition of Right_ (1628), which was in some respects a new +_Magna Charta_. + +Charles did not keep his promises. For eleven years he ruled in a +despotic way without Parliament. In 1642 civil war broke out between +the Puritans, on one side, and the king, nobles, landed gentry, and +adherents of the Church of England, on the other. The Puritans under +the great Oliver Cromwell were victorious, and in 1649 they beheaded +Charles as a "tyrant, traitor and murderer." Cromwell finally became +Protector of the Commonwealth of England. The greatest Puritan writer, +John Milton, not only upheld the Commonwealth with powerful +argumentative prose, but also became the government's most important +secretary. Though his blindness would not allow him to write after +1652, he used to translate aloud, either into Latin or the language of +the foreign country, what Cromwell dictated or suggested. Milton's +under-secretary, Andrew Marvel, wrote down this translation. + +[Illustration: CROMWELL DICTATING TO MILTON DISPATCHES TO THE KING OF +FRANCE CONCERNING THE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT.[1] _From the painting by +Ford Madox Brown._] + +The Puritans remained in the ascendancy until 1660, when the Stuart +line was restored in the person of Charles II. + +The Puritan Ideals.--The Renaissance had at first seemed to promise +everything, the power to reveal the secrets of Nature, to cause her to +gratify man's every wish, and to furnish a perpetual fountain of happy +youth. These expectations had not been fulfilled. There were still +poverty, disease, and a longing for something that earth had not +given. The English, naturally a religious race, reflected much on +this. Those who concluded that life could never yield the pleasure +which man anticipates, who determines by purity of living to win a +perfect land beyond the shores of mortality, who made the New World of +earlier dreams a term synonymous with the New Jerusalem, were called +Puritans. + +Their guide to this land was the _Bible_. Our _Authorized Version_ +(1611), the one which is in most common use to-day, was made in the +reign of James I. From this time became much easier to get a copy of +the _Scriptures_, and their influence was now more potent than ever to +shape the ideals of the Puritans. In fact, it is impossible to +estimate the influence which this _Authorized Version_ has had on the +ideals and the literature of the English race. Had it not been for +this _Version_, current English speech and literature would be vastly +different. Such words and expressions as "scapegoat," "a labor of +love," "the eleventh hour," "to cast pearls before swine," and "a +howling wilderness" are in constant use because the language of this +translation of the _Bible_ has become incorporated in our daily +speech, as well as in our best literature. + +The Puritan was so called because he wished to purify the established +church from what seemed to him great abuses. He accepted the faith of +John Calvin, who died in 1564. Calvinism taught that no earthly power +should intervene between a human soul and God, that life was an +individual moral struggle, the outcome of which would land the soul in +heaven or hell for all eternity, that beauty and art and all the +pleasures of the flesh were dangerous because they tended to wean the +soul from God. + +The Puritan was an individualist. The saving of the soul was to him an +individual, not a social, affair. Bunyan's Pilgrim flees alone from +the wrath to come. The twentieth century, on the other hand, believes +that the regeneration of a human being is both a social and an +individual affair,--that the individual, surrounded by the forces of +evil, often has little opportunity unless society comes to his aid. +The individualism of the Puritan accomplished a great task in +preparing the way for democracy, for fuller liberty in church and +state, in both England and America. + +Our study of the Puritan ideals embodied in literature takes us beyond +1660, the date of the Restoration, because after that time two great +Puritan writers, John Milton and John Bunyan, did some of their most +famous work, the one in retirement, the other in jail. Such work, +uninfluenced by the change of ideal after the Restoration, is properly +treated in this chapter. While a change may in a given year seem +sufficiently pronounced to become the basis for a new classification, +we should remember the literary influences never begin or end with +complete abruptness. + +THE PROSE OF THE PURITAN AGE + +Variety of Subject.--Prose showed development in several directions +during this Puritan age:-- + +I. The use of prose in argument and controversy was largely extended. +Questions of government and of religion were the living issues of the +time. Innumerable pamphlets and many larger books were written to +present different views. We may instance as types of this class almost +all the prose writings of John Milton (1608-1674). + +II. English prose dealt with a greater variety of philosophical +subjects. Shakespeare had voiced the deepest philosophy in poetry, but +up to this time such subjects had found scant expression in prose. + +Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is the great philosophical writer of the +age. In his greatest work, _Leviathan; or, The Matter, Form, and Power +of a Commonwealth_, he considers questions of metaphysical philosophy +and of government in a way that places him on the roll of famous +English philosophers. + +III. History had an increasing fascination for prose writers. Sir +Walter Raleigh's _History of the World_ (1614) and Lord Clarendon's +_History of the Great Rebellion_, begun in 1646, are specially worthy +of mention. + +IV. Prose was developing its capacity for expressing delicate shades +of humor. In Chaucer and in Shakespeare, poetry had already excelled +in this respect. Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), an Episcopal clergyman, +displays an almost inexhaustible fund of humor in his _History of the +Worthies of England_. We find scattered through his works passages +like these:-- + + "A father that whipped his son for swearing, and swore at him while + he whipped him, did more harm by his example than good by his + correction." + +[Illustration: THOMAS FULLER.] + +Speaking of a pious short person, Fuller says:-- + + "His soul had but a short diocese to visit, and therefore might the + better attend the effectual informing thereof." + +Of the lark, he writes:-- + + "A harmless bird while living, not trespassing on grain, and + wholesome when dead, then filling the stomach with meat, as formerly + the ear with music." + +Before Fuller, humor was rare in English prose writers, and it was not +common until the first quarter of the next century. + +V. Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), an Oxford graduate and physician, +is best known as the author of three prose works: _Religio Medici +(Religion of a Physician_, 1642), _Vulgar Errors_ (1646), and +_Hydriotaphia_ or _Urn Burial_ (1658). In imagination and poetic +feeling, he has some kinship with the Elizabethans. He says in the +_Religio Medici_:-- + + "Now for my life, it is a miracle of thirty years, which to relate + were not a history but a piece of poetry, and would sound to common + ears like a fable... Men that look upon my outside, perusing only + my condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude; for I am above + Atlas's shoulders... There is surely a piece of divinity in + us--something that was before the elements and owes no homage unto + the sun." + +The _Religio Medici_, however, gives, not the Elizabethan, but the +Puritan, definition of the world as "a place not to live in but to die +in." + +_Urn Burial_, which is Browne's masterpiece, shows his power as a +prose poet of the "inevitable hour":-- + + "There is no antidote against the _opium_ of time... The greater + part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found + in the register of God, not in the record of man... But man is a + Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, + solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal luster, not omitting + ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature." + +Browne's prose frequently suffers from the infusion of too many words +derived from the Latin, but his style is rhythmical and stately and +often conveys the same emotion as the notes of a great cathedral organ +at the evening twilight hour. + +VI. _The Complete Angler_ of Izaak Walton (1593-1683) is so filled +with sweetness and calm delight in nature and life, that one does not +wonder that the book has passed through about two hundred editions. It +manifests a genuine love of nature, of the brooks, meadows, flowers. +In his pages we catch the odor from the hedges gay with wild flowers +and hear the rain falling softly on the green leaves:-- + + "But turn out of the way a little, good + scholar, towards yonder high honeysuckle + hedge; there we'll sit and sing, whilst this + shower falls so gently on the teeming earth, + and gives yet a sweeter smell to the lovely + flowers that adorn these verdant meadows." + +[Illustration: IZAAK WALTON.] + +[Illustration: JEREMY TAYLOR.] + +VII. Of the many authors busily writing on theology, Jeremy Taylor +(1613-1667), an Episcopal clergyman, holds the chief place. His +imagination was so wide and his pen so facile that he has been called +a seventeenth-century prose Shakespeare. Taylor's _Holy Living_ and +_Holy Dying_ used to be read in almost every cottage. This passage +shows his powers of imagery as well as the Teutonic inclination to +consider the final goal of youth and beauty:-- + + "Reckon but from the sprightfulness + of youth, and the fair cheeks and full + eyes of childhood, from the vigorousness + and strong texture of the joints of five-and-twenty, + to the hollowness and dead + paleness, to the loathsomeness and horror of a three days' burial, + and we shall perceive the distance to be very great and very + strange. But so have I seen a rose newly springing from the clefts + of its hood, and at first it was fair as morning, and full with the + dew of heaven as a lamb's fleece ... and at night, having lost some + of its leaves and all its beauty, it fell into the portion of weeds + and outworn faces." + +JOHN BUNYAN, 1628-1688 + +[Illustration: JOHN BUNYAN. _From the painting by Sadler, National +Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--The Bedfordshire village of Elstow saw in 1628 the birth of +John Bunyan who, in his own peculiar field of literature, was to lead +the world. His father, Thomas Bunyan, was a brazier, a mender of pots +and pans, and he reared his son John to the same trade. In his +autobiography, John Bunyan says that his father's house was of "that +rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families in the +land." + +The boy went to school for only a short time and learned but little +from any books except the _Bible_. The father, by marrying a second +time within a year after his wife's death, wounded the feelings of his +sixteen-year-old son sufficiently to cause the latter to enlist as a +soldier in the Civil War. At about the age of twenty, Bunyan married, +though neither he nor his wife had at the time so much as a dish or a +spoon. + +Bunyan tells us that in his youth he was very wicked. Probably he +would have been so regarded from the point of view of a strict +Puritan. His worst offenses, however, seem to have been dancing on the +village green, playing hockey on Sundays, ringing bells to rouse the +neighborhood, and swearing. When he repented, his vivid imagination +made him think that he had committed the unpardonable sin. In the +terror that he felt at the prospect of the loss of his soul, he passed +through much of the experience that enabled him to write the +_Pilgrim's Progress_. + +Bunyan became a preacher of God's word. Under trees, in barns, on the +village green, wherever people resorted, he told them the story of +salvation. Within six months after the Restoration, he was arrested +for preaching without Episcopal sanction. The officers took him away +from his little blind daughter. The roisterers of the Restoration +thought a brazier was too coarse to have feelings; yet Bunyan dropped +tears on the paper when he wrote of "the many hardships, miseries, and +wants that my poor family were like to meet with, should I be taken +from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer to my heart +than all besides. Oh, the thoughts of the hardship my poor blind one +might undergo, would break my heart to pieces." In spite of his +dependent family and the natural right of the freedom of speech, +Bunyan was thrust into Bedford jail and kept a prisoner for nearly +twelve years. Had it not been for his imprisonment in this "squalid +den," of which he speaks in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, we should +probably be without that famous work, a part of which, at least, was +written in the jail. + +In 1672, as a step toward restoring the Catholic religion, Charles II. +suspended all penal statutes against the dissenting clergy; Bunyan was +thereupon released from jail. + +[Illustration: BEDFORD BRIDGE, SHOWING GATES AND JAIL. _From an old +print_.] + +After his release, he settled down to his life's work of spreading the +Gospel by both pen and tongue. When he visited London to preach, it +was not uncommon for twelve hundred persons to come to hear him at +seven o'clock in the morning of a week day in winter. + +The immediate cause of his death was a cold caught by riding in the +rain, on his way to try to reconcile a father and son. In 1688 Bunyan +died as he uttered these words, "Take me, for I come to Thee." + +His Work.--Bunyan achieved the distinction of writing the greatest +of all allegories, the _Pilgrim's Progress_. This is the story of +Christian's journey through this life, the story of meeting Mr. +Worldly Wiseman, of the straight gate and the narrow path, of the +Delectable Mountains of Youth, of the valley of Humiliation, of the +encounter with Apollyon, of the wares of Vanity Fair, "kept all the +year long," of my lord Time-server, of Mr. Anything, of imprisonment +in Doubting Castle by Giant Despair, of the flowery land of Beulah, +lying beyond the valley of the Shadow of Death, through which a deep, +cold river runs, and of the city of All Delight on the other side. +This story still has absorbing interest for human beings, for the +child and the old man, the learned and the ignorant. + +Bunyan wrote many other works, but none of them equals the _Pilgrim's +Progress_. His _Holy War_ is a powerful allegory, which has been +called a prose _Paradise Lost_. Bunyan also produced a strong piece of +realistic fiction, the _Life and Death of Mr. Badman_. This shows the +descent of a soul along the broad road. The story is the counterpart +of his great masterpiece, and ranks second to it in point of merit. + +[Illustration: BUNYAN'S DREAM. _From Fourth Edition Pilgrim's +Progress, 1680_.] + +General Characteristics.--Since the _Pilgrim's Progress_ has been +more widely read in England than any other book except the _Bible_, it +is well to investigate the secret of Bunyan's power. + +In the first place, his style is simple. In the second place, rare +earnestness is coupled with this simplicity. He had something to say, +which in his inmost soul he felt to be of supreme importance for all +time. Only a great man can tell such truths without a flourish of +language, or without straining after effect. At the most critical part +of the journey of the Pilgrims, when they approach the river of death, +note that Bunyan avoids the tendency to indulge in fine writing, that +he is content to rely on the power of the subject matter, simply +presented, to make us feel the terrible ordeal:-- + + "Now I further saw that betwixt + them and the gate was a river; but + there was no bridge to go over, and the + river was very deep... The Pilgrims + then, especially Christian, began + to despond in their minds, and looked + this way and that, but no way could + be found by them by which they might + escape the river... They then addressed + themselves to the water, and + entering, Christian began to sink... + And with that, a great darkness and + horror fell upon Christian, so that he + could not see before him..." + + "Now, upon the bank of the river, on the other side, they saw the + two shining men again, who there waited for them... Now you + must note that the city stood upon a mighty hill; but the Pilgrims + went up that hill with ease, because they had these two men to lead + them up by the arms; they had likewise left their mortal garments + behind them in the river; for though they went in with them, they + came out without them." + +[Illustration: + + Let Badman's broken leg put check + To Badman's course of evil, + Lest, next time, Badman breaks his neck, + And so goes to the devil. + +WOODCUT FROM THE FIRST EDITION OF MR. BADMAN] + +Of all the words in the above selection, eighty per cent are +monosyllables. Few authors could have resisted the tendency to try to +be impressive at such a climax. One has more respect for this world, +on learning that it has set the seal of its approval on such earnest +simplicity and has neglected works that strive with every art to +attract attention. + +Bunyan furthermore has a rare combination of imagination and dramatic +power. His abstractions became living persons. They have warmer blood +coursing in their veins than many of the men and women in modern +fiction. Giant Despair is a living giant. We can hear the clanking of +the chains and the groans of the captives in his dungeon. We are not +surprised to learn that Bunyan imagined that he saw and conversed with +these characters. The _Pilgrim's Progress_ is a prose drama. Note the +vivid dramatic presentation of the tendency to evil, which we all have +at some time felt threatening to wreck our nobler selves:-- + + "Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, + and said, 'I am void of fear in this matter; prepare thyself to die; + for I swear by my infernal den that thou shall go no further; here + will I spill thy soul.'" + +It would be difficult to find English prose more simple, earnest, +strong, imaginative, and dramatic than this. Bunyan's style felt the +shaping influence of the _Bible_ more than of all other works +combined. He knew the _Scriptures_ almost by heart. + +THE POETRY OF THE PURITAN AGE + +Lyrical Verse.--The second quarter of the seventeenth century +witnessed an outburst of song that owed its inspiration to Elizabethan +lyrical verse. + +Soon after 1600 a change in lyric poetry is noticeable. The sonnet +fell into disfavor with the majority of lyrists. The two poets of +greatest influence over this period, Ben Jonson and John Donne, +opposed the sonnet. Ben Jonson complained that it compels all ideas, +irrespective of their worth, to fill a space of exactly fourteen +lines, and that it therefore operates on the same principle as the bed +of Procrustes. The lyrics of this period, with the exception of those +by Milton, were usually less idealistic, ethereal, and inspired than +the corresponding work of the Elizabethans. This age was far more +imitative, but it chose to imitate Jonson and Donne in preference to +Shakespeare. The greatest lyrical poet of this time thus addresses +Jonson as a patron saint:-- + + "Candles I'll give to thee, + And a new altar; + And thou, Saint Ben, shall be + Writ in my psalter."[2] + +Cavalier Poets.--Robert Herrick (1591-1674), Thomas Carew +(1598?-1639?), Sir John Suckling (1609-1642), and Richard Lovelace +(1618--1658) were a contemporary group of lyrists who are often called +Cavalier poets, because they sympathized with the Cavaliers or +adherents of Charles I. + +[Illustration: ROBERT HERRICK.] + +By far the greatest of this school is Robert Herrick, who stands in +the front rank of the second class of lyrical poets. He was a graduate +of Cambridge University, who by an accident of the time became a +clergyman. The parish, or "living," given him by the king, was in the +southwestern part of Devonshire. By affixing the title _Hesperides_ to +his volume of nearly thirteen hundred poems, Herrick doubtless meant +to imply that they were chiefly composed in the western part of +England. In the very first poem of this collection, he announces the +subject of his songs:-- + + "I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers; + Of April, May, of June, and July flowers. + I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes; + Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes + * * * * * + I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing + The court of Mab, and of the Fairie-king. + I write of hell; I sing and ever shall, + Of heaven, and hope to have it after all." + +His lyric range was as broad as these lines indicate. The most of his +poems show the lightness of touch and artistic form revealed in the +following lines from _To the Virgins_:-- + + "Gather ye rose-buds while ye may: + Old Time is still a-flying; + And this same flower that smiles to-day, + To-morrow will be dying." + +His facility in melodious poetic expression is evident in this stanza +from _The Litany_, one of the poems in _Noble Numbers_, as the +collection of his religious verse is called:-- + + "When the passing-bell doth toll + And the furies in a shoal + Come to fright a parting soul, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me." + +The lyric, _Disdain Returned_, of the courtier, Thomas Carew, shows +both a customary type of subject and the serious application often +given:-- + + "He that loves a rosy cheek, + Or a coral lip admires, + Or from starlike eyes doth seek + Fuel to maintain his fires, + As old time makes these decay, + So his flames must waste away." + +Carew could write with facility on the subjects in vogue at court, but +when he ventures afield in nature poetry, he makes the cuckoo +hibernate! In his poem _The Spring_, he says:-- + + "...wakes in hollow tree + The drowsy Cuckoo and the Humble-bee." + +In these lines from his poem _Constancy_, Sir John Suckling shows +that he is a typical Cavalier love poet:-- + + "Out upon it, I have loved + Three whole days together; + And am like to love three more, + If it prove fair weather." + +From Richard Lovelace we have these exquisite lines written in +prison:-- + + "Stone walls do not a prison make + Nor iron bars a cage; + Minds innocent and quiet take + That for an hermitage." + +To characterize the Cavalier school by one phrase, we might call them +lyrical poets in lighter vein. They usually wrote on such subjects as +the color in a maiden's cheek and lips, blossoms, meadows, May days, +bridal cakes, the paleness of a lover, and-- + + "...wassail bowls to drink, + Spiced to the brink." + +but sometimes weightier subjects were chosen, when these lighter +things failed to satisfy. + +Religious Verse.--Three lyrical poets, George Herbert (1593-1633), +Henry Vaughan (1622-1695), and Richard Crashaw (1612?-1650?), usually +chose religious subjects. George Herbert, a Cambridge graduate and +rector of Bemerton, near Salisbury, wrote _The Temple_, a book of +religious verse. His best known poem is _Virtue_:-- + + "Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, + The bridal of the earth and sky: + The dew shall weep the fall to night; + For thou must die." + +The sentiment in these lines from his lyric _Providence_ has the +genuine Anglo-Saxon ring:-- + + "Hard things are glorious; easy things good cheap. + The common all men have; that which is rare, + Men therefore seek to have, and care to keep." + +Henry Vaughan, an Oxford graduate and Welsh physician, shows the +influence of George Herbert. Vaughan would have been a great poet if +he could have maintained the elevation of these opening lines from +_The World_:-- + + "I saw Eternity the other night, + Like a great ring of pure and endless light, + All calm, as it was bright." + +Richard Crashaw, a Cambridge graduate and Catholic mystic, concludes +his poem, _The Flaming Heart_, with this touching prayer to Saint +Teresa:-- + + "By all of Him we have in thee + Leave nothing of myself in me. + Let me so read my life that I + Unto all life of mine may die." + +His verse, like that of his contemporaries, is often marred by +fantastic conceits which show the influence of Donne. Although much of +Crashaw's poem, _The Weeper_, is beautiful, he calls the eyes of Mary +Magdalene:-- + + "Two walking baths, two weeping motions, + Portable and compendious oceans." + +JOHN MILTON, 1608-1674 + +[Illustration: JOHN MILTON. _After a drawing by W. Faithorne, at +Bayfordbury_.] + +His Youth.--The second greatest English poet was born in London, +eight years before the death of Shakespeare. John Milton's father +followed the business of a scrivener and drew wills and deeds and +invested money for clients. As he prospered at this calling, his +family did not suffer for want of money. He was a man of much culture +and a musical composer of considerable note. + +A portrait of the child at the age of ten, the work of the painter to +the court, still exists and shows him to have been "a sweet, serious, +round-headed boy," who gave early promise of future greatness. His +parents, seeing that he acted as if he was guided by high ideals, had +the rare judgment to allow him to follow his own bent. They employed +the best teachers to instruct him at home. At the age of sixteen he +was fully prepared to enter Christ's College. Cambridge, where he took +both the B.A. and M.A. degrees. + +[Illustration: JOHN MILTON, AET. 10.] + +His Early Manhood and Life at Horton.--In 1632 Milton left Cambridge +and went to live with his father in a country home at Horton, about +twenty miles west of London. Milton had been intended for the church; +but he felt that he could not subscribe to its intolerance, and that +he had another mission to perform. His father accordingly provided +sufficient funds for maintaining him for over five years at Horton in +a life of studious leisure. The poet's greatest biographer, David +Masson, says "Until Milton was thirty-two years of age, if even then, +he did not earn a penny for himself." Such a course would ruin +ninety-nine out of every hundred talented young men; but it was the +making of Milton. He spent those years in careful study and in writing +his immortal early poems. + +[Illustration: VISIT OF MILTON TO THE BLIND GALILEO AT THE VILLA +D'ARCETRI NEAR FLORENCE IN 1638. _From the painting by T. Lessi._] + +In 1638, when he was in his thirtieth year, he determined to broaden +his views by travel. He went to Italy, which the Englishmen of his day +still regarded as the home of art, culture, and song. After about +fifteen months abroad, hearing that his countrymen were on the verge +of civil war, he returned home to play his part in the mighty tragedy +of the times. + +Milton's "Left Hand."--In 1642 the Civil War broke out between the +Royalists and the Puritans. He took sides in the struggle for liberty, +not with his sword, but with his pen. During this time he wrote little +but prose. He regretted that the necessity of the time demanded prose, +in the writing of which, he says, "I have the use, as I may account +it, but of my left hand." + +With that "left hand" he wrote much prose. There is one common quality +running through all his prose works, although they treat of the most +varied subjects. Every one of these works strikes a blow for fuller +liberty in some direction,--for more liberty in church, in state, and +in home relations, for the freedom of expressing opinions, and for a +system of education which should break away from the leading strings +of the inferior methods of the past. His greatest prose work is the +_Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing_. + +Much of his prose is poetic and adorned with figures of rhetoric. He +frequently follows the Latin order, and inverts his sentences, which +are often unreasonably long. Sometimes his "left hand" astonishes us +by slinking mud at his opponents, and we eagerly await the loosing of +the right hand which was to give us _Paradise Lost_. + +His Blindness.--The English government from 1649 to 1660 is known as +the Commonwealth. The two most striking figures of the time were +Oliver Cromwell, who in 1653 was styled the Lord Protector, and John +Milton, who was the Secretary for Foreign Tongues. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MILTON'S SIGNATURE IN THE ELEVENTH YEAR +OF HIS BLINDNESS._From his application to wed Elizabeth Minshull. +Feb. 11, 1663._] + +One of the greatest of European scholars, a professor at Leyden, named +Salmasius, had written a book attacking the Commonwealth and upholding +the late king. The Council requested Milton to write a fitting answer. +As his eyes were already failing him, he was warned to rest them; but +he said that he would willingly sacrifice his eyesight on the altar of +liberty. He accordingly wrote in reply his _Pro Populo Anglicano +Defensio_, a Latin work, which was published in 1651. This effort cost +him his eyesight. In 1652, at the age of forty-three, he was totally +blind. In his _Paradise Lost_, he thus alludes to his affliction:-- + + "Thus with the year + Seasons return; but not to me returns + Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, + Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose, + Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; + But clouds instead and ever-during dark + Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men + Cut off." + +Life after the Restoration.--In 1660, when Charles II. was made +king, the leaders of the Commonwealth had to flee for their lives. +Some went to America for safety while others were caught and executed. +The body of Cromwell was taken from its grave in Westminster Abbey, +suspended from the gallows and left to dangle there. Milton was +concealed by a friend until the worst of the storm had blown over. +Then some influential friends interceded for him, and his blindness +probably won him sympathy. + +[Illustration: COMUS TITLE PAGE.] + +During his old age his literary work was largely dependent on the +kindness of friends, who read to him, and acted as his amanuenses. His +ideas of woman having been formed in the light of the old +dispensation, he had not given his three daughters such an education +as might have led them to take a sympathetic interest in his work. +They accordingly resented his calling on them for help. + +During this period of his life, when he was totally blind, he wrote +_Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained_, and _Samson Agonistes_. He died in +1674, and was buried beside his father in the chancel of St. Giles, +Cripplegate, London. + +Minor Poems.--In 1629, while Milton was a student at Cambridge, and +only twenty-one years old, he wrote a fine lyrical poem, entitled _On +the Morning of Christ's Nativity_. These 244 lines of verse show that +he did not need to be taught the melody of song any more than a young +nightingale. + +Four remarkable poems were written during his years of studious +leisure at Horton,--_L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus,_ and _Lycidas. +L'Allegro_ describes the charms of a merry social life, and _Il +Penseroso_ voices the quiet but deep enjoyment of the scholar in +retirement. These two poems have been universal favourites. + +_Comus_ is a species of dramatic composition known as a Masque, and it +is the greatest of its class. It far surpassess any work of a similar +kind by Ben Jonson, that prolific writer of Masques. Some critics, +like Taine and Saintsbury, consider _Comus_ the finest of Milton's +productions. Its 1023 lines can soon be read; and there are few poems +of equal length that will better repay careful reading. + +_Comus_ is an immortal apotheosis of virtue. While in Geneva in 1639, +Milton was asked for his autograph and an expression of sentiment. He +chose the closing lines of _Comus_:-- + + [Illustration: MILTON'S MOTTO FROM COMUS, WITH AUTOGRAPH. _Written + in an album at Geneva_.] + +_Lycidas_, one of the world's great elegies, was written on the death +of Milton's classmate, Edward King. Mark Pattison, one of Milton's +biographers, says: "In _Lycidas_ we have reached the high-water mark +of English poesy and of Milton's own production." + +He is one of the four greatest English sonnet writers. Shakespeare +alone surpasses him in this field. Milton numbers among his pupils +Wordsworth and Keats, whose sonnets rank next in merit. + +Paradise Lost; Its Inception and Dramatic Plan.--Cambridge +University has a list, written by Milton before he was thirty-five, of +about one hundred possible subjects for the great poem which he felt +it was his life's mission to give to the world. He once thought of +selecting Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table; but his final +choice was _Paradise Lost_, which stands first on this special list. +There are in addition four separate drafts of the way in which he +thought this subject should be treated. This proves that the great +work of a man like; Milton was planned while he was young. It is +possible that he may even have written a very small part of the poem +earlier than the time commonly assigned. + +All four drafts show that his early intention was to make the poem a +drama, a gigantic Miracle play. The closing of the theaters and the +prejudice felt against them during the days of Puritan ascendancy may +have influenced Milton to forsake the dramatic for the epic form, but +he seems never to have shared the common prejudice against the drama +and the stage. His sonnet on Shakespeare shows in what estimation he +held that dramatist. + +Subject Matter and Form.--About 1658, when Milton was a widower, +living alone with his three daughters, he began, in total blindness, +to dictate his _Paradise Lost_, sometimes relying on them but more +often on any kind friend who might assist him. The manuscript +accordingly shows a variety of handwriting. The work was published in +1667, after some trouble with a narrow-minded censor who had doubts +about granting a license. + +The subject matter can be best given in Milton's own lines at the +beginning of the poem:-- + + "Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit + Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste + Brought death into the World, and all our woe, + With loss of Eden, till one greater Man + Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, + Sing, Heavenly Muse..." + +The poem treats of Satan's revolt in heaven, of his conflict with the +Almighty, and banishment with all the rebellious angels. Their new +home in the land of fire and endless pain is described with such a +gigantic grasp of the imagination, that the conception has colored all +succeeding theology. + +The action proceeds with a council of the fallen angels to devise +means for alleviating their condition and annoying the Almighty. They +decide to strike him through his child, and they plot the fall of man. +In short, _Paradise Lost_ is an intensely dramatic story of the loss +of Eden. The greatest actors that ever sprang from a poet's brain +appear before us on the stage, which is at one time the sulphurous pit +of hell, at another the bright plains of heaven, and at another the +Elysium of our first parents. + +In form the poem is an epic in twelve books, containing a total of +10,565 lines. It is written in blank verse of wonderful melody and +variety. + +Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes.--After finishing _Paradise +Lost_, Milton wrote two more poems, which he published in 1671. +_Paradise Regained_ is in great part a paraphrase of the first eleven +verses of the fourth chapters of _St. Matthew_. The poem is in four +books of blank verse and contains 2070 lines. Although it is written +with great art and finish, _Paradise Regained_ shows a falling off in +Milton's genius. There is less ornament and less to arouse human +interest. + +_Samson Agonistes_ (Samson the Struggler) is a tragedy containing 1758 +lines, based on the sixteenth chapter of _Judges_. This poem, modeled +after the Greek drama, is hampered by a strict observance of the +dramatic unities. It is vastly inferior to the _Paradise Lost. Samson +Agonistes_ contains scarcely any of the glorious imagery of Milton's +earlier poems. It has been called "the most unadorned poem that can be +found." + +CHARACTERISTICS OF MILTON'S POETRY + +Variety in his Early Work.--A line in _Lycidas_ says:-- + + "He touched the tender stops of various quills," + +and this may be said of Milton. His early poems show great variety. +There are the dirge notes in _Lycidas_; the sights, sounds, and odors +of the country, in _L'Allegro_; the delights of "the studious +cloister's pale," in _Il Penseroso_; the impelling presence of his +"great Task-Master," in the sonnets. + +Although Milton is noted for his seriousness and sublimity, we must +not be blind to the fact that his minor poems show great delicacy of +touch. The epilogue of the Spirit at the end of _Comus_ is an instance +of exquisite airy fancy passing into noble imagination at the close. +In 1638 Sir Henry Wotton wrote to Milton this intelligent criticism of +_Comus_: "I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did +not ravish me with a certain Doric delicacy in your Songs and Odes, +whereunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in +our language _Ipsa mollities_." + +Limitations.--In giving attention to Milton's variety, we should not +forget that when we judge him by Elizabethan standards his limitations +are apparent. As varied as are his excellences, his range is far +narrower than Shakespeare's. He has little sense of humor and less +sympathy with human life than either Shakespeare or Burns. Milton +became acquainted with flowers through the medium of a book before he +noticed them in the fields. Consequently, in speaking of flowers and +birds, he sometimes makes those mistakes to which the bookish man is +more prone than the child who first hears the story of Nature from her +own lips. Unlike Shakespeare and Burns, Milton had the misfortune to +spend his childhood in a large city. Again, while increasing age +seemed to impose no limitations on Shakespeare's genius, his touch +being as delicate in _The Tempest_ as in his first plays, Milton's +style, on the other hand, grew frigid and devoid of imagery toward the +end of his life. + +Sublimity.--The most striking characteristic of Milton's poetry is +sublimity, which consists, first, in the subject matter. In the +opening lines of _Paradise Lost_ he speaks of his "adventurous song"-- + + "That with no middle flight intends to soar + Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues + Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." + +Milton succeeded in his intention. The English language has not +another poem that approaches _Paradise Lost_ in sustained sublimity. + +In the second place, we must note the sublimity of treatment. Milton's +own mind was cast in a sublime mold. This quality of mind is evident +even in his figures of rhetoric. The Milky Way appears to him as the +royal highway to heaven:-- + + "A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold, + And pavement stars."[3] + +When Death and Satan meet, Milton wishes the horror of the scene to +manifest something of the sublime. What other poet could, in fewer +words, have conveyed a stronger impression of the effect of the frown +of those powers? + + "So frowned the mighty combatants, that Hell + Grew darker at their frown."[4] + +George Saintsbury's verdict is approved by the majority of the +greatest modern critics of Milton: "In loftiness--sublimity of +thought, and majesty of expression, both sustained at almost +superhuman pitch, he has no superior, and no rival except Dante." + +Mastery of Verse.--Milton's verse, especially in _Paradise Lost_, is +such a symphony of combined rhythm, poetic expression, and thought; it +is so harmonious, so varied, and yet so apparently simple in its +complexity, that it has never been surpassed in kind. + +His mastery of rhythm is not so evident in a single line as in a group +of lines. The first sentence in _Paradise Lost_ contains sixteen +lines, and yet the rhythm, the pauses, and the thought are so combined +as to make oral reading easy and the meaning apparent. The conception +of the music of the spheres in their complex orbits finds some analogy +in the harmony of the combined rhythmical units of his verse. + +Denied the use of his eyes as a guide to the form of his later verse, +he must have repeated aloud these groups of lines and changed them +until their cadence satisfied his remarkably musical ear. Lines like +these show the melody of which this verse is capable:-- + + "Heaven opened wide + Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound + On golden hinges moving."[5] + +To begin with, he had, like Shakespeare and Keats an instinctive +feeling for the poetic value of words and phrases. Milton's early +poems abound in such poetic expressions as "the frolic wind," "the +slumbring morn," "linked sweetness," "looks commercing with the +skies," "dewy-feathered sleep," "the studious cloister's pale," "a dim +religious light," the "silver lining" of the cloud, "west winds with +musky wing," "the laureate hearse where Lycid lies." His poetic +instinct enabled him to take common prosaic words and, by merely +changing the position of the adjective, transmute them into +imperishable verse. His "darkness visible" and "human face divine" are +instances of this power. + +[Illustration: MILTON DICTATING PARADISE LOST TO HIS DAUGHTERS. +_From the painting by Munkacsy_.] + +Twentieth century criticism is more fully recognizing the debt of +subsequent poetic literature to Milton. Saintsbury writes:-- + + "Milton's influence is omnipresent in almost all later English + poetry, and in not a little of later prose English literature. At + first, at second, at third, hand, he has permeated almost all his + successors."[6] + +How the Paradise Lost has affected Thought.--Few people realize how +profoundly this poem has influenced men's ideas of the hereafter. The +conception of hell for a long time current was influenced by those +pictures which Milton painted with darkness for his canvas and the +lightning for his brush. Our pictures of Eden and of heaven have also +felt his touch. Theology has often looked through Milton's imagination +at the fall of the rebel angels and of man. Huxley says that the +cosmogony which stubbornly resists the conclusions of science, is due +rather to the account in _Paradise Lost_ than to _Genesis_. + +Many of Milton's expressions have become crystallized in modern +thought. Among such we may mention:-- + + "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?"[7] + + "To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell + Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."[8] + + "...Who overcomes + By force hath overcome but half his foe."[9] + +The effect of _Paradise Lost_ on English thought is more a resultant +of the entire poem than of detached quotations. _L'Allegro_ and _Il +Penseroso_ have furnished as many current quotations as the whole of +_Paradise Lost_. + +The Embodiment of High Ideals.---No poet has embodied in his verse +higher ideals than Milton. When twenty-three, he wrote that he +intended to use his talents-- + + "As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye."[10] + +Milton's poetry is not universally popular. He deliberately selected +his audience. These lines from _Comus_ show to whom he wished to +speak:-- + + "Yet some there be that by due steps aspire + To lay their just hands on that golden key + That opes the palace of eternity. + To such my errand is." + +He kept his promise of writing something which speaks for liberty and +for nobility of soul and which the world would not willingly let die. +His ideals react on us and raise us higher than we were. To him we may +say with Wordsworth:-- + + "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." [11] + +SUMMARY + +The Puritan age was one of conflict in religious and political ideals. +James I. and Charles I. trampled on the laws and persecuted the +Puritans so rigorously that many of them fled to New England. Civil +war, in which the Puritans triumphed, was the result. + +The Puritans, realizing that neither lands beyond the sea nor the New +Learning could satisfy the aspirations of the soul, turned their +attention to the life beyond. Bunyan's Pilgrim felt that the sole duty +of life was to fight the forces of evil that would hold him captive in +the City of Destruction and to travel in the straight and narrow path +to the New Jerusalem. Life became a ceaseless battle of the right +against the wrong. Hence, much of the literature in both poetry and +prose is polemical. Milton's _Paradise Lost_ is an epic of war between +good and evil. The book that had the most influence in molding the +thought of the time was the King James (1611) version of the _Bible_. + +The minor prose deals with a variety of subjects. There are +argumentative, philosophical, historical, biographical, and +theological prose works; but only the fine presentation of nature and +life in _The Complete Angler_ interests the general reader of to-day, +although the grandeur of Milton's _Areopagitica_, the humor of Thomas +Fuller, the stately rhythmical prose of Sir Thomas Browne, and the +imagery and variety of Jeremy Taylor deserve more readers. + +Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ is the masterpiece of Puritan prose, +written in the simple, direct language of the 1611 version of the +_Bible_. The book is a prose epic of the journey of the Puritan +Christian from the City of Destruction to the New Jerusalem. + +The Cavalier poets wrote much lyrical verse, mostly in lighter vein, +but the religious poets strike a deeper note. The work of these minor +poets is often a reflection of the Elizabethan lyrics of Donne and +Jonson. + +John Milton, who has the creative power of the Elizabethans, is the +only great poet of the period. His greatest poems are _L'Allegro, Il +Penseroso, Lycidas, Comus,_ and _Paradise Lost_. In sublimity of +subject matter and cast of mind, in nobility of ideals, in expression +of the conflict between good and evil, he is the fittest +representative of the Puritan spirit in literature. + +REFERENCES FOR FUTURE STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +Read the chapters on this period in Gardiner,[12] Walker, Cheney, +Lingard, or Green. For the social life, see Traill, IV. The monumental +history of this time has been written in eighteen volumes by Samuel +Rawson Gardiner. His _Oliver Cromwell_, I vol., is excellent, as is +also Frederick Harrison's _Oliver Cromwell_. + +LITERARY + + The _Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vol. VII. + + Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, Vol. III. + + Masterman's _The Age of Milton_. + + Saintsbury's _A History of Elizabethan Literature_ (comes down to + 1660). + + Dowden's _Puritan and Anglican Studies in Literature. + + Dictionary of National Biography_ (for lives of minor writers). + + Froude's _John Bunyan._ + + Brown's _John Bunyan, his Life, Times, and Works._ + + Macaulay's Life of Bunyan in _Encylopaedia Britannica_ or in his + _Essays._ + + Macaulay's _Essay on Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim's Progress._ + + Masson's _The Life of John Milton, Narrated in Connection with the + Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary history of his Time_ (6 + vols.). + + Masson's _Poetical Works of John Milton_, 3 vols., contains + excellent introductions and notes, and is the standard edition. + + Raleigh's _Milton_. + + Pattison's _Milton_. (E.M.L.) + + Woodhull's _The Epic of Paradise Lost_. + + Macaulay's _Essay on Milton_. + + Lowell's _Milton_ (in _Among My Books_). + + Addison's criticisms on Milton, beginning in number 267 of _The + Spectator_, are suggestive. + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Prose.--The student will obtain a fair idea of the prose of this age +by reading Milton's _Areopagitica_, Cassell's _National Library_ (15 +cents), or _Temple Classics_ (45 cents); Craik,[13] II., 471-475; the +selections from Thomas Hobbes, Craik, II., 214-221; from Thomas +Fuller, Craik, II., 377-387; from Sir Thomas Browne, Craik, II., +318-335; from Jeremy Taylor, Craik, II., 529-542; and from Izaak +Walton, Craik, II., 343-349. Manly, II., has selections from all these +writers; the _Oxford Treasury_ and _Century_, from all but Hobbes. The +student who has the time will wish to read _The Complete Angler_ +entire (Cassell's _National Library_, 15 cents; or _Temple Classics_, +45 cents). + +Compare (_a_) the sentences, (_b_) general style, and (_c_) worth of +the subject matter of these authors; then, to note the development of +English prose, in treatment of subject as well as in form, compare +these works with those of (1) Wycliffe and Mandeville in the +fourteenth century, (2) Malory in the fifteenth, and (3) Tyndale, +Lyly, Sidney, Hooker, and Bacon (_e.g._ essay _Of Study_, 1597), in +the sixteenth. + +Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_ should be read entire (_Everyman's +Library_, 35 cents; Cassell's _National Library_, 15 cents; _Temple +Classics_, 45 cents). Selections may be found in Craik, III., 148-166; +Manly, II., 139-143; _Oxford Treasury_, 83-85; _Century_, 225-235. + +In what does the secret of Bunyan's popularity consist--in his style, +or in his subject matter, or in both? What is specially noteworthy +about his style? Point out some definite ways in which his style was +affected by another great work. Suppose that Bunyan had held the +social service ideals of the twentieth century, how might his idea of +saving souls have been modified? + +Lyrical Poetry.--Specimens of the best work of Herrick, Carew, +Suckling, Lovelace, Herbert, Vaughan, and Crashaw may be found in +Ward, II.; Bronson, II.; _Oxford Treasury_, III.; Manly, I.; and +_Century_. + +What is the typical subject matter of the Cavalier poets? What subject +do Herbert, Vaughan, and Crashaw choose? Which lyric of each of these +poets pleases you most? What difference do you note between these +lyrics and those of the Elizabethan age? What Elizabethan lyrists had +most influence on these poets? What are some of the special defects of +the lyrists of this age? + +John Milton.--_L'Allegro_, _Il Penseroso_, _Comus_, _Lycidas_ +(American Book Company's _Eclectic English Classics_, 20 cents), and +_Paradise Lost_, Books I. and II. (same series), should be read. These +poems, including his excellent _Sonnets_, may also be found in +Cassell's _National Library_, _Everyman's Library_, and the _Temple +Classics_. Selections are given in Ward, II., 306-379; Bronson, II., +334-423; _Oxford Treasury_, III., 34-70: Manly, I., and _Century_, +_passim_. + +Which is the greatest of his minor poets? Why? Is the keynote of +_Comus_ in accord with Puritan ideals? Are there qualities in +_Lycidas_ that justify calling it "the high-water mark" of English +lyrical poetry? Which poem has most powerfully affected theological +thought? Which do you think is oftenest read to-day? Why? What are the +most striking characteristics of Milton's poetry? Contrast Milton's +greatness, limitations, and ideals of life, with Shakespeare's. + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER V: + +[Footnote 1: See Milton's Sonnet: _On the Late Massacre in Piedmont_.] + +[Footnote 2: Robert Herrick's _Prayer to Ben Jonson_.] + +[Footnote 3: _Paradise Lost_, Book VII., lines 577-578.] + +[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., Book II., lines 719-720.] + +[Footnote 5: _Paradise Lost_, Book VII., lines 207-209.] + +[Footnote 6: The Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. VII., +p.156.] + +[Footnote 7: _Paradise Lost_, Book I., line 254.] + +[Footnote 8: _Ibid_, line 262.] + +[Footnote 9: _Ibid_, line 649.] + +[Footnote 10: Sonnet: _On His Having Arrived at the Age of +Twenty-three_.] + +[Footnote 11: _Milton: A Sonnet._] + +[Footnote 12: For full titles, see list on p. 50.] + +[Footnote 13: For full titles, see p.6.] + + +CHAPTER VI: FROM THE RESTORATION, 1660, TO THE PUBLICATION OF PAMELA, +1740 + +History of the Period.--This chapter opens with the Restoration of +Charles II. (1660-1685) in 1660 and ends before the appearance, in +1740, of a new literary creation, Richardson's _Pamela_, the novel of +domestic life and character. This period is often called the age of +Dryden and Pope, the two chief poets of the time. When Oliver Cromwell +died, the restoration of the monarchy was inevitable. The protest +against the Puritanic view of life had become strong. Reaction always +results when excessive restraint in any direction is removed. + +During his exile, Charles had lived much in France and had become +accustomed to the dissolute habits of the French court. The court of +Charles II. was the most corrupt ever known in England. The Puritan +virtues were laughed to scorn by the ribald courtiers who attended +Charles II. John Evelyn (1620-1706) and Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) +left diaries, which give interesting pictures of the times. The one by +Pepys is especially vivid. + +In 1663 Samuel Butler (1612-1680) published a famous satire, +entitled _Hudibras_. Its object was to ridicule everything that +savored of Puritanism. This satire became extremely popular in court +circles, and was the favorite reading of the king. + +[Illustration: SAMUEL BUTLER.] + +Charles II. excluded all but Episcopalians from holding office, either +in towns or in Parliament. Only those who sanctioned the Episcopal +prayer book were allowed to preach. In order to keep England's +friendship and to be able to look to her for assistance in time of +war, Louis XIV. of France paid Charles II. L100,000 a year to act as a +French agent. In this capacity, Charles II. began against Holland. +From a position of commanding importance under Cromwell, England had +become a third-rate power, a tail to a French kite. + +James II. (1685-1688), who succeeded his brother, Charles II., +undertook to suspend laws and to govern like a despot. He was driven +out in the bloodless revolution of 1688 by his son-in-law, William +(1689-1702), and his daughter Mary. William of Orange, who thus became +king of England, was a prince of Holland. This revolution led to the +_Bill of Rights_ (1689), the "third pillar of the British +Constitution," the two previous being _Magna Charta_ and the _Petition +of Right_. The foundations were now firmly laid for a strictly +constitutional monarchy in England. From this time the king has been +less important, sometimes only a mere figure-head. + +This revolution, coupled with the increasing rivalry of France in +trade and colonial expansion, altered the foreign policy of England. +Holland was the head of the European coalition against France; and +William III. was influential in having England join it. For the larger +part of the eighteenth century there was intermittent war with France. + +Under Anne (1702-1714) the Duke of Marlborough won many remarkable +victories against France. The most worthy goal of French antagonism, +expansion of trade, and displacement of the French in America and +India, was not at this time clearly apparent. + +Anne's successor was the Hanoverian Elector, George I. (1714-1727), a +descendant of the daughter of James I., who had married a German +prince. At the time of his accession, George I. was fifty-four years +old and could speak no English. He seldom attended the meetings of his +cabinet, since he could not understand the deliberations. This +circumstance led to further decline of royal power, so that his +successor, George II. (1727-1760), said: "Ministers are the king in +this country." + +The history of the rest of this period centers around the great prime +minister, Robert Walpole, whose ministry lasted from 1715-1717 and +from 1721-1742. His motto was, "Let sleeping dogs lie"; and he took +good care to offend no one by proposing any reforms, either political +or religious. "Every man has his price" was the succinct statement of +his political philosophy; and he did not hesitate to secure by bribery +the adoption of his measures in Parliament. He succeeded in three +aims: (1) in making the house of Hanover so secure on the throne that +it has not since been displaced, (2) in giving fresh impetus to trade +and industry at home by reducing taxation, and (3) in strengthening +the navy and encouraging colonial commerce. + +Change in Foreign Influence.--Of all foreign influences from the +beginning of the Renaissance to the Restoration, the literature of +Italy had been the most important. French influence now gained the +ascendancy. + +There were several reasons for this change. (1) France under the great +Louis XIV. was increasing her political importance. (2) She now had +among her writers men who were by force of genius fitted to exert wide +influence. Among such, we may instance Moliere (1622-1673), who stands +next to Shakespeare in dramatic power. (3) Charles II. and many +Cavaliers had passed the time of their exile in France. They became +familiar with French literature, and when they returned to England in +1660, their taste had already been influenced by French models. + +Change in the Subject Matter of Literature.--The Elizabethan age +impartially held the mirror up to every type of human emotion. The +writers of the Restoration and of the first half of the eighteenth +century, as a class, avoided any subject that demanded a portrayal of +deep and noble feeling. In this age, we catch no glimpse of a Lady +Macbeth in the grasp of remorse or of a Lear bending over a dead +Cordelia. + +The popular subjects were those which appealed to cold intellect; and +these were, for the most part, satirical, didactic, and argumentative. +The two greatest poets of the period, John Dryden and his successor, +Alexander Pope, usually chose such subjects. John Locke (1632-1704), a +great prose writer of this age, shows in the very title of his most +famous work, _Of the Conduct of the Understanding_, what he preferred +to discuss. That book opens with the statement, "The last resort a man +has recourse to in the conduct of himself is his understanding." This +declaration, which is not strictly true, embodies a pronounced +tendency of the age, which could not understand that the world of +feeling is no less real than that of the understanding. + +One good result of the ascendancy of the intellect was seen in +scientific investigation. The Royal Society was founded in 1662 to +study natural phenomena and to penetrate into the hidden mysteries of +philosophy and life. + +The Advance of Prose.--In each preceding age, the masterpieces were +poetry; but before the middle of the eighteenth century we find the +prose far surpassing the poetry. Dryden, almost immediately after the +Restoration, shows noteworthy advance in modern prose style. He avoids +a Latinized inversion, such as the following, with which Milton begins +the second sentence of his _Areopagitica_ (1644):-- + + "And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject was + whereon I entered, may have at other times variously affected ..." + +Here, the object "me" is eighteen words in advance of its predicate. +The sentence might well have ended with the natural pause at +"affected," but Milton adds fifty-one more words. We may easily +understand by comparison why the term "modern" is applied to the prose +of Dryden and of his successors Addison and Steele. To emphasize the +precedence of these writers in the development of modern prose is no +disparagement to Bunyan's style, which is almost as quaint and as +excellent as that of the 1611 version of the _Bible_. + +French influence was cumulative in changing the cumbersome style of +Milton's prose to the polished, neatly-turned sentences of Addison. +Matthew Arnold says: "The glory of English literature is in poetry, +and in poetry the strength of the eighteenth century does not lie. +Nevertheless the eighteenth century accomplished for us an immense +literary progress, and its very shortcomings in poetry were an +instrument to that progress, and served it. The example of Germany may +show us what a nation loses from having no prose style... French prose +is marked in the highest degree by the qualities of regularity, +uniformity, precision, balance... The French made their poetry also +conform to the law which was molding their prose... This may have been +bad for French poetry, but it was good for French prose." + +The same influence which gave vigor, point, and definiteness to the +prose, necessary for the business of the world, helped to dwarf the +poetry. If both could not have advanced together, we may be thankful +that the first part of the eighteenth century produced a varied prose +of such high excellence. + +The Classic School.--The literary lawgivers of this age held that a +rigid adherence to certain narrow rules was the prime condition of +producing a masterpiece. Indeed, the belief was common that a +knowledge of rules was more important than genius. + +The men of this school are called _classicists_ because they held that +a study of the best works of the ancients would disclose the necessary +guiding rules. No style that did not closely follow these rules was +considered good. Horace, seen through French spectacles, was the +classical author most copied by this school. His _Epistles_ and +_Satires_ were considered models. + +The motto of the classicists was polished regularity. Pope struck the +keynote of the age when he said:-- + + "True wit is nature to advantage dress'd, + What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd."[1] + +These two lines show the form of the "riming couplet," which the +classical poets adopted. There is generally a pause at the end of each +line; and each couplet, when detached from the context, will usually +make complete sense. + +Edmund Waller (1606-1687), remembered today for his single +couplet:-- + + "The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, + Lets in new light through chinks that time has made," + +had used this form of verse before 1630; but it was reserved for +Dryden, and especially for Pope, to bring the couplet to a high degree +of perfection. A French critic advised poets to compose the second +line of the couplet first. No better rule could have been devised for +dwarfing poetic power and for making poetry artificial. + +Voltaire, a French classicist, said, "I do not like the monstrous +irregularities of Shakespeare." An eighteenth-century classicist +actually endeavored to improve Hamlet's soliloquy by putting it in +riming couplets. These lines from _Macbeth_ show that Shakespeare will +not tolerate such leading strings nor allow the ending of the lines to +interfere with his sense:-- + + "...Besides, this Duncan + Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been + So clear in his great office, that his virtues + Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against + The deep damnation of his taking-off." + +A later romantic poet called the riming couplet "rocking-horse meter"; +and said that the reading of many couplets reminded him of round trips +on a rocking-horse. + +Advances are usually made by overstressing some one point. The +classicists taught the saving grace of style, the need of restraint, +balance, clearness, common sense. We should therefore not despise the +necessary lesson which English literature learned from such +teaching,--a lesson which has never been forgotten. + +The Drama.--The theaters were reopened at the time of the +Restoration. It is interesting to read in the vivacious _Diary_ of +Samuel Pepys how he went in 1661 to see Shakespeare's _Romeo and +Juliet_, "a play of itself the worst that I ever heard." The next year +he characterizes _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ as "the most ridiculous +play that I ever saw." He liked the variety in _Macbeth_, and calls +_The Tempest_ "the most innocent play that I ever saw." + +The Restoration dramatists, who were dominated by French influence, so +often sneered at morality and the virtues of the home, that they have +paid the penalty of being little read in after times. The theater has +not yet entirely recovered from the deep-seated prejudice which was so +intensified by the coarse plays which flourished for fifty years after +the Restoration. + +Although John Dryden is best known among a large number of Restoration +dramatists,[2] he did better work in another field. William Congreve +(1670-1729) made the mast distinctive contribution to the new comedy +of manners. Descended from an old landowning family in Staffordshire, +he was for a while a mate of Jonathan Swift at Trinity College, +Dublin. In 1691 Congreve was entered in the Middle Temple, London, to +begin the study of law, but he soon turned playwright. His four +comedies,--_The Old Bachelor, The Double Dealer, Love for Love, The +Way of the World_,--and one tragedy, _The Mourning Bride_, were all +written in the last decade of the seventeenth century. After 1700 he +wrote no more plays, although he lived nearly thirty years longer. On +his death, in 1729, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. + +Congreve attempts to picture the manners of contemporary society, and +he does not penetrate far below the surface of life. He is not read +for the depth of his thought, but for his humor and for the clear, +pointed style of his prose comedies. George Meredith says:-- + + "Where Congreve excels all his English rivals is in his literary + force, and a succinctness of style peculiar to him... He is at once + precise and voluble. If you have ever thought upon style, you will + acknowledge it to be a signal accomplishment. In this he is a + classic, and he is worthy of treading a measure with Moliere." + +Congreve's best comedies are _Love for Love_ and _The Way of the +World_. The majority of critics agree with Meredith in calling Miss +Millimant, who is the heroine of the latter play, "an admirable, +almost a lovable heroine." Meredith illustrates one phase of his own +idea of the comic spirit, by the language which Miss Millimant uses in +accepting her lover: "If I continue to endure you a little longer, I +may by degrees dwindle into a wife." Congreve's peculiar genius is +well shown in his ability to make her manner of speech reveal her +characteristics. His plays are unfortunately disfigured with the +coarseness of the age. + +The blemishes in the drama did not exist, however, without an emphatic +contemporary protest. Jeremy Collier (1650-1729), a non-conforming +bishop, in his _Short View of the Immorality of the Stage_ (1698), +complains that the unworthy hero of one of Congreve's plays "is +crowned for the man of merit, has his wishes thrown into his lap, and +makes the happy exit." + +Such attacks had their weight and prepared the way far the more moral +sentimental comedies of Richard Steele and succeeding playwrights. The +sacrifice of plot to moral purpose and the deliberate introduction of +scenes designed to force an appeal to sentiment caused the later drama +to deteriorate in a different way. We shall see that the natural +hearty humor of Goldsmith's comedy, _She Stoops to Conquer_(1773), +afforded a welcome relief from such plays. + +JOHN DRYDEN, 1631-1700 + +[Illustration: JOHN DRYDEN. _From the painting by Sir Godfrey +Knellwe, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF DRYDEN. _From a print._] + +Life.--John Dryden was born in 1631 in the small village of +Aldwinkle, in the northern part of Northamptonshire. Few interesting +facts concerning his life have come down to us. His father was a +baronet; his mother, the daughter of a rector. Young Dryden graduated +from Cambridge in 1654. + +During his entire life, Dryden was a professional literary man; and +with his pen he made the principal part of his living. This necessity +often forced him against his own better judgment to cater to the +perverted taste of the Restoration. When he found that plays had more +market value than any other kind of literature, he agreed to furnish +three plays a year for the king's actors, but was unable to produce +that number. For fifteen years in the prime of his life, Dryden did +little but write plays, the majority of which are seldom read to-day. +His only important poem during his dramatic period was _Annus +Mirabilis_ (_The Wonderful Year_, 1666), memorable for the great +London fire and for naval victories over the Dutch. + +By writing the greatest political satire in the language at the age of +fifty, he showed the world where his genius lay. During the last +twenty years of his life, he produced but few plays. His greatest +satires, didactic poems, and lyrics belong to this period. In his last +years he wrote a spirited translation of Vergil, and retold in his own +inimitable way various stories from Chaucer and Boccaccio and _Ovid_. +These stories were published in a volume entitled _Fables, Ancient and +Modern_. Dryden died in 1700 and was buried in Westminster Abbey +beside Chaucer. + +It is difficult to speak positively of Dryden's character. He wrote a +poem in honor of the memory of Cromwell, and a little later another +poem, _Astraea Redux_, welcoming Charles II. He argued in stirring +verse in favor of the Episcopal religion when that was the faith of +the court; but after the accession of James II., who was a Catholic, +Dryden wrote another poem to prove the Catholic Church the only true +one. He had been appointed poet laureate in 1670, but the Revolution +of 1688, which drove James from the throne, caused Dryden to lose the +laureateship. He would neither take the oath of fealty to the new +government nor change his religion. In spite of adversity and the loss +of an income almost sufficient to support him, he remained a Catholic +for the rest of his life and reared his sons in that faith. + +He seems to have been of a forgiving disposition and ready to +acknowledge his own faults. He admitted that his plays were disfigured +with coarseness. He was very kind to young writers and willing to help +them with their work. In his chair at Will's Coffee House, discoursing +to the wits of the Restoration about matters of literary art, he was +one of the most prominent figures of the age. + +His Prose.--Although to the majority of people Dryden is known only +as a poet, his influence on prose has been so far-reaching as to +entitle him to be called one of the founders of modern prose style. + +The shortening of sentences has been a striking feature in the +development of modern English prose. Edmund Spenser averages about +fifty words to each of his prose sentences; Richard Hooker, about +forty-one. One of the most striking sentences in Milton's +_Areopagitica_ contains ninety-five words, although he crowds over +three hundred words into some of his long sentences. The sentences in +some of Dryden's pages average only twenty-five words in length. +Turning to Macaulay, one of the most finished masters of modern prose, +we find that his sentences average twenty-two words. Dryden helped +also to free English prose from the inversions, involutions, and +parenthetical intricacies of earlier times. His influence on both +prose and poetry were much the same. In verse he adopted the short, +easily understood unit of the classical couplet; and in prose, the +short, direct sentence. + +Dryden's prose deals chiefly with literary criticism. Most of his +prose is to be found in the prefaces to his plays and poems. His most +important separate prose composition is his _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, +a work which should be read by all who wish to know some of the +foundation principles of criticism. + +Satiric Poetry.--No English writer has surpassed Dryden in satiric +verse. His greatest satire is _Absalom and Achitophel_, in which, +under the guise of Old Testament characters, he satirizes the leading +spirits of the Protestant opposition to the succession of James, the +brother of Charles II., to the English throne. Dryden thus satirizes +Achitophel, the Earl of Shaftesbury:-- + + "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." + +Zimri, the Duke of Buckingham, is immortalized thus:-- + + "Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, + Was everything by starts, and nothing long." + +_Mac Flecknoe_ is another satire of almost as great merit, directed +against a certain Whig poet by the name of Shadwell. He would have +been seldom mentioned in later times, had it not been for two of +Dryden's lines:-- + + "The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, + But Shadwell never deviates into sense." + +_All for Love_, one of Dryden's greatest plays, shows the delicate +keenness of his satire in characterizing the cold-blooded Augustus +Caesar, or Octavius, as he is there called. Antony has sent a +challenge to Octavius, who replies that he has more ways than one to +die. Antony rejoins:-- + + "He has more ways than one; + But he would choose them all before that one. + _Ventidius._ He first would choose an ague or a fever. + _Antony._ No; it must be an ague, not a fever; + He has not warmth enough to die by that." + +Dryden could make his satire as direct and blasting as a thunderbolt. +He thus describes his publisher:-- + + "With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair, + With two left legs, and Judas-colored hair, + And frowsy pores that taint the ambient air." + +Argumentative or Didactic Verse.--Dryden is a master in arguing in +poetry. He was not a whit hampered by the restrictions of verse. They +were rather an advantage to him, for in poetry he could make more +telling arguments in briefer compass than in prose. The best two +examples of his power of arguing in verse are _Religio Laici_, written +in 1682, to uphold the Episcopal religion, and _The Hind and the +Panther_, composed in 1687, to vindicate the Catholic church. Verse of +this order is called didactic, because it endeavors to teach or to +explain something. The age of the Restoration delighted in such +exercises of the intellect vastly more than in flights of fancy or +imagination. + +Lyrical Verse.--While most of Dryden's best poetry is either satiric +or didactic, he wrote three fine lyrical poems: _Alexander's Feast, A +Song for St. Cecilia's Day_, and _An Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew_. All +are distinguished by remarkable beauty and energy of expression. +_Alexander's Feast_ is the most widely read of Dryden's poems. The +opening lines of the Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew seem almost Miltonic +in their conception, and they show great power in the field of lyrical +poetry. Mistress Killigrew was a young lady of rare accomplishments in +both poetry and painting, who died at the age of twenty-five. Dryden +thus begins her memorial ode:-- + + "Thou youngest virgin daughter of the skies, + Made in the last promotion of the blest; + Whose palms, new plucked from Paradise, + In spreading branches more sublimely rise, + Rich with immortal green above the rest: + * * * * * + Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, + Since Heaven's eternal year is thine." + +Some of his plays have songs and speeches instinct with lyrical force. +The following famous lines on the worth of existence are taken from +his tragedy of _Aurengzebe:_-- + + "When I consider'd life, 'tis all a cheat, + Yet, fool'd with hope, men favor the deceit, + Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay: + To-morrow's falser than the former day, + Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest + With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. + Strange cozenage! none would live past years again; + Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain. + And, from the dregs of life, think to receive + What the first sprightly running could not give. + I'm tir'd with waiting for this chemic gold, + Which fools us young and beggars us when old." + +General Characteristics.--In point of time, Dryden is the first +great poet of the school of literary artists. His verse does not +tolerate the unpruned irregularities and exaggerations of many former +English poets. His command over language is remarkable. He uses words +almost as he chooses, but he does not invest them with the warm glow +of feeling. He is, however, something more than a great word artist. +Many of his ideas bear the stamp of marked originality. + +In the field of satiric and didactic poetry, he is a master. The +intellectual, not the emotional, side of man's nature appeals strongly +to him. He heeds not the song of the bird, the color of the rose, nor +the clouds of evening. + +Although more celebrated for his poetry than for his prose, he is the +earliest of the great modern prose stylists, and he displays high +critical ability. + +DANIEL DEFOE, 1659?-1731 + +[Illustration: DANIEL DEFOE. _From a print by Vandergucht_.] + +Varied Experiences.--Daniel Defoe was born in London, probably the +year before the Restoration. His father, a butcher in good +circumstances, sent the boy to a school in which English, instead of +Latin, was the medium of instruction. He was taught how to express +himself in the simple, forceful English for which he became famous. +His education was planned to make him a dissenting minister; but he +preferred a life of varied activity. He became a trader, a +manufacturer of tiles, a journalist, and a writer of fiction. By also +serving as a government agent and spy, he incurred the severe +criticism of contemporaries. It is doubtful if even Shakespeare had +more varied experiences or more vicissitudes in life. + +For writing what would to-day be considered a harmless piece of irony, +_The Shortest Way with Dissenters_, in which Defoe, who was himself a +dissenter, advocated banishment or hanging, he suffered the +mortification of exposure for three days in the pillory and of +imprisonment in the pestilent Newgate jail. His business of making +tiles was consequently ruined. These experiences, with which his +enemies taunted him, colored his entire life and made him realize that +the support of his wife and six children necessitated care in his +choice and treatment of subjects. + +His life was a succession of changing fortunes. He died in poverty in +1731 and was buried in Bunhill Fields, London. His grave was marked by +only a small headstone, but the English boys and girls who had read +_Robinson Crusoe_ in the Victorian age subscribed the money for a +monument with a suitable inscription. It is remarkable that Bunhill +Fields, which contains the graves of so many humble dissenters, should +be the final resting place of both Bunyan and Defoe, the authors of +the first two English prose works most often read to-day. + +A Journalist and a Prolific Writer.--Defoe has at last come to be +regarded as the first great English journalist. He had predecessors in +this field, for as early as 1622 the _Coranto_, or journal of +"current" foreign news, appeared. In 1641, on the eve of the civil +war, the _Diurnall_ of domestic news was issued. In 1643, when +Parliament appointed a licenser, who gave copyright protection to the +"catchword" or newspaper title, journalists became a "recognized +body." "Newsbooks" and especially "newsletters" grew in popularity. +Only a few years after the Restoration, there appeared _The London +Gazette_, which has been continued to the present time as the medium +through which the government publishes its official news. + +From 1704 to 1713 Defoe issued _The Review_, which appeared triweekly +for the greater part of the time, and gave the news current in England +and in much of Europe. _The Review_, an unusual achievement for the +age, shows Defoe to have been a journalist of great ability. This +paper had one department, called _The Scandal Club_, which furnished +suggestions for _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_. + +It has been computed that Defoe wrote for _The Review_ during the nine +years of its publication 5000 pages of essays, in addition to nearly +the same amount of other matter. He also issued many pamphlets, which +performed somewhat the same service as the modern newspaper with its +editorials. It is probable that he was the most prolific of all +English authors. Few have discussed as wide a range of matter. He +wrote more than two hundred and fifty separate works on subjects as +different as social conditions, the promotion of business, human +conduct, travels in England, and ghosts. + +Fiction.--Defoe was nearly sixty when he began to write fiction. In +1719 he published the first part of _Robinson Crusoe_, the story of +the adventures of a sailor wrecked on a solitary island. The Frenchman +Daudet said of this work: "It is as nearly immortal as any book can +ever be." The nineteenth century saw more than one hundred editions of +it published in London alone. It has been repeatedly issued in almost +every language of Europe. The secret of the success of _Robinson +Crusoe_ has puzzled hundreds of writers who have tried to imitate it. + +The world-wide popularity of _Robinson Crusoe_ is chiefly due (1) to +the peculiar genius of the author; (2) to his journalistic training, +which enabled him to seize on the essential elements of interest and +to keep these in the foreground; (3) to the skill with which he +presents matter-of-fact details, sufficient to invest the story with +an atmosphere of perfect reality; (4) to his style, which is as simple +and direct as the speech of real life, and which is made vivid by +specific words describing concrete actions,--such as hewing a tree, +sharpening a stake, hanging up grapes to dry, tossing a biscuit to a +wild cat, taking a motherless kid in his arms; and (5) to the skill +with which he sets a problem requiring for its solution energy, +ingenuity, self-reliance, and the development of the moral power +necessary to meet and overcome difficulties. + +Young and old follow with intense interest every movement of the +shipwrecked mariner when he first swims to the stranded ship, +constructs a raft, and places on it "bread, rice, three Dutch cheeses, +five pieces of dried goat's flesh, a little remainder of European +corn, and the carpenter's chest." Readers do not accompany him +passively as he lands the raft and returns. They work with him; they +are not only made a part of all Crusoe's experience, but they react on +it imaginatively; they suggest changes; they hold their breath or try +to assist him when he is in danger. Defoe's genius in making the +reader a partner in Robinson Crusoe's adventures has not yet received +sufficient appreciation. The author could never have secured such a +triumph if he had not compelled readers to take an active part in the +story. + +It was for a long time thought that Defoe was ignorant, that he +accidentally happened to write _Robinson Crusoe_ because he had been +told of the recent experience of Alexander Selkirk on a solitary +island in the Pacific. It is now known that Defoe was well educated, +versed in several languages, and the most versatile writer of his +time. _Robinson Crusoe_ was no more of an accident than any other +creation of genius. + +Defoe's other principal works of fiction are: _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, +the story of a soldier's adventures in the seventeenth century; _The +Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton_, a +graphic account of adventures in a journey across Africa; _Moll +Flanders_, a story of a well-known criminal; and _A Journal of the +Plague Year_, a vivid, imaginative presentation, in the most realistic +way, of the horrors of the London plague in 1665. These works are +almost completely overshadowed by _Robinson Crusoe_; but they also +show Defoe's narrative power and his ability to make fiction seem an +absolute reality. In writing _Gulliver's Travels_, Swift received +valuable hints from Defoe. Stevenson's _Treasure Island_ is the most +successful of the almost numberless stories of adventure suggested by +_Robinson Crusoe_. + +JONATHAN SWIFT, 1667-1745 + +[Illustration: JONATHAN SWIFT. _From the painting by C. Jervas, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--Swift, one of the greatest prose writers of the eighteenth +century, was born of English parents in Dublin in 1667. It is +absolutely necessary to know something of his life in order to pass +proper judgment on his writings. A cursory examination of his life +will show that heredity and environment were responsible for many of +his peculiarities. Swift's father died a few months before the birth +of his son, and the boy saw but little of his mother. + +Swift's school and college life were passed at Kilkenny School and +Trinity College, Dublin. For his education he was indebted to an +uncle, who made the boy feel the bitterness of his dependence. In +after times he said that his uncle treated him like a dog. Swift's +early experience seems to have made him misanthropic and hardened to +consequences, for he neglected certain studies, and it was only by +special concession that he was allowed to take his A.B. degree in +1686. + +After leaving college, he spent almost ten years as the private +secretary of Sir William Temple, at Moor Park in Surrey, about forty +miles southwest of London. Temple had been asked to furnish some +employment for the young graduate because Lady Temple was related to +Swift's mother. Here Swift was probably treated as a dependent, and he +had to eat at the second table. Finally, this life became so +intolerable that he took holy orders and went to a little parish in +Ireland; but after a stay of eighteen months he returned to Moor Park, +where he remained until Temple's death in 1699. Swift then went to +another little country parish in Ireland. From there he visited London +on a mission in behalf of the Episcopal Church in Ireland. He +quarreled with the Whigs, became a Tory, and assisted that party by +writing many political pamphlets. The Tory ministry soon felt that it +could scarcely do without him. He dined with ministers of state, and +was one of the most important men in London; but he advanced the +interests of his friends much better than his own, for he got little +from the government except the hope of becoming bishop. In 1713 he was +made dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. In 1714, Queen Anne +died, the Tories went out of power, and Swift returned to Ireland, a +disappointed man. He passed the rest of his life there, with the +exception of a few visits to England. + +[Illustration: MOOR PARK. _From a drawing._] + +When English politicians endeavored to oppress Ireland with unjust +laws, Swift championed the Irish cause. A man who knew him well, says: +"I never saw the poor so carefully and conscientiously attended to as +those of his cathedral." He gave up a large part of his income every +year for the poor. In Dublin he was looked upon as a hero. When a +certain person tried to be revenged on Swift for a satire, a +deputation of Swift's neighbors proposed to thrash the man. Swift sent +them home, but they boycotted the man and lowered his income L1200 a +year. + +During the last years of his life, Swift was hopelessly insane. He +died in 1745, leaving his property for an asylum for lunatics and +incurables. + +[Illustration: SWIFT AND STELLA. _From the painting by Dicksee._] + +The mysteries in Swift's life may be partly accounted for by the fact +that during many years he suffered from an unknown brain disease. This +affection, the galling treatment received in his early years, and the +disappointments of his prime, largely account for his misanthropy, for +his coldness, and for the almost brutal treatment of the women who +loved him. + +Swift's attachment to the beautiful Esther Johnson, known in +literature as Stella, led him to write to her that famous series of +letters known as the _Journal to Stella_, in which he gives much of +his personal history during the three sunniest years of his life, from +1710 to 1713, when he was a lion in London. Thackeray says: "I know of +nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some +of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls his 'little +language' in his _Journal to Stella_." + +A Tale of a Tub and the Battle of the Books.--Swift's greatest +satire, the greatest prose satire in English, is known as _A Tale of a +Tub_. The purpose of the work is to uphold the Episcopalians and +satirize opposing religious denominations. For those not interested in +theological arguments, there is much entertaining philosophy, as the +following quotation will show:-- + + "If we take an examination of what is generally understood by + happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the + senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd + under this short definition,--that it is a perpetual possession of + being well deceived. And first, with relation to the mind or + understanding it is manifest what mighty advantages fiction has over + truth; and the reason is just at our elbow, because imagination can + build nobler scenes and produce more wonderful revolutions than + fortune or nature will be at expense to furnish." + +Swift's satiric definition of happiness as the art "of being well +deceived" is a characteristic instance of a combination of his humor +and pessimistic philosophy. + +In the same volume with _A Tale of a Tub_, there was published a prose +satire in almost epic form, _An Account of a Battle between the +Ancient and Modern Books in St. James Library_ (1704). Although this +satire apparently aims to demonstrate the superior merits of the great +classical writers, it is mainly an attack on pretentions to knowledge. +Our greatest surprise in this satire comes not only from discovering +the expression, "sweetness and light," made famous by Matthew Arnold +in the Victorian age, but also from finding that a satirist like Swift +assigned such high rank to these qualities. He says that the +"Ancients" thus expressed an essential difference between themselves +and the "Moderns":-- + + "The difference is that, instead of dirt and poison, we have rather + chosen to fill our lives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind + with the two noblest of things, which are Sweetness and Light." + +Gulliver's Travels.--The world is always ready to listen to any one +who has a good story to tell. Neither children nor philosophers have +yet wearied of reading the adventures of Captain Lemuel Gulliver in +Lilliput and Brobdingnag. _Gulliver's Travels_ is Swift's most famous +work. + +Gulliver makes four remarkable voyages to strange countries. He first +visits Lilliput, which is inhabited by a race of men about six inches +high. Everything is on a corresponding scale. Gulliver eats a whole +herd of cattle for breakfast and drinks several hogsheads of liquor. +He captures an entire fleet of warships. A rival race of pygmies +endeavors to secure his services so as to obtain the balance of power. +The quarrels between these little people seem ridiculous, and so petty +as to be almost beneath contempt. + +Gulliver next visits Brobdingnag, where the inhabitants are sixty feet +tall, and the affairs of ordinary human beings appear petty and +insignificant. The cats are as large as three oxen, and the dogs +attain the size of four elephants. Gulliver eats on a table thirty +feet high, and trembles lest he may fall and break his neck. The baby +seizes Gulliver and tries to swallow his head. Afterward the hero +fights a desperate battle with two rats. A monkey catches him and +carries him to the almost infinite height of the house top. Certainly, +the voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag merit Leslie Stephen's +criticism of being "almost the most delightful children's book ever +written." + +The third voyage, which takes him to Laputa, satirizes the +philosophers. We are taken through the academy at Lagado and are shown +a typical philosopher:-- + + "He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams + out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials, hermetically + sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers. He + told me he did not doubt that in eight years more he should be able + to supply the governor's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable + rate." + +In this voyage the Struldbrugs are described. They are a race of men +who, after the loss of every faculty and of every tie that binds them +to earth, are doomed to continue living. Dante never painted a +stronger or a ghastlier picture. + +On his fourth voyage, he visits the country of the Houyhnhnms and +describes the Yahoos, who are the embodiment of all the detestable +qualities of human beings. The last two voyages are not pleasant +reading, and one might wish that the author of two such inimitable +tales as the adventures in Lilliput and Brobdingnag had stopped with +these. + +Children read _Gulliver's Travels_ for the story, but there is much +more than a story in the work. In its pages the historian finds +allusions that throw much light on the history of the age. Among the +Lilliputians, for example, there is one party, known as the +Bigendians, which insists that all eggs shall be broken open at the +big end, while another party, called the Littleendians, contends that +eggs shall be opened only at the little end. These differences typify +the quarrels of the age concerning religion and politics. The +_Travels_ also contains much human philosophy. The lover of satire is +constantly delighted with the keenness of the thrusts. + +General Characteristics.--Swift is one of the greatest of English +prose humorists. He is noted also for wit of that satiric kind which +enjoys the discomfiture of the victim. A typical instance is shown in +the way in which, under the assumed name of Isaac Bickerstaff, he +dealt with an astrologer and maker of prophetic almanacs, whose name +was Partridge. Bickerstaff claimed to be an infallible astrologer, and +predicted that Partridge would die March 29, 1708, at 11 P.M. When +that day had passed, Bickerstaff issued a pamphlet giving a +circumstantial account of Partridge's death. Partridge, finding that +his customers began to decrease, protested that he was alive. +Bickerstaff promptly replied that Partridge was dead by his own +infallible rules of astrology, and that the man now claiming to be +Partridge was a vile impostor. + +Swift's wit frequently left its imprint on the thought of the time. +The results of this special prank with the astrologer were: first, to +cause the wits of the town to join in the hue and cry that Partridge +was dead; second, to increase the contempt for astrologers; and, +third, in the words of Scott: "The most remarkable consequence of +Swift's frolic was the establishment of the _Tatler_." Richard Steele, +its founder, adopted the popular name of Isaac Bickerstaff. + +Taine says of Swift: "He is the inventor of irony, as Shakespeare of +poetry." The most powerful instance of Swift's irony is shown in his +attempt to better the condition of the Irish, whose poverty forced +them to let their children grow up ignorant and destitute, or often +even die of starvation. His _Modest Proposal_ for relieving such +distress is to have the children at the age of one year served as a +new dish on the tables of the great. So apt is irony to be +misunderstood and to fail of its mark, that for a time Swift was +considered merely brutal; but soon he convinced the Irish that he was +their friend, willing to contribute both time and money to aid them. +His ironical remarks on _The Abolishing of Christianity_ were also +misunderstood. + +His poems, such as _A Description of a City Shower_, and _Cadenus and +Vanessa_, show the same general characteristics as his prose, but are +inferior to it. + +We shall search Swift's work in vain for examples of pathos or +sublimity. We shall find his pages caustic with wit, satire, and +irony, and often disfigured with coarseness. One of the great +pessimists of all time, he is yet tremendously in earnest in whatever +he says, from his _Drapier's Letters_, written to protect Ireland from +the schemes of English politicians, to his _Gulliver's Travels_, where +he describes the court of Lilliput. This earnestness and +circumstantial minuteness throw an air of reality around his most +grotesque creations. He pretended to despise Defoe; yet the influence +of that great writer, who made fiction seem as real as fact, is +plainly apparent in Gulliver's remarkable adventures. + +Although sublimity and pathos are outside of his range, his style is +remarkably well adapted to his special subject matter. While reading +his works, one scarcely ever thinks of his style, unless the attention +is specially directed to it. Only a great artist can thus conceal his +art. A style so natural as this has especial merits which will repay +study. Three of its chief characteristics are simplicity, flexibility, +and energetic directness. + +JOSEPH ADDISON, 1672-1719 + +[Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON. _From the painting by Sir Godfrey +Kneller, National Portrait Gallery._] + +[Illustration: THE BIRTHPLACE OF ADDISON.] + +Life.--Joseph Addison was born in the paternal rectory at Milston, a +small village in the eastern part of Wiltshire. He was educated at +Oxford. He intended to become a clergyman, but, having attracted +attention by his graceful Latin poetry, was dissuaded by influential +court friends from entering the service of the church. They persuaded +him to fit himself for the diplomatic service, and secured for him a +yearly pension of L300. He then went to France, studied the language +of that country, and traveled extensively, so as to gain a knowledge +of foreign courts. The death of King William in 1702 stopped his +pension, however, and Addison was forced to return to England to seek +employment as a tutor. + +The great battle of Blenheim was won by Marlborough in 1704. As +Macaulay says, the ministry was mortified to see such a victory +celebrated by so much bad poetry, and he instances these lines from +one of the poems: + + "Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, + And each man mounted on his capering beast; + Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals." + +The Chancellor of the Exchequer went to Addison's humble lodgings and +asked him to write a poem in honor of the battle. Addison took the +town by storm with a simile in which the great general was likened to +the calm angel of the whirlwind. When people reflected how calmly +Marlborough had directed the whirlwind of war, they thought that no +comparison could be more felicitous. From that time Addison's fortunes +rose. Since his day no man relying on literary talents alone has risen +so high in state affairs. He was made assistant Secretary of State, +Secretary for Ireland, and finally chief Secretary of State. + +Though Addison was a prominent figure in the political world, it is +his literary life that most concerns us. In his prime he wrote for +_The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_, famous newspapers of Queen Anne's +day, many inimitable essays on contemporary life and manners. Most +newspaper work is soon forgotten, but these essays are read by the +most cultivated people of to-day. In his own age his most meritorious +production was thought to be the dull tragedy of _Cato_, a drama +observing the classical unities. Some of his _Hymns_ are much finer. +Lines like these, written of the stars, linger in our memories:-- + + "Forever singing as they shine, + The hand that made us is divine." + +Addison had a singularly pleasing personality. Though he was a Whig, +the Tories admired and applauded him. He was a good illustration of +the truth that if one smiles in the mirror of the world, it will +answer him with a smile. Swift said he believed the English would have +made Addison king, if they had been requested to place him on the +throne. Pope's jealous nature prompted him to quarrel with Addison, +but the quarrel was chiefly on one side. Men like Macaulay and +Thackeray have exerted their powers to do justice to the kindliness +and integrity of Addison. + +Addison died at the age of forty-seven, and was buried in Westminster +Abbey. + +[Illustration: RICHARD STEELE.] + +Collaborates with Steele.--Under the pen name of Isaac Bickerstaff, +Richard Steele (1672-1729), a former schoolmate and friend of Addison, +started in 1709 _The Tatler_, a periodical published three times a +week. This discussed matters of interest in society and politics, and +occasionally published an essay on morals and manners. Steele was a +good-natured, careless individual, with a varied experience as +soldier, playwright, moralist, keeper of the official gazette, and +pensioner. He says that he always "preferred the state of his mind to +that of his fortune"; but his mental state was often fickle, and too +much dependent on bodily luxuries, though he was patriotic enough to +sacrifice his personal fortune for what he considered his country's +interest. + +We find Addison a frequent contributor to _The Tatler_ after its +seventeenth number. Steele says: "I fared like a distressed prince who +calls in a powerful neighbor to his aid; I was undone by my auxiliary; +when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence +on him." + +_The Tatler_ was discontinued in 1711, and Steele projected the more +famous _Spectator_ two months later. Addison wrote the first number, +but the second issue, which came from Steele's pen, contains sketches +of those characters which have become famous in the _Sir Roger de +Coverley Papers_. Steele's first outline of Sir Roger is a creation of +sweetness and light:-- + + "His tenants grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young + women profess to love him, and the young men are glad of his + company. When he comes into a house he calls the servants by their + names, and talks all the way upstairs to a visit." + +The influence of such a character must have been especially wholesome +on the readers of the eighteenth century. Without the suggestive +originality of Steele, we might never have had those essays of +Addison, which we read most to-day; but while Steele should have full +credit for the first bold sketches, the finished portraits in the De +Coverley gallery are due to Addison. Steele says of his associate, "I +claim to myself the merit of having extorted excellent productions +from a person of the greatest abilities, who would not have let them +appear by any other means." + +It is well, however, to remember that Steele did much more work than +is popularly supposed. Beginning with March 1, 1711, there were 555 +issues of _The Spectator_ published on succeeding week days. To these +were added 80 more numbers at irregular intervals. Of these 635 +numbers, Steele wrote 236 and Addison 274. + +In many respects each seemed to be the complement of the other. +Steele's writings have not the polish or delicate humor of Addison's, +but they have more strength and pathos. Addison had the greater +genius, and he was also more willing to spend time in polishing his +prose and making it artistic. From the far greater interest now shown +in Addison, the student should be impressed by the necessity of +artistic finish as well as of excellence in subject matter. + +Addison's Essays--The greatest of Addison's _Essays_ appeared in +_The Spectator_ and charmed many readers in Queen Anne's age. The +subject matter of these _Essays_ is extremely varied. On one day there +is a pleasant paper on witches; on another, a chat about the new +woman; on another, a discourse on clubs. Addison is properly a moral +satirist, and his pen did much more than the pulpit to civilize the +age and make virtue the fashion. In _The Spectator_, he says: "If I +meet with anything in city, court, or country, that shocks modesty or +good manners, I shall use my utmost endeavors to make an example of +it." He accomplished his purpose, not by heated denunciations of vice, +but by holding it up to kindly ridicule. He remembered the fable of +the different methods employed by the north wind and the sun to make a +man lay aside an ugly cloak. + +Addison stated also that one of his objects was to bring "philosophy +out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs +and assemblies, at tea tables and coffeehouses." His papers on Milton +did much to diminish that great poet's unpopularity in an age that +loved form rather than matter, art rather than natural strength. + +The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers.--The most famous of Addison's +productions are his papers that appeared in _The Spectator_, +describing a typical country gentleman, Sir Roger de Coverley, and his +friends and servants. Taine says that Addison here invented the novel +without suspecting it. This is an overstatement; but these papers +certainly have the interest of a novel from the moment Sir Roger +appears until his death, and the delineation of character is far in +advance of that shown in the majority of modern novels. We find +ourselves rereading the _De Coverley Papers_ more than once, a +statement that can be made of but few novels. + +[Illustration: SIR ROGER IN CHURCH. _From a drawing by B. +Westmacott_.] + +General Characteristics.--Addison ranks among the greatest of +English essayists. Some of his essays, like the series on _Paradise +Lost_, deal with literary criticism; but most people to-day read +little from his pen except the _Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_, which +give interesting pictures of eighteenth-century life and manners. + +Before we have read many of Addison's essays, we shall discover that +he is a humorist of high rank. His humor is of the kind that makes one +smile, rather than laugh aloud. Our countenance relaxes when we +discover that his rules for an eighteenth-century club prescribe a +fine for absence except in case of sickness or imprisonment. We are +quietly amused at such touches as this in the delineation of Sir +Roger:-- + + "As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them + in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in it besides + himself; for, if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at + sermon, upon recovering out of it, he stands up and looks about him, + and, if he sees anybody else nodding, either wakes them himself, or + sends his servants to them." + +Addison is remarkable among a satiric group of writers because he +intended his humor to be "remedial,"--not merely to inflict wounds, +but to exert a moral influence, to induce human beings to forsake the +wrong and to become more kindly. We may smile at Sir Roger; but we +have more respect for his kindliness, after reading in _Spectator_ No. +383, how he selected his boatmen to row him on the Thames:-- + + "We were no sooner come to the Temple Stairs, but we were surrounded + with a crowd of watermen, offering us their respective services. + Sir Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one + with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat + ready. As we were walking towards it, 'You must know,' says Sir + Roger, 'I never make use of anybody to row me, that has not either + lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his + oar than not employ an honest man that had been wounded in the + Queen's service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I + would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg.'" + +Such humor, which finds its chief point in a desire to make the world +kindlier, must have appealed to the eighteenth century, or _The +Spectator_ could not have reached a circulation of ten thousand copies +a day. Addison would not now have his legion of warm admirers if his +humor had been personal, like Pope's, or misanthropical, like Swift's. + +Of his style, Dr. Samuel 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 study of Addison." +Benjamin Franklin, as we know from his _Autobiography_, followed this +advice with admirable results. Addison's style seems as natural and +easy as the manners of a well-bred person. When we have given some +attention to dissecting his style, we may indeed discover that a prose +model for to-day should have more variety and energy and occasionally +more precision; but such a conclusion does not mean that any writer of +this century would like the task of surpassing the _De Coverley +Papers_. + +ALEXANDER POPE, 1688-1744 + +[Illustration: ALEXANDER POPE. _From the portrait by William +Hoare_.] + +Life.--Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688. His father, a +devout Catholic, was a linen merchant, who gave his son little formal +schooling, but allowed him to pick up his education by reading such +authors as pleased his fancy. + +He was a very precocious child. At the age of twelve he was writing an +_Ode on Solitude_. He chose his vocation early, for writing poetry was +the business of his life. + +In his childhood, his parents removed from London to Binfield, a +village in Berkshire, nine miles from Windsor. When he was nearly +thirty years old, his translation of the _Iliad_ enabled him to buy a +house and grounds at Twickenham on the Thames, about twelve miles +above London. He lived here for the rest of his life, indulging his +taste for landscape gardening and entertaining the greatest men of the +age. + +After early middle life, his writings made him pecuniarily +independent, but he suffered much from ill health. In his _Lives of +the English Poets_, Dr. Samuel Johnson says of Pope:-- + + "By natural deformity, or accidental distortion, his vital functions + were so much disordered that his life was a long disease... When he + rose, he was invested in a bodice made of stiff canvas, being scarce + able to hold himself erect till they were laced, and he then put on + a flannel waistcoat. One side was contracted. His legs were so + slender that he enlarged their bulk with three pair of stockings... + + "In all his intercourse with mankind, he had great delight in + artifice, and endeavored to attain all his purposes by indirect and + unsuspected methods. _He hardly drank tea without a stratagem._" + +The publication of his correspondence tangled him in a mesh of +deceptions, because his desire to appear in a favorable light led him +to change letters that he had sent to friends. His double-dealing, +intense jealousy, and irritability, due to his physical condition, +caused him to become involved in many quarrels, which gave him the +opportunity to indulge to the utmost his own satiric tendency. In one +of his late satires, _The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_, he charged +Addison with the inclination to-- + + "Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, + And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." + +On the basis of what he wrote, we may divide his life into three +periods. During his first thirty years, he produced various kinds of +verse, like the _Essay on Criticism_ and _The Rape of the Lock_. The +middle period of his life was marked by his translation of Homer's +_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. In his third period, he wrote moral and +didactic poems, like the _Essay on Man_, and satires, like the +_Dunciad_. + +[Illustration: POPE'S VILLA AT TWICKENHAM. _From an old print._] + +Some Poems of the First Period: Essay on Criticism and The Rape of +the Lock.--Pope's first published poem, _The Pastorals_, which +appeared in 1709, was followed in 1711 by _An Essay on Criticism_,--an +exquisite setting of a number of gems of criticism which had for a +long time been current. Pope's intention in writing this poem may be +seen from what he himself says: "It seems not so much the perfection +of sense to say things that have never been said before, as to express +those best that have been said oftenest." + +From this point of view, the poem is remarkable. No other writer, +except Shakespeare, has in an equal number of lines said so many +things which have passed into current quotation. Rare perfection in +the form of statement accounts for this. The poem abounds in such +lines as these:-- + + "For fools rush in where angels fear to tread." + + "To err is human, to forgive divine." + + "All seems infected that th' infected spy, + As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye." + + "In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold, + Alike fantastic if too new or old: + Be not the first by whom the new are tried, + Nor yet the last to lay the old aside." + +_The Rape of the Lock_, which is Pope's masterpiece, is almost a +romantic poem, even though it is written in classical couplets. It was +a favorite with Oliver Goldsmith, and James Russell Lowell rightly say +says: "The whole poem more truly deserves the name of a creation than +anything Pope ever wrote." The poem is a mock epic, and it has the +supernatural machinery which was supposed to be absolutely necessary +for an epic. In place of the gods and goddesses of the great epics, +however, the fairy-like sylphs help to guide the action of this poem. + +The poem, which is founded on an actual incident, describes a young +lord's theft of a lock of hair from the head of a court beauty. Pope +composed _The Rape of the Lock_ to soothe her indignation and to +effect a reconciliation. The whole of this poem should be read by the +student, as it is a vivid satiric picture of fashionable life in Queen +Anne's reign. + +[Illustration: RAPE OF THE LOCK. _From a drawing by B. Westmacott_.] + +Translation of Homer.--Pope's chief work during the middle period of +his life was his translation of the _Iliad_ and of the _Odyssey_ of +Homer. From a financial point of view, these translations were the +most successful of his labors. They brought him in nearly L9000, and +made him independent of bookseller or of nobleman. + +The remarkable success of these works is strange when we remember that +Pope's knowledge of Greek was very imperfect, and that he was obliged +to consult translations before attempting any passage. The Greek +scholar Bentley, a contemporary of Pope, delivered a just verdict on +the translation: "A pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it +Homer." The historian Gibbon said that the poem had every merit except +faithfulness to the original. + +Homer is simple and direct. He abounds in concrete terms. Pope +dislikes a simple term and loves a circumlocution and an abstraction. +We have the concrete "herd of swine" translated into "a bristly care," +"skins," into "furry spoils." The concrete was considered common and +undignified. Homer says in simple language: "His father wept with +him," but Pope translates this: "The father poured a social flood." + +Pope used to translate thirty or forty verses of the _Iliad_ before +rising, and then to spend a considerable time in polishing them. But +half of the translation of the _Odyssey_ is his own work. He employed +assistants to finish the other half; but it is by no means easy to +distinguish his work from theirs. + +[Illustration: ALEXANDER POPE. _From contemporary portrait_.] + +Some Poems of his Third Period: "Essay on Man," and "Satires."--The +_Essay on Man_ is a philosophical poem with the avowed object of +vindicating the ways of God to man. The entire poem is an +amplification of the idea contained in these 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." + +The chief merit of the poem consists in throwing into polished form +many of the views current at the time, so that they may be easily +understood. Before we read very far we come across such old +acquaintances as-- + + "The proper study of mankind is man." + + "An honest man's the noblest work of God." + + "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." + +The _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_ and _The Dunciad_ are Pope's greatest +satires. In _The Dunciad_, an epic of the dunces, he holds up to +ridicule every person and writer who had offended him. These were in +many cases scribblers who had no business with a pen; but in a few +instances they were the best scholars of that day. A great deal of the +poem is now very tiresome reading. Much of it is brutal. Pope was a +powerful agent, as Thackeray says, in rousing that obloquy which has +ever since pursued a struggling author. _The Dunciad_ could be more +confidently consulted about contemporary literary history, if Pope had +avoided such unnecessary misstatements as:-- + + "Earless on high, stood unabash'd De Foe." + +This line is responsible for the current unwarranted belief that the +author of _Robinson Crusoe_ lost his ears in the pillory. + +General Characteristics.---Pope has not strong imagination, a keen +feeling for nature, or wide sympathy with man. Leslie Stephen says: +"Pope never crosses the undefinable, but yet ineffaceable line, which +separates true poetry from rhetoric." The debate in regard to whether +Pope's verse is ever genuine poetry may not yet be settled to the +satisfaction of all; but it is well to recognize the undoubted fact +that his couplets still appeal to many readers who love clearness and +precision and who are not inclined to wrestle with the hidden meaning +of greater poetry. One of his poems, _The Rape of the Lock_, has +become almost a universal favorite because of its humor, good-natured +satire, and entertaining pictures of society in Queen Anne's time. + +He is the poet who best expresses the classical spirit of the +eighteenth century. He excels in satiric and didactic verse. He +expresses his ideas in perfect form, and embodies them in classical +couplets, sometimes styled "rocking-horse meter"; but he shows no +power of fathoming the emotional depths of the soul. + +In the history of literature, he holds an important place, because, +more than any other writer, he calls attention to the importance of +correctness of form and of careful expression. He is the prince of +artificial poets. Though he erred in exalting form above matter, he +taught his age the needed lesson of careful workmanship. + +SUMMARY + +The Restoration and the first part of the eighteenth century display a +low moral standard in both church and state. This standard had its +effect on literature. The drama shows marked decline. We find no such +sublime outbursts of song as characterize the Elizabethan and Puritan +ages. The writers chose satiric or didactic subjects, and avoided +pathos, deep feeling, and sublimity. French influence was paramount. + +The classical school, which loved polished regularity, set the fashion +in literature. An old idea, dressed in exquisite form, was as welcome +as a new one. Anything strange, irregular, romantic, full of feeling, +highly imaginative, or improbable to the intellect, was unpopular. +Even in _Gulliver's Travels_, Swift endeavored to be as realistic as +if he were demonstrating a geometrical proposition. + +Dryden and Pope are the two chief poets of the classical school. Both +use the riming couplet and are distinguished for their satiric and +didactic verse. Their poetry shows more intellectual brilliancy than +imaginative power. They display little sympathy with man and small +love for nature. + +The age is far more remarkable for its prose than for its poetry. +French influence helped to develop a concise, flexible, energetic +prose style. The deterioration in poetry was partly compensated for by +the rapid advances in prose, which needed the influences working +toward artistic finish. Because of its cleverness, avoidance of long +sentences, and of classical inversions, Dryden's prose is essentially +modern. Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ is the world's most popular story of +adventure, told in simple and direct, but seemingly artless, prose. Of +all the prose writers since Swift's time, few have equaled him and +still fewer surpassed him in simplicity, flexibility, directness, and +lack of affectation. The essays of Steele and Addison constitute a +landmark. No preceding English prose shows so much grace of style, +delicate humor, and power of awakening and retaining interest as do +the _Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_. + +The influence of this age was sufficient to raise permanently the +standard level of artistic literary expression. The unpruned, +shapeless, and extravagant forms of earlier times will no longer be +tolerated. + +SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +An account of the history of this period may be found in either +Gardiner,[3] Green, Walker, or Cheney. Vols. VIII. and IX. of the +_Political History of England_ give the history in greater detail. For +the social side, consult Traill, Vols. IV. and V., and Cheney's +_Industrial and Social History of England._ Lecky's _History of +England in the Eighteenth Century_ is an excellent work. + +LITERARY + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature,_ Vols. VIII., IX., X. + +Courthope's _A History of English Poetry_, Vols. III., IV., and V. + +Stephen's _English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_. + +Taine's _History of English Literature_, Book III., Chaps. I., II., +III. + +Gosse's _History of Eighteenth Century Literature_ begins with 1660. + +Garnett's _The Age of Dryden_. + +Phillips's _Popular Manual of English Literature_, Vol. I. + +Minto's _Manual of English Prose Literature_. + +Saintsbury's _Life of Dryden_. (E.M.L.) + +Macaulay's _Essay on Dryden_. + +Lowell's _Essay on Dryden_ in _Among My Books_. + +Dryden's _Essays on the Drama_, edited by Strunk. + +Fowler's _Life of Locke_. (E.M.L.) + +Stephen's _History of Thought in the Eighteenth Century_. + +Dennis's _The Age of Pope_. + +Thackeray's _English Humorists_ (Swift, Addison, Steele, Pope). + +Stephen's _Life of Swift_. (E.M.L.) + +Craik's _Life of Swift_. + +Courthope's _Life of Addison_. (E.M.L.) + +Macaulay's _Essay on Addison_. + +Stephen's _Life of Pope_. (E.M.L.) + +De Quincey's _Essay on Pope_, and _On the Poetry of Pope_. + +Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_ (Dryden, Pope, Addison). + +Lowell's _My Study Windows_ (Pope). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Dryden.--From his lyrical verse, read _Alexander's Feast_ or _A Song +for St. Cecilia's Day_. The opening lines of _Religio Laici_ or of +_The Hind and the Panther_ will serve as a specimen of his +argumentative or didactic verse and _Absalom and Achitophel_ for his +satire. (Cassell's _National Library_, 15 cents.) + +Selections are given in Ward,[4] II., 454-483; Bronson, III., 20-58; +Manly, I., 203-209; _Oxford Treasury_, III., 99-110; _Century_, +266-285. + +For his critical prose, read _An Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ (Strunk's +edition of _Dryden's Essays on the Drama_). For selections see Craik, +III., 148-154; Manly, II., 146-163; _Century_, 276-285. + +What is the chief subject matter of Dryden's verse? Point out typical +qualities in his argumentative and satiric verse. Give definite +instances of his power in argument and satire. + +Why is his prose called modern? Point out some of its qualities. + +Defoe.--Read or reread _Robinson Crusoe_ and point out where he +specially shows the skill of the journalist in the presentation of his +facts. Can you select passages that show the justice of the criticism? +How would the interest in the story have been affected, had Defoe, +like the author of _Swiss Family Robinson_, caused the shipwreck to +occur on an island where tropical fruits would have rendered +unnecessary Crusoe's labor to secure food? + +Swift.--Caik's _English Prose Selections_, Vol. III., pp. 391-424, +contains representative selections from Swift's prose. The best of +these are _The Philosophy of Clothes_, from _A Tale of a Tub_ (Craik, +III., 398); _A Digression concerning Critics_, from the same (Craik, +III., 400); _The Emperor of Lilliput_ (Craik, III., 417) and _The King +of Brobdingnag_ (Craik, III., 419), from _Gulliver's Travels_. + +Selections may be found also in Manly, II., 184-198; _Oxford +Treasury_, III., 125-129; _Century_, 299-323. + +Is Swift's a good prose style? Does he use ornament? Can you find a +passage where he strives after effect? In what respects do the +subjects which he chooses and his manner of treating them show the +spirit of the age? Why is _Gulliver's Travels_ so popular? What are +the most important lessons which a young writer may learn from Swift? +In what is he specially lacking? + +Addison and Steele.--From the _Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_ the +student should not fail to read _Spectator No. 112, A Country Sunday_. +He may then read _Spectator No. 2_, by Steele, which sketches the De +Coverley characters, and compare the style and characteristics of the +two authors. The student who has the time at this point should read +all the _De Coverley Papers_ (_Eclectic English Classics_, American +Book Company). + +Good selections from both Addison and Steele may be found in Craik, +III., 469-535; Manly, II., 198-216; _Century_, 324-349. + +In what did Addison and Steele excel? What qualities draw so many +readers to the _De Coverley Papers_? Why may they be called a prelude +to the modern novel? + +Select passages which will serve to bring into sharp contrast the +style and humor of Swift and of Addison. + +Pope.--Read _The Rape of the Lock_ (printed with the _Essay on Man_ +in _Eclectic English Classics_, American Book Company, 20 cents). +Selections from this are given in Ward, III., 73-82. The _Essay on +Man_, Book I. (Ward, III., 85-91), will serve as a specimen of his +didactic verse. The _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_ (Ward, III., 103-105) +will illustrate his satire, and the lines from the _Iliad_ in Ward, +III., 82, will show the characteristics of his translation. + +_The Rape of the Lock_ and full selections are given in Bronson, III., +89-144; _Century_, 350-368; Manly, I., 228-253. + +How does Pope show the spirit of the classical school? What are his +special merits and defects? Does an examination of his poetry convince +you that Leslie Stephen's criticism is right? Select lines from six +great poets of different periods. Place beside these selections some +of Pope's best lines, and see if you have a clearer idea of the +difference between rhetoric and true poetry. + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VI: + +[Footnote 1: _Essay on Criticism_, lines 297, 298.] + +[Footnote 2: For a list of the chief dramatists of the Restoration and +their best work, see p. 626.] + +[Footnote 3: For full titles, see p. 50.] + +[Footnote 4: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER VII: THE SECOND FORTY YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, +1740-1780 + +The Colonial Expansion of England.--The most important movements in +English history during the second forty years of the eighteenth +century are connected with colonial expansion. In 1739 friction +between England and Spain over colonial trade forced Robert Walpole, +the prime minister, into a war which was not successfully prosecuted, +and which compelled him to resign in 1742. The humorous statement that +he "abdicated," contains a large element of truth, for he had been a +much more important ruler than the king. The contest with Spain was +merged in the unprofitable war of the Austrian Succession (1740-1778), +in which England participated. + +The successors of Walpole were weak and inefficient; but in 1757 +William Pitt, the Elder (1708-1778), although merely secretary of +state, obtained the ascendancy in the government. Walpole had tried in +vain to bribe Pitt, who was in politics the counterpart of Wesley in +religious life. Pitt appealed to the patriotism and to the sense of +honor of his countrymen, and his appeal was heard. His enthusiasm and +integrity, coupled with good judgment of men, enabled him to lead +England to become the foremost power of the world. + +France had managed her colonial affairs in America and in India so +well that it seemed as if she might in both places displace England. +Pitt, however, selected good leaders and planned a comprehensive +method of warfare against France, both in Europe and in the colonies. +Between 1750 and 1760 Clive was making Great Britain mistress of the +vast empire of India. The French and Indian War (1754-1760) in America +resulted in favor of England. In 1759 Wolfe shattered the power of +France in Canada, which has since remained an English colony. England +was expanding to the eastward and the westward and taking her +literature with her. As Wolfe advanced on Quebec, he was reading +Gray's _Elegy_. + +At the beginning of this century England owned one half of the island +of Great Britain and a few colonial settlements. Not until 1707 were +England and Scotland united. In 1763 England had vast dominions in +North America and India. She had become the greatest colonial power in +the world. + +The New Religious Influence.--England could not have taken such a +commanding position unless the patriotism and morals of her citizens +had improved since the beginning of the century. The church had become +too lukewarm and respectable to bring in the masses, who saw more to +attract them in taverns and places of public amusement. + +When religious influence was at the lowest ebb, two eloquent +preachers, John Wesley and George Whitefield, started a movement which +is still gathering force. Wesley did not ask his audience to listen to +a sermon on the favorite bloodless abstractions of the +eighteenth-century pulpit, such as Charity, Faith, Duty, Holiness, +--abstractions which never moved a human being an inch heavenward. His +sermons were emotional. They dealt largely with the emotion of +love,--God's love for man. + +He did not ask his listeners to engage in intellectual disquisitions +about the aspects of infinity: He did not preach free-will metaphysics +or trouble his hearers with a satisfactory philosophical account of +the origin of evil. He spoke about things that reached not only the +understanding but also the feelings of plain men. + +About the same time, Whitefield was preaching to the miners near +Bristol. As he eloquently told them the story of salvation he brought +tears to the eyes of these rude men and made many resolve to lead +better lives. + +This religious awakening may have been accompanied with too much +appeal to the feelings and unhealthy emotional excitement; but some +vigorous movement was absolutely necessary to quicken the spiritual +life of a decadent age. + +The American Revolution.--The second forty years of the eighteenth +century witnessed another movement of great importance to the +world,--the revolt of the American colonies (1775). When George III. +(1760-1820) came to the throne, he determined to be the real ruler of +his kingdom,--to combine in himself the offices of king, prime +minister, and cabinet. He undertook to coerce public opinion at home +and abroad. He repeatedly offended the American colonies by attempts +to tax them and to regulate their trade. They rebelled in 1775 and +signed their Declaration of Independence in 1776. Under the leadership +of George Washington, and with the help of France, they achieved their +independence. The battle of Yorktown (1781), won by Washington and the +French navy, was the last important battle of the American Revolution. +In spite of her great loss, England still retained Canada and her West +India possessions and remained the first colonial power. + +CHANGE IN LITERARY STANDARDS: ROMANTICISM + +What is Romanticism?--In order to comprehend the dominating spirit +of the next age, it is important to understand the meaning of the +romantic movement. Between 1740 and 1780 certain romantic influences +were at work in opposition to the teaching of the great classical +writer, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was almost the literary dictator of +the age. + +The best short definition of romanticism is that of Victor Hugo, who +calls it "liberalism in literature." This has the merit of covering +all kinds of romantic movements. "Liberalism" here means toleration of +departures from fixed standards, such as the classical couplet and +didactic and satiric subjects. Romanticism is characterized by less +regard for form than for matter, by a return to nature, and by +encouragement of deep emotion. Romanticism says: "Be liberal enough +not to sneer at authors when they discard narrow rules. Welcome a +change and see if variety and feeling will not add more interest to +literature." + +In this period and the far more glorious one that followed, +romanticism made its influence felt for the better in four different +ways. An understanding of each of these will make us more intelligent +critics. + +In the first place, the romantic spirit is opposed to the prosaic. The +romantic yearns for the light that never was on sea or land and longs +to attain the unfulfilled ambitions of the soul, even when these in +full measure are not possible. Sometimes these ambitions are so +unrelated to the possible that the romantic has in certain usage +become synonymous with the impractical or the absurd; but this is not +its meaning in literature. The romantic may not always be "of +imagination all compact," but it has a tendency in that direction. To +the romanticists a reality of the imagination is as satisfying as a +reality of the prosaic reason; hence, unlike the classicists, the +romanticists can enjoy _The Tempest_ and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. +The imagination is the only power that can grasp the unseen. Any +movements that stimulate imaginative activity must give the individual +more points of contact with the part of the world that does not +obtrude itself on the physical senses, and especially with many facts +of existence that cold intellectual activity can never comprehend. +Hence, romanticism leads to greater breadth of view. + +In the second place, the romantic is the opposite of the hackneyed. +Hence, too much repetition may take away a necessary quality from what +was once considered romantic. The epithets "ivory" and "raven," when +applied to "brow" and to "tresses," respectively, were at first +romantic; but much repetition has deprived them of this quality. If an +age is to be considered romantic, it must look at things from a point +of view somewhat different from that of the age immediately preceding. +This change may be either in the character of the thought or in the +manner of its presentation, or in both. An example of the formal +element of change which appeared, consists in the substitution of +blank verse and the Spenserian stanza for the classical couplets of +the French school. In the next age, we shall find that the subject +matter is no longer chiefly of the satiric or the didactic type. + +In the third place, the highest type of romanticism encourages each +author to express himself in an individual way, to color the world +according to his own moods. This individual element often appears in +the ideals that we fashion and in our characteristic conceptions of +the spiritual significance of the world and its deepest realities. Two +writers of this period by investing nature with a spirit of melancholy +illustrate one of the many ways in which romantic thought seeks +individuality of expression. + +In the fourth place, the romantic movement encouraged the portrayal of +broader experiences and especially the expression of deeper feeling. +The mid-eighteenth century novels of Richardson and Fielding were +strong agencies in this direction; and they were followed in the next +age by the even more intense appeal of the great romantic poets to +those thoughts and feelings that lie too deep for tears. + +The classic school shunned as vulgar all exhibitions of enthusiasm and +strong emotion, such as the love of Juliet and the jealousy of +Othello; but the romanticists, knowing that the feelings had as much +value and power as the intellect, encouraged their expression. +Sometimes this tendency was carried to an extreme, both in fiction and +in the sentimental drama; but it was necessary for romanticism to call +attention to the fact that great literature cannot neglect the world +of feeling. + +Early Romantic Influences.--The reader and imitators of the great +romantic poet, Edmund Spenser, were growing in number. Previous to +1750, there was only one eighteenth-century edition of Spenser's works +published in England. In 1758 three editions of the _Faerie Queene_ +appeared and charmed readers with the romantic enchantment of bowers, +streams, dark forests, and adventures of heroic knights. + +James Thomson (1700-1748), a Scotch poet, used the characteristic +Spenserian form and subject matter for his romantic poem, _The Castle +of Indolence_ (1748). He placed his castle in "Spenser land":-- + + "A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, + Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; + And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, + Forever flushing round a summer sky." + +The influence of Shakespeare increased. In 1741 the great actor David +Garrick captivated London by his presentation of Shakespeare's plays. + +Milton's poetry, especially his _Il Penseroso_, with its individual +expression of melancholy, its studious spirit, "commercing with the +skies and bringing all Heaven before the eyes," left a strong impress +on the romantic spirit of the age. The subject matter of his _Paradise +Lost_ satisfied the romantic requirement for strangeness and strong +feeling. In the form of his verse, James Thomson shows the influence +of Milton as well as of Spencer. Thomson's greatest achievement is +_The Seasons_ (1730), a romantic poem, written in Miltonic blank +verse. He takes us where-- + + "The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves + Put forth their buds." + +He was one of the earliest poets to place Nature in the foreground, to +make her the chief actor. He reverses what had been the usual poetic +attitude and makes his lovers, shepherds, and harvesters serve largely +as a background for the reflection of her moods instead of their own. +The spring shower, the gusts sweeping over fields of corn, the sky +saddened with the gathering storm of snow, are the very fabric of his +verse. Unlike Wordsworth, Thomson had not sufficient genius to invest +Nature with an intelligent, loving, companionable soul; but his +pictures of her were sufficiently novel and attractive to cause such a +classicist and lover of the town as Dr. Samuel Johnson to say:-- + + "The reader of _The Seasons_ wonders that he never saw before what + Thomson shows him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson + impresses." + +Ossian and "The Castle of Otranto."--Two contemporary works proved a +romantic influence out of all proportion to the worth of their subject +matter. + +Between 1760 and 1764 James Macpherson, a Highland schoolmaster, +published a series of poems, which he claimed to have translated from +an old manuscript, the work of Ossian, a Gaelic poet of the third +century. This so-called translation in prose may have been forged +either in whole or in part; but the weirdness, strange imagery, +melancholy, and "other-world talk of ghosts riding on the tempest at +nightfall," had a pronounced effect on romantic literature. + +[Illustration: HORACE WALPOLE.] + +_The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Romance_ (1765) by Horace Walpole +(1717-1797) tells a story of a Gothic castle where mysterious +labyrinths and trap doors lead to the strangest adventures. The term +"Gothic" had been contemptuously applied to whatever was medieval or +out of date, whether in architecture, literature, or any form of art. +The unusual improbabilities of this Gothic romance were welcomed by +readers weary of commonplace works where nothing ever happens. The +influence of _The Castle of Otranto_ was even felt across the +Atlantic, by Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810), the early American +novelist. Some less pronounced traces of such influence are +discernible also in the work of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel +Hawthorne. + +Mrs. Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823) was a successor of Walpole in the +field of Gothic romance. Her stories, _The Romance of the Forest_ and +_The Mysteries of Udolpho_, have their castle and their thrilling, +unnatural episodes. Lack of portrayal of character and excess of +supernatural incident were causing fiction to suffer severe +deterioration. + +Percy's Reliques and Translation of Mallet's Northern +Antiquities.--In 1765 Thomas Percy (1729-1811) published _The +Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_, an epoch-making work in the +history of the romantic movement. The _Reliques_ is a collection of +old English ballads and songs, many of which have a romantic story to +tell. Scott drew inspiration from them, and Wordsworth acknowledged +his indebtedness to their influence. So important was this collection +that it has been called "the Bible of the Romantic Reformation." + +In 1770 appeared Percy's translation of Mallet's _Northern +Antiquities_. For the first time the English world was given an easily +accessible volume which disclosed the Norse mythology in all its +strength and weirdness. As classical mythology had become hackneyed, +poets like Gray rejoiced that there was a new fountain to which they +could turn. Thor and his invincible hammer, the Frost Giants, Bifrost +or the Rainbow Bridge, Odin, the Valkyries, Valhal, the sad story of +Baldur, and the Twilight of the Gods, have appealed strongly to a race +which takes pride in its own mythology, to a race which today loves to +hear Wagner's translation of these myths into the music of _Die +Walkuere, Siegfried_, and _Goetterdaemmerung_. + +Thomas Chatterton, 1772-1770.--This Bristol boy was early in his +teens impressed with Percy's _Reliques_ and with the fact that +Macpherson's claim to having discovered _Ossian_ in old manuscripts +had made him famous. Chatterton spent much time in the interesting old +church of St. + +Mary Redcliffe, of which his ancestors had been sextons for several +generations. He studied the manuscripts in an old chest and began to +write a series of poems, which he claimed to have discovered among the +parchments left by Thomas Rowley, a fifteenth-century monk. + +Chatterton was unsuccessful in finding a publisher, and he determined +to go to London, where he thought that, like other authors, he could +live by his pen. In April, 1770, at the age of seventeen, he left +Bristol for London, where he took poison in August of the same year to +escape a slower death by starvation. + +His romantic poetry and pathetic end appealed to all the great poets. +Wordsworth spoke of him as "the marvelous boy"; Coleridge called him +"young-eyed Poesy"; Shelley honored him in _Adonais_; and Keats +inscribed _Endymion_ to his memory. Traces of his influence may be +found in Coleridge and Keats. + +The greatest charm of Chatterton's verse appears in unusual epithets +and unexpected poetic turns, such, for instance, as may be noted in +these lines from his best "Rowley" poem, _Aella, a Tragycal +Enterlude_:-- + + "Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note; + Quick in dance as thought can be." + + "Hark! the raven flaps his wing + In the briar'd dell below; + Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing, + To the night-mares as they go." + +While Chatterton did not leave enough verse of surpassing merit to +rank him as a great poet, his work nevertheless entitles him to be +chosen from among all his boyish peers to receive the laurel wreath +for song. + +The Literature of Melancholy.--The choice of subjects in which the +emotion of melancholy was given full sway shows one direction taken by +the romantic movement. Here, the influence of Milton's _Il Penseroso_ +can often be traced. The exquisite _Ode to Evening_, by William +Collins (1721-1759), shows the love for nature's solitudes where this +emotion may be nursed. Lines like these:-- + + "...be mine the hut, + That, from the mountain's side, + Views wilds and swelling floods, + And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires; + And hears their simple bell; and marks o'er all + Thy dewy fingers draw + The gradual dusky veil," + +caused Swinburne to say: "Corot on canvas might have signed his _Ode +to Evening_." + +[Illustration: THOMAS GRAY.] + +The high-water mark of the poetry of melancholy of this period was +reached in Thomas Gray's (1716-1771) _Elegy Written in a Country +Churchyard_ (1751). The poet with great art selected those natural +phenomena which cast additional gloom upon the scene. We may notice in +the very first stanza that the images were chosen with this end in +view:-- + + "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, + The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, + The plowman homeward plods his weary way, + And leaves the world to darkness and to me" + +Then we listen to the droning flight of the beetle, to the drowsy +tinklings from a distant fold, to the moping owl in an ivy-mantled +tower. Each natural object, either directly or by contrast, reflects +the mind of man. Nature serves as a background for the display of +emotion. + +Gosse says in his _Life of Gray_: "The _Elegy_ has exercised an +influence on all the poetry of Europe, from Denmark to Italy, from +France to Russia. With the exception of certain works of Byron and +Shakespeare, no English poem has been so widely admired and imitated +abroad." + +[Illustration: STOKE POGES CHURCHYARD (SCENE OF GRAY'S ELEGY).] + +The Conflict between Romanticism and Classicism.--The influences of +this period were not entirely in the direction of romanticism. Samuel +Johnson, the literary dictator of the age, was unsparing in his +condemnation of the movement. The weight of his opinion kept many +romantic tendencies in check. Even authors like Gray were afraid to +adopt the new creed in its entirety. In one stanza of his _Hymn to +Adversity_ we find four capitalized abstractions, after the manner of +the classical school: Folly, Noise, Laughter, Prosperity; and the +following two lay figures, little better than abstractions:-- + + "The summer Friend, the flattering Foe." + +These abstractions have little warmth or human interest. After Gray +had studied the Norse mythology, we find him using such strong +expressions as "iron-sleet of arrowy shower." Collins's ode on _The +Passions_ contains seventeen personified abstractions, from "pale +Melancholy" to "brown Exercise." + +The conflict between these two schools continues; and many people +still think that any poetry which shows polished regularity must be +excellent. To prove this statement, we have only to turn to the +magazines and glance at the current poetry, which often consists of +words rather artificially strung together without the soul of feeling +or of thought. + +THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN NOVEL + +The Growth of Prose Fiction.--Authentic history does not take us +back to the time when human beings were not solaced by tales. The +_Bible_ contains stories of marked interest. _Beowulf_, the medieval +romances, the _Canterbury Tales_, and the ballads relate stories in +verse. + +For a long time the knight and his adventures held the place of honor +in fiction; but the time came when improbable or impossible +achievements began to pall. The knight who meets with all kinds of +adventures and rescues everybody, is admirably burlesqued in _Don +Quixote_ by the Spanish author Cervantes, which appeared at the +beginning of the seventeenth century. This world-famous romance shows +by its ridicule that the taste for the impossible adventures of +chivalry was beginning to pall. The following title to one of the +chapters of _Don Quixote_ is sufficiently suggestive: "Chapter +LVIII.--Which tells how Adventures came crowding on Don Quixote in +Such Numbers that they gave him No Breathing Time." + +Much prose fiction was written during the Elizabethan Age. We have +seen that Lyly's _Euphues_ and Sidney's _Arcadia_ contain the germs of +romance. Two of the novelists of the sixteenth century, Robert Greene +(1560?-1592) and Thomas Lodge (1558?-1625), helped to give to +Shakespeare the plots of two of his plays. Greene's novel _Pandosto_ +suggested the plot of _The Winter's Tale_, and Lodge's _Rosalind_ was +the immediate source of the plot of _As You Like It_. + +Although Greene died in want at the age of thirty-two, he was the most +prolific of the Elizabethan novelists. His most popular stories deal +with the passion of love as well as with adventure. He was also the +pioneer of those realistic novelists who go among the slums to study +life at first hand. Greene made a careful study of the sharpers and +rascals of London and published his observations in a series of +realistic pamphlets. + +[Illustration: A BLIND BEGGAR ROBBED OF HIS DRINK. _From a British +Museum MS._] + +Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) was the one who introduced into England the +picaresque novel in _The Unfortunate Traveller, or the Life of Jacke +Wilton_ (1594). The picaresque novel (Spanish, _picaro_, a rogue) is a +story of adventure in which rascally tricks play a prominent part. +This type of fiction came from Spain and attained great popularity in +England. Jacke Wilton is page to a noble house. Many of his sharp +tricks were doubtless drawn from real life. Nashe is a worthy +predecessor of Defoe in narrating adventures that seem to be founded +on actual life. + +In spite of an increasing tendency to picture the life of the time, +Elizabethan prose fiction did not entirely discard the matter and +style of the medieval romances. All types of prose fiction were then +too prone to deal with exceptional characters or unusual events. Even +realists like Greene did not present typical Elizabethan life. The +greatest realist in the prose fiction of the Elizabethan Age was +Thomas Deloney (1543?-1600), who chose his materials from the everyday +life of common people. He had been a traveling artisan, and he knew +how to paint "the life and love of the Elizabethan workshop." He wrote +_The Gentle Craft_, a collection of tales about shoemakers, and _Jack +of Newberry_, a story of a weaver. + +The seventeenth century produced _The Pilgrim's Progress_, a powerful +allegorical story of the journey of a soul toward the New Jerusalem. +Mrs. Aphra Behn (1640-1689), dramatist and novelist, shows the faults +of the Restoration drama in her short tales, which helped to prepare +the way for the novelists of the next century. Her best story is +_Oroonoko_ (1658), a tale of an African slave, which has been called +"the first humanitarian novel in English," and a predecessor of _Uncle +Tom's Cabin_. + +Fiction in the First Part of the Eighteenth Century.--Defoe's +_Robinson Crusoe_ shows a great advance over preceding fiction. In the +hands of Defoe, fiction became as natural as fact. Leslie Stephen +rightly calls his stories "simple history minus the facts." Swift's +_Gulliver's Travels_ (1726) is artfully planned to make its +impossibilities seem like facts. _Robinson Crusoe_ took another +forward step in showing how circumstances and environment react on +character and develop the power to grapple with difficulties and +overcome them. Unlike the majority of modern novels, Defoe's +masterpiece does not contain a love story. + +The essay of life and manners at the beginning of the eighteenth +century presents us at once with various pigments necessary for the +palette of the novelist. Students on turning to the second number of +_The Spectator_ will find sketches of six different types of +character, which are worthy to be framed and hung in a permanent +gallery of English fiction. The portrait of Sir Roger de Coverley may +even claim one of the places of honor on the walls. + +Distinction between the Romance and the Modern Novel.--The romances +and tales of adventure which had been so long in vogue differ widely +from the modern novel. Many of them pay but little attention to +probability; but those which do not offend in this respect generally +rely on a succession of stirring incidents to secure attention. Novels +showing the analytic skill of Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_, or the +development of character in George Eliot's _Silas Marner_ would have +been little read in competition with stirring tales of adventure, if +such novels had appeared before a taste for them had been developed by +habits of trained observation and thought. + +We may broadly differentiate the romance from the modern novel by +saying that the romance deals primarily with incident and adventure +for their own sake, while the novel concerns itself with these only in +so far as they are necessary for a faithful picture of life or for +showing the development of character. + +Again, the novel gave a much more prominent position to that important +class of human beings who do the most of the world's work,--a type +that the romance had been inclined to neglect. + +[Illustration: SAMUEL RICHARDSON. _From an original drawing_.] + +Samuel Richardson, the First Modern English Novelist.--Samuel +Richardson (1689-1761) was born in Derbyshire. When he was only +thirteen years old some of the young women of the neighborhood +unconsciously began to train him for a novelist by employing him to +conduct their love correspondence. This training partly accounts for +the fact that every one of his novels is merely a collection of +letters, written by the chief characters to each other and to their +friends, to narrate the progress of events. + +At the age of fifteen Richardson went to London and learned the +printer's trade, which he followed for the rest of his life. When he +was about fifty years old, some publishers asked him to prepare a +letter writer which would be useful to country people and to others +who could not express themselves with a pen. The idea occurred to him +of making these letters tell a connected story. The result was the +first modern novel, _Pamela_, published in four volumes in 1740. This +was followed by _Clarissa Harlowe_, in seven volumes, in 1747-48, and +this by _Sir Charles Grandison_, in seven volumes, in 1753. + +The affairs in the lives of the leading characters are so minutely +dissected, the plot is evolved so slowly and in a way so unlike the +astonishing bounds of the old romance, that one is tempted to say that +Richardson's novels progress mere slowly than events in life. One +secret of his success depends on the fact that we feel that he is +deeply interested in all his characters. He is as much interested in +the heroine of his masterpiece, _Clarissa Harlowe_, as if she were his +own daughter. He has the remarkable power of so thoroughly identifying +himself with his characters that, after we are introduced to them, we +can name them when we hear selections read from their letters. + +The length and slow development of his novels repel modern readers, +but there was so little genuinely interesting matter in the middle of +the eighteenth century that many were sorry his novels were no longer. +The novelty of productions of this type also added to their interest. +His many faults are largely those of his age. He wearies his readers +with his didactic aims. He is narrow and prosy. He poses as a great +moralist, but he teaches the morality of direct utility. + +The drama and the romance had helped to prepare the way for the novel +of everyday domestic life. While this way seemed simple, natural, and +inevitable, Richardson was the first to travel in it. Defoe had +invested fictitious adventure with reality. Richardson transferred the +real human life around him to the pages of fiction. The ascendancy of +French influence was noteworthy for a considerable period after the +Restoration. England could now repay some of her debt. Richardson +exerted powerful influence on the literature of France as well as on +that of other continental nations. + +[Illustration: HENRY FIELDING. _From the original sketch by +Hogarth_.] + +Henry Fielding, 1707-1754.--The greatest novelist of the eighteenth +century, and one of the greatest that England ever produced, was Henry +Fielding, who was born in Sharpham Park, Somersetshire. After +graduating at the University of Leyden, he became a playwright, a +lawyer, a judge of a police court, and, most important of all, a +novelist, or a historian of society, as he preferred to style himself. + +When Richardson's _Pamela_ appeared, Fielding determined to write a +story caricaturing its morality and sentiment, which he considered +hypocritical. Before he had gone very far he discovered where his +abilities lay, and, abandoning his narrow, satiric aims, he wrote +_Joseph Andrews_ (1742), a novel far more interesting than _Pamela_. +_Jonathan Wild the Great_ (1743) tells the story of a rogue who was +finally hanged. In 1749 appeared Fielding's masterpiece, _Tom Jones_, +and in 1751 his last novel, _Amelia_. + +Richardson lacks humor, but Fielding is one of the greatest humorists +of the eighteenth century. Fielding is also a master of plot. From all +literature, Coleridge selected, for perfection of plot, _The +Alchemist, Oedipus Tyrannus_, and _Tom Jones_. + +Fielding's novels often lack refinement, but they palpitate with life. +His pages present a wonderful variety of characters, chosen from +almost all walks of life. He could draw admirable portraits of women. +Thackeray says of Amelia, the heroine of the novel that bears her +name:-- + + "To have invented that character, is not only a triumph of art, but + it is a good action. They say it was in his own home that Fielding + knew her and loved her, and from his own wife that he drew the most + charming character in English fiction... I admire the author of + _Amelia_, and thank the kind master who introduced me to that sweet + and delightful companion and friend. _Amelia_, perhaps, is not a + better story than _Tom Jones_, but it has the better ethics; the + prodigal repents at least before forgiveness,--whereas that odious + broad-backed Mr. Jones carries off his beauty with scarce an + interval of remorse for his manifold errors and shortcomings... I + am angry with Jones. Too much of the plum cake and rewards of life + fall to that boisterous, swaggering young scapegrace."[1] + +The "prodigal" to whom Thackeray refers is Captain Booth, the husband +of Amelia, and "Mr. Jones" is the hero of _Tom Jones_. Fielding's +wife, under the name of Sophia Western, is also the heroine of _Tom +Jones_. It is probable that in the characters of Captain Booth and Tom +Jones, Fielding drew a partial portrait of himself. He seems, however, +to have changed in middle life, for his biographer, Austin Dobson, +says of him: "He was a loving father and a kind husband; he exerted +his last energies in philanthropy and benevolence; he expended his +last ink in defence of Christianity." + +Fielding shows the eighteenth-century love of satire. He hates that +hypocrisy which tries to conceal itself under a mask of morality. In +the evolution of the plots of his novels, he invariably puts such +characters in positions that tear away their mask. He displays almost +savage pleasure in making them ridiculous. Perhaps the lack of +spirituality of the age finds the most ample expression in his pages; +but Chaucer's Parish Priest and Fielding's Parson Adams are typical of +those persisting moral forces that have bequeathed a heritage of power +to England. + +[Illustration: LAURENCE STERNE.] + +[Illustration: UNCLE TOBY AND CORPORAL TRIM. _From a drawing by B. +Westmacott_.] + +[Illustration: TOBIAS SMOLLETT.] + +Sterne and Smollett.--With Richardson and Fielding it is customary +to associate two other mid-eighteenth century novelists, Lawrence +Sterne (1713-1768) and Tobias Smollett (1721-1771). Between 1759 and +1767 Sterne wrote his first novel, _The Life and Opinions of Tristram +Shandy, Gentleman_, which presents the delightfully comic and +eccentric members of the Shandy family, among whom Uncle Toby is the +masterpiece. In 1768 Sterne gave to the world that compound of +fiction, essays, and sketches of travel known as _A Sentimental +Journey through France and Italy_. The adjective "sentimental" in the +title should be specially noted, for it defines Sterne's attitude +toward everything in life. He is habitually sentimental in treating +not only those things fitted to awaken deep emotion, but also those +trivial incidents which ordinarily cause scarcely a ripple of feeling. +Although he is sometimes a master of pathos, he frequently gives an +exhibition of weak and forced sentimentalism. He more uniformly excels +in subtle humor, which is his next most conspicuous characteristic. + +_Roderick Random_ (1748), _Peregrine Pickle_ (1751), and _The +Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_ (1771) are Smollett's best novels. +They are composed mainly of a succession of stirring or humorous +incidents. In relying for interest more on adventure than on the +drawing of character, he reverts to the picaresque type of story. + +The Relation of Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and +Smollett to Subsequent Fiction.--Although the modern reader +frequently complains that these older novelists often seem heavy, slow +in movement, unrefined, and too ready to draw a moral or preach a +sermon, yet these four men hold an important place in the history of +fiction. With varying degrees of excellence, Richardson, Fielding, and +Sterne all have the rare power of portraying character from within, of +interpreting real life. Some novelists resort to the far easier task +of painting merely external characteristics and mannerisms. Smollett +belongs to the latter class. His effective focusing of external +peculiarities and caricaturing of exceptional individuals has had a +far-reaching influence, which may be traced even in the work of so +great a novelist as Charles Dickens. Fielding, on the other hand, had +great influence of Thackeray, who has recorded in _The English +Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ his admiration for his earlier +fellow-craftsman. + +Although subsequent English fiction has invaded many new fields, +although it has entered the domain of history and of sociology, it is +not too much to say that later novelists have advanced on the general +lines marked out by these four mid-eighteenth century pioneers. We may +even affirm with Gosse that "the type of novel invented in England +about 1740-50 continued for sixty or seventy years to be the only +model for Continental fiction; and criticism has traced in every +French novelist, in particular, the stamp of Richardson, if not of +Sterne, and of Fielding." + +PHILOSOPHICAL, HISTORICAL, AND POLITICAL PROSE + +Philosophy.--Although the majority of eighteenth-century writers +disliked speculative thought and resolutely turned away from it, yet +the age produced some remarkable philosophical works, which are still +discussed, and which have powerfully affected later thought. David +Hume (1711-1776) is the greatest metaphysician of the century. He +took for his starting point the conclusions of a contemporary +philosopher, George Berkeley (1685-1753). + +Berkeley had said that ideas are the only real existing entities, that +matter is merely another term for the ideas in the Mind of the +Infinite and has no existence outside of mind. He maintained that if +every quality should be taken away from matter, no matter would +remain; _e.g._, if color, sweetness, sourness, form, and all other +qualities should be taken away from an apple, there would be no apple. +Now, a quality is a mental representation based on a sensation, and +this quality varies as the sensation varies; in other words, the +object is not a stable immutable thing. It is only a thing as I +perceive it. Berkeley's idealistic position was taken to crush +atheistic materialism. + +Hume attempted to rear on Berkeley's position an impregnable citadel +of skepticism. He accepted Berkeley's conclusion that we know nothing +of matter, and then attempted to show that inferences based on ideas +might be equally illusory. Hume attacked the validity of the reasoning +process itself. He endeavored to show that there is no such thing as +cause and effect in either the mental or the material world. + +Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_ (1739-1740), in which these views +are stated, is one of the world's epoch-making works in philosophy. +Its conclusion startled the great German metaphysician Kant and roused +him to action. The questions thus raised by Hume have never been +answered to the satisfaction of all philosophers. + +Hume's skepticism is the most thoroughgoing that the world has ever +seen; for he attacks the certainty of our knowledge of both mind and +matter. But he dryly remarks that his own doubts disappear when he +leaves his study. He avoids a runaway horse and inquires of a friend +the way to a certain house in Edinburgh, relying as much on the +evidence of his eyes and on the directions of his friend as if these +philosophic doubts had never been raised. + +Historical Prose.--In carefully elaborated and highly finished works +of history, the eighteenth century surpasses its predecessors. _The +History of England_ by David Hume, the philosopher, is the first work +of the kind to add to the history of politics and the affairs of state +an account of the people and their manners. This _History_ is +distinguished for its polished ease and clearness. Unfortunately, the +work is written from a partisan point of view. Hume was a Tory, and +took the side of the Stuarts against the Puritans. He sometimes +misrepresented facts if they did not uphold his views. His _History_ +is consequently read more to-day as a literary classic than as an +authority. + +[Illustration: EDWARD GIBBON. _From the painting by Sir Joshua +Reynolds_.] + +Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) is the greatest historian of the century. +His monumental work, _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman +Empire_, in six volumes, begins with the reign of Trajan, A.D. 98, and +closes with the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople in +1453. Gibbon constructed a "Roman road" through nearly fourteen +centuries of history; and he built it so well that another on the same +plan has not yet been found necessary. E.A. Freeman says: "He remains +the one historian of the eighteenth century whom modern research has +neither set aside nor threatened to set aside." In preparing his +_History_, Gibbon spent fifteen years. Every chapter was the subject +of long-continued study and careful original research. From the +chaotic materials which he found, he constructed a history remarkable +as well for its scholarly precision as for the vastness of the field +covered. + +His sentences follow one another in magnificent procession. One feels +that they are the work of an artist. They are thickly sprinkled with +fine-sounding words derived from the Latin. The 1611 version of the +first four chapters of the _Gospel_ of John averages 96 per cent of +Anglo-Saxon words, and Shakespeare 89 per cent, while Gibbon's average +of 70 per cent is the lowest of any great writer. He has all the +coldness of the classical school, and he shows but little sympathy +with the great human struggles that are described in his pages. He has +been well styled "a skillful anatomical demonstrator of the dead +framework of society." With all its excellences, his work has, +therefore, those faults which are typical of the eighteenth century. + +[Illustration: EDMUND BURKE. _From the painting by Sir Joshua +Reynolds, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Political Prose.--Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was a distinguished +statesman and member of the House of Commons in an important era of +English history,--a time when the question of the independence of the +American colonies was paramount, and when the spirit of revolt against +established forms was in the air. He is the greatest political writer +of the eighteenth century. + +Burke's best productions are _Speech on American Taxation_ (1774) and +_Speech on Conciliation with America_ (1775). His _Reflections on the +Revolution in France_ is also noteworthy. His prose is distinguished +for the following qualities: (1) He is one of the greatest masters of +metaphor and imagery in English prose. Only Carlyle surpasses him in +the use of metaphorical language. (2) Burke's breadth of thought and +wealth of expression enable him to present an idea from many different +points of view, so that if his readers do not comprehend his +exposition from one side, they may from another. He endeavors to +attach what he says to something in the experience of his hearers or +readers; and he remembers that the experience of all is not the same. +(3) It follows that his imagery and figures lay all kinds of knowledge +under contribution. At one time he draws an illustration from +manufacturing; at another, from history; at another, from the butcher +shop. (4) His work displays intense earnestness, love of truth, +strength of logical reasoning, vividness of imagination, and breadth +of view, all of which are necessary qualities in prose that is to mold +the opinions of men. + +It is well to note that Burke's careful study of English literature +contributed largely to his success as a writer. His use of Bible +phraseology and his familiarity with poetry led a critic to say that +any one "neglects the most valuable repository of rhetoric in the +English language, who has not well studied the English Bible... The +cadence of Burke's sentences always reminds us that prose writing is +only to be perfected by a thorough study of the poetry of the +language." + +OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1728-1774 + +[Illustration: OLIVER GOLDSMITH. _From the painting by Sir Joshua +Reynolds, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life and Minor Works.--Oliver Goldsmith was born of English parents +in the little village of Pallas in the center of Ireland. His father, +a poor clergyman, soon moved a short distance to Lissoy, which +furnished some of the suggestions for _The Deserted Village_. + +Goldsmith went as a charity student to Dublin University, where, like +Swift, he graduated at the bottom of his class. Goldsmith tried in +turn to become a clergyman, a teacher, a lawyer, and a doctor, but +failed in all these fields. Then he wandered over the continent of +Europe for a year and accumulated some experiences that he used in +writing _The Traveler_. He returned to London in 1757, and, after an +ineffectual attempt to live by practicing medicine, turned to +literature. In this profession he at first managed to make only a +precarious living, for the most part as a hackwriter, working for +periodicals and filling contracts to compile popular histories of +England, Greece, Rome, and _Animated Nature_. He had so much skill in +knowing what to retain, emphasize, or subordinate, and so much genius +in presenting in an attractive style what he wrote, that his work of +this kind met with a readier sale than his masterpieces. Of the +_History of Animated Nature_, Johnson said: "Goldsmith, sir, will give +us a very fine book on the subject, but if he can tell a horse from a +cow, that I believe may be the extent of his knowledge of natural +history." + +His first literary reputation was gained by a series of letters, +supposed to be written by a Chinaman as a record of his impressions of +England. These letters or essays, like so much of the work of Addison +and Steele, appeared first in a periodical; but they were afterwards +collected under the title, _Citizen of the World_ (1761). The +interesting creation of these essays is Beau Tibbs, a poverty-stricken +man, who derives pleasure from boasting of his frequent association +with the nobility. + +[Illustration: GOLDSMITH GIVES DR. JOHNSON THE MS. OF THE VICAR OF +WAKEFIELD. _From a drawing by B. Westmacott_.] + +It was not until the last ten years of his life that Goldsmith became +famous. He certainly earned enough then to be free from care, had he +but known how to use his money. His improvidence in giving to beggars +and in squandering his earnings on expensive rooms, garments, and +dinners, however, kept him always in debt. + +One evening he gave away his blankets to a woman who told him a +pitiful tale. The cold was so bitter during the night that he had to +open the ticking of his bed and crawl inside. Although this happened +when he was a young man, it was typical of his usual response to +appeals for help. When his landlady had him arrested for failing to +pay his rent, he sent for Johnson to come and extricate him. Johnson +asked him if he had nothing that would discharge the debt, and +Goldsmith handed him the manuscript of _The Vicar of Wakefield_. +Johnson reported his action to Boswell, as follows:-- + + "I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon + return; and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds." + +[Illustration: CANONBURY TOWER, LONDON, WHERE GOLDSMITH WROTE SOME OF +HIS FAMOUS WORK.] + +During his last years, Goldsmith sometimes received as much as L800 in +twelve months; but the more he earned, the deeper he plunged into +debt. When he died, in 1774, at the age of forty-five, he owed L2000. +He was loved because-- + + "...e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side." + +His grave by the Temple Church on Fleet Street, London, is each year +visited by thousands who feel genuine affection for him in spite of +his shortcomings. + +Masterpieces.--His best work consists of two poems, _The Traveler_ +and _The Deserted Village_; a story, _The Vicar of Wakefield_; and a +play,_She Stoops to Conquer_. + +The object of _The Traveler_ (1765), a highly polished moral and +didactic poem, was to show that happiness is independent of climate, +and hence to justify the conclusion:-- + + "Vain, very vain, my weary search to find + That bliss which only centers in the mind." + +_The Deserted Village_ (1770) also has a didactic aim, for which we +care little. Its finest parts, those which impress us most, were +suggested to Goldsmith by his youthful experiences. We naturally +remember the sympathetic portrait of the poet's father, "the village +preacher":-- + + "A man he was to all the country dear + And passing rich with forty pounds a year. + * * * * * + His house was known to all the vagrant train; + He chid their wanderings but relieved their pain." + +The lines relating to the village schoolmaster are almost as well +known as Scripture. Previous to this time, the eighteenth century had +not produced a poem as natural, sincere, and sympathetic in its +descriptions and portraits as _The Deserted Village_. + +_The Vicar of Wakefield_ is a delightful romantic novel, which Andrew +Lang classes among books "to be read once a year." Goldsmith's own +criticism of the story in the _Advertisement_ announcing it has not +yet been surpassed:-- + + "There are an hundred faults in this Thing, and an hundred things + might be said to prove them beauties. But it is needless. A book + may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may he very dull without + a single absurdity. The hero of this piece unites in himself the + three greatest characters upon earth: he is a priest, an husbandman, + and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready to teach and ready + to obey; as simple in affluence, and majestic in adversity." + +[Illustration: DR. PRIMROSE AND HIS FAMILY. _From a drawing by G. +Patrick Nelson._] + +_The Vicar of Wakefield_ has faults of improbability and of plot +construction; in fact, the plot is so poorly constructed that the +novel would have been almost a failure, had other qualities not +insured success. The story lives because Dr. Primrose and his family +show with such genuineness the abiding lovable traits of human +nature,--kindliness, unselfishness, good humor, hope, charity,--the +very spirit of the _Sermon of the Mount_. Goethe rejoiced that he felt +the influence of this story at the critical moment of his mental +development. Goldsmith has added to the world's stock of kindliness, +and he has taught many to avoid what he calls "the fictitious demands +of happiness." + +Goldsmith wrote two plays, both hearty comedies. The less successful, +_The Good-Natured Man_ (acted 1768), brought him in L500. His next +play, _She Stoops to Conquer_, a comedy of manners, is a landmark in +the history of the drama. The taste of the age demanded regular, +vapid, sentimental plays. Here was a comedy that disregarded the +conventions and presented in quick succession a series of hearty +humorous scenes. Even the manager of the theater predicted the failure +of the play; but from the time of its first appearance in 1773, this +comedy of manners has had an unbroken record of triumphs. A century +later it ran one hundred nights in London. Authorities say that it has +never been performed without success, not even by amateurs. Like all +of Goldsmith's best productions, it was based on actual experience. In +his young days a wag directed him to a private house for an inn. +Goldsmith went there and with much flourish gave his orders for +entertainment. The subtitle of the comedy is _The Mistakes of a +Night_; and the play shows the situations which developed when its +hero, Tony Lumpkin, sent two lovers to a pretended inn, which was +really the home of the young ladies to be wooed. + +It is interesting to note that his contemporary, Richard Brinsley +Sheridan (1751-1816), produced, shortly after the great success of +_She Stoops to Conquer_, the only other eighteenth-century comedies +that retain their popularity, _The Rivals_ (1775) and _The School for +Scandal_ (1777), which contributed still further to the overthrow of +the sentimental comedy of the age. + +General Characteristics.--Goldsmith is a romanticist at heart; but +he felt the strong classical influences of Johnson and of the earlier +school. In his poetry, Goldsmith used classical couplets and sometimes +classical subject matter, but the didactic parts of his poems are the +poorest. His greatest successes, such as the pictures of the village +preacher and the schoolmaster in _The Deserted Village_ and of Dr. +Primrose and his family in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, show the warm +human sympathy of the romantic school. + +The qualities for which he is most noted are (1) a sane and saving +altruistic philosophy of life, pervaded with rare humor, and (2) a +style of remarkable ease, grace, and clearness, expressed in copious +and apt language. + +_She Stoops to Conquer_ marks a change in the drama of the time, +because, in Dobson's phrase, it bade "good-bye to sham Sentiment." + + "...this play it appears + Dealt largely in laughter and nothing in tears." + +SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709-1784 + +[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON. _From the painting by Sir Joshua +Reynolds_.] + +[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON'S BIRTHPLACE. _From an old print_.] + +Early Struggles.--Michael Johnson, an intelligent bookseller in +Lichfield, Staffordshire, was in 1709 blessed with a son who was to +occupy a unique position in literature, a position gained not so much +by his writings as by his spoken words and great personality. + +Samuel was prepared for Oxford at various schools and in the paternal +bookstore, where he read widely and voraciously, but without much +system. He said that at the age of eighteen, the year before he +entered Oxford, he knew almost as much as at fifty-three. Poverty kept +him from remaining at Oxford long enough to take a degree. He left the +university, and, for more than a quarter of a century, struggled +doggedly against poverty. When he was twenty-five, he married a widow +of forty-eight. With the money which she brought him, he opened a +private school, but failed. He never had more than eight pupils, one +of whom was the actor, David Garrick. + +In 1737 Johnson went to London and sought employment as a hack writer. +Sometimes he had no money with which to hire a lodging, and was +compelled to walk the streets all night to keep warm. Johnson reached +London in the very darkest days for struggling authors, who were often +subjected to the greatest hardships. They were the objects of general +contempt, to which Pope's _Dunciad_ had largely contributed. + +During this period Johnson did much hack work for the _Gentleman's +Magazine_. He was also the author of two satirical poems, _London_ +(1738) and _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749), which won much praise. + +Later Years.--By the time he had been for ten years in London, his +abilities were sufficiently well known to the leading booksellers for +them to hire him to compile a _Dictionary of the English Language_ for +L1575. He was seven years at this work, finishing it in 1755. Between +1750 and 1760 he wrote the matter for two periodicals, _The Rambler_ +(1750-1752) and _The Idler_ (1758-1760), which contain papers on +manners and morals. He intended to model these papers on the lines of +_The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_, but his essays are for the most part +ponderously dull and uninteresting. + +In 1762, for the first time, he was really an independent man, for +then George III. gave him a life pension of L300 a year. Even as late +as 1759, in order to pay his mother's funeral expenses, Johnson had +been obliged to dash off the romance of _Rasselas_ in a week; but from +the time he received his pension, he had leisure "to cross his legs +and have his talk out" in some of the most distinguished gatherings of +the eighteenth century. During the rest of his life he produced little +besides _Lives of the English Poets_, which is his most important +contribution to literature. In 1784 he died, and was buried in +Westminster Abbey among the poets whose lives he had written. + +A Man of Character.--Any one who will read Macaulay's _Life of +Johnson_[2] may become acquainted with some of Johnson's most striking +peculiarities; but these do not constitute his claims to greatness. He +had qualities that made him great in spite of his peculiarities. He +knocked down a publisher who insulted him, and he would never take +insolence from a superior; but there is no case on record of his +having been unkind to an inferior. Goldsmith said: "Johnson has +nothing of a bear but the skin." When some one manifested surprise +that Johnson should have assisted a worthless character, Goldsmith +promptly replied: "He has now become miserable, and that insures the +protection of Johnson." + +Johnson, coming home late at night, would frequently slip a coin into +the hand of a sleeping street Arab, who, on awakening, was rejoiced to +find provision thus made for his breakfast. He spent the greater part +of his pension on the helpless, several of whom he received into his +own house. + +There have been many broader and more scholarly Englishmen, but there +never walked the streets of London a man who battled more courageously +for what he thought was right. The more we know of him, the more +certain are we to agree with this closing sentence from Macaulay's +_Life of Johnson_: "And it is but just to say that our intimate +acquaintance with what he would himself have called the +anfractuosities of his intellect and of his temper serves only to +strengthen our conviction that he was both a great and a good man." + +A Great Converser and Literary Lawgiver.--By nature Johnson was +fitted to be a talker. He was happiest when he had intelligent +listeners. Accordingly, he and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the artist, +founded the famous Literary Club in 1764. During Johnson's lifetime +this had for members such men as Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, +Charles James Fox, James Boswell, Edward Gibbon, and David Garrick. +Macaulay says: "The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on new books +were speedily known over all London, and were sufficient to sell off a +whole edition in a day, or to condemn the sheets to the service of the +trunk maker and the pastry cook... To predominate over such a society +was not easy; yet even over such a society Johnson predominated." + +He was consulted as an oracle on all kinds of subjects, and his +replies were generally the pith of common sense. So famous had Johnson +become for his conversations that George III. met him on purpose to +hear him talk. A committee from forty of the leading London +booksellers waited on Johnson to ask him to write the _Lives of the +English Poets_. There was then in England no other man with so much +influence in the world of literature. + +Boswell's Life of Johnson.--In 1763 James Boswell (1740-1795), a +Scotchman, met Johnson and devoted much time to copying the words that +fell from the great Doctor's lips and to noting his individual traits. +We must go to Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, the greatest of all +biographies, to read of Johnson as he lived and talked; in short, to +learn those facts which render him far more famous than his written +works. + +[Illustration: JAMES BOSWELL.] + +Leslie Stephen saw: "I would still hope that to many readers Boswell +has been what he has certainly been to some, the first writer who gave +them a love of English literature, and the most charming of all +companions long after the bloom of novelty has departed. I subscribe +most cheerfully to Mr. Lewes's statement that he estimates his +acquaintances according to their estimate of Boswell." + +A Champion of the Classical School.--Johnson was a powerful adherent +of classicism, and he did much to defer the coming of romanticism. His +poetry is formal, and it shows the classical fondness for satire and +aversion to sentiment. The first two lines of his greatest poem, _The +Vanity of Human Wishes_-- + + "Let observation with extensive view + Survey mankind from China to Peru," + +show the classical couplet, which he employs, and they afford an +example of poetry produced by a sonorous combination of words. +"Observation," "view," and "survey" are nearly synonymous terms. Such +conscious effort centered on word building subtracts something from +poetic feeling. + +His critical opinions of literature manifest his preference for +classical themes and formal modes of treatment. He says of +Shakespeare: "It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with +an unwieldy sentiment, which he cannot well express ... the equality +of words to things is very often neglected." + +Although there is much sensible, stimulating criticism in Johnson's +_Lives of the Poets_, yet he shows positive repugnance to the pastoral +references--the flocks and shepherds, the oaten flute, the woods and +desert caves--of Milton's _Lycidas_. "Its form," says Johnson, "is +that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting." + +General Characteristics.--While he is best known in literary history +as the great converser whose full length portrait is drawn by Boswell, +Johnson left the marks of his influence on much of the prose written +within nearly a hundred years after his death. On the whole, this +influence has, for the following reasons, been bad. + +[Illustration: CHESHIRE CHEESE INN, FLEET STREET, LONDON.] + +First, he loved a ponderous style in which there was an excess of the +Latin element. He liked to have his statements sound well. He once +said in forcible Saxon: "_The Rehearsal_! has not wit enough to keep +it sweet," but a moment later he translated this into: "It has not +sufficient vitality to preserve it from putrefaction." In his +_Dictionary_ he defined "network" as "anything reticulated or +decussated at equal distances with interstices between the +intersections." Some wits of the day said that he used long words to +make his _Dictionary_ necessary. + +In the second place, Johnson loved formal balance so much that he used +too many antitheses. Many of his balancing clauses are out of place or +add nothing to the sense. The following shows excess of antithesis:-- + + "If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues + longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of + Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses + expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with + frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight." + +As a rule, Johnson's prose is too abstract and general, and it awakens +too few images. This is a characteristic failing of his essays in _The +Rambler_ and _The Idler_. Even in _Rasselas_, his great work of +fiction, he speaks of passing through the fields and seeing the +animals around him; but he does not mention definite trees, flowers, +or animals. Shakespeare's wounded stag or "winking Mary-buds" would +have given a touch of life to the whole scene. + +Johnson's latest and greatest work, _Lives of the English Poets_, is +comparatively free from most of these faults. The sentences are +energetic and full of meaning. Although we may not agree with some of +the criticism, shall find it stimulating and suggestive. Before +Johnson gave these critical essays to the world, he had been doing +little for years except talking in a straightforward manner. His +constant practice in speaking English reacted on his later written +work. Unfortunately this work has been the least imitated. + +SUMMARY + +The second part of the eighteenth century was a time of changing +standards in church, state, and literature. The downfall of Walpole, +the religious revivals of Wesley, the victories of Clive in India and +of Wolfe in Canada, show the progress that England was making at home +and abroad. Even her loss of the American colonies left her the +greatest maritime and colonial power. + +There began to be a revolt against the narrow classical standards in +literature. A longing gradually manifested itself for more freedom of +imagination, such as we find in _Ossian, The Castle of Otranto_, +Percy's _Reliques_, and translations of the Norse mythology. There was +a departure from the hackneyed forms and subjects of the preceding age +and an introduction of more of the individual and ideal element, such +as can be found in Gray's _Elegy_ and Collins's _Ode to Evening_. Dr. +Johnson, however, threw his powerful influence against this romantic +movement, and curbed somewhat such tendencies in Goldsmith, who, +nevertheless, gave fine romantic touches to _The Deserted Village_ and +to much of his other work. This period was one of preparation for the +glorious romantic outburst at the end of the century. + +In prose, the most important achievement of the age was the creation +of the modern novel in works like Richardson's _Pamela_ and _Clarissa +Harlowe_, Fielding's _Tom Jones_, Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_, +Smollett's _Humphrey Clinker_, and Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_. +There were also noted prose works in philosophy and history by Hume +and Gibbon, in politics by Burke, in criticism by Johnson, and in +biography by Boswell. Goldsmith's comedy of manners, _She Stoops to +Conquer_, won a decided victory over the insipid sentimental drama. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +For contemporary English history, consult Gardiner,[3] Green, Walker, +or Cheney. For the social side, see Traill, V. Lecky's _History of the +Eighteenth Century_ is specially full. + +LITERARY + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature_. + +Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, Vol. V. + +Seccombe's _The Age of Johnson_. + +Gosse's _History of English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_. + +Stephen's _English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_. + +Minto's _Manual of English Prose Literature_. + +Symons's _The Romantic Movement in English Poetry_. + +Beers's _English Romanticism_. + +Phelps's _Beginnings of the English Romantic Movement_. + +Nutt's _Ossian and Ossianic Literature_. + +Jusserand's _The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare_. + +Cross's _The Development of the English Novel_. + +Minto's _Defoe_ (E.M.L.) + +Dobson's _Samuel Richardson_. (E.M.L.) + +Dobson's _Henry Fielding_. (E.M.L.) + +Godden's _Henry Fielding, a Memoir_. + +Stephen's _Hours in a Library_ (Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding). + +Thackeray's _English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ (Fielding, +Smollett, Sterne, Goldsmith). + +Gosse's _Life of Gray_. (E.M.L.) + +Huxley's _Life of Hume_. (E.M.L.) + +Morrison's _Life of Gibbon_. (E.M.L.) + +Woodrow Wilson's _Mere Literature_ (Burke). + +Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. + +Stephen's _Life of Johnson_. (E.M.L.) + +Macaulay's _Essay on Croker's Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson_. + +Irving's, Forster's, Dobson's, Black's (E.M.L.), or B. Frankfort +Moore's _Life of Goldsmith_. + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +The Romantic Movement.--In order to note the difference in feeling, +imagery, and ideals, between the romantic and the classic schools, it +will be advisable for the student to make a special comparison of +Dryden's and Pope's satiric and didactic verse with Spenser's _Faerie +Queene_, Milton's _Il Penseroso_, and with some of the work of the +romantic poets in the next period. What is the difference in the +general atmosphere of these poems? See if the influence of _Il +Penseroso_ is noticeable in Collins's _Ode to Evening_ (Ward[4], III., +287; Bronson, III., 220; _Oxford_, 531; Manly, I., 273; _Century_, +386) and in Gray's _Elegy_ (Ward, III., 331; Bronson, III., 238; +_Oxford_, 516; Manly, I., 267; _Century_, 398). + +What element foreign to Dryden and Pope appears in Thomson's _Seasons_ +(Ward, III., 173; Bronson. III., 179; Manly, I., 255; _Century_, +369-372). + +What signs of a struggle between the romantic and the classic are +noticeable in Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_ (Ward, III., 373-379; +Bronson, III., 282; Manly, I., 278; _Century_, 463). Pick out the +three finest passages in the poem, and give the reasons for the +choice. + +Read pp. 173-176 of _Ossian (Canterbury Poets_ series, 40 cents; +Chambers, II.; Manly, II., 275), and show why it appealed to the +spirit of romanticism. + +For a short typical selection from Walpole's _Castle of Otranto_, see +Chambers. II. Why is this called romantic fiction? + +In Percy's _Reliques_, read the first ballad, that of _Chevy Chase_, +and explain how the age could turn from Pope to read such rude verse. + +In place of Mallet's _Northern Antiquities_, twentieth-century readers +will prefer books like Guerber's _Myths of Northern Lands_ and Mabie's +_Norse Stories Retold from the Eddas_. + +From Chatterton's _Aella_ read nine stanzas from the song beginning: +"O sing unto my roundelay." His _The Bristowe Tragedy_ may be compared +with Percy's _Reliques_ and with Coleridge's _The Ancient Mariner_. +Selections from Chatterton are given in Bronson, III., Ward, III., +_Oxford_, Manly, I., and _Century_. + +The Novel.--Those who have the time to study the beginnings of the +novel will be interested in reading, _Guy, Earl of Warwick_ (Morley's +_Early Prose Romances_) or _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Retold in +Modern Prose, with Introduction and Notes_, by Jessie L. Weston +(London: David Nutt, two shillings). + +Two Elizabethan novels: Lodge's _Rosalynde_ (the original of +Shakespeare's _As You Like It_) and Greene's _Pandosto_ (the original +of _The Winter's Tale_) are published in _The Shakespeare Classics_, +edited by Gollancz (Duffield & Company, New York, $1 each). _Pandosto_ +may be found at the end of the Cassell _National Library_ edition of +_The Winter's Tale_ (15 cents). Selections from Lodge's _Rosalynde_ +are given in Craik, I., 544-549. These should be compared with the +parallel parts of _As You Like It_. Selections from Nashe's _The +Unfortunate Traveller_ are given in Craik, I., 573-576, and selections +from Sidney's _Arcadia_ in the same volume, pp. 409-419. Deloney's +_The Gentle Craft_ and _Jack of Newberry_ are given in his _Works_, +edited by Mann (Clarendon Press). + +For the preliminary sketching of characters that might serve as types +in fiction, read _The Spectator_, No. 2, by Steele. Defoe's _Robinson +Crusoe_ will be read entire by almost every one. + +In Craik, IV., read the following selections from these four great +novelists of the middle of the eighteenth century; from Richardson, +pp. 59-66; from Fielding, pp. 118-125; from Sterne, pp. 213-219; and +from Smollett, pp. 261-264 and 269-272. Manly, II., has brief +selections. + +Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_ should be read entire by the student +(_Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway Series_, American Book +Company). Selections may be found in Craik, IV., 365-370. + +Sketch the general lines of development in fiction, from the early +romance to Smollett. What type of fiction did _Don Quixote_ ridicule? +Compare Greene's _Pandosto_ with Shakespeare's _Winter's Tale_, and +Lodge's _Rosalynde_ with _As You Like It_. In what relation do Steele, +Addison, and Defoe stand to the novel? Why is the modern novel said to +begin with Richardson? + +Philosophy.--Two selections from Berkeley in Craik, IV., 34-39, give +some of that philosopher's subtle metaphysics. The same volume, pp. +189-195, gives a selection from Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_. Try +stating in your own words the substance of these selections. + +Gibbon.--Read Aurelian's campaign against Zenobia, which constitutes +the last third of Chap. XI. of the first volume of _The Decline and +Fall of the Roman Empire_. Other selections may be found in Craik, +IV., 460-472; _Century_, 453-462. + +What is the special merit of Gibbon's work? What period does he cover? +Compare his style, either in description or in narration, with +Bunyan's. + +Burke.--Let the student who has not the time to read all the speech +on _Conciliation with America (Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway +Series_, American Book Company, 20 cents) read the selection in Craik, +IV., 379-385, and also the selection referring to the decline of +chivalry, from _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ (Craik, IV., +402). + +Point out in Burke's writings the four characteristics mentioned on p. +331. Compare his style with Bacon's, Swift's, Addison's, and Gibbon's. + +Goldsmith.--Read his three masterpieces: _The Deserted Village, The +Vicar of Wakefield (Eclectic English Classics_, or _Gateway Series_, +American Book Company), _She Stoops to Conquer_ (Cassell's _National +Library_; _Everyman's Library_). + +Select passages that show (a) altruistic philosophy of life, (b) +humor, (c) special graces of style. What change did _She Stoops to +Conquer_ bring to the stage? What qualities keep the play alive? + +Johnson.--Representative selections are given in Craik, IV., +141-185. Those from _Lives of the English Poets_ (Craik, IV., 175-182; +_Century_, 405-419) will best repay study. Let the student who has the +time read Johnson's _Dryden_ entire. As much as possible of Boswell's +_Life of Johnson_ should be read (Craik, IV., 482-495; Manly, II., +277-292). + +Compare the style of Johnson with that of Gibbon and Burke. For what +reasons does Johnson hold a high position in literature? What special +excellences or defects do you note in his _Lives of the English +Poets_? Why is Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ a great work? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VII: + +[Footnote 1: _The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_.] + +[Footnote 2: To be found in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, or in +Macaulay's collected _Essays_.] + +[Footnote 3: For full titles, see p. 50.] + +[Footnote 4: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER VIII: THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM, 1780-1837 + +History of the Period.--Much of the English history of this period +was affected directly or indirectly by the French Revolution (1789). +The object of this movement was to free men from oppression by the +aristocracy and to restore to them their natural rights. The new +watchwords were "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality." The professed +principles of the French revolutionists were in many respects similar +to those embodied in the American _Declaration of Independence_. + +At first the movement was applauded by the liberal-minded Englishmen; +but the confiscation of property, executions, and ensuing reign of +terror soon made England recoil from this Revolution. When France +executed her king and declared her intention of using force to make +republics out of European powers, England sent the French minister +home, and war immediately resulted. With only a short intermission, +this lasted from 1793 until 1815, the contest caused by the French +Revolution having become merged in the Napoleonic war. The battle of +Waterloo (1815) ended the struggle with the defeat of Napoleon by the +English general, Wellington. + +The War of 1812 with the United States was for England only an +incident of the war with France. England had become so powerful on the +sea, as a result of the victories of Nelson, that she not only forbade +vessels of a neutral power to trade with France, but she actually +searched American vessels and sometimes removed their seamen, claiming +that they were British deserters. The Americans won astonishing naval +victories; but the war was concluded without any very definite +decision on the points involved. + +The last part of the eighteenth century saw the invention of spinning +and weaving machines, the introduction of steam engines to furnish +power, the wider use of coal, the substitution of the factory system +for the home production of cloth, and the impairment of the home by +the employment of women and children for unrestricted hours in the +factories. + +The long reign of George III., interrupted by periods of insanity, +ended in 1820. The next two kings were his sons, George IV. +(1820-1830) and William IV. (1830-1837). During these two reigns the +spirit of reform was in the air. The most important reforms were (1) +the revision of the criminal laws, which had prescribed death for some +two hundred offenses, including stealing as much as five shillings; +(2) the removal of political disabilities from Catholics, so that for +the first time since 1673 they could hold municipal office and sit in +Parliament; (3) the Reform Bill of 1832, which (_a_) extended the +franchise to the well-to-do middle classes but not to those dependent +on day labor, (_b_) gave a fairer apportionment of representatives in +Parliament and abolished the so-called "rotten boroughs," _i.e._ those +districts which with few or no inhabitants had been sending members to +Parliament, while the large manufacturing cities in the north were +without representatives; (4) the final bill in 1833 for the abolition +of slavery; (5) child labor laws, which ordered the textile factories +to cease employing children under nine years of age, prescribed a +legal working day of eight hours for children between nine and +thirteen, and of twelve hours for those between thirteen and eighteen; +(6) the improvement of the poor laws. + +The increased interest in human rights and welfare is the most +important characteristic of this entire period, but most especially of +the reigns of George IV. and William IV. Sir Robert Peel, the elder, +although an employer of nearly a thousand children, felt the spirit of +the time enough to call the attention of Parliament to the abuses of +child labor. As we shall see, this new spirit exerted a strong +influence on literature. + +Influence of the New Spirit on Poetry.--The French Revolution +stirred the young English poets profoundly. They proclaimed the birth +of a new humanity of boundless promise. The possibilities of life +again seemed almost as great as in Elizabethan days. The usually +sober-minded Wordsworth exclaimed:-- + + "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, + But to be young was very heaven!"[1] + +In the age of Pope, the only type of man considered worthy a place in +the best literature was the aristocrat. The ordinary laborer was an +object too contemptible even for satire. Burns placed a halo around +the head of the honest toiler. In 1786 he could find readers for his +_The Cotter's Saturday Night_; and ten years later he proclaimed +thoughts which would have been laughed to scorn early in the +century:-- + + "Is there, for honest poverty, + That hangs his head and a' that? + The coward slave, we pass him by, + We dare be poor for a' that! + * * * * * + The rank is but the guinea stamp; + The man's the gowd[2] for a' that."[3] + +Wordsworth strikes almost the same chord:-- + + "Love had he found in huts where poor men lie."[4] + +The tenderness and sympathy induced by this new interest in human +beings resulted in the annexation to English literature of an almost +unexplored continent,--the continent of childhood. William Blake and +William Wordsworth set the child in the midst of the poetry of this +romantic age. + +More sympathy for animals naturally followed the increased interest in +humanity. The poems of Cowper, Burns, Wordsworth, and Coleridge show +this quickened feeling for a starved bird, a wounded hare, a hart +cruelly slain, or an albatross wantonly shot. The social disorder of +the Revolution might make Wordsworth pause, but he continued with +unabated vigor to teach us-- + + "Never to blend our pleasure or our pride + With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."[5] + +New humanitarian interests affected all the great poets of this age. +Although Keats was cut off while he was making an Aeolian response to +the beauty of the world, yet even he, in his brief life, heard +something of the new message. + +Growth of Appreciation of Nature.--More appreciation of nature +followed the development of broader sympathy, Burns wrote a lyric full +of feeling for a mountain daisy which his plow had turned beneath the +furrow. Wordsworth exclaimed:-- + + "To me the meanest flower that blows can give + Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."[6] + +For more than a century after Milton, the majority of references to +nature were made in general terms and were borrowed from the stock +illustrations of older poets, like Vergil. We find the conventional +lark, nightingale, and turtledove. Nothing new or definite is said of +them. + +Increasing comforts and safety in travel now took more people where +they could see for themselves the beauty of nature. In the new poetry +we consequently find more definiteness. We can hear the whir of the +partridge, the chatter of magpies, the whistle of the quail. Poets +speak of a tree not only in general terms, but they note also the +differences in the shade of the green of the leaves and the +peculiarities of the bark. Previous to this time, poets borrowed from +Theocritus and Vergil piping shepherds reclining in the shade, whom no +Englishman had ever seen. In _Michael_ Wordsworth pictures a genuine +English shepherd. + +The love for mountains and wild nature is of recent growth. One writer +in the seventeenth century considered the Alps as so much rubbish +swept together by the broom of nature to clear the plains of Italy. A +seventeenth century traveler thought the Welsh mountains better than +the Alps because the former would pasture goats. Dr. Johnson asked, +"Who can like the Highlands?" The influence of the romantic movement +developed the love for wild scenery, which is so conspicuous in +Wordsworth and Byron. + +This age surpasses even the Elizabethan in endowing Nature with a +conscious soul, capable of bringing a message of solace and +companionship. The greatest romantic poet of nature thus expresses his +creed:-- + + "...Nature never did betray + The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, + Through all the years of this our life, to lead + From joy to joy."[7] + +The Victory of Romanticism.--We have traced in the preceding age the +beginnings of the romantic movement. Its ascendancy over classical +rules was complete in the period between 1780 and the Victorian age. +The romantic victory brought to literature more imagination, greater +individuality, deeper feeling, a less artificial form of expression, +and an added sense for the appreciation of the beauties of nature and +their spiritual significance. + +Swinburne says that the new poetic school, "usually registered as +Wordsworthian," was "actually founded at midnight by William Blake +(1757-1827) and fortified at sunrise by William Wordsworth." These +lines from Blake's _To the Evening Star_ (1783) may be given to +support this statement:-- + + "Thou fair-haired Angel of the Evening, + * * * * * + Smile on our loves; and while thou drawest the + Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew + On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes + In timely sleep. Let thy West Wind sleep on + The lake." + +We may note in these lines the absence of the classical couplet, the +fact that the end of the lines necessitates no halt in thought, and a +unique sympathetic touch in the lines referring to the flower and the +wind. + +Blake's _Songs of Innocence_ (1789) and _Songs of Experience_ (1793) +show not only the new feeling toward nature, but also a broader +sympathy with children and with all suffering creatures. The chimney +sweeper, the lost child, and even the sick rose are remembered in his +verse. In his poem, _The Schoolboy_, he enters as sympathetically as +Shakespeare into the heart of the boy on his way to school, when he +hears the call of the uncaged birds and the fields. + +These two lines express an oft-recurring idea in Blake's mystical +romantic verse:-- + + "The land of dreams is better far, + Above the light of the morning star." + +The volume of _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798), the joint work of Wordsworth +and Coleridge, marks the complete victory of the romantic movement. + +The Position of Prose.--The eighteenth century, until near its end, +was, broadly speaking, an age of prose. In excellence and variety the +prose surpassed the poetry; but in this age (1780-1837) their position +was reversed and poetry regained almost an Elizabethan ascendancy. +Much good prose was written, but it ranks decidedly below the +enchanting romantic poetry. + +Prose writers were laying the foundations for the new science of +political economy and endeavoring to ascertain how the condition of +the masses could be improved. While investigating this subject, +Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), an Episcopal clergyman, announced +his famous proposition, since known as the Malthusian theorem, that +population tends to increase faster than the means of subsistence. +Political economists and philosophers like Adam Smith (1723-1790), +professor in the University of Glasgow, agreed on the "let-alone" +doctrine of government. They held that individuals could succeed best +when least interfered with by government, that a government could not +set aside natural law, but could only impede it and cause harm, as for +instance, in framing laws to tempt capital into forms of industry less +productive than others and away from the employment that it would +naturally seek. Many did not even believe in legislation affecting the +hours of labor or the work of children. This "let-alone" theory was +widely held until the close of the nineteenth century. + +In moral philosophy, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), lawyer and +philosopher, laid down the principle that happiness is the prime +object of existence, and that the basis of legislation should be the +greatest happiness to the greatest number, instead of to the +privileged few. He measured the morality of actions by their +efficiency in producing this happiness, and he said that pushpin is as +good as poetry, if it gives as much pleasure. He was followed by +James Mill (1773-1836), who maintained that the morality of actions +is measured by their utility. The fault with many of the prevalent +theories of government and morals lay in their narrow standards of +immediate utility, their failure to measure remote spiritual effects. + +[Illustration: ROBERT SOUTHEY.] + +The taste of the age encouraged poetry. Scott, although a natural born +writer of prose romance, made his early reputation by such poems as +_Marmion_ and _The Lady of the Lake_. Robert Southey (1774-1843) +usually classed with Wordsworth and Coleridge as one of the three +so-called Lake Poets, wrote much better prose than poetry. His prose +_Life of Nelson_ outranks the poetry in his _Curse of Kehama_. It is +probable that, had he lived in an age of prose ascendancy, he would +have written little poetry, for he distinctly says that the desire of +making money "has already led me to write sometimes in poetry what +would perhaps otherwise have been better written in prose." This +statement shows in a striking way the spirit of those times. If +Coleridge had not written such good poetry, his excellent critical +prose would probably be more read to-day; but he doubtless continues +to have a thousand readers for _The Ancient Mariner_ to one for his +prose. + +Among the prose writers of this age, the fiction of Scott and Jane +Austen seems destined to the longest lease of life and the widest +circle of readers. De Quincey's work, especially his artistic +presentation of his thrilling dreams, has many admirers. + +[Illustration: CHARLES LAMB. _From a drawing by Maclise_.] + +The _Essays of Elia_ of Charles Lamb (1775-1834) still charms many +readers. For over thirty years he was by day a clerk in the India +House and by night a student of the Elizabethan drama and a writer of +periodical essays, suggestive of the work of Addison and Steele. +Lamb's pervasive humor in discussing trivial subjects makes him very +delightful reading. His well-known _Essays of Elia_ first appeared in +the _London Magazine_ between 1820 and 1833. The peculiar flavor of +his style and humor is shown in his _A Dissertation upon Roast-Pig_, +as one of the most popular of these _Essays_ is called. Lamb relates +how a Chinese boy, Bo-bo, having accidentally set his house an fire +and roasted a litter of pigs, happened to acquire a liking for roast +pig when he sucked his fingers to cool them after touching a crackling +pig. It was considered a crime to eat meat that was not raw; but the +jury fortunately had their fingers burned in the same way and tried +Bo-bo's method of cooling them. The boy was promptly acquitted. Lamb +gravely proceeds:-- + + "The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity + of the decision, and when the court was dismissed, went privily + and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a + few days his lordship's town house was observed to be on fire. The + thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in + every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the + district. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People + built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the + very science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the + world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process + of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made + a discovery that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, + might be cooked (_burnt_ as they called it) without the necessity of + consuming a whole house to dress it. Then began the rude form of a + gridiron." + +[Illustration: BO-BO AND ROAST PIG. _From a drawing by B. +Westmacott_.] + +Other enjoyable essays are _Old China_, a lovable picture of his home +life with his sister, _Dream Children_, _New Year's Eve_, and _Poor +Relations_. + +The results of Lamb's Elizabethan studies appeared in the excellent +_Tales from Shakespeare_, which he wrote with his sister, and in his +_Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who wrote about the Time of +Shakespeare_. + +This age produced much prose criticism. Coleridge remains one of +England's greatest critics, and Lamb and De Quincey are yet two of her +most enjoyable ones. Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) and William +Hazlitt (1778-1830) also deserve mention in the history of English +prose criticism. Both men were unusually combative. Landor was sent +away from Oxford "for criticizing a noisy party with a shot gun," +which he discharged against the closed shutters of the room where the +roisterers were holding their festivities. He went to Italy, where +most of his literary work was done. He avoided people, and even +boasted that he took more pleasure with his own thoughts than with +those of others. For companionship, he imagined himself conversing +with other people. The titles of his best two works are _Imaginary +Conversations_ (1824-1848) and _Pericles and Aspasia_ (1836), the +latter a series of imaginary letters. His writings are notable for +their style, for an unusual combination of dignity with simplicity and +directness. A statement like the following shows how vigorous and +sweeping his criticisms sometimes are: "A rib of Shakespeare would +have made a Milton; the same portion of Milton, all poets born ever +since." In spite of many splendid passages and of a style that +suggests sculpture in marble, twentieth-century readers often feel +that he is under full sail, either bound for nowhere, or voyaging to +some port where they do not care to land. + +Hazlitt is less polished, but more suggestive, and in closer touch +with life than Landor. In seizing the important qualities of an +author's works and summarizing them in brief space, Hazlitt shows the +skill of a trained journalist. His three volumes, _Characters of +Shakespeare's Plays_ (1817), _Lectures on the English Poets_ (1818), +and _Lectures on the English Comic Writers_ (1819) contain criticism +that remains stimulating and suggestive. He loves to arrive somewhere, +to settle his points definitely. His discussion of the frequently +debated question,--whether Pope is a poet, shows this +characteristic:-- + + "The question,--whether Pope was a poet, has hardly yet been + settled, and is hardly worth settling; for if he was not a great + poet, he must have been a great prose writer, that is, he was a + great writer of some sort." + +His two volumes of essays, _The Round Table_ (1817) and _Table Talk_ +(1821-1822), caused him to be called a "lesser Dr. Samuel Johnson." + +While the combative dispositions of Landor and Hazlitt did not make +them ideal critics of their contemporaries, the taste of the age liked +criticism of the slashing type. The newly established periodicals and +reviews, such as _The Edinburgh Review_ (started in 1802), furnished a +new market for critical essays. Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850), editor +of _The Edinburgh Review_, accused Wordsworth of "silliness" in his +_Lyrical Ballads_; and said vehemently of a later volume of the same +poet's verse: "This will never do." _The Quarterly Review_ in 1818 +spoke of the "insanity" of the poetry of Keats. In 1819 _Blackwood's +Edinburgh Magazine_ gave a fatherly warning to Shelley that Keats as a +poet was "worthy of sheer and instant contempt," advised him to select +better companions than "Johnny Keats," and promised that compliance +with this advice would secure him "abundance of better praise." + +Even the more genial Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), the friend of Shelley +and Keats, and the writer of many pleasant essays, called Carlyle's +style "a jargon got up to confound pretension with performance." We +like Hunt best when he is writing in the vein of the _Spectator_ or as +a "miniature Lamb." In such papers as _An Earth upon Heaven_, Hunt +tells us that in heaven "there can be no clergymen if there are no +official duties for them"; that we shall there enjoy the choicest +books, for "Shakespeare and Spenser should write us _new ones_." He +closes this entertaining paper with the novel assurance: "If we +choose, now and then we shall even have inconveniences." + +WILLIAM COWPER, 1731-1800 + +[Illustration: WILLIAM COWPER. _From the portrait by Sir Thomas +Lawrence_.] + +Life.--Cowper's life is a tale of almost continual sadness, caused +by his morbid timidity. He was born at Great Berkhampstead, +Hertfordshire, in 1731. At the age of six, he lost his mother and was +placed in a boarding school. Here his sufferings began. The child was +so especially terrified by one rough boy that he could never raise his +eyes to the bully's face, but knew him unmistakably by his shoe +buckles. + +There was some happiness for Cowper at his next school, the +Westminster School, and also during the twelve succeeding years, when +he studied law; but the short respite was followed by the gloom of +madness. Owing to his ungovernable fear of a public examination, which +was necessary to secure the position offered by an uncle, Cowper +underwent days and nights of agony, during which he tried in many ways +to end his miserable life. The frightful ordeal unsettled his reason, +and he spent eighteen months in an insane asylum. + +Upon his recovery, he was taken into the house of a Rev. Mr. Unwin, +whose wife tended Cowper as a son during the rest of her life. He was +never supremely happy, and he was sometimes again thrown into madness +by the terrible thought of God's wrath; but his life was passed in a +quiet manner in the villages of Weston and Olney, where he was loved +by every one. The simple pursuits of gardening, carpentering, visiting +the sick, caring for his numerous pets, rambling through the lanes, +studying nature, and writing verse, occupied his sane moments when he +was not at prayer. + +Works.--Cowper's first works were the _Olney Hymns_. His religious +nature is manifest again in the volume which consists of didactic +poems upon such subjects as _The Progress of Error, Truth, Charity, +Table Talk_, and _Conversation_. These are in the spirit of the formal +classical poets, and contain sententious couplets such as + + "An idler is a watch that wants both hands, + As useless if it goes as when it stands."[8] + + "Vociferated logic kills me quite; + A noisy man is always in the right."[9] + +[Illustration: COWPER'S COTTAGE AT WESTON.] + +The bare didacticism of these poems is softened and sweetened by the +gentle, devout nature of the poet, and is enlivened by a vein of pure +humor. + +He is one of England's most delightful letter writers because of his +humor, which ripples occasionally over the stream of his +constitutional melancholy. _The Diverting History of John Gilpin_ is +extremely humorous. The poet seems to have forgotten himself in this +ballad and to have given full expression to his sense of the +ludicrous. + +[Illustration: JOHN GILPIN'S RIDE. _From a drawing by R. +Caldecott_.] + +The work that has made his name famous is _The Task_. He gave it this +title half humorously because his friend, Lady Austen, had bidden him +write a poem in blank verse upon some subject or other, the sofa, for +instance; and he called the first book of the poem _The Sofa_. _The +Task_ is chiefly remarkable because it turns from the artificial and +conventional subjects which had been popular, and describes simple +beauties of nature and the joys of country life. Cowper says:-- + + "God made the country, and man made the town." + +To a public acquainted with the nature poetry of Burns, Wordsworth, +and Tennyson, Cowper's poem does not seem a wonderful production. +Appearing as it did, however, during the ascendancy of Pope's +influence, when aristocratic city life was the only theme for verse, +_The Task_ is a strikingly original work. It marks a change from the +artificial style of eighteenth century poetry and proclaims the dawn +of the natural style of the new school. He who could write of-- + + "...rills that slip + Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall + Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length + In matted grass, that with a livelier green + Betrays the secret of their silent course," + +was a worthy forerunner of Shelley and Keats. + +General Characteristics.--Cowper's religious fervor was the +strongest element in both his life and his writings. Perhaps that +which next appealed to his nature was the pathetic. He had +considerable mastery of pathos, as may be seen in the drawing of +"crazed Kate" in _The Task_, in the lines _To Mary_, and in the +touchingly beautiful poem _On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture out +of Norfolk_, beginning with that well-known line:-- + + "Oh that those lips had language!" + +The two most attractive characteristics of his works are refined, +gentle humor and a simple and true manner of picturing rural scenes +and incidents. He says that he described no spot which he had not +seen, and expressed no emotion which he had not felt. In this way, he +restricted the range of his subjects and displayed a somewhat literal +mind; but what he had seen and felt he touched with a light fancy and +with considerable imaginative power. + +ROBERT BURNS, 1759-1796 + +[Illustration: ROBERT BURNS. _From the painting by Nasmyth, National +Portrait Gallery_.] + +[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF BURNS.] + +Life.--The greatest of Scottish poets was born in a peasant's +clay-built cottage, a mile and a half south of Ayr. His father was a +man whose morality, industry, and zeal for education made him an +admirable parent. For a picture of his father and the home influences +under which the boy was reared, _The Cotter's Saturday Night_ should +be read. The poet had little formal schooling, but under paternal +influence he learned how to teach himself. + +Until his twenty-eighth year, Robert Burns was an ordinary laborer on +one or another of the Ayrshire tenant farms which his father or +brothers leased. At the age of fifteen, he was worked beyond his +strength in doing a man's full labor. He called his life on the +Ayrshire farms "the unceasing toil of a galley slave." All his life he +fought a hand-to-hand fight with poverty. + +In 1786, when he was twenty-seven years old, he resolved to abandon +the struggle and seek a position in the far-off island of Jamaica. In +order to secure money for his passage, he published some poems which +he had thought out while following the plow or resting after the day's +toil. Six hundred copies were printed at three shillings each. All +were sold in a little over a month. A copy of this Kilmarnock edition +has since sold in Edinburgh for L572. His fame from that little volume +has grown as much as its monetary value. + +Some Edinburgh critics praised the poems very highly and suggested a +second edition. Burns therefore abandoned the idea of going to Jamaica +and went to Edinburgh to arrange for a new edition. Here he was +entertained by the foremost men, some of whom wished to see how a +plowman would behave in polite society, while others desired to gaze +on what they regarded as a freak of nature. + +The new volume appeared in 1787, and contained but few poems which had +not been published the previous year. The following winter he again +went to Edinburgh; but having shocked society by his intemperate +habits, he was almost totally neglected by the leaders of literature +and fashion. + +In 1788 Burns married Jean Armour and took her to a farm which he +leased in Dumfriesshire. The first part of this new period was the +happiest in his life. She has been immortalized in his songs:-- + + "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."[10] + +As this farm proved unprofitable, Burns appealed to influential +persons for some position that would enable him to support his family +and write poetry. This was an age of pensions, but not a farthing of +pension did he ever get. He was made an exciseman or gauger, at a +salary of L50 a year, and he followed that occupation for the few +remaining years of his life. + +Robert Burns wrote and did some things unworthy of a great poet; but +when Scotland thinks of him, she quotes the lines which he wrote for +_Tam Samson's Elegy_:-- + + "Heav'n rest his saul, whare'er he be! + Is th' wish o' mony mae than me: + He had twa faults, or maybe three, + Yet what remead?[11] + Ae social, honest man want we." + +Burns's Poetic Creed.--We can understand and enjoy Burns much better +if we know his object in writing poetry and the point of view from +which he regarded life. It would be hard to fancy the intensity of the +shock which the school of Pope would have felt on reading this +statement of the poor plowman's poetic creed:-- + + "Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire, + That's a' the learning I desire; + Then tho' I drudge thro' dub an' mire + At pleugh or cart, + My Muse, though hamely in attire, + May touch the heart."[12] + +Burns's heart had been touched with the loves and sorrows of life, and +it was his ambition to sing so naturally of these as to touch the +hearts of others. + +With such an object in view, he did not disdain to use in his best +productions much of the Scottish dialect, the vernacular of the +plowman and the shepherd. The literary men of Edinburgh, who would +rather have been convicted of a breach of etiquette than of a +Scotticism, tried to induce him to write pure English; but the Scotch +words which he first heard from his mother's lips seemed to possess +more "o' Nature's fire." He ended by touching the heart of Scotland +and making her feel more proud of this dialect, of him, and of +herself. + +[Illustration: BURNS AND HIGHLAND MARY. _From the painting by James +Archer_.] + +Union of the Elizabethan with the Revolutionary Spirit.--In no +respect does the poetry of Burns more completely part company with the +productions of the classical school than in the expression of feeling. +The emotional fire of Elizabethan times was restored to literature. No +poet except Shakespeare has ever written more nobly impassioned love +songs. Burns's song beginning:-- + + "Ae fond kiss and then + we sever" + +seemed to both Byron and Scott to contain the essence of a thousand +love tales. This unaffected, passionate treatment of love had long +been absent from our literature; but intensity of genuine feeling +reappeared in Burns's _Highland Mary, I Love My Jean, Farewell to +Nancy, To Mary in Heaven, O Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast_, which last +Mendelssohn thought exquisite enough to set to music. The poetry of +Burns throbs with varying emotions. It has been well said that the +essence of the lyric is to describe the passion of the moment. Burns +is a master in this field. + +The spirit of revolution against the bondage and cold formalism of the +past made the poor man feel that his place in the world was as +dignified, his happiness as important, as that of the rich. A feeling +of sympathy for the oppressed and the helpless also reached beyond man +to animals. Burns wrote touching lines about a mouse whose nest was, +one cold November day, destroyed by his plow. When the wild eddying +swirl of the snow beat around his cot, his heart went out to the poor +sheep, cattle, and birds. + +Burns can, therefore, claim kinship with the Elizabethans because of +his love songs, which in depth of feeling and beauty of natural +utterance show something of Shakespeare's magic. In addition to this, +the poetry of Burns voices the democratic spirit of the Revolution. + +Treatment of Nature.--In his verses, the autumn winds blow over +yellow corn; the fogs melt in limpid air; the birches extend their +fragrant arms dressed in woodbine; the lovers are coming through the +rye; the daisy spreads her snowy bosom to the sun; the "westlin" winds +blow fragrant with dewy flowers and musical with the melody of birds; +the brook flows past the lover's Eden, where summer first unfolds her +robes and tarries longest, because of the rarest bewitching +enchantment of the poet's tale told there. + +In his poetry those conventional birds,--the lark and the +nightingale,--do not hold the chief place. His verses show that the +source of his knowledge of birds is not to be sought in books. We +catch glimpses of grouse cropping heather buds, of whirring flocks of +partridges, of the sooty coot and the speckled teal, of the fisher +herons, of the green-crested lapwing, of clamoring craiks among fields +of flowering clover, of robins cheering the pensive autumn, of +lintwhites chanting among the buds, of the mavis singing drowsy day to +rest. + +It is true that on the poetic stage of Burns, man always stands in the +foreground. Nature is employed in order to give human emotion a proper +background. Burns chose those aspects of nature which harmonized with +his present mood, but the natural objects in his pages are none the +less enjoyable for that reason. Sometimes his songs complain if nature +seems gay when he is sad, but this contrast is employed to throw a +stronger light on his woes. + +General Characteristics.--More people often visit the birthplace of +Burns near Ayr than of Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon. What +qualities in Burns account for such popularity? The fact that the +Scotch are an unusually patriotic people and make many pilgrimages to +the land of Burns is only a partial answer to this question. The +complete answer is to be found in a study of Burns's characteristics. +In the first place, with his "spark o' Nature's fire," he has touched +the hearts of more of the rank and file of humanity than even +Shakespeare himself. The songs of Burns minister in the simplest and +most direct way to every one of the common feelings of the human +heart. Shakespeare surpasses all others in painting universal human +nature, but he is not always simple. Sometimes his audience consists +of only the cultured few. + +Especially enjoyable is the humor of Burns, which usually displays a +kindly and intuitive sympathy with human weakness. _Tam o' Shanter_, +his greatest poem, keeps the reader smiling or laughing from beginning +to end. When the Scottish Muse proudly placed on his brow the holly +wreath, she happily emphasized two of his conspicuous qualities,--his +love and mirth, when she said:-- + + "I saw thee eye the gen'ral mirth + With boundless love."[13] + +Burns is one of the great masters of lyrical verse. He preferred that +form. He wrote neither epic nor dramatic poetry. He excels in "short +swallow flights of song." + +There are not many ways in which a poet can keep larger audiences or +come nearer to them than by writing verses that naturally lend +themselves to daily song. There are few persons, from the peasant to +the lord, who have not sung some of Burns's songs such as _Auld Lang +Syne, Coming through the Rye, John Anderson my Jo_, or _Scots Wha hae +wi' Wallace Bled_. Since the day of his death, the audiences of Robert +Burns have for these reasons continually grown larger. + +WALTER SCOTT, 1771-1832 + +[Illustration: WALTER SCOTT. _From the painting by William +Nicholson._] + +Life.--Walter Scott, the son of a solicitor, was born in Edinburgh +in 1771. In childhood he was such an invalid that he was allowed to +follow his own bent without much attempt at formal education. He was +taken to the country, where he acquired a lasting fondness for animals +and wild scenery. With his first few shillings he bought the +collection of early ballads and songs known as Percy's _Reliques of +Ancient English Poetry_. Of this he says, "I do not believe I ever +read a book half so frequently, or with half the enthusiasm." His +grandmother used to delight him with the tales of adventure on the +Scottish border. + +Later, Scott went to the Edinburgh High School and to the University. +At the High School he showed wonderful genius for telling stories to +the boys. "I made a brighter figure in the _yards_ than in the +_class_," he says of himself at this time. This early practice of +relating tales and noting what held the attention of his classmates +was excellent training for the future Wizard of the North. + +After the apprenticeship to his father, the son was called to the bar +and began the practice of law. He often left his office to travel over +the Scottish counties in search of legendary ballads, songs, and +traditions, a collection of which he published under the title of +_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_. In 1797 he married Miss Charlotte +Carpenter, who had an income of L500 a year. In 1799, having obtained +the office of sheriff of Selkirkshire at an annual salary of L300, +with very light duties, he found himself able to neglect law for +literature. His early freedom from poverty is in striking contrast to +the condition of his fellow Scotsman, Robert Burns. + +During the period between thirty and forty years of age, he wrote his +best poems. Not until he was nearly forty-three did he discover where +his greatest powers lay. He then published _Waverley_, the first of a +series of novels known by that general name. During the remaining +eighteen years of his life he wrote twenty-nine novels, besides many +other works, such as the _Life of Napoleon_ in nine volumes, and an +entertaining work on Scottish history under the title of _Tales of a +Grandfather_. + +[Illustration: ABBOTSFORD, HOME OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.] + +The crisis that showed Scott's sterling character came in the winter +of 1825-1826, when an Edinburgh publishing firm in which he was +interested failed and left an his shoulders a debt of L117,000. Had he +been a man of less honor, he might have taken advantage of the +bankrupt law, which would have left his future earnings free from past +claims; but he refused to take any step that would remove his +obligation to pay the debt. At the age of fifty four, he abandoned his +happy dream of founding the house of Scott of Abbotsford and sat down +to pay off the debt with his pen. The example of such a life is better +than the finest sermon on honor. He wrote with almost inconceivable +rapidity. His novel _Woodstock_, the product of three months' work, +brought him L8228. In four years he paid L70,000 to his creditors. One +day the tears rolled down his cheeks because he could no longer force +his fingers to grasp the pen. The king offered him a man-of-war in +which to make a voyage to the Mediterranean. Hoping to regain his +health, Scott made the trip, but the rest came too late. He returned +to Abbotsford in a sinking condition, and died in 1832, at the age of +sixty-one. + +[Illustration: SCOTT'S GRAVE IN DRYBURGH ABBEY.] + +Poetry.--Scott's three greatest poems are _The Lay of the Last +Minstrel_ (1805), _Marmion_ (1808), and _The Lady of the Lake_ (1810). +They belong to the distinct class of story-telling poetry. Like many +of the ballads in Percy's collection, these poems are stories of old +feuds between the Highlander and the Lowlander, and between the border +lords of England and Scotland. These romantic tales of heroic battles, +thrilling incidents, and love adventures, are told in fresh, vigorous +verse, which breathes the free air of wild nature and moves with the +prance of a war horse. Outside of Homer, we can nowhere find a better +description of a battle than in the sixth canto of _Marmion: A Tale of +Flodden Field_:-- + + "They close, in clouds of smoke and dust, + With sword sway and with lance's thrust; + And such a yell was there, + Of sudden and portentous birth, + As if men fought upon the earth, + And fiends in upper air; + * * * * * + And in the smoke the pennons flew, + As in the storm the white sea mew." + +_The Lady of the Lake_, an extremely interesting story of romantic +love and adventure, has been the most popular of Scott's poems. Loch +Katrine and the Trossachs, where the scene of the opening cantos is +laid, have since Scott's day been thronged with tourists. + +[Illustration: LOCH KATRINE AND ELLEN'S ISLE.] + +The most prominent characteristic of Scott's poetry is its energetic +movement. Many schoolboys know by heart those dramatic lines which +express Marmion's defiance of Douglas, and the ballad of _Lochinvar_, +which is alive with the movements of tireless youth. These poems have +an interesting story to tell, not of the thoughts, but of the deeds, +of the characters. Scott is strangely free from nineteenth century +introspection. + +Historical Fiction.--Seeing that Byron could surpass him as a poet, +and finding that his own genius was best adapted to writing prose +tales, Scott turned to the composition of his great romances. In 1814 +he published _Waverly_, a story of the attempt of the Jacobite +Pretender to recover the English throne in 1745. Seventeen of Scott's +works of fiction are historical. + +When we wish a vivid picture of the time of Richard Coeur de Lion, of +the knight and the castle, of the Saxon swineherd Gurth and of the +Norman master who ate the pork, we may read _Ivanhoe_. If we desire +some reading that will make the Crusaders live again, we find it in +the pages of _The Talisman_. When we wish an entertaining story of the +brilliant days of Elizabeth, we turn to _Kenilworth_. If we are moved +by admiration for the Scotch Covenanters to seek a story of their +times, we have Scott's truest historical tale, _Old Mortality_. +Shortly after this story appeared, Lord Holland was asked his opinion +of it. "Opinion!" he exclaimed; "we did not one of us go to bed last +night--nothing slept but my gout." The man who could thus charm his +readers was called "the Wizard of the North." + +[Illustration: WALTER SCOTT. _From a life sketch by Maclise_.] + +Scott is the creator of the historical novel, which has advanced on +the general lines marked out by him. Carlyle tersely says: "These +historical novels have taught all men this truth, which looks like a +truism, and yet was as good as unknown to writers of history and +others till so taught: that the by-gone ages of the world were +actually filled by living men, not by protocols, state papers, +controversies, and abstractions of men." + +The history in Scott's novels is not always absolutely accurate. To +meet the exigencies of his plot, he sometimes takes liberties with the +events of history, and there are occasional anachronisms in his work. +Readers may rest assured, however, that the most prominent strokes of +his brush will convey a sufficiently accurate idea of certain phases +of history. Although the hair lines in his pictures may be neglected, +most persons can learn more truth from studying his gallery of +historic scenes than from poring over volumes of documents and state +papers. Scott does not look at life from every point of view. The +reader of _Ivanhoe_, for instance, should be cautioned against +thinking that it presents a complete picture of the Middle Ages. It +shows the bright, the noble side of chivalry, but not all the +brutality, ignorance, and misery of the times. + +Novels that are not Historical.--Twelve of Scott's novels contain +but few attempts to represent historic events. The greatest of these +novels are _Guy Mannering, The Heart of Midlothian, The Antiquary, and +The Bride of Lammermoor_. + +Scott said that his most rapid work was his best. _Guy Mannering_, an +admirable picture of Scottish life and manners, was written in six +weeks. Some of its characters, like Dominie Sampson, the pedagogue, +Meg Merrilies, the gypsy, and Dick Hatteraick, the smuggler, have more +life than many of the people we meet. + +A century before, Pope said that most women had no characters at all. +His writings tend to show that this was his real conviction, as it was +that of many others during the time when Shakespeare was little read. +_The Heart of Midlothian_ presents in Jeanie Deans a woman whose +character and feminine qualities have won the admiration of the world. +Scott could not paint women in the higher walks of life. He was so +chivalrous that he was prone to make such women too perfect, but his +humble Scotch lass Jeanie Deans is one of his greatest creations. + +[Illustration: SCOTT'S DESK AT ABBOTSFORD.] + +When we note the vast number of characters drawn by his pen, we are +astonished to find that he repeats so little. Many novelists write +only one original novel. Their succeeding works are merely repetitions +of the first. The hero may have put on a new suit of clothes and the +heroine may have different colored hair, or each may be given a new +mannerism, but there is nothing really new in character, and very +little in incident. Year after year, however, Scott wrote with +wonderful rapidity, without repeating his characters or his plots. + +General Characteristics.--All critics are impressed with the +healthiness of Scott's work, with its freedom from what is morbid or +debasing. His stories display marked energy and movement, and but +little subtle analysis of feelings and motives. He aimed at broad and +striking effects. We do not find much development of character in his +pages. "His characters have the brilliance and the fixity of +portraits." + +Scott does not particularly care to delineate the intense passion of +love. Only one of his novels, _The Bride of Lammermoor_, is aflame +with this overmastering emotion. He delights in adventure. He places +his characters in unusual and dangerous situations, and he has +succeeded in making us feel his own interest in the outcome. He has on +a larger scale many of the qualities that we may note in the American +novelist Cooper, whose best stories are tales of adventure in the +forest or on the sea. Like him, Scott shows lack of care in the +construction of sentences. Few of the most cultured people of to-day +could, however, write at Scott's breakneck speed and make as few +slips. Scott has far more humor and variety than Cooper. + +Scott's romanticism is seen in his love for supernatural agencies, +which figure in many of his stories. His fondness for adventure, for +mystery, for the rush of battle, for color and sharp contrast, and his +love for the past are also romantic traits. Sometimes, however, he +falls into the classical fault of overdescription and of leaving too +little to the imagination. + +In the variety of his creations, he is equaled by no one. He did more +than any other pioneer to aid fiction in dethroning the drama. His +influence can be seen in the historical novels of almost every nation. + +JANE AUSTEN, 1775-1817 + +[Illustration: JANE AUSTEN. _From an original family portrait_.] + +Life and Works.--While Sir Walter Scott was laying the foundations +of his large family estates and recounting the story of battles, +chivalry, and brigandage, a quiet little woman, almost unmindful of +the great world, was enlivening her father's parsonage and writing +about the clergy, the old maids, the short-sighted mothers, the +marriageable daughters, and other people that figure in village life. + +This cheery, sprightly young woman was Jane Austen, who was born in +Steventon, Hampshire, in 1775. + +She spent nearly all her life in Hampshire, which furnished her with +the chief material for her novels. She loved the quiet life of small +country villages and interpreted it with rare sympathy and a keen +sense of humor, as is shown in the following lines from _Pride and +Prejudice_:-- + + "'Oh, Mr. Bennet, you are wanted immediately; we are all in an + uproar! You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she + vows she will not have him; and if you do not make haste he will + change his mind and not have her!' + + "'Come here, child,' cried her father ... 'I understand that Mr. + Collins has made you an offer of marriage. Is it true?' Elizabeth + replied that it was. 'Very well--and this offer of marriage you have + refused?' + + "'I have, sir.' + + "'Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists + upon your accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?' + + "'Yes, or I will never see her again.' + + "'An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day + you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will + never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will + never see you again if you do!'" + +She began her literary work early, and at the age of sixteen she had +accumulated quite a pile of manuscripts. She wrote as some artists +paint, for the pure joy of the work, and she never allowed her name to +appear on a title page. The majority of her acquaintances did not even +suspect her of the "guilt of authorship." + +She disliked "Gothic" romances, such as _The Mysteries of Udolpho_, +and she wrote _Northanger Abbey_ as a burlesque of that type. In this +story the heroine, Catherine Moreland, who has been fed on such +literature, is invited to visit Northanger Abbey in Gloucestershire, +where with an imagination "resolved on alarm," she is prepared to be +agitated by experiences of trapdoors and subterranean passages. On the +first night of her visit, a violent storm, with its mysterious noises, +serves to arouse the most characteristic "Gothic" feelings; but when +the complete awakening comes and the "visions of romance are over," +Catherine realizes that real life is not fruitful of such horrors as +are depicted in her favorite novels. + +_Pride and Prejudice_ is usually considered Jane Austen's best work, +although _Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park_, and +_Persuasion_ have their ardent admirers. In fact, there is an +increasing number of discriminating readers who enjoy almost +everything that she wrote. During the last five years of the +eighteenth century, she produced some of her best novels, although +they were not published until the period between 1811 and 1818. + +The scenes of her stories are laid for the most part in small +Hampshire villages, with which she was thoroughly familiar, the +characters being taken from the middle class and the gentry with whom +she was thrown. Simple domestic episodes and ordinary people, living +somewhat monotonous and narrow lives, satisfy her. She exhibits +wonderful skill in fashioning these into slight but entertaining +narratives. In _Pride and Prejudice_, for example, she creates some +refreshing situations by opposing Philip Darcy's pride to Elizabeth +Bennet's prejudice. She manages the long-delayed reconciliation +between these two lovers with a tact that shows true genius and a +knowledge of the human heart. + +[Illustration: JANE AUSTEN'S DESK.] + +A strong feature of Jane Austen's novels is her subtle, careful manner +of drawing character. She perceives with an intuitive refinement the +delicate shadings of emotion, and describes them with the utmost care +and detail. Her heroines are especially fine, each one having an +interesting individuality, thoroughly natural and womanly. The minor +characters in Miss Austen's works are usually quaint and original. She +sees the oddities and foibles of people with the insight of the true +humorist, and paints them with most dexterous cunning. + +William D. Howells, the chief American realist of the nineteenth +century, wrote in 1891 of her and her novels:-- + + "She was great and they were beautiful because she and they were + honest and dealt with nature nearly a hundred years ago as realism + deals with it to-day. Realism is nothing more and nothing less than + the truthful treatment of material." + +She was, indeed, a great realist, and it seems strange that she and +Scott, the great romanticist, should have been contemporaries. Scott +was both broad and big-hearted enough to sum up her chief +characteristics as follows:-- + + "That young lady has a talent for describing the involvements of + feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most + wonderful I ever met with. The big bow-wow strain I can do myself, + like any one going; but the exquisite touch which renders + commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the + description and the sentiment is denied to me." + +She died in 1817 at the age of forty-one and was buried in Winchester +Cathedral, fourteen miles from her birthplace. The merit of her work +was apparent to only a very few at the time of her death. Later years +have slowly brought a just recognition of the important position that +she holds in the history of the realistic novel of daily life. Of +still greater significance to the majority is the fact that the subtle +charm of her stories continues to win for her an enlarged circle of +readers. + +WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850 + +[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. _After the portrait by B.R. +Haydon_.] + +Early Life and Training.--William Wordsworth was born in +Cockermouth, Cumberland, in 1770. He went to school in his ninth year +at Hawkshead, a village on the banks of Esthwaite Water, in the heart +of the Lake Country. The traveler who takes the pleasant journey on +foot or coach from Windermere to Coniston, passes through Hawkshead, +where he may see Wordsworth's name cut in a desk of the school which +he attended. Of greater interest is the scenery which contributed so +much to his education and aided his development into England's +greatest nature poet. + +We learn from his autobiographical poem, _The Prelude_, what +experiences molded him in boyhood. He says that the-- + + "...common face of Nature spake to me + Rememberable things." + +In this poem he relates how he absorbed into his inmost being the +orange sky of evening, the curling mist, the last autumnal crocus, the +"souls of lonely places," and the huge peak, which terrified him at +nightfall by seeming to stride after him and which awoke in him a-- + + "...dim and undermined sense + Of unknown modes of being." + +[Illustration: BOY OF WINANDER. _From mural painting by H.O. Walker, +Congressional Library, Washington, D.C._] + +In his famous lines on the "Boy of Winander," Wordsworth tells how-- + + "...the voice + Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene + Would enter unawares into his mind + With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, + Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received + Into the bosom of the steady lake." + +At the age of seventeen he entered Cambridge University, from which he +was graduated after a four years' course. He speaks of himself there +as a dreamer passing through a dream. There came to him the strange +feeling that he "was not for that hour nor for that place;" and yet he +says that he was not unmoved by his daily association with the haunts +of his illustrious predecessors, or of-- + + "Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven + With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace," + +and of Milton whose soul seemed to Wordsworth "like a star." + +Influence of the French Revolution.--His travels on the continent in +his last vacation and after his graduation brought him in contact with +the French Revolution, of which he felt the inspiring influence. He +was fond of children, and the sight of a poor little French peasant +girl seems to have been one of the main causes leading him to become +an ardent revolutionist. _The Prelude_ tells in concrete fullness how +he walked along the banks of the Loire with his friend, a French +patriot:-- + + "...And when we chanced + One day to meet a hunger-bitten girl, + Who crept along fitting her languid gait + Unto a heifer's motion, by a cord + Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane + Its sustenance, while the girl with pallid hands + Was busy knitting in a heartless mood + Of solitude, and at the sight my friend + In agitation said, ''Tis against _that_ + That we are fighting.'" + +Just as Wordsworth was prepared to throw himself personally into the +conflict, his relatives recalled him to England. When the Revolution +passed into a period of anarchy and bloodshed, his dejection was +intense. As he slowly recovered from his disappointment, he became +more and more conservative in politics and less in sympathy with +violent agitation; but he never ceased to utter a hopeful though calm +and tempered note for genuine liberty. + +Maturity and Declining Years.--Although Wordsworth was early left an +orphan, he never seemed to lack intelligent care and sympathy. His +sister Dorothy, a rare soul, helped to fashion him into a poet. Their +favorite pastime was walking and observing nature. De Quincey +estimates that Wordsworth, during the course of his life, mast have +walked as many as 175,000 miles. He acted on his belief that-- + + "All things that love the sun are out of doors," + +and he composed his best poetry during his walks, dictating it after +his return. + +He must have had the capacity of impressing himself favorably on his +associates or he might never have had the leisure to write poetry. +When he was twenty-five, a friend left him a legacy of L900 to enable +him to follow his chosen calling of poet. Seven years later, friends +saw that he was appointed distributor of stamps for Westmoreland, at +the annual salary of L400. Years afterward, a friend gave him a +regular allowance to be spent in traveling. + +The summer of 1797 saw him and Dorothy begin a golden year at Alfoxden +in Somersetshire, in close association with Coleridge. The result of +this companionship was _Lyrical Ballads_, an epoch-making volume of +romantic verse, containing such gems as Wordsworth's _Lines composed a +Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, Lines written in Early Spring, We Are +Seven_, and Coleridge's _The Ancient Mariner_. "All good poetry," +wrote Wordsworth in the _Preface_ to the second edition of this +volume, "is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." This is +the opposite of the belief of the classical school. + +In 1797, after a trip to Germany, he and Dorothy settled at Dove +Cottage, Grasmere, in the Lake Country. She remained a member of the +household after he married his cousin, Mary Hutchinson, in 1802. The +history of English authors shows no more ideal companionship than that +of these three kindred souls. Dove Cottage where he wrote the best of +his poetry, remains almost unchanged. It is one of the most +interesting literary homes in England. + +[Illustration: DOVE COTTAGE.] + +In 1813 he moved a short distance away, to Rydal Mount, where he lived +the remainder of his life. In 1843 he was chosen poet laureate. He +died in 1850 and was buried in Grasmere Churchyard. + +A Poet of Nature.--Wordsworth is one of the world's most loving and +thoughtful lyrical poets of Nature. For him she possessed a soul, a +conscious existence, an ability to feel joy and love. In _Lines +written in Early Spring_, he expresses this belief:-- + + "And 'tis my faith that every flower + Enjoys the air it breathes." + +All things seem to him to feel pure joy in existence:-- + + "The moon doth with delight + Look round her when the heavens are bare." + +It was also his poetic creed that Nature could bring to human hearts a +message of solace and companionship. His poem, _Lines composed a Short +Distance above Tintern Abbey_, is a remarkable exposition of this +faith. + +He would have scorned to be considered merely a descriptive poet of +nature. He satirizes those who could do nothing more than correctly +apply the color "yellow" to the primrose:-- + + "A primrose by a river's brim + A yellow primrose was to him + And it was nothing more." + +He interprets the sympathetic soul of Nature, not merely her outward +or her intellectual aspect. He says in _The Prelude_:-- + + "From Nature and her overflowing soul + I had received so much, that all my thoughts + Were steeped in feeling." + +If we compare Wordsworth's line-- + + "This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,"[14] + +with Tennyson's line from _The Princess_-- + + "A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight," + +we may easily decide which shows more feeling and which, more art. + +Many poets have produced beautiful paintings of the external features +of nature. With rare genius, Wordsworth looked beyond the color of the +flower, the outline of the hills, the beauty of the clouds, to the +spirit that breathed through them, and he communed with "Nature's +self, which is the breath of God." He introduced lovers of his poetry +to a new world of nature, a new source of companionship and solace, a +new idea of a Being in cloud and air and "the green leaves among the +groves." + +Poetry of Man: Narrative Poems.--Wordsworth is a poet of man as well +as of nature. The love for nature came to him first; but out of it +grew his regard for the people who lived near to nature. His poetry of +man is found more in his longer narrative poems, although in them as +well as in his shorter pieces, he shows the action of nature on man. +In _The Prelude_, the most remarkable autobiographical poem in +English, not only reveals the power in nature to develop man, but he +also tells how the French revolution made him feel the worth of each +individual soul and a sense of the equality of all humanity at the bar +of character and conscience. As his lyrics show the sympathetic soul +of nature, so his narrative poems illustrate the second dominant +characteristic of the age, the strong sense of the worth of the +humblest man. + +[Illustration: GRASMERE LAKE.] + +_Michael_, one of the very greatest of his productions, displays a +tender and living sympathy with the humble shepherd. The simple +dignity of Michael's character, his frugal and honorable life, his +affection for his son, for his sheep, and for his forefather's old +home, appealed to the heart of the poet. He loved his subject and +wrote the poem with that indescribable simplicity which makes the +tale, the verse, and the tone of thought and feeling form together one +perfect and indissoluble whole. _The Leech-Gatherer_ and the story of +"Margaret" in _The Excursion_ also deal with lowly characters and +exhibit Wordsworth's power of pathos and simple earnestness. He could +not present complex personalities; but these characters, which +belonged to the landscapes of the Lake District and partook of its +calm and its simplicity, he drew with a sure hand. + +His longest narrative poem is _The Excursion_ (1814), which is in nine +books. It contains fine passages of verse and some of his sanest and +maturest philosophy; but the work is not the masterpiece that he hoped +to make. It is tedious, prosy, and without action of any kind. The +style, which is for the most part heavy, becomes pure and easy only in +some description of a mountain peak or in the recital of a tale, like +that of "Margaret." + +An Interpreter of Child Life.--Perhaps the French Revolution and the +unforgettable incident of the pitiable peasant child were not without +influence in causing him to become a great poetic interpreter of +childhood. No poem has surpassed his _Alice Fell, or Poverty_ in +presenting the psychology of childish grief, or his _We Are Seven_ in +voicing the faith of-- + + "...A simple child, + That lightly draws its breath, + And feels its life in every limb," + +or the loneliness of "the solitary child" in _Lucy Gray_:-- + + "The sweetest thing that ever grew + Beside a human door." + +In the poem, _Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower_, Nature seems to +have chosen Wordsworth as her spokesman to describe the part that she +would play in educating a child. Nature says:-- + + "This child I to myself will take; + She shall be mine, and I will make + A lady of my own. + * * * * * + ...She shall lean her ear + In many a secret place + Where rivulets dance their wayward round, + And beauty born of murmuring sound + Shall pass into her face." + +One of the finest similes in all the poetry of nature may be found in +the stanza which likens the charms of a little girl to those of:-- + + "A violet by a mossy stone + Half hidden from the eye! + Fair as a star when only one + Is shining in the sky." + +Finally, in his _Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of +Early Childhood_, he glorifies universal childhood, that "eye among +the blind," capable of seeing this common earth-- + + "Appareled in celestial light, + The glory and the freshness of a dream." + +General Characteristics.--Four of Wordsworth's characteristics go +hand in hand,--sincerity, feeling, depth of thought, and simplicity of +style. The union of these four qualities causes his great poems to +continue to yield pleasure after an indefinite number of readings. In +his garden of poetry, the daffodil blossoms all the year for the +"inward eye," and the "wandering voice of the cuckoo" never ceases to +awaken springtime in the heart. + +His own age greeted with so much ridicule the excessive simplicity of +the presentation of ordinary childish grief in _Alice Fell_, that he +excluded it from many editions of his poems. We now recognize the +special charm of his simplicity in expressing those feelings and +thoughts that "do often lie too deep for tears." + +Wordsworth was most truly great when he seemed to write as naturally +as he breathed, when he appeared unconscious of the power that he +wielded. When he attempted to command it at will, he failed, as in the +dull, lifeless lines of _The Excursion_. Sometimes even his labored +simplicity is no better than prose; but such simple and natural poems +as _Michael, The Solitary Reaper, To My Sister, Three Years She Grew +in Sun and Shower_, and the majority of the poems showing the new +attitude toward childhood, are priceless treasures of English +literature. Of most of these, we may say with Matthew Arnold, "It +might seem that Nature not only gave him the matter for his poem, but +wrote his poem for him." + +[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. _From a life sketch in Fraser's +Magazine_.] + +Wordsworth lacks humor and his compass is limited; but within that +compass he is surpassed by no poet since Milton. On the other hand, no +great poet ever wrote more that is almost worthless. Matthew Arnold +did much for Wordsworth's renown by collecting his priceless poems and +publishing them apart from the mediocre work. Among the fine +productions, his sonnets occupy a high place. Only Shakespeare and +Milton in our language excel him in this form of verse. + +Wordsworth is greatest as a poet of nature. To him nature seemed to +possess a conscious soul, which expressed itself in the primrose, the +rippling lake, or the cuckoo's song, with as much intelligence as +human lips ever displayed in whispering a secret to the ear of love. +This interpretation of nature gives him a unique position among +English poets. Neither Shakespeare nor Milton had any such general +conception of nature. + +[Illustration: RYDAL MOUNT NEAR AMBLESIDE, THE HOME OF WORDSWORTH'S +OLD AGE.] + +The bereaved, the downcast, and those in need of companionship turn +naturally to Wordsworth. He said that it was his aim "to console the +afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight." His critics often say that he +does not recognize the indifference, even the cruelty of nature; but +that he chooses, instead, to present the world as a manifestation of +love and care for all creatures. When he was shown where a cruel +huntsman and his dogs had chased a poor hart to its death, Wordsworth +wrote:-- + + "This beast not unobserved by nature fell; + His death was mourned by sympathy divine. + + "The Being that is in the clouds and air, + That is in the green leaves among the groves, + Maintains a deep and reverential care + For the unoffending creatures whom he loves."[15] + +Whatever view we take of the indifference of nature or of the +suffering in existence, it is necessary for us, in order to live +hopeful and kindly lives, to feel with Wordsworth that the great +powers of the universe are not devoid of sympathy, and that they +encourage in us the development of "a spirit of love" for all earth's +creatures. It was Wordsworth's deepest conviction that any one alive +to the presence of nature's conscious spiritual force, that "rolls +through all things"-- + + "Shall feel an overseeing power + To kindle or restrain." + +SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 1722-1834 + +[Illustration: SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. _From a pencil sketch by +C.R. Leslie_.] + +Life.--The troubled career of Coleridge is in striking contrast to +the peaceful life of Wordsworth. Coleridge, the thirteenth child of a +clergyman, was born in 1772 at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire. Early in +his life, the future poet became a confirmed dreamer, refusing to +participate in the play common to boys of his age. Before he was five +years old, he had read the _Arabian Nights_. Only a few years later, +the boy's appetite for books became so voracious that he devoured an +average of two volumes a day. + +One evening, when he was about nine years old, he had a violent +quarrel with his brother and ran away, sleeping out of doors all +night. A cold October rain fell; but he was not found until morning, +when he was carried home more dead than alive. "I was certainly +injured;" he says of this adventure, "for I was weakly and subject to +ague for many years after." Facts like these help to explain why +physical pain finally led him to use opium. + +After his father's death, young Coleridge became, at the age of ten, a +pupil in Christ's Hospital, London, where he remained eight years. +During the first half of his stay here, his health was still further +injured by continuing as he was in earlier childhood, "a playless +daydreamer," and by a habit of almost constant reading. He says that +the food "was cruelly insufficient for those who had no friends to +supply them." He writes:-- + + "Conceive what I must have been at fourteen; I was in a continual + low fever. My whole being was, with eyes closed to every object of + present sense, to crumple myself up in a sunny corner, and read, + read, read--fancy myself on Robinson Crusoe's island, finding a + mountain of plumcake, and eating a room for myself, and then eating + it into the shapes of tables and chairs--hunger and fancy!" + +A few months after leaving Christ's Hospital, Coleridge went to +Cambridge, but he did not remain to graduate. From this time he seldom +completed anything that he undertook. It was characteristic of him, +stimulated by the spirit of the French Revolution, to dream of +founding with Southey a Pantisocracy on the banks of the Susquehanna. +In this ideal village across the sea, the dreamers were to work only +two hours a day and were to have all goods in common. The demand for +poetry was at this time sufficiently great for a bookseller to offer +Coleridge, although he was as yet comparatively unknown, thirty +guineas for a volume of poems and a guinea and a half for each hundred +lines after finishing that volume. With such wealth in view, Coleridge +married a Miss Fricker of Bristol, because no single people could join +the new ideal commonwealth. Southey married her sister; but the young +enthusiasts were forced to abandon their project because they did not +have sufficient money to procure passage across the ocean. + +The tendency to dream, however, never forsook Coleridge. One of his +favorite poems begins with this line:-- + + "My eyes make pictures when they are shut."[16] + +He recognized his disinclination to remain long at work on prearranged +lines, when he said, "I think that my soul must have preexisted in the +body of a chamois chaser." + +In 1797-1798 Coleridge lived with his young wife at Nether-Stowey in +Somerset. Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy moved to a house in the +neighborhood in order to be near Coleridge. The two young men and +Dorothy Wordsworth seemed to be exactly fitted to stimulate one +another. Together they roamed over the Quantock Hills, gazed upon the +sea, and planned _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_, which is one of +the few things that Coleridge ever finished. In little more than a +year he wrote nearly all the the poetry that has made him famous. + +Had he, like Keats, died when he was twenty-five, the world would +probably be wondering what heights of poetic fame Coleridge might have +reached; but he became addicted to the use of opium and passed a +wretched existence of thirty-six years longer, partly in the Lake +District, but chiefly in a suburb of London, without adding to his +poetic fame. During his later years he did hack work for papers, gave +occasional lectures, wrote critical and philosophical prose, and +became a talker almost as noted as Dr. Johnson. It is only just to +Coleridge to recognize the fact that even if he had never written a +line of poetry, his prose would entitle him to be ranked among +England's greatest critics. + +[Illustration: COLERIDGE'S COTTAGE AT NETHER-STOWEY.] + +Coleridge's wide reading, continued from boyhood, made his +contemporaries feel that he had the best intellectual equipment of any +man in England since Francis Bacon's time. Once Coleridge, having +forgotten the subject of his lecture, was startled by the announcement +that he would speak on a difficult topic, entirely different from the +one he had in mind; but he was equal to the emergency and delivered an +unusually good address. + +Young men used to flock to him in his old age to draw on his copious +stores of knowledge and especially to hear him talk about German +philosophy. Carlyle visited him for this purpose and speaks of the +"glorious, balmy, sunny islets, islets of the blest and the +intelligible," which occasionally emerged from the mist of German +metaphysics. He spent the last eighteen years of his life in Highgate +with his kind friend, Dr. Gillman, who succeeded in regulating and +decreasing the amount of opium which Coleridge took. He died there in +1834 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. Westminster Abbey does not +have the honor of the grave of a single one of the great poets of this +romantic age. + +Poetry.--_The Ancient Mariner_ (1798) is Coleridge's poetical +masterpiece. It is also one of the world's masterpieces. The +supernatural sphere into which it introduces the reader is a +remarkable creation, with its curse, its polar spirit, the phantom +ship, the seraph band, and the magic breeze. The mechanism of the poem +is a triumph of romantic genius. The meter, the rhythm, and the music +have well-nigh magical effect. Almost every stanza shows not only +exquisite harmony, but also the easy mastery of genius in dealing with +those weird scenes which romanticists love. + +The moral interest of the poem is not inferior to its other charms. +The Mariner killed the innocent Albatross, and we listen to the same +kind of lesson as Wordsworth teaches in his _Hart-Leap Well_:-- + + "The spirit who bideth by himself + In the land of mist and snow, + He loved the bird that loved the man + Who shat him with his bow.'" + +The noble conclusion of the poem has for more than a hundred years +continued to influence human conduct:-- + + "He prayeth best who loveth best + All things both great and small; + For the dear God who loveth us, + He made and loveth all." + +His next greatest poem is the unfinished _Christabel_ (1816). A lovely +maiden falls under the enchantments of a mysterious Lady Geraldine; +but the fragment closes while this malevolent influence continues. We +miss the interest of a finished story, which draws so many readers to +_The Ancient Mariner_, although _Christabel_ is thickly sown with +gems. Lines like these are filled with the airiness of nature:-- + + "There is not wind enough to twirl + The one red leaf, the last of its clan, + That dances as often as dance it can, + Hanging so light, and hanging so high, + On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky." + +In all literature there has been no finer passage written on the +wounds caused by broken friendship than the lines in _Christabel_ +relating to the estrangement of Roland and Sir Leoline. After reading +this poem and _Kubla Khan_, an unfinished dream fragment of fifty-four +lines, we feel that the closing lines of _Kubla Khan_ are peculiarly +applicable to Coleridge:-- + + "For he on honey dew hath fed + And drunk the milk of Paradise." + +Swinburne says of _Christabel_ and _Kubla Khan_: "When it has been +said that such melodies were never heard, such dreams never dreamed, +such speech never spoken, the chief things remain unsaid, unspeakable. +There is a charm upon these poems which can only be felt in silent +submission and wonder." + +General Characteristics of his Poetry.--Unlike Wordsworth, Coleridge +is not the poet of the earth and the common things of life. He is the +poet of air, of the regions beyond the earth, and of dreams. By no +poet has the supernatural been invested with more charm. + +He has rare feeling for the beautiful, whether in the world of morals; +of nature, or of the harmonies of sound. The motherless Christabel in +her time of danger dreams a beautiful truth of this divinely governed +world:-- + + "But this she knows, in joys and woes, + That saints will aid if men will call: + For the blue sky bends over all." + +His references to nature are less remarkable for description or +photographic details than for suggestiveness and diffused charm, such +as we find in these lines:-- + + "...the sails made on + A pleasant noise till noon, + A noise like of a hidden brook + In the leafy month of June, + That to the sleeping woods all night + Singeth a quiet tune." + +Wordsworth wrote few poems simpler than _The Ancient Mariner_. A +stanza like this seems almost as simple as breathing:-- + + "The moving moon went up the sky, + And nowhere did abide; + Softly she was going up, + And a star or two beside." + +Prose.--Coleridge's prose, which is almost all critical or +philosophical, left its influence on the thought of the nineteenth +century. When he was a young man, he went to Germany and studied +philosophy with a continued vigor unusual for him. He became an +idealist and used the idealistic teachings of the German +metaphysicians to combat the utilitarian and sense-bound philosophy of +Bentham, Malthus, and Mill. We pass by Coleridge's _Aids to +Reflection_ (1825), the weightiest of his metaphysical productions, to +consider those works which possess a more vital interest for the +student of literature. + +[Illustration: COLERIDGE AS A YOUNG MAN. _From a sketch made in +Germany_.] + +His _Lectures on Shakespeare_, delivered in 1811, contained +epoch-making Shakespearean criticism. We are told that every +drawing-room in London discussed them. His greatest work on criticism +is entitled _Biographia Literaria_ (2 Vols., 1817). There are parts of +it which no careful student of the development of modern criticism can +afford to leave unread. The central point of this work is the +exposition of his theory of the romantic school of poetry. He thus +gives his own aim and that of Wordsworth in the composition of the +volume of poems, known as _Lyrical Ballads_:-- + + "...it was agreed that my endeavors should be directed to persons + and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to + transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of + truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that + willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes + poetic faith. + + Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his + object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to + excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural by awakening the + mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to + the loveliness and wonders of the world before us."[17] + +Coleridge does not hold Wordsworth's belief that the language of +common speech and of poetry should be identical. He shows that +Wordsworth does better than follow his own theories. Yet, when he +considers both the excellencies and the defects of Wordsworth's verse, +Coleridge's verdict of praise is substantially that of the twentieth +century. This is an unusual triumph for a contemporary critic, sitting +in judgment on an author of an entirely new school and rendering a +decision in opposition to that of the majority, who, he says, "have +made it a business to attack and ridicule Mr. Wordsworth... His _fame_ +belongs to another age and can neither be accelerated nor +retarded."[18] + +GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON, 1788-1824 + +[Illustration: GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON. _From a portrait by +Kramer_.] + +Life.--Byron was born in London in 1788. His father was a reckless, +dissipated spendthrift, who deserted his wife and child. Mrs. Byron +convulsively clasped her son to her one moment and threw the scissors +and tongs at him the next, calling him "the lame brat," in reference +to his club foot. Such treatment drew neither respect nor obedience +from Byron, who inherited the proud, defiant spirit of his race. His +accession to the peerage in 1798 did not tend to tame his haughty +nature, and he grew up passionately imperious and combative. + +Being ambitious, he made excellent progress in his studies at Harrow, +but when he entered Cambridge he devoted much of his time to shooting, +swimming, and other sports, for which he was always famous. In 1809 he +started on a two years' trip through Spain, Greece, and the far East. +Upon his return, he published two cantos of _Childe Harold's +Pilgrimage_, which describe his journey. + +This poem made him immediately popular. London society neglected its +old favorite, Scott, and eagerly sought out the handsome young peer +who had burst suddenly upon it. Poem after poem was produced by this +lion of society, and each one was received with enthusiasm and +delight. Probably no other English poet knew such instant widespread +fame as Byron. + +Suddenly and unexpectedly this adulation turned to hatred. In 1815 +Byron married Miss Milbanke, an heiress, but she left him a year +later. Although no reason for the separation was given, the public +fastened all the blame upon Byron. The feeling against him grew so +strong that he was warned by his friends to prepare for open violence, +and finally, in 1816, he left England forever. + +His remaining eight years were spent mostly in Italy. Here, his great +beauty, his exile, his poetry, and his passionate love of liberty made +him a prominent figure throughout Europe. Notwithstanding this fame, +life was a disappointment to Byron. Baffled but rebellious, he openly +defied the conventions of his country; and seemed to enjoy the shock +it gave to his countrymen. + +[Illustration: BYRON AT SEVENTEEN. _From a painting_.] + +The closing year of his life shone brightest of all. His main +activities had hitherto been directed to the selfish pursuit of his +own pleasure; and he had failed to obtain happiness. But in 1823 Byron +went to Greece to aid the Greeks, who were battling with Turkey for +their independence. Into this struggle for freedom, he poured his +whole energies, displaying "a wonderful aptitude for managing the +complicated intrigues and plans and selfishnesses which lay in the +way." His efforts cost him his life. He contracted fever, and, after +restlessly battling with the disease, said quietly, one April morning +in 1824, "Now I shall go to sleep." His relatives asked in vain for +permission to inter him in Westminster Abbey. He was buried in the +family vault at Hucknall, Notthinghamshire, not far from Newstead +Abbey. + +[Illustration: NEWSTEAD ABBEY, BYRON'S HOME.] + +Early Works.--The poems that Byron wrote during his brilliant +sojourn in London, amid the whirl of social gayeties, are _The Giaour, +The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, Parisina, Lara_, and _The Siege of +Corinth_. These narrative poems are romantic tales of oriental passion +and coloring, which show the influence of Scott. They are told with a +dash and a fine-sounding rhetoric well fitted to attract immediate +attention; but they lack the qualities of sincere feeling, lofty +thought, and subtle beauty, which give lasting fame. + +His next publication, _The Prisoner of Chillon_ (1816), is a much +worthier poem. The pathetic story is feelingly told in language that +often displays remarkable energy and mastery of expression and +versification. His picture of the oppressive vacancy which the +Prisoner felt is a well-executed piece of very difficult word +painting:-- + + "There were no stars, no earth, no time, + No check, no change, no good, no crime-- + But silence, and a stirless breath + Which neither was of life nor death; + A sea of stagnant idleness, + Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!" + +[Illustration: CASTLE OF CHILLON.] + +Dramas.--Byron wrote a number of dramas, the best of which are +_Manfred_ (1817) and _Cain_ (1821). His spirit of defiance and his +insatiable thirst for power are the subjects of these dramas. Manfred +is a man of guilt who is at war with humanity, and who seeks refuge on +the mountain tops and by the wild cataract. He is fearless and untamed +in all his misery, and even in the hour of death does not quail before +the spirits of darkness, but defies them with the cry:-- + + "Back to thy hell! + Thou hast no power upon me, _that_ I feel! + Thou never shall possess me, _that_ I know; + What I have done is done; I bear within + A torture which could nothing gain from thine; + * * * * * + Back, ye baffled fiends! + The hand of death is on me--but not yours!" + +Cain, while suffering remorse for the slaying of Abel, is borne by +Lucifer through the boundless fields of the universe. Cain yet dares +to question the wisdom of the Almighty in bringing evil, sin, and +remorse into the world. A critic has remarked that "Milton wrote his +great poem to justify the ways of God to man; Byron's object seems to +be to justify the ways of man to God." + +The very soul of stormy revolt breathes through both _Manfred_ and +_Cain_, but _Cain_ has more interest as a pure drama. It contains some +sweet passages and presents one lovely woman,--Adah. But Byron could +not interpret character wholly at variance with his own. He possessed +but little constructive skill, and he never overcame the difficulties +of blank verse. A drama that does not show wide sympathy with varied +types of humanity and the constructive capacity to present the +complexities of life is lacking in essential elements of greatness. + +Childe Harold, The Vision of Judgment, and Don Juan.--His best works +are the later poems, which require only a slight framework or plot, +such as _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Vision of Judgement,_ and +_Don Juan_. + +The third and fourth cantos of _Childe Harold_, published in 1816 and +1818, respectively, are far superior to the first two. These later +cantos continue the travels of Harold, and contain some of Byron's +most splendid descriptions of nature, cities, and works of art. Rome, +Venice, the Rhine, the Alps, and the sea inspired the finest lines. He +wrote of Venice as she-- + + "...Sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! + * * * * * + She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, + Rising with her tiara of proud towers + At airy distance." + +He calls Rome-- + + "The Niobe of nations! there she stands. + Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; + An empty urn within her wither'd hands, + Whose holy dust was scattered long ago." + +The following description, from Canto III, of a wild stormy night in +the mountains is very characteristic of his nature poetry and of his +own individuality:-- + + "And this is in the night:--Most Glorious night! + Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be + A sharer in thy fierce and far delight-- + A portion of the tempest and of thee! + How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, + And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! + And now again 'tis black,--and now, the glee + of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth + As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth" + +When George III. died, Southey wrote a poem filled with absurd +flattery of that monarch. Byron had such intense hatred for the +hypocrisy of society that he wrote his _Vision of Judgment_ (1822) to +parody Southey's poem and to make the author the object of satire. +Pungent wit, vituperation, and irony were here handled by Byron in a +brilliant manner, which had not been equaled since the days of Dryden +and Pope. The parodies of most poems are quickly forgotten, but we +have here the strange case of Byron's parody keeping alive Southey's +original. + +_Don Juan_ (1819-1824), a long poem in sixteen cantos, is Byron's +greatest work. It is partly autobiographic. The sinister, gloomy Don +Juan is an ideal picture of the author, who was sore and bitter over +his thwarted hopes of liberty and happiness. Therefore, instead of +strengthening humanity with hope for the future, this poem tears hope +from the horizon, and suggests the possible anarchy and destruction +toward which the world's hypocrisy, cant, tyranny, and universal +stupidity are tending. + +The poem is unfinished. Byron followed Don Juan through all the phases +of life known to himself. The hero has exciting adventures and +passionate loves, he is favored at courts, he is driven to the lowest +depths of society, he experiences a godlike happiness and a demoniacal +despair. + +_Don Juan_ is a scathing satire upon society. All its fondest +idols,--love, faith, and hope,--are dragged in the mire. There is +something almost grand in the way that this Titanic scoffer draws +pictures of love only to mock at them, sings patriotic songs only to +add-- + + "Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung + The modern Greek in tolerable verse," + +and mentions Homer, Milton, and Shakespeare only to show how +accidental and worthless is fame. + +Amid the splendid confusion of pathos, irony, passion, mockery, keen +wit, and brilliant epigram, which display Byron's versatile and +spontaneous genius at its height, there are some beautiful and +powerful passages. There is an ideal picture of the love of Don Juan +and Haidee:-- + + "Each was the other's mirror, and but read + Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem." + + "...they could not be + Meant to grow old, but die in happy spring, + Before one charm or hope had taken wing." + +As she lightly slept-- + + "...her face so fair + Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air; + Or as the stirring of a deep clear stream + Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind + Walks o'er it." + +General Characteristics.--The poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge +shows the revolutionary reaction against classicism in literature and +tyranny in government; but their verse raises no cry of revolt against +the proprieties and moral restrictions of the time. Byron was so +saturated with the revolutionary spirit that he rebelled against these +also; and for this reason England would not allow him to be buried in +Westminster Abbey. + +As Byron frequently wrote in the white heat of passionate revolt, his +verse shows the effects of lack of restraint. Unfortunately he did not +afterwards take the trouble to improve his subject matter, or the mold +in which it was cast. Swinburne says, "His verse stumbles and jingles, +stammers and halts, where is most need for a swift and even pace of +musical sound." + +[Illustration: BYRON'S HOME AT PISA.] + +The great power of Byron's poetry consists in its wealth of +expression, its vigor, its rush and volume of sound, its variety, and +its passion. Lines like the following show the vigorous flow of the +verse, the love for lonely scenery, and a wealth of figurative +expression:-- + + "Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains, + They crowned him long ago + On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds + With a diadem of snow."[19] + +Scattered through his works we find rare gems, such as the following-- + + "...when + Music arose with its voluptuous swell, + Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, + And all went merry as a marriage bell."[20] + +We may also frequently note the working of an acute intellect, as, for +instance, in the lines in which he calls his own gloomy type of mind-- + + "...the telescope of truth, + Which strips the distance of its phantasies, + And brings life near in utter nakedness, + Making the cold reality too real!"[21] + +The answers to two questions which are frequently asked, will throw +more light on Byron's characteristics:-- + +I. Why has his poetic fame in England decreased so much from the +estimate of his contemporaries, by whom he seemed worthy of a place +beside Goethe? The answer is to be sought in the fact that Byron +reflected so powerfully the mood of that special time. That +reactionary period in history has passed and with it much of Byron's +influence and fame. He was, unlike Shakespeare, specially fitted to +minister to a certain age. Again, much of Byron's verse is rhetorical, +and that kind of poetry does not wear well. On the other hand, we +might reread Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, Milton's _Lycidas_, and +Wordsworth's _Intimations of Immortality_ every month for a lifetime, +and discover some new beauty and truth at every reading. + +II. Why does the continent of Europe class Byron among the very +greatest English poets, next even to Shakespeare? It is because Europe +was yearning for more liberty, and Byron's words and blows for freedom +aroused her at an opportune moment. Historians of continental +literature find his powerful impress on the thought of that time. +Georg Brandes, a noted European critic, says:-- + + "In the intellectual life of Russia and Poland, of Spain and Italy, + of France and Germany, the seeds which he had sown, fructified... + The Slavonic nations ...seized on his poetry with avidity... The + Spanish and Italian exile poets took his war cry... Heine's best + poetry is a continuation of Byron's work. French Romanticism and + German Liberalism are both direct descendants of Byron's + Naturalism." + +Swinburne gives as another reason for Byron's European popularity the +fact that he actually gains by translation into a foreign tongue. His +faulty meters and careless expressions are improved, while his +vigorous way of stating things and his rolling rhetoric are easily +comprehended. On the other hand, the delicate shades of thought in +Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ cannot be translated into some European tongues +without distinct loss. + +PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 1792-1822 + +[Illustration: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. _From the portrait by Amelia +Curran, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--Another fiery spirit of the Revolution was Shelley, born in +1792, in a home of wealth, at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex. He +was one of the most ardent, independent, and reckless English poets +inspired by the French Revolution. He was a man who could face infamy +and defy the conventionalities of the world, and, at the same moment, +extend a helpful hand of sympathy to a friend or sit for sixty hours +beside the sick bed of his dying child. Tender, pitying, fearless, +full of a desire to reform the world, and of hatred for any form of +tyranny, Shelley failed to adjust himself to the customs and laws of +his actual surroundings. He was calumniated and despised by the public +at large, and almost idolized by his intimate friends. + +At Eton he denounced the tyranny of the larger boys. At Oxford he +decried the tyranny of the church over freedom of thought, and was +promptly expelled for his pamphlet, _The Necessity of Atheism_. This +act so increased his hatred for despotic authority that he almost +immediately married Harriet Westbrook, a beautiful school girl of +sixteen, to relieve her from the tyranny of her father who wanted her +to return to school. Shelley was then only nineteen and very +changeable. He would make such a sudden departure from a place where +he had vowed "to live forever," that specially invited guests +sometimes came to find him gone. He soon fell in love with Mary +Wollstonecraft Godwin, the brilliant woman who later wrote the weird +romance _Frankenstein_, and he married her after Harriet Shelley had +drowned herself. These acts alienated his family and forced him to +forfeit his right to Field Place. + +[Illustration: SHELLEY'S BIRTHPLACE, FIELD PLACE.] + +His repeatedly avowed ideas upon religion, government, and marriage +brought him into conflict with public opinion. Unpopular at home, he +left England in 1818, never to return. Like Byron, he was practically +an exile. + +The remaining four years of Shelley's life were passed in comparative +tranquillity in the "Paradise of exiles," as he called Italy. He lived +chiefly at Pisa, the last eighteen months of his life. Byron rented +the famous Lanfranchi Palace in Pisa and became Shelley's neighbor, +often entertaining him and a group of English friends, among whom were +Edward Trelawny, the Boswell of Shelley's last days, and Leigh Hunt, +biographer and essayist. + +On July 7, 1822, Shelley said: "If I die to-morrow, I have lived to be +older than my father. I am ninety years of age." The young poet was +right in claiming that it is not length of years that measures life. +He had lived longer than most people who reach ninety. The next day he +started in company with two others to sail across the Bay of Spezzia +to his summer home. Friends watching from the shore saw a sudden +tempest strike his boat. When the cloud passed, the craft could not be +seen. Not many months before, he had written the last stanza of +_Adonais_:-- + + "...my spirit's bark is driven + Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng + Whose sails were never to the tempest given; + The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! + I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; + Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven, + The soul of Adonais, like a star, + Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are." + +Shelley's body was washed ashore, July 18, and it was burned near the +spot, in accordance with Italian law; but the ashes and the unconsumed +heart were interred in the beautiful Protestant cemetery at Rome, not +far from where Keats was buried the previous year. + +Few poets have been loved more than Shelley. Twentieth century +visitors to his grave often find it covered with fresh flowers. The +direction which he wrote for finding the tomb of Keats is more +applicable to Shelly's own resting place:-- + + "Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead + Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, + Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead + A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread."[22] + +Works.--_Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude_ (1816) is a magnificent +expression of Shelley's own restless, tameless spirit, wandering among +the grand solitudes of nature in search of the ineffably lovely dream +maiden, who was his ideal of beauty. He travels through primeval +forests, stands upon dizzy abysses, plies through roaring whirlpools, +all of which are symbolic of the soul's wayfaring, until at last,-- + + "When on the threshold + of the green recess," + +his dying glance rests upon the setting moon and the sufferer finds +eternal peace. The general tone of this poem is painfully despairing, +but this is relieved by the grandeur of the natural scenes and by many +imaginative flights. + +[Illustration: GRAVE OF SHELLEY, PROTESTANT CEMETERY, ROME.] + +The year 1819 saw the publication of a work unique among Shelley's +productions, _The Cenci_. This is a drama based upon the tragic story +of Beatrice Cenci. The poem deals with human beings, human passions, +real acts, and the natural world, whereas Shelley usually preferred to +treat of metaphysical theories, personified abstractions, and the +world of fancy. This strong drama was the most popular of his works +during his lifetime. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF STANZA FROM "TO A SKYLARK".] + +He returned to the ideal sphere again in one of his great poems, the +lyrical drama _Prometheus Unbound_ (1820). This poem is the apotheosis +of the French Revolution. Prometheus, the friend of mankind, lies +tortured and chained to the mountain side. As the hour redemption +approaches, his beloved Asia, the symbol of nature, arouses the soul +of Revolution, represented by Demogorgon. He rises, hurls down the +enemies of progress and freedom, releases Prometheus, and spreads +liberty and happiness through all the world. Then the Moon, the Earth, +and the Voices of the Air break forth into a magnificent chant of +praise. The most delicate fancies, the most gorgeous imagery, and the +most fiery, exultant emotions are combined in this poem with something +of the stateliness of its Greek prototype. The swelling cadences of +the blank verse and the tripping rhythm of the lyrics are the product +of a nature rich in rare and wonderful melodies. + +_The Witch of Atlas_ (1820), _Epipsychidion_ (1821), _Adonais_ (1821), +and the exquisite lyrics, _The Cloud, To a Skylark_ and _Ode to the +West Wind_ are the most beautiful of the remaining works. The first +two mentioned are the most elusive of Shelley's poems. With scarcely +an echo in his soul of the shadows and discords of earth, the poet +paints, in these works, lands-- + + "...'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea, + Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity;" + +where all is-- + + "Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise."[23] + +_Adonais_ is a lament for the early death of Keats, and it stands +second in the language among elegiac poems, ranking next to Milton's +_Lycidas_. Shelley referred to _Adonais as "perhaps the least +imperfect of my compositions." His biographer, Edward Dowden, calls it +"the costliest monument ever erected to the memory of an English +singer," who + + "...bought, with price of purest breath, + A grave among the eternal." + +Mrs. Shelley put some of her most sacred mementos of the poet between +the leaves of _Adonais_, which spoke to her of his own immortality and +omnipresence:-- + + "Naught we know dies. Shall that alone which knows + Be as a sword consumed before the sheath + By sightless lightning? + * * * * * + He is a portion of the loveliness, + Which once he made more lovely." + +Although some of Shelley's shorter poems are more popular, nothing +that he ever wrote surpasses _Adonais_ in completeness, poetic +thought, and perfection of artistic finish. + +Treatment of Nature.--Shelley was not interested in things +themselves, but in their elusive, animating spirit. In the lyric poem, +_To Night_, he does not address himself to mere darkness, but to the +active, dream-weaving "Spirit of Night." The very spirit of the +autumnal wind seems to him to breathe on the leaves and turn them-- + + "Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, + Pestilence-stricken multitudes."[24] + +In his spiritual conception of nature, he was profoundly affected by +Wordsworth; but he goes farther than the older poet in giving +expression to the strictly individual forms of nature. Wordsworth +pictures nature as a reflection of his own thoughts and feelings. In +_The Prelude_ he says:-- + + "To unorganic natures were transferred + My own enjoyments." + +Shelley, on the other hand, is most satisfying and original when his +individual spirit forms in night, cloud, skylark, and wind are made to +sing, not as a reflection of his own mood, but as these spirit forces +might themselves be supposed to sing, if they could express their song +in human language without the aid of a poet. In the lyric, _The +Cloud_, it is the animating spirit of the Cloud itself that sings the +song:-- + + "I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, + From the seas and the streams; + I bear light shade for the leaves when laid + In their noonday dreams. + * * * * * + I sift the snow on the mountains below + And their great pines groan aghast." + +He thus begins the song, _To a Skylark_-- + + "Hail to thee, blithe spirit! + Bird thou never wert," + +and he likens the lark to "an unbodied joy." + +He peoples the garden in his lyric, _The Sensitive Plant_, with +flowers that are definite, individual manifestations of "the Spirit of +Love felt everywhere," the same power on which Shelley +enthusiastically relied for the speedy transformation of the world. + + "A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, + And the young winds fed it with silver dew." + +The "tulip tall," "the Naiad-like lily," "the jessamine faint," "the +sweet tuberose," were all "ministering angels" to the "companionless +Sensitive Plant," and each tried to be a source of joy to all the +rest. No one who had not caught the new spirit of humanity could have +imagined that garden. + +In the exquisite _Ode to the West Wind_, he calls to that "breath of +Autumn's being" to express its own mighty harmonies through him:-- + + "O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, + * * * * * + 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." + +We may fancy that the spirit forms of nature which appear in cloud and +night, in song of bird and western wind, are content to have found in +Shelley a lyre that responded to their touch in such entrancing notes. + +General Characteristics.--Shelley's is the purest, the most hopeful, +and the noblest voice of the Revolution. Wordsworth and Coleridge lost +their faith and became Tories, and Byron was a selfish, lawless +creature; but Shelley had the martyr spirit of sacrifice, and he +trusted to the end in the wild hopes of the revolutionary enthusiasts. +His _Queen Mab, Revolt of Islam, Ode to Liberty, Ode to Naples_, and, +above all, his _Prometheus Unbound_, are some of the works inspired by +a trust in the ideal democracy which was to be based on universal love +and the brotherhood of man. This faith gives a bounding elasticity and +buoyancy to Shelley's thought, but also tinges it with that disgust +for the old, that defiance of restraint, and that boyish disregard for +experience which mark a time of revolt. + +The other subject that Shelley treats most frequently in his verse is +ideal beauty. He yearned all his life for some form beautiful enough +to satisfy the aspirations of his soul. _Alastor, Epipsychidion, The +Witch of Atlas_, and _Prometheus Unbound_, all breathe this insatiate +craving for that "Spirit of Beauty," that "awful Loveliness." + +Many of his efforts to describe in verse this democracy and this ideal +beauty are impalpable and obscure. It is difficult to clothe such +shadowy abstractions in clear, simple form. He is occasionally vague +because his thoughts seem to have emerged only partially from the +cloud lands that gave them birth. At other times, his vagueness +resembles Plato's because it is inherent in the subject matter. Like +Byron, Shelley is sometimes careless in the construction and revision +of his verse. We shall, however, search in vain for these faults in +Shelley's greatest lyrics. He is one of the supreme lyrical geniuses +in the language. Of all the lyric poets of England, he is the greatest +master of an ethereal, evanescent, phantomlike beauty. + +JOHN KEATS, 1795-1821 + +[Illustration: JOHN KEATS. _From the painting by Hilton, National +Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--John Keats, the son of a keeper of a large livery stable, a +man "fine in common sense and native respectability," was born in +Moorfields, London, in 1795. He attended school at Enfield, where he +was a prize scholar. He took special pleasure in studying Grecian +mythology, the influence of which is so apparent in his poetry. While +at school, he also voluntarily wrote a translation of much of Vergil's +_AEneid_. It would seem as if he had also been attracted to +Shakespeare; for Keats is credited with expressing to a young playmate +the opinion that no one, if alone in the house, would dare read +_Macbeth_ at two in the morning. + +When Keats was left an orphan in his fifteenth year, he was taken from +school and apprenticed to a surgeon at Edmonton, near London. + +When seventeen, he walked some distance to borrow a copy of Spenser's +_Faerie Queene_. A friend says: "Keats ramped through the scenes of +the romance like a young horse turned into a spring meadow." His study +of Grecian mythology and Elizabethan poetry exerted a stronger +influence over him than his medical instructor. One day when Keats +should have been listening to a surgical lecture, "there came," he +says, "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 fairy +land." + +He made a moderately good surgeon; but finding that his heart was +constantly with "Oberon and the fairy land" of poesy, he gave up his +profession in 1817 and began to study hard, preparatory to a literary +career. + +His short life was a brave struggle against disease, poverty, and +unfriendly criticism; but he accomplished more than any other English +author in the first twenty-five years of life. Success under such +conditions would have been impossible unless he had had "flint and +iron in him." He wrote:-- + + "I must think that difficulties nerve the spirit of a man. They make + his Prime Objects a Refuge as well as a Passion." + +Late in 1818, after he had published his first volume of verse, he met +Fanny Brawne, a girl of eighteen, and soon fell desperately in love +with her. The next six months were the happiest and the most +productive period of his life. His health was then such that he could +take long walks with her. In the first spring after he had met her, he +wrote in less than three hours his wonderful _Ode to a Nightingale_, +while he was sitting in the garden of his home at Wentworth Place, +Hampstead, near London, listening to the song of the bird. Most of his +famous poems were written in the year after meeting her. + +In February, 1820, his health began to decline so rapidly that he knew +that his days were numbered. His mother and one of his brothers had +died of consumption, and he had been for some time threatened with the +disease. He offered to release Miss Brawne from her engagement, but +she would not listen to the suggestion. She and her mother tried to +nurse him back to health. Few events in the history of English authors +are tinged with a deeper pathos than his engagement to Miss Brawne. +Some of the letters that he wrote to her or about her are almost +tragic. After he had taken his last leave of her he wrote, "I can bear +to die--I cannot bear to leave her." + +[Illustration: WENTWORTH PLACE, KEATS'S HOME IN HAMPSTEAD.] + +Acting on insistent medical advice, Keats sailed for Italy in +September, 1820, accompanied by a stanch friend, the artist Joseph +Severn. On this voyage, Keats wrote a sonnet which proved to be his +swan song:-- + + "Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art-- + Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night + And watching, with eternal lids apart, + Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, + The moving waters at their priestlike task + Of pure ablution round earth's human shores." + +While he lay on his sick bed in Rome, he said: "I feel the flowers +growing over me." In February, 1821, he died, at the age of +twenty-five years and four months. On the modest stone which marks his +grave in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, there was placed at his +request: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." His most +appropriate epitaph is Shelley's _Adonais_. + +[Illustration: GRAVE OF KEATS, ROME.] + +Poems.--In 1817 he published his first poems in a thin volume, which +did not attract much attention, although it contained two excellent +sonnets: _On First Looking into Chapman's Homer_ and _On the +Grasshopper and Cricket_, which begins with the famous line:-- + + "The poetry of earth is never dead." + +We may also find in this volume such lines of promise as:-- + + "Life is the rose's hope while yet unblown + The reading of an ever changing tale." + +A year later, his long poem, _Endymion_, appeared. The inner purpose +of this poetic romance is to show the search of the soul for absolute +Beauty. The first five lines are a beautiful exposition of his poetic +creed. _Endymion_, however, suffers from immaturity, shown in boyish +sentimentality, in a confusion of details, and in an overabundance of +ornament. This poem met with a torrent of abuse. One critic even +questioned whether Keats was the real name of the author, adding, "we +almost doubt whether any man in his senses would put his real name to +such a rhapsody." Keats showed himself a better critic than the +reviewers. It is unusual for a poet to recognize almost at once the +blemishes in his own work. He acknowledged that a certain critic-- + + "...is perfectly right in regard to the 'slipshod' _Endymion_... + it is as good as I had the power to make it by myself. I have + written independently, _without judgement_, I may write + independently and _with judgement_ hereafter." + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF ORIGINAL MS. OF ENDYMION.] + +The quickness of his development is one of the most amazing facts in +literary history. He was twenty-three when _Endymion_ was published, +but in the next eighteen months he had almost finished his life's +work. In that brief time, he perfected his art and wrote poems that +rank among the greatest of their kind, and that have influenced the +work of many succeeding poets, such as Tennyson, Lowell, and +Swinburne. + +[Illustration: ENDYMION. _From mural painting by H.O. Walker, +Congressional Library, Washington, D.C._] + +Nearly all his greatest poems were written in 1819 and published in +his 1820 volume. _The Eve of St. Agnes_ (January, 1819) and the _Ode +to a Nightingale_ (May, 1819) are perhaps his two most popular poems; +but his other masterpieces are sufficiently great to make choice among +them largely a matter of individual preference. + +_The Eve of St. Agnes_ is an almost flawless narrative poem, romantic +in its conception and artistic in its execution. Porphyro, a young +lover, gains entrance to a hostile castle on the eve of St. Agnes to +see if he cannot win his heroine, Madeline, on that enchanted evening. +The interest in the story, the mastery of poetic language, the wealth +and variety of the imagery, the atmosphere of medieval days, combine +to make this poem unusually attractive. The following lines appeal to +the senses of sight, odor, sound, and temperature,[25] as well as to +romantic human feeling and love of the beautiful:-- + + "...like a throbbing star + Seen mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose; + Into her dream he melted, as the rose + Blendeth its odor with the violet,-- + Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows + Like Love's alarum pattering the sharp sleet + Against the window panes; St. Agnes' moon hath set." + +The fact that Keats could write the _Ode to a Nightingale_ in three +hours is proof of genius. This poem pleases lovers of music, of +artistic expression, of nature, of romance, and of human pathos. Such +lines as these show that the strength and beauty of his verse are not +entirely dependent on images of sense:-- + + "Darkling I listen; and, for many a time + I have been half in love with easeful Death, + Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, + To take into the air my quiet breath." + +The _Ode on a Grecian Urn, To Autumn, La Belle Dame sans Merci, Ode on +Melancholy, Lamia_, and _Isabella_,--all show the unusual charm of +Keats. He manifests the greatest strength in his unfinished fragment +_Hyperion_, "the Goetterdaemmerung of the early Grecian gods." The +opening lines reveal the artistic perfection of form and the +effectiveness of the sensory images with which he frames the scene:-- + + "Deep in the shady sadness of a vale + Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, + Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, + Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone, + Still as the silence round about his lair; + Forest on forest hung about his head + Like cloud on cloud." + +General Characteristics.--Keats is the poetic apostle of the +beautiful. He specially emphasizes the beautiful in the world of the +senses; but his definition of beauty grew to include more than mere +physical sensations from attractive objects. In his _Ode to a Grecian +Urn_, he says that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," and he calls to +the Grecian pipes to play-- + + "Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, + Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone." + +Those poets who thought that they could equal Keats by piling up a +medley of sense images have been doomed to disappointment. The +transforming power of his imagination is more remarkable than the +wealth of his sensations. + +His mastery in choosing, adapting, and sometimes even creating, apt +poetic words or phrases, is one of his special charms. Matthew Arnold +says: "No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in +expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats." Some of his +descriptive adjectives and phrases, such as the "deep-damasked wings" +of the tiger-moth, have been called "miniature poems." In the eighty +lines of the _Ode to a Nightingale_, we may note the "_full-throated +ease_" of the nightingale's song, the vintage cooled in the +"_deep-delved_ earth," the "_beaded bubbles winking_ at the brim" of +the beaker "_full of the warm South_," "the coming musk-rose, full of +_dewy wine_," the sad Ruth "amid the _alien_ corn," and the "_faery +lands forlorn_." + +A contemporary critic accused Keats of "spawning" new words, of +converting verbs into nouns, of forming new verbs, and of making +strange use of adjectives and adverbs. Some contemporaries might +object to his "_torched_ mines," "_flawblown_ sleet," "_liegeless_ +air," or even to the "_calm-throated_" thrush of the immortals. Modern +lovers of poetry, however, think that he displayed additional proof of +genius by enriching the vocabulary of poetry more than any other +writer since Milton. + +Keats was not, like Byron and Shelley, a reformer. He drew his first +inspiration from Grecian mythology and the romantic world of Spenser, +not from the French Revolution or the social unrest of his own day. It +is, however, a mistake to say that he was untouched by the new human +impulses. There is modern feeling in the following lines which +introduce us to the two cruel brothers in _Isabella_:-- + + "...for them many a weary hand did swelt + In torched mines and noisy factories. + * * * * * + For them the Ceylon diver held his breath, + And went all naked to the hungry shark; + For them his ears gushed blood; for them in death + The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark + Lay full of darts." + +In the last quarter of the nineteenth century Matthew Arnold wrote of +Keats: "He is with Shakespeare." Andrew Bradley, a twentieth century +professor of poetry in the University of Oxford, says: "Keats was of +Shakespeare's tribe." These eminent critics do not mean that Keats had +the breadth, the humor, the moral appeal of Shakespeare, but they do +find in Keats much of the youthful Shakespeare's lyrical power, +mastery of expression, and intense love of the beautiful in life. When +Keats said: "If a sparrow comes before my window, I take part in its +existence and pick about the gravel," he showed another Shakespearean +quality in his power to enter into the life of other creatures. At +first he wrote of the beautiful things that appealed to his senses or +his fancies, but when he came to ask himself the question:-- + + "And can I ever bid these joys farewell?" + +he answered:-- + + "Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life, + Where I may find the agonies, the strife + Of human hearts."[26] + +In _Isabella_, the _Ode to a Nightingale, Lamia_, and _Hyperion_, he +was beginning to paint these "agonies" and "the strife"; but death +swiftly ended further progress on this road. Before he passed away, +however, he left some things that have an Elizabethan appeal. Among +such, we may mention his welcome to "easeful death," his artistic +setting of a puzzling truth:-- + + "...Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips, + Bidding adieu," + +his line to which the young world still responds:-- + + "Forever wilt thou love and she be fair," + +and especially the musical call of his own young life, "yearning like +a God in pain." + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY, 1785-1859 + +[Illustration: THOMAS DE QUINCEY. _From the painting by Sir J.W. +Gordon, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.-Thomas de Quincey was born in Manchester in 1785. Being a +precocious child, he became a remarkable student at the age of eight. +When he was only eleven, his Latin verses were the envy of the older +boys at the Bath school, which he was then attending. At the age of +fifteen, he was so thoroughly versed in Greek that his professor said +of him to a friend: "That boy could harangue an Athenian mob better +than you or I could address an English one." De Quincey was sent in +this year to the Manchester grammar school; but his mind was in +advance of the instruction offered there, and he unceremoniously left +the school on his seventeenth birthday. + +For a time he tramped through Wales, living on an allowance of a +guinea a week. Hungering for books, he suddenly posted to London. As +he feared that his family would force him to return to school, he did +not let them know his whereabouts. He therefore received no money from +them, and was forced to wander hungry, sick, and destitute, through +the streets of the metropolis, with its outcasts and waifs. He +describes this part of his life in a very entertaining manner in his +_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_. + +When his family found him, a year later, they prevailed on him to go +to Oxford; and, for the next four years, he lived the life of a +recluse at college. + +In 1808 he took the cottage at Grasmere that Wordsworth had quitted, +and enjoyed the society of the three Lake poets. Here De Quincey +married and lived his happiest years. + +The latter part of his life was clouded by his indulgence in opium, +which he had first taken while at college to relieve acute neuralgia. +At one time he was in the habit of taking an almost incredible amount +of laudanum. Owing to a business failure, his money was lost. It then +became necessary for him to throw off the influence of the narcotic +sufficiently to earn a livelihood, In 1821 he began to write. From +that time until his death, in 1859, his life was devoted mainly to +literature. + +[Illustration: ROOM IN DOVE COTTAGE OCCUPIED BY WORDSWORTH, +COLERIDGE, AND DE QUINCEY.] + +Works.--Nearly all De Quincey's writings were contributed to +magazines. His first and greatest contribution was _The Confessions of +an English Opium-Eater_, published in the _London Magazine_. These +_Confessions_ are most remarkable for the brilliant and elaborate +style in which the author's early life and his opium dreams are +related. His splendid, yet melancholy, dreams are the most famous in +the language. + +De Quincey's wide reading, especially of history, supplied the +material for many of them. In these dreams he saw the court ladies of +the "unhappy times of Charles I.," witnessed Marius pass by with his +Roman legions, "ran into pagodas" in China, where he "was fixed, for +centuries, at the summit, or in secret rooms," and "was buried for a +thousand years, in stone coffins, in narrow chambers at the heart of +eternal pyramids" in Egypt. + +His dreams were affected also by the throngs of people whom he had +watched in London. He was haunted by "the tyranny of the human face." +He says:-- + + "Faces imploring, wrathful, despairing, surged upwards by thousands, + by myriads, by generations, by centuries: my agitation was infinite, + my mind tossed, and surged with the ocean." + +Sound also played a large part in the dreams. Music, heart-breaking +lamentations, and pitiful echoes recurred frequently in the most +magnificent of these nightly pageants. One of the most distressing +features of the dreams was their vastness. The dreamer lived for +centuries in one night, and space "swelled, and was amplified to an +extent of unutterable infinity." + +To present with such force and reality these grotesque and weird +fancies, these vague horrors, and these deep oppressions required a +powerful imaginative grasp of the intangible, and a masterly command +of language. + +In no other work does De Quincey reach the eminence attained in the +_Confessions_, although his scholarly acquirements enabled him to +treat philosophical, critical, and historical subjects with wonderful +grace and ease. His biographer, Masson, says, "De Quincey's sixteen +volumes of magazine articles are full of brain from beginning to end." +The wide range of his erudition is shown by the fact that he could +write such fine literary criticisms as _On Wordsworth's Poetry_ and +_On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth_, such clear, strong, and +vivid descriptions of historical events and characters as _The +Caesars, Joan of Arc_, and _The Revolt of the Tartars_, and such acute +essays on unfamiliar topics as _The Toilette of a Hebrew Lady, The +Casuistry of Roman Meals_, and _The Spanish Military Nun_. + +He had a contemplative, analytic mind which enjoyed knotty +metaphysical problems and questions far removed from daily life, such +as the first principles of political economy, and of German +philosophy. While he was a clear thinker in such fields, he added +little that was new to English thought. + +The works which rank next to _The Confessions of an English +Opium-Eater_ are all largely autobiographical, and reveal charming +glimpses of this dreamy, learned sage. Those works are _Suspiria de +Profundis (Sighs from the Depths), The English Mail Coach_, and +_Autobiographic Sketches_. None of them contains any striking or +unusual experience of the author. Their power rests upon their +marvelous style. _Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow_ in _Suspiria de +Profundis_ and the _Dream Fugue_ in the _Mail Coach_ are among the +most musical, the most poetic, and the most imaginative of the +author's productions. + +General Characteristics.--De Quincey's essays show versatility, +scholarly exactness, and great imaginative power. His fame, however, +rests in a large degree upon his style. One of its most prominent +characteristics is, precision. There are but few English essayists who +can compare with him in scrupulous precision of expression. He +qualifies and elaborates a simple statement until its exact meaning +becomes plainly manifest. His vocabulary is extraordinary. In any of +the multifarious subjects treated by him, the right word seems always +at hand. + +Two characteristics, which are very striking in all his works, are +harmony and stateliness. His language is so full of rich harmonies +that it challenges comparison with poetry. His long, periodic +sentences move with a quiet dignity, adapted to the treatment of lofty +themes. + +De Quincey's work possesses also a light, ironic humor, which is +happiest in parody. The essay upon _Murder Considered as One of the +Fine Arts_ is the best example of his humor. This selection is one of +the most whimsical:-- + + "For, if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he come, + to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to + drinking and Sabbath breaking, and from that to incivility and + procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know + where you are to stop." + +De Quincey's gravest fault is digression. He frequently leaves his +main theme and follows some line of thought that has been suggested to +his well-stored mind. These digressions are often very long, and +sometimes one leads to another, until several subjects receive +treatment in a single paper. De Quincey, however, always returns to +the subject in hand and defines very sharply the point of digression +and of return. Another of his faults is an indulgence in involved +sentences, which weaken the vigor and simplicity of the style. + +Despite these faults, De Quincey is a great master of language. He +deserves study for the three most striking characteristics of his +style,--precision, stateliness, and harmony. + +SUMMARY + +The tide of reaction, which had for same time been gathering force, +swept triumphantly over England in this age of Romanticism. + +Men rebelled against the aristocracy, the narrow conventions of +society, the authority of the church and of the government, against +the supremacy of cold classicism in literature, against confining +intellectual activity to tangible commonplace things, and against the +repression of imagination and of the soul's aspirations. The two +principal forces behind these changes were the Romantic movement, +which culminated in changed literary ideals, and the spirit of the +French Revolution, which emphasized the close kinship of all ranks of +humanity. + +The time was preeminently poetic. The Elizabethan age alone excels it +in the glory of its poetry. The principal subjects of verse in the age +of Romanticism were nature and man. Nature became the embodiment of an +intelligent, sympathetic, spiritual force. Cowper, Burns, Scott, +Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats constitute a group of +poets who gave to English literature a new poetry of nature. The +majority of these were also poets of man, of a more ideal humanity. +The common man became an object of regard. Burns sings of the Scotch +peasant. Wordsworth pictures the life of shepherds and dalesmen. +Byron's lines ring with a cry of liberty for all, and Shelley +immortalizes the dreams of a universal brotherhood of man. Keats, the +poet of the beautiful, passed away before he heard clearly the message +of "the still sad music of humanity." + +While the prose does not take such high rank as the poetry, there are +some writers who will not soon be forgotten. Scott will be remembered +as the great master of the historical novel, Jane Austen as the +skillful realistic interpreter of everyday life, De Quincey for the +brilliancy of his style and the vigor of his imagination in presenting +his opium dreams, and Lamb for his exquisite humor. In philosophical +prose, Mill, Bentham, and Malthus made important contributions to +moral, social, and political philosophy, while Coleridge opposed their +utilitarian and materialistic tendencies, and codified the principles +of criticism from a romantic point of view. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +Gardiner[27], Green, Walker, or Cheney. For the social side, see +Traill, V., VI., and Cheney's _Industrial and Social History of +England_. + +LITERARY + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vols. XI., XII. + +Courthope's _A History of English Poetry_, Vol. VI. + +Elton's _A Survey of English Literature from 1780-1830_, 2 vols. + +Herford's _The Age of Wordsworth_. + +Brandes's _Naturalism in England_ (Vol. IV. of _Main Currents in +Nineteenth Century Literature_.) + +_The Revolution in English Poetry and Fiction_ (Chap. XXII. of Vol. X. +of _Cambridge Modern History_.) + +Hancock's _The French Revolution and the English Poets_. + +Scudder's _Life of the Spirit in the Modern English Poets_. + +Symons's _The Romantic Movement in English Poetry_. + +Reynolds's _The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry between Pope and +Wordsworth_. + +Mackie's _Nature Knowledge in Modern Poetry_. + +Brookes's _Studies in Poetry_ (Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats). + +Symons's _William Blake_. + +Payne's _The Greater English Poets of the Nineteenth Century_ (Keats, +Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth). + +Stephen's _Hours in a Library_, 3 vols. (Scott, De Quincey, Cowper, +Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge). + +Dowden's _Studies in Literature_, 1879-1877. + +Bradley's _Oxford Lectures on Poetry_ (Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats). + +Lowell's _Among my Books, Second Series_ (Wordsworth, Keats). + +Ainger's _Life of Lamb_. (E.M.L.) + +Lucas's _Life of Charles Lamb_. + +Goldwin Smith's _Life of Cowper_. (E.M.L.) + +Wright's _Life of Cowper_. + +Shairp's _Robert Burns_. (E.M.L.) + +Carlyle's _Essay on Burns_. + +Lockhart's _Life of Scott_., Hutton's _Life of Scott_. (E.M.L.) + +Yonge's _Life of Scott_. (G.W.) + +Goldwin Smith's _Life of Jane Austen_. (G.W.) + +Helm's _Jane Austen and her Country House Comedy_. + +Mitton's _Jane Austen and her Times_. + +Adams's _The Story of Jane Austen's Life_. + +Knight's _Life of Wordsworth_, 3 vols., Myers's _Life of Wordsworth_ +(E.M.L.), Raleigh's _Wordsworth_. + +Robertson's _Wordsworth and the English Lake Country_. + +Traill's _Life of Coleridge_ (E.M.L.), Caine's _Life of Coleridge_ +(G.W.), Garnett's _Coleridge_. + +Sneath's _Wordsworth, Poet of Nature and Poet of Man_. + +Mayne's _The New Life of Byron_, 2 vols, Nichol's _Life of Byron_ +(E.M.L.), Noel's _Life of Byron_. (G.W.) + +Trelawney's _Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron_. + +Dowden's _Life of Shelley_, 2 vols., Symonds's _Life of Shelley_ +(E.M.L.), Sharp's _Life of Shelley_ (G.W.). Francis Thompson's +_Shelley_. + +Clutton-Brock's _Shelley: The Man and the Poet_. + +Hogg's _Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley_(contemporary). + +Angeli's _Shelley and his Friends in Italy_. + +Colvin's _Life of Keats_ (E.M.L.), Rossetti's _Life of Keats_ (G.W.), +Hancock's _John Keats_. + +Miller's _Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley, and Keats_. + +Arnold's _Essays in Criticism, Second Series_ (Keats). + +H. Buxton Forman's _Complete Works of John Keats_ (includes the +_Letters_, the best edition). + +Masson's _Life of De Quincey_. (E.M.L.) + +Minto's _Manual of English Prose Literature_ (De Quincey). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Blake.--Some of his best poems are given in Ward, IV., 601-608; +Bronson, III., 385-403; Manly, I., 301-304; _Oxford_, 558-566; +_Century_, 485-489, and in the volume in _The Canterbury Poets_. + +Point out in Blake's verse (_a_) the new feeling for nature, (_b_) +evidences of wide sympathies, (_c_) mystical tendencies, and (_d_) +compare his verses relating to children and nature with Wordsworth's +poems on the same subjects. + +Cowper.--Read the opening stanzas of Cowper's _Conversation_ and +note the strong influence of Pope in the cleverly turned but +artificial couplets. Compare this poem with the one _On the Receipt of +my Mother's Picture_ or with _The Task_, Book IV., lines 1-41 and +267-332, Cassell's _National Library, Canterbury Poets_, or _Temple +Classics_ and point out the marked differences in subject matter and +style. What forward movement in literature is indicated by the change +in Cowper's manner? _John Gilpin_ should be read for its fresh, +beguiling humor. + +For selections, see Bronson,[28] III., 310-329; Ward, III., 422-485; +_Century_, 470-479; Manly, I., 285-294. + +Burns.--Read _The Cotter's Saturday Night, For a' That and a' That, +To a Mouse, Highland Mary, To Mary in Heaven, Farewell to Nancy, I +Love My Jean, A Red, Red Rose_. The teacher should read to the class +parts of _Tam o' Shanter_. + +The _Globe_ edition contains the complete poems of Burns with +Glossary. Inexpensive editions may be found in Cassell's _National +Library, Everyman's Library_, and _Canterbury Poets_. For selections, +see Bronson, III., 338-385; Ward. III., 512-571; _Century_, 490-502; +Manly, I., 309-326; _Oxford_, 492-506. + +In what ways do the first three poems mentioned above show Burns's +sympathy with democracy? Quote some of Burns's fine descriptions of +nature and describe the manner in which he treats nature. How does he +rank as a writer of love songs? What qualities in his poems have +touched so many hearts? Compare his poetry with that of Dryden, Pope, +and Shakespeare. + +Scott.--Read _The Lady of the Lake_, Canto III., stanzas iii.-xxv., +or _Marmion_, Canto VI., stanzas xiii.-xxvii. (American Book Company's +_Eclectic English Classics_, Cassell's _National Library_, or +_Everyman's Library_.) Read in Craik, V., "The Gypsy's Curse" (_Guy +Mannering_), pp. 14-17, "The Death of Madge Wildfire" (_Heart of +Middlothian_), pp. 30-35, and "The Grand Master of the Templars" +(_Ivanhoe_), pp. 37-42. The student should put on his list for reading +at his leisure: _Guy Mannering, Old Mortality, Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, +and The Talisman_. + +In what kind of poetry does Scott excel? Quote some of his spirited +heroes, and point out their chief excellences. How does his poetry +differ from that of Burns? In the history of fiction, does Scott rank +as an imitator or a creator? As a writer of fiction, in what do his +strength and his weakness consist? Has he those qualities that will +cause him to be popular a century hence? What can be said of his +style? + +Jane Austen.--In Craik, V., or Manly. II, read the selections from +_Pride and Prejudice_. The student at his leisure should read all this +novel. + +What world does she describe in her fiction? What are her chief +qualities? How does she differ from Scott? Why is she called +a "realist"? + +Wordsworth.--Read _I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, The Solitary +Reaper, To the Cuckoo, Lines Written in Early Spring, Three Years She +Grew in Sun and Shower, To my Sister, She Dwelt among the Untrodden +Ways, She Was a Phantom of Delight, Alice Fell, Lucy Gray, We Are +Seven, Intimations of Immortality from Recollection of Early +Childhood, Ode to Duty, Hart-Leap Well, Lines Composed a Few Miles +above Tintern Abbey, Michael_ and the sonnets: "It is a beauteous +evening, calm and free," "Milton, thou shouldst be living at this +hour," and "The world is too much with us, late and soon." Some +students will also wish to read _The Prelude_ (_Temple Classics_ or +A.J. George's edition), which describes the growth of Wordsworth's +mind. + +All the above poems (excepting _The Prelude_) may be found in the +volume _Poems of Wordsworth, chosen and edited by Matthew Arnold_ +(_Golden Treasury Series_, 331 pp., $1). Nearly all may also be found +in Page's _British Poets of the Nineteenth Century_ (923 pp., $2). For +selections, see Bronson, IV., 1-54; Ward, IV., 1-88; _Oxford_ 594-618; +_Century_, 503-541; Manly, I., 329-345. + +Refer to Wordsworth's "General Characteristics" (pp. 393-396) and +select the poems that most emphatically show his special qualities. +Which of the above poems seems easiest to write? In which is his +genius most apparent? Which best presents his view of nature? Which +best stand the test of an indefinite number of readings? In what do +his poems of childhood excel? + +Coleridge.--Read _The Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan, Hymn +before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni, Youth and Age_; Bronson, I., +54-93; Ward, IV., 102-154; Page, 66-103; Century, 553-565; Manly, I., +353-364; _Oxford_, 628-656. + +How do _The Ancient Mariner_ and _Christabel_ manifest the spirit of +Romanticism? What are the chief reasons for the popularity of _The +Ancient Mariner_? Would you call this poem didactic? Select stanzas +specially remarkable for melody, for beauty, for telling much in few +words, for images of nature, for conveying an ethical lesson. What +feeling almost unknown in early poetry is common in Coleridge's _The +Ancient Mariner_, Wordsworth's _Hart-Leap Well_, Burns's _To a Mouse, +On Seeing a Wounded Hare Limp by Me, A Winter Night_, and Cowper's _On +a Goldfinch Starved to Death in his Cage_? + +The advanced student should read some of Coleridge's prose criticism +in his _Biographia Literaria_ (_Everyman's Library_). The parts best +worth reading have been selected in George's _Coleridge's Principles +of Criticism_ (226 pp., 60 cents) and in Beers's _Selections for the +Prose Writings of Coleridge_ (including criticisms of Wordsworth and +Shakespeare, 146 pp., 50 cents). + +Note how fully Coleridge unfolds in these essays the principles of +romantic criticism, which have not been superseded. + +Byron.--Read _The Prisoner of Chillon_ (_Selections from Byron, +Eclectic English Classics_), _Childe Harold_, Canto III., stanzas +xxi-xxv. and cxiii., Canto IV., stanzas lxxviii., and lxxix. "Oh, +Snatch'd away in Beauty's Bloom," "There's not a joy the world can +give like that it takes away," and from _Don Juan_, Canto III., the +song inserted between stanzas lxxxvi. and lxxxvii. All these poems +will be found in the two volumes of Byron's works in the _Canterbury +Poets'_ series. + +Selections are given in Bronson, IV., 125-174; Ward, IV., 244-303; +Page, 170-272; Oxford, 688-694; _Century_, 586-613; Manly, I., +378-393. + +From the stanzas indicated in _Childe Harold_, select, first, the +passages which best illustrate the spirit of revolt, and, second, the +passages of most poetic beauty. What natural phenomena appeal most to +Byron? What qualities make _The Prisoner of Chillon_ a favorite? Why +is his poetry often called rhetorical? + +Shelley.--Read _Adonais, To a Skylark, Ode to the West Wind, To +Night, The Cloud, The Sensitive Plant_, and selections from _Alastor_ +and _Prometheus Unbound_. Shelley's _Poetical Works_, edited by Edward +Dowden (_Globe Poets_), contains all of Shelley's extant poetry. Less +expensive editions are in _Canterbury Poets, Temple Classics_, and +_Everyman's Library_. Selections are given in Bronson, IV., 182-227; +Ward, IV., 348-416; Page, 275-369; _Oxford_, 697-717; _Century_, +614-638; Manly, I., 394-411. + +Under what different aspects do _Adonais_ and _Lycidas_ view the life +after death? Has Shelley modified Wordsworth's view of the spiritual +force in nature? Does Shelley use either the cloud or the skylark for +the direct purpose of expressing his own feelings? Why is he sometimes +called a metaphysical poet? What is the most striking quality of +Shelley's poetic gift? + +Keats.--Read _The Eve of St. Agnes_, _Ode to a Nightingale_, _Ode on +a Grecian Urn_, _To Autumn_, _Hyperion_ (first 134 lines), _La Belle +Dame sans Merci_, _Isabella_, and the sonnets: _On First Looking into +Chapman's Homer_, _On the Grasshopper and Cricket_, _When I have Fears +that I May Cease to Be_, _Bright Star! Would I Were Steadfast as Thou +Art_. The best edition of the works of Keats is that by Buxton Forman. +The _Canterbury Poets_ and _Everyman's Library_ have less expensive +editions. All the poems indicated above may be found in Page's +_British Poets of the Nineteenth Century_. For selections, see +Bronson, IV., 230-265; Ward, IV., 427-464; _Oxford_, 721-744; +_Century_, 639-655; Manly, I., 413-425. + +By direct reference to the above poems, justify calling Keats "the +apostle of the beautiful," in both thought and language. Give examples +of his felicitous use of words and phrases. Show by illustrations his +mastery in the use of the concrete. To what special senses do his +images appeal? Was he at all affected by the new human movement? Why +does Arnold say, "Keats is with Shakespeare"? In what respects is he +like the Elizabethans? + +De Quincey.--Read _Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow_ (Craik, V., +264-270). The first chapters of _The Confessions of an English +Opium-Eater_ (_Everyman's Library_; _Temple Classics_; _Century_, +683-690; Manly, II., 357-366) are entertaining and will repay reading. + +Does his prose show any influence of a romantic and poetic age? +Compare his style with that of Addison, Gibbon, and Burke. In what +respects does De Quincey succeed, and in what does he fail, as a model +for a young writer? + +Lamb.--From the _Essays of Elia_ (Cassell's _National Library_; +_Everyman's Library_, _Temple Classics_) read any two of these essays: +_A Dissertation upon Roast Pig, Old China, Dream Children, New Year's +Eve, Poor Relations_. For selections, see Craik, V., 116-126; +_Century_, 575-578; Manly, II., 337-345. + +In what does Lamb's chief charm consist? Point out resemblances and +differences between his _Essays_ and Addison's. + +Landor, Hazlitt, and Hunt.--Good selections are given in Craik, V.; +Chambers, III.; Manly, II. Inexpensive editions of Landor's _Imaginary +Conversations_ and _Pericles and Aspasia_ may be found in the _Camelot +Series_. Hazlitt's _Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, Lectures on the +English Poets, Lectures on the English Comic Writers_, and _Table +Talk_ are published in _Everyman's Library_. The _Camelot Series_ and +the _Temple Classics_ also contain some of Hazlitt's works. A +selection from Leigh Hunt's _Essays_ is published in the _Camelot +Series_. + +What are the main characteristics of Landor's style? Select a passage +which justifies the criticism: "He writes in marble." Give some +striking thoughts from his _Imaginary Conversations_. Compare his +style and subject matter with Hazlitt's. Show that Hazlitt has the +power of presenting in an impressive way the chief characteristics of +authors. Select some pleasing passages from Leigh Hunt's _Essays_. +Compare him with Addison and Lamb. + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VIII: + +[Footnote 1: _Prelude_, Book XI.] + +[Footnote 2: gold.] + +[Footnote 3: _For a' That and a' That_.] + +[Footnote 4: _Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle_.] + +[Footnote 5: _Hart-Leap Well_.] + +[Footnote 6: _Intimations of Immortality_.] + +[Footnote 7: Wordsworth's _Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern +Abbey_.] + +[Footnote 8: _Retirement_.] + +[Footnote 9: _Conversation_.] + +[Footnote 10: _I Love My Jean_.] + +[Footnote 11: remedy.] + +[Footnote 12: _Epistle to John Lapraik_.] + +[Footnote 13: _The Vision_.] + +[Footnote 14: _Sonnet_: "The world is too much with us."] + +[Footnote 15: _Hart Leap Well_.] + +[Footnote 16: _A Day-Dream_.] + +[Footnote 17: _Biographia Literaria_, Chapter XIV.] + +[Footnote 18: _Ibid_., Chapter XXII.] + +[Footnote 19: _Manfred_, Act I.] + +[Footnote 20: _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, Canto III.] + +[Footnote 21: _The Dream_.] + +[Footnote 22: _Adonais_, Stanza xlix] + +[Footnote 23: _Epipsychidion_.] + +[Footnote 24: _Ode to the West Wind_.] + +[Footnote 25: For a discussion of the different sensory images of the +poets, see the author's _Education of the Central Nervous System_, +pages 109-208.] + +[Footnote 26: _Sleep and Poetry_.] + +[Footnote 27: For full titles, see p. 50.] + +[Footnote 28: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER IX: THE VICTORIAN AGE, 1837-1900 + +History of the Period.--In the two periods of English history most +remarkable for their accomplishment, the Elizabethan and the +Victorian, the throne was occupied by women. Queen Victoria, the +granddaughter of George III., ruled from 1837 to the beginning of +1901. Her long reign of sixty-three years may be said to close with +the end of the nineteenth century. + +For nearly fifty years after the battle of Waterloo (1815), England +had no war of magnitude. In 1854 she joined France in a war against +Russia to keep her from taking Constantinople. Tennyson's well-known +poem, _The Charge of the Light Brigade_, commemorates an incident in +this bloody contest, which was successful in preventing Russia from +dismembering Turkey. + +When the Turks massacred the Christians in Bulgaria in 1876, Russia +fought and conquered Turkey. England again intervened, this time after +the war, in the Berlin Congress (1878). In return for her diplomatic +services and for a guaranty to maintain the integrity of certain +Turkish territory, England received from Turkey the island of Cyprus. +As a result of this Congress, the principalities of Roumania, Servia, +and Bulgaria were formed, but the Turk was allowed to remain in +Europe. A later English prime minister, Lord Salisbury (1830-1903), +referring to England's espousal of the Turkish cause, said that she +had "backed the wrong horse." The bloody war of 1912-1913 between +Turkey and the allied armies of Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro, and +Greece was the result of this mistake. + +An important part of England's history during this period centers +around the expansion, protection, and development of her colonies in +Asia, Australia, Africa, and America. England was then constantly +agitated by the fear that Russia might grow strong enough to seize +India or some other English colonial possessions. + +A serious rebellion in India (1857) led England to take from the East +India Company the government of that colony. "Empress of India" was +later (1876) added to the titles of Queen Victoria. Had India not been +an English colony, literature might not have had Kipling's fascinating +_Jungle Books_ and Hindu stories. England's protectorate over Egypt +(1882) was assumed in order to strengthen her control over the newly +completed Suez Canal (1869), which was needed for her communication +with India and her Australian colonies. + +The Boer war in South Africa (1899-1902)required the largest number of +troops that England ever mustered into service in any of her wars. The +final outcome of this desperate struggle was the further extension of +her South African possessions. + +In the nineteenth century, England's most notable political +achievement was "her successful rule over colonies, ranging from +India, with its 280,000,000 subjects, to Fanning Island with its +population of thirty." Her tactful guidance was for the must part +directed toward enabling them to develop and to govern themselves. She +had learned a valuable lesson from the American revolution. + +Ireland, however, failed to secure her share of the benefits that +usually resulted from English rule. She was neither regarded as a +colony, like Australia, nor as an integral part of England. For the +greater part of the century her condition was deplorable. The great +prime minister, William E. Gladstone (1809-1898), tried to secure +needed home rule for her, but did not succeed. Toward the end of the +century, more liberal laws regarding the tenure of the land and more +self-government afforded some relief from unjust conditions. + +During the Victorian age the government of England became more +democratic. Two reform bills (1867 and 1884) gave almost unrestricted +suffrage to men. The extension of the franchise and the granting of +local self-government to her counties (1888) made England one of the +most democratic of all nations. Her monarch has less power than the +president of the United States. + +The Victorian age saw the rise of trades unions and the passing of +many laws to improve the condition of the working classes. As the +tariff protecting the home grower of wheat had raised the price of +bread and caused much suffering to the poor, England not only repealed +this duty (1846) but also became practically a free-trade country. The +age won laurels in providing more educational facilities for all, in +abridging class privileges, and in showing increasing recognition of +human rights, without a bloody revolution such as took place in +France. A rough indication of the amount of social and moral progress +is the decrease in the number of convicts in England, from about +50,000 at the accession of Victoria to less than 6000 at her death. + +An Age of Science and Invention.--In the extent and the variety of +inventions, in their rapid improvement and utilization for human +needs, and in general scientific progress, the sixty-three years of +the Victorian age surpassed all the rest of historic time. + +When Victoria ascended the throne, the stage coach was the common +means of traveling; only two short pieces of railroad had been +constructed; the electric telegraph had not been developed; few +steamships had crossed the Atlantic. The modern use of the telephone +would then have seemed as improbable as the wildest Arabian Nights' +tale. Before her reign ended, the railroad, the telegraph, the +steamship, and the telephone had wrought an almost magical change in +travel and in communication. + +The Victorian age introduced anaesthetics and antiseptic surgery, +developed photography, the sciences of chemistry and physics, of +biology and zooelogy, of botany and geology. The enthusiastic +scientific worker appeared in every field, endeavoring to understand +the laws of nature and to apply them in the service of man. Science +also turned its attention to human progress and welfare. The new +science of sociology had earnest students. + +[Illustration: CHARLES DARWIN.] + +The Influence of Science on Literature.--The Victorian age was the +first to set forth clearly the evolution hypothesis, which teaches the +orderly development from simple to complex forms. While the idea of +evolution had suggested itself to many naturalists, Charles Darwin +(1809-1882) was the first to gain a wide hearing for the theory. After +years of careful study of nature, he published in 1859 _The Origin of +Species by Natural Selection_, an epoch-making work, which had a +far-reaching effect on the thought of the age. + +The influence of his doctrine of evolution is especially apparent in +Tennyson's poetry, in George Eliot's fiction, in religious thought, +and in the change in viewing social problems. In his _Synthetic +Philosophy_, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), philosopher and +metaphysician, applied the doctrine of evolution not only to plants +and animals but also to society, morality, and religion. + +Two eminent scientists, John Tyndall (1820-1893) and Thomas Huxley +(1825-1895), did much to popularize science and to cause the age to +seek a broader education. Tyndall's _Fragments of Science_ (1871) +contains a fine lecture on the _Scientific Use of the Imagination_, in +which he becomes almost poetic in his imaginative conception of +evolution:-- + + "Not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular + or animal life, not alone the nobler + forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite + and wonderful mechanism of the human + body, but the human mind itself,--emotion, + intellect, will, and all their phenomena,--were + once latent in a fiery cloud... All our philosophy, all our poetry, + all our science, and all our art,--Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, and + Raphael,--are potential in the fires of the sun." + +[Illustration: JOHN TYNDALL.] + +Unlike Keats in his _Lamia_, Tyndall is firm in his belief that +science will not clip the wings of imagination. In the same lecture he +says:-- + + "How are we to lay hold of the physical basis of light, since, like + that of life itself, it lies entirely without the domain of the + senses? We are gifted with the power of imagination and by this + power we can lighten the darkness which surrounds the world of the + senses... Bounded and conditioned by cooeperant reason, imagination + becomes the mightiest instrument of the physical discoverer. + Newton's passage from a falling apple to a falling moon was at the + outset a leap of the imagination." + +Huxley was even a more brilliant interpreter of science to popular +audiences. His so-called _Lay Sermons_ (1870) are invigorating +presentations of scientific and educational subjects. He awakened many +to a sense of the importance of "knowing the laws of the physical +world" and "the relations of cause and effect therein." Nowhere is he +more impressive than where he forces us to admit that we must all play +the chess game of life against an opponent that never makes an error +and never fails to count our mistakes against us. + +[Illustration: THOMAS HUXLEY. _From the painting by Collier, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + + "The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the + universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. + The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his + play is always fair, just, and patient. But we also know, to our + cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest + allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest + stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which + the strong man shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is + checkmated--without haste, but without remorse. + * * * * * + "Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty + game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect + in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things + and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the + affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move + in harmony with those laws."[1] + +We find the influence of science manifest in much of the general +literature of the age, as well as in the special writings of the +scientists. Science introduced to literature a new interest in +humanity and impressed on writers what is known as the "growth idea." +Preceding literature, with the conspicuous exception of Shakespeare's +work, had for the most part presented individuals whose character was +already fixed. This age loved to show the growth of souls. George +Eliot's novels are frequently Darwinian demonstrations of the various +steps in the moral growth or the perversion of the individual. In +_Rabbi Ben Ezra_, Browning thus expresses this new idea of the working +of the Divine Power:-- + + "He fixed thee mid this dance + Of plastic circumstance." + +The Trend of Prose; Minor Prose Writers.--The prose of this age is +remarkable for amount and variety. In addition to the work of the +scientists, there are the essays and histories of Macaulay and +Carlyle, the essays and varied prose of Newman, the art and social +philosophy of Ruskin, the critical essays of Matthew Arnold and +Swinburne. + +One essayist, Walter Pater (1839-1894), an Oxford graduate and +teacher, who kept himself aloof from contemporary thought, produced +almost a new type of serious prose, distinguished for color, +ornamentation, melody, and poetic thought. Even such prosaic objects +as wood and brick were to his retrospective gaze "half mere +soul-stuff, floated thither from who knows where." His object was to +charm his reader, to haunt him with vague suggestions rather than to +make a logical appeal to him, or to add to his world of vivid fact, +after the manner of Macaulay. A quotation from Pater's most brilliant +essay, _Leonardo Da Vinci_, in the volume, _The Renaissance: Studies +in Art and Poetry_[2] (1873) will show some of the characteristics of +his prose. This description of Da Vinci's masterpiece, the portrait of +Mona Lisa, has added to the world-wide fame of that picture-- + + "Hers is the head upon which all 'the ends of the world are come,' + and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from + within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange + thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a + moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women + of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into + which the soul with its maladies has passed!... She is older than + the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead + many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a + diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and + trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as Leda, + was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of + Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and + flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has molded the + changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands." + +The period from 1780 to 1837 had only two great writers of +fiction,--Scott and Jane Austen; but the Victorian age saw the novel +gain the ascendancy that the drama enjoyed in Elizabethan times. + +In addition to the chief novelists,--Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, +Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, George Meredith, and Kipling,--there were +many other writers who produced one or more excellent works of +fiction. In this class are the Bronte sisters, especially Charlotte +Bronte (1816-1855) and Emily Bronte (1818-1848), the daughters of a +clergyman, who lived in Haworth, Yorkshire. They had genius, but they +were hampered by poverty, lack of sympathy, and peculiar environment. +Charlotte Bronte's _Jane Eyre_ (1847) is a thrilling story, which +centers around the experiences of one of the great nineteenth-century +heroines of fiction. This virile novel, an unusual compound of +sensational romance and of intense realism, lives because the highly +gifted author made it pulsate with her own life. Unlike _Jane Eyre_, +Emily Bronte's powerful novel, _Wuthering Heights_ (1847) is not +pleasant reading. This romantic novel is really her imaginative +interpretation of the Yorkshire life that she knew. If she had +humanized _Wuthering Heights_, it could have been classed among the +greatest novels of the Victorian age. She might have learned this art, +had she not died at the age of thirty. "Stronger than a man, simpler +than a child, her nature stood alone," wrote Charlotte Bronte of her +sister Emily. + +Among the other authors who deserve mention for one or more works of +fiction are: Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873), a versatile writer whose +best-known work is _The Last Days of Pompeii_; Elizabeth Gaskell +(1810-1865), whose _Cranford_ (1853) is an inimitable picture of +mid-nineteenth century life in a small Cheshire village; Anthony +Trollope (1815-1882), whose _Barchester Towers_ is a realistic study +of life in a cathedral town; Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), who stirs +the blood in _Westward Ho!_ (1855), a tale of Elizabethan seamen; +Charles Reade (1814-1884), author of _The Cloister and the Hearth_ +(1861), a careful and fascinating study of fifteenth-century life; +R.D. Blackmore (1825-1900), whose _Lorna Doone_ (1869) is a +thrilling North Devonshire story of life and love in the latter part +of the seventeenth century; J.M. Barrie (1860- ), whose _The Little +Minister_ (1891) is a richly human, sympathetic, and humorous story, +the scene of which is laid in Kirriemuir, a town about sixty miles +north of Edinburgh. His _Sentimental Tommy_ (1896), although not so +widely popular, is an unusually original, semi-autobiographical story +of imaginative boyhood. This entire chapter could be filled with +merely the titles of Victorian novels, many of which possess some +distinctive merit. + +The changed character of the reading public furnished one reason for +the unprecedented growth of fiction. The spread of education through +public schools, newspapers, cheap magazines, and books caused a +widespread habit of reading, which before this time was not common +among the large numbers of the uneducated and the poor. The masses, +however, did not care for uninteresting or abstruse works. The +majority of books drawn from the circulating libraries were novels. + +The scientific spirit of the age impelled the greatest novelists to +try to paint actual life as it impressed them. Dickens chose the lower +classes in London; Thackeray, the clubs and fashionable world; George +Eliot, the country life near her birthplace in Warwickshire; Hardy, +the people of his Wessex; Meredith, the cosmopolitan life of +egotistical man; Kipling, the life of India both in jungle and camp, +as well as the life of the great outer world. These writers of fiction +all sought a realistic background, although some of them did not +hesitate to use romantic touches to heighten the general effect. +Stevenson was the chief writer of romances. + +The Trend of Poetry: Minor Poets.--The Victorian age was dominated +by two great poets,--Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson. Browning +showed the influence of science in his tendency to analyze human +motives and actions. In one line of _Fra Lippo Lippi_, he voices the +new poetic attitude toward the world:-- + + "To find its meaning is my meat and drink." + +Browning advanced into new fields, while Tennyson was more content to +make a beautiful poetic translation of much of the thought of the age. +In his youth he wrote:-- + + "Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime + With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time." + +From merely reading Tennyson's verse, one could gauge quite accurately +the trend of Victorian scientific thought. + +The poetry of both Browning and Tennyson is so resonant with faith +that they have been called great religious teachers. Rudyard Kipling, +the poet of imperialistic England, of her "far-flung battle line," +attributes her "dominion over palm and pine" to faith in the "Lord God +of Hosts." + +In the minor poets, there is often a different strain. Arnold is beset +with doubt, and hears no "clear call," such as Tennyson voices in +_Crossing the Bar_. Swinburne, seeing the pessimistic side of the +shield of evolution, exclaims:-- + + "Thou hast fed one rose with dust of many men." + +Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), Oxford tutor, traveler, and +educational examiner, was a poet who struggled with the doubt of the +age. He loved-- + + "To finger idly some old Gordian knot, + Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, + And with much toil attain to half-believe." + +His verse would be forgotten if it expressed only such an uncertain +note; but his greatest poem thus records his belief in the value of +life's struggle and gives a hint of final victory:-- + + "Say not the struggle naught availeth, + The labor and the wounds are vain, + The enemy faints not, nor faileth, + And as things have been they remain. + + "If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; + It maybe, in yon smoke concealed, + Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, + And, but for you, possess the field." + +Although he paid too little attention to the form of his verse, some +of his poems have the vitality of an earnest, thoughtful sincerity. + +Two poets, W. E. Henley (1849-1903) and Robert Bridges (1844- ), +although they do not possess Robert Browning's genius, yet have much +of his capacity to inspire others with joy in "the mere living." +Henley, a cripple and a great sufferer, was a poet, critic, and London +editor. His message is "the joy of life ":-- + + "...the blackbird sings but a box-wood flute, + But I lose him best of all + For his song is all of the joy of life." + +His verse, which is elemental, full of enthusiasm and beauty, often +reminds us of the work of the thirteenth-century lyrists. + +Robert Bridges, an Oxford graduate, physician, critic, and poet, also +had for his creed: "Life and joy are one." His universe, like +Shelley's, is an incarnation of the spirit of love:-- + + "Love can tell, and love alone, + Whence the million stars were strewn, + Why each atom knows its own, + How, in spite of woe and death, + Gay is life, and sweet is breath." + +He wishes for no happier day than the present one. Bridges has been +called a classical poet because he often selects Greek and Roman +subjects for his verse, and because he writes with a formality, +purity, and precision of style. He is, however, most delightful in +such volumes as _Shorter Poems_ and _New Poems_.[3] wherein he +describes in a simple, artless manner English rural scenes and +fireside joys. In 1913 he was appointed poet laureate, to succeed +Alfred Austin. + +John Davidson (1857-1909), a Scotch poet, who came to London and +wrestled with poverty, produced much uneven work. In his best verse, +there is often a pleasing combination of poetic beauty and vigorous +movement. Lines like these from his _Ballad of a Nun_ have been much +admired:-- + + "On many a mountain's happy head + Dawn lightly laid her rosy hand. + The adventurous son took heaven by storm, + Clouds scattered largesses of rain." + +Davidson later became an offensively shrill preacher of materialism +and lost his early charm. Some of the best of his poetry may be found +in _Fleet Street Ecologues_. + +Francis Thompson (1860-1907), a Catholic poet, who has been called a +nineteenth-century Crashaw, passed much of his short life of suffering +in London, where he was once reduced to selling matches on a street +corner. His greatest poem, _The Hound of Heaven_ (1893), is an +impassioned lyrical rendering of the passage in the _Psalms_ +beginning: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I +flee from thy presence?" While fleeing down "the long savannahs of the +blue," the poet hears a Voice say:-- + + "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me." + +William Watson (1858- ), a London poet, looked to Milton, +Wordsworth, and Arnold as his masters. Some of Watson's best verse, +such as _Wordsworth's Grave_, is written in praise of dead poets. His +early volume _Epigrams_ (1884), containing one hundred poems of four +lines each, shows his power of conveying poetic thought in brief +space. One of these poems is called _Shelley and Harriet Westbrook_:-- + + "A star looked down from heaven and loved a flower, + Grown in earth's garden--loved it for an hour: + Let eyes that trace his orbit in the spheres + Refuse not, to a ruin'd rosebud, tears."[4] + +Many expected to see Watson appointed poet-laureate to succeed +Tennyson. Possibly mental trouble, which had temporarily affected him, +influenced the choice; for Alfred Austin (1835-1913) received the +laureateship in 1896. Like the Pre-Raphaelites, Watson disliked those +whom he called a "phrase-tormenting fantastic chorus of poets." His +best verse shows depth of poetic thought, directness of expression, +and a strong sense of moral values. + +The Victorian age has provided poetry to suit almost all tastes. In +striking contrast with those who wrestled with the eternal verities +are such poets and essayists as Austin Dobson (1840- ), long a clerk +of the London Board of Trade, and Arthur Symons (1865- ), a poet and +discriminating prose critic. Austin Dobson, who is fond of +eighteenth-century subjects, is at his best in graceful society verse. +His poems show the touch of a highly skilled metrical artist who has +been a careful student of French poetry. His ease of expression, +freshness, and humor charm readers of his verse without making serious +demands on their attention. His best poems are found in _Vignettes in +Rhyme_ (1873), _At the Sign of the Lyre_ (1885), and _Collected Poems_ +(1913). + +In choice of subject matter, Arthur Symons sometimes suggests the +Cavalier poets. He has often squandered his powers in acting on his +theory that it is one of the provinces of verse to record any +momentary mood, irrespective of its value. His deftness of touch and +acute poetic sensibility are evident in such short poems as _Rain on +the Down, Credo, A Roundel of Rest_ and _The Last Memory_.[5] + +[Illustration: DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. _From the drawing by himself, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + +The Pre-Raphaelite Movement.--In 1848 three artists, Dante Gabriel +Rossetti (1828-1882), William Holman-Hunt (1827-1910), and John +Everett Millais (1829-1896), formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. +Others soon joined the movement which was primarily artistic, not +literary. Painting had become imitative. The uppermost question in the +artist's mind was, "How would Raphael or some other authority have +painted this picture?" The new school determined to paint things from +a direct study of nature, without a thought of the way in which any +one else would have painted them. They decided to assume the same +independence as the Pre-Raphaelite artists, who expressed their +individuality in their own way. Keats was the favorite author of the +new school. The artists painted subjects suggested by his poems, and +Rossetti thought him "the one true heir of Shakespeare." + +When the Pre-Raphaelite paintings were violently attacked, Ruskin +examined them and decided that they conformed to the principles which +he had already laid down in the first two volumes of _Modern Painters_ +(1843, 1846), so he wrote _Pre-Raphaelitism_ (1851) as the champion of +the new school. It has been humorously said that some of the painters +of this school, before beginning a new picture, took an oath "to paint +the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." + +The new movement in poetry followed this revolt in art. Dante Gabriel +Rossetti, the head of the literary Pre-Raphaelites, though born in +London, was of Italian parentage in which there was a strain of +English blood. His poem, _The Blessed Damozel_ (first published in +1850), has had the greatest influence of any Pre-Raphaelite literary +production. This poem was suggested by _The Raven_ (1845), the work of +the American, Edgar Allan Poe. Rossetti said:-- + + "I saw that Poe had done the utmost it was possible to do with the + grief of the lover an earth, and I determined to reverse the + conditions, and give utterance to the yearnings of the loved one in + heaven." + +His Blessed Damozel, wearing a white rose, "Mary's gift," leaning out +from the gold bar of heaven, watching with sad eyes, "deeper than the +depth of waters stilled at even," for the coming of her lover, has +left a lasting impression on many readers. Simplicity, beauty, and +pathos are the chief characteristics of this poem, which, like +Bryant's _Thanatopsis_, was written by a youth of eighteen. + +Painting was the chief work of Rossetti's life, but he wrote many +other poems. Some of the most characteristic of these are the two +semi-ballads, _Sister Helen_ and _The King's Tragedy, Rose Mary, +Love's Nocturn_, and _Sonnets_. + +One of the earliest of these Sonnets, _Mary's Girlhood_, describes the +child as:-- + + "An angel-watered lily, that near God + Grows and is quiet." + +His sister, Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), the author of much +religious verse, shows the unaffected naturalness of the new movement. +This stanza from her _Amor Mundi_ (_Love of the World_) is +characteristic:-- + + "So they two went together in glowing August weather, + The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right; + And dear she was to doat on, her swift feet seemed to float on + The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight." + +William Morris (1834-1896), Oxford graduate, decorator, +manufacturer, printer, and poet, was born near London. He was +fascinated by _The Blessed Damozel_, and his first and most poetical +volume, _The Defence of Guinevere and Other Poems_ (1858), shows +Rossetti's influence. The simplicity insisted on by the new school is +evident in such lines as these from _Two Red Roses across the Moon_:-- + + "There was a lady lived in a hall, + Large in the eyes and slim and tall; + And ever she sung from noon to noon, + Two red roses across the moon." + +Morris later wrote a long series of narrative poems, called _The +Earthly Paradise_ (1868-1870) and an epic, _Sigurd the Volsung_ +(1876). He turned from Pre-Raphaelitism to become an earnest social +reformer. + +In literature, the Pre-Raphaelite movement disdained the old +conventions and started a miniature romantic revival, which emphasized +individuality, direct expression, and the use of simple words. Its +influence soon became merged in that of the earlier and far greater +romantic school. + +THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, 1800-1859 + +[Illustration: THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. _From the painting by Sir +F. Grant, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--A prominent figure in the social and political life of +England during the first part of the century was Thomas Babington +Macaulay, a man of brilliant intellectual powers, strict integrity of +character, and enormous capacity for work. He loved England and +gloried in her liberties and her commercial prosperity. He served her +for many years in the House of Commons, and he bent his whole energy +and splendid forensic talent in favor of the Reform Bill of 1832, +which secured greater political liberty for England. + +He was not a theorizer, but a practical man of affairs. +Notwithstanding the fact that his political opinions were ready made +for him by the Whig party, his career in the House was never +"inconsistent with rectitude of intention and independence of spirit." +He voted conscientiously for measures, although he personally +sacrificed hundreds of pounds by so doing. + +He was a remarkable talker. A single speech of his has been known to +change an entire vote in Parliament. Unlike Coleridge, he did not +indulge in monologue, but showed to finest advantage in debate. His +power of memory was wonderful. He often startled an opponent by +quoting from a given chapter and page of a book. He repeated long +passages from _Paradise Lost_; and it is said he could have restored +it complete, had it all been lost. + +His disposition was sweet and his life altogether fortunate. His +biographer says of him: "Descended from Scotch Presbyterians +--ministers many of them--on his father's side, and from +a Quaker family on his mother's, he probably united as many guaranties +of 'good birth,' in the moral sense of the word, as could be found in +these islands at the beginning of the century." + +He was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, in 1800. He was +prepared for college at good private schools, and sent to Cambridge +when he was eighteen. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in +1825; but, in the following year, he determined to adopt literature as +a profession, owing to the welcome given to his _Essay on Milton_. As +he had written epics, histories, and metrical romances prior to the +age of ten, his choice of a profession was neither hasty nor +unexpected. + +He continued from this time to write for the _Edinburgh Review_, but +literature was not the only field of his activity. He had a seat in +Parliament, and he held several positions under the Government. He was +never unemployed. Many of his _Essays_ were written before breakfast; +while the other members of the household were asleep. + +He was a voracious reader. If he walked in the country or in London, +he always carried a book to read. He spent some years in the +government's service in India. On the long voyage over, he read +incessantly, and on the return trip he studied the German language. + +He was beyond the age of forty when he found the leisure to begin his +_History of England_. He worked uninterruptedly, but broke down early, +dying at the age of fifty-nine. + +With his large, fine physique, his sturdy common sense, his interest +in practical matters, and his satisfaction in the physical +improvements of the people, Macaulay was a fine specimen of the +English gentleman. + +Essays and Poetry.--Like De Quincey, Macaulay was a frequent +contributor to periodicals. He wrote graphic essays on men of action +and historical periods. The essays most worthy of mention in this +class are _Sir William Temple, Lord Clive, Warren Hastings_, and +_William Pitt, Earl of Chatham_. Some of his essays on English writers +and literary subjects are still classic. Among these are _Milton, +Dryden, Addison, Southey's Edition of Pilgrim's Progress, Croker's +Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson_, and the biographical essays on +_Bunyan, Goldsmith_, and _Johnson_, contributed to the _Encyclopaedia +Britannica_. Although they may lack deep spiritual insight into the +fundamental principles of life and literary criticism, these essays +are still deservedly read by most students of English history and +literature. + +Gosse says: "The most restive of juvenile minds, if induced to enter +one of Macaulay's essays, is almost certain to reappear at the other +end of it gratified, and, to an appreciable extent, cultivated." These +_Essays_ have developed a taste for general reading in many who could +not have been induced to begin with anything dry or hard. Many who +have read Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ during the past fifty years say +that Macaulay first turned their attention to that fascinating work. +In the following quotation from an essay on that great biography, we +may note his love for interesting concrete statements, presented in a +vigorous and clear style:-- + + "Johnson grown old, Johnson in the fullness of his fame and in the + enjoyment of a competent fortune, is better known to us than any + other man in history. Everything about him, his chat, his wig, his + figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus's dance, his rolling + walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs which too clearly marked + his approbation of his dinner, his insatiable appetite for fish + sauce and veal pie with plums, his inextinguishable thirst for tea, + his trick of touching the posts as he walked ... all are as familiar + to us as the objects by which we have been surrounded from + childhood." + +Macaulay wrote some stirring ballad poetry, known as _Lays of Ancient +Rome_, which gives a good picture of the proud Roman Republic in its +valorous days. These ballads have something of Scott's healthy, manly +ring. They contain rhetorical and martial stanzas, which are the +delight of many boys; but they lack the spirituality and beauty that +are necessary for great poetry. + +History of England.--Macaulay had for some time wondered why some +one should not do for real history what Scott had done for imaginary +history. Macaulay accordingly proposed to himself the task of writing +a history that should be more accurate than Hume's and possess +something of the interest of Scott's historical romances. In 1848 +appeared the first two volumes of _The History of England from the +Accession of James II_. Macaulay had the satisfaction of seeing his +work, in sales and popular appreciation, surpass the novels. He +intended to trace the development of English liberty from James II. to +the death of George III.; but his minute method of treatment allowed +him to unfold only sixteen years (from 1685 to 1701) of that period, +so important in the constitutional and religious history of England. + +Macaulay's pages are not a graveyard for the dry bones of history. The +human beings that figure in his chapters have been restored to life by +his touch. We see Charles II. "before the dew was off in St. James's +Park striding among the trees, playing with his spaniels, and flinging +corn to his ducks." We gaze for a moment with the English courtiers at +William III.:-- + + "They observed that the king spoke in a somewhat imperious tone, + even to the wife to whom he owed so much, and whom he sincerely + loved and esteemed. They were amused and shocked to see him, + when the Princess Anne dined with him, and when the first green peas + of the year were put on the table, devour the whole dish without + offering a spoonful to her Royal Highness, and they pronounced that + this great soldier and politician was no better than a low Dutch + bear."[6] + +Parts of the _History_ are masterpieces of the narrator's art. A +trained novelist, unhampered by historical facts, could scarcely have +surpassed the last part of Macaulay's eighth chapter in relating the +trial of the seven Bishops. Our blood tingles to the tips of our +fingers as we read in the fifth chapter the story of Monmouth's +rebellion and of the Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys. + +Macaulay shirked no labor in preparing himself to write the _History_. +He read thousands of pages of authorities and he personally visited +the great battlefields in order to give accurate descriptions. +Notwithstanding such preparation, the value of his _History_ is +impaired, not only because he sometimes displays partisanship, but +also because he fails to appreciate the significance of underlying +social movements. He does not adopt the modern idea that history is a +record of social growth, moral as well as physical. While a graphic +picture of the exterior aspects of society is presented, we are given +no profound insight into the interior movements of a great +constitutional epoch. We may say of both Gibbon and Macaulay that they +are too often mere surveyors, rather than geologists, of the historic +field.[7] The popularity of the _History_ is not injured by this +method. + +Macaulay's grasp of fact never weakens, his love of manly courage +never relaxes, his joy in bygone time never fails, his zeal for the +free institutions of England never falters, and his style is never +dull. + +General Characteristics.--The chief quality of Macaulay's style is +its clearness. Contemporaries said that the printers' readers never +had to read his sentences a second time to understand them. This +clearness is attained, first, by the structure of his sentences. He +avoids entangling clauses, obscure references in his pronouns, and +long sentences whenever they are in danger of becoming involved and +causing the reader to lose his way. In the second place, if the idea +is a difficult one or not likely to be apprehended at its full worth, +Macaulay repeats his meaning from a different point of view and throws +additional light on the subject by varied illustrations. + +In the third place, his works abound in concrete ideas, which are more +readily grasped than abstract ones. He is not content to write: "The +smallest actual good is better than the most magnificent promise of +impossibilities:" but he gives the concrete equivalent: "An acre in +Middlesex is worth a principality in Utopia." + +It is possible for style to be both clear and lifeless, but his style +is as energetic as it is clear. In narration he takes high rank. His +erudition, displayed in the vast stores of fact that his memory +retained for effective service in every direction, is worthy of +special mention. + +While his excellences may serve as a model, he has faults that +admirers would do well to avoid. His fondness for contrast often leads +him to make one picture too bright and the other too dark. His love of +antithesis has the merit of arousing attention in his readers and of +crystallizing some thoughts into enduring epigrammatic form; but he is +often led to sacrifice exact truth in order to obtain fine contrasts, +as in the following:-- + + "The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the + bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators." + +Macaulay is more the apostle of the material than of the spiritual. He +lacked sympathy with theories and aspirations that could not +accomplish immediate practical results. While his vigorous, +easily-read pages exert a healthy fascination, they are not illumined +with the spiritual glow that sheds luster on the pages of the great +Victorian moral teachers, like Carlyle and Ruskin. He has, however, +had more influence on the prose style of the last half of the +nineteenth century than any other writer. Many continue to find in him +their most effective teacher of a clear, energetic form of expression. + +JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN, 1801-1890 + +[Illustration: JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN. _From the painting by +Emmeline Deane_.] + +Life.--Newman, who was born in London the year after Macaulay, +represents a different aspect of English thought. Macaulay was +thrilled in contemplating the great material growth and energy of the +nation. Newman's interest was centered in the development of the +spiritual life. + +This son of a practical London banker was writing verses at nine, a +mock drama at twelve, and at fourteen, "he broke out into periodicals, +_The Spy_ and _Anti-Spy_, intended to answer one another." Of his +tendency toward mysticism in youth, he wrote:-- + + "I used to wish the Arabian Tales were true; my imagination ran on + unknown influences, on magical powers and influences. I thought life + might be a dream, or I an angel, and all this world a deception, my + fellow angels by a playful device concealing themselves from me, and + deceiving me with the semblance of a material world." + +In his youth he imitated the style of Addison, Johnson, and Gibbon. +Few boys of his generation had as much practice in writing English +prose. At the age of fifteen years and ten months he entered Trinity +College, Oxford, from which he was graduated at nineteen. Two years +later he won an Oxford fellowship, and in 1824 he became a clergyman +of the Church of England. + +The rest of his life belongs mainly to theological history. He became +one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement (1833-1841) toward stricter +High-Church principles, as opposed to liberalism, and in 1845 he +joined the Catholic Church. He was rector of the new Catholic +University at Dublin from 1854 to 1858. In 1879 he was made a +cardinal. Most of his later life was spent at Edgbaston (near +Birmingham) at the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. + +Works and General Characteristics.--Newman was a voluminous writer. +An edition of his works in thirty-six volumes was issued during his +lifetime. Most of these properly belong to the history of theological +thought. His _Apologia pro Vita Sua_, which he wrote in reply to an +attack by Charles Kingsley, an Episcopal clergyman, is really, as its +sub-title indicates, _A History of His Religious Opinions_. This +intimate, sympathetic account of his religious experiences won him +many friends. He wrote two novels: _Loss and Gain_ (1848), which gives +an excellent picture of Oxford society during the last days of the +Oxford Movement, and _Callista_ (1852), a vivid story of an early +Christian martyr in Africa. His best-known hymn, _Lead kindly Light_, +remains a favorite with all Christian denominations. _The Dream of +Gerontius_ (1865) is a poem that has been called "the happiest effort +to represent the unseen world that has been made since the time of +Dante." + +Those who are not interested in Newman's Episcopal or Catholic sermons +or in his great theological treatises will find some of his best prose +in the work known as _The Idea of a University_. This volume, +containing 521 pages, is composed of discussions, lectures, and +essays, prepared while he was rector of the University at Dublin. + +Newman's prose is worthy of close study for the following reasons:-- + +(1) His style is a clear, transparent medium for the presentation of +thought. He molded his sentences with the care of an artist. He +said:-- + + "I have been obliged to take great pains with everything I have ever + written, and I often write chapters over and over again, besides + innumerable corrections and interlinear additions." + +His definition of style is "a thinking out into language," not an +ornamental "addition from without." He employs his characteristic +irony in ridiculing those who think that "_one_ man could do the +thought and _another_ the style":-- + + "We read in Persian travels of the way in which young gentlemen + go to work in the East, when they would engage in correspondence + with those who inspire them with hope or fear. They cannot write one + sentence themselves; so they betake themselves to the professional + letter writer... The man of thought comes to the man of words; and + the man of words duly instructed in the thought, dips the pen of + desire into the ink of devotedness, and proceeds to spread it over + the page of desolation. Then the nightingale of affection is heard + to warble to the rose of loveliness, while the breeze of anxiety + plays around the brow of expectation. This is what the Easterns are + said to consider fine writing; + and it seems pretty much the idea of the school of critics to whom I + have been referring."[8] + +It was a pleasure to him to "think out" expressions like the +following:-- + + "Ten thousand difficulties do not make a doubt." + + "Calculation never made a hero." + + "Here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have + changed often." + +(2) Like Macaulay, Newman excelled in the use of the concrete. In his +_Historical Sketches_, he imagines the agent of a London company sent +to inspect Attica:-- + + "He would report that the climate was mild; the hills were + limestone; there was plenty of good marble; more pasture land than + at first survey might have been expected, sufficient certainly for + sheep and goats; fisheries productive; silver mines once, but long + since worked out; figs fair; oil first rate; olives in profusion... + He would not tell how that same delicate and brilliant atmosphere + freshened up the pale olive till the olive forgot its monotony, and + its cheek glowed like the arbutus or the beech of the Umbrian + hills." + +A general statement about superseding "the operation of the laws of +the universe in a multitude of ways" does not satisfy him. He +specifies in those ways when he records his belief that saints have +"raised the dead to life, crossed the sea without vessels, multiplied +grain and bread, cured incurable diseases." + +(3) He modestly called himself a rhetorician, but he possessed also +the qualities of an acute thinker. He displayed unusual sagacity in +detecting the value of different arguments in persuasion. He could +arrange in proper proportion the most complex tangle of facts, so as +to make one clear impression. Such power made him one of the great +Victorian masters of argumentative prose. + +THOMAS CARLYLE, 1795-1881 + +[Illustration: THOMAS CARLYLE. _From the painting by James McNeil +Whistler, Glasgow Art Galleries_.] + +Life.--Thomas Carlyle, who became one of the great tonic forces of +the nineteenth century, was also most interested in spiritual growth. +He specially emphasized the gospel of work as the only agency that +could develop the atmosphere necessary for such growth, and, though +deeply religious, he cared little for any special faith or creed. + +The son of a Scotch stone mason, Thomas Carlyle was born in 1795 at +Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire. At the age of fourteen, the boy was ready +for the University of Edinburgh, and he walked the eighty miles +between it and his home. After he was graduated, he felt that he could +not enter the ministry, as his parents wished. He therefore taught +while he was considering what vocation to follow. + +In 1821 he met Jane Welsh, a brilliant and beautiful girl, descended +on her father's side from John Knox and on her mother's from William +Wallace. With the spirit of Wallace, she climbed in her girlhood up to +places that a boy would have considered perilous. When she was +forbidden to take up such a masculine study as Latin, she promptly +learned to decline a Latin noun. Carlyle had much trouble in winning +her; but she finally consented to be his wife, and they were married +in 1826. In 1828 they went to live for six lonely years on her farm at +Craigenputtock, sixteen miles north of Dumfries, where it was so quiet +that Mrs. Carlyle said she could hear the sheep nibbling the grass a +quarter of a mile away. Ralph Waldo Emerson visited them here and +formed a lifelong friendship with Carlyle. It was here that Carlyle +fought the intense spiritual battle of his early life, here that he +wrote his first great work, _Sartor Resartus_, which his wife +pronounced "a work of genius, dear." + +[Illustration: CRAIGENPUTTOCK.] + +It would be difficult to overestimate the beneficent influence which +Mrs. Carlyle exerted over her husband in those trying days of poverty +and spiritual stress. When her private correspondence was inadvisedly +published after his death, she unwittingly became her husband's +Boswell. For many years after the appearance of her letters, his +personality and treatment of her were more discussed than his +writings. Her references to marital unhappiness were for awhile given +undue prominence; but with the passing of time there came a +recognition of the fact that she was almost as brilliant a writer as +her husband, that, like him, she was frequently ill, and that in +expressing things in a striking way, she sometimes exercised his +prerogative of exaggeration. "Carlyle has to take a journey always +after writing a book," she declared, "and then gets so weary with +knocking about that he has to write another book to recover from it." +She once said that living with him was as bad as keeping a lunatic +asylum. + +[Illustration: MRS. CARLYLE.] + +Unfortunately, his early privations had caused him to have chronic +indigestion. He thought that the worst punishment he could suggest for +Satan would be to compel him to "try to digest for all eternity with +my stomach." This disorder rendered Carlyle peculiarly irascible and +explosive. His wife's quick temper sometimes took fire at his +querulousness; but her many actions, which spoke much louder than her +words, showed how deeply she loved him and how proud she was of his +genius. After their removal to London, she would quietly buy the +neighbors' crowing roosters, which kept him awake, and she prepared +food that would best suit his disordered digestion. She complained of +his seeming lack of appreciation. "You don't want to be praised for +doing your duty," he said. "I did, though," she wrote. + +Carlyle's lack of restraint was most evident in little things. A +German who came from Weimar to see him was unfortunately admitted +during a period of stress in writing. A minute later the German was +seen rapidly descending the stairs and leaving the house. Carlyle +immediately hurried to the room where his wife was receiving a +visitor, and tragically asked what he had done to cause the Almighty +to send a German all the way from Weimar to wrench off the handles of +his cupboard doors. Carlyle did not then appear to realize that the +frightened German had mistaken the locked cupboard doors for the exit +from the room. On the other hand, when the great political economist, +John Stuart Mill, was responsible for the loss of the borrowed +manuscript of the first volume of _The French Revolution_, Carlyle +said to his wife: "Well, Mill, poor fellow, is terribly cut up; we +must endeavor to hide from him how very serious the business is to +us." To rewrite this volume cost Carlyle a year's exhausting labor. + +In 1834 Carlyle went to London, where he lived for the rest of his +life in Cheyne Row, Chelsea. The publication of _The French +Revolution_ in 1837 made him famous. Other works of his soon appeared, +to add to his fame. His essays, collected and published in 1839 under +the title, _Critical and Miscellaneous Essays_, contained his +sympathetic _Essay on Burns_, which no subsequent writer has +surpassed. _Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations_ (1845) +permanently raised England's estimation of that warrior statesman. + +Carlyle's writings, his lectures on such subjects as _Heroes and Hero +Worship_ (1841), and his oracular criticism on government and life +made him as conspicuous a figure as Dr. Samuel Johnson had been in the +previous century. Carlyle's last great work, _History of Friedrich +II_., was fortunately finished in 1865, the year before his great +misfortune. + +In the latter part of 1865 the students of the University of Edinburgh +elected Carlyle Lord Rector of that institution because they +considered him the man most worthy to receive such high honor. In the +spring of 1866, he went to Edinburgh to deliver his inaugural address. +Before he returned, he received a telegram stating that his wife had +died of heart failure while she was taking a drive in London. The blow +was a crushing one. The epitaph that he placed on her monument shows +his final realization of her worth and of his irreparable loss. He +said truly that the light of his life had gone out. + +During his remaining years, he produced little of value except his +_Reminiscences_, a considerable part of which had been written long +before. Honors, however, came to him until the last. The Prussian +Order of Merit was conferred on him in 1874. The English government +offered him the Grand Cross of Bath and a pension, both of which he +declined. On his eightieth birthday, more than a hundred of the most +distinguished men of the English-speaking race joined in giving him a +gold medallion portrait. When he died in 1881, an offer of interment +in Westminster Abbey was declined and he was laid beside his parents +in the graveyard at Ecclefechan. + +Sartor Resartus.--Like Coleridge, Carlyle was a student of German +philosophy and literature. His earliest work was _The Life of +Friedrich Schiller_ (1823-1825), which won for him the appreciation +and friendship of the German poet, Goethe. + +Carlyle's first great original work, the one in which he best delivers +his message to humanity, is _Sartor Resartus_ (_The Tailor Patched_). +This first appeared serially in _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1833-1834. He +feigned that he was merely editing a treatise on _The Philosophy of +Clothes_, the work of a German professor, Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh. This +professor is really Carlyle himself; but the disguise gave him an +excuse for writing in a strange style and for beginning many of his +nouns with capitals, after the German fashion. + +When _Sartor Resartus_ first appeared, Mrs. Carlyle remarked that it +was "completely understood and appreciated only by women and mad +people." This work did not for some years receive sufficient attention +in England to justify publication in book form. The case was different +in America, where the first edition with a preface by Emerson was +published in 1836, two years before the appearance of the English +edition. In the year of Carlyle's death, a cheap London edition of +30,000 copies was sold in a few weeks. + +Carlyle calls _Sartor Resartus_ a "Philosophy of Clothes." He uses the +term "Clothes" symbolically to signify the outward expression of the +spiritual. He calls Nature "the Living Garment of God." He teaches us +to regard these vestments only as semblances and to look beyond them +to the inner spirit, which is the reality. The century's material +progress, which was such a cause of pride to Macaulay, was to Carlyle +only a semblance, not a sign of real spiritual growth. He says of the +utilitarian philosophy, which he hated intensely:-- + + "It spreads like a sort of Dog-madness; till the whole World-kennel + will be rabid." + +The majority of readers cared nothing for the symbolism of _Sartor +Resartus_; but they responded to its effective presentation of the +gospel of work and faced the duties of life with increased energy. +Carlyle seemed to stand before them saying:-- + + "_Do the Duty which lies nearest thee_, which thou knowest to be a + Duty! Thy second Duty will already have become clearer... The + Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal was never yet occupied by + man. Yes here, in this poor miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, + wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is thy Ideal: work + it out therefrom; and working, believe, live, be free. Fool! the + Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself: thy Condition + is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of ..." + +The French Revolution.--In 1837 when Carlyle finished the third +volume of his historic masterpiece, _The French Revolution_, he handed +the manuscript to his wife for her criticism, saying: "This I could +tell the world: 'You have not had for a hundred years any book that +comes more direct and flamingly from the heart of a living man.'" His +Scotch blood boiled over the injustice to the French peasants. His +temperature begins to rise when he refers to the old law authorizing a +French hunter, if a nobleman, "to kill not more than two serfs." + +Carlyle brings before us a vast stage where the actors in the French +Revolution appear: in the background, "five full-grown millions of +gaunt figures with their hungry faces"; in the foreground, one young +mother of seven children, "looking sixty years of age, although she is +not yet twenty-eight," and trying to respond to the call for seven +different kinds of taxes; and, also in the foreground, "a perfumed +Seigneur," taking part of the children's dinner. The scene changes; +the great individual actors in the Revolution enter: the tocsin +clangs; the stage is reddened with human blood and wreathed in flames. +We feel that we are actually witnessing that great historic tragedy. + +Carlyle had something of Shakespeare's dramatic imagination, which +pierced to the heart of men and movements. More detailed and scholarly +histories of this time have been written; but no other historian has +equaled Carlyle in presenting the French Revolution as a human tragedy +that seems to be acted before our very eyes. + +He did not attempt to write a complete history of the time. He used +the dramatist's legitimate privilege of selection. From a mass of +material that would have bewildered a writer of less ability, he chose +to present on the center of the stage the most significant actors and +picturesque incidents. + +Carlyle's "Real Kings."--Carlyle believed that "universal history, +the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom +the history of the great men who have worked here." In accordance with +this belief, he studied, not the slow growth of the people, but the +lives of the world's great geniuses. + +In his course of lectures entitled _Heroes and Hero Worship_ (1841), +he considers _The Hero as Prophet, The Hero as Poet, The Hero as +Priest_, and _The Hero as King_, and shows how history has been molded +by men like Mohammed, Shakespeare, Luther, and Napoleon. It is such +men as these whom Carlyle calls "kings," beside whom "emperors," +"popes," and "potentates" are as nothing. He believed that there was +always living some man worthy to be the "real king" over men, and such +a kingship was Carlyle's ideal of government. + +Oliver Cromwell was one of these "real kings." In the work entitled +_Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations_, Carlyle was the +first to present the character of the Protector in its full strength +and greatness and to demonstrate once for all that he was a hero whose +memory all Englishmen should honor. + +The _Life of John Sterling_ (1851) is a fair, true, and touching +biography of Carlyle's most intimate friend, the man who had +introduced him to Jane Welsh. After reading this book, George Eliot +said she wished that more men of genius would write biographies. + +Carlyle's next attempt at biography grew into the massive _History of +Friedrich II_. (1858-1865), which includes a survey of European +history in that dreary century which preceded the French Revolution. +"Friedrich is by no means one of the perfect demigods." He is "to the +last a questionable hero." However, "in his way he is a Reality," one +feels "that he always means what he speaks; grounds his actions, too, +on what he recognizes for the truth; and, in short, has nothing of the +Hypocrite or Phantasm." Despite his tyranny and his bloody career, he, +therefore, is another of Carlyle's "real kings." While this work is a +history of modern Europe, Friedrich is always the central figure. He +gives to these six volumes a human note, a glowing interest of +personal adventure, and a oneness that are remarkable in so vast a +work. + +General Characteristics.--Carlyle's writings must be classed among +the great social and democratic influences of the nineteenth century, +in spite of the fact that he did not believe in pure democracy. It was +his favorite theory that a great man, like Oliver Cromwell, could +govern better than the unintelligent multitude. However much he +rebelled against democracy in government, his sympathies were with the +toiling masses. His work entitled _Past and Present_ (1843) suggests +the organization of labor and introduces such modern expressions as "a +fair day's wages for a fair day's work." In _Sartor Resartus_, he +specially honors "the toilworn Craftsman, that with earthmade +implement laboriously conquers the Earth and makes her Man's." + +Carlyle had a large fund of incisive wit and humor, which often appear +in picturesque setting, as when he said to a physician: "A man might +as well pour his sorrows into the long hairy ear of a jackass." As the +satiric censor of his time, Carlyle found frequent occasion for +caustic wit. He lashed the age for its love of the "swine's trough," +of "Pig-science, Pig-enthusiasm and devotion." Although his intentions +were good, his satire was not always just or discriminating, and he +was in consequence bitterly criticized. The following Dutch parable is +in some respects specially applicable to Carlyle:-- + + "There was a man once,--a satirist. In the natural course of time + his friends slew him and he died. And the people came and stood + about his corpse. 'He treated the whole round world as his + football,' they said indignantly, 'and he kicked it.' The dead man + opened one eye. 'But always toward the goal,' he said." + +This goal toward which Carlyle struggled to drive humanity was the +goal of moral achievement. Young people on both sides of the Atlantic +responded vigorously to his appeals. The scientist John Tyndall said +to his students:-- + + "The reading of the works of two men has placed me here to-day. + These men are the English Carlyle and the American Emerson. + I must ever remember with gratitude that through three long, cold + German winters, Carlyle placed me in my tub, even when ice was on + its surface, at five o'clock every morning ... determined, whether + victor or vanquished, not to shrink from difficulty... They told me + what I ought to do in a way that caused me to do it, and all my + consequent intellectual action is to be traced to this purely moral + force... They called out. 'Act!' I hearkened to the summons." + +Huxley aptly defined Carlyle as a "great tonic,--a source of +intellectual invigoration and moral stimulus." + +Carlyle is not only a "great Awakener" but also a great literary +artist. His style is vivid, forceful, and often poetic. He loves to +present his ideas with such picturesqueness that the corresponding +images develop clearly in the reader's mind. Impressive epithets and +phrases abound. His metaphors are frequent and forceful. Mirabeau's +face is pictured as "rough-hewn, seamed, carbuncled." In describing +Daniel Webster, Carlyle speaks of "the tanned complexion, that +amorphous crag-like face; the dull black eyes under their precipice of +brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to be blown, the +mastiff-mouth, accurately closed." He formed many new compound words +after the German fashion, such as "mischief-joy"; and when he pleased, +he coined new words, like "dandiacal" and "croakery." + +His frequent exclamations and inversions make his style seem choppy, +like a wave-tossed sea; but his sentences are so full of vigor that +they almost call aloud from the printed page. His style was not an +imitation of the German, but a characteristic form of expression, +natural to him and to his father. + +The gift of verse was denied him, but he is one of the great prose +poets of the nineteenth century. Much of _Sartor Resartus_ is highly +poetic and parts of _The French Revolution_ resemble a dramatic poem. + +JOHN RUSKlN, 1819-1900 + +[Illustration: JOHN RUSKIN. _From a photograph_] + +Life.--The most famous disciple of Carlyle is John Ruskin, the only +child of wealthy parents, who was born in London in 1819. When he was +four years old the family moved to Herne Hill, a suburb south of +London, where his intense love of nature developed as he looked over +open fields, "animate with cow and buttercup," "over softly wreathing +distances of domestic wood," to the distant hills. His entertaining +autobiography, _Praeterita_ (1885-1889), relates how he was reared:-- + + "I had never heard my father's or mother's voice once raised in any + question with each other ... I had never heard a servant scolded ... + I obeyed word or lifted finger, of father or mother, simply as a + ship her helm ...nothing was ever promised me that was not given; + nothing ever threatened me that was not inflicted, and nothing ever + told me that was not true... Peace, obedience, faith; these three + for chief good; next to these, the habit of fixed attention with + both eyes and mind." + +He grew up a solitary child without playmates. This solitude was +relieved when his parents took him on occasional trips through +England, Switzerland, and Italy. In _Praeterita_ he tells in an +inimitable way how the most portentious interruption to his solitude +came in 1836, when his father's Spanish partner came with his four +beautiful daughters to visit Herne Hill. These were the first girls in +his own station to whom he had spoken. "Virtually convent-bred more +closely than the maids themselves," says Ruskin, "I was thrown, bound +hand and foot, in my unaccomplished simplicity, into the fiery +furnace." In four days he had fallen so desperately in love with the +oldest, Clotilde Adele Domecq, a "graceful blonde" of fifteen, that he +was more than four years in recovering his equilibrium. She laughed at +his protestations of love; but she repeatedly visited his parents, and +he did not give up hope until 1840, when she married a French baron. +His biographer says that the resulting "emotional strain doubtless was +contributory to his breakdown at Oxford" and to his enforced absence +for a recuperative trip on the continent. + +His feminine attachments usually showed some definite results in his +writing. Miss Domecq's influence during the long period of his +devotion inspired him to produce much verse, which received such high +praise that his father desired him to become a poet. Although some of +Ruskin's verse was good, he finally had the penetration to see that it +ranked decidedly below the greatest, and he later laid down the +dictum: "with second-rate poetry _in quality_ no one ought to be +allowed to trouble mankind." In 1886, he had the humor to allude as +follows to Miss Domecq and her influence on his rimes, "...her sisters +called her Clotilde, after the queen-saint, and I, Adele, because it +rimed to shell, spell, and knell." + +Before he was graduated from Oxford in 1842, he wrote the beautiful +altruistic story, _The King of the Golden River_ (1841) for Euphemia +Gray, the young girl unhappily chosen by his mother to become his +wife. He married her in 1848, but was divorced from her in 1854. In +1855 she was married to the Pre-Raphaelite artist, John Millais. + +Another attachment led to his writing some of the finest parts of his +most popular work, _Sesame and Lilies_ (1864). "I wrote Lilies," he +says, "to please one girl." He is here referring to Rose La Touche, a +bright, ardent, religious enthusiast, to whom he began to teach +drawing when she was ten years old. His affection for her grew so +strong that he finally asked her to become his wife. He was then a man +of forty while she was scarcely grown. Her religious scruples kept her +from definitely accepting him, because his belief was not sufficiently +orthodox. The attachment, however, continued until her early death. +She was in some respects a remarkable character, and he seems to have +had her in mind when he wrote in _Sesame and Lilies_ the "pearly" +passage about Shakespeare's heroines. + +Although Ruskin's wealth relieved him from earning a living, he was +rarely idle. He studied, sketched, arranged collections of minerals, +prepared Turner's pictures for the National Gallery, became professor +of art at Oxford University, and wrote and lectured on art and social +subjects. His later activities, before his health gave way, were in +many respects similar to those of a twentieth-century social-service +worker. The realization of the misery that overwhelmed so much of +human life caused him to turn from art to consider remedies for the +evils that developed as the competitive industries of the nation +expanded. He endeavored to improve the condition of the working +classes in such ways as building sanitary tenements, establishing a +tea shop, and forming an altruistic association, known as St. George's +Guild. Nearly all his inheritance of L180,000 was expended in such +activities. The royalties coming from the sale of his books supported +him in old age. + +Ruskin suffered from periods of mental depression during his last +years, which were spent at Brantwood on Coniston Water in the Lake +District. He died in 1900 at the age of eighty-one and was buried in +the cemetery at Coniston. + +Art Works.--Ruskin published the first volume of _Modern Painters_ +in 1843, the year after he was graduated from Oxford, and the fifth +and last volume, seventeen years later, in 1860. Many of his views +changed during this period; but he honestly declared them and left to +his readers the task of reconciling the divergent ideas in _Modern +Painters_. The purpose of this book was, in his own words, "to declare +the perfectness and eternal beauty of the work of God; and test all +works of man by concurrence with, or subjection to that." + +_Modern Painters_ contains painstaking descriptions of God's handiwork +in cloud formation, mountain structure, tree architecture, and water +forms. In transferring these aspects of nature to canvas, Ruskin shows +the superiority of modern to ancient painting. He emphasizes the moral +basis of true beauty, and the necessity of right living as a +foundation for the highest type of art. Perhaps _Modern Painters_ +achieved its greatest success in freeing men from the bondage of a +conventional criticism that was stifling art, in sending them direct +to nature as a guide, and in developing a love for her varied +manifestations of beauty. + +Two of Ruskin's works on architecture, _The Seven Lamps of +Architecture_ (1849) and _The Stones of Venice_ (1851-1853), had a +decided effect on British taste in building. The three volumes of the +_The Stones of Venice_ give a history of the Venetians and of their +Gothic architecture. He aims to show that the beauty of such buildings +as St. Mark's Cathedral and the Doges' Palace is due to the virtue and +patriotism of the people, the nobility of the designers, and the joy +of the individual workmen, whose chisels made the very stones of +Venice tell beautiful stories. + +The most important of his many other writings on art is the volume +entitled _Lectures on Art, Delivered before the University of Oxford, +1870_. In his famous _Inaugural_ of this series, he thus states what +he considers the central truth of his teaching: "The art of any +country is the exponent of its social and political virtues." + +Social Works.--By turning from the criticism of art to consider the +cause of humanity, Ruskin shows the influence of the ethical and +social forces of the age. In middle life he was overwhelmed with the +amount of human misery and he determined to do his best to relieve it. +He wrote:-- + + "I simply cannot paint, nor read, nor look at minerals, nor do + anything else that I like, and the very light of the morning sky, + when there is any--which is seldom, nowadays, near London--has + become hateful to me, because of the misery that I know of, and see + signs of, where I know it not, which no imagination can interpret + too bitterly."[9] + +After 1860 his main efforts with both pen and purse were devoted to +improving the condition of his fellow men. His attempts to provide a +remedy led him to write _Unto this Last_ (1860), his first and most +complete work on political economy, _Munera Pulveris_ (1863), _Time +and Tide by Weare and Tyne_ (1868), _Fors Clavigera_ (1871-1884), +which is a long series of letters to workingmen, and a number of other +works, that also present his views on social questions. + +He abhorred the old political economy, which he defined as "the +professed and organized pursuit of money." Instead of considering +merely the question of the production and distribution of articles, +his interest lay in the causes necessary to produce healthy, happy +workmen. It seemed to him that the manufacture "of souls" ought to be +"exceedingly lucrative." This statement and his maxim, "There is no +wealth but life," were called "unscientific." In his fine book of +essays, entitled _Sesame and Lilies_ (1864), he actually had printed +in red those pathetic pages describing how an old cobbler and his son +worked night and day to try to keep a little home of one room, until +the father died from exhaustion and the son had a film come over his +eyes. + +John Ruskin, social reformer, has an important place in the social +movement of the nineteenth century. Many of his theories, which were +considered revolutionary, have since become the commonplace +expressions of twentieth-century social economists. + +General Characteristics.--Ruskin was a champion of the +Pre-Raphaelite school of art. He used his powerful influence to free +art from its conventional fetters and to send people direct to nature +for careful loving study of her beautiful forms. His chief strength +lies in his moral enthusiasm and his love of the beautiful in nature. +Like his master, Carlyle, Ruskin is a great ethical teacher; but he +aimed at more definite results in the reformation of art and of social +life. He moralized art and humanized political economy. + +Some of his art criticisms and social theories are fanciful, narrow, +and sometimes even absurd. He did not seem to recognize with +sufficient clearness the fact that immoral individuals might produce +great works of art; but no one can successfully assail his main +contention that there must be a connection between great art and the +moral condition of a people. His rejection of railroads and steam +machinery as necessary factors in modern civilization caused many to +pay little attention to any of his social theories. Much of the gospel +that he preached has, however, been accepted by the twentieth century. +He was in advance of his time when he said in 1870 that the object of +his art professorship would be accomplished if "the English nation +could be made to understand that the beauty which is indeed to be a +joy forever must be a joy for all." + +At the age of fifty-eight, he thus summed up the principal work of his +life:-- + + "_Modern Painters_ taught the claim of all lower nature on the + hearts of men; of the rock, and wave, and herb, as a part of their + necessary spirit life... _The Stories of Venice_ taught the laws of + constructive Art, and the dependence of all human work or edifice, + for its beauty, on the happy life of the workman. _Under this Last_ + taught the laws of that life itself and its dependence on the Sun of + Justice; the _Inaugural Oxford Lectures_, the necessity that it + should be led, and the gracious laws of beauty and labor recognized, + by the upper, no less than the lower classes of England; and, + lastly, _Fors Clavigera_ has declared the relation of these to each + other, and the only possible conditions of peace and honor, for low + and high, rich and poor..." + +Ruskin has written remarkable descriptive prose. A severe English +critic, George Saintsbury, says of Ruskin's works "...they will he +found to contain the very finest prose (without exception and beyond +comparison) which has been written in English during the last half of +the nineteenth century... _The Stones of Venice_ ... is _the_ book of +descriptive prose in English, and all others toil after it in vain." + +Ruskin could be severely plain in expression, but much of his earlier +prose is ornate and almost poetic. The following description of the +Rhone deserves to be ranked with the painter's art:-- + + "There were pieces of wave that danced all day as if Perdita were + looking on to learn; there were little streams that skipped like + lambs and leaped like chamois; there were pools that shook the + sunshine all through them, and were rippled in layers of overlaid + ripples, like crystal sand; here were currents that twisted the + light into golden braids, and inlaid the threads with turquoise + enamel; there were strips of stream that had certainly above the + lake been mill streams, and were busily looking for mills to turn + again."[10] + +CHARLES DICKENS, 1812-1870 + +[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS. _From a photograph taken in America, +1868_.] + +Life.--The first of the great Victorian novelists to make his mark +was Charles Dickens. This great portrayer of child life had a sad +painful childhood. He was born in 1812 at Landport, a district of the +city of Portsmouth, Hampshire, where his father was a clerk in the +Navy Pay Office. John Dickens, the prototype of Mr. Micawber, was a +kind, well-intentioned man, who knew far better how to harangue his +large household of children than how to supply it with the necessities +of life. He moved from place to place, sinking deeper into poverty and +landing finally in a debtors' prison. + +The dreams of a fine education and a brilliant career, which the +future novelist had fondly cherished in his precocious little brain, +had to be abandoned. At the age of eleven the delicate child was +called upon to do his part toward maintaining the family. He was +engaged, at six-pence a week, to paste labels on blacking bottles. He +was poorly clothed, ill fed, forced to live in the cheapest place to +be found, and to associate with the roughest kind of companions. This +experience was so bitter and galling to the sensitive boy that years +after, when he was a successful, happy man, he could not look back +upon it without tears in his eyes. Owing to a rupture between his +employer and the elder Mr. Dickens, Charles was removed from this +place and sent to school. At fifteen, however, he had to seek work +again. This time he was employed in an attorney's office at Gray's +Inn. + +It was impossible, of course, for this ambitious boy to realize that +he was receiving an education in the dirty streets, the warehouses, +the tenements, and the prisons. Yet, for his peculiar bent of mind, +these furnished far richer stores of learning than either school or +college could have given. He had marvelous powers of observation. He +noted everything, from the saucy street waif to the sorrowful prison +child, from the poor little drudge to the brutal schoolmaster, and he +transplanted them from life to fiction, in such characters as Sam +Weller, Little Dorrit, the Marchioness, Mr. Squeers, and a hundred +others. + +While in the attorney's office, Dickens began to study shorthand, in +order to become a reporter. This was the beginning of his success. His +reports were accurate and racy, even when they happened to be written +in the pouring rain, in a shaking stagecoach, or by the light of a +lantern. They were also promptly handed in at the office, despite the +fact that the stages sometimes broke down and left their passengers to +plod on foot through the miry roads leading into London. These reports +and newspaper articles soon attracted attention; and Dickens received +an offer for a series of humorous sketches, which grew into the famous +_Pickwick Papers_, and earned L20,000 for the astonished publishers. +He was able to make his own terms for his future novels. Fame came to +him almost at a bound. He was loved and toasted in England and America +before he had reached the age of thirty. When, late in life, he made +lecture tours through his own country, or through Scotland or America, +they were like triumphal marches. + +In his prime Dickens was an energetic, high-spirited, fun-loving man. +He made a charming host, and was never happier than when engineering +theatrical entertainments at his delightful home, Gads Hill. He was +esteemed by all the literary men of London, and idolized by his +children and friends. As his strong personality was communicated to +his audiences and his readers, his death in 1870 was felt as a +personal loss throughout the English-speaking world. + +[Illustration: DICKENS'S HOME, GADS HILL.] + +Works.--_Pickwick Papers_ (1836-1837), Dickens's first long story, +is one of his best. Mr. Pickwick, with his genial nature, his simple +philosophy, and his droll adventures, and Sam Weller, with his ready +wit, his acute observations, and his almost limitless resources, are +amusing from start to finish. The book is brimful of its author's high +spirits. It has no closely knit plot, but merely a succession of +comical incidents, and vivid caricatures of Mr. Pickwick and his +friends. Yet the fun is so good-natured and infectious, and the +looseness of design is so frankly declared that the book possesses a +certain unity arising from its general atmosphere of frolic and +jollity. + +_Oliver Twist_ (1837-1838) is a powerful story, differing widely from +_Pickwick Papers_. While the earlier work is delightful chiefly for +its humor, _Oliver Twist_ is strong in its pictures of passion and +crime. Bill Sykes the murderer, Fagin the Jew, who teaches the boys +deftness of hand in stealing, and poor Nancy, are drawn with such +power that they seem to be still actually living in some of London's +dark alleys. Little Oliver, born in the poor-house, clothed by +charity, taught by the evil genius of the streets, starved in body and +soul, is one of the many pathetic portraits of children drawn with a +sure and loving hand by Dickens. There are some improbable features +about the plot and some overwrought sentimental scenes in this story. +Dickens reveled in the romantic and found it in robbers' dens, in bare +poverty, in red-handed crime. The touching pathos and thrilling +adventures of _Oliver Twist_ make a strong appeal to the reader's +emotions. + +With the prodigality of a fertile genius, Dickens presented his +expectant and enthusiastic public with a new novel on an average of +once a year for fourteen years; and, even after that, his productivity +did not fall off materially. The best and most representative of these +works are _Nicholas Nickleby_ (1838-1839), _Barnaby Rudge_ (1841), +_Martin Chuzzlewit_ (1843-1844), _Dombey and Son_ (1846-1848), _David +Copperfield_ (1849-1850), _Bleak House_ (1852-1853), _Hard Times_ +(1854), _A Tale of Two Cities_ (1859), and _Our Mutual Friend_ (1864). + +Of these, _David Copperfield_ is at once Dickens's favorite work and +the one which the world acclaims as his masterpiece. The novel is in +part an autobiography. Some incidents are taken directly from +Dickens's early experiences and into many more of David's childish +sorrows, boyish dreams, and manly purposes, Dickens has breathed the +breath of his own life. David Copperfield is thus a vitally +interesting and living character. The book contains many of Dickens's +most human men and women. Petted Little Em'ly with her pathetic +tragedy is handled with deep sympathy and true artistic delicacy. +Peggotty and Mrs. Steerforth are admirably drawn and contrasted. Mrs. +Gummidge's thoughtful care of Peggotty exhibits Dickens's fine +perception of the self-sacrificing spirit among the very poor. Uriah +Heep remains the type of the humble sycophant, and Mr. Micawber, the +representative of the man of big words and pompous manners. These +various characters and separate life histories are bound in same way +to the central story of David. General Characteristics.--England has +produced no more popular novelist than Charles Dickens. His novels +offer sound and healthy entertainment, hearty laughter, a wide range +of emotions, and a wonderful array of personalities. He presents the +universal physical experiences of life that are understood by all men, +and irradiates this life with emotion and romance. He keeps his +readers in an active state of feeling. They laugh at the broad humor +in Sam Weller's jokes; they chuckle over the sly exposure of Mr. +Pecksniff in _Martin Chuzzlewit_; they weep in _Dombey and Son_ over +poor Paul crammed with grown-up learning when he wanted to be just a +child; they rejoice over David Copperfield's escape from his +stepfather into the loving arms of whimsical, clever Aunt Betsey +Trotwood; they shiver with horror in _Our Mutual Friend_ during the +search for floating corpses on the dark river; and they feel more +kindly toward the whole world after reading _A Christmas Carol_ and +taking Tiny Tim into their hearts. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MS. OF A CHRISTMAS CAROL.] + +Dickens excels in the portrayal of humanity born and reared in poverty +and disease. He grasps the hand of these unfortunates in a brother's +clasp. He says in effect "I present to you my friends, the beggar, the +thief, the outcast. They are men worth knowing." He does not probe +philosophically into complex causes of poverty and crime. His social +creed was well formulated by Dowden in these words: "Banish from earth +some few monsters of selfishness, malignity, and hypocrisy, set to +rights a few obvious imperfections in the machinery of society, +inspire all men with a cheery benevolence, and everything will go well +with this excellent world of ours." + +Every student of the science of society, however, owes a debt to +Dickens. He did what no science or knowledge or logic can do alone. He +reached the heart, awoke the conscience, and pierced the obtuseness of +the public. He aroused its protests because his genius painted prisons +and hovels and dens of vice so vividly that his readers actually +suffered from the scenes thus presented and wanted such horrors +abolished. + +Dickens's infectious humor is a remarkable and an unfailing quality of +his works. It pervades entire chapters, colors complete incidents, and +displays the temper of the optimist through the darkest pictures of +human suffering. + +A hypocrite is an abomination to Dickens. Speaking of Mr. Pecksniff in +_Martin Chuzzlewit_, Dickens says: "Some people likened him to a +direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never +goes there." His humor can be fully appreciated only by reading long +passages, such as the scene of Mr. Pickwick's trial, the descriptions +of Mr. Micawber and of Miss Betsey Trotwood, or the chapter on +Podsnappery in _Our Mutual Friend_. Dickens's humor has an exuberant +richness, which converts men and women into entertaining figures of +comedy. + +Closely allied to his fund of humor is his capacity for pathos, +especially manifest in his treatment of childhood. Dickens has a large +gallery of children's portraits, fondly and sympathetically executed. +David Copperfield, enduring Mr. Murdstone's cruel neglect, Florence +Dombey pining for her father's love, the Marchioness starving upon +cold potatoes, Tom and Louise Gradgrind, stuffed with facts and +allowed no innocent amusement, and the waifs of Tom's-All-Alone dying +from abject poverty and disease, are only a few of the sad-eyed +children peering from the pages of Dickens and yearning for love and +understanding. He wrings the heart; but, happily, his books have +improved the conditions of children, not only in public asylums, +factories, and courts, but also in schools and homes. + +Dickens's chief faults arise from an excess of sensibility and humor. +His soft heart and romantic spirit lead him to exaggerate. In such +passages as the death of Little Nell in _The Old Curiosity Shop_ and +the interviews between Dora and David in _David Copperfield_, Dickens +becomes mawkish and sentimental. While his power of portraiture is +amazing, he often overleaps the line of character drawing and makes +side-splitting caricatures of his men and women. They are remembered +too often by a limp or a mannerism of speech, or by some other little +peculiarity, instead of by their human weaknesses and accomplishments. + +Dickens is not a master in the artistic construction of his plots. The +majority of his readers do not, however, notice this failing because +he keeps them in such a delightful state of interest and suspense by +the sprightliness with which he tells a story. + +He was a very rapid writer, and his English is consequently often +careless in structure and in grammar. As he was not a man of books, he +never acquired that half-unconscious knowledge of fine phrasing which +comes to the careful student of literature. No novelist has, however, +told more graphically such appealing stories of helpless childhood and +of the poor and the outcast. + +WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 1811-1863 + +[Illustration: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. _From the painting by +Samuel Laurence, National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life_.--Though nearly a year older than Dickens, Thackeray made his +way to popularity much more slowly. These two men, who became friends +and generous rivals, were very different in character and disposition. +Instead of possessing the self-confidence, energy, and industry that +brought Dickens fame in his youth, Thackeray had to contend with a +somewhat shy and vacillating temperament, with extreme modesty, and +with a constitutional aversion to work. + +Born in Calcutta in 1811, he was sent to England to be educated. He +passed through Charter House and went one year to Cambridge. He was +remembered by his school friends for his skill in caricature +sketching. He hoped to make painting a profession and went to Paris to +study; but he never attained correctness in drawing, and when he +offered to illustrate the works of Dickens, the offer was declined. +Thackeray certainly added to the charm of his own writings by his +droll and delightful illustrations. + +When Thackeray came of age in 1832, he inherited a small fortune, +which he soon lost in an Indian bank and in newspaper investments. He +was then forced to overcome his idle, procrastinating habits. He +became a literary hack, and contributed humorous articles to such +magazines as _Fraser_ and _Punch_. While his pen was causing mirth and +laughter in England, his heart was torn by suffering. His wife, whom +he had married in 1837, became insane. He nursed her patiently with +the vain hope that she could recover; but he finally abandoned hope +and put her in the care of a conscientious attendant. His home was +consequently lonely, and the club was his only recourse. Here, his +broad shoulders and kindly face were always greeted with pleasure; +for his affable manners and his sparkling humor, which concealed an +aching heart, made him a charming companion. + +[Illustration: CARICATURE OF THACKERAY BY HIMSELF.] + +It is pleasant to know that the later years of his life were happier. +They were cheered by the presence of his daughters, and were free from +financial worries. He had the satisfaction of knowing that, through +the sales of his book; and the returns from his lectures, he had +recovered his lost fortune. + +Novels.--_Vanity Fair_ (1847-1848) is Thackeray's masterpiece. For +the lifelikeness of its characters, it is one of the most remarkable +creations in fiction. Thackeray called this work "A Novel without a +Hero." He might have added "and without a heroine"; for neither clever +Becky Sharp nor beautiful Amelia Sedley satisfies the requirements for +a heroine. No perfect characters appear in the book, but it is +enlivened with an abundance of genuine human nature. Few people go +through life without meeting a George Osborne, a Mrs. Bute Crawley, or +a Mrs. Sedley. Even a penurious, ridiculous, old Sir Pitt Crawley is +sometimes seen. The greatest stroke of genius in the book, however, is +the masterly portrayal of the artful, scheming Becky Sharp, who +alternately commands respect for her shrewdness and repels by her +moral depravity. + +In _Vanity Fair_ certain classes of society are satirized. Their +intrigues, frivolities, and caprices are mercilessly dealt with. +Thackeray probes almost every weakness, vanity, or ambition that leads +humanity to strive for a place in society, to long for a bow from a +lord, and to stint in private in order to shine in public. He uncovers +the great social farce of life, which is acted with such solemn +gravity by the snobs, the hypocrites, and the other superficial +_dramatis personae_. Amid these satirized frivolities there appear +occasional touches of true pathos and deep human tragedy, which are +strangely effective in their unsympathetic surroundings. + +[Illustration: THACKERAY'S HOME WHERE VANITY FAIR WAS WRITTEN.] + +Thackeray gives in _Henry Esmond_ (1852) an enduring picture of high +life in the eighteenth century. This work is one of the great +historical novels in our language. The time of queen Anne is +reconstructed with remarkable skill. The social etiquette, the ideals +of honor, the life and spirit of that bygone day, reappear with a +powerful vividness. Thackeray even went so far as to disguise his own +natural, graceful style, and to imitate eighteenth-century prose. +_Henry Esmond_ is a dangerous rival of _Vanity Fair_. The earlier work +has a freshness of humor and a spontaneity of manner that are not so +apparent in _Henry Esmond_. On the other hand, _Esmond_ has a superior +plot and possesses a true hero. + +In _The Newcomes_ (1854-1855), Thackeray exhibits again his incisive +power of delineating character. This book would continue to live if +for nothing except the simple-hearted, courtly Colonel Newcome. Few +scenes in English fiction are more affecting than those connected with +his death. The accompanying lines will show what a simple pathos +Thackeray could command:-- + + "At the usual evening hour the chapel bell begin to toll, and + Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat time--and just + as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, + and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, '_Adsum_'--and + fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called; + and, lo! he whose heart was as that of a little child had answered + to his name, and stood in the presence of the Master!" + +_The History of Pendennis_ (1849) and _The Virginians_ (1857-1859) are +both popular novels and take rank inferior only to the author's three +greatest works. _The Virginians_ is a sequel to _Esmond_, and carries +the Castlewood family through adventures in the New World. + +Essays.--Thackeray will live in English literature as an essayist as +well as a novelist. _The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ +(1853) and _The Four Georges_ (1860) are among the most delightful +essays of the age. The author of _Henry Esmond_ knew Swift, Addison, +Fielding, and Smollett, almost as one knows the mental peculiarities +of an intimate friend. In _The English Humorists of the Eighteenth +Century_, Thackeray writes of their conversations, foibles, and strong +points of character, in a most easy and entertaining way. There is a +constant charm about his manner, which, without effort or display of +learning, brings the authors vividly before the reader. In addition to +this presentation of character, the essays contain appreciative +literary criticism. The essence of the humor in these +eighteenth-century writers is distilled in its purest, most delicate +flavor, by this nineteenth-century member of their brotherhood. + +_The Four Georges_ deals with England's crowned heads in a satiric +vein, which caused much comment among Thackeray's contemporaries. The +satire is, however, mild and subdued, never venomous. For example, he +says in the essay on George III.:-- + + "King George's household was a model of an English gentleman's + household. It was early; it was kindly; it was charitable; it was + frugal; it was orderly; it must have been stupid to a degree which I + shudder now to contemplate. No wonder all the princes ran away from + the lap of that dreary domestic virtue. It always rose, rode, dined, + at stated intervals. Day after day was the same. At the same hour at + night the King kissed his daughters' jolly cheeks; the Princesses + kissed their mother's hand; and Madame Thielke brought the royal + nightcap." + +General Characteristics.--Dickens and Thackeray have left graphic +pictures of a large portion of contemporary London life. Dickens +presents interesting pictures of the vagabonds, the outcasts, and the +merchants, and Thackeray portrays the suave, polite leisure class and +its dependents. + +Thackeray is an uncompromising realist and a satirist. He insisted +upon picturing life as he believed that it existed in London society; +and, to his satiric eye, that life was composed chiefly of the small +vanities, the little passions, and the petty quarrels of commonplace +people, whose main objects were money and title. He could conceive +noble men and women, as is proved by Esmond, Lady Castlewood, and +Colonel Newcome; but such characters are as rare in Thackeray as he +believed they were in real life. The following passage upon mankind's +fickleness is a good specimen of his satiric vein in dealing with +human weakness:-- + + "There are no better satires than letters. Take a bundle of your + dear friend's letters of ten years back--your dear friend whom you + hate now. Look at a pile of your sister's! How you clung to each + other until you quarreled about the twenty-pound legacy!... Vows, + love promises, confidence, gratitude,--how queerly they read after a + while!...The best ink for Vanity Fair use would be one that faded + utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper clean and blank, so + that you might write on it to somebody else." + +The phases of life that he describes have had no more subtle +interpreter. He does not label his characters with external marks, but +enters into communion with their souls. His analytic method of laying +bare their motives and actions is strictly modern. His great master, +Fielding, would have been baffled by such a complex personality as +Becky Sharp. Amid the throng of Thackeray's men and women, there are +but few who are not genuine flesh and blood. + +The art of describing the pathetic is unfailing in Thackeray. He never +jars upon the most sensitive feelings nor wearies them by too long a +treatment. With a few simple but powerful expressions he succeeds in +arousing intense emotions of pity or sorrow. He has been wrongly +called a cynic; for no man can be a cynic who shows Thackeray's +tenderness in the treatment of pathos. + +Thackeray is master of a graceful, simple prose style. In its ease and +purity, it most resembles that of Swift, Addison, or Goldsmith. +Thackeray writes as a cultured, ideal, old gentleman may be imagined +to talk to the young people, while he sits in his comfortable armchair +in a corner by the fireplace. The charm of freshness, quaintness, and +colloquial familiarity is seldom absent from the delightfully natural +pages of Thackeray. + +GEORGE ELIOT, 1819-1880 + +[Illustration: GEORGE ELIOT. _From a drawing by Sir E.W. Burton, +National Portrait Gallery._] + +Life.--Mary Ann Evans, known to her family as Marian and to her +readers as George Eliot, was born in 1819, at South Farm, in Arbury, +Warwickshire, about twenty-two miles north of Stratford-on-Avon. A few +months later, the family moved to a spacious ivy-covered farmhouse at +Griff, some two miles east, where the future novelist lived until she +was twenty-two. + +She was a thoughtful, precocious child. She lived largely within +herself, passed much time in reverie, and pondered upon deep problems. +She easily outstripped her schoolmates in all mental accomplishments, +and, from the first, gave evidence of a clear, strong intellect. + +The death of her mother and the marriage of a sister left the entire +care of the house and dairy to Marian before she was seventeen years +old. Her labors were quite heavy for the neat six years. At the end of +that time, she and her father moved to Foleshill, near Coventry, where +she had ample leisure to pursue her studies and music. At Foleshill, +she came under the influence of free-thinking friends and became an +agnostic, which she remained through the rest of her life. This home +was again broken up in 1849 by the death of her father. Through the +advice of friends she sought comfort in travel on the continent. + +Upon her return, she settled in London as assistant editor of the +_Westminster Review_. By this time she had become familiar with five +languages, had translated abstruse metaphysical books from the German +into English, and had so thoroughly equipped her naturally strong +intellect that she was sought after in London by such men as Herbert +Spencer and George Henry Lewes. A deep attachment sprang up between +Mr. Lewes and Miss Evans, and they formed an alliance that lasted +until his death. + +George Eliot's early literary labors were mainly critical and +scientific, being governed by the circle in which she moved. When she +came under the influence of Mr. Lewes, she was induced to attempt +creative work. Her novels, published under the pen name of George +Eliot, quickly became popular. Despite this success, it is doubtful +whether she would have possessed sufficient self-reliance to continue +her work without Mr. Lewes's encouragement and protecting love, which +shielded her from contact with publishers and from a knowledge of +harsh criticisms. + +Their companionship was so congenial that her friends were astonished +when she formed another attachment after his death in 1878, and +married Mr. Cross. Her husband said that her affectionate nature +required some deep love to which to cling. She had never been very +robust, and, during her later years, she was extremely frail. She died +in 1880. + +[Illustration: GEORGE ELIOT'S BIRTHPLACE.] + +Works.--George Eliot was fast approaching forty when she found the +branch of literature in which she was to achieve fame. Her first +volume of stories, _Scenes of Clerical Life_ (1858), showed decisively +that she was master of fiction writing. Three novels followed rapidly, +_Adam Bede_ (1859), _The Mill on the Floss_ (1860), and _Silas Marner_ +(1861). Her mind was stored with memories of the Midland counties, +where her young life was spent; and these four books present with a +powerful realism this rich rural district and its quaint inhabitants, +who seem flushed with the warmth of real life. + +_Adam Bede_ is the freshest, healthiest, and most delightful of her +books. This story leaves upon the memory a charming picture of peace +and contentment, with its clearly drawn and interesting characters, +its ideal dairy, the fertile stretches of meadow lands, the squire's +birthday party, the harvest supper, and the sweet Methodist woman +preaching on the green. + +_The Mill on the Floss_ also gives a fine picture of village life. +This novel is one of George Eliot's most earnest productions. She +exhibits one side of her own intense, brooding girlhood, in the +passionate heroine, Maggie Tulliver. There is in this tragic story a +wonderfully subtle revelation of a young nature, which is morbid, +ambitious, quick of intellect, and strong of will, and which has no +hand firm enough to serve as guide at the critical period of her life. + +_Silas Marner_, artistically considered, is George Eliot's +masterpiece. In addition to the ruddy glow of life in the characters, +there is an idyllic beauty about the pastoral setting, and a poetic, +half mystic charm about the weaver's manner of connecting his gold +with his bright-haired Eppie. The slight plot is well planned and +rounded, and the narrative is remarkable for ease and simplicity. + +_Romola_ (1863) is a much bolder flight. It is an attempt to present +Florence of the fifteenth century, to contrast Savonarola's ardent +Christianity with the Greek aestheticism of the Medicis, and to show +the influence of the time upon two widely different characters, Romola +and Tito Melema. This novel is the greatest intellectual achievement +of its author; but it has neither the warmth of life, nor the vigor of +her English stories. Though no pains is spared to delineate Romola, +Tito, and the inspiring monk, Savonarola, yet they do not possess the +genuineness and reality that are felt in her Warwickshire characters. + +_Middlemarch_ (1871-1872) and _Daniel Deronda_ (1876) marked the +decline of George Eliot's powers. Although she still possessed the +ability to handle dialogue, to analyze subtle complex characters, and +to attain a philosophical grasp of the problems of existence, yet her +weakening powers were shown in the length of tedious passages, in an +undue prominence of ethical purpose, in the more studied and, on the +whole, duller characters, and in the prolixity of style. + +George Eliot's poetry does not bear comparison with her prose. _The +Spanish Gypsy_ (1868) is her most ambitious poem, and it contains some +fine dramatic passages. Her most beautiful poem is the hymn +beginning:-- + + "Oh, may I join the choir invisible + Of those immortal dead who live again + In minds made better by their presence!" + +There is a strain of noble thought and lofty feeling in her poems, and +she rises easily to the necessary passion and fervor of verse; but her +expression is hampered by the metrical form. + +General Characteristics.--George Eliot is more strictly modern in +spirit than either of the other two great contemporary novelists. This +spirit is exhibited chiefly in her ethical purpose, her scientific +sympathies, and her minute dissection of character. + +Her writings manifest her desire to benefit human beings by convincing +them that nature's laws are inexorable, and that an infraction of the +moral law will be punished as surely as disobedience to physical laws. +She strives to arouse people to a knowledge of hereditary influences, +and to show how every deed brings its own results, and works, directly +or indirectly, toward the salvation or ruin of the doer. She throws +her whole strength into an attempt to prove that joy is to be found +only in strict attendance upon duty and in self-renunciation. In order +to carry home these serious lessons of life, she deals with powerful +human tragedies, which impart a somberness of tone to all her novels. +In her early works she treats these problems with artistic beauty; but +in her later books she often forgets the artist in the moralist, and +uses a character to preach a sermon. + +The analytical tendency is pronounced in George Eliot's works, which +exhibit an exhaustive study of the feelings, the thoughts, the dreams, +and purposes of the characters. They become known more through +description than through action. + +A striking characteristic of her men and women is their power to grow. +They do not appear ready-made and finished at the beginning of a +story, but, like real human beings amid the struggles of life, they +change for the better or the worse. Tito Melema in _Romola_ is an +example of her skill in evolving character. At the outset, he is a +beautiful Greek boy with a keen zest for pleasure. His selfishness, +however, which betrays itself first in ingratitude to his benefactor, +leads step by step to his complete moral degradation. The consequences +of his deeds entangle him finally in such a network of lies that he is +forced to betray "every trust that was reposed in him, that he might +keep himself safe." + +George Eliot occasionally brightens the seriousness of her works with +humor. Her stories are not permeated with joyousness, like those of +Dickens, nor do they ripple with quiet amusement, like the novels of +Thackeray; but she puts witty and aphoristic sayings into the +conversations of the characters. The scene at the "Rainbow" inn is +bristling with mother wit. Mr. Macey observes:-- + + "'There's allays two 'pinions; there's the 'pinion a man has of + himsen, and there's the 'pinion other folks have on him. There'd be + two 'pinions about a cracked bell if the bell could hear + itself.'"[11] + +Great precision and scholarlike correctness mark the style of George +Eliot. Her vocabulary, though large, is too full of abstract and +scientific terms to permit of great flexibility and idiomatic purity +of English. She is master of powerful figures of speech, original, +epigrammatic turns of expression, and, sometimes, of a stirring +eloquence. + +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, 1850-1894 + +[Illustration: ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _From a photograph_.] + +Life.--By preferring romantic incident to the portrayal of +character, Stevenson differed from his great Victorian predecessors in +the field of fiction. He was born in 1850 in the romantic city of +Edinburgh, which he has described so well in his _Picturesque Notes on +Edinburgh_. Being an invalid from early childhood, he was not sent +regularly to school; yet he was ready at the age of seventeen to enter +Edinburgh University. He says of himself that in college he neglected +all the studies that did not appeal to him, to read with avidity +English poetry and fiction, Scottish legend and history. During his +summer vacations he worked at lighthouse engineering. The out-of-door +life was just what he liked; but the office work was irksome to him. +When finally he made his dislike known, his father, although bitterly +disappointed at his son's aversion to the calling followed by two +generations of Stevensons, nevertheless consented to a change; and +they compromised on the law. In 1875 Stevenson succeeded in gaining +admission to the bar; but he soon realized that he would never feel at +home in this profession. Moreover, he had always wanted to be a +writer. He says:-- + + "All through my boyhood and youth... + I was always busy on my own private end, + which was to learn to write. I kept always + two books in my pocket, one to read, one + to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy + fitting what I saw with appropriate words. + ...Thus I lived with words. And what I + thus wrote was for no ulterior use; it was + written consciously for practice." + +[Illustration: STEVENSON AS A BOY.] + +The next year, therefore, he decided to devote himself entirely to +literature. + +He was by heredity predisposed to weak lungs. For the greater part of +his life he moved from place to place, searching for some location +that would improve his health and allow him to write. He lived for a +while in Switzerland, in the south of France, in the south of England, +in the Adirondack Mountains, and in California. In 1880 he married in +California, Mrs. Fanny Osbourne, of whom he wrote:-- + + "Steel-true and blade-straight, + The great artificer made my mate." + +By a former marriage she had a son, who, at the age of thirteen, +inspired Stevenson to write that exciting romance of adventure, +_Treasure Island_, published in book form in 1883. This and the +remarkable story, _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ +(1886), made him so famous that when he visited New York in 1887, a +newspaper there offered him $10,000 for a weekly article during the +year. + +He preferred to accept an offer of $3500 for twelve monthly articles +for a magazine. + +The most romantic part of his life began in 1888, when he chartered a +yacht in San Francisco for a cruise among the South Sea Islands. He +had the enthusiasm of a boy for this trip, which was planned to +benefit his health. Almost as many adventures befell him as Robinson +Crusoe. At one time Stevenson became so ill that he was left with his +wife on one of the Society Islands while the yacht sailed away for +repairs. Before the boat returned, both his food and money were +exhausted, and he and Mrs. Stevenson were forced to live on the bounty +of the natives, who adopted him into one of their tribes and gave him +the name of Tusitala. + +He wandered for three and a half years among the islands of the +Southern Pacific, visiting Australia twice. On one trip he called at +thirty-three small coral islands, and wrote, "Hackney cabs have more +variety than atolls." + +He finally selected for his residence the island of Samoa, where he +spent the last three and a half years of his life. He died suddenly in +his forty-fifth year, and was buried on the summit of a Samoan +mountain near his home. + +In 1893 he wrote to George Meredith:-- + + "In fourteen years I have not had a day's real health; I have + wakened sick and gone to bed weary; and I have done my work + unflinchingly. I have written in bed, and written out of it, written + in sickness, written torn by coughing, written when my head swam for + weakness..." + +Many have found in Stevenson's life an inspiration to overcome +obstacles, to cease complaining, and to bear a message of good cheer. +These lines from his volume of poems called _Underwoods_ (1887), are +especially characteristic:-- + + "If I have faltered more or less + In my great task of happiness; + If I have moved among my race + And shown no glorious morning face; + If beams from happy human eyes + Have moved me not; if morning skies, + Books, and my food, and summer rain + Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:-- + Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take + And stab my spirit broad awake." + +Works.--Stevenson wrote entertaining travels, such as _An Inland +Voyage_ (1878), the record of a canoe journey from Antwerp to +Pontoise, _Travels with a Donkey through the Cevennes_ (1879), and _In +the South Seas_ (published in book form in 1896). Early in life he +wrote many essays, the best of which are included in the volumes, +_Virginibus Puerisque_ (_To Girls and Boys_, 1881) and _Familiar +Studies of Men and Books_ (1882). Valuable papers presenting his views +of the technique of writing may be found in the volumes called +_Memories and Portraits_ (1887) and _Essays in the Art of Writing_ +(collected after his death). There is a happy blending of style, +humor, and thought in many of these essays. Perhaps the most unusual +and original of all is _Child's Play_ (_Virginibus Puerisque_). This +is a psychological study, which reveals one of his strongest +characteristics, the power of vividly recalling the events and +feelings of childhood. + + "When my cousin and I took our porridge of a morning, we had a + device to enliven the course of the meal. He ate his with sugar, and + explained it to be a country continually buried under snow. I took + mine with milk, and explained it to be a country suffering gradual + inundation. You can imagine us exchanging bulletins; how here was an + island still unsubmerged, here a valley not yet covered with + snow; ...and how, in fine, the food was of altogether secondary + importance, and might even have been nauseous, so long as we + seasoned it with these dreams." + +The simplicity and apparent artlessness of his _A Child's Garden of +Verse_ (1885) have caused many critics to neglect these poems; but the +verdict of young children is almost unanimous against such neglect. +These songs + + "Lead onward into fairy land, + Where all the children dine at five, + And all the playthings come alive." + +It is quite possible that the verses in this little volume may in the +coming years appeal to more human beings than all the remainder of +Stevenson's work. He and his American contemporary, Eugene Field +(1850-1895), had the peculiar genius to delight children with a type +of verse in which only a very few poets have excelled. + +Boys and young men love Stevenson best for his short stories and +romances. After a careful study of Poe and Hawthorne, the American +short story masters, Stevenson made the English impressionistic short +story a more artistic creation. Some of the best of his short stories +are _Will o' the Mill_ (1878), _The Sire de Maletroit's Door_ (1878), +and _Markheim_ (1885). His best-known single production, _The Strange +Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, is really a short story that +presents a remarkable psychological study of dual personality. + +The short stories served as an apprenticeship for the longer romances, +of which _Treasure Island_ is the best constructed and the most +interesting. Among a number of other romances, the four which deal +with eighteenth-century Scottish history are the best: _Kidnapped_ +(1886), _The Master of Ballantrae_ (1889), _David Balfour_ +(_Catriona_, 1893), and the unfinished _Weir of Hermiston_, published +two years after his death. + +[Illustration: EDINBURGH MEMORIAL OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. _By +Augustus St. Candeus._] + +General Characteristics.--Unlike the majority of the Victorian +writers of fiction, Stevenson preferred the field of romance and +adventure. It is natural to compare him with Scott, who showed a far +wider range, both in subject matter and in the portrayal of human +beings. Stevenson, however, surpassed Scott in swift delineation of +incident, in pictorial vividness, and in literary form. Scott dashed +off some of his long romances in six weeks; while Stevenson said that +his printer's copy was sometimes the result of ten times that amount +of writing. The year before he died, he spent three weeks in writing +twenty-four pages. + +Stevenson's romances are remarkable for artistic style, clearness of +visual image, and boyish love of adventure. He made little attempt to +portray more than the masculine half of the human race. His simple +verses possess rare power to charm children. The most evident quality +of all his prose is its artistic finish. + +GEORGE MEREDITH, 1828-1909 + +[Illustration: GEORGE MEREDITH. _From the painting by G.F. Watts, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--George Meredith was the only child of a Welsh father and an +Irish mother. He was born in 1828 over his grandfather's tailor shop +in Portsmouth, Hampshire. The father proved incompetent in handling +the excellent tailoring business to which he fell heir; and he soon +abandoned his son. The mother died when the boy was five years old, +and he was then cared for by relatives. When he was fourteen, he was +sent to school in Germany for two years; but he did not consider his +schooling of much benefit to him and he was forced to educate himself +for his life's work. + +On his return to England, he was articled to a London solicitor; but +by the age of twenty-one, Meredith had abandoned the law and had begun +the literary life which was to receive his undivided attention for +nearly sixty years. The struggle was at first extremely hard. Some +days, indeed, he is said to have lived on a single bowl of porridge. + +While following his work as a novelist, he tried writing for +periodicals, served as a newspaper correspondent, and later became a +literary adviser for a large London publishing firm. In this capacity, +he proved a sympathetic friend to many a struggling young author. +Thomas Hardy says that he received from Meredith's praise sufficient +encouragement to persevere in the field of literature. + +Meredith's marriage in 1849 was unhappy and resulted in a separation. +Three years after his wife's death, which occurred in 1861, he married +a congenial helpmate and went to live in Flint Cottage, near Burford +Bridge, Surrey, where most of his remaining years were spent. + +Not until late in life were the returns from his writings sufficient +to relieve him from unceasing daily toil at his desk. He was widely +hailed as a literary master and recognized as a force in fiction +before he attained financial independence. After the death of +Tennyson, Meredith was elected president of the Society of British +Authors. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, his reply to the +_Who's Who_ query about his recreations was, "a great reader, +especially of French literature; has in his time been a great walker." +During his last sixteen years of life, he suffered from partial +paralysis and was compelled to abandon these long walks, which had +been a source both of recreation and of health. + +He died in 1909 at the age of eighty-one and was laid beside his wife +in the Dorking cemetery. The following words from his novel, +_Vittoria_, are on his tombstone: "Life is but a little holding, lent +to do a mighty labor." + +Poetry.--During his long career, Meredith wrote much verse, which +was collected in 1912 in a volume of 578 pages. + +The quality of his poetry is very uneven. In such exquisite poems as +_Love in the Valley_, _The Lark Ascending_, and _Melanthus_, the fancy +and melody are artistically intertwined. Many have admired the +felicity of the description and the romance of the sentiment in this +stanza from _Love in the Valley_:-- + + "Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow, + Swift as the swallow along the river's light + Circleting the surface to meet his mirrored winglets, + Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight. + Shy as the squirrel that leaps among the pine-tops, + Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun, + She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, + Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won!" + +Some of his songs are pure music, and an occasional descriptive +passage in his verse shows the deftness of touch of a skilled lyrical +poet. Such poems as _Jump-to-Glory Jane_, _Juggling Jerry_, _The +Beggar's Soliloquy_, and _The Old_ _Chartist_, are character sketches +of humble folk and show genuine pathos and humor. In his poetry, +Meredith is, however, more often the moralist and philosopher than the +singer and simple narrator. He treats of love, life, and death as +metaphysical problems. He ponders over the duties of mankind and the +greatest sources of human strength and courage. He roams through a +region that seems timeless and spaceless. He "neighbors the +invisible." The obscurities in many of these poems are due to the +abstract nature of the subject matter, to excessive condensation of +thought, to frequent omission of connecting words, and to an abundance +of figurative language. + +Novels.--Meredith's novels comprise the largest and most noteworthy +part of his writings. His most important works of fiction are _The +Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ (1859), _The Egoist_ (1879), and _Diana of +the Crossways_ (1885). _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ is the story of +a beautiful first love. The courtship of Richard and Lucy, amid scenes +that inspire poetic descriptions, is in itself a true prose lyric. +Their parting interview is one of the most powerfully handled chapters +to be found in English novels. It is heart-rending in its emotional +intensity and almost faultless in expression. _The Ordeal of Richard +Feverel_, like most of Meredith's works, contains more than a love +story. Many chapters of high-class comedy and epigrammatical wit serve +to explode a fallacious educational theory. + +_The Egoist_ has for its special aim the portrayal and exposure of +masculine egotism. This was a favorite subject with Meredith and it +recurs frequently in his novels. The plot of _The Egoist_ is slight. +The interest is centered on the awakening of Clara Middleton and +Laetitia Dale to the superlative selfishness of Sir Willoughby's +egotism. + +Scintillating repartee, covert side-thrusts, shrewd observations, +subtle innuendoes, are all used to assist in the revelation of this +egotism. One fair April morning, after his return to England from a +three years' absence, Sir Willoughby met Laetitia Dale, an early +sweetheart whom he no longer loved. + + "He sprang out of the carriage and seized her hand. 'Laetitia + Dale!' he said. He panted. 'Your name is sweet English music! + And you are well?' The anxious question permitted him to read deep + in her eyes. He found the man he sought there, squeezed him + passionately, and let her go." + +The delicate irony of this passage is a mild example of the rich vein +of humor running through this work. _The Egoist_ is the most +Meredithian of the author's novels, and it displays most exuberantly +his comic spirit, intent upon photographing mankind's follies. This +book has been called "a comedy in narrative." + +Diana, the heroine of _Diana of the Crossways, is the queen of +Meredith's heroines. She is intellectual, warm-hearted, and +courageous. She thinks and talks brilliantly; but when she acts, she +is often carried away by the momentary impulse. She therefore keeps +the reader alternately scolding and forgiving her. Her betrayal of a +state secret, which cannot be condoned, remains the one flaw in the +plot. With this exception, the story is absorbing. The men and women +belong to the world of culture. Among them are some of Meredith's most +interesting characters, notably Redworth, the noblest man in any of +the novels. The scene of the story is in London's highest political +circle and the discussions sparkle with cleverness. + +_Evan Harrington_ (1861), the story of a young tailor, is one of the +lightest and brightest of Meredith's novels. It presents in the +author's most inimitable manner a comic picture of the struggle for +social position. In two of the characters, Great Mel and Mrs. Mel, are +found the pen portraits of Meredith's grandparents. _Rhoda Fleming_ +(1865) is in its style the simplest of his novels. The humble tragedy +is related in the plain speech of the people, without the Gaelic wit +usually characteristic of Meredith. + +The first half of _The Adventures of Harry Richmond_ has been called +by some critics Meredith's best piece of writing, but the last half +shows less power. + +Meredith grew more introspective in his later years, as is shown in +such long, analytical novels as, _One of Our Conquerors_ (1891), _Lord +Ormont and His Aminta_ (1894), and _The Amazing Marriage_ (1895). + +General Characteristics.-Meredith's novels afford him various +opportunities for an exposition of his views on education, divorce, +personal liberty, conventional narrow-mindedness, egotism, +sentimentalism, and obedience to law. His own personality creeps into +the stories when he has some favorite sermon to preach; and he +sometimes taxes the reader's patience by unduly delaying the narrative +or even directing its course in order to accentuate the moral issue. + +The chief excellences of his novels lie in the strong and subtle +character portrayal, in the brilliant conversations, in the power with +which intense scenes are presented, and in the well-nigh omnipresent +humor. + +Meredith's humor frequently arises from his keen intellectual +perception of the paradoxes in life. One of his egotistical lovers, +talking to the object of his undying affections, "could pledge himself +to eternity, but shrank from being bound to eleven o'clock on the +morrow morning." Meredith does not fly into a passion, like Carlyle, +because society is sentimental and shallow and loves to pose. He +proceeds in the coolest manner to draw with unusual distinctness the +shallow dilettante, the sentimentalist, the egotist, and the +hypocrite. By placing these characters in the midst of men and women +actuated by simple and genuine motives, he develops situations that +seem especially humorous to readers who are alert to detect +incongruity. This veiled humor, which has been aptly styled "the +laughter of the mind," gives to Meredith's works their most +distinctive flavor. + +His prose style is epigrammatic, rich in figures, subtle, sometimes +tortuous and even obscure. He abhors the trite and obvious, and, in +escaping them to indulge in witty riddles, fanciful expressions, and +difficult allusions, he imperils his clearness. In the presence of +genuine emotion, he is always as simple in style as he is serious in +attitude; but there are times when he seems to revel in the +extravagant and grotesque. + +Meredith is the novelist of men and women in the world of learning, of +letters, and of politics; he is the satirist of social shams; and he +is the sparkling epigrammatist; but he is also the optimist with the +sane and vigorous message for his generation, and the realist who +keeps a genuine rainbow of idealism in his sky. + +THOMAS HARDY, 1840- + +[Illustration: THOMAS HARDY. _From the painting by Winifred +Thompson_.] + +Life.--The subtle, comic aspects of cosmopolitan life, which were +such a fascination to Meredith, did not appeal to that somber realist, +Thomas Hardy, whose genius enabled him to paint impressive pictures of +the retired elemental life of Wessex. Hardy was born in 1840 in the +little village of Bockhampton, Dorsetshire, a few miles out of +Dorchester. He received his early education at the local schools, +attended evening classes at King's College, London, and studied Gothic +architecture under Sir Arthur Blomfield. The boy was articled at the +early age of sixteen to an ecclesiastical architect and, like the hero +in his novel, _A Pair of Blue Eyes_, made drawings and measurements of +old churches in rural England and planned their remodeling. He won +medals and prizes in this profession before he turned from it to +authorship. His first published work, _How I Built Myself a House_, +was an outgrowth of some early experiences as an architect. + +Hardy married Miss Emma Lavinia Gifford in 1874 and went to live at +Sturminster Newton. Later he spent some time in London; but he +returned finally to his birthplace, the land of his novels, and built +himself a home at Max Gate, Dorchester, in 1885. His life has been a +retired one. He always shunned publicity, but he was happy to receive +in 1910 the freedom of his native town, an honor bestowed upon him as +a mark of love and pride. + +Works.--Thomas Hardy is one of the greatest realists in modern +England, and also one of the most uncompromising pessimists. His +characters are developed with consummate skill, but usually their +progression is toward failure or death. These men and women are +largely rustics who subsist by means of humble toil, such as tending +sheep or cutting furze. The orbit of their lives is narrow. The people +are simple, primitive, superstitious. They are only half articulate in +the expression of their emotions. In _Far From the Madding Crowd_, for +example, Gabriel Oak wished to have Bathsheba know "his impressions; +but he would as soon have thought of carrying an odor in a net as of +attempting to convey the intangibilities of his feelings in the coarse +meshes of language. So he remained silent." On the other hand, the +speech is sometimes racy, witty, and flavored by the daily occupation +of the speaker. + +The scenes usually selected for Hardy's stories are from his own +county and those immediately adjacent, to which section of country he +has given the name of Wessex. He knows it so intimately and paints it +so vividly that its moors, barrows, and villages are as much a part of +the stories as the people dwelling there. In fact, Egdon Heath has +been called the principal character in the novel, _The Return of the +Native_ (1878). The upland with its shepherd's hut, the sheep-shearing +barn, the harvest storm, the hollow of ferns, and the churchyard with +its dripping water spout are part of the wonderful landscape in _Far +From the Madding Crowd_ (1874) This is the finest artistic product of +Hardy's genius. It contains strongly-drawn characters, dramatic +incidents, a most interesting story, and some homely native humor. The +heroine, Bathsheba, is one of the brainiest and most independent of +all Hardy's women. She has grave faults; but the tragic experiences +through which she passes soften her and finally mold her into a +lovable woman. Steady, resourceful, dumb Gabriel Oak and clever, +fencing Sergeant Troy are delightful foils to each other, and are +every inch human. + +[Illustration: MAX GATE. The Home of Hardy near Dorchester (the +Casterbridge of the Novels).] + +_The Mayor of Casterbridge_ (1886) and _The Woodlanders_ (1886-1887) +deserve mention with _Far from the Madding Crowd_ and The _Return of +the Native_ as comprising the best four novels of the so-called Wessex +stories. + +Hardy's later works exhibit an increasing absorption in ethical and +religious problems. _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ (1892) is one of +Hardy's most powerful novels. It has for its heroine a strong, sweet, +appealing woman, whose loving character and tragic fate are presented +with fearless vigor and deep sympathetic insight. The personal +intensity of the author, which is felt to pervade this book, is +present again in _Jude the Obscure_ (1895), that record of an aspiring +soul, struggling against hopeless odds, heavy incumbrances, and sordid +realities. + +General Characteristics.--Hardy's novels leave a sense of gloom upon +the reader. He explains his view of modern life "as a thing to be put +up with, replacing the zest for existence which was so intense in +early civilization." His pessimistic philosophy strikes at the core of +life and human endeavor. Sorrow appears in his work, not as a +punishment for crime, but as an unavoidable result of human life and +its inevitable mistakes. Events, sometimes comic but generally tragic, +play upon the weaknesses of his characters and bring about +entanglements, misunderstandings, and suffering far in excess of the +deserts of these well-intentioned people. No escape is suggested. +Resignation to misfits, mistakes, and misfortune is what remains. + +Hardy is one of the great Victorian story-tellers. His personality is +never obtruded on his readers. His humor is not grafted on his scenes, +but is a natural outgrowth of his rustic gatherings and conversations. +He relates a straightforward tale, and makes his characters act and +speak for themselves. He selects the human nature, the rural scene, +and the moral issue upon which his whole being can be centered. The +result is a certainty of design, a somberness of atmosphere, and an +intensity of feeling, such as are found in elegiac poetry. Natural +laws, physical nature, and human life are engaged in an uneven +struggle, and the result is usually unsatisfactory for human life. The +novels are pitilessly sad, but they are nevertheless products of a +genuine artist in temperament and technique. His novels show almost as +much unity of plot and mood as many of the greatest short stories. + +MATTHEW ARNOLD, 1822-1888 + +[Illustration: MATTHEW ARNOLD. _From the painting of G.F. Watts, +National Portrait Gallery_.] + +Life.--Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, A.C. +Swinburne, and the much younger Rudyard Kipling are the most noted +among a large number of Victorian poets. All of these, with the +exception of the two greatest, Browning and Tennyson, also wrote +prose. + +Matthew Arnold was born in 1822, at Laleham, Middlesex. His father, +Dr. Thomas Arnold, was the eminent head master of Rugby School, and +the author of _History of Rome, Lectures on Modern History_, and +_Sermons_. Under the guidance of such a father, Matthew Arnold enjoyed +unusual educational advantages. In 1837 he entered Rugby, and from +there went to Baliol College, Oxford. He was so ambitious and studious +that he won two prizes at Oxford, was graduated with honors, and, a +year later, was elected fellow of Oriel College. Arnold's name, like +Thomas Gray's, is associated with university life. + +From 1847 to 1851, Arnold was private secretary to Lord Lansdowne. In +1851 he married the daughter of Justice Wightman. After relinquishing +his secretaryship, Arnold accepted a position that took him again into +educational fields. He was made lay inspector of schools, a position +which he held to within two years of his death. This office called for +much study in methods of education, and he visited the continent three +times to investigate the systems in use there. In addition, he held +the chair of poetry at Oxford for ten years, between 1857 and 1867. +One of the most scholarly courses of lectures that he delivered there +was _On Translating Homer_. From this time until his death, in 1888, +he was a distinguished figure in English educational and literary +circles. + +Poetical Works.--Matthew Arnold's poetry belongs to the middle of +the century, that season of doubt, perplexity, and unrest, when the +strife between the church and science was bitterest and each +threatened to overthrow the other. In his home, Arnold was taught a +devout faith in revealed religion, and at college he was thrown upon a +world of inquiring doubt. Both influences were strong. His feelings +yearned after the early faith, and his intellect sternly demanded +scientific proof and explanation. He was, therefore, torn by a +conflict between his emotions and reason, and he was thus eminently +fitted to be the poetic exponent of what he calls-- + + "...this strange disease of modern life, + With its sick hurry, its divided aims, + Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts."[12] + +Arnold felt that there were too much hurry and excitement in the age. +In the midst of opposing factions, theories, and beliefs, he cries out +for rest and peace. We rush from shadow to shadow-- + + "And never once possess our soul + Before we die."[13] + +Again, in the _Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann"_, he +voices the unrest of the age-- + + "What shelter to grow ripe is ours? + What leisure to grow wise? + Like children bathing on the shore, + Buried a wave beneath, + The second wave succeeds, before + We have had time to breathe." + +But Arnold is not the seer to tell us how to enter the vale of rest, +how to answer the voice of doubt. He passes through life a lonely +figure-- + + "Wandering between two worlds, one dead, + The other powerless to be born." [14] + +The only creed that he offers humanity is one born of the scientific +temper, a creed of stoical endurance and unswerving allegiance to the +voice of duty. Many readers miss in Arnold the solace that they find +in Wordsworth and the tonic faith that is omnipresent in Browning. +Arnold himself was not wholly satisfied with his creed; but his cool +reason refused him the solace of an unquestioning faith. Arnold has +been called "the poet of the Universities," because of the reflective +scholarly thought in his verse. It breathes the atmosphere of books +and of the study. Such poetry cannot appeal to the masses. It is for +the thinker. + +The style of verse that lends itself best to Arnold's genius is the +elegiac lyric. _The Scholar Gypsy_ and its companion piece _Thyrsis, +Memorial Verses, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse,_ and _Stanzas in +Memory of the Author of "Obermann"_ are some of his best elegies. + +_Sohrab and Rustam_ and _Balder Dead_ are Arnold's finest narrative +poems. They are stately, dignified recitals of the deeds of heroes and +gods. The series of poems entitled _Switzerland_ and _Dover Beach_ are +among Arnold's most beautiful lyrics. A fine description of the surf +is contained in the last-named poem:-- + + "Listen! you hear the grating roar + Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, + At their return, up the high strand, + Begin, and cease, and then again begin, + With tremulous cadence slow, and bring + The eternal note of sadness in." + +Neither the movement of the narrative nor the lightness of the lyric +is wholly congenial to Arnold's introspective melancholy muse. + +Prose Works.--Although Arnold's first works were in poetry, he won +recognition as a prose writer before he was widely known as a poet. +His works in prose comprise such subjects as literary criticism, +education, theology, and social ethics. As a critic of literature, he +surpasses all his great contemporaries. Neither Macaulay nor Carlyle +possessed the critical acumen, the taste, ana the cultivated judgment +of literary works, in such fullness as Matthew Arnold. + +His greatest contributions to critical literature are the various +magazine articles that were collected in the two volumes entitled +_Essays in Criticism_ (1865-1888). In these essays Arnold displays +great breadth of culture and fairness of mind. He rises superior to +the narrow provincialism and racial prejudices that he deprecates in +other criticisms of literature. He gives the same sympathetic +consideration to the German Heine and the Frenchman Joubert as to +Wordsworth. Arnold further insists that Frenchmen should study English +literature for its serious ethical spirit, and that Englishmen would +be benefited by a study of the lightness, precision, and polished form +of French literature. + +Arnold's object in all his criticism is to discover the best in both +prose and poetry, and his method of attaining this object is another +illustration of his scholarship and mental reach. He says in his +_Introduction to Ward's English Poets_:-- + + "Indeed, there can be no more useful help for discovering what + poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can + therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines + and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a + touchstone to other poetry." + +When Arnold seeks to determine an author's true place in literature, +his keen critical eye seems to see at a glance all the world's great +writers, and to compare them with the man under discussion. In order +to ascertain Wordsworth's literary stature, for example, Arnold +measures the height of Wordsworth by that of Homer, of Dante, of +Shakespeare, and of Milton. + +Another essential quality of the critical mind that Arnold possessed +is "sweet reasonableness." His judgments of men are marked by a +moderation of tune. His strong predilections are sometimes shown, but +they are more often restrained by a clear, honest intellect. Arnold's +calm, measured criticisms are not marred by such stout partisanship as +Macaulay shows for the Whigs, by the hero worship that Carlyle +expresses, or by the exaggerated praise and blame that Ruskin +sometimes bestows. On the other hand, Arnold loses what these men +gain; for while his intellect is less biased than theirs, it is also +less colored and less warmed by the glow of feeling. + +The analytical quality of Arnold's mind shows the spirit of the age. +His subjects are minutely classified and defined. Facts seem to divide +naturally into brigades, regiments, and battalions of marching order. +His literary criticisms note subtleties of style, delicate shadings in +expression, and many technical excellences and errors that Carlyle +would have passed over unheeded. In addition to the _Essays in +Criticism,_ the other works of Arnold that possess his fine critical +dualities in highest degree are _On Translating Homer_ (1861) and _The +Study of Celtic Literature_ (1867). + +General Characteristics.--The impression that Arnold has left upon +literature is mainly that of a keen, brilliant intellect. In his +poetry there is more emotion than in his prose; but even in his poetry +there is no passion or fire. The sadness, the loneliness, the unrest +of life, and the irreconcilable conflict between faith and doubt are +most often the subjects of his verse. His range is narrow, but within +it he attains a pure, noble beauty. His introspective, analytical +poetry is distinguished by a "majesty of grief," depth of thought, +calm, classic repose, and a dignified simplicity. + +In prose, Arnold attains highest rank as a critic of literature. His +culture, the breadth of his literary sympathies, his scientific +analyses, and his lucid literary style make his critical works the +greatest of his age. He has a light, rather fanciful, humor, which +gives snap and spice to his style. He is also a master of irony, which +is galling to an opponent. He himself never loses his suavity or good +breeding. Arnold's prose style is as far removed from Carlyle's as the +calm simplicity of the Greeks is from the powerful passion of the +Vikings. The ornament and poetic richness of Ruskin's style are also +missing in Arnold's. His style has a classic purity and refinement. He +has a terseness, a crystalline clearness, and a precision that have +been excelled in the works of few even of the greatest masters of +English prose. + +ROBERT BROWNING, 1812-1889 + +[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING. _From the painting by G. F. Watts, +National Portrait Gallery._] + +Life.--The long and peaceful lives of Browning and Tennyson, the two +most eminent poets of the Victorian age, are in marked contrast to the +short and troubled careers of Byron, Shelley, and Keats. + +Robert Browning's life was uneventful but happy. He inherited a +magnificent physique and constitution from his father, who never knew +a day's illness. With such health, Robert Browning felt a keen relish +for physical existence and a robust joyousness in all kinds of +activity. Late in life he wrote, in the poem _At the Mermaid_:-- + + "Have you found your life distasteful? + My life did, and does, smack sweet. + * * * * * + I find earth not gray but rosy, + Heaven not grim but fair of hue. + Do I stoop? I pluck a posy. + Do I stand and stare? All's blue." + +Again, in _Saul_, he burst forth with the lines:-- + + "How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ + All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy?" + +These lines, vibrant with life and joy, could not have been written by +a man of failing vitality or physical weakness. + +Robert Browning was born in 1812 at Camberwell, whose slopes overlook +the smoky chimneys of London. In this beautiful suburb he spent his +early years in the companionship of a brother and a sister. A highly +gifted father and a musical mother assisted intelligently in the +development of their children. Browning's education was conducted +mainly under his father's eye. The boy attended neither a large school +nor a college. After he had passed from the hands of tutors, he spent +some time in travel, and was wont to call Italy his university. +Although his training was received in an irregular way, his +scholarship cannot be doubted by the student of his poetry. + +He early determined to devote his life to poetry, and his father +wisely refrained from interfering with his son's ambitions. + +[Illustration: ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. From the painting by +Field Talfourd, National Portrait Gallery._] + +Romantic Marriage with Elizabeth Barrett Barrett,--Her Poetry.--In +1845, after Browning had published some ten volumes of verse, among +which were _Paracelsus_ (1835), _Pippa Passes_ (1841), and _Dramatic +Lyrics_ (1842), he met Miss Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (1806-1861), +whose poetic reputation was then greater than his own. The publication +in 1898 of _The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett +Barrett_ disclosed an unusual romance. When he first met her, she was +an invalid in her father's London house, passing a large part of her +time on the couch, scarcely able to see all the members of her own +family at the same time. His magnetic influence helped her to make +more frequent journeys from the sofa to an armchair, then to walk +across the room, and soon to take drives. + +Her father, who might have sat for the original of Meredith's +"Egoist," had decided that his daughter should be an invalid and +remain with him for life. When Browning proposed to Miss Barrett that +he should ask her father for her hand, she replied that such a step +would only make matters worse. "He would rather see me dead at his +feet than yield the point," she said. In 1846 Miss Barrett, +accompanied by her faithful maid, drove to a church and was married to +Browning. The bride returned home; but Browning did not see her for a +week because he would not indulge in the deception of asking for "Miss +Barrett." Seven days after the marriage, they quietly left for Italy, +where Mrs. Browning passed nearly all her remaining years. She +repeatedly wrote to her father, telling him of her transformed health +and happy marriage, but he never answered her. + +Before Miss Barrett met Browning, the woes of the factory children had +moved her to write _The Cry of the Children_. After Edgar Allan Poe +had read its closing lines:-- + + "...the child's sob in the silence curses deeper + Than the strong man in his wrath," + +he said that she had depicted "a horror, sublime in its simplicity, of +which Dante himself might have been proud." + +Her best work, _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, written after Browning +had won her affection, is a series of love lyrics, strong, tender, +unaffected, true, from the depth of a woman's heart. Sympathetic +readers, who know the story of her early life and love, are every year +realizing that there is nothing else in English literature that could +exactly fill their place. Browning called them "the finest sonnets +written in any language since Shakespeare's." Those who like the +simple music of the heart strings will find it in lines like these:-- + + "I love thee to the level of every day'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." + +After fifteen years of happy married life, she died in 1861, and was +buried in Florence. When thinking of her, Browning wrote his poem +_Prospice_ (1861) welcoming death as-- + + "...a peace out of pain, + Then a light, then thy breast, + O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, + And with God be the rest." + +His Later Years.--Soon after his wife's death, he began his long +poem of over twenty thousand lines, _The Ring and the Book_. He +continued to write verse to the year of his death. + +In 1881 the Browning Society was founded for the study and discussion +of his works,--a most unusual honor for a poet during his lifetime. +The leading universities gave him honorary degrees, he was elected +life-governor of London University, and was tendered the rectorship of +the Universities of Glasgow and St. Andrew's and the presidency of the +Wordsworth Society. + +During the latter part of his life, he divided most of his time +between London and Italy. When he died, in 1889, he was living with +his son, Robert Barrett Browning, in the Palazzo Rezzonico, Venice. +Over his grave in Westminster Abbey was chanted Mrs. Browning's +touching lyric:-- + + "He giveth his beloved, sleep." + +Dramatic Monologues.--Browning was a poet of great productivity. +From the publication of _Pauline_ in 1833 to _Asolando_ in 1889, there +were only short pauses between the appearances of his works. Unlike +Tennyson, Browning could not stop to revise and recast; but he +constantly sought expression, in narratives, dramas, lyrics, and +monologues, for new thoughts and feelings. + +The study of the human soul held an unfailing charm for Browning. He +analyzes with marked keenness and subtlety the experiences of the +soul, its sickening failures, and its eager strivings amid complex, +puzzling conditions. In nearly all his poems, whether narrative, +lyric, or dramatic, the chief interest centers about some "incidents +in the development of a soul." + +The poetic form that he found best adapted to "the development of a +soul" was the dramatic monologue, of which he is one of the greatest +masters. Requiring but one speaker, this form narrows the interest +either to the speaker or to the one described by him. Most of his best +monologues are to be found in the volumes known as _Dramatic Lyrics_ +(1842), _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_ (1845), _Men and Women_ (1855), +_Dramatis Personae_ (1864). + +_My Last Duchess, Andrea del Sarto, Saul, Abt Vogler_, and _The Last +Ride Together_ are a few of his strong representative monologues. The +speaker in _My Last Duchess_ is the widowed duke, who is describing +the portrait of his lost wife. In his blind conceit, he is utterly +unconscious that he is exhibiting clearly his own coldly selfish +nature and his wife's sweet, sunny disposition. The chief power of the +poem lies in the astonishing ease with which he is made to reveal his +own character. + +The interest in _Andrea del Sarto_ is in the mental conflict of this +"faultless painter." He wishes, on the one hand, to please his wife +with popular pictures, and yet he yearns for higher ideals of his art. +He says:-- + + "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, + Or what's a heaven for?" + +As he sits in the twilight, holding his wife's hand, and talking in a +half-musing way, it is readily seen that his love for this beautiful +but soulless woman has caused many of his failures and sorrows in the +past, and will continue to arouse conflicts of soul in the future. + +_Abt Vogler_, one of Browning's noblest and most melodious poems, +voices the exquisite raptures of a musician's soul:-- + + "But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear; + The rest may reason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know." + +The beautiful song of David in the poem entitled _Saul_ shows a +wonderful sympathy with the old Hebrew prophecies. _Cleon_ expresses +the views of an early Greek upon the teachings of Christ and St. Paul. +_The Soliloquy of a Spanish Cloister_ describes the development of a +coarse, jealous nature in monastic life. _The Last Ride Together_ is +one of Browning's many passionate poems on the ennobling power of +love. That remarkable, grotesque poem, _Caliban upon Setebos_, +transcends human fields altogether, and displays the brutelike +theology of a fiend. + +In these monologues, Browning interprets characters of varying faiths, +nationalities, stations, and historic periods. He shows a wide range +of knowledge and sympathy. One type, however, which he rarely +presents, is the simple, commonplace man or woman. Browning excels in +the portrayal of unusual, intricate, and difficult characters that +have complicated problems to face, weaknesses to overcome, or lofty +ambitions to attain. + +The Ring and the Book.--When Browning was asked what he would advise +a student of his poetry to read first, he replied: "_The Ring and the +Book_, of course." He worked on this masterly study of human souls for +many years in the decade in which his wife died. This poem (1868), +which has been facetiously called "a Roman murder story," was +suggested to him by a "square old yellow book," which he purchased for +a few cents at Florence in 1860. This manuscript, dated 1698, gives an +account of the trial of Guido Franceschini for the murder of his wife. +Out of this "mere ring metal," Browning fashioned his "Ring," a poem +twice the length of _Paradise Lost_. + +The subject of the story is an innocent girl, Pompilia, who, under the +protection of a noble priest, flees from her brutal husband and seeks +the home of her foster parents. Her husband wrathfully pursues her and +kills both her and her parents. While this is but the barest outline, +yet the story in its complete form is very simple. As is usual with +Browning, the chief stress is laid upon the character portrayal. + +He adopted the bold and unique plan of having different classes of +people in Rome and the various actors in the tragedy tell the story +from their own point of view and thus reveal their own bias and +characteristics. Each relation makes the story seem largely new. +Browning shows that all this testimony is necessary to establish a +complete circle of evidence in regard to the central truth of the +tragedy. The poem thus becomes a remarkable analytic study of the +psychology of human minds. + +The four important characters,--Guido, the husband; Caponsacchi, the +priest; Pompilia, the girl-wife; and the Pope,--stand out in strong +relief. The greatest development of character is seen in Guido, who +starts with a defiant spirit of certain victory, but gradually becomes +more subdued and abject, when he finds that he is to be killed, and +finally shrieks in agony for the help of his victim, Pompilia. In +Caponsacchi there is the inward questioning of the right and the +wrong. He is a strongly-drawn character, full of passion and noble +desires. Pompilia, who has an intuitive knowledge of the right, is one +of Browning's sweetest and purest women. From descriptions of Mrs. +Browning, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne gave, we may conclude that she +furnished the suggestion for many of Pompilia's characteristics. The +Pope, with his calm, wise judgment and his lofty philosophy, is +probably the greatest product of Browning's intellect. + +The books containing the monologues of these characters take first +place among Browning's writings and occupy a high position in the +century's work. They have a striking originality, intensity, vigor, +and imaginative richness. The remaining books are incomparably +inferior, and are marked at times by mere acuteness of reason and +thoroughness of legal knowledge. + +A Dramatic Poet.--Although Browning's genius is strongly dramatic, +his best work is not found in the field of the drama. _Strafford_ +(1837), _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_ (1843), and _Colombe's Birthday_ +(1844) have been staged successfully, but they cannot be called great +acting plays. The action is slight, the characters are complex, the +soliloquies are lengthy, and the climaxes are too often wholly +dependent upon emotional intensity rather than upon great or exciting +deeds. The strongest interest of these dramas lies in their +psychological subtlety, which is more enjoyable in the study than in +the theater. + +Browning's dramatic power is well exhibited in poems like _In a +Balcony_ or _Pippa Passes_, in which powerful individual scenes are +presented without all the accompanying details of a complete drama. +The great force of such scenes lies in his manner of treating moments +of severe trial. He selects such a moment, focuses his whole attention +upon it, and makes the deed committed stand forth as an explanation of +all the past emotions and as a prophecy of all future acts. _In a +Balcony_ shows the lives of three characters converging toward a +crisis. The hero of this drama thus expresses his theory of life's +struggles in the development of the soul:-- + + "...I count life just stuff + To try the soul's strength on, educe the man." + +_Pippa Passes_ is one of Browning's most artistic presentations of +such dramatic scenes. The little silk weaver, Pippa, rises on the +morning of her one holiday in the year, with the intention of enjoying +in fancy the pleasures "of the Happiest Four in our Asolo," not +knowing, in her innocence, of their misery and guilt. She wanders from +house to house, singing her pure, significant refrains, and, in each +case, her songs arrest the attention of the hearer at a critical +moment. She thus becomes unconsciously a means of salvation. The first +scene is the most intense. She approaches the home of the lovers, +Sebald and Ottima, after the murder of Ottima's husband. As Sebald +begins to reflect on the murder, there comes this song of Pippa's, +like the knocking at the gate in Macbeth, to loose the floodgates of +remorse:-- + + [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MS. FROM PIPPA PASSES.] + +His Optimistic Philosophy.--It has been seen that the Victorian age, +as presented by Matthew Arnold, was a period of doubt and negation. +Browning, however, was not overcome by this wave of doubt. Although he +recognized fully the difficulties of religious faith in an age just +awakening to scientific inquiry, yet he retained a strong, fearless +trust in God and in immortality. + +Browning's reason demanded this belief. In this earthly life he saw +the evil overcome the good, and beheld injustice, defeat, and despair +follow the noblest efforts. If there exists no compensation for these +things, he says that life is a cheat, the moral nature a lie, and God +a fiend. In _Asolando_, Browning thus presents his attitude toward +life:-- + + "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." + +There is no hesitancy in this philosophy of Browning's. With it, he +does not fear to face all the problems and mysteries of existence. No +other poet strikes such a resonant, hopeful note as he. His _Rabbi Ben +Ezra_ is more a song of triumphant faith than anything written since +the Puritan days:-- + + "Our times are in His hand + Who saith, 'A whole I planned, + Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!' + * * * * * + "Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: + What entered into thee, + _That_ was, is, and shall be: + Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure." + +General Characteristics.--Browning is a poet of striking originality +and impelling force. His writings are the spontaneous outpourings of a +rich, full nature, whose main fabric is intellect, but intellect +illumined with the glittering light of spiritual hopefulness and +flushed with the glow of deep human passion. + +The subject of his greatest poetry is the human soul. While he +possesses a large portion of dramatic suggestiveness, he nevertheless +does not excel in setting off character against character in movement +and speech, but rather in a minute, penetrating analysis, by which he +insinuates himself into the thoughts and sensations of his characters, +and views life through their eyes. + +He is a pronounced realist. His verse deals not only with the +beautiful and the romantic, but also with the prosaic and the ugly, if +they furnish true pictures for the panorama of real life. The +unconventionality and realism of his poetic art will be made manifest +by merely reading through the titles of his numerous works. + +Browning did not write to amuse and entertain, but to stimulate +thought and to "sting" the conscience to activity. The meaning of his +verse is, therefore, the matter of paramount importance, far +overshadowing the form of expression. In the haste and carelessness +with which he wrote many of his difficult abstruse poems, he laid +himself open to the charge of obscurity. + +His style has a strikingly individual stamp, which is marked far more +by strength than by beauty. The bare and rugged style of his verse is +often made profoundly impressive by its strenuous earnestness, its +burning intensity, which seems to necessitate the broken lines and +halting, interrupted rhythm. The following utterance of Caponsacchi, +as he stands before his judges, will show the intensity and ruggedness +of Browning's blank verse:-- + + "Sirs, how should I lie quiet in my grave + Unless you suffer me wring, drop by drop, + My brain dry, make a riddance of the drench + Of minutes with a memory in each?" + +His lines are often harsh and dissonant. Even in the noble poem _Rabbi +Ben Ezra_, this jolting line appears:-- + + "Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?" + +and in _Sordello_, Browning writes:-- + + "The Troubadour who sung + Hundreds of songs, forgot, its trick his tongue, + Its craft his brain." + +No careful artist tolerates such ugly, rasping inversions. + +In spite of these inharmonious tendencies in Browning, his poetry at +times shows a lyric lightness, such as is heard in these lines:-- + + "Oh, to be in England + Now that April's there, + And whoever wakes in England + Sees, some morning, unaware, + That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf + Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, + While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough + In England--now!"[15] + +His verse often swells and falls with a wavelike rhythm as in _Saul_ +or in these lines in _Abt Vogler_:-- + + "There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; + The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; + What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; + On the earth the broken arc; in the heaven, a perfect round." + +While, therefore, Browning's poetry is sometimes harsh, faulty, and +obscure, at times his melodies can be rhythmically simple and +beautiful. He is one of the subtlest analysts of the human mind, the +most original and impassioned poet of his age, and one of the most +hopeful, inspiring, and uplifting teachers of modern times. + +ALFRED TENNYSON, 1809-1892 + +[Illustration: ALFRED TENNYSON. _From a photograph by Mayall._] + +Life.--Alfred Tennyson, one of the twelve children of the rector of +Somersby, Lincolnshire, was born in that hamlet in 1809, a year +memorable, both in England and America for the birth of such men as +Charles Darwin, William E. Gladstone, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edgar +Allan Poe, and Abraham Lincoln. + +Visitors to the Somersby rectory, in which Tennyson was born, note +that it fits the description of the home in his fine lyric, _The +Palace of Art_:-- + + "...an English home,--gray twilight pour'd + On dewy pastures, dewy trees, + Softer than sleep--all things in order stored, + A haunt of ancient peace." + +His mother, one of the beauties of Lincolnshire, had twenty-five +offers of marriage. Of her Tennyson said in _The Princess:_-- + + "Happy he + With such a mother! faith in womankind + Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high + Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall, + He shall not blind his soul with clay." + +It is probable that Tennyson holds the record among English poets of +his class for the quantity of youthful verse produced. At the age of +eight, he was writing blank verse in praise of flowers; at twelve, he +began an epic which extended to six thousand lines. + +In 1828 he entered Cambridge University; but in 1831 his father's +sickness and death made it impossible for him to return to take his +degree. Before leaving Cambridge, Tennyson had found a firm friend in +a young college mate of great promise, Arthur Henry Hallam, who became +engaged to the poet's sister, Emily Tennyson. Hallam's sudden death in +1832 was a profound shock to Tennyson and had far-reaching effects on +his poetic development. For a long time he lived in comparative +retirement, endeavoring to perfect himself in the poetic art. + +His golden year was 1850, the year of the publication of _In +Memoriam_, of his selection as poet laureate, to succeed Wordsworth, +and of his marriage to Emily Sellwood. He had been in love with her +for fourteen years, but insufficient income had hitherto prevented +marriage. + +[Illustration: FARRINGFORD.] + +In 1855 Oxford honored him by bestowing on him the degree of D.C.L. +The students gave him an ovation and they properly honored his +greatest poem, _In Memoriam_ by mentioning it first in their loud +calls; but they also paid their respects to his _May Queen_, asking in +chorus: "Did they wake and call you early, call you early, Alfred +dear?" + +The rest of his life was outwardly uneventful. He became the most +popular poet of his age. Schools and colleges had pupils translate his +poems into Latin and Greek verse. Of _Enoch Arden_ (1864), at that +time his most popular narrative poem, sixty thousand copies were sold +almost as as soon as it was printed. He made sufficient money to be +able to maintain two beautiful residences, a winter home at +Farringford on the Isle of Wight, and a summer residence at Aldworth +in Sussex. In 1884 he was raised to the peerage, with the title of +Baron of Aldworth and Farringford. He died in 1892, at the age of +eighty-three, and was buried beside Robert Browning in Westminster +Abbey. + +Early Verse.--Tennyson published a small volume of poems in 1830, +the year before he left college, and another volume in 1832. Although +these contained some good poems, he was too often content to toy with +verse that had exquisite melody and but little meaning. The "Airy, +fairy Lilian" and "Sweet, pale Margaret" type of verse had charmed him +overmuch. The volumes of 1830 and 1832 were severely criticized. +_Blackwood's Magazine_ called same of the lyrics "drivel," and Carlyle +characterized the aesthetic verse as "lollipops." This adverse +criticism and the shock from Hallam's death caused him to remain +silent for nearly ten years. His son and biographer says that his +father during this period "profited by friendly and unfriendly +criticism, and in silence, obscurity, and solitude, perfected his +art." + +In his thirty-third year (1842), Tennyson broke his long silence by +publishing two volumes of verse, containing such favorites as _The +Poet, The Lady of Shalott, The Palace of Art, The Lotos Eaters, A +Dream of Fair Women, Morte d'Arthur, Oenone, The Miller's Daughter, +The Gardener's Daughter, Dora, Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Two +Voices_, and _Sir Galahad_. + +Unsparing revision of numbers of these poems that had been published +before, entitles them to be classed as new work. Some critics think +that Tennyson never surpassed these 1842 volumes. His verse shows the +influence of Keats, of whom Tennyson said: "There is something of the +innermost soul of poetry in almost everything that he wrote." + +One of Tennyson's most distinctive qualities, his art in painting +beautiful word-pictures, is seen at its best in stanzas from _The +Palace of Art_. His mastery over melody and the technique of verse is +evident in such lyrics as _Sir Galahad,_ and _The Lotos Eaters_. When +the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, read from _Ulysses_ the passage +beginning:-- + + "I am a part of all that I have met," + +he gave Tennyson a much-needed annual pension of L200. + +These volumes show that he was coming into touch with the thought of +the age. _Locksley Hall_ communicates the thrill which he felt from +the new possibilities of science:-- + + "For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, + Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. + * * * * * + I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time." + +Hallam's death had also developed in him the human note, resonant in +the lyric, _Break, break, break:_-- + + "But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, + And the sound of a voice that is still." + +The Princess, In Memoriam, and Maud.--Tennyson had produced only +short poems in his 1842 volumes, but his next three efforts, _The +Princess_ (1847), _In Memoriam_ (1850), and _Maud_ (1855), are of +considerable length. + +_The Princess: A Medley_, as Tennyson rightly called it, contains 3223 +lines of blank verse. This poem, which is really a discussion of the +woman question, relates in a half humorous way the story of a princess +who broke off her engagement to a prince, founded a college for women, +and determined to elevate her life to making them equal to men. The +poem abounds in beautiful imagery and exquisite melody; but the +solution of the question by the marriage of the princess has not +completely satisfied modern thought. The finest parts of the poem are +its artistic songs. + +_In Memoriam_, an elegy in memory of Arthur Henry Hallam, was begun at +Somersby in 1833, the year of Hallam's death, and added to at +intervals for nearly sixteen years. When Tennyson first began the +short lyrics to express his grief, he did not intend to publish them; +but in 1850 he gave them to the world as one long poem of 725 +four-line stanzas. + +_In Memoriam_ was directly responsible for Tennyson's appointment as +poet-laureate. Queen Victoria declared that she received more comfort +from it than from any other book except the _Bible_. The first stanza +of the poem (quoted on page 9) has proved as much of a moral stimulus +as any single utterance of Carlyle or of Browning. + +This work is one of the three great elegies of a literature that +stands first in elegiac poetry. Milton's _Lycidas_ has more of a +massive commanding power, and Shelley's _Adonais_ rises at times to +poetic heights that Tennyson did not reach; but neither _Lycidas_ nor +_Adonais_ equals _In Memoriam_ in tracing every shadow of bereavement, +from the first feeling of despair until the mourner can realize that-- + + "...the song of woe + Is after all an earthly song," + +and can express his unassailable faith in-- + + "One God, one law, one element, + And one far-off divine event + To which the whole creation moves." + +With this hopeful assurance closes Tennyson's most noble and beautiful +poem. + +_Maud_, a lyrical melodrama, paints the changing emotions of a lover +who passes from morbid gloom to ecstasy. Then, in a moment of anger, +he murders Maud's brother. Despair, insanity, and recovery follow, but +he sees Maud's face no more. While the poem as a whole is not a +masterpiece, it contains some of Tennyson's finest lyrics. The eleven +stanzas of the lover's song to Maud, the-- + + "Queen Rose of the rosebud garden of girls," + +are such an exquisite blending of woodbine spice and musk of rose, of +star and daffodil sky, of music of flute and song of bird, of the soul +of the rose with the passion of the lover, of meadows and +violets,--that we easily understand why Tennyson loved to read these +lines. + +The Idylls of the King.--In 1859 Tennyson published _Lancelot and +Elaine_, one of a series of twelve _Idylls_, the last of which +appeared in 1855. Together these form an epic on the subject of King +Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. Tennyson relied mainly on +Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_ for the characters and the stories. + +These _Idylls_ show the struggle to maintain noble ideals. Arthur +relates how he collected-- + + "In that fair order of my Table Round, + A glorious company, the flower of men, + To serve as model for the mighty world, + And be the fair beginning of a time." + +He made his knights swear to uphold the ideals of his court-- + + "To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, + To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, + To honor his own word as if his God's, + To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, + To love one maiden only, cleave to her, + And warship her by years of noble deeds + Until they won her." + +The twelve _Idylls_ have as a background those different seasons of +the year that accord with the special mood of the story. In _Gareth +and Lynette_, the most interesting of the _Idylls_, the young hero +leaves his home in spring, when the earth is joyous with birds and +flowers. In the last and most nobly poetic of the series, _The Passing +of Arthur_, the time is winter, when the knights seem to be clothed +with their own frosty breath. + +Sin creeps into King Arthur's realm and disrupts the order of the +"Table Round." He receives his mortal wound, and passes to rule in a +kindlier realm that welcomed him as "a king returning from the wars." + +Although the _Idylls of the King_ are uneven in quality and sometimes +marred by overprofusion of ornament and by deficiency of dramatic +skill, their limpid style, many fine passages of poetry, appealing +stories, and high ideals have exerted a wider influence than any other +of Tennyson's poems. + +Later Poetry.--Tennyson continued to write poetry until almost the +time of his death; but with the exception of his short swan song, +_Crossing the Bar_, he did not surpass his earlier efforts. His +_Locksley Hall Sixty Year After_ (1886) voices the disappointments of +the Victorian age and presents vigorous social philosophy. Some of his +later verse, like _The Northern Farmer_ and _The Children's Hospital_, +are in closer touch with life than many of his earlier poems. + +He wrote also several historical dramas, the best of which is _Becket_ +(1884); but his genius was essentially lyrical, not dramatic. +_Crossing the Bar_, written in his eighty-first year, is not only the +finest product of his later years, but also one of the very best of +Victorian lyrics. + +[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MS. OF CROSSING THE BAR.] + +General Characteristics.--Tennyson is a poetic interpreter of the +thought of the Victorian age. Huxley called him "the first poet since +Lucretius who understood the drift of science." In these four lines +from _The Princess_, Tennyson gives the evolutionary history of the +world, from nebula to man:-- + + "This world was once a fluid haze of light. + Till toward the center set the starry tides, + And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast + The planets: then the monster, then the man." + +Tennyson's poetry of nature is based on almost scientific observation +of natural phenomena. Unlike Wordsworth, Tennyson does not regard +nature as a manifestation of the divine spirit of love. He sees her +more from the new scientific point of view, as "red in tooth and claw +with rapine." The hero of _Maud_ says:-- + + "For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; + The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the + shrike. + And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and + prey." + +The constant warfare implied in the evolutionary theory of the +survival of the fittest did not keep Tennyson from also presenting +nature in her gentler aspects. In _Maud_, the lover sings-- + + "...whenever a March-wind sighs, + He sets the jewel-print of your feet + In violets blue as your eyes," + +and he tells how "the soul of the rose" passed into his blood, and how +the sympathetic passion-flower dropped "a splendid tear." As beautiful +as is much of Tennyson's nature poetry, he has not Wordsworth's power +to invest it with "the light of setting suns," or to cause it to +awaken "thoughts that do lie too deep for tears." + +The conflict between science and religion, the doubts and the sense of +world-pain are mirrored in Tennyson's verse. _The Two Voices_ +begins:-- + + "A still small voice spoke unto me, + Thou art so full of misery + Were it not better not to be?" + +His poetry is, however, a great tonic to religious faith. The closing +lines of _In Memoriam_ and _Crossing the Bar_ show how triumphantly he +met all the doubts and the skepticism of the age. + +Like Milton, Tennyson received much of his inspiration from books, +especially from the classical writers; but this characteristic was +more than counterbalanced by his acute observation and responsiveness +to the thought of the age. _Locksley Hall Sixty Years After_ shows +that he was keenly alive to the social movements of the time. + +Tennyson said that the scenes in his poems were so vividly conceived +that he could have drawn them if he had been an artist. A twentieth +century critic[16] says that Tennyson is almost the inventor of such +pictorial lyrics as _A Dream of Fair Women_ and _The Palace of Art_. + +The artistic finish of Tennyson's verse is one of its great charms. He +said to a friend: "It matters little what we say; it is how we say +it--though the fools don't knew it." His poetry has, however, often +been criticized for lack of depth. The variety in his subject matter, +mode of expression, and rhythm renders his verse far more enjoyable +than that of the formal age of Pope. + +Tennyson's extraordinary popularity in his own time was largely due to +the fact that he voiced so clearly and attractively the thought of the +age. As another epoch ushers in different interests, they will +naturally be uppermost in the mind of the new generation. We no longer +feel the intense interest of the Victorians in the supposed conflict +between science and religion. Their theory of evolution has been +modified and has lost the force of novelty. Theories of government and +social ideals have also undergone a gradual change. For these reasons +much of Tennyson's verse has ceased to have its former wide appeal. + +Tennyson has, however, left sufficient work of abiding value, both for +its exquisite form and for its thought, to entitle him to be ranked as +a great poet. We cannot imagine a time when _Crossing the Bar_, _The +Passing of Arthur_, and the central thought of _In Memoriam_-- + + "'Tis better to have loved and lost + Than never to have loved at all," + +will no longer interest readers. To Tennyson belong-- + + "Jewels five words long + That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time + Sparkle forever." + +ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, 1837-1909 + +[Illustration: ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, 1837-1909. _From the +painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti_.] + +Life.--Swinburne was born in London in 1837. His father was an +admiral in the English navy, and his mother, the daughter of an earl. +The boy passed his summers in Northumberland and his winters in the +Isle of Wight. He thus acquired that fondness for the sea, so +noticeable in his poetry. His early experiences are traceable in lines +like these:-- + + "Our bosom-belted billowy-blossoming hills, + Whose hearts break out in laughter like the sea." + +He went to Oxford for three years, but left without taking his degree. +The story is current that he knew more Greek than his teachers but +that he failed in an examination on the _Scriptures_. He sought to +complete his education by wide reading and by travel, especially in +France and Italy. + +When he was twenty-five, he went to live for a short time at 16 Cheyne +Walk, Chelsea, in the western part of London, in the same house with +Dante Gabriel Rossetti and George Meredith. Swinburne admired +Rossetti's poetry and was much impressed with the Pre-Raphaelite +virtues of simplicity and directness. + +Swinburne never married. His deafness caused him to pass much of his +long life in comparative retirement. His last thirty years were spent +with his friend, the critic and poet, Theodore Watts-Dunton, at Putney +on the Thames, a few miles southwest of London. Swinburne died in 1909 +and was buried at Bonchurch in the Isle of Wight. + +Works.--In 1864 England was enchanted with the melody of the +choruses in his _Atalanta in Calydon_, a dramatic poem in the old +Greek form. Lines like the following from the chorus, _The Youth of +the Year_, show the quality for which his verse is most famous:-- + + "When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, + The mother of months in meadow or plain + Fills the shadows and windy places + With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain." + +The first series of his _Poems and Ballads_ (1866) contains _The +Garden of Proserpine_, one of his best known poems. Proserpine +"forgets the earth her mother" and goes to her "bloomless" garden:-- + + "And spring and seed and swallow + Take wing for her and follow + Where summer song rings hollow + And flowers are put to scorn." + +Many volumes came in rapid succession from his pen. In 1904 his poems +were collected in six octavo volumes containing 2357 pages. This +collection includes the long narrative poems, _Tristram of Lyonesse_ +and _The Tale of Balen_, a faithful retelling of famous medieval +stories. He, however, had more ability as a writer of lyrics than of +narrative verse. + +His poetic dramas fill five additional volumes. _Chastelard_ (1865), +one of the three dramas relating to Mary Queen of Scots, is the best +of his plays. He had, however, neither the power to draw character nor +the repression of speech necessary for a great dramatist. The best +parts of his plays are really lyrical verse. + +Many critics think that Swinburne's reputation would be as great as it +now is, if he had ceased to write verse in 1866, at the age of +twenty-nine, after producing _Atalanta in Calydon_ and the first +series of his _Poems and Ballads_. Although his interests widened and +his poetic range increased, much of his work during his last forty +years is a repetition of earlier successes. His _Songs before +Sunrise_, however (1871), and the next two volumes of _Poems and +Ballads_ (1878 and 1889) contain some poems that rank among his best. + +Later in life he wrote a large amount of prose criticism, much of +which deals with the Elizabethan dramatists. His _A Study of +Shakespeare_ (1880) and his shorter _Shakespeare_ (1905) are +especially suggestive. In spite of the fact that the reader must make +constant allowance for his habit of using superlatives, he was an able +critic. + +General Characteristics.--Swinburne's poetry suffers from his +tendency to drown his ideas in a sea of words. + +Sometimes we gain no more definite ideas from reading many lines of +his verse than from hearing music without words. Much of his poetry +was suggested by wide reading, not by close personal contact with +life. His verse sometimes offends from disregarding moral proprieties +and from so expressing his atheism as to wound the feelings of +religious people. His idea of a Supreme Power was colored by the old +Grecian belief in Fate. In exact opposition to Wordsworth, Swinburne's +youthful poems show that he regarded Nature as the incarnation of a +Power malevolent to man. He lacked the optimism of Browning and the +faith of Tennyson. The mantle of Byron and Shelley fell on Swinburne +as the poet of revolt against what seemed to be religious or political +tyranny. + +After Tennyson's death, in 1892, Swinburne was the greatest living +English poet; but, even if his verse had not offended Queen Victoria +for the foregoing reasons, she would not have appointed him +poet-laureate after the misery of the Russians had moved him in 1890 +to write, referring to the Czar:-- + + "Night hath naught but one red star--Tyrannicide. + + "God or man, be swift; hope sickens with delay: + Smite and send him howling down his father's way." + +Swinburne's crowning glory is his unquestioned mastery, unsurpassed by +any poet since Milton, of the technique of varied melodious verse. +This quality is evident, no matter whether he is describing the +laughter of a child:-- + + "Sweeter far than all things heard, + Hand of harper, tone of bird, + Sound of woods at sundawn stirr'd, + Welling water's winsome ward, + Wind in warm wan weather," + +or expressing his fierce hatred for any condition or place where-- + + "...a curse was or a chain + A throne for torment or a crown for bane + Rose, moulded out of poor men's molten pain," + +or singing the song of a lover-- + + "If love were what the rose is, + And I were like the leaf, + Our lives would grow together + In sad or singing weather, + Blown fields or flowerful closes, + Green pleasure or grey grief; + If love were what the rose is, + And I were like the leaf;" + +or voicing his early creed-- + + "That no life lives forever; + That dead men rise up never; + That even the weariest river + Winds somewhere safe to sea," + +or chanting in far nobler strains the Anglo-Saxon belief in the +molding power of an infinite presence-- + + "I am in thee to save thee, + As my soul in thee saith, + Give thou as I gave thee, + Thy life-blood and breath, + Green leaves of thy labor, white flowers of thy thought, and red + fruit of thy death." + +RUDYARD KIPLING, 1865- + +[Illustration: RUDYARD KIPLING. _From the painting by John +Collier_.] + +Life.--Rudyard Kipling, the youngest of the great Victorians, was +born in Bombay, India, in 1865. His parents were people of culture and +artistic training, the father, John Lockwood Kipling, being a +recognized authority on Indian art. Like most English children born in +India, Kipling, when very small, was sent to England to escape the +fatal Indian heat. Afterwards in the story _Baa, Baa, Black Sheep_, +Kipling told the tragic experience of two Anglo-Indian children when +separated from their parents. If it is true that this story is largely +autobiographical, the separation must have been a trying ordeal in +Kipling's childhood. Later he spent several years at Westward Ho, +Devonshire, in a school conducted mainly for the sons of Indian +officials. _Stalky and Co._, a broadly humorous book of schoolboy +life, gives the Kipling of this period, in the character of the +"egregious Beetle." + +When only seventeen, he returned to India and immediately began +journalistic work. For seven years, first at Lahore and later at +Allahabad, he was busy with the usual hackwork of a small newspaper. +During these impressionable years, from seventeen to twenty-four, he +gained his intimate knowledge of the strangely-colored, many-sided +Indian life. His first stories and poems, often written in hot haste, +to fill the urgent need of more copy, appeared as waifs and strays in +the papers for which he wrote. A collection of verse, _Departmental +Ditties_, published at Lahore in 1886, was well received; and it was +quickly followed by several volumes of short stories. His ability thus +gained early recognition in India. + +At the age of twenty-four, he left India for London. Here his books +found a publisher almost at once, and he was hailed as a new literary +genius. His work became so popular that he was able to devote his +whole time to writing. It is doubtful whether any writer since Dickens +has received such quick and enthusiastic recognition from all classes +of the English-speaking race. Even the street-car conductors were +heard quoting him. + +In 1892 he married Miss Caroline Balestier, an American, and +afterwards lived for four years at Brattleboro, Vermont. Later he +settled in Sussex, England, whence he has made long journeys to South +Africa, Canada, and Egypt, amassing more knowledge of the English +"around the Seven Seas." + +Probably the most remarkable feature of Kipling's career is the early +age at which his genius developed. Before he left India he had +published one book of verse and seven prose collections. By the time +he was thirty, he had written _The Jungle Books_, most of his best +short stories, and some of his finest verse. + +Prose.--As a master of the modern short story, Kipling stands +unsurpassed. His journalistic work helped him to acquire a direct, +concentrated style of narrative, to find interest in an astonishing +variety of subjects, and to seize on the right details for vivid +presentation. He was fortunate in discovering in India a new literary +field, in which his genius appears at its best. Some of his early +tales of Indian life are marred by crudeness and by lack of feeling; +but these faults decreased as he matured. + +Kipling's stories depend for their interest on incident, not on +analysis. He embodies romantic adventure and action in masterpieces as +different as the terrible tragedy of _The Man Who would be King_ +(1888), the tender love story of _Without Benefit of Clergy_ (1890), +and the mystic dream-land of _The Brushwood Boy_ (1895). He specially +enjoyed portraying the English soldier. Perhaps his best-known +characters are the privates Mulvaney, Ortheris, and Learoyd, whom we +meet in such tales of mingled comedy and tragedy as _With the Main +Guard_ (1888), _On Greenhow Hill_ (1891), _The Incarnation of Krishna +Mulvaney_ (1891), _The Courting of Dinah Shadd_ (1981). + +When Kipling traveled to new lands, he wrote stories of America, +Africa, and the deep sea; but his later tales show an unfortunate +increase in the use of technical terms and a lessening of his former +dash and spontaneity. There are, however, readers who prefer such a +delicate, subtle, story as _They_ (1905), to his earlier masterpieces +of strenuous action. + +In _The Jungle Book_ (1894) and _The Second Jungle Book_ (1895), +Kipling has accomplished the greatest of feats,--an original creation. +From the moment the little brown baby, Mowgli, crawls into Mother +Wolf's cave away from Shere Khan, the tiger, until the time for him to +graduate from the jungle, we follow him under the spell of a +fascination different from any that we have known before. The animals +of the jungle have real personalities, from the chattering Bandar-log +to the lumbering kindly Baloo. With all their intense individuality, +they remain animals, each one true to his kind, hating or loving men, +thinking mainly through their instincts, and surpassing human +schoolmasters in teaching Mowgli the great laws of the jungle,--that +obedience is "the head and the hoof of the Law," that nothing was ever +yet lost by silence, that, in the jungle, life and food depend on +keeping one's temper, that no one shall kill for the pleasure of +killing. + +[Illustration: MOWGLI AND HIS BROTHERS. _By permission of Century +Company._] + +Above all stands the character of Mowgli, the wolf-adopted man-cub, +human and yet brother to the animals. With a touch of genius, Kipling +revealed the kinship between Mowgli and the denizens of the jungle. +Kipling's eyes could see both the harsh realism of animal existence +and the genuine idealism of Mother Wolf and the Pack and the +Jungle-law. + +_Just So Stories_ (1902), written primarily for children, but +entertaining to all, is a collection of romantic stories, mostly of +animals, illustrated by Kipling himself. One of the best of these +tales is _The Cat that Walked by Himself_, which has distinct ethical +value in showing how the cat through service won his place by the +fireside. + +Though Kipling has written four novels, only two, _The Light that +Failed_ (1891) and _Kim_ (1901), can compare with his best short +stories. _The Light that Failed_, the tragedy of an artist who becomes +blind, proves that Kipling was able to handle a long plot sufficiently +well to sustain interest. _Kim_ is an attempt to present as a more +completed whole that India of which the stories give only glimpses. On +the slenderest thread of plot is strung a bewildering array of scenes, +characters, and incidents. His intimate knowledge of India and his +photographic power of description are here used with remarkable +picturesque effect. + +[Illustration: THE CAT THAT WALKED. _Copyright, 1902, by Rudyard +Kipling._] + +Verse.--Kipling's poetry has many of the same qualities as his +prose,--originality, force, love of action. In _Barrack Room Ballads_ +(1892), the soldier is again celebrated in vigorous songs with +swinging choruses. _Mandalay, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, Danny Deever_, show what +spirited verse can be fashioned from a common ballad meter and a bold +use of dialect. + + "So 'ere's _to_ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan; + You're a pore benighted 'eathen, but a first class fightin' man; + An' 'ere's _to_ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'air-- + You big black boundin' beggar--for you broke a British square!" + +Much of his verse is political. His opinion of questions at issue is +sometimes given with much heat, but always with sincerity and true +patriotism. The best known of his patriotic songs, and perhaps his +noblest poetic effort, _The Recessional_ (1897), was inspired by the +fiftieth anniversary of Victoria's reign. _The Truce of the Bear_ +(1898) is a warning against Russia. _The Native-Born_ is a toast to +the colonies in every clime. + +Kipling's verse breaks with many of the accepted standards of English +verse. He does not aim at such pure beauty of form as we find in +Tennyson. He can handle skillfully many kinds of meter, as is shown in +_The Song of the English_, _The Ballad of East and West_, _The Song of +the Banjo_, and many sea lyrics. Yet he uses mostly the common +measures, attaining with these a free swing, a fitting of sound to +sense, that are irresistible to the many-- + + "Common tunes that make you choke and blow your nose, + Vulgar tunes that bring the laugh that brings the groan-- + I can rip your very heart-strings out with those."[17] + +Some of his later work shows increasing seriousness of tone. _The +Recessional_ and the _Hymn before Action_ are elevated in thought and +expression. The bigness of _L'Envoi_ shows poetic power capable of +higher flights:-- + + "And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall + blame; + And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame; + But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, + Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They + Are!"[18] + +General Characteristics.--Kipling has carried to their highest +development the principles of the Bret Harte School of short story +writers. His style possesses those qualities necessary for telling a +short tale,--directness, force, suggestiveness. Rarely has any writer +so mastered the technique, the craftsmanship of this particular +literary form. He has the gift of force and dramatic power, rather +than of beauty and delicacy. + +He excels in suggestive vivid description, and he draws wonderful +pictures of all out-of-doors, especially of the sea; but nature +remains merely the background for the human figures. Much of his +vividness lies in the use of specific words. If he should employ the +phraseology of his jungle laws to frame the first commandment for +writers, it would be: "_Seven times never_ be vague." Few authors have +at the very beginning of their career more implicitly heeded such a +commandment, obedience to which is evident in the following +description from _The Courting of Dinah Shadd_:-- + + "Over our heads burned the wonderful Indian stars, which are not + all pricked in on one plane, but preserving an orderly perspective, + draw the eye through the velvet darkness of the void up to the + barred doors of heaven itself. The earth was a grey shadow more + unreal than the sky. We could hear her breathing lightly in the + pauses between the howling of the jackals, the movement of the wind + in the tamarisks, and the fitful mutter of musketry-fire leagues + away to the left. A native woman from some unseen hut began to sing, + the mail train thundered past on its way to Delhi, and a roosting + crow cawed drowsily." + +Abundant and vivid use of metaphors serves to render his concreteness +more varied and impressive. We find these in such expressions as "the +velvet darkness," "the kiss of the rain," "the tree-road." His +celestial artists splash at a ten-league canvas "with brushes of +comet's hair." Five words from Mulvaney explain why he does not wish +to leave his tent: "'Tis rainin' intrenchin' tools outside." + +Kipling's spirit is essentially masculine. He prefers to write of men, +work, and battle, rather than of women and love. Since his interest is +mainly in action, he shows small ability in character drawing. His +people are clear-cut and alive, but we do not see them grow and +develop as do George Eliot's characters. + +Above all, he stands as the interpreter of the ideals and the +interests of the Anglo-Saxons of his time. Those tendencies of the +age, which seem to others so dangerously materialistic, are the very +causes of his zest in life. In an age of machinery, he writes of the +romance of steam, the soul of an engine, the flight of an airship. + +His is a work-a-day world; but in work well done, in obedience to the +established law, and in courage, he sees the proving of manhood, the +test of the true gentleman-- + + "Who had done his work and held his peace and had no fear to die." + +Underlying all his thought is a deep belief in the "God of our +fathers," a God just to punish or reward, whom the English have +reverenced through all their history. Linked with this faith is an +intense feeling of patriotism toward that larger England of his +imperialistic vision. + +These qualities justly brought Kipling the 1907 Nobel prize for +idealism in literature. He is truly the idealist of a practical age, +teaching the romance, the joy, the vision in the common facts and +virtues of present-day life. + +SUMMARY + +The history and literature of the Victorian age show the influence of +science. Darwin's conception of evolution affected all fields of +thought. The tendency toward analysis and dissection is a result of +scientific influence. + +In describing the prose of the Victorian age, we have considered the +work of thirteen writers; namely, Macaulay, the brilliant essayist and +historian of the material advancement of England; Newman, essayist and +theologian, who is noted for clear style, acute thought, and +argumentative power; Carlyle, who awoke in his generation a desire for +greater achievement, and who championed the spiritual interpretation +of life in philosophy and history; Ruskin, the apostle of the +beautiful and of more ideal relations in social life; the essayist +Pater, whose prose is tinged with poetic color and mystic thought; +Arnold, the great analytical critic; Dickens, educational and social +reformer, whose novels deal chiefly with the lower classes; Thackeray, +whose fiction is not surpassed in keen, satiric analysis of the upper +classes of society; George Eliot, whose realistic stories of +middle-class life show the influence of science in her conception of +character as an orderly ethical growth; Stevenson, an artist in style, +writer of romances, essays, and poems for children; Meredith, subtle +novelist, distinguished for his comic spirit and portrayal of male +egotism; Hardy, realistic novelist of the lowly life of Wessex; +Kipling, whose _Jungle Books_ are an original creation, and whose +short stories surpass those of all other contemporaries. + +In poetry, the age is best represented by five men; namely, Arnold, +who voices the feeling of doubt and unrest; Browning, who, by his +optimistic philosophy, leads to impregnable heights of faith, who +analyzes emotions and notes the development of souls as they struggle +against opposition from within and without, until they reach moments +of supreme victory or defeat; Tennyson, whose careful art mirrors in +beautiful verse much of the thought of the age, the influence of +science, the unrest, the desire to know the problems of the future, as +well as to steal occasional glances at beauty for its own sake; +Swinburne, the greatest artist since Milton in the technique of verse; +and Kipling, the poet of imperialistic England, whose ballads sing of +her soldiers and sailors, and whose lyrics proclaim the Anglo-Saxon +faith and joy in working. + +REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY + +HISTORICAL + +Walker's _Essentials in English History_, Cheney's _A Short History of +England_, McCarthy's _History of Our Own Times_, Cheney's _Industrial +and Social History of England_, Traill's _Social England_, VI. + +LITERARY + +_The Cambridge History of English Literature_. + +Walker's _The Literature of the Victorian Era_. + +Magnus's _English Literature in the Nineteenth Century_. + +Saintsbury's _A History of English Literature in the Nineteenth +Century_. + +Kennedy's _English Literature_, 1880-1905. + +Walker's _Greater Victorian Poets_. + +Brownell's _Victorian Prose Masters_. + +Payne's _The Greater English Poets of the Nineteenth Century_. + +Brooke's _Four Victorian Poets_ (Rossetti, Arnold, Morris). + +Perry's _A Study of Prose Fiction_. + +Benson's _Rossetti_. (E.M.L.) + +Noyes's _William Morris_. (E.M.L.) + +Trevelyan's _Life and Letters of Macaulay_. Morrison's _Macaulay_. +(E.M.L.) + +Minto's _English Prose Literature_ (Macaulay and Carlyle). + +Barry's _Newman_. + +Ward's _The Life of John Henry, Cardinal Newman_, 2 vols. + +Newman's _Letters and Correspondence, with a Brief Autobiography_. + +Carlyle's _Reminiscences_. + +Froude's _Thomas Carlyle_, 2 vols. Nichol's _Carlyle_. (E.M.L.) + +Garnett's _Thomas Carlyle_. (G.W.) + +Froude's _Jane Welsh Carlyle_, 2 vols. + +T. and A. Carlyle's _New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle_. + +Cook's _The Life of John Ruskin_, 2 vols. + +Ruskin's _Praeterita, Scenes and Thoughts of My Past Life_. + +Benson's _Ruskin: A Study in Personality_. + +Earland's _Ruskin and his Circle_. + +Harrison's _John Ruskin_. (E.M.L.) + +Birrell's _Life of Charlotte Bronte_. + +Foster's _Life of Dickens_ (abridged and revised by Gissing). + +Kitton's _Dickens, his Life, Writings, and Personality_. + +Gissing's _Charles Dickens: A Critical Study_. + +Chesterton's _Charles Dickens_. Hughes's _Dickens as an Educator_. + +Philip's _A Dickens Dictionary_. + +Melville's _William Makepeace Thackeray_, 2 vols. + +Trollope's _Thackeray_. (E.M.L.) + +Merivale and Marzials's _Life of Thackeray_. (G.W.) + +Mudge and Sears's _A Thackeray Dictionary_. + +Cross's _George Eliot's Life as Related in her Letters and Journals_. + +Browning's _Life of George Eliot_. (G.W.) Stephens's _George Eliot_. +(E.M.L.) + +Cook's _George Eliot: A Critical Study of her Life, Writings, and +Philosophy_. + +Olcott's _George Eliot: Scenes and People in Her Novels_. + +Hamilton's _Robert Louis Stevenson_. + +Balfour's _The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson_, 2 vols. + +_The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson_, edited by Sidney Colvin. + +Raleigh's _Robert Louis Stevenson_. Hamerton's _Stevensoniana_. + +Japp's _Robert Louis Stevenson_. + +Hamerton's _George Meredith: His Life and Art in Anecdote and +Criticism_. + +_Letters of George Meredith_, 2 vols. + +Sturge Henderson's _George Meredith_. + +Bailey's _The Novels of George Meredith: A Study_. + +Trevelyan's _The Poetry and Philosophy of George Meredith_. + +Beach's _The Comic Spirit in George Meredith_. + +Lionel Johnson's _The Art of Thomas Hardy_. + +Macdonell's _Thomas Hardy_. + +Abercrombie's _Thomas Hardy: A Critical Study_. + +Saxelby's _Thomas Hardy Dictionary_. + +Phelps's _Essays on Modern Novelists_ (Hardy, Kipling, Stevenson). + +Benson's _Walter Pater_. (E.M.L.) + +Paul's _Matthew Arnold_. (E.M.L.) + +Saintsbury's _Matthew Arnold_. + +_Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett_. + +Griffin and Minchin's _The Life of Robert Browning_. + +Chesterton's _Robert Browning_. (E.M.L.) + +Sharp's _Life of Browning_. (G.W.) + +Symons's _An Introduction to the Study of Browning_. + +Foster's _The Message of Robert Browning_. + +Orr's _A Handbook to the works of Robert Browning_. + +_Alfred, Lord Tennyson, A Memoir_, by his son. + +Benson's _Alfred Tennyson_ (the best brief work). + +Lyall's _Tennyson_. (E.M.L.) + +Brooke's _Tennyson: His Art and Relation to Modern Life_. + +Van Dyke's _The Poetry of Tennyson_. + +Gordon's _The Social Ideals of Alfred Tennyson_. + +Lackyer's _Tennyson as a Student and Poet of Nature_. + +Luce's _Handbook to the Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson_. + +Woodberry's _Swinburne_. + +Thomas's _Algernon Charles Swinburne: A Critical Study_. + +Knowles's _Kipling Primer_. + +Le Galliene's _Rudyard Kipling, A Criticism_. + +Clemens's _A Ken of Kipling_. + +Young's _Dictionary of the Characters and Scenes in the Stories and +Poems of Rudyard Kipling_. + +Canby's _The Short Story in English_ (Kipling). + +Cooper's _Some English Story Tellers_ (Kipling). + +Leeb-Lundberg's _Word Formation in Kipling_ (excellent). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +The Pre-Raphaelites.--Read Rossetti's _The Blessed Damozel_, _Sister +Helen_, _The King's Tragedy_, _Love's Nocturne_, and _Mary's +Girlhood_. All of these are given in Page's _British Poets of the +Nineteenth Century_. Selections may be found in Bronson,[19] IV., +_Century_, _Oxford Book of Victorian verse_, and Manly, I. Selections +from Christina Rossetti's Pre-Raphaelite verse are given in all except +Page. + +From William Morris, read _Two Red Roses Across the Moon_, _The_ +_Defence of Guenevere_ (Page's _British Poets_), and the selections +from _The Earthly Paradise_ in either Page, _Century_, Bronson, IV., +or Manly, I. + +What part did Ruskin play in this new movement? Point out the +simplest, the most affecting, and the most pleasing stanza in _The +Blessed Damozel_. What Pre-Raphaelite qualities in this poem have made +it such a favorite? What are the chief characteristics of Rossetti's +other verse? Note specially Miss Rossetti's religious verse. + +What Pre-Raphaelite qualities do Morris's _Two Red Roses across the +Moon_ (1858) and _The Defence of Guenevere_ (1858) show? Compare this +early verse with the selections from _The Earthly Paradise_ +(1868-1870). + +Macaulay.--Read either the _Essay on Milton_ or the _Essay on +Addison_ (_Eclectic English Classics_ or _Gateway Series_) or the +selections in Craik, V., Manly, II., _Century_, or Dickinson and Roe's +_Nineteenth Century Prose_. + +Read _History of England_, Chap. IX., or the selections in Craik V., +or _Century_, or Manly, II. + +What are some of the qualities that cause Macaulay's writings to +outstrip in popularity other works of a similar nature? What qualities +in his style may be commended to young writers? What are his special +defects? Contrast his narrative style in Chap. IX. of the _History_ +with Carlyle's in _The French Revolution_, Vol. I., Book V., Chap. VI. + +Newman.--The best volume of selections is edited by Lewis E. Gates +(228 pages, 75 cents). Dickinson and Roe's _Nineteenth Century English +Prose_ contains Newman's essay on _Literature_. Selections are given +in Craik V., _Century_, and Manly, II. + +Compare his style with Macaulay's and note the resemblance and the +difference. Why did Newman call himself a rhetorician? What qualities +does he add to those of a rhetorician? Select passages that show his +special clearness, concreteness, also his rhetorical and argumentative +power. + +Carlyle.--Read the _Essay on Robert Burns_ (_Eclectic English +Classics_ or _Gateway Series_); _Sartor Resartus_, Book III., Chap. +VI. (_Everyman's Library_); _The French Revolution_, Vol. I., Book V., +Chap. VI. (_Everyman's Library_). Selections may be found in Craik, +V., _Century_, Manly, II., and Evans's Carlyle (_Masters of +Literature_). + +What marked difference in manner of treatment is shown in Macaulay's +_Milton_ or _Addison_ and Carlyle's _Burns_? What was Carlyle's +message in _Sartor Resartus_? What did Huxley and Tyndale say of his +influence? What are the most noteworthy qualities of _The French +Revolution_? What are the chief characteristics of Carlyle's style? + +Ruskin.--In Vol. I., Part II., of _Modern Painters_, read the first +part of Chap. I. of Sec. III., Chap. I. of Sec. IV., and Chap. I. of +Sec. V., and note Ruskin's surprising accuracy of knowledge in dealing +with aspects of the natural world. _The Stones of Venice_, Vol. III., +Chap. IV., states Ruskin's theory of art and its close relation to +morality. Excellent selections from the various works of Ruskin will +be found in _An Introduction to the Writings of John Ruskin_, by Vida +D. Scudder. Selections are also given in _Century_, Manly, II., +_Riverside Literature Series_, and Bronson's _English Essays (Modern +Painters and Fors Clavigera). Sesame and lilies, The King of the +Golden River_, and _The Stones of Venice_ are published in _Everyman's +Library_. + +What was the message of _Modern Painters_? of _The Stones of Venice_? +of _Fors Clavigera_? Why is Ruskin called a disciple of Carlyle? +Select a passage from Ruskin's descriptive prose and indicate its +chief qualities. + +Bronte, Bulwer Lytton, Gaskell, Trollope, Kingsley, Reade, Blackmore, +and Barrie.--_Jane Eyre_ (Charlotte Bronte), _Wuthering Heights_ +(Emily Bronte), _Last Days of Pompeii_ (Lytton), _Cranford_ (Gaskell), +_Barchester Towers_ (Trollope), _Westward Ho!_ (Kingsley), _The +Cloister and the Hearth_ (Reade), and _Lorna Doone_ (Blackmore) are +all published in _Everyman's Library_. Barrie's _The Little Minister_ +is included in Burt's _Home Library_. The works of the Bronte sisters +will be much more appreciated if Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte +Bronte (Everyman's Library)_ is read first. The novels by the Bronte +sisters, Mrs. Gaskell, Trollope, and Barrie record their impressions +of contemporary life. The other novels are historical. Lytton gives a +vivid account of the last days of Pompeii. Kingsley thrills with his +story of the sailors of Elizabeth's time. Reade, who studied libraries +to insure the accuracy of _The Cloister and the Hearth_, portrays +vividly the oncoming of the Renaissance in he fifteenth century. +Blackmore's great story, which records some incidents of the Monmouth +rebellion (1685), is written more to interest than to throw light on +history. + +Dickens.--The first works of Dickens to be read are _Pickwick +Papers, A Christmas Carol, and David Copperfield_. These are all +published in _Everyman's Library_. Craik, V., gives "Mr. Pickwick on +the Ice," "Christmas at the Cratchit's," and two scenes from _David +Copperfield_. + +Select passages that show (a) humor, (b) pathos, (c) sympathy with +children, (d) optimism. Describe some one of the characters. Can you +instance a case here a mannerism is made to take the place of other +characterization? Is Dickens a master of plot? of style? + +Thackeray.--Read _Henry Esmond (Eclectic English Classics)_ and _The +English Humorists of the Fifteenth Century_ (Macmillan's _Pocket +Classics_). Craik, V., and Manly, II. give selections. + +Contrast the manner of treatment in Thackeray's historical novel, +_Henry Esmond_, and in Scott's historical romance, _Ivanhoe_. +Thackeray says: "The best humor is that which contains most +humanity--that which is flavored throughout with tenderness and +kindness." Would this serve as a definition of Thackeray's own style +of humor? State definitely how he differs from Dickens in portraying +character. Compare Thackeray's _English Humorists_ with Macaulay's +_Milton_ and Carlyle's _Burns_. Which essay leaves the most definite +ideas? Which is the most interesting? Which has the most atmosphere? +How should you characterize Thackeray's style? + +George Eliot.--Read _Silas Marner_ (_Eclectic English Classics_ or +_Gateway Series_), or selections in Craik, V., or Manly, II. In what +does the chief strength of _Silas Marner_ consist,--in the plot, the +characters, or the description? Does the ethical purpose of this novel +grow naturally out of the story? Is the inner life or only the outward +appearance of the characters revealed? Wherein do they show growth? + +Stevenson.--Read _Treasure Island_ (_Eclectic English Classics_ or +_Gateway Series_), _Inland Voyage_, and _Travels with a Donkey_ +(_Gateway Series_). From the essays read _Child's Play, Aes Triplex_ +(both in _Virginibus Puerisque_). Some of the essays and best short +stories (including _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_) are given in Canby and +Pierce's _Selections from Robert Louis Stevenson_. From the volume of +poems called _Underwoods_, read _The Celestial Surgeon and Requiem. A +Child's Garden of Verse_ may be read entire in an hour. + +_Compare Treasure Island_ with _Robinson Crusoe_. What are the chief +characteristics of _An Inland Voyage_ and _Travels with a Donkey_? Why +is he called a romantic writer? As an essayist, compare him with +Thackeray. What are the special qualities of his style? + +George Meredith.--_The Egoist_ is Meredith's most representative +novel. _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ and _Diana of the Crossways_ +are also masterpieces. From the _Poems_ read _Love in the Valley, The +Lark Ascending, Melanthus, Jump-to-Glory Jane_. + +What is the central purpose of The Egoist? Select specially +Meredithian passages which show his general characteristics. Can you +find any other author whose humor resembles Meredith's? Would he +naturally be more popular with men or with women? + +Hardy.--Hardy's most enjoyable novel is _Far from the Madding Crowd. +The Return of the Native_ is one of his strongest works. + +What are some of the most striking differences between him and +Meredith? Which one is naturally the better story-teller? Where are +the scenes of most of Hardy's novels laid? What is his theory of life? + +Arnold.--Read _Dover Beach, Memorial Verses, Stanzas in Memory of +the Author of "Obermann" and Sohrab and Rustum_ (Page's _British Poets +of the Nineteenth Century_, Bronson, IV., Manly, I.). + +Is Arnold the poet of fancy or of reflection? How does his poetry show +one phase of nineteenth-century thought? + +Arnold's _Essays, Literary and Critical_ are published in _Everyman's +Library_. The best volume of selections from the prose writings of +Arnold is the one edited by Lewis E. Gates (348 pages, 75 cents). Good +selections are given in Craik, V., Manly, I. (_Sweetness and light_), +_Century_ (_The Study of Poetry_). Arnold's _Introduction_ to Ward, +I., is well worth reading. + +What quality specially marks Arnold's criticism? Compare him as a +critic with Coleridge, Macaulay, Carlyle, and Thackeray. What are the +advantages and disadvantages of a style like Arnold's? + +Pater.--Read the essay, _Leonardo da Vinci_ (Dickinson and Roe's +_Nineteenth Century Prose_, pp. 338-368), from Pater's "golden book," +_The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Literature_. E.E. Hale's +_Selections from Walter Pater_ (268 pages, 75 cents) gives +representative selections. Manly, II., and _Century_ give the essay on +_Style_. + +What are the chief characteristics of Pater's style? Compare it with +Macaulay's, Newman's, Ruskin's, and Matthew Arnold's. Has Pater a +message? Does he show the spirit of the time? + +The Brownings.--From Elizabeth Barrett Browning, read _Cowper's +Grave, the Cry of the Children_, and from her _Sonnets from the +Portuguese_, Nos. I., III., VI., X., XVIII., XX., XXVI., XXVIII., +XLI., XLIII. + +Mrs. Browning's verse comes from the heart and should be felt rather +than criticized. Fresh interest may, however, by given to a study of +her _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, by comparing them with any other +series of love sonnets, excepting Shakespeare's. + +Robert Browning's shorter poems are best for the beginner, who should +read _Rabbi Ben Ezra, Abt Vogler, Home Thoughts from Abroad, Prospice, +Saul, The Pied Piper of Hamelin._ Baker's _Browning's Shorter Poems +(Macmillan's Pocket Classics)_ contains a very good collection of his +shorter poems. Representative selections from Browning's poems are +given in Page's _British Poets of the Nineteenth Century, Oxford Book +of Victorian Verse_, Bronson, IV., Manly, I., and _Century_. + +Browning's masterpiece, _The Ring and the Book (Oxford Edition_, +Oxford University Press) would be apt to repel beginners. This should +be studied only after a previous acquaintance with his shorter poems. + +Define Browning's creed as found in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_. Is he an ethical +teacher? Is there any similarity between his teaching and Carlyle's? +What most interests Browning,--word-painting, narration, action, +psychological analysis, or technique of verse? See whether a +comparison of his _Prospice_ with Tennyson's _Crossing the Bar_ does +not help you to understand Browning's peculiar cast of mind. What +qualities in Browning entitle him to be ranked as a great poet? + +Tennyson.--From his 1842 volume, read the poems mentioned on page +556. From _The Princess_, read the lyrical songs; from _In Memoriam_, +the parts numbered XLI., LIV., LVII., and CXXXI.; from _Maud_, the +eleven stanzas beginning: "Come into the garden, Maud"; from _The +Idylls of the King_, read _Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, +The Passing of Arthur_ (Van Dyke's edition in _Gateway Series_); from +his later poems, _The Higher Pantheism, Locksley Hall Sixty Years +After_, and _Crossing the Bar_. + +The best single volume edition of Tennyson's works is published in +Macmillan's _Globe Poets_. Selections are given in Page's _British +Poets of the Nineteenth Century_, Bronson, IV., _Oxford Book of +Victorian Verse_, Manly, I., and _Century_. + +In _The Palace of Art_, study carefully the stanzas from XIV. to +XXIII., which are illustrative of Tennyson's characteristic style of +description. Compare _Locksley Hall_ with _Locksley Hall Sixty Years +After_, and note the difference in thought and metrical form. Does the +later poem show a gain over the earlier? Compare Tennyson's nature +poetry with that of Keats and Wordsworth. To what is chiefly due the +pleasure in reading Tennyson's poetry: to the imagery, form, thought? +What idea of his faith do you gain from _In Memoriam_ and _The Passing +of Arthur_? In what is Tennyson the poetic exponent of the age? Is it +probable that Tennyson's popularity will increase or wane? Select some +of his verse that you think will be as popular a hundred years hence +as now. + +Swinburne.--Read _A Song in Time of Order, The Youth of the Year +(Atlanta in Calydon), A Match, The Garden of Proserpine, Hertha, By +the North Sea, The Hymn of Man, The Roundel, A Child's Laughter_. + +The most of the above are given in Page's _British Poets of the +Nineteenth Century_, Bronson, IV., Manly, I., _Century, Oxford Book of +Victorian Verse_. + +Compare both the metrical skill and poetic ideas of Swinburne and +Tennyson. Can you find any poet who surpasses Swinburne in the +technique of verse? What are his chief excellencies and faults? + +Kipling.--Read _The Jungle Books_. The following are among the best +of his short stories: _The Man Who Would be King, The Brushwood Boy, +The Courting of Dinah Shadd, Drums of the Fore and Aft, Without +Benefit of Clergy, On Greenhow Hill_. + +From his poems read _Mandalay, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, Danny Deever, The 'Eathen, +Ballad of East and West, Recessional, The White Man's Burden_; also +_Song of the Banjo_, and _L'Envoi_ from _Seven Seas_, published by +Doubleday, Page and Company. + +Why is _The Jungle Book_ called an original creation? What are the +most distinctive dualities of Kipling's short stories? Point out in +what respects they show the methods of the journalist. How does +Kipling sustain the interest? What limitations do you notice? What is +specially remarkable about his style? What are the principal +characteristics of his verse? What subjects appeal to him? Why is his +verse so popular? + +Minor Poets.--Read the selections from Clough, Henley, Bridges, +Davidson, Thompson, Watson, Dobson and Symons in either _The Oxford +Book of Victorian Verse_ or Stevenson's _The Home Book of Verse. The +Poetical Works of Robert Bridges_ is inexpensively published by the +Oxford University Press. Dobson's verse has been gathered into the +single volume _Collected Poems_ (1913). + +What are the chief characteristics of each of the above authors? Do +these minor versifiers fill a want not fully supplied by the great +poets? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER IX: + +[Footnote 1: _A Liberal Education and Where to Find It_ (_Lay +Sermons_).] + +[Footnote 2: For suggested readings in Pater, see p. 584.] + +[Footnote 3: Pp. 225-364 of the Oxford University Press edition of his +_Poetical Works_.] + +[Footnote 4: Printed by permission of The Macmillan Company.] + +[Footnote 5: Given in Stevenson's _Home Book of Verse_ and _The Oxford +Book of Victorian Verse_.] + +[Footnote 6: _History of England_, Vol. III, Chap. XI.] + +[Footnote 7: Morison's _Life of Macaulay_, p. 139.] + +[Footnote 8: _The Idea of a University_ (_Literature: A Lecture_).] + +[Footnote 9: _For Claviers_, Letter I.] + +[Footnote 10: _Praeterita_, Vol. II., Chap. V.] + +[Footnote 11: _Silas Marner_, Chap. VI.] + +[Footnote 12: _The Scholar Gypsy_.] + +[Footnote 13: _A Southern Light_.] + +[Footnote 14: _The Grande Chartreuse_.] + +[Footnote 15: _Home Thoughts from Abroad_.] + +[Footnote 16: A.C. Benson's _Alfred Tennyson_, p. 157.] + +[Footnote 17 & 18: Printed by permission of Rudyard Kipling and +Doubleday, Page and Company.] + +[Footnote 19: For full titles, see p. 6.] + + +CHAPTER X: TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE + +Interest in the Present.--One result of the growing scientific +spirit has been an increasing interest in contemporary problems and +literature. At the beginning of the Victorian age, the chief part of +the literature studied in college was nearly two thousand years old. +When English courses were finally added, they frequently ended with +Milton. To-day, however, many colleges have courses in strictly +contemporary literature. The scientific attitude toward life has +caused a recognition of the fact that he who disregards current +literature remains ignorant of a part of the life and thought of +to-day and that he resembles the mathematician who neglects one factor +in the solution of a problem. + +It is true that the future may take a different view of all +contemporary things, including literature; but this possibility does +not justify neglect of the present. We should also remember that +different stages in the growth of nations and individuals constantly +necessitate changes in estimating the relative importance of the +thought of former centuries. + +The Trend of Contemporary Literature.--The diversity of taste in the +wide circle of twentieth-century readers has encouraged authors of +both the realistic and the romantic schools. The main tendency of +scientific influence and of the new interest in racial welfare is +toward realism. In his stories of the "Five Towns," Arnold Bennett +shows how the dull industrial life affects the character of the +individual. Much of the fiction of H.G. Wells presents matter of +scientific or sociological interest. Poets like John Masefield and +Wilfrid Gibson sing with an almost prosaic sincerity of the life of +workmen and of the squalid city streets. The drama is frequently a +study of the conditions affecting contemporary life. + +Twentieth-century writers are not, however, neglecting the other great +function of literature,--to charm life with romantic visions and to +bring to it deliverance from care. The poetry of Noyes takes us back +to the days of Drake and to the Mermaid Inn, where we listen to +Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Jonson. The Irish poets and dramatists +disclose a world of the "Ever-Young," where there is:-- + + "A laughter in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass." + +The influence of the great German skeptic, Friedrich Nietzsche +(1844-1900), appears in some of Shaw's dramas, as well as in the +novels of Wells; but the poets of this age seem to have more faith +than Swinburne or Matthew Arnold or some of the minor versifiers of +the last quarter of the nineteenth century. + +Two prominent essayists, Arthur Christopher Benson (1862- ) and +Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874- ) are sincere optimists. Such volumes +of Benson's essays as _From a College Window_ (1906), _Beside Still +Waters_ (1907), and _Thy Rod and Thy Staff_ (1912) have strengthened +faith and proved a tonic to many. Chesterton is a suggestive and +stimulating essayist in spite of the fact that he often bombards his +readers with too much paradox. Early in life he was an agnostic and a +follower of Herbert Spencer, but he later became a champion of +Christian faith. Sometimes Chesterton seems to be merely clever, but +he is usually too thought-provoking to be read passively. His _Robert +Browning_ (1903), _Varied Types_ (1903), _Heretics_ (1905), _George +Bernard Shaw_ (1909), and _The Victorian Age in Literature_ (1913) +keep most readers actively thinking. + +THE NOVEL + +Joseph Conrad.--This son of distinguished Polish exiles from Russia, +Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski, as he was originally named, was born in +the Ukraine, in 1857. Until his nineteenth year he was unfamiliar with +the English language. Instead of following the literary or military +traditions of his family, he joined the English merchant marine. +Sailing the seas of the world, touching at strange tropical ports and +uncharted islands, elbowing all the races of the globe, hearing all +the languages spoken by man,--such were Conrad's activities between +his twentieth and thirty-seventh years. + +[Illustration: JOSEPH CONRAD.] + +At thirty-seven, needing a little rest, he settled in England and +began to write. Short stories, novels, and an interesting +autobiographical volume, _A Personal Record_ (1912), represent +Conrad's production. Among his ablest books are _Tales of Unrest_ +(1898), a volume of sea stories, and _Lord Jim_ (1900), a novel full +of the fascination of strange seas and shores, but still more +remarkable for its searching analysis of a man's recovery of +self-respect after a long period of remorse for failure to meet a +momentary crisis. _Youth, A Narrative, and Two Other Tales_ (1902), +contains one of Conrad's strongest stories, _The End of the Tether_. +This is a tender story of an old sea captain, who for the sake of a +cherished daughter holds his post against terrific odds, including +blindness and disgrace. _Typhoon_ (1903) is an almost unrivaled +account of a ship's fight against mad hurricanes and raging seas. + +One of Conrad's prime distinctions is his power to visualize scenes. +The terror, beauty, caprice, and mercilessness of the sea; the silence +and strangeness of the impenetrable tropical forest; atmospheres tense +with storm or brilliant with sunshine,--these he records with strong +effect. But though he has gained his fame largely as a chronicler of +remote seas and shores, his handling of the human element is but +little less impressive. + +Conrad's method is unusual. Though his sentences are sufficiently +direct and terse, his general order of narration is not +straightforward. He often seems to progress slowly at the start, but +after the characters have been made familiar, the story proceeds to +its powerful and logical conclusion. + +Arnold Bennett.--Bennett was born in Hanley, North Staffordshire, in +1867. He studied law, but abandoned it to become for seven years an +editor of _Woman_, a London periodical. In 1900 he resigned this +position to devote himself entirely to literature. He went to France +to live, and began to write novels under the influence of the French +and Russian realistic novelists. + +[Illustration: ARNOLD BENNETT.] + +Bennett is the author of many works of uneven merit. Some of these +were written merely to strike the popular taste and to sell. His +serious, careful work is seen at its best in his stories of the _Five +Towns_, so called from the small towns of his native Staffordshire. +One of the best of these novels, _The Old Wives' Tale_ (1908), is a +painstaking record of the different temperaments and experiences of +two sisters, from their happy childhood to a pathetic, disillusioned +old age. The intimate, homely revelations and the literal fidelity to +life in _The Old Wives' Tale_ give it a high rank among +twentieth-century English novels. + +_Clayhanger_ (1910) is another strong story of life in the "Five +Towns" pottery district of Staffordshire. Although the hero, Edwin +Clayhanger, is not a strong personality, Bennett's art makes us keenly +interested in Edwin's simple, impressionable nature, in his eagerness +for life, and in his experiences as a young dreamer, lover, son, and +brother. _Hilda Lessways_ (1911), a companion volume to _Clayhanger_, +but a story of less power, continues the history of the same +characters. Bennett reveals in these novels one of his prime +gifts,--the skill to paint domestic pictures vividly and to invest +them with a distinct local atmosphere. His art has won a signal +triumph in arousing interest in simple scenes and average characters. +He can present the romance of the commonplace,--of gray, dull +monotonous, almost negative existence. + +He has enlivened the contemporary stage with a few brisk comedies. +_Milestones_ was written in collaboration with Edward Knoblauch, an +American author. Its characters, representing three generations, +illustrate humorously the truth that what is to-day's innovation +becomes to-morrow's August convention. _The Honeymoon_ (1911) is a +farce of misunderstandings adroitly handled. + +Although Bennett has shown great versatility, yet his individual, +strong, and vital work is found in the one field where he brings us +face to face with the circumscribed, but appealing life of the "Five +Towns" district of his youth. + +John Galsworthy.--John Galsworthy was born in Coombe, Surrey, in +1867. He was graduated from Oxford with an honor degree in law in 1889 +and was called to the bar in 1890. He traveled for a large part of two +years, visiting, among other places, Russia, Canada, Australia, South +Africa, and the Fiji Islands. On one of these trips he met Joseph +Conrad, then a sailor, and they became warm friends. Galsworthy was +twenty-eight when he began to write. + +[Illustration: JOHN GALSWORTHY.] + +Four of his novels deal with the upper classes of English society. +_The Man of Property_ (1906) treats of the wealthy class, _The Country +House_ (1907) presents the conservative country squire, _Fraternity_ +(1909) portrays the intellectual class, and _The Patrician_ (1911) +pictures the aristocrat. Galsworthy is the relentless analyist of +well-to-do, conventional English society. As Frederic Taber Cooper +well says, "British stolidity, British conservatism, the unvarying +fixity of the social system, the sacrifice of individual needs and +cravings to caste and precedent and public opinion,--these are the +themes which Mr. Galsworthy never wearies of satirizing with a mordant +irony." + +Since his object is to present problems of life, many of his +characters are but types. On the other hand, Soames Forsyte in _The +Man of Property_, Lord Miltoun, Mrs. Noel, and Lady Casterley in _The +Patrician_, are among the most brilliant and real characters in modern +fiction. Galsworthy's style is clear, his plot construction is +excellent, and his humor in caricaturing social types has many of the +qualities of Dickens's. + +Herbert George Wells.--Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, in 1866. He +expected to be a shopkeeper and was apprenticed in his fourteenth year +to a chemist; but this did not satisfy his ambition. Later, however, +he won scholarships that enabled him to take a degree in science. +While preparing himself to graduate from the University of London, he +worked in Huxley's laboratory. The experiments there inspired him to +write stories based on scientific facts and hypotheses, such as _The +Time Machine_ (1895) and _In the Days of the Comet_ (1906). Wells is +also vitally interested in problems of sociology. The _Discovery of +the Future_ (1902) and _The Future in America_ (1906) present +possibilities of scientifically planning man's further development. +_Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul_ (1905) and _Marriage_ (1912) are +his best works, considered as actual novels of character. _Kipps_ is a +bitter but strong portrayal of the pretense and hypocrisy of society +and of its inertia in responding to human needs, and _Marriage_ is a +subtle, psychological analysis of a conjugal misunderstanding and an +attempted readjustment. Wells's study of man as a biological +development and his preference of actual facts to sentimental +conclusions are in accord with the trend of modern social science. + +[Illustration: HERBERT GEORGE WELLS.] + +The work of Wells covers a wide range of subjects. He has written +scientific romances, blood-curdling tales, strange phantasies, +prophetic Utopias, and sociological novels. He shows an increasing +tendency to depict the human struggle with environment, heredity, and +the manifold forces that affect the earning of a livelihood. His +characters are more often remembered as specimens exhibiting some +phase of life than as attractive or repellent personalities. +Increasing power of portraying character, however, is evident in his +later work. He has a daring imagination, a sense of humor, satiric +power, and a capacity for expressing himself in vivid and picturesque +English. + +Eden Phillpotts was born in India in 1862. His novels, however, are +as definitely associated with Devonshire as Hardy's are with Wessex, +and Bennett's with North Staffordshire. Phillpotts is noted for his +power to paint "landscapes with figures." The "figures" are the +farmers, villagers, and shepherds of that part of Devon, known as +Dartmoor; and the landscapes are the granite crags, the moors; and +farmlands of "good red earth." _Widecombe Fair_ (1913) is the +twentieth volume that he has published as a result of twenty years' +work among these children of Devon. Sometimes the roughness and +untutored emotions of the Dartmoor characters repel the readers; but +these characters form strong, picturesque groups of human beings, and +their dialect adds a pleasant flavor to the novels. Phillpotts's +frequent use of coincidences weakens the effect and mars the +naturalness of the plot, since their recurrence comes to be +anticipated. _Children of the Mist_ (1898) and _Demeter's Daughter_ +(1911) are among his ablest novels. + +Maurice Hewlett was born in Kent in 1861, of an old Somerset family. +He began writing in his boyhood, giving proof even then of his skill +in catching the manner of other writers. His style to-day reechoes his +reading of many authors in Latin, French, Italian, and English. + +_The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay_ (1900) shows Hewlett's +romantic fancy and love for historical characters and pageants. While +this novel is full of life, color, and movement, it displays his +proneness to allow the romantic vein to run to the fantastic in both +episode and style. _The Stooping Lady_ (1907) deals with the love of a +lady of high degree for a humble youth whom her devotion ennobles. + +Hewlett's style is finished and richly poetical, but often too ornate +and too encrusted with archaic terms and other artificial forms. + +Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, born in Cornwall in 1863, is a fiction +writer, critic, poet, and anthologist. Having much of Stevenson's love +for romantic adventure, he was chosen to finish _St. Ives_, left +incomplete by Stevenson. _The Splendid Spur_ (1889), a spirited tale +of romance and war in the perturbed time of Charles I., is one of his +best stories of adventure. + +Among his books on simple Cornish life may be mentioned _The +Delectable Duchy_ (1893). It is a collection of short stories and +sketches. Quiller-Couch sees life without a touch of morbid somberness +and he commands a vivacious, highly-trained style. + +William Frend De Morgan was born in London, in 1839. He published +his first novel, _Joseph Vance_ (1906), at the age of sixty-seven. +This plain, straightforward story of a little boy befriended by a +generous-hearted London doctor won for De Morgan wide and hearty +applause. While some contemporary writers fashion their style and +select their material on the models of French or Russian realists, De +Morgan goes to the great English masters, Thackeray and Dickens. Like +them, De Morgan writes copiously and leisurely. + +_Alice-for-Short_ (1907) and _Somehow Good_ (1908) are strong novels, +but _Joseph Vance_, with its carelessly constructed plot and power to +awaken tears and smiles, remains De Morgan's best piece of fiction. + +William John Locke was born in the Barbados in 1863. He gained much +of his reputation from his tenth book, _The Beloved Vagabond_ (1906). +The book takes its charm from the whimsical and quixotic temperament +of the hero. He is typical of Locke's other leading characters, who, +like Hamlet's friend, Horatio, take "fortune's buffets and rewards +with equal thanks." Like other novels by the same author, this story +is pervaded by a distinctly Bohemian atmosphere, wherein the ordinary +conventions of society are disregarded. + +Locke's humor, his deft characterization, his toleration of human +failings, largely compensate for his lack of significant plots. He is +sometimes whimsical to the point of eccentricity, and his high spirits +often verge on extravagance; but at his best he has the power of +refreshing the reader with gentle irony, genial laughter, and love for +human kind. + +Israel Zangwill, the Jewish writer, was born in London in 1864. He +first won fame by interpreting the Jewish temperament as he saw it +manifested in London's dingy, pitiful Ghetto quarter. "This Ghetto +London of ours," he says, "is a region where, amid uncleanness and +squalor, the rose of romance blows yet a little longer in the raw air +of English reality, a world of dreams as fantastic and poetic as the +mirage of the Orient where they were woven." + +In his volume, _The Children of the Ghetto_ (1892), Zangwill admirably +chronicles the lives of these people and the sharp contrasts between +their quaint traditions and a great modern commercial city's customs. + +POETRY + +The Celtic Renaissance.--Some of the best recent English verse has +been written by poets of Irish birth or sympathies. Because of the +distinctive quality of both the poetry and prose of these Celtic +writers, the term "Celtic Renaissance" has been applied to their work, +which glows with spiritual emotion and discloses a world of dreams, +fairies, and romantic aspiration. As Richard Wagner received from the +Scandinavian folk-lore the inspiration for his great music, as +Tennyson found the incentive for _The Idylls of the Kings_ in Malory's +_Morte d'Arthur_, so the modern Celtic poets turned back to the +primitive legends of their country for tales of Cuchulain who fought +the sea, Caolte who besieged the castle of the gods, Oisin, who +wandered three hundred years in the land of the immortals, and Deirdre +who stands in the same relation to Celtic literature as Helen to Greek +and Brunnhilde to German literature. Some of the fascination that the +past and its fairy kingdom exerted over these poets may be found in +this stanza from Russell's _The Gates of Dreamland_:-- + + "Oh, the gates of the mountain have opened once again + And the sound of song and dancing falls upon the ears of men, + And the Land of Youth lies gleaming, flushed with rainbow light and + mirth. + And the old enchantment lingers in the honey-heart of earth."[1] + +William Butler Yeats.--One of the most talented and active workers +in this Celtic Renaissance is William Butler Yeats, born in 1865 in +Dublin, Ireland. He came from an artistic family, his father, brother, +and sisters being either artists or identified with the arts and +crafts movement. Yeats himself studied art in Dublin, but poetry was +more attractive to him than painting. + +He was greatly influenced by spending his youthful days with his +grandparents in County Sligo, where he heard the old Irish legends +told by the peasants, who still believed them. He translated these +stories from Irish into English and wrote poems and essays relating to +them. After reaching the age of thirty-four, he became engaged in +writing dramas and in assisting to establish the Irish National +Theater in Dublin. In thus reviving Ireland's heroic history, Yeats +has served his country and his art. + +[Illustration: WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS.] + +_The Wanderings of Oisin_ (1889) is his best narrative poem. Oisin, +one of the ancient Celtic heroes, returns, after three hundred years +of adventure, to find Ireland Christianized. St. Patrick hears him +relate that he had been carried by his immortal wife, Niamh, to the +land of the Ever-Young,-- + + "Where broken faith has never been known, + And the blushes of first love never have flown,"[2] + +that he had battled for a hundred years with an undying foe, and that +his strength had not waned during his stay on those immortal shores, +although he had felt the effect of age when his foot again touched his +native land. The days of "gods and fighting" men are brought back in +this romantic poem. The battles, however, are not such gory conflicts +as Scott and Kipling can paint. Yeats's contemplative genius presents +bloodless battles, symbolic of life's continued fight, and accentuates +the eternal hope and peace in the land of immortal youth. + +Among his shorter narrative poems, which show some of the power of +_The Wanderings of Oisin_, are _The Death of Cuchulain_, _The Old Age +of Queen Maeve_, and _Baile and Aillinn_. Baille and Aillinn are the +Irish Romeo and Juliet, each of whom hears from the baleful Aengus the +false report that the other is dead. Each lover unhesitatingly seeks +death in order to meet the other at once beyond these mortal shores. +Yeats has also told simple stories in simple verse, as may be seen in +_The Ballad of Father Gilligan_ or _The Fiddler of Dooney_. + +The most striking characteristic of Yeats's work is the pensive +yearning for a spiritual love, for an unchecked joy, and an unchanging +peace beyond what mortal life can give. These qualities are strikingly +illustrated by such poems as _Into the Twilight_, _The Everlasting +Voices_, _The Hosting of the Sidhe_ (Fairies), _The Stolen Child_. The +very spirit of Celtic poetry is seen in these lines from _The Lake +Isle of Innisfree_:-- + + "And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, + Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; + There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, + And evening full of the linnet's wings."[3] + +Yeats's verse has been called "dream-drenched poems." The term is +admirably descriptive of his romantic, lyrical verse. + +George W. Russell.--Among the most prominent of these Celtic +imaginative writers is George W. Russell (1867- ), "the Irish +Emerson," popularly known as "A.E." He is a poet, a painter, a mystic, +and a dramatist. With Lady Gregory and Yeats, he has been one of the +most active workers for the Irish National Theater. He is an efficient +member of those cooeperative societies which are trying to improve +Ireland's industrial and agricultural conditions. + +Russell's poetry is highly spiritual. Sometimes it is so mystical that +like Prospero's messenger, Ariel, it vanishes into thin air. His +shadowy pictures of nature and his lyrical beauty and tenderness are +evident in two little volumes of his verse, _Homeward Songs by the +Way_ (1894) and _The Divine Vision_ (1904). This Stanza from _Beauty_, +in _The Divine Vision_, shows his spiritual longing for quiet, peace, +and beauty, in which to worship his Creator:-- + + "Oh, twilight, fill in pearl dew, each healing drop may bring + Some image of the song the Quiet seems to sing. + + My spirit would have beauty to offer at the shrine, + And turn dull earth to gold and water into wine, + And burn in fiery dreams each thought till thence refined + It may have power to mirror the mighty Master's mind."[4] + +Fiona Macleod.--All the work of William Sharp that he published +under the pseudonym of "Fiona Macleod" belongs to this Celtic +Renaissance. Born in 1856 at Paisley, Scotland, he settled in London +in 1878, and became widely known as William Sharp, the critic. When he +turned to his boyhood's home, the West Highlands of Scotland, for +inspiration, he wrote, under the pen-name of Fiona Macleod, poetic +prose stories and many poems about these Scotch Celts. He kept the +secret of his identity so well that not until his death in 1905 was it +known that Fiona Macleod, the mystic, was William Sharp, the critic. + +_Mountain Lovers_ (1895), a romantic novel of primitive people who +live with nature in her loneliness, mystery, and terror, and who +possess an instinctive, speechless, and poetic knowledge of her moods, +is one of the earliest and most interesting of his long novels. He +excels in the short story. Some of his finest work in this field is in +_The Sin Eater_ (1895), which contains uncanny tales of quaint, +strongly-marked highland characters with their weird traditions. + +_From the Hills of Dream_ (1901) and _The Hour of Beauty_ (1907) are +two small volumes of short poems full of the witchery of dreams, of +death, of youth, and of lonely scenes. These poems come from a land +far off from our common world. Delicacy of fancy, a freedom from any +touch of impurity, a beauty as of "dew-sweet moon-flowers glimmering +white through the mirk of a dust laden with sea-mist," are the +qualities of Fiona Macleod's best verse. + +John Masefield.--Instead of looking to the land of dreams and the +misty past, like the Celtic writers, Masefield and Gibson, two younger +English poets, have found in the everyday life of the present time the +themes for their verse. Masefield was born in 1875 in Shropshire. He +was a seafarer in his youth, and later, a traveler by land and sea. +These varied experiences contributed color and vividness to his +narrative verse. + +[Illustration: JOHN MASEFIELD.] + +He has written several long narrative poems on unromantic subjects. +_Dauber_ (1912) contains some of his best lines and its story is the +most poetic. This poem follows the fortunes of a poor youth who, +wishing to be a painter of ships, went to sea to study his mode at +first hand. Masefield describes, with much power, the young artist's +ambition, his rough handling by the uncouth sailors, and his perilous +experiences while rounding Cape Horn. _Dauber_ exhibits the poet's +power of vividly picturing human figures and landscapes. This poem, +like most of Masefield's long narrative poems, is a story of human +failure,--a dull prosaic failure, such as prose fiction presents in +its pessimistic moods. + +A strong and cheerful note is struck in some of Masefield's short +lyrics, notably in _Laugh and be Merry_, _Roadways_, _The Seekers_, +and _Being Her Friend_. In _Laugh and be Merry_, the song is almost +triumphant:-- + + "Laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man. + * * * * * + Laugh and battle, and work, and drink of the wine outpoured + In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord."[5] + +Masefield's fancy does not busy itself with dreams and impossible +visions. He paints life in its grayness and sordidness and dull +mediocrity. Sometimes his verse is merely plain rimed prose, but again +it becomes vigorous, picturesque, and vivid in description, as in the +following lines from _Dauber_:-- + + "...then the snow + Whirled all about, dense, multitudinous cold, + Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust and shriek + Which whiffled out men's tears, deafened, took hold, + Flattening the flying drift against the cheek."[6] + +Wilfred W. Gibson.--Gibson, who was born in Hexham in 1878, sings of +the struggling oppressed work-a-day people:-- + + "Crouched in the dripping dark + With steaming shoulders stark + The man who hews the coal to feed the fires."[7] + +His poem, _The Machine_, awakens sympathy for the printer of Christmas +story books and reveals Gibson as the twentieth-century Thomas Hood of +_The Song of the Shirt_. One of the most richly human of his poems is +_The Crane_, the story of the seamstress mother and her lame boy. His +realistic volume of verse bearing the significant title, _Daily Bread_ +(1910), contains a number of narrative poems, which endeavor to set to +music the "one measure" to which all life moves,--the earning of daily +bread. + +Gibson owes much of his popularity to his spirit of democracy and to +the story form of his verse. Like Masefield, he sacrifices beauty to +dull realism. Gibson manifests less range, less dramatic feeling, than +Masefield, but avoids Masefield's uncouthness and repellent dramatic +episodes. + +These two poets illustrate a tendency to introduce a new realistic +poetry. Wordsworth wrote of Michael and the Westmoreland peasantry, +but Masefield and Gibson have taken as subjects of verse the toilers +of factory, foundry, and forecastle. Closeness to life and simplicity +of narration characterize these authors. They approximate the subject +matter and technique of realistic fiction. + +Alfred Noyes.--Alfred Noyes was born in 1880 in Wolverhampton +Staffordshire. He wrote verse while an Oxford undergraduate and he has +since become one of the leading poets of the twentieth century. He has +traveled in England and in America, reading his poems and lecturing on +literary subjects. + +[Illustration: ALFRED NOYES.] + +_The Flower of Old Japan_ (1903) is a fairy tale of children who dream +of the pictures on blue china plates and Japanese fans. The poem is +symbolic. The children are ourselves; and Japan is but the "kingdom of +those dreams which ...are the sole reality worth living and dying +for." + +The poet says of this kingdom:-- + + "Deep in every heart it lies + With its untranscended skies; + For what heaven should bend above + Hearts that own the heaven of love?"[8] + +_The Forest of Wild Thyme_ (1905) affords another + + "Hour to hunt the fairy gleam + That flutters through this childish dream."[9] + +There is also a deeper meaning to be read into this poem. The mystery +of life, small as well as great, is found simply told in these +lines:-- + + "What does it take to make a rose, + Mother-mine? + The God that died to make it knows + It takes the world's eternal wars, + It takes the moon and all the stars, + It takes the might of heaven and hell + And the everlasting Love as well, + Little child."[10] + +Noyes has published several volumes of lyrical verse. Some of it +possesses the lightness of these elfish tales. _The Barrel Organ_, +_The Song of Re-Birth_, and _Forty Singing Seamen_ are among his +finest lyrics. They display much rhythmic beauty and variety. He +strikes a deeply sorrowful and passionate note in _The Haunted Palace_ +and _De Profundis_. A line like this in _The Haunted Palace_-- + + "...I saw the tears + Bleed through her eyes with the slow pain of years,"[11] + +indicates the strong emotional metaphor that occasionally deepens the +passion of his verse. + +England's sea power, immortalized in song from Beowulf to Swinburne, +often inspires Noyes. His finest long poem is _Drake: An English Epic_ +(1908), which relates the adventures of this Elizabethan sea-captain +and his victory over the Armada. The spirit of a daring romantic age +of discovery is shown in these lines that tell how Drake and his men-- + + "...went out + To danger as to a sweetheart far away, + Who even now was drawing the western clouds + Like a cymar of silk and snow-white furs + Close to her, till her body's beauty seemed + Clad in a mist of kisses."[12] + +Another volume of poems, _Tales of the Mermaid Tavern_ (1913), brings +us into the company of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spencer, Jonson, Raleigh, +and others of the great Elizabethan group that made the Mermaid Tavern +their chosen resort. Greene's farewell to Shakespeare,-- + + "You took my clay and made it live,"[13] + +shows that Noyes has caught something of the spirit that animated +Elizabethan England. + +Noyes is one of the most spontaneous and fluent writers of modern +English poetry. Whether he is mystical, dramatic, playful, or marching +along the course of a long narrative poem, he handles his verse with +ease and facility. His language, his rhythm, and his thought are most +happily blended in his graceful singing lyrics. The work of Noyes is +inspired by the desire to show that all things and all souls are-- + + "One with the dream that triumphs beyond the light of the spheres, + We come from the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of + Years."[14] + +THE MODERN DRAMA + +The revival of the drama is a characteristic feature of the latter +part of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The +plays of the Norwegian, Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), affected England +profoundly in the last decade of the nineteenth century and proved an +impetus to a new dramatic movement, seen in the work of men like Shaw. + +The great literary school of dramatists passed away soon after the +death of Shakespeare. While it is true that the writing of plays has +been practically continuous since the time of the Restoration, yet for +more than two hundred years after that event, the history of the drama +has had little memorable work to record. There were two brief +interesting comic periods: (1) the period of Congreve at the close of +the seventeenth century, and (2) of Goldsmith and Sheridan nearly a +hundred years later. The literary plays of the Victorians,--Browning, +Tennyson, and Swinburne,--were lacking in dramatic essentials. + +The modern drama has accomplished certain definite results. Pinero's +work is typical of vast improvement in technique. Shaw is noted for +his power of "investing modern conversation with vivacity and point." +J.M. Synge has won distinction for presenting the great elemental +forces that underlie the actions of primitive human beings. The +playwrights are making the drama perform some of the functions that +have been filled by the novel. The modern drama is also wrestling with +the problem of combining literary form, poetic spirit, and good +dramatic action. Some of the modern plays deal with unpleasant +subjects, and some of the least worthy are immoral in their +tendencies. Such plays will be forgotten, for the Anglo-Saxon race has +never yet immortalized an unwholesome drama. Fortunately, however, the +influence of a large proportion of the plays is pure and wholesome. In +this class may be included the dramas of the Irish school and of +Barrie, the majority by Galsworthy, and a number by Phillips and Shaw. + +Jones and Pinero.--The work of Henry Arthur Jones and Sir Arthur +Wing Pinero marks the advance of the English drama from artificiality +and narrowness of scope toward a wider, closer relation to life. Henry +Arthur Jones, both a playwright and a critic, was born in +Grandborough, Buckinghamshire, in 1851. Contemporary English life is +the subject of his numerous plays. _The Manoeuvers of Jane_ (1898) and +_Mrs. Dane's Defence (1900), are among his best works. + +[Illustration: HENRY ARTHUR JONES.] + +Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, born in 1855 in London, began his career as an +actor. + +[Illustration: ARTHUR WING PINERO.] + +His real ambition, however, was to write for the stage. More than +forty works, including farces, comedies of sentiment, and serious +dramas of English life, attest his zeal as a dramatist. Among his most +successful farces are _The Magistrate_ (1885), _The School Mistress_ +(1886), and _The Amazons_ (1893). Clever invention of absurd +situations and success in starting infectious laughter are the prime +qualities of these plays. + +_The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ (1893) is by most critics considered +Pinero's masterpiece. The failure of a character to regain +respectability once forfeited supplies the nucleus for the dramatic +situations. Excellent in craftsmanship as it is disagreeable in theme, +this play contains no superfluous word to retard the action or mar the +technical economy. Adolphus William Ward says: "With _The Second Mrs. +Tanqueray_ the English acted drama ceased to be a merely insular +product, and took rank in the literature of Europe. Here was a play +which, whatever its faults, was ...an epoch-marking play." + +One great service of Pinero and Jones to the twentieth-century drama +has been excellent craftsmanship. Their technical skill may be +specifically noted in the naturalness of the dialogues, in the +movement of the characters about the stage, in the performance of some +acts apparently trivial but really significant, and in the +substitution of devices to take the place of the old soliloquies and +"asides." Of the two, Pinero is the better craftsman, since Jones, in +his endeavor to paint a moral, sometimes weakens his dramatic effect. + +George Bernard Shaw.--Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1856. He +was willful and took "refuge in idleness" at school. His education +consisted mainly in studying music with his talented mother, in +haunting picture galleries, and in wide reading. At the age of twenty, +he went to London and began his literary career. He was at various +times a journalist, a critic of art, music, and the drama, a lecturer, +a novelist, and a playwright. Shaw describes himself as a man "up to +the chin in the life of his times." He is a vegetarian, an +anti-vivisectionist, an advocate for woman's suffrage, and a +socialist. + +[Illustration: GEORGE BERNARD SHAW.] + +_Arms and the Man, Candida, You Never Can Tell_, and _The Man of +Destiny_, published (1898) in the second volume of _Plays, Pleasant +and Unpleasant_; and _The Devil's Disciple_, published (1900) in +_Three Plays for Puritans_, are among his best dramas. With their +stage directions and descriptions, they are as delightful to read as +novels. Of these plays, _Candida_ is first in character drawing and +human interest. The dramatic action is wholly within the mental states +of the three chief actors, but the situations are made intense through +a succession of unique, absorbing, entertaining, and well-developed +conversations. + +Shaw is more destructive than constructive in his philosophy as +expressed in his plays; and he criticizes so many of the institutions +held sacred by society that people have refused to accept him +seriously, even when he has written expository prefaces to his dramas. +In _Arms and the Man_, he satirizes the romantic admiration for the +soldier's calling; in _The Doctor's Dilemma_ (1906), he attacks the +professional man; in _Widowers' Houses_ (1898), he assails the rich +property holder with his high rents on poor people's houses: and in +_Man and Superman_ (1903), he dissects love and home until the +sentiment is entirely taken out of them. + +Shaw's chief object is to place before his audience facts, reasons, +and logical conclusions. He will not tolerate romantic emotions or +sentimentalism, which he ridicules with a reckless audacity, a literal +incisiveness, and a satiric wit that none of his contemporaries can +excel. His chief claim to his present important position among +playwrights is based on his originality and fearlessness of thought, +the unfailing sprightliness of his conversation, the infectious spirit +of raillery in his comedies, and his mastery of the requirements of +the modern stage. + +J.M. Barrie.--With the successful stage production of _The Little +Minister_ (1897), Barrie passed from novelist to playwright. The +qualities of humor, fancy, and quaint characterization, which were +such a charm in his novels, reappear in his plays. + +[Illustration: JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE.] + +_The Admirable Crichton_, produced in 1903, is one of Barrie's most +successful comedies. He displays skill and humor in handling the +absurd situation of a peer's family wrecked on a desert island, where +the butler, as the most resourceful member of the party, takes +command. In _Peter Pan_ (1904), the dramatization of the novel, _The +Little White Bird_, care-free, prankish Peter Pan visits three +children in their sleep and teaches them to fly away with him. He +carries them to the little people of the fairy world, to the pirate +ship, to other scenes dear to children's hearts, and finally to his +home in the tree tops. The play is a mixture of fancy, symbolism, and +realism. These are woven into a bright phantasy by an imagination that +is near to childhood and has not lost its morning's brightness. + +_What Every Woman Knows_ (produced in 1908) shows Barrie's dramatic +art at its height. He knows how to introduce variety and to give his +characters an opportunity to reveal themselves. Every word, every +movement of the heroine, Maggie Shand, adds to the unfolding of a +fascinating personality. A period of intensely dramatic action may be +followed by a comparative pause, such as occurs when the audience sees +Maggie's husband slowly realize her cleverness and helpfulness, +--qualities that had been long apparent to every one else. + +Barrie shows the ability to present dramatically situations that are +emotionally appealing or delightfully humorous. His plays exhibit +admirably the deep feelings, the momentary moods, the resourcefulness, +or the peculiar whimsicalities of men and women. + +John Galsworthy.--As a means of presenting social problems, +Galsworthy utilizes the drama even more than the novel. Faulty prison +systems, discords between labor and capital, discrepancies between law +and justice, are some of the themes he chooses to dramatize. _The +Silver Box_ (1906) ironically interprets Justice as blind rather than +impartial. The poor man is often punished while the more fortunate man +goes free. _Strife_ (1909), in some respects the most powerful of his +plays, illustrates the clash between capital and labor. In _The Eldest +Son_ (1912), the conflict is between two social orders. _Justice_ +(1910), which secured reforms in the English prison system, shows how +a young man is affected by an inflexible but legal punishment; and how +such a method fails to assist him humanely to a better manhood, but +drives him to lower and lower depths. + +In _Joy_ (1907), a delightful play, Galsworthy momentarily +relinquishes social problems for a drama of more personal emotion. In +the mystical, poetical composition, _The Little Dream_ (1911), he +presents an allegory of the maiden in the Alps, dreaming first of the +simple mountain life and then of the life in cities. With its +spiritual note and delicate fancy, _The Little Dream_ turns a golden +key on the ideal world beyond the strife and gloom dramatized in the +sociological plays. + +Galsworthy has good stagecraft. His characterization is distinct and +consistent. His plays are simple in construction and direct in +movement. He strictly avoids rhetorical and theatrical effects, but +his dramatic economies often sacrifice all charm and aesthetic appeal. +His gray world leaves no hope save the desperate one that conditions +so grim may shame and spur society to reform. + +Stephen Phillips.--This dramatist and poet was born at Somerton, +near Oxford, in 1864. The boy was sent to Shakespeare's birthplace, +Stratford-on-Avon, to attend school. He entered Cambridge, but at the +end of his first term he left the university to join a company of +Shakespearean players. His six years with them initiated him into the +technique of stagecraft, which he later applied in the writing of his +poetic dramas. + +[Illustration: STEPHEN PHILLIPS.] + +Before producing the plays for which he is known, he wrote some +narrative and lyric verse. _Marpessa_ (1890), a blank verse poem, is a +beautiful treatment of the old Greek myth, in which Apollo, the god, +and Idas, the mortal, woo Marpessa. Marlowe might have written the +lines in which Apollo promises to take her to a home above the world, +where movement is ecstasy and repose is thrilling. In some of his +non-dramatic poems, _Christ in Hades_ (1896), _Cities of Hell_ (1907), +and _The New Inferno_ (1896), Phillips shows how the subject of life +and punishment after death attracts him. + +With the appearance of his _Paolo and Francesca_ in 1899, the poetic +drama seemed phoenix-like to arise from its ashes. Tennyson and +Browning had failed to write successful plays. In fact, since the +death of Dryden, poetry and drama had seemed to be afraid to approach +each other. Phillips effected at least a temporary union. His several +plays have distinctly dramatic qualities and many passages of poetic +beauty. From both a dramatic and a poetic point of view, _Paolo and +Francesca_ is Phillips's best play. Its dramatic values lie chiefly in +its power to create and sustain a sense of something definitely +progressing toward a certain point. The poetic elements of the play +consist in the beauty of atmosphere and the charm of the lines. +Giovanni Malatesta, the ugly tyrant of Rimini, being at war when his +marriage draws near, sends his young brother Paolo to escort Francesca +to Rimini. On the journey Paolo and Francesca fall in love with each +other. When Giovanni discovers this, his jealous hand slays them. To +such a tragic climax, Phillips drives steadily onward from the first +scene, thus focusing the interest on a concrete dramatic situation. + +_Herod_ (1900) is a drama of ambition versus love. Herod, the great +historic king of the Jews, though passionately in love with his wife +Mariamne, sacrifices her brother Aristobulus to his suspicions, +fearing that this young prince, the last of the Maccabees, may +supplant him on the throne. This sacrifice, prompted by evil +counselors, results in a train of tragic episodes, including +Mariamne's death and Herod's madness. The lines in which Herod speaks +of thinking in gold and dreaming in silver call to mind the hyperbole +and music of Marlowe's mighty line. + +_Ulysses_ (1902), more of a panorama than a play, is founded on the +Homeric story. Its scenes are laid in Olympus, in Hades, on Calypso's +isle, and finally in Ithaca. Calypso tries to retain Ulysses upon her +isle, beautiful-- + + "With sward of parsley and of violet + And poplars shimmering in a silvery dream."[15] + +He struggles against her enchantment, returns home, finds his wife +surrounded by her suitors, joins in their bow-drawing contest, and, in +a most exciting and dramatic scene, surpasses all rivals and claims +his faithful, beautiful Penelope. + +The plays of Phillips not infrequently lack that clinching power that +stretches the interest taut. Many scenes are admirably spectacular, +suggestive of richly decorated tapestries, which hang separately in +spacious rooms; but the plays need more forceful dramatic action, +moving through changes to a climax. Phillips's diction, though +sometimes rhetorical, is also often ornately beautiful and highly +poetical. We feel that even in his plays, he is greater as a poet than +as a dramatist. + +CELTIC DRAMATISTS + +Strong national feeling, interest in the folklore and peasant life of +Ireland, and ambition to establish a national theater, have led to a +distinct and original Irish drama. In 1899, with a fund of two hundred +and fifty dollars, Lady Gregory, William Butler Yeats, G.W. Russell, +and other playwrights and patrons succeeded in establishing in Dublin +the Irish Literary Theater now known as the Irish National Theater. + +The object of this theater is twofold. In the first place, it aims to +produce "literary" plays, not the vapid, panoramic kind that merely +pass away the time. In the second place, the Irish plays present +fabled and historical Irish heroes and the humble Irish peasant. + +Patriotism inspired many writers to assist in this national movement. +Some gathered stories from the lips of living Irish-speaking peasants; +others collected and translated into English the old legends of +heroes. Dr. Douglas Hyde's translations of _The Five Songs of +Connacht_ (1894) and _The Religious Songs of Connacht_ (1906) are +valuable works and have greatly influenced the Irish writers. + +Lady Augusta Gregory.--Lady Gregory, born in 1852, in Roxborough, +County Galway, has made some of the best of these translations in her +works, _Cuchulain of Muirthemma_, and _Gods and Fighting Men_. "These +two books have come to many as a first revelation of the treasures +buried in Gaelic literature, and they are destined to do much for the +floating of old Irish story upon the world. They aim to do for the +great cycles of Irish romance what Malory did for the Arthurian +stories."[16] + +[Illustration: LADY GREGORY.] + +Lady Gregory wrote also for the Irish Theater plays that have been +acted successfully not only in Ireland but in England and in America. +Among her best serious plays are _The Gaol Gate_ (1906), a present-day +play, the hero of which dies to save a neighbor, _The Rising of the +Moon_ (1907), and _Grania_ (1912). _McDonough's Wife_ (1913) is an +excellent brief piece with an almost heroic note at the close. The +great vagabond piper, McDonough, master of wonderful music, returns +from wandering, to find his wife dead, and, because of his +thriftlessness, about to be denied honorable burial. McDonough steps +to the door, pipes his marvelous tunes, and immediately the village +flocks to do homage to his wife. + +Lady Gregory's farces have primarily made her fame. _Spreading the +News_ (1904), _Hyacinth Halvey_ (1906), _The Image_ (1910), and _The +Bogie Men_ (1913) are representative of her vigorous and +well-constructed farces. They are varied in subject, the incidents are +well developed, the characters are genuine Irish peasants and +villagers, and the humor is infectious. It is interesting to note that +Lady Gregory has continued to write farces because of the demand for +them in the Irish National Theater, in order to offset the large +number of tragedies by other authors. + +William Butler Yeats.--In addition to delightful poetic fancy, Yeats +possesses considerable dramatic ability and stagecraft. In _The +Countess Cathleen_ (rewritten in 1912), the poor peasants are driven +by a famine to the verge of starvation. Many die; but some are fed by +the Countess Cathleen, while others sell their souls for the price of +food to demons disguised as merchants. When these demons steal +Countess Cathleen's stores in order to stop her charities, with +instant Irish quickness and generosity, she sells her soul for a great +price to the demons, in order to save her people here and hereafter. +Such a tremendous sacrifice, however, is not permitted. Because of the +purity of her motive, armed angels save her soul in the last +impressive act. Supernatural powers, both pagan and Christian, +participate in the play. Spirits haunt the woods, enter the peasants' +cottages, and cast spells on the inhabitants. The play is Irish in +story, in symbolism, and in the fancifulness of the conception. + +_The Land of Heart's Desire_ is another drama that has sprung from the +soil and folklore of Ireland. This play was one of the first Celtic +dramas to be produced, and in its present revised form (1912) it is +one of the most engaging of the Irish plays. Partly in prose and +partly in verse, it is the story of a young bride who tires of her +monotonous life and calls upon the fairies to release her. The old +parents tell her that duty comes before love of the fairies. + +The good priest begs her not to forsake her faithful young husband; +but the fairy wins, and, leaving a dead bride in the cottage, bears +away the living bride to a land where-- + + "The fairies dance in a place apart, + Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring, + Tossing their milk-white arms in the air; + For they have heard the wind laugh and murmur and sing + Of a land where even the old are fair, + And even the wise are merry of tongue."[17] + +Patriotic love for Ireland is the very breath of _Cathleen ni +Hoolihan_ (1902), a one-act prose play in which Cathleen symbolizes +Ireland. _The Shadowy Waters_ (1900) and _Deirdre_ (1907) are more +poetic than dramatic. The first of these with the mysterious harper, +the far-sailing into unknown seas, the parting with everything but the +loved one, shows Yeats in his deeply mystical mood. In _Deirdre_ is +dramatized part of a popular legend of the great queen by that name, +who was too beautiful for happiness. She has seven long years of joy +and then accepts her fate in the calm, triumphant way of the old +heroic times. + +Yeats's plays reflect the childlike superstitions and lively +imagination of his country. He loves the fairies, the dreams of +eternal youth, the symbolizing of things of the spirit by lovely +things of earth. His plays are poetical, fanciful, and romantic. + +John Millington Synge.--One of the most notable of the Irish +writers, J.M. Synge, was born near Dublin in 1871 and died in that +city in 1909. His brief span of life has yielded only scanty +biographical data. He came of an old Wicklow family; he was graduated +from Trinity College, Dublin; afterwards he wandered through much of +Europe, finally settling in France. + +[Illustration: JOHN SYNGE.] + +In 1899, William Butler Yeats discovered him in Paris, a "man all +folded up in brooding intellect," writing essays on French +authors,--on Moliere, for example, from whom he learned the trick of +characterization; on Racine, who taught him concentration; on +Rabelais, who infected him with love of deep laughter. Yeats, +suspecting that Synge could be an original writer as well as an +interpreter of others, persuaded him to go back to Ireland, to the +Aran Islands, off Galway. Synge discovered there a lost kingdom of the +imagination, a place where spontaneous feeling and primitive +imagination had not been repressed by the outside world's customs and +discipline, and where the constant voice of the ocean, the touch of +the mysterious, all-embracing mist, and the gleam of the star through +a rift in the clouds banished all sense of difference between the +natural and the supernatural. + +When Synge died in his thirty-eighth year, he had written only six +short plays, all between 1903 and 1909. Two of these, _In the Shadow +of the Glen_ and _Riders to the Sea_, contain only one act. _The +Tinker's Wedding_ has two acts, and the rest are three-act plays. + +_In the Shadow of the Glen, Riders to the Sea_, and _The Well of the +Saints_, produced respectively in 1903, 1904, and 1905, show that +Synge came at once into full possession of his dramatic power. Even in +his earliest written play, _The Well of The Saints_, we find a style +stripped of superfluous verbiage and vibrant with emotion. _In the +Shadow of the Glen_, his first staged play, consumes only a half hour. +The scene is laid in a cabin far off in a lonely glen, and the four +actors,--a woman oppressed by loneliness, an unfeeling husband who +feigns death, and two visitors,--make a singularly well-knit +impressive drama. + +_Riders to the Sea_ has been pronounced the greatest drama of the +modern Celtic school. Some critics consider this the most significant +tragedy produced in English since Shakespeare. Simple and impressive +as a Greek tragedy, it has for its central figure an old mother whose +husband and five sons have been lost at sea. The simple but poignant +feeling of the drama focuses on the death of Maurya's sixth and last +son, Bartley. This tragic episode, simply presented, touches the +depths of human sympathy. In old Maurya, Synge created an impressive +figure of what Macbeth calls "rooted sorrow." + +_The Playboy of the Western World_, produced first in 1907, is a +three-act play. It is as fantastically humorous as the _Riders to the +Sea_ is tragical. Dread of his father ties this peasant to his stupid +toil. A fearful deed frees the youth and throws him into the company +of the lovely maiden, Pegeen, and admiring friends. The latent poetry +and wild joy of living awake in him, and, under the spur of praise, he +performs great feats. He who had never before dared to face girls, +makes such love to Pegeen that poesy itself seems to be talking. The +Playboy is one of the wildest conceptions of character in modern +drama. His very extravagance compels interest. Pegeen is a fitting +sweetheart for him. Her father is a stalwart figure, possessing a +shrewd philosophy and rare strength of speech, as "fully flavored as +nut or apple." Some critics object to such a boisterous play, but they +should remember that it is intended to be an extravagant peasant +fantasia. + +_Deirdre of the Sorrows_, another three-act play, produced first in +1910, tells the story of the beautiful princess Deirdre, of her +isolated young life, and her seven years of perfect union with her +lover Naisi. When her lover is slain, this true and tender queen of +the North loosens the knot of life to accompany him. + +Synge belongs in the first rank of modern dramatists. The forty Irish +characters that he has created reveal the basal elements of universal +human nature. His purpose is like Shakespeare's,--to reveal throbbing +life, not to talk in his own person, nor to discuss problems. Synge +has dramatized the primal hope, fear, sorrow, and loneliness of life. +Although his plays are written in prose and have the distinctive +flavor of his lowly characters, yet a recent critic justly says that +Synge "for the first time sets English dramatic prose to a rhythm as +noble as the rhythms of blank verse." + +SUMMARY + +The twentieth century shows two main lines of development,--the +realistic and the romantic. The two leading essayists of the period, +A.C. Benson and G.K. Chesterton, are both idealists and champions of +religious faith. + +Among the novelists, Conrad tells impressive stories of distant seas +and shores; Bennett's strongest fiction gives realistic pictures of +life in English industrial towns; Galsworthy's novels present the +problems that affect the upper class of Englishmen; Wells writes +scientific romances and sociological novels. + +Some of the best poetry, full of the fascination of a dreamy far-off +world, has been written by the Celtic poets, Yeats, Russell, and Fiona +Macleod. Masefield and Gibson have produced much realistic verse about +the life of the common toiler. Noyes has written _Drake_, a romantic +epic, and a large amount of graceful lyrical verse, in some of which +there is much poetic beauty. + +The most distinctive work of recent times has been in the field of the +drama. Pinero has improved its technique; Shaw has given it remarkable +conversational brilliancy; Barrie has brought to it fancy and humor +and sweetness; Galsworthy has used it to present social problems; +Phillips has tried to restore to it the Elizabethan poetic spirit. The +Celtic dramatists form a separate school. Lady Gregory, Yeats, and +Synge have all written plays based on Irish life, folklore, or +mythology. The plays of Synge, the greatest member of the group, +reveal the universal primitive emotions of human beings. + +CONCLUSION + +Three distinctive moral influences in English literature specially +impress us,--the call to strenuous manhood:-- + + "...this thing is God, + To be man with thy might," + +the increasing sympathy with all earth's children:-- + + "Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call, + Ye to each other make," + +and the persistent expression of Anglo-Saxon faith. As we pause in our +study, we may hear in the twentieth-century song of Alfred Noyes, the +echo of the music from the loom of the Infinite Weaver:-- + + "Under the breath of laughter, deep in the tide of tears, + I hear the loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years."[18] + +REFERENCE FOR FURTHER STUDY + +Kennedy's _English Literature_, 1880-1895 (Shaw, Wells, Fiona Macleod, +Yeats). + +Kelman's _Mr. Chesterton's Point of View_ (in _Among Famous Books_). + +Cooper's _Some English Story Tellers_. + +Conrad's _A Personal Record_. + +Phelps's _Essays on Modern Novelists_ (De Morgan). + +Yeats's _Celtic Twilight_. + +Figgis's _Studies and Appreciations_ (_Mr. W.B. Yeats's Poetry_. _The +Art of J.M. Synge_.) + +More's _Drift of Romanticism_ (Fiona Macleod). + +Borsa's _The English Stage of To-day_. + +Jones's (Henry Arthur) _The Foundation of a National Drama: A +Collection of Essays, Lectures, and Speeches, Delivered and Written in +the Years 1896-1912_. + +Hamilton's _The Theory of the Theater_. + +Hunt's _The Play of To-day_. + +Hale's _Dramatists of To-day_. + +Henderson's _George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works_, 2 vols. + +Chesterton's _George Bernard Shaw_. + +Weygandt's _Irish Plays and Playwrights_ (excellent). + +Krans's _William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary Revival_. + +Howe's _J.M. Synge: A Critical Study_. + +Yeats's _J.M. Synge and the Ireland of His Time_ (in _The Cutting of +an Agate_, 1912). + +Bickley's _J.M. Synge and the Irish Dramatic Movement_. + +Elton's _Living Irish Literature_ (in _Modern Studies_). + +SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS + +Essays.--From A.C. Benson, read one of these collections of essays: +_The Altar Fire, Beside Still Waters, Thy Rod and Thy Staff_, and one +or more of these biographies: _Tennyson, John Ruskin, Rossetti_ +(E.M.L.), _Walter Pater_ (E.M.L.); from Chesterton, one of these +collections of essays: _Varied Types, Heretics, Orthodoxy_, and one or +more of these biographies: _George Bernard Shaw, Charles Dickens, +Robert Browning_ (E.M.L.). For other twentieth-century essays, see the +preceding bibliography and the paragraph following this. + +The Novel.--From Conrad, read _Youth, Typhoon, Lord Jim_; from +Bennett, _The Old Wives' Tale, Clayhanger_; from Galsworthy, _The Man +of Property, The Patrician_; from Wells, _The Time Machine, +Kipps, The Future in America_ (essay); from Phillpotts, _Children of +the Mist, Demeter's Daughter_; from Hewlett, _Life and Death of +Richard Yea and Nay, The Stooping Lady_; from Quiller-Couch, _The +Splendid Spur, The Delectable Duchy_; from De Morgan, _Joseph Vance, +Somehow Good_; from Locke, _The Beloved Vagabond, The Adventures of +Aristide Pujol_; from Zangwill, _The Children of the Ghetto, The +Melting Pot_ (play). + +Poetry.--From _The Poetical Works of William B. Yeats_ (Macmillan), +read _The Wanderings of Oisin, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, The Hosting +of the Sidhe, The Voice of the Waters_; from Fiona Macleod's _Poems +and Dramas_ (Duffield), _The Vision, The Lonely Hunter, The Rose of +Flame_; from Masefield, the part of _Dauber_ describing the rounding +of Cape Horn, beginning p. 119, in _The Story of a Round-House_ +(Macmillan); from Gibson's _Fires_ (Macmillan), _The Crane, The +Machine_; from Noyes's _Poems_ (Macmillan, 1906), _The Song of +Re-Birth, The Barrel Organ, Forty Singing Seamen, The Highwayman_; +Book II from his _Drake: An English Epic_ (Stokes). + +The Drama.--From Jones, read _The Manoeuvers of Jane, Mrs. Dane's +Defence_ (Samuel French); from Pinero, _The Amazons, The School +Mistress_, or _Sweet Lavender_ (W.H. Baker); from Shaw's _Plays +Pleasant and Unpleasant_ (Brentano), _Candida, You Never Can Tell, +Arms and the Man_ from Barrie, _Peter Pan, What Every Woman Knows_; +from Galsworthy, _Strife, Joy, The Little Dream_; from Phillips, +_Marpessa_ (poem), _Ulysses_ (Macmillan), _Herod_; from Lady +Gregory's, _Seven Short Plays_ (Putnam), _The Gaol Gate, Spreading the +News_; from her _New Comedies_ (Putnam, 1913), _McDonough's Wife, The +Bogie Men_; from Yeats's _Poetical Works_, Vol. II. (Macmillan), _The +Land of Heart's Desire, Countess Cathleen_; from Synge, _Riders to the +Sea, The Playboy of the Western World, Deirdre of the Sorrows_ (John +W. Luce). + +Questions and Suggestions.--Stevenson's _The Home Book of Verse_ and +_The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse_ contain selections from a number +of the poets. McCarthy's _Irish Literature_, 10 vols., gives +selections from work written prior to 1904. The majority of the +indicated readings can be found only in the original works of the +authors. + +Give an outline of the most important thoughts from one essay and one +biography, by both Benson and Chesterton. + +What distinctive subject matter do you find in each of the novelists? +How do same reflect the spirit of the age? + +What are the chief characteristics of each of the poets? What does the +phrase "Celtic Renaissance" signify? + +In brief, what had the drama accomplished from the time of the closing +of the theaters in 1642 to 1890? What distinctive contributions to the +modern drama have Pinero, Shaw, and Barrie made? Describe the work of +Lady Gregory, Yeats, and Synge. In what does Synge's special power +consist? + +FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER X: + +[Footnotes 1-11: Printed by permission of The Macmillan Company.] + +[Footnotes 12-13: Printed by permission of Frederick A. Stokes +Company.] + +[Footnotes 14-15: Printed by permission of the Macmillan Company.] + +[Footnote 16: Krans's _William Butler Yeats and the Irish Literary +Revival_.] + +[Footnotes 17-18: Printed by permission of The Macmillan Company.] + +SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS AND THEIR CHIEF WORKS: + +1400-1558: + +John Lydgate (1370?-1451?): _Falls of Princes_. Thomas Occleve +(1370?-1450?): _Mother of God_; _Governail of Princes_. Sir John +Fortescue (1394?-1476?): _Difference between an Absolute and Limited +Monarchy_. _The Paston Letters_ (1422-1509). Stephen Hawes (d. 1523?): +_Pastime of Pleasure_. John Skelton (1460?-1529): _Bowge of Court_; +_Philip Sparrow_. Alex. Barclay (1475?-1552): _Ship of Fools_. Sir +Thomas More (1478-1535): _Utopia_; _History of Edward V. and Richard +III_. Hugh Latimer (1485?-1555): _Sermon on the Ploughers_. Sir David +Lindsay (1490-1555): _Satire of the Three Estates_. + +1558-1603: + +John Knox(1505-1572): _Admonition_; _History of the Reformation of +Religion within the Realm of Scotland_; _Sermons_. George Puttenham +(d. 1590?): _Art of English Poesie_. Edward Dyer (1550?-1607): _My +Mind to Me a Kingdom Is_. Samuel Daniel (1562-1619): _The Complaint of +Rosamund_; _A Defence of Rhyme_ (prose). Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke, +1554-1628): _Caelica_. Stephen Gosson (1555-1624): _The School of +Abuse_. George Gascoigne (1525?-1577):_The Steele Glas_. William +Warner (1558?-1609): _Albion's England_. + +1603-1660: + +Prose Writers.--Robert Burton (1577-1640): _The Anatomy of +Melancholy_. John Selden (1584-1654): _Table Talk_. Richard Baxter +(1615-1691): _The Saints' Everlasting Rest_. + +Poets and Dramatists.--Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650?): _The Purple +Island_. William Drummond (1585-1649): _Sonnets_; _The Cypresse Grove_ +(prose). Giles Fletcher (1588?-1623): _Christ's Victory and Triumph_. +George Wither (1588-1667): _Juvenilia_. William Browne (1591-1643?) +_Britannia's Pastorals_. Sir William D'Avenant (1606-1668): +_Gondibert_. Edmund Waller (1606-1687): _Poems; Song_--"Go, lovely +Rose." Richard Crashaw (1613?--1649): _Steps to the Temple; The +Delights of the Muses_. Sir John Denham (1615-1669): _Cooper's Hill_. +Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): _Anacreontiques_. Andrew Marvell +(1621-1678): _The Garden_. + +1660-1740: + +Dramatists of the Restoration.--Sir William D'Avenant (1606-1668): +_Love and Honor_. George Etherege (1635?-1691?): _The Man of Mode_. +William Wycherley (1640-1715): _The Plain Dealer_. Thomas Shadwell +(1642?-1692): _Epson Wells_. Thomas Otway (1652-1685): _Venice +Preserved_. John Vanbrugh (1666?-1726): _The Confederacy_. Colley +Cibber (1671-1757): _The Careless Husband_. George Farquhar +(1678-1707): _The Beaux' Stratagem_. + +Prose Writers.--Sir William Temple (1628-1699): _Essays_. Isaac +Barrow (1630-1677): _Sermons_. Robert South (1634-1716): _Sermons_. +Richard Bentley (1662-1742): _Epistles of Phalaris_. Gilbert Burnet +(1643-1715): _Sermons_. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735): _The History of +John Bull_. Lord Bolingbroke (1678-1751): _Letter to Sir William +Windham_. Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753): _Alciphron or the Minute +Philosopher_. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762): _Letters_. Bishop +Butler (1692-1752): _Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion_. +William Warburton (1698-1779): _The Divine Legation of Moses_. + +Poets.--Matthew Prior (1664-1721): _Shorter Poems_. Isaac Watts +(1673-1748): _Psalms and Hymns_. Thomas Parnell (1679-1718): _A +Night-Piece on Death; The Hermit_. John Gay (1685-1732): _Fables; The +Beggar's Opera_. Allan Ramsay (1686-1758): _The Gentle Shepherd_. John +Dyer (1700?-1758): _Grongar Hill_. + +1740-1780: + +Prose Writers.--Gilbert White (1720-1793): _Natural History of +Selborne._ William Robertson (1721-1793): _History of the Reign of +Charles V._ Adam Smith (1723-1790): _Wealth of Nations._ Sir Joshua +Reynolds (1723-1792): _Discourses on Painting._ Thomas Warton +(1728-1790): _History of English Poetry._ Sir Philip Francis +(1740-1818): _Letters of Junius._ Fanny Burney (1752-1840): _Evelina._ + +Poets.--Edward Young (1681-1765): _Night Thoughts._ Charles Wesley +(1708-1788): _Hymns._ Mark Akenside (1721-1803): _The Minstrel._ +Robert Fergusson (1750-1774): _Braid Claith; Ode to the Gowdspink._ + +1780-1837: + +Philosophers.--William Paley (1743-1805): _Natural Theology._ Jeremy +Bentham (1748-1832): _Principles of Morals and Legislation._ William +Godwin (1756-1836): _Inquiry concerning Political Justice._ Thomas +Robert Malthus (1766-1834): _Essay on the Principle of Population._ +David Ricardo (1772-1823): _Principles of Political Economy._ James +Mill (1773-1836): _Analysis of the Human Mind._ + +Historians.--John Lingard (1771-1851): _History of England._ Henry +Hallam (1777-1859): _Constitutional History of England._ Sir William +Napier (1785-1860): _History of the Peninsular War._ + +Essayists.--William Cobbett (1762-1835): _Rural Rides in England._ +Sydney Smith (1771-1845): _Letters of Peter Plymley._ Francis Jeffrey +(1773-1850): _Essays._ John Wilson (1785-1854): _Noctes Ambrosianae._ +John Gibson Lockhard (1794-1854): _Life of Sir Walter Scott._ + +Novelists and Dramatists.--William Beckford (1759-1844): _Vathek._ +Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849): _Castle Rackrent._ Jane Porter +(1776-1850): _Scottish Chiefs._ John Galt (1779-1839): _The Annals of +the Parish._ James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862): _The Hunchback; The +Love Chase._ Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866): _Nightmare Abbey_. Mary +Russell Mitford (1787-1855): _Our Village_. + +Poets.--George Crabbe (1754-1832): _The Borough_. Joanna Baillie +(1762-1851): _Poems_. James Hogg (1770-1835): _Queen's Wake_. Thomas +Campbell (1777-1844): _The Pleasures of Hope_. Thomas Moore +(1779-1852): _Irish Melodies; Lalla Rookh_. Ebenezer Elliott +(1781-1849): _Corn Law Rhymes_. Bryan W. Procter (1787-1874): _English +Songs_. John Keble (1792-1866) _The Christian Year_. Felicia Hemans +(1793-1835): _Songs of the Affections_. Thomas Hood (1799-1845): _The +Song of the Shirt; The Bridge of Sighs_. Winthrop Praed (1802-1839): +_The Season; The Letter of Advice_. Thomas Beddoes (1803-1849): +_Lyrics from Death's Jest Book and from The Bride's Tragedy_. + +1837-1900: + +Philosophers and Scientists.--Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856) +_Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic_. Michael Faraday (1791-1867): +_Experimental Researches_. Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875): _Principles +of Geology; Antiquity of Man_. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873): _System +of Logic; Utilitarianism_. George Henry Lewes (1817-1878): _A +Biographical History of Philosophy; Problems of Life and Mind_. Sir +Henry Maine (1822-1888): _Ancient Law; Village Communities_. + +Historians.--Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868): _History of Latin +Christianity down to the Death of Pope Nicholas V_. George Grote +(1794-1871): _History of Greece. James Anthony Froude (1818-1894): +_History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the +Spanish Armada_. Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862): _History of +Civilization_. Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-1892): _The History of +the Norman Conquest_. William Stubbs (1825-1901): _The Constitutional +History of England in its Origin and Development_. Samuel Rawson +Gardiner (1829-1902): _History of England from the Accession of James +I. to the Outbreak of Civil War, 1603-1642; History of the Great Civil +War, 1642-1649; History of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, +1649-1660. Justin M'Carthy (1830-1912): _A History of Our Own Times_. +John Richard Green (1837-1883): _A Short History of the English +People_. William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838-1903): _History of +England in the Eighteenth Century_. James Bryce (1838- ): _The Holy +Roman Empire; The American Commonwealth_. Rt. Rev. Abbot Gasquet, +D.D., O.S.B. (1846- ): _Henry VIII and the English Monasteries; The +Greater Abbeys of England_. Wilfrid Ward (1856- ): _Aubrey de Vere; +Life and Times of Cardinal Newman_. + +Essayists and Critics.--George Barrow (1803-1881): _The Bible in +Spain; Lavengro_. Walter Bagehot (1826-1877): _Literary Studies; The +English Constitution_. Leslie Stephen (1832-1904): _Hours in a +Library; History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century_. John +Morley (1838- ): _Studies in Literature; Edmund Burke; Life of +Gladstone_. John Addington Symonds (1840-1893): _The History of the +Renaissance in Italy_. Austin Dobson (1840- ): _Eighteenth Century +Vignettes; Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Oliver Goldsmith;_ also +_Collected Poems_. Edward Dowden (1843-1913): _Shakespeare, His Mind +and Art; Life of Shelley; Studies in Literature, 1789-1877_. Andrew +Lang (1844-1912): _Letters to Dead Authors; Essays in Little; The +Iliad in English Prose_ (assisted by Leaf and Myers); also _Ballads +and Lyrics of old France_. Augustine Birrell (1850- ): _Obiter Dicta; +Men, Women, and Books; In the Name of the Bodleian_ A. C. Bradley +(1851- ): _Shakespearean Tragedy; Oxford Lectures on Poetry_ Alice +Meynell (1855- ): _The Rhythm of Life; The Spirit of Place;_ also +_Collected Poems_. William Archer (1856- ): _Poets of the Younger +Generation; Masks or Faces: A Study in the Psychology of Acting_. John +W. Mackail (1859- ): _The Springs of Helicon; Life of William Norris_. + +Novelists.--Wilkie Collins (1824-1899): _The Moonstone_. Dinah Maria +Craik (1826-1877): _John Halifax, Gentleman_. Charles L. Dodgson +(Lewis Carroll 1832-1898): _Alice in Wonderland; Through the Looking +Glass_. Joseph H. Shorthouse (1834-1903): _John Inglesant_. Walter +Besant (1836-1901): _All Sorts and Conditions of Men_. William Black +(1841-1898): _A Daughter of Heth_. Canon W. Barry, D.D. (1849- ): _The +Two Standards_. Mrs. Humphry Ward (1851- ): _Marcella_. Canon P.A. +Sheehan, D.D. (1852- ): _My New Curate; The Queen's Fillet_. Hall +Caine (1853- ): _The Manxman_. Rider Haggard (1856- ): _King Solomon's +Mines_. George Gissing (1857-1903): _New Grub Street; The Private +Papers of Henry Ryecroft_. John Ascough (Rt. Rev. Mgr. +Bicherstaffe-Drew, 1858- ): _Marotz_. Kenneth Grahame (1859- ): _The +Golden Age; Dream Days_. A. Conan Doyle (1859- ): _The White Company; +Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_. R.H. Benson (1871- ): _By What +Authority; The Queen's Tragedy_. Mrs. Wilfrid Ward: _Great +Possessions_. + +Poets.--Richard H. Barham (1788-1845): _Ingoldsby Legends_. James C. +Mangan (1803-1849): _Selected Poems_. Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883): +_Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_ (translation). Aubrey de Vere (1814-1902): +_Irish Odes_. Coventry Patmore (1823-1896): _The Angel in the House; +Amelia_. Sidney Dobell (1824-1874): _The Roman; Balder_. Adelaide Anne +Procter (1825-1864): _Legends and Lyrics_. Jean Ingelow (1830-1897): +_Poems_. Edwin Arnold (1832-1904): _The Light of Asia_. Lewis Morris +(1833-1907): _Epic of Hades_. James Thompson (1834-1882): _The City of +Dreadful Night_. J.B.L. Warren (Lord de Tabley, 1835-1895): _Poems: +Dramatic and Lyrical_. Alfred Austin (1835-1913, appointed +poet-laureate in 1896): _English Lyrics_, edited by William Watson. +Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832- ): _The Coming of Love_. Philip Bourke +Marston (1850-1887): _Song-Tide and Other Poems; Wind Voices_. Oscar +Wilde (1854-1900): _Ave Imperatrix; The Ballad of Reading Gaol; De +Profundis_ (prose). + +1900- + +Essayists.--Vernon Lee (Violet Paget, 1857- ): _The Enchanted Woods +and Other Essays; The Sentimental Traveler_. Lawrence Pearsall Jacks +(1860- ): _Mad Shepherds, and Other Human Studies_. Arthur Symons +(1865- ): _William Blake; The Romantic Movement in English Poetry_. +Edward Verrall Lucas (1868- ): _Life of Charles Lamb; Old Lamps for +New_; also the stories _Over Bemerton's_ and _Mr. Ingleside_. Hilaire +Belloc (1870- ): _On Everything_. + +Novelists.--Justin Huntley M'Carthy (1860- ): _The Proud Prince; If +I Were King_. W.W. Jacobs (1863- ): _Many Cargoes; Ship's Company_. +Anthony Hope Hawkins (Anthony Hope, 1863- ): _The Prisoner of Zenda; +Rupert of Hentzau_. Marie Corelli (1864- ): _Thelma; Ardath_. Robert +S. Hichens (1864- ): _The Garden of Allah_. G.W. Birmingham (rev. J.O. +Hannay, 1865- ): _Spanish Gold_. Seumas Macmanus (1870- ): _The +Chimney Corner; Donegal Fairy Stories_. J.C. Snaith (1876- ): +_Araminta; Broke of Covenden_. May Sinclair: _The Divine Fire_. + +Poets.--A.E. Housman (1859- ): _A Shropshire Lad_. Katherine Tynan +Hinkson (1861- ): _Collected Poems; New Poems_ (1911). Arthur +Christopher Benson (1862- ): _Collected Poems; Paul The Minstrel_. +Henry Newbolt (1862- ): _Admirals All_. Herbert Trench (1865- ): +_Deirdre Wedded and Nineteen Other Poems; Collected Poems_. Ethna +Carberry (1866-1902): _The Passing of the Gael_. Richard Le Gallienne +(1866- ): _Robert Louis Stevenson and Other Poems; Attitudes and +Avowals_ (essays); _The End of the Rainbow_ (stories). Lionel Johnson +(1867-1902): _Poems_. Lawrence Binyon (1869- ): _London Visions; +Atilla_ (poetic drama). Nora Hopper Chesson (1871-1906): _Under +Quicken Boughs_. Dora Sigerson Shorter (1873- ): _Collected Poems_. +John Drinkwater (1882- ): _Poems of Love and Death; King Cophetua_. +Richard Middleton. (1882-1911): _Poems and Songs_. Lascelles +Abercrombie: _Interludes_. James Stephens: _Hill of Vision; Crock of +Gold_ (prose fiction). T. Sturge Moore: _Aphrodite against Artemis; +Poems_. + +Celtic Dramatists.--George Moore (1853- ): _The Bending of the +Bough_. Edward Martyn (1859- ): _The Heather Field_. William Boyle: +_The Building Fund_. Padric Colum: _Thomas Muskerry; the Fiddler's +House_. Lennox Robinson: _Patriots_. Rutherford Mayne: _The Turn of +the Road_. H. Granville Barker (English dramatist, 1877- ): _The +Voysey Inheritance_. + +INDEX + +Abercrombie, Lascelles + +_Absalom and Achitophel_ + +_Abt Vogler_ + +Actors, in early plays + in Elizabethan theater + +_Adam Bede_ + +Addison, Joseph, collaborates with Steele + incidental reference to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Admirable Crichton, The_ + +_Adonais_ + +_Advancement of Learning_ + +_Adventures of Harry Richmond_ + +AElfric + +_Aids to Reflection_ + +Akenside, Mark + +_Alastor_ + +_Alchemist, The_ + +_Alexander's Feast_ + +Alfred, King + +_Alice-for-Short_ + +_All for Love_ + +_Alysoun_ + +_Amazing Marriage, The_ + +_Amazone, The_ + +_Amelia_ + +_American Taxation, Speech on_ + +Amorists + +_Ancient Mariner_ + +_Ancren Riwle_ + +_Andrea del Sarto_ + +_Andreas_ + +Anglo-Norman period and Chaucer's Age + characteristics of Normans + history + language + metrical romances + poets + prose writers + references on + suggested readings and question + summary + +_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ + +Anglo-Saxon language + +Anglo-Saxon period + history + home, migrations and religion of Anglo-Saxons + language + mission of English literature + poetry + prose + references on + subject matter and aim + suggested readings and questions + summary + +Anglo-Saxons, earliest literature of + +_Annus Mirabilis_ + +_Antiquary, The_ + +_Apologia, Newman's_ + +_Apologie for Poetrie_ + +Arbuthnot, John + +_Arcadia_ + +Archer, William + +_Areopagitica_ + +Arnold, Edwin + +Arnold, Matthew + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + poetical works + prose works + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + +Arnold, Thomas + +Arthur, King + +Ascham, Roger + +_Astraea Redux_ + +_As You Like It_ + +_Atalanta in Calydon_ + +Atterbury, Francis + +_Aurengzebe_ + +Austen, Jane, incidental references to + life and works of + references on + suggested readings in + +Austin, Alfred + +_Autobiography_, Franklin's + +Ayseough, John + +Bacon, Francis, incidental references to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Bacon, Roger + +Bagehot, Walter + +Baillie, Joanna + +_Balder Dead_ + +Bale, John + +_Ballad of Agincourt_ + +Ballads, English + in fifteenth century + +_Barchester Towers_ + +Barclay, Alexander + +Barham, Richard H. + +Barker, H. Granville + +_Barnaby Rudge_ + +_Barrack Room Ballads_ + +Barrie, incidental references to + suggested readings in + +Barrow, Isaac + +_Battle of Brunaenburh_ + +_Battle of the Books_ + +Baxter, Richard + +Beattie, James + +Beaumont, Frances + +_Becket_ + +Becket, Thomas a + +Beckford, William + +Beddoes, Thomas + +Bede, _Ecclesiastical History_ + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Behn, Mrs. Aphra + +Belloc, Hilaire + +Bennett, Arnold + suggested readings in + +Benson, Arthur Christopher + suggested readings in + +Benson, R.H. + +Bentham, Jeremy + +Bentley, Richard + +_Beowulf_ + suggested readings in + +Berkeley, George + +Besant, Walter + +_Bible_, King James version + Tyndale's translation of + Wycliffe's translation of + +Bickerstaff, Isaac + +Bickerstaffe-Drew, Rt. Rev. Mgr. + +Binyon, Lawrence + +_Biographia Literaria_ + +Birmingham, G.W. (Hanney, Rev. J.O.) + +Birrell, Augustine + +Black, William + +Blackmore, Richard D. + suggested readings in + +_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_ + +Blake, William + references on + suggested readings in + +Blank verse + in eighteenth century + introduction into England + Shakespeare's and Marlowe's use of + +_Bleak House_ + +_Blessed Damozel, The_ + +_Blot in the 'Scutcheon_ + +Bolingbroke, Lord + +_Bonduca_ + +_Book of Martyrs_ + +Borrow, George + +Boswell, James + +Boy actors + +Boyle, William + +Bradley, Andrew + +Brandes, Georg, quoted + +Bret Harte + +_Bride of Lammermoor_ + +Bridges, Robert + suggested readings in + +Bronte, Charlotte + references for + suggested readings in + +Bronte, Emily + +Brooke, Stopford, quoted + +Brown, Charles Brockden + +Browne, Sir Thomas + +Browne, William + +Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, life of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + +Browning, Robert + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + optimistic philosophy of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Brut_ + Layamon's + Wace's + +Bryce, James + +Buckle, Henry Thomas + +Bulwer Lytton + suggested readings in + +Bunyan + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + references for + suggested readings in + works of + +Burke, Edmund + references for + suggested readings in + +Burnet, Gilbert + +Burney, Fanny + +Burns, Robert + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + love songs of + poetic creed of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Burton, Robert + +Butler, Bishop + +Butler, Samuel + +Byron, Lord + compared with Shakespeare + dramas of + general characteristics + incidental references to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Caedmon + compared with Milton + +Caedmonian Cycle + +_Cain_ + +Caine, hall + +_Caliban upon Setebos_ + +Camden, William + +Campbell, Thomas + +_Canterbury Tales_ + +Carberry, Ethna + +Carew, Thomas + suggested readings in + +Carlyle, Thomas + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + quoted + references on + Sartor Resartus + suggested readings in + works of + +Carols of fifteenth century + +Carroll, Lewis + +_Castle of Indolence_ + +_Castle of Otranto_ + +Cathedrals, Gothic + +_Cato_ + +Cavalier poets + +Caxton, William + +Celtic dramatists + +Celtic imagery + +Celtic Renaissance + +_Cenci_, _The_ + +Cervantes + +Chapel Royal + +Chapman, George + +_Charge of the Light Brigade_ + +Chatterton, Thomas + suggested readings in + +Chaucer, Geoffrey + _Canterbury Tales_ + compared with Spenser + earlier poems of + incidental references to + influence on English language + life of + qualitites of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + +Chaucer's age. _See_ Anglo-Norman period + +Chesson, Nora Hopper + +Chester plays + +Chesterton, Gilbert K. + references on + suggested readings in + +_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_ + +_Child's Garden of Verse, A_ + +_Christ_, Cynewulf's + +_Christabel_ + +_Christmas Carol, A_ + +_Chronicle, The_, Stow's + +_Chronicles of England, Ireland and Scotland_ + +Cibber, Colley + +_Citizen of the World_ + +Clarendon, Lord + +_Clarissa Harlowe_ + +Classical couplet + +Classic school + +Clive, Robert + +_Cloister and the Hearth_ + +_Cloud, The_ + +Clough, Arthur Hugh + suggested readings in + +Cobbett, William + +Coleridge, Samuel Taylor + association with Wordsworth + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + poetry of + prose of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + +Collier, Jeremy + +Collins, Wilkie + suggested readings in + +Collins, William + +_Colloquium_ + +_Colombe's Birthday_ + +Colum, Padric + +Comedies, early + +_Comedy of Errors, The_ + +_Complete Angler_ + +_Comus_ + +_Conciliation with America_, Burke's speech on + +_Conduct of the Understanding_ + +_Confessio Amantis_ + +_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_ + +Congreve, William + +Conrad, Joseph + references on + suggested readings in + +Cooper, Frederic Taber, quoted + +Corelli, Marie + +Cornish, William + +_Cotter's Saturday Night_ + +Couplet, classical + "riming" + +Court plays + +Coventry plays + +Cowley, Abraham + +Cowper, William + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Crabbe, George + +Craik, Dinah Maria + +_Cranford_ + +Cranmer's Bible + +Crashaw, Richard + +Critical writings + Addison's + Age of Romanticism + Arnold's + Carlyle's + Coleridge's + De Quincey's + Dryden's + Johnson's + Pope's + Swinburne's + +Criticism, first essay on + +Cromwell's Bible + +Cross, John W. + +_Crossing the Bar_ + +_Cry of the Children_ + +_Curse of Kehama_ + +_Cymbeline_ + +Cynewulf + +Cynewulf Cycle + suggested readings in + +_Daniel Deronda_ + +Daniel, Samuel + +Darwin, Charles + +D'Avenant, Sir William + +David and Bathsabe + +_David Balfour_ + +_David Copperfield_ + +Davidson, John + suggested readings in + +_Deathe of Blanche the Duchesse_ + +_Decameron_, framework of similar to _Canterbury Tales_ + +De-foe, Daniel + a journalist + incidental references to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +Dekker, Thomas + +Deloney, Thomas + suggested readings in + +De Morgan, William Frend + references on + suggested readings in + +Denham, Sir John + +_Departmental Ditties_ + +De Quincey, Thomas + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Deserted Village, The_ + +De Vere, Aubrey + +_Diana of the Crossways_ + +Diary, Evelyn's + Pepys's + +Dickens, Charles + contrasted with Thackeray + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Dictionary of the English Language_, Johnson's + +Didactic verse + +_Discovery of Guiana, The_ + +_Disdain Returned_ + +_Diurnall_ + +_Divine Vision, The_ + +Dobell, Sidney + +Dobson, Austin + quoted + suggested readings in + +Dodgson, Charles L. (Lewis Carroll) + +_Dombey and Son_ + +_Don Juan_ + +Donne, John + opposes sonnet + suggested readings in + +_Don Quixote_ + +_Double Dealer, The_ + +Douglas, Gawain + +_Dover Beach_ + +Dowden, Edward + quoted + +Doyle, A. 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Rev. Abbot + +_Gates of Dreamland_ + +_Gawayne and the Green Knight_ + +Gay, John + +General reference list for English literature + +_Gentle Craft_ + +Geoffrey of Monmouth + +Gibbon, Edward + quoted + suggested readings in + +Gibson, Wilfrid + suggested readings in + +Gissing, George + +Gladstone, William E. + +Gleeman + songs of + +Globe Theater + +Godwin, William + +Goldsmith, Oliver + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Good-Natured Man, The_ + +_Gorboduc_ + +Gosse. 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+ general characteristics + incidental references to + life of + poems of + references on + suggested readings in + +Keble, John + +Kenilworth + +_Kidnapped_ + +_Kim_ + +_King Lear_ + +_King of the Golden River, The_ + +_King's Quair, The_ + +Kingsley, Charles + suggested readings in + +Kipling, Rudyard + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + Nobel prize awarded to + prose of + references on + suggested readings in + verse of + +_Knighte's Tale, Chaucer's_ + +Knoblauch, Edward + +Knowles, James Sheridan + +Knox, John + +_Kubla Khan_ + +Kyd, Thomas + +_Lady of the Lake_ + +Lake Poets + +_L'Allegro_ + +Lamb, Charles + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + +_Lamia_ + +Landor, Walter Savage + suggested readings in + +Lang, Andrew + +Laengland, William + references on + suggested readings in + +Language, new English + +Languages, after Norman Conquest + +_Last Days of Pompeii_ + +Latimer, Hugh + +Layamon + suggested readings in + +_Lay of the Last 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characteristics of poetry + compared with Shakespeare + incidental references to + influence of _Paradise Lost_ + life of + Macaulay's essay on + _Paradise Lost_ + quoted + references on + Spenser's influence on + suggested readings in + works of + +_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ + +Miracle plays + suggested readings in + +Mitford, Mary Russell + +_Modern Painters_ + +_Modest Proposal_ + +Moliere + +_Moll Flanders_ + +Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley + +Moore, George + +Moore, Thomas + +Moore, T. 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Tennyson's poetry of + Thomason's poetry of + Walton's love of + Wordsworth's poetry of + +_Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation_ + +_Necessity of Atheism_ + +_New Atlantis_ + +_New Year's Eve_ + +Newbolt, Henry + +_Newcomes, The_ + +Newman, Cardinal John Henry + general characteristics of + life of + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +"News books" + +"News letters" + +Newspapers + +_Nicholas Nickleby_ + +Nietzsche, Friedrich + +_Nightingale, To a_ + +_Noble Numbers_ + +Norman conquest + +North, Sir Thomas + +_Northanger Abbey_ + +Novel, development of + development of modern + in eighteenth century + in sixteenth century + in twentieth century + in Victorian age + (_See_ also Scott, Dickens, Eliot, Thackeray, etc.) + picaresque + suggested readings for + +_Novum Organum_ + +Noyes, Alfred + suggested readings in + +_Nut-Brown maid, The_ + +Oberaemmergau _Passion Play_ + +Occleve, Thomas + +_Ode on a Grecian Urn_ + +_Ode on the Passions_ + +_Ode 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readings and questions + summary + trend of contemporary literature + +_Two Voices, The_ + +Tyndale, William + suggested readings in + +Tyndall, John + quoted + +Udall, Nicholas + +_Ulysses_ + +_Underwoods_ + +_Unfortunate Traveler_ + +Unities, dramatic + +"University wits" + +_Unto this Last_ + +_Urn Burial_ + +_Utopia_ + +Vanbrugh, John + +_Vanity Fair_ + +_Vanity of Human Wishes_ + +Vaughan, Henry + +_Venus and Adonis_ + +_Vercelli Book_ + +_Vicar of Wakefield_ + +Vice, in old plays + +Victorian age + essayists + history of + novelists + poets + references on + scientific writers + short stories + suggested readings and questions + summary + +_Vignettes in Rhyme_ + +_Virginians_ + +_Vision of Judgement_ + +_Volpone_ + +Voltaire + +_Vox Clamantis_ + +_Vulgar Errors_ + +Wace + +Wagner, Richard + +Wallace, Professor C.W. + quoted + +Waller, Edmund + +Walpole, Horace + suggested readings in + +Walpole, Herbert + +Walton, Izaak + +_Wanderer, The_ + +Warburton, William + +Ward, Mrs. Humphry + +Ward, Mrs. Wilfrid + +Ward, Wilfrid + +Warner, William + +Warren, J.B.L. (Lord de Tabley) + +War of the Roses + +Warton, Thomas + +Watson, William + suggested readings in + +Watts, Isaac + +Waits-Dunton, Theodore + +_Waverly_ + +_Way of the World_ + +Webster, John + +_War of Hermiston_ + +Wells, Herbert George + references on + suggested readings in + +Wesley, Charles + +Wesley, John + +_Westward Ho_ + +_What Every Woman Knows_ + +_White Devil, The_ + +White, Gilbert + +Whitefield, George + +_Widecombe Fair_ + +_Widsieth_ + +Wilde, Oscar + +Wilson, John + +_Winter's Tale_ + +_Witch of Atlas_ + +Wither, George + +_Woman Killed with Kindness, A_ + +_Woodlanders, The_ + +_Woodstock_ + +Wordsworth, William + general characteristics of + incidental references to + life of + poet of child life + poet of man + poet of nature + quoted + references on + suggested readings in + works of + +_World, The_ + +Wotton, Sir Henry, quoted + +_Wounds of Civil War_ + +Wright + +_Wuthering Heights_ + +Wyatt, Sir Thomas + suggested readings in + +Wycherley, William + +Wycliffe, John + +Yeats, William Butler + references on + suggested reading in + +York plays + +Young, Edward + +_Youth of the Year_ + +Zangwill, Israel + suggested readings in + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Halleck's New English Literature +by Reuben P. 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