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Authorized by the Cotiucil of Fuhlic Iftstriiction for Ontario.

THE

H ISTORY

ENGLISH LITERATURE,

WITH

^u §ntliut of % §xxpn auir (Sr0fot|

THE EiNGlJSH LANGUAGE,

ILLUSTRATED BY EXTRACTS.
FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND PRIVATE STUDENTS.

WILLIAM SPALDING, A. M.,

PROFESSOR OF LOGIC, RIIKTORIC, AND MXTAPHY8ICS, IN THE UNIVEftSITT OF

SAINT ANDREWS.

WITH APPENDIX BY W. HOUSTON, M. A.,

Eitamiwr in English in the Unioerrity of Toronto.

9>0ttmto, (dnW

ADAM MILLER & CO.

1876.

Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canaiia, ia the year 1876. bjfiL
In the Office of the Minister of Afn^culture.

To aid Students in the preparation of work for the Uni-
versity, the Canadian publishers have added a valu-
able selection of ,uestions taken bom BzanUnation
Paper,, given at the University of Toronto, and arranged
by W. HOUSTON, M.A., one of the Examiners in
English.

'^^L^SfitJJM ItJUMttMii H MJJUA|MtMMnii

PREFACE.

the Uni-
a valu-

mination

I arranged

iners in

Tbis volume is ofiered, as an Elementary Text-Book, to those vrho
are interested in the instruction of young persons.

The tenor of my own pursuits, and my hearty concurrence in tlie
wish to see the systematic study of English Literature occupying s
wider place in the course of a liberal education, seemed to justify
me in attempting, at the request of the publishers, to frame an
unambitious Manual, which should relate and explain some of the
leading &cts in the Intellectual History of our Nation. Those
youthful students, for whose benefit the book is intended, will,
I would fain hope, find it not ill calculated to serve, whether in the
class-room or in the closet, as an incitement to the perusal, and
a clue through the details, oS works possessing higher pretensions,
and imparting fuller information.

It is for others to decide whether, in ushering young readers into
the field of Literary History, I have been able to make the study
interesting or attractive to them. I am at least confident that the
book does not contain any thing that is beyond their comprehen-
sion, either in its manner of describing facts, or in its criticisms of
works, or in its inddental suggestion of critical and historical prin-
ciples. But, on the other hand, having much faith in the vigour of
youthful intelligence, and a strong desire to aid in the right guid-
ance of youthful feeling, I have not shrunk from availing myself
freely of the opportunities, furnished profusely by a theme so noble,
for endeavouring to prompt active thinking and to awaken refined
and elevating sentiments. I have frequently invited the student to
reflect, how closely the world of letters is related, in all its r^ons,
to that world of reality and action in the midst of which it comee
into being : how Literature is, in its origin, an efiiosion and peiv
petn .don Df human thoughts, and emotions, and wishes ; how it is,

PREFACE.

in its processes, an art which obeys a consistent and philosopliical
theory ; how it is, in its^ffects, one of the liighest and most powerful
of those influences, that have been appointed to rule and change
the social and moral life of man.

The nature of the plan, according to which the materials are
disposed, will appear from a glance at the Table of Contents. The
History of English Literature being distributed into Two great
Sections, the First Part treats the earlier of the two. It describes
the Literary Progress of the Nation from its davm in the Anglo-
Saxon Times, to the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, which is
taken as the close of the Middle Ages. In the course of that long
period, not only were the foundations of our native speech laid, but
its structure may correctly be held to have been in all essential
])oints completed. Accordingly, the Outline of the Origin and
Growth of the English Language, which could not conveniently
have been incorporated with the earlier literary chapters, seemed to
find its fit place in the' Second Part. The Third Part, resuming the
History of our Literature at the opening of Modem Times, traces
its revolutions down to the present day. The changes that' have
occurred in the language during this most recent period, appearing
to be really nothing more than varieties of style, do not require a
separate review, but receive incidental notice as they successively
present tliemselves.

The Historical Survey of English Literature, announced in the
title-page as the principal business o^the volume, thus occupies the
First and Third Parts. The former of these, dealing with the
Anglo-Saxon Times and the Middle Ages, is short. It is so con-
structed, likewise, (unless the aim has been missed,) as to introduce
the reftder gradually and easily to studies of this sort. It contains
comparatively little speculation of any kind: and those literary*
monuments of the period, which were thought to be most worthy of
attention, are described with considerable fulness, both in the hope
of exciting interest, and because the books fall into the hands of
few. In the Summary of Modem Literature which fills the Third
Part, more frequent and sustained efforts are made to arouse reflec-
tion, both by occasional remarks on the relations between intel-
lectual culture and the other elements of society, and by hints
as to the theoretical laws on which criticism should be founded.
Modem works, also, while the characteristics of several of the most
celebrated are discussed at considerable length, are hardly ever
analyzed so fully as were some of the older ones ; and, as we ap-
proach our own times, it is presumed that particular description of
the contents of popular books becomes less and less imperative.

PREFACE.

ever

In the course of those Literary Chapters, some information ii
given in regard to a large number of authors ai^d their writings.
But, of a great many of these, all that is told amounts to very little;
and I may say, generally, that names of minor note, inserted only
on account of circumstances marking them off from the vast crowd
of names omitted, receive no further scrutiny tlian such as is required
for indicating cursorily the position of those who bore them. On a
few of those great men, who have been our guides and masters in
the departments of thought and invention that are most widely in«
teresting, there is bestowed an amount of attention which may by
some readers be thought excessive, but which to myself seemed
likely to make the book both the more readable and the more
useful. There must, however, be great diversity of opinion among
diverse critics, both as to the selection of names to bo commemo-
rated, and as to the comparative prominence due to different authors,
and works, and kinds of composition. It is enough for me to say,
that, in these matters as in others, I have formed my. judgment
with due deliberation, and made the best use I could of all the infor-
mation that is at my command.

Many little points have been managed with a view to facilitate
the use of the volume in public teaching. Dates, and other partic-
ulars, which, though often not to be dispensed with, tend to ob-
struct reading aloud, are, always where it is possible, thrown into the
margin. Bibliographical details are generally avoided, except a
few, which illustrate either the works described or the history of
the author or his time. Hardly anywhere, for instance, are suc-
cessive editions noted, unless when the student is asked to make
himself acquainted with the English Translation's of the Holy
Bible ; an exception which is surely not wrong, in a work designed
to assist in informing the minds of Christian youth.

The Series of Illustrative Extracts is as full as it was found pos-
sible to make it : and it is ample enough to throw much light on
the narrative and observations furnished by the Text. The selec-
tions have been made in obedience to the same considerations, which
dictated copious criticisms of a few leading writers. The works
quoted from are not many in comparison with those named in the
body of the book, being only some of those that are most distin-
guished as masterpieces of genius or most eminently characteristic
as products of their age : and the intention was, that evei^ speci-
men should be large enough to convey a notion, not altogether in-
adequate, of its author^s manner both in thought and in style. No
Extracts are given in the First Part. The writers of those ancient
times could not, at least till we reach the very latest of them, be

PUEFACB.

understood by ordinary readers without explanatory and glossarial
notes. Accordingly the quotations from their writings are thrown
into the Second Part ; where verbal interpretation is less out of
phkce ; and where, also, they serve the double use of illustrating the
progress of the language, and of relieving the philological text by
contrast or by their poetical pictures. In the Third Part, the Ex-
tracts are subjoined, as footnotes, to the passages of the text in
which the several authors are commemorated. No Extracts are
presented from the Nineteenth Century. Its literary abundance
and variety could not have been exemplified, either fairly or instruc-
tively, without an apparatus of specimens so bulky as to be quite
inadmissible : and i ' books are not only more widely known,
but more easily to be found, than those of preceding times.

The Second Part, offering a brief Summary of the Early His-
tory of the English Language, fills about one-seventh of the
volume. It must have, through the nature of the matter, a less
popular 'and amusing aspect than the other Parts. But the topic
handled in these Philological Chapters is quite as importaat
as those that occupy the laterary ones. The story which this
Part tells, should be familiar to every one who would understand
thoroughly the History of English Literature; and therefore it
deserved, if it did not rather positively require, admission as an
appendix to a narrative in which that History is surveyed. A
knuwledge of it is yet more valuable to those who desire to gain,
as every one among us must if he is justly to be called a weii-
•iducated man, an exact mastery of the Science of English Gram-
mar. The description here given of the principal steps by whicn
our native tongue was formed, illustrates, almost in every page,
some characteristic fact in our literary historyi or some distinctive
feature iu our ordinary speech.

1 glossarial
ire thrown
less out of
tratmg the
Altext by
t, the £x-
the text in
Ltracts are
abundance
or instruc-
be quite
ly known,

Carly His-

th of the

ter, a less

; the topic

importaat

vhich this

inderstand

lerefore it

lion as an

^yed. A

to gain,

id a weii-

sh Grain-

)y whicft

ry page,

istinctive

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

1. The Four Great Periods of English History.— 2. The Koman Period.-*
3. The Dark Ages— The Anglo-Saxon Period.— 4. The Middle Age«—
The Normans— Feudalism — The Romish Church — Aspect of Medieval
Literature. — 5. lianguages used in the Middle Ages — French— English-
Latin.— 6. Other Features of Literature in the Middle Ages— lti> ' <^tioiml
Character — The Want of Printing.— 7. Modern Times — Contrast oi Viodcm
Literature with Medinval.— 8. Lessons Taught by the Study o ' Literary
Works— Lessons Taught by the Study of Literary History . Vix^e 17

PART FIRST.

LITERATURE IN THE DARK AND MIDDLE AGES.
A. D. 449— A. D. 1509.

CHAPTER L

THE ANGLO-SAXON TIMES.

A. D. 449- -A. D. 1066.

SECTION FIRST : LITERATURE IN THE CELTIC AND LATIN

TONGUES.

1. Tlie Four Languages used in Literature— Latin and Anglo-Saxon— The
Two Celtic Tongues— The Welsh— The Irish and Scottish Gaelic— Celtic
Literature. 2. Gaelic Literature— Irish Metrical Kelics and Prose
Chronicles — Scottbh Metrical Kelics— Ossian.— 3. Welsh Literature—
The Triads— Supposed Fragments of the Bards— Komances— Legends of
King Arthur. — Latin Literature. 4. Introduction of Christianity—
Saint Patriok—Columba— Augustine.— 5. Learu 1 Men— Superiority of
Ireland— Intercourse with the Continent — The Anglo-Saxcns in Rome. —
6. The Four Great Names of the Times— Alcuin and Erigena— Bedo and
Alfred— Latin Learning among the Anglo-Saxons . Page 29

A 2

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER II.

THE ANGLO-SAXON TIMES.

A. D. 449— A. D. 1066.

SECTION BBCOND .' LITERATURE IN THE ANGLO-SAXON TONGUE.

1. Usoal Course of Early National Literature. — 2. Peculiar Character of
Anglo-Saxon Literature — Its Causes. — Poetry. 3. National and Histor-
ical Poems — The Tale of Beowulf— Other Specimens. — 4. Poems Didac-
tic and Religious — Extant Specimens — Csedmon's Life and Poems.— 5. Ver-
sification and Stjrle of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. — Prose. 6. The Living I^an-
ginge freely used — Translations from the Scriptures. — 7. Original Com-
position — Homilies — Miscellaneous Works — The Saxon Chronicle. —
8. King Alfred— His Works — His Character . . Page 37

CHAPTER III.

THE NORMAN TIMES.

A. D. 1066— A. D. 1307.

SECTION FIRST : UTERATURE IN THE LATIN TONGUE.

I NTRODUCTiON TO THE PERIOD. 1. Distribution of Races and Kingdoms. —

2. Literary Cliaracter of the Times.— The Regular Latin Literature.

3. Learning in the Eleventh Century — Lanfranc— Anselm.— 4. Philo-
sophy and Physical Science in tlie Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries —
Hales and Duns Scotus — Roger Bacon. — fir. HjahnjanH — William of
Malmesbury — Geoffrey of Monmouth — Girald du Barri— Matthew Paris.
— 6. Success in Poetry — Joseph of Exeter — Geoffrey de Vinsauf— Nigel
Wircker's Ass. — The Irregular Latin Literature. 7. Latin Pasqum-
ades— The Priest Golias — Walter Mapes. — 8. Collections of Tales in l^tin
— Gervase of Tilbury — The Seven Sages— The Gesta Romanorum—
Nature of the Stories. — 9. Uses of the Collections of Tales — Reading in
Monasteries — Manuals tar Preachers — Morals annexed in the Gesta —
Specimens. — 10. Use of the Latin Stories by the Poets — Chivalrous
Romances taken from them — Chaucer and Gower— Shakspeare and Sir
Walter Soott — Miscellaneous Instances . . . Page 47

CHAPTER IV.

THE NORMAN TIMES.
A.D. 1066— A. D. 1307.

SECTION SECOND : LITERATURE IN THE NORMAN-I REMCII AND
SAXON-ENGLISU TONGUES.

KoMUN-FRUicn. 1. The Two Languages of France— Poetry of the Nor-
ouuts— The Fabliaux and Chivalrous Romances. — 2. Anglo-Norman
Smnances from English History— The Legend of Havelok— Growth of
netitioas Embellishments— Translations into English.— 3. Anglo-Nor^
nan Romances of the Round Table— Outline of their Story.— 4. Author*
aud Trans|»tor» of Anglo-Norman Romances — Chiefly Englishmen "«>

CONTENTS. 7

Borron—Gast—Mapes.— Saxon-English. 5. Decay of the Anglo-Saxon
Tongae— The Saxon Chronicle. — 6. Extant Relics of Semi-Saxon English
Verse— Historical Works partly from the French— Approach to the Eng-
lish Tongue— The Brat of LayamoE. ^Robert of Gloucester— Robert Man-
nyng.— 7. Other Metrical Relics of Semi-Saxon and Early English Yerae
—The Ormulum— The Owl and the Nightingale— Michael of Kildare—
The Ancient English Drama . . • • Tagefid

CHAPTER V.

THE LITEBATUBE OF ENGLAND IN THE FOURTEENTH

CENTURY.

A. D. 1307— A. D. 1399.

rNTRODUOTiON. 1. Social and Literary Character of the Period. — Litera-
TOBK FROM 1307 TO 1350. 2. Occam's Philosophy— Ecclesiastics— English
Poemi. — Probe from 1350 to 1399. 3. Ecclesiastical Reforms — John
Wyoliffe— His Translation of the Bible — Mandeville — Trevisa— Chaucer.
— PoBTRT FROM 1350 TO 1399. 4. Minor Poets— The Visions of Pierce
Plovrman — Character of their Inventions — Chivalrous Romances. — 5. John
Gower— His Works— Illustrations of thb Confessio Amantis. — 6. Geofirey
Cliaucer— His Life— His Studies and Literary Character.— 7. Chaucer's
Metrical Translations — His smaller Original Poems — The Flower and
the Leaf.— 8. Chauoer's Canterbury Tales — Their Plan— The Prologue —
Description of the Pilgrims. — 9. The Stories told by the Pilgrims — llieir '
Oluiracter, Poetical and Moral . . . « Page 70

CHAPTER VI.

ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, AND
SCOTTISH IN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH.

A. D. 1399— A. D. 1509 ; and a. d. 1306— a. d. 1513.

Gnolaro. 1. Poetry— John Lydgate*-His Storie of Thebe8.->3. Lyd-
gate's Minor Poems— Character of his Opinions and Feelings— Relapse
into Monastidsm- Specimens.— 3. Stephen Hawes — Analysis of his Pas-
time of Pleasure.—!. The Latest Metrical Romances— The Earliest Bal-
lads — Chevy Chase — Robin Hood. — 6. Prose — Literary Dearth— Patrons
of Learning — Hardyng— William Caxton — His Printing-Press and its
Fruits.— ScoTUiND. 6. Retrospect— Michael Scot— Thomas the Rhymer.
— 7. The Fourteenth Century— John of Fordun— Wyntonn's Chronicle
— The Bruce of John Barbour— Its Literary Merit— Its Language. —
8. The Fifteenth Cei;tury— The King's Quair— Blind Harry the Minstrel
— Brilliancy of Scc^tisb Poetry late in the Century — Henryson— His
Testament of Cressida— Gawaiu DougUu— His Works.— 9. William Dun-
bar — His Genius and Poetical Works — Scottish Prose still waotinff—
Universities fonnded— Printing in Edinburgh t » i'age 84

OC^SiTEMTS.

PART SECOND.

THE bRIGIN AND GROWTH OP THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE.

CHAPTER L
'■ THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD.

A. D. 449— A. D. 1066.
rarnoDTTCTiON or the constituent elements op the

LANGUAGE.

t. The Families of European Tongoes— The Celtic, Gothic, and Classical^
The Anglo-Saxon a Germanic Tongne of the Gothic Stock. — 2. Founders
of the Anglo-Saxon Race in England — Jutes, Saxons, Angles— The Old
Frisio Dialect. — 3. History of the Anglo-Saxon Tongue — Prevalence of
the Dialect of the West Saxons— Two Leading Dialects— The Saxon—
The Anglian or Northumbrian. — 4. What Dialect of Anglo-Saxon passed
into the Standard Elnglish Tongue?- 5. Close Resemblance of tlie Anglo-
Saxon Tongne to the English — Illustrated by Examples. — 6. 7. Alfred's
Tale of Orpheus and Eurydice— Literal Translation and Notes.— 8. Caed-
mon's Destruction of Pharaoh— Translated with Notes • P»go 98

CHAPTER n.

THE SEMI-SAXON PERIOD.

A. O. 1066— A. D. 1250.

TBANSITION OF THE SAXON TONGUE INTO TIIE ENGLISH.

1. Character of the Tjanguage in this Stage— Duration of the Period.— S. Th«
Kinds of Corruptions —Illustrated bj Examples. — 3. Extract from
the Saxon Chronicle Translated and Analyzed.— 4. Ijayamon's Brut—
Analysis ofits Ijanguage — Comparison with Language of th* Chronicle.
— 6. Extract from I^ayamon Translated 0i>d Analyzed . Paare 112

CONTKXTS

CHAPTER III.

THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD
A. D. 1250— A. D. 1500.

sical—
unden
le Old
ince of
ixon—
passed
Anglo-
Ifred's
, Ced-
*ago98

2. Th«
t from
Brut—
'onicle.
lore 112

FORMATION OP THE STRUCTURE OP THE ENGLISH TONGUE.

1 Principle of the Cliange — Inflections deserted — Substitntes to be found—
The First Step already exemplified. — 2. Stages of the Re-Construction —
Early English— Middle English. Earlt English.— 3. Character of the
Early English — Specimens. — 4. Extract from The Owl and the Night-
ingale. — 5. Extract from the Legend of Thomas Becket. Middle
English. — 6. Character of Middle English— The Main Features of the
Modem Tongue established — Changes in Grammar — Changes in Vo-
cabulary-Specimens — Chaucer. — 7. Extracts from Prologue to the Can-
terbury Tales.— 8. Extracts from the Knight's Tale. — 9. Specimen of
Chaucer's Prose.— 10. Language in the Early Part of the Fifteenth Cen-
tury—Extract from Lydgate's Churl and Bird.— 11. Language in the Lat-
ter Part of the Fifteenth Century- Its Character— The Structure of the
English Tongue substantially Completed — Extract from The Paston Let-
ters. The Language op Scotland. — 12. A Gothic Dialect in North-
Eastern Counties — An Anglo-Saxon Dialect in Southern Counties —
Changes as in England. — 13. The Scottish Tongue in the Fourteenth
Century— Extract from Barbour's Bruce. — 14. Great Changes in the Fif-
teenth Century— Extract from Dunbar's Thistle and Rose . Page 120

CHAPTER IV.

THE SOURCES OP THE MODERN ENGLISH TONGUE;
AND THEIR COMPARATIVE IMPORTANCE.

I. Two Points — The Grammar — The Vocabulary— Doctrine as to each.—
Grammar. 2. English Grammar in Substance Anglo-Saxon— Enumera-
tion of Particulars. — 3. General Doctrine — Our Deviations in Verbs few
— The chief of them — Our Deviations in Nouns and their Allies many
— Description of them — Consequences. — 4. Position of Modem English
among European Tongues — Leading Facts common to the History of all
—Comparison of the Gothic Tongues with the Classical — Comparison of
the English Tongue with both. — Vocabulary. 5. Glossarial Elements
to bo Weighed not Numbered — The Principal Words of the English
Tong<ie Anglo-Saxon — Seven Classes of Words from Saxon Roots.—

6. Words from Latin Roots — Periods of Introduction — Kinds— Uses.—

7. Words from French Roots — Periods of Introduction — Kinds and Uses.
—8. Words from Greek Roots.— 9. Words from Tongues yielding few.
—10. Estimate, by Number, of Saxon Words Lost — Remarks.- 11. Esti-
mate of the Number of Saxon Words Retained— Proportion as tested
by the Dictionaries — Proportion u tested by Specinena from Popular
Writers ... • . . Page 140

.10

CONTENTS.

PART THIRD.

TUB LITERATURE OF MODERN TIMES.

A. D. 1509— A. D. 1870. .fi> S

• 1

CHAPTER I.

THE AGE OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION.

A. D. 1509— A. D. 1558.

SECTION FIRST : SCHOLASTIC AND ECCLESIASTICAL LITEBATUBB

IN ENGLAND.

iNtBODDonoir. 1. Impulses affecting Literatnre^Checks impeding it—
The Reformation — State Affairs— Classical Learning. 2. Influence of the
Age on the Literature of the Next — Its Social Importance. Classicaii
Leabhino. 3. Benefits of Printing— Qreek and Latin Studies — Eminent
Names — Theoloot. 4. Translations of the Holy Scriptures— Tyndale's
Life and Labours — CoverdrJe— Rogers— Cranmer— Reigns of Edward the
Sixth and Mary — Increase of Printers. 5. Original English Writings in
Theology — Their Character— Ridley — Cranmer— Tyndale's Treatises—
Latimer's Sormon»— Character of his Oratory . ' . Page 157

CHAPTER II.

THE AGE OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION.

A. D. 1509— A. D. 1558.

SECTION second: MISCELLANEOUS LITEBATUBB IN ENGLAND;
AND UTEBATUBE ECCLESIASTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS

IN SCOTLAND.

MisoxLLANEOUS Pbobb IX Enolahd. 1. Secondary Importance of the
Works— Sir Thomas More— His Style— His Historical Writings— His
Tracts and Letters.— 2. Roger Ascham— His Style— His Toxophilus—
His Schoolmaster— Prosody-oFemala Education— Wilson's Logic and
Rhetoric— EMaLiSK Pobtbt. 8. Poetical Aspect and Relations of the
Age— Its Earliest Poetry— Satires— Barklay—Skelton's Works.— 4. Lord
Surrey — His Literary Influence — Its Causes — His Italian Studies — His
Sonnets — Introduction of Blank Verse— His Supposed Influence on Ed^-
lisli Versification.— 5. Wyatt— Translations of the Psalms— The Mirror
of Magistrates— Its Influence— Its Plan and Authors— Sackville's Induc<
tion and Complaint of Buckingham.— Infanot of thb Enqush Dbama.
6. Retrospect— The English Drama in the Middle Ages— Its Religious
QD»t— The Jitjrfiule-Play*- ^t^e Moral-Plays.— 7t The Drama w\ t}j« Si««

CONTENTS.

teenth Centnry — Ito.Beginnings — Skelton— Bishop Bala^s Moral Plays—
Heywood*8 Interludes. — 8. Appearance of Tragedy and Comedy— Udall's
Comedy of Roister Doister — The Tragedy of Gorboduc, by Sackville and
Norton. — Literature m Scotland. 9. Literary Character of the
Period— Obstacles — State of the Language. — 10. Scottish Poetry —
Sir David Lindsay— His Satirical Play— Its Design and Effects — His
other Poems.— 11. First Appearance of Original Scottish Prose — Trans-
lations — The Complaint of Scotland — Pitscottie — State of Learning —
Boeoe — John Major. — 12. John Knox — Qeorge Buchanan's Latin Works
«-Otber Latinists — Melville — Universities — Schools . Page 16U

CHAPTER III. '

THE AGE OP SPENSER, SHAKSPEARE, BACON, AND MILTON
A. D. 1558— A. D. 1660.

SECTION FIRST : GENERAL VIEW OF THE PERIOD.

iKTRODncriov. 1. The Early Years of Elizabeth's Reign— Summary of
their Literature.— 2. Literary Greatness of the next Eighty Years-
Division into Four Eras. — Reiqit or Elizabeth from 1580. 3. Social
Character of the Time — Its Religious Aspect — Effects on Literature.— 4.
Minor Elizabethan Writers— Their Literary Importance— The Three
Great Names. — 5. The Poetry of Spenser and Shakspeare — The Eloquence
of Hooker. — Reion of James. 6. Its Social and Literary Character-
Distinguished Names — Bacon — Theologians — Poets. — The Two follow-
INO Eras. 7. political and Ecclesiastical Changes— Effects on Thinking
— Effects on Poetry — Milton's Youth. — 8. Moral Aspect of the Time-
Effects on Literature.— Reion of Charles. 9. Literary Events— Poetry
— Eloquence — Theologians — Erudition. — Tub Commonwealth and Pro-
tectorate. 10. Literary Event»— Poetry Checked— Modem Symptoms
—Philosophy— Hobbes— Theology— Hall, Taylor, and Baxter.— 11. Elo-
quence—Milton's Prose Works — Modem Symptoms— Style of the Old
English Prose Writers . . . • . Page 195

CHAPTER IV.

THE AGE OF SPENSER, SHAKSPEARE, BACON, AND MILTON.

A. D. 1558— A. D. 1660.

SECTION second: THE SCHOLASTIC AND ECCLESIASTICAL

LITERATURE.

EKDDrnOH,'CLA88iOAL AND EccLESiABTiCAi. 1. General State of Eccle-
siastical Learning — Emment Names— Raynolds — Andrewes — Usher—
Claarioal Studies— Camden and Selden— Latin Prose and Verse. — Trans-
lations OF THE Holt Bible. 2. The Geneva Bible— Whittmgham—
The Kshops' Bible— Parker.— 8. King James's Bible— Its History— The
Tteudators— Its Universal* Reception.— OaioiNAL Tueolooioal Writ-
oros. 4. The Elizabethan Period — Hover's Ecclesiastical Polity—
lieign of Jamw— Sermowi of Bishop AndrewM— Sermons of Pvm^r-^

CONTENTS.

Reign of Charles— Hall and Tajlor compared.— A. Bishop Hall — His
Sermons — His other Works. — 7. Jeremj Taylor— His Treatises- His
Sermons — Character of his Eloqaence. — 8. The Commonwealth and Pro-
tectorate— Controversial Writings— The Puritans- Richard Baxter — His
Life and Works Page 213

CHAPTER V.
THE AGE OF SPENSER, SHAKSPEARE, BACON, AND MILTON.

A.D. 1558— A. D. 1660.
SECTION THIRD : THE MISCELLANEOUS PROSE LITERATURE

. 1

SEMi-TfiEotoaioAL Writers. l.Foller's Works— Cudworth— Henry More.
— Phiix>sopbicaIi Writers. 2. Lord Bacon— The Design of his Philoso-
phy— His Two Problems— His Chief Works.— 3. Hobbes—Hb Political
and Social Theories — His Ethics — His Psychology— His Style. — Histor-
lOAi. Writers. 4. Social and Political Theories — Antiquaries — Histo-
rians — Raleigh — Milton's History of England — His Historical and Po-
lemical Tracts — His Style. — Miscellaneous Writers. 5. Writers of
Voyages and Travels — Literary Critics — Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of
Poesy — Romances and Novels — Sidney's Arcadia — Short Novels — Greene
— Lyly — Pamphlets — Controversy on the Stage — Martin Mar-Prelate —
Smeciymnuus. — 6. Essays describing Characters — Didactic Essays —
Bacon — Selden— Burton — Browne — Cowley • . Page 232

CHAPTER VI.

THE AGE OF SPENSER, SHAKSPEARE, BACON, AND MILTON.

A. D. 1558— A. D. 1660.

SECTION FOURTH : THE DRAMATIC POETRY.

iNTRODncrnoir. 1. The Drama a Species of Poetry — Recitation of Narrative
Poems and Plays — Effects of Recitation on the Character of the Work*—
Relations of Prose and Verse to Poetry. — 2. The Regular and Irregular
Schools of Dramatic Art— The French Rules — The Unities of Time and
Place— Their Principle— Their Effects.— 3. The Unity of Action— Its
Principle — Its Relations to the Other Unities — The Union of Tragedy and
Comedy. — Shakspbarb and the Old Engush Drama. 4. Its Four
Stages. — 5. The First Stage — Shakspeare's Predecessors and Earliest
Works — Marlowe— Greene. ^—6. Shakspeare's Earliest Histories and
Comedies — Character of the Early Comedies.- 7. The Second Stage—
Shakspeare's Later Histories — His Best Comedies. — 8. The Third Stage
— Shi^peare's Great Tragedies — His Latest Works.— 9. Estimate of
Shakspeare's Genius. — Minor Dramatic Poets. 10. Shakspeare's Con-
temporaries — Their Genius — Their Morality. — 11. Beaumont and Flet-

cher.-~12. Ben Jonson 13. Minor Dramatists — Middleton— Webster—

Heywood— Dekker.— 14. Tl^l Fourth Stage of the Drama— Mass!. iger—
Ford— Shirley— Moral Declension . • Page 850

CONTKNTS.

CHAPTER VII.

THE AQE OF Sl'ENSEK, SUAKSPEARE, BACON, AND MILTON.

A. D. 1558— A. D. 16G0.

9ECTI0S FIFTH : TUE NON-DRAMATIC POETRY.

Si'knsek'sPobtrt. 1. Hia Genias^H^ Minor Poenu. — 2. Spenser's Facriti
Qiieene— Its Design.— 3. Allegories of the Faerie Queene— Its Poetical
Character. — 4. The Stories of the Six Books of the Faerie Qaeene.— Mimok
Poets. 5. The Great Variety in the Kinds of Poetry— Classification of
them. — 6. Metrical Translations — Marlowe — Chapman— Fairfax->-Sandys.
— 7. Histwical Narrative Poems — Shakspeare — Daniel — Drayton — Giles
and Phiiieas Fletcher. — 8. Pastorals— Pastoral Dramas of Fletcher and
•lonson — Warner — Drayton— Wither — Browne. — 9. Descriptive Poems —
Drayton's Poly-Olbion — Didactic Poems — Lord Brooke and Davies — Her-
bert and Quarles— Poetical Satires — Hall — Marston — Donne. — 10. Earlier
Lyrical Poems— Shakspeare, Fletcher, and Jonson — Ballads — Sonnets of
Drummond and Daniel. — 11. Lyrical Poems of the Metaphysical School —
Donne and Cowley — Lyrics and other Poems of a Modern Cast— Denham
and Waller.— Milton's Poetky. 12. His Life and Works. — 13. His Minor
Poems — L' Allegro and II Penseroso — Comus — Lycidas— Ode on the Nativ-
ity— Ijater Poems— Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. — 14. The
Paradise Lost . • . • • Page 2G*J

CHAPTER VIII.

THE AGE OF THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION.

A. D. 1660— A. D. 1702.

I. Social and Literary Character of the Period. — Prose. 2. Theology—
Luighton — Sermons of South, Tillotson, and Barrow — Nonconformist
Divines — Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress — The Philosophy of Locke — Bent-
ley and Classical Learning. — 3. Antiquaries and Historians — Lord Claren-
don's History — Bishop Burnet's Histories. — 4. Miscellaneous Prose —
Walton — Evelyn — L'Estrange — Butler and Marvell — John Dryden's
Prose Writings — His Style — His Critical Opinions — Temple's Essays^—
Poetry. 5. Dramas — Their Character — French Influences — Dryden's
Plays— Tragedies of Lee, Otway, and Southeme — The Prose Comedies
—Their Moral Foulness. — 6. Poetry Not Dramatic— Its Didactic and
Hatirie Charaotei^— Inf&renees. — 7. Minor Poets — Roscommon — Marvell
—Butler's Hndibras— Prior — 8. John Dqrden's Life and Works.— 9.
Urydeni Poetical Cbaracter . . . Page 288

14 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
A. D. 1702— A. D. ISOO.

8KCTI0N FIRST : THE LITERARY CHARACTER AND CHANGEfl

OP THF PERIOD.

*. Character of the Period as a Whole — Ita Relations to Our Own Time.—
2. Literary Character of its First Generation — The Age of Queen Anne
and George I. — 3. Literary Character of its Second and Tliird Gener-
ations — From the Accession of George IL — 4. The Prose Style of the
First Generation — Addison — Swift. — 5. The Prose Style of the Second
and Third Generations— Johnson , . Page 306

CHAPTER X.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
SECTION SECOND : THE I'TERATUBE OF THE FIRST GENERATION.

A. D. 1702— A. D. 1727.

Poetry. 1. The Drama — Non-Dramatic Poetry — Its Artificial Character
—Minor Poets. — 2. Alexander Pope — Characteristics of his Genius and
Poetry. — 3. Pope*8 Works — His Early Poems — Poems of Middle Age —
His Later Poems. — PiiosE. 4. Theologians — Philosophers — Clarke's Nat-
ural Theology — Bishop Berkeley's Idealism — Shaftesbury— Bolingbroke.
— 5. Miscellaneous Prose — Occasional Writings— Defoe and Robinson
Crusoe— Swift's Works and Literary Character — Other Prose Satires. —
6. The Periodical Essayists— Addison and Steele — The Spectator— Its
Character— Its Design . ... Page 313

CHAPTER XI.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

SECTION THIRD : THE LITERATURE OF THE SECOND GENERATION.

A.D. 1727— -A. D. 1760.

Prose. 1. Theology — Warburton— Bishop Butler's Analogy— Watts and
Doddridge— Philosophy— Butler's Ethical System— The Metaphysics of
David Hume— Jonathan Edwards— Franklin.— 2. Miscellaneous Prose-
Minor Writers — New Series of Periodical Essays — Magazines and Reviews.
— 3. Samuel Johnson— His Life— His Literary Character. — 4. Johnson's
Works.— 5. The Novelists— Their Moral Faultiness.— Poetry. 6. The
Drama— Non-Dramatic Poetry— Rise in Poetical Tone— Didactic Poems
—Johnson — Young — Akensido — Narrative and Descriptive Poems —
Thomson's Seasons. — 7. Poetical Taste of the Public— Lyrical Poems of
Unj and Collins , , . , . Page 329

C0NTENT8.

I«

CHAPTER XII.
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

SECTION FOURTH : THE LITERATURE OP THE THIRD OENERATION.

A. D. 17C0— A. D. 1800.

Prose. 1. The Historians— Their Literary Character and Views of Art—
Hame's History.— 2. Robertson and Uibbon— The Character of each-
Minor Historical Writers. — 3. Miscellaneous Prose— Johnson's Talk and
Bosweirs Report of it— Goldsmith's Novels- Literature in Scotland— The
first Edinburgh Review —Mackenzie's Novels— Other Novelists.— 4. Crit-
icism-Percy's Reliques— Warton's History— Parliamentary Eloquence-
Edmund Burke— Letters.— 5. Philosophy— (1.) Theory of Literature-
Burke— Reynolds— Campbell— Home— Blair— Smith— (2.) Political Econ-
omy — Adam Smith. — (J. Philosophy continued — (3.) Ethics— Adam
Smith— Tucker— Paley— (4.) Metaphysics and Psychology — Thomas Reid.
—7. Theology— (1.) Scientific— Campbell— Paley— Watson— liowth— (2.)
Practical— Porteous— Blair— Newton and others. — Poetbt. 8. The
Drama— Home's Douglas— Comedies of Goldsmith and Sheridan— Gold-
smith's Descriptive Peems. — 7. Minor Poets— Their Various Tendencies
— Later Poems— Beattie'a Minstrel.— 10. The Genius and Writings of
Cowper and Burns . • . • t Page 344

CHAPTER XIII.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

SECTION FIRST : CHARACTER AND CHANGES OF THE PERIOD.

A. D. 1800— A. D. 1870.

1. General Character of the last Seventy Years— Three Divisions embraced
in the. Period. — 2. Summary of the Imaginative Literature of the Period
— Revival and subsequent Development of Poetry — Rise and subsequent
Development of Modern Fiction. — 3. Summary of the Historical Litera-
ture of the Period — Historical Research.— 4. Summary of the Didactic
Prose of the Period — Revival and subsequent Development of British
Philosophy. — 5. Foreign Influences affecting the Period — Contemporary
American Literature • . . • • Page SCO

CHAPTER XIV.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
SECTION SECOND : THE POETRY OF THE FIRST AOE.
A. D. 1800— A. D. 1830.
1. First Group of Leading Poets — Campbell.— 2. Southey.— 3. Second
Group— Scott and Byron. — 4. Scott's Characteristics and Works. — 5.
Byron's Characteristics, Ethical and Poetical. — 6. Third Gruup — Coleridge
and Wordsworth— Coleridge's Genius and Works. — 7. Wordsworth — Fea-
tures of his Poetical Character.— 8. Wordsworth- His Poetical Theory-
Its Effects on his Works.— 9. Fourth Group— Wilson— Shelley— Keats.—
10. Crabbeand Moore— Dramatic Poems— BiUMsellaneous Names— Sacred
Poetry— Contemporary American Pot- try . « Page 3(ifl

lit

i'il

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XV.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
SECTION THIRD : THE PROSE OP THE FIRST AOE.
A. D. 1800— A. D. 1830.
I. Novob and Romances—The Waverley Novels— The Minor Novelfats.-
2. Periodical Writing— The Edinburgh Beview— The Quarterly Review
—Blackwood's Magazine.— 3. Criticism— The Essays of Francis Jeffrey.—
4. Criticism and Miscellanies— Coleridge— Hazlitt— Lamb— Christopher
North.— 5. Social Science— Jeremy Rentham— Political Economy— His*
tory— Minor Historical Writers— Hallam's Historical Works.— 6. Tlieo
logy— Church History— Classical Learning— Scientific Theology— Prac-
tical Theology— John Foster— Robert Hall— Thomas Chalmers.— 7.
Speculative Philosophy — (i.) Metaphysics and Pyschology— Dugald
Stewart and Thomas Brown- (2.) Ethical Science— Mackintosh— Jeremy
Bentham— (3.) The Theory of the Beautiful— Alison— Jeffrey— Stewart-
Knight— Brown-Symptoms of Further Change . . Page 383

CHAPTER XVI. .

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

SECTION FOURTH : THE POETRY OF THE VICTORIAN AOE.
A. D. 1830— A. D. 1870.
I. Leading Poets of the Second Age— Minor Poets.— 2. Leading Poets of
the Current Age— Minor Poets.- 3. Dramatists. — 1. Metrical Translators.
—5. Contemporary American Poets ... Page 397

CHAPTER XVII.
THE IMAGINATIVE PROSE OF THE VICTORIAN AGE.
A. D. 1830— A. D. 1870.

Fiction Pboper.— 1. Classificationsof Novels.— Statistics of Novel- Writing.
— 2. Leading Novelists of the Period.— 3. Minor Novelists.— 4. Contem-
porary American Fiction.

MIS0ELU4IIE0U8 Prose,— 1. Classification of MiscelUinies.— 2. The Familiar
Miscellany.— 3. The Intellectual Essay. — L The Picturesque Sketch.

Page 413

CHAPTER XVIII.

T^E HISTORICAL AND DIDACTIC PROSE OF THE

VICTORIAN AGE.

A. D. 1830— A. D. 1870.
Historical Probe.—!. First Group of Historians— Macaulay and Carlyle.

—2. Second Group of Historians.— 3. Biography.— 4. Theological History.

—5. Histories of Philosophy.
Didactic Prose. — 1. Summary of the Period.— 2. Hamilton.— 3. J. S. Mill.

— 1. Bain and Herbert Spencer.— 5. The Philosophy of History.— 6.

Speculation in America.— 7. Political Economy.— 8. .£sthetios, Pictorial

find Litcrarpr.— 9. Philology.— 10. Theol(^cal an^ Scientific Literature.

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITEBATURE.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Periods of English History.

I. The Roman Period :— B. C. 55— A. D. 449.
II. The Amolo-Saxon Period .•—A. D. 449— A. D. 1066.
III. The Middle Aqeb :— A. D. 1066— A. D. 1509.
lY. MODEBN Times :~A. D. 1509— A. D. 1852.

1. The Four Great Periods of English History.— 2. The Boman Period.—
3. The Dark Ages — The Anglo-Saxon Period.— 4. The Middle Ages—
The Normans — Feudalism — The Bomish Church — Aspect of MeduBval
Literature. — 5. Languages used in the Middle Ages — French — English-
Latin.— 6. Other Features of Literature in the Middle Ages — Its Sectional
Character — The Want of Printing.— 7. Modern Times — Contrast of Modem
Literature with MediflBval. — 8. Lessons Taught bj the Study of Literary
Works— Lessons Taught by the Study of Literary History.

1. The Literature of our native country, like that of every other,
is related, intimately and at many points, tp the History of the
Nation. The great social epochs are thus also the epochs of
mtellectual cultivation ; and, accordingly, our literary annals may
be arranged in Four successive Periods.

The Roman Period, which is the first of these, is much shorter
for England than for some nations of the continent. It begins only
with the landing of Julius Caesar ; and it closes with the year which
is usually supposed to have been the date of the earliest Germanic
settlements in the island. It thus embraces five centuries.

Next comes our Anglo-Saxon Period, which, after enduring about
six centuries, was brought to an end by the invasion of William
the Conqueror. It corresponds with that tumultuous stage in Euro-
pean History which w) kxtuw by the name of the Dark Ages.

INTUODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Our Tliird Period, beginning with the Norman Conquest, may be
8ct down as ending with the Protestant Reformation, or at the
accession of Henry the Eighth. It has thus a length of about
four centuries and a half; and these, the Dark Ages having already
been set apart, are the Middle Ages of England as of Europe.

From the dawn of the Reformation to the present day, there
has elapsed a Period of three centuries and a half, which are the
Modern Times of nil Christendom.

Let us take, at the opening of these studies, a bird*8-eye view of
the regions thus laid down on our historical map.

The first of our four periods, having bequeathed no literary
remains native to our soil, will afterwards drop out of sight. To
the other three, in their order, are referable all the shorter stages
into which the history of our literary progress will be subdivided ;
and the particular features of each of these will be comprehended
the more readily, if we remember the general character of the great
historical division to which it belongs.

2. A hasty glance over th^ Roman Period teaches two facts
which we ought to know.

In the first place, the on^y native Inhabitants of England, cer-
tainly with few exceptions, and perhaps without any, belonged to the
great race of Celts. Another Celtic tribe occupied Ireland, and
was spread extensively over Scotland. None of these were the true
founders of the English nation : but the state of the English Celts
nnder the Romans affected in no small degree the events which
next followed.

Secondly, Rome introduced into our island many changes; yet
these were fewer and less extensive than the revolutions which she
worked elsewhere.

In some continental countries, of which Gaul was an instance,
the Romans, forming close relations with the vanquished, diffused
almost universally their institutions, habits, and speech. Their
position among us was quite unlike this. It rather resembled that
which, in the earliest settlements of the Europeans in India, a few
armed garrisons of invaders held amidst the surrounding natives,
from whom, whether they were submissive or rebellious, the foreign
troo[)s stood proudly apait. Nowhere, even when the Roman
conquerors were most powerful, did there take place, between them
and the Britons, any union extensive enough to alter at all mate-
rially the nationality of the people. Nowhere, accordingly, did
the Latin language permanently displace the native tongues.

Still, besides the thinly scattered hordes who continued to hunt in
the marshy forests, and to build their log-villagea in the vildemew

Introductory chapter.

for rude shelter and defence, ihcre were a few liirgo civic communi-
ties, to whom tlieir military masters taught successfully both the
useful arts and many of the luxuries of the south. The knowl-
edge and tastes thus introduced among the British Cults were not
nncommunicatcd to those vigorous mvaders, whose occu^>ation of
the island speedily followed the retirement of the imperial armies.

3. The Ages which succeeded the Fall of the Roman Empire, do,
m many points, well deserve their name of Dark. But the gloom
which covered them was that which goes before sunrise ; and bright
rays of light were already breaking through.

The great event was that vast series of emigrations, which planted
tribes of Gothic blood over large tracts of Europe, and established
that race as sovereigns in other regions, where the population suf-
fered but little change. The earliest stages of formation were then
undergone by all the languages now spoken in European countries.
Christianity, wh>h had been made known in some quarters during
the Roman Times, was professed almost universally before the
Dark Ages reached their close.

Our Anglo-Saxon invaders were Goths of the Germanic or
Teutonic stock. Their position in Britain was quite unlike that
which had been held by the Romans. Instead of merely stationuig
ganisons to overawe, they planted colonies, large and many, which
poured in an immense stream of population. They continued to
emigrate from the continent for more than a hundred years after
their first appearance; and by the end of that period they had
.established settlements covering a very large proportion of the
island, as far northward as the shores of the Forth. Before many
generations had passed away, their language, and customs, and
national character, were as generally prevalent, throughout the pro-
vinces which they had seized, as the modem En^^lish tongue and
its accompaniments have become in the United States.

We do not look with much hope for literary cultivation among
the Anglo-Saxons. It is surprising that they should have left so
many monuments of intellectual energy as they have. The frag-
ments which are extant possess a singular value, as illustrations of
the character of a ve-y singular people: and most of them are
written in that which is really our mother-tongue..

During the six hundred years of their independence, the nation
made, in spite of wars, and calamities, and obstacles of all kinds,
wonderful progi'ess in the arts of life and thought. They learned
much from the subdued Britons, not a little from the continent,
and yet more from their own practical good-sense, guided wisely
by several pati-iotic kings. and churchmen. The pagans accepted

ill

INTUODUCTOUY CHAPTER.

the Christian faith : the piratical sea-kings betook themselves to
the tillage of the soil, and to the practice of some of the coarser
manufactures : the fierce soldiers constructed, out of the materials
of legislation common to the whole Teutonic race, a manly and
systematic political constitution.

4. The Third of our Periods, here called the Middle Ages, differs
strikingly from the Ages described as Dark. The latter were
seemingly fruitful in nothing but undecided conflicts : now we reach
a state of things quite dissimilar. The painful convulsions in which
infant society had writhed, made way for the growing vigour of
healthy though undisciplined youth.

All the relations of life were thenceforth modified, more or less,
by two influences, predominant in the early part of the period,
decaying in the latter. The one was that of Feudalism, the other
that of the Chiurch of Rome. Literature was especially nourished
by the consolidation of the new Languages, which were now succes-
sively developed in all countries of Europe.

In the general history of European society, the Middle Ages are
commonly held as brought to an end by two events which occurred
nearly at the same time : the erection of the Great Monarchies on
the ruins of Feudalism ; and the shattering of the sovereignty of
the Romish Church by the Protestant Reformation. These epochs,
likewise, come close to the most important fact in the annals
of Literature. The Art of Printing, invented a little earlier, became
widely available as a means of enlightenment about the beginning
of the sixteenth century.

The Norman Conquest, which we take as the commencement of
the Middle Ages for England, introduced the country, by one mighty
stride, into the circle of continental Europe. Not only did it establisli
intimate relations between our island and its neighbours; but, through
the policy which the conquerors adopted, it subjected the nation
to both of the ruling mediaeval impulses. Feudalism, peremp-
torily introduced, metamorphosed completely the relation between
the people and the nobles: the recognition of the papal supre-
macy altered not less thoroughly the position of the church.
Neither of these changes was unproductive of good in the state of
society which then prevailed. But both of them were distasteful '
to our nation ; both of them rapidly became, in reality, injurious
both to freedom and to knowledge ; and the opposition of opinions
in regard to them produced most of those civil broils, in which our
kings, our clergy, our aristocracy, and our people, played parts, and
engaged in combinations, so shifting and so perplexing. At length,
under the dynasty of the Tudors, the ecclesiastical shackles were

INTBODUCTOBY CHAPTER*

emselves to

the coarser

le materials

manly and

Vges, differs
latter were
)w we reach
>ns in which
g vigour of

ore or less,
the period,
1, the other
y nourished
Qow succes-

le Ages are
ch occurred
narchies on
rereignty of
lese epochs,
the annals
ier, became
3 beginning

incement of

one mighty

it establisli

>ut, through

the nation

n, peremp-

[>n between

ipal supre-

le church.

;he state of

distasteful '

r, injurious

>f opinions

which our

parts, and

At length,

cklei were

cast away ; while the feudal bonds, not yet ready for unrivettlng,
began to be gradually slackened.

In this long series of revolutions, not a step was taken without
arousing a literary echo. They gave birth to a Literature which,
growing up through a period of four hundred years, claims, in all
its stages and kinds, attentive and respectful consideration.

It speaks, when it adopts the living tongue, in a voice which,
though rude and stammering, echoes the tones and imparts the
meaning of our own ; it calls up before us, by an innocent necro-
mancy, the perished world in which our forefathers lived, a world
whose ignorance was the seed-bed of our knowledge, whose tem-
pestuous energy cleared the foundations for our social regularity
and refinement ; it issues from scenes which fancy loves to beautify,
from the picturesque cloister and the dim scholastic cell, from the
feudal castle blazing with knightly pomp, and the field decked fur
the tilt and tournament, from forests through which swept the
storm of chase, and plains rcsoimdtng with the shout and clang of
Lattle. Those early monume.its of mind possess, likewise, distin-
guished importance in the history of letters. Impdrfect in form
and anomalous in spirit, they were the lessons of a school whose
training it was necessary for intellect to undergo, and in which our
modern masters of poetry and eloquence first studied the rudiments
of their art ; and among them there are not a few which, still con-
.spicuous through the cloudy distance, are honoured by all whose
praixse is truly honourable, as illustrious memorials of triumphs
achieved by genius over all obstacles of circumstance and time.

5. The Literature of our Middle Ages, thus singularly and
variously attractive, is distinguished from that of Modem Times
by several strongly marked features.

The most prominent of these is derived from its Variety of Lan-
guages. In its earliest btages it used three tongues ; French, Eng-
lish, and Latin : and it continued to use always the latter two.

Our Norman invadei's were the descendants of an army of Nor-
wegians, which, a hundred and fifty years before, had conquered a
province of Northern France, tlienceforth called Normandy. They
Avere thus sprung from the same great Gothic race, finother branch
of which had sent forth the Anglo-Saxons. But they had long ago
lost all vestiges of their pedigree. They had abandoned, almost
universally, their own Norse tongue, and had adopted that which
they found already used in Northern France,. one of those dialects
which sprung out of the dt^aying Latin. This infant language
they had nursed and rafined, till it was now ready to give expreusion
to fanciful and animated poetry. In other points they had accom>

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

I M'

modated themselves, with like readiness, to the habits and institu*
tions of their French home : they had changed nothing radicalljr,
but developed and improved every thing. By their fostering care
of feudalism and of letters, as well as by other exertions, it was they
that first guided France towards being wlut she afterwards became,
the model and instructress of mediaeval Europe.

They took possession of England, not as colonists, like the Anglo-
Saxons, but as military masters, like the Romans. The Norman
counts and their retainers sat in their castles, keeping down by ai-med
power, and not without many a bloody contest, the large Saxon
population that surrounded them. They suppressed the native
polity by overwhelming force : they made their Norman-French
the fashionable speech of the court and the aristocracy, and imposed
it on the tribunals and the legislature ; and their romantic literature
quickly weaned the hearts of educated men from the ancient rudeness
of taste. But the mass of the English people, retaining their Teu-
tonic lineage unmixed, clung also, with the twofold obstinacy of Teu-
tons and persecuted men, to their old ancestral tongue. The Anglo-
Saxon language, passmg through changes which we shall hereafter
learn, yet kept its hold in substance till it was evolved into modem
English ; and the Norman nobles, whose ancestors had volunteered
to speak like their French subjects, were at length obliged to learn
the dialect which had been preserved among their despised English
vassals.

While, however, the Saxon-English tongue was thus gradually
displacing the Norman-French, yet, throughout the whole course
of the Middle Ages, in our country as elsewhere in Europe, all the
higher kinds of knowledge, and all the ripest fruits of reflection,
were communicated, generally or always, in a Latin dress.

In Italy, France, and Spain, where the language of the Romans
was spoken by the people for centuries, and where, as it de-
cayed, it became the foundation of the modem speech, this
practice was natural enough, and, for a time, may have been
harmless. But its effects were very different in those nations
whose native dialects were quite alien to the Latin, our own
behig one of these. The use of the dead language caused the
position of such nations, in the earlier ages of Christendom, to be
peculiarly unfavourable for all improvement which has to be gained
through literature. At first, it is true, the native tongues being in
their infancy, the Latin could not but be adopted for almost all
literary works. Afterwards, when it was less urgently needed, it
was adhered to with such steadiness, tliat the Latin literature of the
IKiddle Ages is larger in amount, beyond calculation, than the Ter-

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

nacular. Nor, in our own country at least, was it till the medisBval
period had nearly expired, that the living tongue attained such a
degree of development, as could have qualified it for entirely super-
seding the ancient organ of communication. For the expression of
poetical and imaginative thought, the English Language was fully
mature as early as the fourteenth century : as an instrument eitlier
of abstract speculation or of precise practical instruction, it con-
tinued to be imperfect for several generations afterwards.

6. This separation of languages, in the Middle Ages, was attended
by other peculiarities, some of which are not less worthy of notice.

In the first place, there was a splitting up of Literature into
sections, which not only treated different kinds of matter, but were
designed for different audiences, and used, in part, different tongues.

The mass of our old literary relics may be described loosely as
having constituted two distinct libraries. The churchmen had their
books, most of which were theological or philosophical, but which
contained likewise almost every thing that was to' be found of
systematic thinking or solid information. All these were expressed
in Latin : and, in unlearned times, this one fact made all the higher
kinds of knowledge to be the exclusive patrimony of the clerical
profession. Overagainst the library of the ecclesiastics, animated
by the spirit of the chiirch, stood that of the laymen, the greater
part of which was an embodiment of the spirit of feudalism. Nearly
every book it contained, was intended for diverting or exciting
the nobles and their retainers. Out of its tales of warfare and ad-
venture grew up the chivalrous romances; while almost all the
more ambitious efforts of the mediseval poetry were mainly actu-
ated by the same sentiments, and aimed at interesting the same
class of persons. Into this aristocratic literature, it is true, the
mfluence of the church penetrated frequently ; breathing tones of
Supernatural awe into much of the chivalrous poetry, or seeking to
disseminate religious impressions through popularized versions of
monkish traditions. But neither the clerical legend-writer, nor the
knightly minstrel, was wont to look beyond the precincts of the
castle-chapel and the castle-hall. The peasantry of the rural dis-
tricts, vegetating in ignorance and neglect, and the citizens of the
towns, slowly building themselves up in wealth and intelligence,
were hardly ever thought of, either as beings whose character and
destuiy might furnish fit objects of poetical representation, or as
classes of men amongst whom it was worth while to seek for a
literary audience. The narrow temper, and the limited field oi
thought, which thus pervaded the vernacular literature, received a
contri^it^^nets yet niQfe decidfid from the circumstance alro^idj?

niTRODUGTOKY CnAPTEB.

hinted at; that, till near the close of the middle ages, our native
tongue was neither used for prose writing nor fit to be so used
with good effect.

Secondly, throughout the whole of the MedisBval Period, Litera>-
ture wanted the inestimable advantages conferred by the Art of
Printing. This deprivation involved several remarkable conse-
quences. First of all, books, multiplied by manuscript copies only,
were rare, because costly : and the fewness of books was in itself suffi-
cient to cause fewness of readers. In fact, till the very last stages
in those times, the accomplishment of reading was unusual, except
among the clergy. Agam, even those who could read were com-
pelled, through the difficulty of obtaining books, to derive a great
part of their literary knowledge from oral communication; and
it was this that made the old universities so very important. In-
formation thus impeded could not be generally accessible even to
the clergy themselves: and the few who attained it not only
learned laboriously and slowly, but, with some signal exceptions,
learned inexactl^ and incompletely. There followed yet another
result. A large proportion of the literary compositions of the
middle ages were concocted, not with any view to being read, but
with a distinct recollection, on the part of the writers, that they
would become known only through oral delivery. Very many of
them have peculiarities, which cannot be accounted for otherwise
than by such an expectation. This is the case with not a few of the
philosophical and theological works. Above all, the fact is a clue
to much that is most strikingly distinctive in the character of the
Medisoval Poetry : it is the main reason why irregularities of form
prevailed so long after they might have been expected to disappear ;
and it shows, in great part, why an animation of manner was
naturally and generally attained, after which modem art has
usually striven in vain.

7. Emerging from the glimmer and gloom which alternate in the
Middle Ages, we now cast our eyes along the illuminated vista of
Modem History. The eye is dazzled by a multiplicity of striking
objects, among which it is not always easy to distinguish those
that most actively shaped and coloured the literature of the times.

We may, however, understand the facts in part; and we are
beginning to prepare ourselves for so.doing, when we contrast the
Modem Literature with the Mediaeval, in respect of those circum-
stances which have been observed to characterize the latter.

Ever since the close of the middle ages, the Prmting-Press has
been incessantly at work among us. In the very earliest time
of its general use, it began to metamorphose the whole character

INTliODUCTORY CHAPTER.

2ft

of Literature ; and the transformation has assumed new aspects,
with each new enlargement of the resources of the art. Knowl-
edge, and eloquence, and poetry, began equally to aspire to ex-
actness and nymmetry, as soon as the abundance of books sub-
jected them to close and constant scnitiny : and all departments of
letters have been actuated by a temper more and more philanthropic
and expansive, as they became able to command a wider and wider
audience. Those barriers of Language also have vanished, which
once rose up between the teachers and the taught. The Living
Tongue of the nation, ripe for all uses in the beginning of the six-
teenth century, diffused speedily the records of Divine Wisdom,
and has ever since been almost the only organ of communication
dreamt of by our men of letters.

Literature, thus put in possession of adequate instruments, has
also had new laws to obey, and new truths to impart, and new
varieties of sentiment and imagination to represent. At once
promptmg the times and interpreting them, and performing both
functions with an energy which she could never before have at-
tained, she has stood in the midst of a world which, from the
very beginning of the Modem Period, was emancipating itself from
the most powerful of the mediaeval influences.

As we glance over the Modern History of our nation, we see
the feudal power of the nobles waning before the concentrated
strength of the crown : the monarchy, absolute while its sceptre
was grasped firmly by the house of Tudor, is paralyzed by the
haughty and obstinate imprudence of the Stuarts ; and at length,
after a struggle of two generations, our polity is moulded, at the
Revolution, into the constitutional form which it now wears.

It is much less easy to gather, into one result, that extraordinary
series of changes, ecclesiastical, religious, and moral, which opened
with the Protestant Refoimation. Theological doctrine has been
purified : the relations of the church to the nation, in all the diverse
aspects in which they have been regarded, are at least freed from
those complications, which made the Romish hierarchy so dan-
gerous in the latter part of the middle ages : and- there has been
won, slowly and painfully, a universal recognition of man^s in-
alienable right to think on things sacred, with no responsibility but
to the Omniscient Searcher of Consciences. It would be rash to
say that these vast ameliorations of system have worked all the
good, which a sanguine temperament might have hoped to see
issuing from them. But, that the moral and religious character of
society in our country has, as a Airhole, been incalculably improved
by the Reformation, seems to be as certain as it is, that, without

!!l

INTROUUCTOUY CJIAITEB.

that great revolution, neither our constitutional liberties nor oui
intellectual culture could have gained anything approaching t<i
the development in which we now rejoice.

8. The Modem History of English Literature will, when wi
examine its details, be distributed into several successive Period)
For two of these, exact attention may here be bespoken, as era
especially important in the progress of our national enlightenment
The one embraces the hundred years that opened with the a«
cession of Queen Elizabeth : the other is that in which we om
selves live, and which Jiay be dated from the beginning of tl
nineteenth century.

Each of these two periods has given to our language various a a!
abundant stores of intellectual wealth. Each of them, likewise, if
compared with th« times before it, will be found to have witnessed
an immense increase in the diffusion of knowledge through the
nation. Each of them, yet again, presents itself as an age in which
intellect has been singularly active in regard to objects not lying
immediately within the province of letters : and each is thus an
instructive illustration of a truth which we cannot too often call to
mind ; namely, that there always exists, though sometimes but
dimly perceptible, an intimate connexion between literature and all
the elements of society.

"Wlien we allow bur studies to prompt reflections such as these,
we put them to one of their most profitable uses ; to a use, indeed,
that cannot be served by our reading of any Literary Work, so
long as we regard it without reference to the time and circumstances
in which it came to light.

In our perusal, doubtless, of a history or a philosophical treatise,
of an august epic or a moving tragedy, we may, without looking
thus widely abroad, enrich our minds with new truths and elevating
contemplations, or with fancies and emotions that kindle and feed
the flame of virtuous aspiration. Nor will the lighter kinds of read-
ing be always barren of good, if the books read are not positively
mischievous. Literature does in itself tend towards moral improve-
ment, however frequently the tendency may be counteracted by
the evil hearts of ourselves or our instructors. It wars against tlie
im^nilses of thoughtlessness and sensualism. The present weighs
us down heavily towards the earth : we are lifted upwards, though
it may be but for a short way, by all that incites us to meditate on
the past and the future. He to whom a bpok has hinted a striking
general truth, or communicated a vivid poetical image, has inhaled
a draught of that finer air, which every rational and accountable
cref^ture should always desire to breathe. By knowing moro

IKTUODUCTUKY ClIAFrCK.

ties nor oui
reaching t'l

1, when w»
ve Perioda
cen, as era
ightenment
ith the a«
ch we oni
aing of th

I'arious a a\
likewise, if
3 witnessed
irough the
je in which
I not lying
is thus an
ften call to
itimes but
ire and all

1 as these,
Je, indeed,
Work, so
umstances

treatise,
looking
elevating
and feed
sofread-
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improve-
acted by
;ainst the
it weighs
S though
ditate on
striking
I inhaled
ountable
»g moro

dearly, or by iniagining more actively, he has been prepared foi
feeling more purely, for wishing more nobly, perhaps also for
resolving more firmly.

A gracious spirit o'er the earth presides,
And o'er the heart of man : invisibly
' ]t comes, to works of unreproved delight,
And tendency benign, directing those
Who care not, know not, tliink not, what they dot

Yet the lessons to be learned from Literature have not been
received either completely or altogether safely, until we have accus-
tomed ourselves to think of all its monuments in their UistorictU
Relations.

'file most illustrious masterpieces of genius are not justly valued,
unless we know both the facilities which encouraged them and the
obstacles which they overcame. The most energetic achievements
of the seekers after truth are not fitly honoured, unless we have
marked the errors which they rooted out, and the extent to which
their teaching was efiectflal. The most sublime of the moral
representations exhibited in eloquence and poetry do not exert their
whole power over us, unless we have qualified ourselves for con-
ceiving the character of the external impulses by which they were
affected, and for noting how far they were able to act on the minds
of their own and followmg times. It is further true, that, when
the historical view is taken, a real importance is found to be pos-
sessed by many literary effusions, so unsubstantial as not to de*
serve permanent celebrity, or so faulty in their ethics that they
ought not to meet the eye of youthful students. Such productions
often require and reward a passing notice ; as being sometimes symp-
toms indicating, and sometimes causes producing, degeneracy of
taste or of morals, in the age that gave them birth, or in the class
of readers for which they were framed.

Thoughts yet more comprehensive and more serious dawn and
brighten on us, when we regard the History of English Literature
as a whole ; when we reflect on it as a magnificent series of events,
concurrent with those wonderful changes that have successively
impressed themselves on the face of society. We then perceive,
in one of its most signal instances, this great truth ; that, notwith-
stniiding all shortcomings and aberrations, the progress of literary
culture keeps pace, partly as cause partly as effect, with the pro-
gress of the nations of the earth towards that renovation of man's
spiritual nature, which Christianity has been divinely appointed to
create. Nor, when this reflection has arisen, can it fail to be accom-
pftnied by otliers. We are reminded that Literature is aeQessaril^

IKTUODUCTOltY CUAPTBli.

a moral poorer, a power modifying the character of mankind, and
aiding in the determination of their position now and hereafter : a
solemn and widely-reaching truth, which ought also to teach every
individual among us, how unspeakably important it is, that the
books we read be wisely selected. We are reminded, also, that the
capacities which bestow this responsible function on the records ot
intellect, are conferred by that Omnipotent Father of our spirits,
who rules the thoughts and acts of all His intelligent creatures :
and this thought, the most elevated of all which our studies suggest,
cannot but inspire humble and reverential gratitude for the good>
ness of Him, from whom we receive knowle''.ge, and intellectual
enjoyment, and life, and all things.

In the preparation of this little Manual of Literary History, it has been a
duty to collect facts and opinions from many and various sources; and it
would be a duty not less pleasant to cite these often and thankfully. But,
in such a volume, a large array of notes and references would be both 'incon-
venient and needless.

Some of the most valuable of those works, in which particular sections of
our Literature are treated either historically or critically, will be named
in the text, or noted as fumbhing us t^i'h instructive quotations.

PAET FIRST.

LITERATURE IN THE DARK AND MIDDLE AGES.
A. D. 449— A. D. 1509.

CHAPTER L

THE ANGLO-SAXON TIMES.

A.D. 449— A. n. 1066.

SECTION FIRST : LITERATURE IN TUE CELtiC AND LATIN

TONGUES.

L The Four Languages used in Literature— Latin and Anglo-Saxon— The
Two Celtic Tongues— The Welsh— The Irish and Scottish Gaelic— Ckltio
Literature. 2. Gaelic Literature — Irish Metrical Kelics and Prose
Chronicles — Scottish Metrical Relics — Ossian. — 3. Welsh Literature—
The Triads— Supposed Fragments of tlie Hards — Komances— Legends of
King Arthur. — Latin Literature. 4. Introduction of Christianity—
Sunt Patrick — Columba — Augustine. — 5. Learned Men — Superiority of
Ireland — Intercourse with the Continent — The Anglo-Saxons in Borne.—
6. The Four Great Names of the Times — Alcuin and Erigena — Bede and
Alfred— Latin Learning among the Anglo-Saxons.

1. During the Anglo-Saxon times, four languages were used for
literary communication in the British islands.

Latin was the organ of the church and of learning, here as else-
where, throughout the Dark and Middle Ages. Accordingly, till
we reach Modem Times, we cannot altogether overlook the litera-
ture which was expressed in it, if we would acquire a full idea of
the progress of intellectual culture.

Of the other three languages, all of which were national and
tiving, one was the Anglo-Saxon, the moiauments qf which, with its

THE ANGLO-SAXON TIMES.

history, will soon call for close scrutiny. The second and thurd
were Celtic tongues, spoken by the communities of that race who still
possessed large parts of the country. These, with their scanty stock
of literary remains, must receive some attention at present ; although
they will be left out of view when we pass to those later periods,
in which the Germanic population became decisively predommant
in Great Britain.

The first of the Celtic tongues has oftenest been called Erse or
fjlaclic. It was common, with dialectic varieties only, to the Celts
of Ireland and those of Scotland. Ireland was wholly occupied by
tribes of this stock, except some small Norse settlements on the
scacoast. Whetlier Scotland, beyond the Forth and Clyde, was so
likewise, is a question not to be answered, until it shall have been
determined wlicther the Picts, the early inhabitants of the eastern
Scottish counties, were Celts or Goths. It is certain, at least, that,
either before the Norman Conquest or soon afterwards, the Celtic
Scots were confined within limits corresponding nearly with those
which now bound their descendants.

And here, while we are looking beyond the Anglo-Saxon fron-
tiers, it is to be noted that the Romans did not conquer any part
of Ireland, and that their hold on the north and west of Scotland
had been so slight as to leave hardly any appreciable effects.

The second Celtic tongue, that of the Cymrians or ancient
Britons, has been preserved in the Welsh. Its seats, during the
Anglo-Saxon period, were the provinces which were still held by
Britons, quite independent or imperfectly subdued. Accordingly,
it was universally used in Wales, and, for a long time, in Cornwall ;
and, for several centuries, it kept its hold in the petty kingdoms of
Cumbria and Strathclyde, extending to the Clyde from the middle
of Lancashire, and thus covering the north-west of England and
the south-west of Scotland.

We have not time to study the history of Galloway, situated in
Strathclyde, but long occupied chiefly by Gaelic Celts ; nor that of
the Hebrides and other islands, disputed for centuries between the
Gaelic Celts and the Northmen.

CELTIC LITERATURE.

2. Of the two Celtic nations whose living tongue was the Erse|
Ireland had immeasurably the advantage, in the success with which
its vernacular speech was applied to uses that may be called
literary.

To others must be left the task of estimating rightly the genuine*

CELTIC LITEUATUKE.

DOBS, as well as the poetical merit, of the ancient Metrical relics
still extant in the Irish language. They consist of many Bardic
Songs and Historical Legends. Some of these are asserted to be
much older than the ninth century, the close of which was the date
of the legendary collection called the Psalter of Cashcl, still surviv-
ing, and probably in its genuine shape. Competent critics have ad-
mitted the great historical value of the Prose Chronicles, preserved
to this day, which grew up, by the successive additions of many gen-
erations, in the monasteries of the " Island of Samts." In the form
in which these now exist, none of them seems to be so ancient as
the Annals compiled by Tigernach, who died in the close of the
eleventh century ; but it is believed, on good gi'ounds, that, both
in this work, in the Annals of the Five Masters, and in several such
local records as the Annals of Ulster and Innisfallcn, there arc
incorporated the substance, and often the very words, of many
chronicles composed much earlier. It does not thus appear rasli
to say, that the Irish possess contemporary histories of their coimtry,
written in the language of the people, and authentic though meagre,
from the fifth century or little later. No other nation of modem
Europe is able ^o make a similar boast.

Nor does it appear that the Scottish Celts can point to literai*y
monuments of any kind, having an antiquity at all comparable to
this. Indeed their social position was, in all respects, much below
that of their western kinsmen. All the earliest relics of their
language are Metrical. Such is the Albanic Duam an historical
poem, desci'ibcd as possessing a bardic and legendary character, and
said to belong to the eleventh century. The poems which bear the
name of Ossian are professedly celebrations, by an eye-witness, of
events occurring in the third century. But, though we were to
throw out of view the modem patchwork which disguises the orig-
inal from the English reader, and though likewise we shoiUd hesitate
to assert positively that the Fingalic tales were really borrowed from
Ireland, it is still impossible to satisfy oneself that any pieces, now
exhibited as the groundwork of the poems, have a just claim to so
rem<$te an origin. All such productions seem to be merely attempts,
some of them exceedingly imaginative and spirited, to invest with
poetical and mythical glory the legends of generations which had
passed away long before the poet's time.

3. The literature of the Cymric Celts becomes an object of lively
interest, through our fjuniliarity with circumstances relating to it,
which occurred in the Middle Ages. We seek eagerly, among the
£Ulen fragments of British poetry and history, for the foundations
of the magnificent legend which, in the days of chivahry, vu built

THE ANGLO-SAXON TIMES.

up to immortalize King Arthur and his Knights of the Round
Table. We desire to trace upward, till the dim distance hides it, the
memory of those Welsh bards, who, in the decay of their country,
were the champions, and at last the martyrs, of national freedom.

Ancient Welsh writings, still extant, are described as dealing
intelligently, both in prose and verse, with a wonderful variety of
topics. It is not universally admitted that any of these were com-
posed earlier than the twelfth century : but it is probable, from
evidence both external and internal, that some are much older.

There is a marked character of primitive antiquity in the singular
pieces called the Triads. They are collections of historical facts,
maxims ethical and legal, mythological doctrines and traditions,
and rules for the structure of verse : all of them are expressed with
extreme brevity, and regularly disposed in groups of three. Among
the Welsh Metrical pieces, those of the times succeeding the Nor-
man Conquest are very numerous ; but a few are to be found which
have plausibly been assigned to celebrated bards of the sixth century.
It is pleasant to believe that the great Taliessin still speaks to us from
his grave ; that we read the poems of Aneurin, the heroic and unfor-
tunate prince of Cumbria and Strathclyde ; and that, in the verses of
Merdhin the Caledonian, we possess relics of the sage and poet, whom
the reverence of later ages transformed into the enchanter Merlin.
Theromantic impression is strengthened by the earnest simplicity, and
the spirit of pathetic lamentation, with which some of these irreg-
ular lyrics cJitant the calamities of the Cymrians. There exists like-
wise a considerable stock of old Welsh Romances, the most remark-
able of which are contained in the series called the Mabinogi or
Tales of Youth. Most of those that have been translated into
English, such as Peredur and the Lady of the Fountain, are merely
versions from some of the finest of the Norman-French romances.
But several others, as the stories of Prince Pwyll and Math the
Enchanter, are very similar to the older Norse sagas ; and these, if
not very ancient in their present si. ape, must have sprung from the
traditions of an exceedingly rude and early generation.

Frequently, both in the triadi- and in the bardic songs, allusions
are made to the heroic Arthur. A Cjnmric prince of Wales or
Cumbria, surrounded by patriotic warriors like himself, and val*
iantly resisting the alien enemies of his country, had, in many a
battle, triumphantly carried the Dragon-flag of his race into the
heart of the hosts amidst whom floated the Pale Horse of the Saxon
standard. At length, we are told, he died by domestic treason ;
and the flower of the British nobles perished with him. His name
vas cherished with melancholy pride^ and his heroism magnified

LATIN LlTKKATLIiK.

with increasingly fond: exaggeration, alike among those Welsh
Britons who still guarded the valleys of Snowdon, and among those
who, having sought a foreign seat of liberty, wandered in exile on
the banks of the Loire. Poetic chroniclers among the Cymrians of
IJrittany gradually wove the scattered and embellished traditions
into a legendary British history : tliis Armoric compilation was
used, perhaps with traditions also that had lingered in Wales, by
Geofirey of Monmouth, in the twelfth century, as the groundwork
of a Latin historical work; and then the poets of chivalry, allured
by the beauty and pathos of the tale, made it for ages the centre of
the most animated pictures of romance.

LATIN LITERATURE.

4. The Latin learning of the Dark Ages, though seldom extensive
or exact, and always confined to a very small circle of students,
formed a pouit of contact between the instructed men of the several
races. Its cultivation arose out of the introduction of Christianity ;
and its most valued uses were those Avhich related to the faith and
the churQh.

It is doubtful at what time the seeds of spiritual life were first
scattered on our island shores. Miracles were said to have attested
the preaching of Joseph of Arimathea in England ; and a cave
which still looks, from the clilTs of Fifeshire, over the eastern sea,
wan celebvaced as the oratory whence, towards the close of the fourth
century, the Greek Saint llcgidus went forth to christianize the
IMcts. It is better proved that there were British converts among
the martyrs in the persecution of Diocletian ; and that, not much
later. Irishmen, such as the heretical Pelagius, were to be found in
the continental churches. But any progress which the true faitii
may have made among our forefathers, in the Roman times, seems
to have been arrested by the anarchy and bloodshed which eveiy-
where attended the Germanic invasions.

Ireland, in which Saint Patrick's teaching is said to have begun
a few years before the middle of the fifth century, certainly led the
way to the general acceptance of Christianity ; and the conversion
of Britain was first attempted by Irish missionaries. Among these,
Saint Columba is especially named, as having, in the latter half of
the sixth century, founded his celebrated monastery in the sacred
isle of lona, from which he and his disciples and successors extended
their preaching in the west and north of Scotland. About the end
ot the same century, Saint Augustine arrived in England, sent
by Pope Gregory, who, according to the beautiful story told

lii

!:■ Hi

THE ANGLO-SAXON TIMES.

by the old historians, had been deeply moved by seeing Anglo-
Saxon youths exposed in the slave-market of Kome. For several
generations before the Norman conquest, Great Britain and Ireland
were, in name at least, universally Christian.

5. Almost all who then cultivated Latin learning were ecclesi-
astics; and by far the larger number of those who became eminent
in it were unquestionably Irishmen. Most of them are described
by old writers as Scots : but this name was first applied to the Irish
Celts, and was not transferred to the inhabitants of North Britain
till after the Dark Ages. Indeed, amidst the bloodshed and wan-
derings which accompanied and followed the fall of the Roman
Empire, Ireland was a place of rest and safety, both to fugitives
from the continent, and to others from England. Among the latter
is named Gildas the AVise, a brother of the British bard Aneurin,
and the supposed writer of a treatise " on the Destruction of Britain,"
which, if it were undoubtedly genuine, would be the oldest of our
Liatin histories. Thus adding the acquisitions of other countries to
Its own, the Green Isle contained, for more centuries th§n oile,
a larger amount of learning than all that could have been collected
from the rest of Europe ; and its scholars often found other sanc-
tuaries among the storm-defended rocks of tlie Hebrides.

It is a fact well deserving the attention of the student, that the
communication between distant countries, thus arising out of the
miseries incident to troublous times, received a new impulse as each
country adopted the Christian faith. All were thenceforth mem-
bers of one ecclesiastical community; and each maintained con-
nexion, both with the rest, and with Rome the common centre. It
does indeed appear, that the Anglo-Saxon church was much less
dependent on the papal see than many others, in respect both of
government and of doctrine : yet, from an early date, its intercourse
wth Italy was close and constant. Pilgrimages to Rome were exceed-
ingly common. Two, if not more, of the Saxon princes assumed the
cowl, and were buried in tlie precincts of the church of Saint Peter j
among the hospices for the reception of pilgrims, which were built
around the venerated spot, that of our countrymen was one of the
earliest : and the Anglo-Saxon fraternity, (technically described in
the old books as a school,) received corporate privileges from the
popes, and is honourably commemorated as having repeatedly given
valiant aid in the defence of the city. Alfred is said to have sent
alms every year to Rome, receiving, in retuni, not only relics, but
other and more valuable gifts : and he invited foreign ecclesiastics
to settle in his kingdom, and assist in Iiis attempts to revive learn-
ing among the native clergy. Religious zeal thus produced an

LATIX LITERATURE.

interchange of knowledge, which, in times ahnost without commerce,
and in a state of society making travelling difficult and dangerous,
could not otherwise have taken place.

6. Thus, though our nation lost some of her best and ablest sons,
through the frequent disturbances which chequered her history, she
gained other instructors, whose services counterbalanced the loss.

Many of our native churchmen, it is true, lived chiefly abroad ;
but our chui'ches and schools received very many foreigners. So,
in the seventh cfentury, the most active promoters of erudition
among the Anglo-Saxons were the Abbot Adrian, an African sent
from Naples, and the Archbishop Theodore, a native of Tarsus who
had been a monk at Rome. So, likewise, on the other hand, two of
the four men, whose names hold decisively the highest places in the
literary roll of our ancient ancestry, gave the benefit of their talents
to foreign lands. England retained Bede and Alfred ; but she lost
Alcuin and Erigona. Alculn, perhaps an Irishman, though educated
at York, taught and wrote in the dominions of Charlemagne.
Joannes Scot us Erigena, again, remarkable alike as almost the only
learned layman of the Dark Ages, and as the only thinker who
then attained original views in speculative philosophy, was almost
certainly a native of Ireland. But France was the principal scene
of his labours ; and neither his invitation to England by Alfred, noi*
his tragical death m that country, can be held as any thing mor»;
tlian doubtful traditions.

Among those native ecclesiastics who remained ui England, three
men only can here be named as eminent for success in Latin studies.
The oldest of these was Bishop Aldhelm, a southern Saxon, whose
zeal for the enlightenment of the people gives him a better title to
fame, than the specimens whicli have been produced from his Latin •
prose and verse ', another was Asser, a "Welsh monk of St David's,
the friend, and teacher, and affectionate biographer of the illustrious
Alfred ; and greater than any of tho.e was the Northumbrian Beda,
whose name receives by imniPracnal custom an epithet expressing
b. 672. \ well-merited reverence. The Venerable Bede, entering hi
(i.736. j" ijoyhood the monastery of Wcarmouth, m his native district,
spent his whole manhood in the neighbouring cells of Jarrow, zeal-
ously occupied m e^lesiastical and histoi ical research. His extant
writings are allowed to exhibit an extent of classical scholarship,
and a correot'-^sB of taste, surprismg for his time : and his investi-
gations into .lie antiquities of the country ^ave birth to his Eccle-
siastical History of England, which is to this day a leading authority,
not for the annals of the cluuch only, but for all the public a> <;uta
that occurred m the earlier pait of the An-^lo-Suxon pi ' 'ad.

THE ANGLO-SAXON TIMES.

m).

■m\

The Anglo-Saxon names which have thus been set down are
very few: and the nation really did not possess, in any period,
many men who at all deserved to be described as learned. From
the age of Bede to that of Alfred, we encounter hardly any evidence
of so much as moderate erudition; and tliis great man had to
undertake a task, which really amounted to something very like
the instruction of a people altogether ignorant. We shall learn
immediately that the method which he and his assistants adopted,
for enlightening their countrymen, led them to promote Latin learn-
ing to no further extent, than that which was absolutely required
for enabling them to master some of the most important items of
the knowledge recorded in the dead language. Their leading aim
was the cultivation of their mother-tongue, and the diffusion of
practical information through its means.

It is ali?o a fact to be remembered, that the classical learning of
Alfred's age, such as it was, did not long survive its founder. T;>
this respect, no* less than in others, the last few generations of the
Anglo Saxon period exhibit imequivocal symptoms of decay.

Some of the causes which brought about this decline, should be
kept in our view while we proceed to survey the vernacular litera-
ture of the nation. Hardly more than barbarians when they landed
in our island, the Anglo-Saxons were checked in their progress to-
wards civilisation by their continual wars against the Britons, and
still more by their o^vn divisions and contests. At length, when
the chiefs of one of their petty states had been recognised as kings
of Saxon England, the polity thus established- was shaken to its
foundations, by the long struggle they had to maintain against their
Gothic kinsmen from Scandinavia. The conquest of the country by
the Danish prince Canute presaged the ease with which tho raco
was to be subdued by William of Normandy.

TQB ANGLO-SAXON TIMES.

CHAPTER II

THE ANGLO-SAXON TIMES.
A. D. 449— A. D. 10G6.

SECTION SECOND : LITERATURE IN TUE ANGLO-SAXON TONGUE

' T'^sual Coarse of Early National Literature. — 2. Peculiar Character of
•'inrij-lSaxon Literature — Its Causes. — Poktrt. 3. National and Histor-
k d Poems — The Tale of Beowulf— Other Specimens. — 4. Poems Didnc-
tic and Religious — Extant Specimens — Cjedmons Life and Poems. — 5. Ver-
sification and Style of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. — Prose. 6. The Living I^an-
guage freely used — Translations from the Scriptures. — 7. Original Com
position — Homilies — Miscellaneous Works — The Saxon Chronicle. —
8. King Alfred — llis Works — His Character.

1. The Literature of the Anglo-Saxons lias a very peculiar charac-
ter ; and that because it was formed by a process which was not
only unusual, but also in certain respects artificial.

The natural development of literary cultivation among a people
commonl}. takes place in some such manner as this.

The earliciil effusions that appear are metrical in form, and almost
always histor;; a^ in matter. The effects, too, which they are designed
to prodi. .'° 05) aose to whom they are addressed are complex : for,
beside s;>;YJnj to cause the imaginative pleasure which is charac-
teristic of pwcry they aim also at tliat communication of instruction,
and chat pss- •:•• .to excitement, which in more refined times are
sought chiefly tlirough the medium of prose. The artless verses
which constitute this infant literature, have, in most countries, been
composed without being written down. Further progress is difficult,
if not impossible, until the preservation of literary worics by writing
has long given opportunity for the attentive and critical study of
them. Fjuch study leads to the next great step in improvement,
which the vme of prose, that is, language not metrically modu-
lated, h is adopted in those literary efforts which aim principally
at the k..r&iimg or preserving of knowledge, or at such other prac-
tical pui-poses as aie least akin to the poetical : and it ia only wheu

THE ANGLO-SAXON TIMES.

' W

iprose han cnme into free use, that the several kinds of composition
begin to be separated according to their diversity of purpose. So
Jong, indeed, as prose writing is unknown, history itself is not faith-
ful to its distinctive function of truly recording acts and events ;
and every thing like philosophy, or the systematic inferring of prin-
ciples from facts, is of course unattainable. But the setting forth
of abstract truths is hardly ever recognised as the proper duty of
any literary work, until enlightenment has proceeded very far:
histories long contuiue to be the principal works composed in prose :
and poems, whether they are in form narrative, dramatic, or lyrical,
are imaginative and impassioned in tone, for ages before they be-
come essentially meditative or didactic.

Such has been, in substance, the early progress of literature in
almost all the "H)^ions of Christendom. But such was not its early
progress amonj, rmanic ancestors.

2. The Anglo-. is neglected almost utterly those ancestral
legends, which were a. once the poetry and the history of their con-
temporaries. They avoided, indeed, almost always (at least in such
relics as survive to us) the choice of national themes for poetry,
preferring to poetize ethical reflections, and religious doctrines or
narratives. Their instructed men wrote easily in prose, at a time
when other living languages were still entangled in the trammels of
verse : they embodied, in rough but lucid phrases, practical in-
formation and ever}'-day shrcAvdness, while the continental Teutons
were treating literature merely as an instrument for the expression
of impassioned fancy : and many of them deliberately renounced
the ambition of originality, to execute, for the good of their people,
industrious translations from the classics, the fathers of the church,
and the Holy Scriptures.

Our progenitors thus constructed, in their native tongue, a series
of literary monuments, to wliich a parallel is altogether wanting,
tiot only among the nations of the same period, but among all others
in the same stage of social advancement.

Their poetical relics, it must be allowed, are not the most attrac-
tive we can find. They want alike the pathos which inspires the
bardic songs of the vanquished Cymrians, the exulting imagination
which reigns in the sagas of the North, and the di'amatic life which
animates, everywhere, the legendary tales that light up the dim be-
ginnings of a people's history. Their prose works, too, wlien they
are in substance original, are plainly no more than strainings at a
task, which could not be adequately performed with the language
or the knowledge they possessed. But the literature which thus
neither excites by images of barbarism, nor soothes hy the refine*

ANGLO-SAXON MTEUATURE.

;ue, a series

ments of art, possesses legitimate claims to respect and admiratioc,
in the elevation and far-sightedness of the aims whiclx determined
its character, and in the calm strength, and the moral and religioui
purity, which, singly or united, breathe through. its principal relics.

The truth is, that both the verse and the proso of almost all our
A.nglo-Saxon remains differed, both in origin and in purpose, from
tlie specimens of a similar age that have come down to us from other
nations. They were produced by the best -instructed men of the
times, who desired, by means of their works, to improve the social
condition of their country, and to ennoble the character and senti-
ments of their countrymen.

The vernacular poetry, with very little exception, was not framed
either by genealogical bards, or by wandering minstrels ; it was not
designed either to cherish national pride, or to excite the fancy, or
to whet the barbaric thirst for blood. Some such poetry, the only
kind that was known among their neighbours, they unquestionably
had. Specimens of it have reached us ; but they are so few, and
wear so little of a. national air, that the stock to which they be-
longed must have been very small, and calculated to produce very
trifling effects.

The prose, again, communicated, to the people at large, knowl-
edge which elsewhere its possessors would have sealed up in a dead
language, to be transmitted only {torn convent to convent, or from
the ecclesiastical pupils of one school to those of another.

Altogether, the Anglo-Saxon literature is strongly and interest-
ingly symptomatic of that practical coolness of temper, and that in-
clination to look exclusively towards tlie present and the future,
which marked the whole history of the race, and which one is half-
tempted to consider as foreshowing the spirit that was to bear
rule among their modern offspring.

ANQLO-ffAXON POETRY.

3. The general idea which we have thus gained of the literature
of our mother-tongue, will be made more distinct by a few ex-
amples, the metrical monuments being studied first, and the prose
afterwards.

We possess three Historical Poems, all of which record Teutonic
recollections of the continent, and must have been composed before
the beginning of the emigrations to England. The Glceman's
Song, a piece very valuable to the antiquary, proves its remote
origin both by the character of its geographical traditions, and by
its bare and prosaic rudeness. The poem on tlie Battle of Fins'

THE ANGLO-^AXON TIMES.

]'\\ '■

I I

burgh rehites, with great animation, a story of exterminating
shuighter, the place of which is doubtful, but certainly must be
sought somewhere among the continental seats of the Anglo-
Saxons. The Tale of Beowulf, a legend containing more than
six tliousand lines, ic not only the most bulky, but by far the most
interesting of the gi'oup. It presents a highly spirited and pic-
turesque scries of semi-romantic scenes, curiously illustrative of the
(';irly Gothic, manners and superstitions. It is essentially a Norse
sii;a; and its scene appears to be laid entirely in Scandinavia.
Its hero, a Danish prince, goes out, somewhat in the guise of a
knight-errant, on two adventures. In the first of these he slays
• a fiendish cannibal, encountering supernatural perils both on land
and in the bosom of the waters, and overcoming them by super-
htunan strength and enchanted weapons : in the other, he sacri-
tices his OAvn life in destroyuig a frightful earthdrake or dragon.

It may be instructive to note, in passing, how common are stories
like these in all early poetry, and how naturally they spring out of
tlie real occurrences of primitive history. "When, after a contest
between two rude tribes, the conquerors, wanting authentic records,
have had i.rr"-i tc :orgct the particular facts, they willingly exagge-
rate the glory of their victory, by imagining their vanquished
enemies to have possessed extraordinary strength or to have been
assisted by superhuman protectors. Thus arise tales of giants, and
such inventions as those which adorn the first of Beowulf s exploits.
So, likewise, the earliest occupants of uninhabited tracts, even in
our own country, may have had to destroy wild animals, which to
them were actually not less formidable than the monsters described
so frightfully in the legends. Hardy woodsmen, who extirpated the
noxious reptiles of some neighbom'ing swamp, were probably the
originals of that long train of dragon-killers, which, (to say nothing
of the classical Hercules,) beguis with our Anglo-Saxon poem, and
attends us tlirough the series of the chivalrous romances. The
slaying of wild boars is commemorated, as a useful service to the
community, in our old historical memorials as well as in the stories
of knight-errantry : and the fierce bisons, whose skeletons are still
sometimes disinterred from our soil, were enemies dangerous enough
to give importance to such adventures, as that in which the " dun
cow " is said to have been destroyed by the famous knight Guy of
Warwick.

That the continental memorials just described were preserved by
the minstrels of England, is proved by some features, both of
language and of manners, which show them, especially the BeoTrulf,
to have undergone the kind of changes naturally taking place in

ANGLO-SAXON POETRY.

poems orally transmitted from age to age. But no other works of
tlieir class and date have been preserved.

Poems celebrating public or warlike events, if called fqrth at all
by the wars with the Britons or with the earlier Danish invaders,
have' not reached our hands. Our only other specimens of the
kind belong to the tenth century, which gives us several. One
is a vigorous song on Athelstan's victory over the Northmen,
Britons, and Scots, at Brunanburgh; there are two pieces com-
memorating the coronation and death of Edgar ; and the finest ol
all is the spuited and picturesque poem which relates the fall of the
brave chief Byrthnoth at Maldon, in battle against a powerful army
01 Danes and Norwegians.

4. Meanwhile, from the time when the tumult and warfare of
the colonization had subsided, the language received numerous
metrical contributions of a different class. The distant echoes oi
the heathen past had almost died away, lingering doubtless among
the superstitions of the people, but never heard in the literature
which then arose, and which spoke with the gentler voice of Chris-
tianity and infant civilisation. The poems in which these senti
raents found vent belong to the seventh, ninth, and tenth centurie*.
A very large proportion of them are religious ; and all are more (s.
less reflective. Even the many which are professedly transL-
tions treat their originals with a freedom, which leaves thcra a
claim to be regarded as in part invented.

Among them are metrical lives of saints, prayers, hymns, &r.d
paraphrases of Scripture ; and there is at least one poem, the Tale
of Judith, in which incidents from the bible-history are woven into
a narrative poem strikingly fanciful. In the ethical class, <ve find
such works as the Allegory of the Phoenix (expanded from a Latin
model), a quaintly tine poem on Death, and an Address by the
Departed Soul to the Body, which was repeatedly imitated in sub-
sequent times.

The most remarkable of the religious poems are those attributed
to the Northumbrian Caedmon, who lived m the latter part
the seventh century. His poetic vein came to light in a
singular fashion. Enjployed as a servant of the monastery at
Whitby, he passed his best days without instruction, nourishing the
love of sacred song, but unable to give expression to the images
aid feelings that possessed him, or even to find voice for chanting
hymns or ballads composed by others. Mortified, one evening, by
having to remain silent in a company of rustics more musical or
less modest, he retreated to his humble lodging in the abbey-gi*ange.
Id his troubled sleep, a stranger, appearing to him, commanded

i. ab
680,

). > to
. /of

! 'i

THE ANGLO-SAXON XIME8.

I >

without admitting liis excuses, that lie should sing of the Beginning
of Created Things. Original verses flowed to the dreamer's tongue,
were remembered when he awoke, and recited with a new-bom
confidence. The natural ebullition of untutored fancy was hailed
as a miracle; and Cajdmon, receiving some education, was en-
rolled among the monks, and spent the remainder of his life in
writing religious poetry. His dream-song, preserved by Alfred, is
more coherent than Coleridge's verses of similar origin, but has
none of their fanciful richness.

Other works of his, which we still possess, though probably
neither in perfect purity nor at uU complete, are inspired by a
noble tone of solemn imagination. Their bulk in all is nearly
equal to half of the Paradise Lost ; to which some parts of them
bear, not only in story but in thought, such a distant resemblance,
as may exist between the fruits of lofty genius guided by know-
ledge and art, and those of genius allied in character if not in
degree, but lamed by ignorance and want of constructive skill.
They are narrative poems, handling scriptural events, but using
the original in most' places as loosely as it is used by Milton.
Perhaps they were intended to make up one consecutive story :
but, as we have them, they present several obvious blanks, and
may most conveniently be regarded as falling into no more than
two parts, the one dealing with events from the Old Testament, and
tlie other taking up the New.

The First Part, beginning with the Expulsion of the Rebel
Angels, follows the Bible History, from the Creation and the Fall
of Man till it reaches the Offering up of Isaac. It then passes
suddenly to a full narrative of the Exodus from Egj'pt, and thence,
with like abruptness, to the Life of Daniel. At this point we may
hold the First Part as coming to a close. The Second Part is
much shorter; and its divisions are so ill-connected that we can
hardly suppose it to be more than a fragment. It opens with a
conference of Luqifer and his attendant Spirits, held in their place
of punishment. Miltonic in more features than one, this very
animated scene is introduced with a very different purpose, and
breathes a very different spirit, from the corresponding scene in our
great Epic. The^speakcrs are full of horror and despair : their last
hope has been shattered by the Incarnation : and the passage serves
merely as a prelude to the next narrative, w^hich represents the
Saviour's Descent to Ilades, an event long holding a prominent place
in the popular theology of our ancestors. The Deliverer roascends,
bearing with him redeemed souls from Adam to the time of the Ad-
vent : and among these, it may be noticed, Eve for a moment lingers

▲NOL0*SAXON PROSE.

>n, was eii-

bchind to confess her sin; just as, in Michael Angclo's celebrated
picture of the Last Day, she hides her face from the Judge. The
poem next describes briefly the Saviour's stay on earth after the
resurrection : and it closes with the Ascension, and a kind of pro-
phetic delineation of the Day of Judgment.

5. Both the Versification of the Anglo-Saxon poetry, and its
Style, are too peculiar to be left altogether unnoticed.

The melody is regulated, lilce that of our modem verse, by 8^*1-
labic emphasis or accent, not by quantity, as in the classical metres.
The feet oftencst occurring are dactyls and trochees ; a point of dif-
ference from the modem tongue, whose words fall most readily into
iambics. Rhyme is used in but tew of the surviving pieces. In-
stead of it, they have what is called alliteration, which consists in
the introduction, into the same stanza, of several syllables beginning
with the same letter. It seems to be a universal law of the system,
that each complete stanza shall be a couplet containing two verses
or sections, in each of wliich there must be at least one accented
syllable beginning with the same letter which begins one of those
in the other: while more usually the first verse has two of the
alliterative syllables. The lengtli of the couplets varies much ; b>it
most of them have from four to six accents.

The style is highly elliptical, omitting especially the connecting
particles. It is full of harsh inversions and of obscure metaphors :
and there occurs, very frequently, an odd kind of repetition, which
has been shown to depend, in many instances, on a designed paral-
lelisin between the successive members of each sentence.

None of these features owed its origin to the Anglo-Saxons. Both
the alliterative metres, and the strained and figurative diction,
were derived from their continental ancestors, and are exemplified,
though less decidedly, in the older poetry of the Northmen.

ANGLO-SAXON PROSE.

6. The metrical composition of the Anglo-Saxons is not more
remarkable for its anxious and obscure elaboration, than their prose
for its straight -forward and perspicuous simplicity. The uses, in-
deed, to which Prose Writing was put among thfsm, were almost
always of a practical cast.

The preference of the Anglo-Saxon tongue over the Latin was
very marked, especially after the impulse had been given by Alfred;
to whose time, and those that succeeded, belong almost all our
extant specimens of prose. Matters of business, wliich would not
Have been recorded in the language of the time b any other country,

THE AXQLO SAXON TIMES.

<. 1006,

then or for centuries afterwards, were almost always so recorded in
England. This was the case with charters, leases, and the like
documents : it was the case, also, with ecclesiastical constitutions,
and with the code of laws which was digested by Alfred, and a^ain
promulgated with alterations by sevei \ of his successors.

Among prv se works claiming a literary character, the original
compositions are far less numerous than the translations from the
Latin, in many of which, however, the writers freely insert matter
of their own. None of these invite our attention so forcibly as
the versions of parts of the Scriptures. There is still preserved,
in several manuscripts, a Latin Psalter, with an interlined Anglo-
Saxon translation, partly metrical ; there are translations and para-
phrases of the Gospels, with which comments are intermixed ; and
there are versions of some historical books of the Old Testament.

Several distinguished men are named as having laboured in this
sacred task : the Psalms are said to have been translated by Bishop
Aldhclm; the Gospel of Saint John by liede; and the Psalms or
other books by Alfred, or rather by the ecclesiastics who were
about him. But we cannot say positively who were tlie authors of
any of the existhig versions ; unless it has been riglitly inferred that
the Heptateuch, whicli has been published, was a work of
iElfric, who was archbishop of Canterbury in the close of
the tenth century. This, however, we do know ; that, although the
Moeso-Gothic version of 'the Gospels was older than any of ours, the
Anglo-Saxon translations came next in date ; and that they pre-
ceded, by several generations, all other attempts of the sort made
in any of the new languages of Europe.

7. Among the original compositions in prose, is a large stock of
Homilies or Sermons. Eighty of these were written by the vener-
able ^Ifric, already named ; and he, in the times of the Protestant
Reformation, was appealed to as having in some of them combated
the doctrines of the Church of Rome. He has bequeathed to us also
more than one theological treatise, a Latin Grammar, a Glossary,
and probably a curious Manual of Astronomy. He is, however,
the only man named, as having, after the tune of Alfred, been emi-
nent in the cultivation of the vernacular tongue. A good many
anonymous works hiterest us chiefly as illustrative of the state of
thinking and knowledge. Such are treatises on geography, medi-
cine, and medical botany; (in which magical spells play a leading
part ;) a series of arithmetical problems ; whimsical collections of
riddles; and a singular dialogue between Solomon and Saturn,
seemingly designed for use as a catechism, and extant in more
shapes than one.

•}

ANQLO-SAXON PROSE.

4,d

recorded in
and the like
constitutions,
id, and again
)rs.

the original
ons from the
nsert matter
) forcibly as
II preserved,
lined Anglo-
ns and para-
rmixed; and
restament.
)ured in this
id by Bishop
le Psalms or
s who were
e authors of
nferred that

15 a work of
the close of
ilthough the
of ours, the
t they pre-
sort made

■ge stock of

' the vener-

Protestant

1 combated
i to us also
a Glossary,
J, however,
, been erai-
jood many

16 state of
3hy, medi-

a leading
lections of
id Saturn,
it in more

If the relics now briefly described have their chief importance,
merely as showing what our ancestors knew or wished to know,
there is one monument of their prose literature from which, rude
and meagre as it is, modern scholars have derived specific and valu-
able instruction. It is a series of historical records, usually arranytd
together, under the name of The Saxon Chronicle. Registers of
public occurrences were kept in several of the religious houses, much
in the same way as the Irish Annals ; the practice beginning perhaps
as early as the time of Alfred, when such a record is said to have
been carried on under the direction of the primate Plegmund. For
the earlier periods, the chroniclers appear to have borrowed freely
from each other, or from common sources; but in the later tunes
each of them set down, from his own knowledge, the great events of
his own time. Our extant Saxon Chronicle is made up from the
manuscripts of several such conventual records, all of them in some
places identical, but each containing much that is not found in the
rest. They close at different dates, the most recent being brought
down to the year 1154.

b. 849, > 8. Our survey of Anglo-Saxon literature may fitly be
d. 901 1 closed with the illustrious name of Alfred ;

The pious Alfred, king to Justice dear,
Lord of the harp and liberating spear I

The ninth century in England must be held in abiding rever-
ence, if it had given birth to no distinguished man but him alone.
From him went forth, over an ignorant and half-barbarous people,
a spirit of moral strength, and a thirst for rational enlightenment,
which worked marvels in the midst of the most formidable difficul-
ties, and whose effects were checked only by that flood of national
calamity which, rising ominously during his life, soon swept utterly
away the ripening harvest of Saxon civilisation.

His original compositions were very inconsiderable. His favour-
ite literary employment was that of rendering, into his native tongue,
the Latin works from which mainly his own knowledge was derived ;
works understood by very few among his countrymen, and cor.'ci'r,-
edly understood so imperfectly by himself, that his transLvic .is
are to be regarded as the joint work of himself and his instruc-
tors. The books selected, as the objects of his chief efforts, indicate
strongly his union of practical judgment, of serious and elevated sen-
timent, and of eager desire for the improvement of society. Thus,
besides the labours on the Scriptiures which he performed or en-
couraged, he translated selections from the Soliloquies of Saint Au-
gustine of Hippo, the Treatise of Gregory the Great on the Duties

THE ANQLO-SAXON TIMES.

of the Clergy, the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, the Ancient Ills.
tory of Orosins, and the work of Boethius on the Consolation of Phil-
osophy. Often, in dealing with these works, he was not a mere
translator. If a passage of his author suggested a fact known to
himself, or an apt train of reflection, the fact or the thought was
added to the original, or substituted for it. Thus ho incorporates
devout reflection and prayer of his own with his extracts from S">"t
Austin ; to the geographical portion of Orosius he adds an ou
of the state of Germany, wonderfully accurate for his opportunities,
and gives also accounts, taken from the mouths of the adventurers,
of a voyage to the Baltic, and another towards the North Pole ;
and the finely thoughtful eloquence of the last of the philosophic
llomans prompts to the Teutonic king long passages of meditation,
not unworthy either of the model or of the theme.

It is probably impossible for us moderns to estimate justly the
resolute patience of Alfred ; because we can hardly, by any stretch
of conception, represent to ourselves strongly enough the obstacles
wliich, in his time and country, impeded for all men both the acqui-
sition of knowledge and the communication of it. We find it easier
to perceive the extraordinary merit of studies pursue;^, with a suc-
cess which, though imperfect, was beyond the standard of his ap
by a man whose frame was racked by ahnost ceaseless pain ; a n
also, whom neither studious industry nor bodily torment disal..
from toiling with unsurpassed energy as the governor, and legisla-
tor, and refonner of a nation ; and a man who, while he so worked
and so sufiered, was never allowed to unbuckle the armour which
he had put on in youth, to defend his father-land against hordes of
savage enemies. " This," declared he, " is now especially to be
sfiid; that I have wished to live wortbily while I lived, and after
my life to leave, to the men that should be aft^r me, my remem-
brance in good Avorks." He, too, who thus acknowledged duty as
till great law of being, had learned humbly whence it is, that all
strength for the performance of duty must be received. lie has set
doAvn the momentous lesson with a labouring quaintness of phrase :
** When the good thmgs of life are good, then are they good through
the goodness of the good man that worketh good with them : and
he is good through God I"

THE NORMAN TIMES.

CHAPTER IIT.

THE NOKMAX TIMES.
A. D. lOGC— A. D. 1307.

William I., 1000-1087.

William 11., 1087-1 100.

llciiry 1., 1100-1135.

Stephen, 1 I3r>-1 154.

Iluiiryll., 1154-1189.

Richard I., 1189 1199.

John, 1199-121(».

Henry III., 1216-l-27'2.

Edward I., 1272 1307.

SECTION FIRST : LITERATURE IN THE LATIN TONGUE.

Introduction to the Peiuod. 1. Distribution of Kaces and Kingdoms.—

2. Literary Ciiaracter of the Timca.— The Keoula . Latin Literatuim-.,

3. Learning in the Eleventh Century — Lanfraiic — Anselm. — 4. riiilo-
.lopliy and IMiysical Science in tlie Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuriob—
iialm and Duns Scotus — Koger Bacon. — 5. Historians — William of
Mal'Acsbury — (Jeoffrcy of Monmouth — Girald du Barri — Matthew I'ari.s.
— ff Success in I'ootry — Joseph of Exeter — Geoffrey de Yinsauf — Ni};«'l
Wircker's Ass.— TiiK IiiiiEaui.AK Latin Literatuue. 7. Latin Pasquin-
ji^'os- The Priest Golias — Walter Mapcs. — 8. Collections of Tales hi l^atin

-Gervase of Tilbury — The Seven Sages — The Gesta llomanoruni—
Nature of the Stories. — 9. Uses of the (>ollections of Tales — Reading in
Monasteries — Manuals for Preachers — Morals annexed in the Gesta —
Specimens. — 10. Use of the Ijitin Stories by the Poets — Chivalrous
liomances taken from them — Chaucer and Gower — ShakspcAre and Sir
Walter Scott — Miscellaneous Instances.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PERIOD.

1. At tliis point we have to take account, for the last time, o"
events that affected the distribution of the nations inhabiting our
country, and the languages spoken in the several regions.

The Norman Conquest introduced into England a foreign race of
nobles and landholders, dispossessing certainly a large majority, and
probably almost the whole body, of those who had been the ruling
class in the preceduig times. But tlie only new settlers were the
kings, the barons with their military vassals, and the many church-
men who followed the Conqueror and his successors. The mass of tlie
people contmucd to be Ttiutonic ; and the mixture of the Saxou.s

THE NOKMAN TIMES.

I i!

with the Britons was now completed in all those provinces that were
subject to the Norman kings. The Anglo-Saxon tongue, in the state
of transition which it was undergoing throughout the period now
m question, spread itself everywhere over those territories in the
course of two or three centuries, Cornwall being perhaps the only
esception. The Cymric tongue continued to be spoken in Wales,
not only while the Welsh princes maintained their independence,
but after they were subdued by Edward the Fu-st.

The boundaries of the kingdom of Scotland W3re now stretched
southward, to the line which has marked them ever since. In the
western district of the border, the two petty British states had
already become dependent on their more powerful neighbours. For
Cumbria had been incorporated into Anglo-Saxon England, and had
passed under the sceptre of the Normans ; while the kings of Scot-
land had acquired, on the south of the Clyde, territories which may
be supposed to have mrvlnly constituted the ancient princedom of
Strathclyde. On the eastern border, again, a long series of wars
took place between England and Scotland ; but, in the end, Ber-
wickshu'e and the Lothians were, for a time at least, held by the
Scottish kings as fiefs under the English crown. Gradually ap
Anglo-Saxon dialect became universal throughout the Scottish
Lowlands; the Highlands retaining their Celtic inhabitants and
Gaelic speech.

For Ireland, invaded by the English in the year 1170, there op-
ened a series of ages, in which the misery and disorganization of
native feuds were succeeded by the evils of foreign oppression, evils
yet more irritating, and more thoroughly preventive both of social and
of intellectual advancement. The literary history of that beautiful
and unfortunate country must be for us a dead blank, till, in mo-
dern times, we gladly discover many Irishmen among the most va-
luable citizens in the republic of letters.

2. In England, during this lo;ig period, literature flowed onward
In its course, with a ceaseless, though somewhat eddying tide.

The generation which succeeded the Conquest gave birth, as we
might have expected, to little that was very remarkable. The
twelfth century, beginning with the reign of the accomplished
Heniy Beauclerc, and closing with that of the chivalrous Coeur-de-
Lion, was distinguished, beyond all parts of our mediajval history,
for the prosperity of classical scholarship ; and the Norman-French
poetry, studied with ardour, began to find English imitators.

The thirteenth century was a decisive epoch, not more for the
constitutional history of England, than for its intellectual progress.
Thf Great Chai'ter was extorted from King John ; the commercial

REGULAR LATIN LITERATURE.

activity of the towns, and the representative functions of all the
commons, were thoroughly grounded in the reign of his successor ;
and the ambition of Edward Longshanks, successful in crushing
the independence of Wales, was equally so in Scotland, till the
single-handed heroism of Wallace gave warning of the spirit which
was to achieve deliverance on the field of Bannockburn. During
this momentous array of public events, the English univerbitios
were founded or regularly organized ; the stream of learning which
had descended from preceding generations was turned into a new
channel, giving birth to some of the greatest philosophers and ecicn-
tific men of the Middle Ages ; the romantic poetry of Northern
France continued to flourish, and now began to be transfused into
a language intelligible throughout England ; and, above all, the
Anglo-Saxon tongue passed, in the course of this century, through
the last of those phases which transformed it into English.

This was also a time when religious sentiment was very keen.
Three of the crusades had previously taken place ; and the other
four fell within the thirteenth century. They not only diffused
knowledge, but kindled a flame of zeal : and the foundation and
prosperity of the rival monastic orders of Dominicans and Fran-
ciscans, (the Black and Grey Friars of our history,) showed alike
the devotion of the age, the growing suspicion that the church
needed reform, and the dexterity of the Papal See in using zealots
and malcontents for her own ends.

The Literature of those two centuries and a half will now
engage our attention, that which was couched in Latin being firs*
examined.

THE REGULAR LATIN LITERATURE.

3. In a generation or two after the Conquest, Classical and Theo-
logical learning, if profoundly acquired by few, was pursufd by very
many. There was no inconsiderable activity in the mon.ister'es, as
well as among the secular clergy ; and, however apocry?/tial may bo
the alleged foundation of the older of the two English . 'uversities
by Alfred, it is certain that, both at Oxford and Cambrid^'t, by the
beginning of the twelfth centuiy, schools had been est'i!)lished,
which were thenceforth permanent, and rapidly attained an aca-
demic organization. The continental universities, and t' ■ other
ecclesiastical seminaries, both in Frar^j and eleewhere, v/ere con-
tinually exchanging with England both pupils and teachert.

But the movement was, as yet, almost wholly among the Normans
and their dependents: and the only great names -which adorned
the annals of erudition in England, in the latter half of the eleventh

TUE NOBMAN TIUE8.

century, were tliose of two Lombard priests, Lanfranc and Anselm.
Both of them were brought by Duke William from his famous abbey
of Bee ; and, being raised in succession to the primacy, they not only
prepared the means for diffusing among the ecclesiastics a respectable
amount of classical learning, but themselves acquired and have retahicd
high celebrity as theological writers. Lanfi-anc was chiefly famous for
the dialectic dexterity with which he defended the Romish doctrine
of the eucharist. Anselm, a singularly original and subtle thinker,
is held by many to have been the true founder of the scholastic
philosophy ; and he is especially remarkable as having been the first
to attempt moulding, into a scientific shape, that which has been
called the argument d priori for the existence of the Sup'-eme Being.
It is hardly necessar}' to remark, that these specula ts, and all
other ecclesiastical and theological writings for severax ages after-
wards, were composed in Latin. The excuse of ignorance among
the clergy, so artlessly assigned in the Anglo-Saxon times as a rea-
son for writing in the living tongue, was no longer to be listened
to : and the practice of freely publishing such knowledge to the laity
was heretical in the eyes of those ecclesiastical chiefs, who now
cat in the chairs of Aldhelm and ^Ifric.

4. The abstract speculations of Lanfranc and Anselm were but
slowly appreciated or emidated in England. Their effects, however,
may be traced, to some extent, in the theological and other writings of
the two most learned men whom the country possessed during the
next century. John of Salisbury, befriended by Thomas h. Beckct,
did himself honour by the fidelity which he maintained towards his
patron ; and he may be reckoned an opponent, not very formidable,
of the scholastic pliilosophy. Peter of Blois, brought from France,
became the king's secretary and an active statesman.

In the thirteenth century, when the teaching of Roscellinus and
Abelard had made philosophy the favourite pursuit of all the most
active-minded scholars throughout Europe, England possessed names
which in this field stood higher than any others. Alexander de
Hales, called " The Irrefragable Doctor," was a native of Glou-
cestershire ; but he was educated and lived abroad. " Tlie Subtle
h. ab. 1266, 1 Doctor," Joannes Duns Scotus, was born either in
d. 1306. ' i Northumberland or Berwickshire, received his education
from the Franciscan friars at Oxford, taught and wrote with extra-
ordinary reputation both there and at Paris and Cologne, and died
in the prime of life. He was one of the most acute of thinkers,
and founded a characteristic system of philosophical doctrine.

In the same age, while Scotland sent Michael Scot into Gkirmany
to prosecute physical science with a success which earned for him

REGULAR LATIN LITERATURE.

the fume of a sorcerer, a similar course was followed at Oxford and
Paris, and a similar character acquired tlurough labours etill more
b ab. 1214. ) valuable, by Roger Bacon, a Franciscan friar. This
d. 1292. j great man's life of scientific experiment and abstruse
reflection was embittered, not only by the fears and suspicions of
the vulgar, but by the persecutions of his ecclesiastical superiors.
His writings abound with curious conjectures, asserting the possi-
bility of discoveries which have actually been made in moclern times.
In his supposed uivention of gunpowder, we may-perceive the foun-
dation of the story which was told, how the fiend, to whom the
heretical wizard had sold himself, carried away his victim in a whirl-
wind of fire.

5. The unsettled state of the languages spoken in England co-
operated with the clerical tendencies, in causing the Latin to become
the vehicle of almost all Historical writing.

Very few works of this class possessed, till much later, arjy
literary merit : but very many of them, still extant, are valuable or
curious as records of facts. A considerable number of Chronicles
were kept hi the monasteries, furnishing, from one quarter or an-
other, a series which extends through t)»e greater part of the Middle
Ages. The individual Historians, all of them ecclesiastics, were
very numerous. Among those who have claims to notice for skill
in writing, William of Mtdmesbury, one of the earliest, (but virtually
belonging to the twelfth century,) deserves honour as an hidustrious
and candid investigator of early traditions. The history of GeofTrey
of Monmouth is notorious for its unsifted mass of legendary fiction ;
but the poetical student cannot well be ungrateful to the preserver of
tlie fable of Arthur, and of the stories, hardly better vouched, of
Lear and Cymbeline. The vain and versatile Girald de Barri, best
known by the name of Giraldus Cambrensis, has left elaborate his-
torical and topographical works, notable for their national paniali-
tics, especially in Irish affairs, but very lively both in narrative and
description. The principal work of Matthew Paris, a Benedictine
monk of Saint Albans, shows close acquaintance with the events of his
times, and is written with very great spirit. Its freedom of dealing
with church questions made it a fiftvourite authority with the early
Reformers.

Of the many other historians and chroniclers, it may be enough
to name, as perhaps possessing greater importance than the rest,
Henry of Huntingdon, Gervase of Tilbury, Roger de Hoveden, and
the recently discovered Jocelin de Brakelonde.

6. The clasbical knowledge of the times was tested more severely
by composition in Latin Verse, which was practised actively by

THE NOKMAN TIMES.

some of those historical winters, as well as by many others : and the
success is allowed to have been surprisingly great. Besides innu-
merable small pieces, there were several very ambitious attempts, tlie
d. Rft.l best of which were the two epics of Josephuslscanus, that is,
1200. j Joseph of Exeter. His " Antiocheis," celebrating the third
crusade, is almost entirely lost: liis poem " On the Trojan War"
lias so much of classical purity, that, after the general revival of
learning, it was several times prhited as a work of Cornelius Nepos.
Geoffrey de VinSaufs didactic poem " On the New Poetry," is a
treatise on composition, whose shoAvy affectations, obtaining a poj)
ularity refused to his more correct contemporaries, have been
blamed for some part of the false taste that soon prevailed. But
the most amusing of all our eai-ly classical poems is a satire called
" The Mirror of Fools," written by Nigel Wircker, a monk of Can-
terbury. The hero, Brunellus, is literally an ass, who, ambitious of
distinction, studies in the university of Paris, and enters successively
all the monastic orders. Dissatisfied both with the learned men
and the monks, he sets about forming a new sect of his own : but.
caught by his old master, he is compelled to resume his natural
station, and close his life in carrying panniers.

In the thirteenth century the studies of philologers were extended
to Greek and Hebrew, chiefly after the example had been set by
Robert Grossetete or Grosthead, the universally accomplished
Bishop of Lincoln.

THE IRREGULAR LATIN LITERATURE.

7. Before the tirhe when Bacon and Michael Scot were said to
have dealt with supernatural beings, the people of England had
really begun to be possessed by a spirit which was destined soon
to exert tremendous power, the spirit of resistance to tyranny and
abuse, both ecclesiastical and secular. The Latin tongue became,
Bomowhat oddly, one of the spells used for the evocation.

There had arisen, in the lowest times of classical taste, a fashion
of ending Latin verses with rhymes. When the versification of
some of the modern tongues had been partly formed, Latinisls
hnitatod it, not only rhyming their lines, but constructing them by
accent, with a convenient disregard of quantity. Much devotional
poetry was written after this model, and not a little of it in our own
country. But the most curious specimens are a huge number
of pieces, still preserved, in which verses so framed are made the
medium of personal and public satire.

Such attacks on the clergy and the church began about the
middle of the twelfth century, and can be traced far onward in the

IBREQULAR LATIN LITERATURE.

next. Tlie boldness of invective would bo incredible, especially
since churclimen were almost always the writers ; were we not to
remember the peculiar position of the church in England, and also
several special circumstances in the history of the time. Tlie most
Uvely and biting of our satires of this class are connected by a
whimsical thread. The hero is an imaginary priest called GoHas,
who is at once a personification of the wortlilcss ecclesiastics, and
the mouthpiece of the body in their remonstrances to their rulers ;
while he is occasionally made a bishop, when liis elevation helps to
give point to a sarcasm directed against the dignified clergy. From
the humorously and coarsely candid " Confession of Golias" are
extracted the verses which have so often been quoted as a driiiking-
d.ftft.) song, and attributed to AValter Map or Mapes.* For tliis
1196. 1 and other reasons, it is believed that the character of the hero
may have been invented, and that in all likelihood many of the poems
were written, by Mapes; a man of knowledge as well as wit and
fancy, who might have been named as the autlior of a curious mis-
cellany in Latin prose, and will come in our way immediately as a
writer in another field. He was a favourite of llenrv the Second,
and promoted by him to the archdeaconry of Oxford, and to otiiei
benefices.

"With the reign of John begins a new series of Latin pasquinades,
levelled at the political. quert:?ns of the day, and all embracing the
popular side. The king and his successor are lashed un.sparingly ;
the persons praised are De Montfort, and the other barons wlio
opposed the crown. The Latin, however, although the appropriate
organ of circulation among the clergy, was not so for any other
audience. It continued to be used, bu'; less and less : the Norman-
French became more frequent, a fact which seemingly indicates a
design of the writers to. •btain a hearhig among the nobles and
tlieir retainers; and, towards the end of our period, the English
dialect of the day was almost the only medium of this satirical
minstrelsy. About the close of the century, the bulhid-makers
employed themselves in fanning that patriotic hatred of Frendii-
men, which the wars of Edward the First made it desirable for the
descendants of the Normans to foster; and the Scots, for similar
reasons, were libelled with equal good-will. One piece, a bitter
complaint of oppression of the poor by the nobles and higher ciiureh-
men, purports to have been written by an outlaw in the greenwood,
and thrown on the highway to be picked up by passengers.

• 8. The dignity of the Roman tongue was hardly ujfruiged fuP*

• Meum est propoKitum in tabema mod.

TUE NORMAN TIMES.

tber by tlie jests of Golias and his confcdcrcatcs, than it was by
another use to which it was frequently put in the times under
review, and by which the later poetry of Europe profited
largely.

It became the means of preserving and transmitting an immense
stock of Tales, which otherwise would inevitably have been lost,
and which, from those days down to our own, have been the
germs of the finest poetical inventions. Such stories found, on
various pleas, ready admission into works of a very serious kind :
and, in particular, the want of critical judgment with which his-
tory was written, gave room for the grave relation of many legends
of the wildest character. One of our countrymen, already named,
Gervase of Tilbury, in an historical work presented to his patron
the Emperor of Germany about the beginning of the thirteenth
century, inserted a special section " On the Marvels of the World."
It abounds with the stx'angest fictions, which reappeared again and
again for centuries : and one of its superstitious legends suggested
to Sir Walter Scott the combat of Marmion with the spectre-
knight. Other churchmen employed their leisure in collecting
stories avowedly fictitious: and among these was an English
Cistertian monk, Odo de Cerinton, wlio, a little earlier than
Gervase, compiled a very curious mass of moral fables and other
short narratives.

Many scattered inventions of the sort travelled from the East,
in the course of that constant conununication with Asia which
was maintained in the age of the Crusades: and from that
(]uarter came the earliest of those collections, in which the separate
tales were linked together by one consecutive story. This was
the Indian romance of Sindabad ; which, through the Hebrew and
Greek, passed into the Latin, and thence into every living tongue
of Europe, appearing both in prose and verse, and being made to
assume new names and manners in each of its new shapes. It is
commonly known as ** The Seven Sages," and underwent its last
stage of decay in becoming one of our own common chap-books.
In its most usual form, the outline which connects the parts to-
gether is this. The son of a Runmn emperor is condemned to
death by his father, on the instigation of an evil-minded step-
mother : and, warned by a magician, he remains obstinately silent,
though he had it in his power to exculpate himself completely-
The seven wise men who were the imperial counsellors endeavour
to move their lord to mercy, by telling him tale after talc to prove
the danger of rash judgments : the empress strives to destroy the
^ect of e(ich lesson, by a tale inculcating justice or promptitude :

IRREGULAR LATIN l^iTERATURE.

And the princess life is thus preserved, till, the appointed days of
silence having elapsed, he makes his defence and exposes tlie
calumny of his accuser. Several of the stories told are repeated
in other collections of the sort, as well as in the later poetry of
England an^ the continent.

A celebrity yet greater waiS attained, and a wider influence
exerted on literature, by another scries of fictions, not united by
any one story, and known by a title for which, various as its matter
is, hardly any part of it furnishes a reason. It is called the " Gestu
Homanorum," or "Deeds of the Eomans." Manufactured into
different shapes in different countries, and not having the same
contents in any two of them, it is everywhere a medley of the
most dissimilar elements. There are fables in the manner of
iEsop, and distorted fragments of Grecian leaiTiing, from Argus
and Mercury to Alexander of Macedon and his tutor Aristotle.
In the Roman history we begin with memorials of the JBneid.
being told how Pallas the son of Evander was a giant, his skeleton,
when disinterred, exceeding in length the height of the walls of Kome ;
the leap of Curtius into the gulf which yawned in the fonim is said
to hav^e been performed by Marcus Aurelius ; and the poet Virgil as-
sumes the character, which he still retains by tradition in Italy, of a
mighty but benevolent enchanter. The outlines of some thrilling
tales of terror are furnished by the record of local superstitions,
celebrating visitations of supernatural beings and the adventiurcs
of treasure-seekers who descend into caverns magically protected.
And it is worth while to note that, in one of the most elaborate of
these fictions, the original hero was the learned Gerbert, believed
to have introduced algebra into Christendom ; who, although he
became the last pope of the tenth century, paid the old penalty of
eminent knowledge by being regarded as a magician. One or two
of the tales are monkish legends : some are short chivalrous ro-
mances: some are moral and religious apologues or parables.
Others, pretty numerous, are familiar pictures of society, almo.st
always satirical in cast, and levelling their wit most frequently at
the female sex. In pieces of this last kind, the " Gesta" very often
have, a close resemblance, in character as well as incident, to tlio.«o
French poems which we shall immediately know by the name of
Fabliaux.

It is alike uncertain when, where, andJby whom the " Gesta" were
first compiled. Probably they arose in Germany : but so many of
the stories are taken from older sources, that, even if tlie collection
did not find its way to England till the fourteenth century, thero
can have been few of them that were not already known.

\f:'

r !

II i

iiSi

THE NOIIMAX TIMES.

9. The uses to which those Latin taVr, were applied in the
middle ages were very various, and several of them not a little
amusing. Some of the collectors may have had no further aim,
than that of relieving the weariness of a monk's inactive life ; and
copies were multiplied in the convents, for the benefit of those
brothers who were disinclined to tveightier studies. It has been
believed, also, that, in those readings aloud during meals, which
were practised in most of the monastic communities, the light
stories often took their turn with books of a more solid kind.

But the collections of fiction were used yet more publicly. They
became the manuals of preachers, who had recourse to them for
examples and illustrations suitable to the taste of rude and ignorant
hearers. Several books of the sort were avowedly designed for
being useful in this way : and one of these at least was written in
England, bearing a title which may be translated, "The Text-book of
Preachers." It was compiled in the latter part of the fourteenth
century, by John Bromyard, a Dominican friar, himself noted as a
pulpit orator, and as a strenuous opponent of Wycliffe.

The " Gesta" themselves, in all their shapes, are carefully adapted
for this and other didactic purposes. For there is annexed to every
tale a religious application or moral. These practical inferences
are often absurdly inapplicable to the narrative, and could not well
have been otherwise : often, also, they are dexterously devised for
recommending superstitious practices or erroneous doctrines : and
the freedom of dealing with sacred things and names makes many
of them unfit to be recorded. An idea of the turn they usually
take may be gatliered from one little narrative, which probably was
invented for the sake of the moral. A dying emperor puts into
the hands of his son a golden apple, which, travelling through dis-
tant lands, he is to present to the greatest fool he can find. After
many wanderings, the prince reaches a country whose government
is regulated by a strange law : the king is appointed for one year
only, at the end of which he is banished, and must die poor and
miserable. The traveller asks whether any one has been found to
fill the last vacancy : and, learning that the throne is occupied, he
offers his apple to the king, as the most foolish man he has .ever
encountered. The leading doctrine to be inferred is very obvious.
The unwise king is the sinful man, who lives for the fleeting enjoy-
ments of this world, content to purchase them by lasting misery
in the next. Laymen sometimes outdid the clergy themselves, in
the ingenuity with which they moralised the favourite inventions.
There is a picturesque story of a nobleman, who, falling into a deep
pit, in which are a lion an ape and a serpent, is rescued by a wood*

IRREGULAR LATIN LITERATURE.

• 67

cutter. Instead of rewarding his benefactor, he causes liim to be
cruelly beaten. The historian Matthew of Paris tells us, that this
fable was frequently in the mouth of Richard Cceur-de-Lion ; and
that he applied it as representing tiie ingratitude to heaven shown
by those princes of Christendom, who refused to assist m wresting
the Holy Sepulchre from the hitidcls.

10. The re-appearances of those monastic fantasies in English
poetry have been so frequent and so uiteresthig, that we are
tempted to anticipate a little for the purpose of making ourselves
acquainted with some of them.

Both in the Latin, and in French translations, they became
current in England, as elsewhere, before the close of the thhteentli
century. Stories either identical with some of them, or very like,
appear early among the Chivalrous Romances ; a class of works
whose history, both in their original French, and in the Englisli
translations and imitations, we shall immediately begin to study.
Indeed it is not always certain whether the minsti'els have bor-
rowed from the monks, or the monks from the minstrels. Two ol
the most famous of the romances which still siurvive in our own
language, are in substance the same with stories of the " Gesta. "
The one is " Guy of Warwick," which, in its simplest shape, is
truly a devout legend, breathing a darkly ascetic spkit. The hero
deserts his wife and child to do battle in the Holy Land : returning
home, he thinks proper, instead of rejoining his family, to hide him-
self in a hermitage near his castle : and only on his deathbed does
he allow himself to be recognised. The other romance is llobert
of Sicily, which shrouds a fine moral under a fantastic disguise.
The prince being pufted up with pride, an angel is sent to assume
his figure and take his place ; while he, changed so as not to be
known, is insulted and neglected, and becomes thankful to be
received as the jester of the court. After long penance has taught
him humility, he is restored to dignity and happiness.

When we reach the poetry which adorned England in the latter
half of the fourteenth century, we shall have to examine the works
of its two chief masters so closely, that tlieir obligations to the
Latin books of amusement could not at present be specified without
causing a risk of repetition. But we ought here to luarn that
Chaucer, the greatest of our old poets, owes to the " Gesta" two
at least, if not m/>re, of his tales; and that Gower, a man of much
weaker invention, borrows from them with yet greater freedom.

Tlie latter of these names, however, introduces us, witii seeming
abruptness, to the most celebrated name hi our literature. • The
longest piece in the "Gesta" is the romance of " ApoUonius," a

:ii'

1; i

I ,1 I.

THE NORMAN TIM^S.

very popular fiction throughout the middle ages, and preserved
even in an Anglo-Saxon version. It was the foundation of Gower's
most elaborate poem : and this again furnished the plot of " Pericles,
Prince of Tyre." The drama so called is usually printed among
the works of Shakspcare, and not without good reason ; since it is,
in all likeliliood, either wholly a production of his early manhood,
or one of those plays which, in that stage of his life, he concocted
by altering and augmenting older dramas. Further, our immortal
poet's "Merchant of Venice" is doubly indebted, if not to the
Latin "Gesta," yet certainly to the English translation, or tu
some of the compilations which borrowed from its stores. For ui
it appeared, perhaps for the first time, the story which was the
original of the caskets exhibited for choice by Portia to her lovers;
and there we find, also, the incident of the bond in which the for-
feit was a pound of flesh, and the device by which the penalty was
iivaded.

The spectre-legend, too, which has been noticed as re-modelled
ill Marmion, is in the "Gesta;" though it was taken from the
older fsfurce by the Scottish poet. Not a few jests, likewise, which
in their modem shape have received the credit of being new, really
How from this venerable source. It is enough to cite, as an instance,
a story occurring in some of our school-books, that of " The Three
Black Crows." Pamell's pleasing poem " The Hermit" has the
same origin. Nor is it unworthy of remembrance, that one of the
ifjsop-fables of the old books suggested, directly or indirectly, the
phrase of " Belling the Cat," used by the Earl of Angus in the
rebellion against James the Third of Scotland. The mice hold a
council, to deliberate how they may protect themselves from the
cunning of the cat. They adopt unanimously a resolution proposed
by one of the sages of the race ; that a bell shall be hung round
the neck of their enemy, to warn them of his approach by its ring-
ing. Tlie scheme proves useless by reason of one trifling difliculty :
ao mouse is brave enough to undertake putting it in execution.

THE NORMAN TIAIES.

}on ; since it is,

CHAITER IV.

TJIE NOKMAN TIMES.
A. D. lOGC— A. D. 1307.

SECTION SFXOND : LITERATURE IN THE NORMAN -FRENCH AND
SAXON-ENGLISII TONGUES.

KoKMAN-FnEKCii. 1. The Two Languages of France— Poetry of the Nor-
mans — Tlie Fablianx and Chivalrous Komanccs. — 2. Anglo-Norman
Komanccs from English History — The Legend of Ilavelok — Growth of
Fictitious Embellishments — Translations into English. — 3. Anglo-Nor-
man Romances of the Round Table — Outline of their Story. — 4. Authors
and Translators of Anglo-Norman Romances — Chiefly Englishmen —
liorron — Gast — Mapes. — Saxon-Enomst;. 5. Decay of the Anglo-Saxon
Tongue — The Snxon Chronicle. — 6. Extant Relics of Semi-Saxon English
Verse — Historical Works partly from the French — Approach to the Eng-
lish Tongue — The Brut of Layamon — Robert of Gloucester — Robert Man-
nyng. — 7. Other Metrical Relics of Semi-Saxon and Early English Verso
— The Ormulum — The Owl and the Nightingale — Michael of Kildara--
The .Ancient English Drama.

NORMAN-FRENCII LITERATURF,

1 . We must now learn something as to that vigorous and imagina-
tive school of Poetry, which arose in the Nonnan-French tongue,
and was tlie model of all the earliest poetical efforts in our own.

Hefore the close of the Dark Ages, there were foi-med in France,
out of the decayed Latin, with some Teutonic additions from the
I'ranks, two leading dialects. Thty were spoken in different
(jiinrtcrs; and each of them became, early in the Middle Ages, the
\ oliicle of a characteristic literature.

In Southern France was used the Proven9al, or tongue of Pro-
vence, named also the Langue d'Oc, or tongue of Oc, from tl^c word
in it correspondmg to our "yes." It was liker to the Italian and
Spanish than to the modern French. Its poets called themselves
Troubadours, that is. Inventors ; just as our old English and Scot-
tish poets were named Makers. Its poetry was chiefly lyrical, and
became the* favourite model of the early poets of Italy, afl'ecting our
own literature to some extent, but not very early or very materially.

The dialect of Northern France was known as the I^ngue d'OU

! !l

THE MORMAN TIM£9«

or d'Oui. But we speak of it oftenest as Norman-French ; because
it was in Normandy that its cultivation was completed, and there also
that important literary works were first composed in it. It became
the standard tongue of France, and has conthmed to be so. Its poets
had the name of Trouvfires or Trouveurs. The greater part of its
poetry was narrative ; and most of the tales may be referred to the
one or the other of two classes. There were the poems called Fab-
liaux, usually short stories, which had a familiar and comic tone,
even when they dealt with the same kind of incidents as poems of
the other class. There were, again, the Chivalrous Komances, com-
positions more bulky, and almost always more serious in temper
as well as more ambitious in design.

The Fabliaux affected our literature little till the time of Chaucer.
In regard to their character, we hardly require to know more than
that which we may gather from remembering the likeness which, as
we have learned, subsisted between them and the lighter stories in
the monastic collections of Latin fictici. It should also be ob-
served, however, that many poems, usually described as Fabliaux,
rise decidedly mto the serious and imaginative tone of the romances ;
and that some collections of narratives, in Norman-French verse,
exhibit the same author as attempting both kuids of composition.
Of this mixed kind are the works of a poetess, usually known as
Marie of France, who probably wrote in Brittany, but made copious
use of British materials, and addresses herself to a king, supposed
to have been our Henry the Third. Her twelve " Lays," some of
which have their scene laid in P2ngland, and celebrate the marvels
of the Hound Table, are among the most beautiful relics which the
middle ages have left us. They were well known, and freely used,
by Chaucer and others of our poets. Her " Fables" are interesting
in another way. She acknowledges having translated them from
the English tongue ; and one of the manuscripts makes her assign
the authorship of her originals to king Alfred.

The Komances of Chivalry we must learn to understand more
exactly than the Fabliaux. They are the effusions of a rude min-
strelsy, using an imperfect language, and guided by irrec'ilir
I)ulse, not by laws of art ; but many of them are, in "vt it least,
delightfully hnaginative, spirited, or pathetic. 'J ly of the

whole class is important, not only for their value i iistrations of
mediajval manners and customs, but also for their inti., 'e cc .cxion
with our early literature ;

Where, in the chronicle of wasted time,

We see descriptions of the fairest wightSi
And beauty making beautiful old rhjTiie,

In praise of ladies dead and lovely' kuighti.

»K^i:;iii;

AKGLO*NORMAN ROMANCES.

ch; because
lid there also
It became
). Its poets
r part of its
erred to the
1 called Frtb-
comic tone,
as poems of
nances, com-
,s in temper

of Chaucer.
y more than
!8S which, as
:cr Stories in
also be ob-
is Fabliaux,
e romances ;
rench verse,
lomposition.
y known as
lade copious
g, supposed
ys," some of
the marvels
8 which the
freely used,
interesting
them from
8 her assign

•stand more
rude niin-

re!r"l:u-
rt it least,
•ry of tlie
St rat ions of
[! CO cxion

The earliest of them, except such as were really nothing more
than devout legends, were founded on historical traditions of Eng-
land ; and tales engrafted on tUcse were the best and most popular
of the series. Native Englishmen, also, writing in French, were among
the most active of those who worked up our national stories into
the romantic shape ; all the French works were composed for our
English court and nobles ; and translation of them was the most fre-
quent use to which our infant-latigiigo was applied. Above all,
they imprinted on our poetry, in its oldest stages, characteristic^
which it did not lose for centui'ies, if indeed it can be said to have
lost them at all.

2. The oldest among them, like other early pieces of narrative
poetry, are based on national events, and are not distinguishable, by
any well-drawn line, from popiUar and legendary histories. Sueh is
the character of an ancient French romance, which is particidarly
interesting to us, both on account of its story, and because it exists
also in a very ancient English dress. It relates one of those tradi-
tions of the east of England, by which the Norse settlers strove
to give dignity to their arrival in the island. This romance of
" Havelok " was written, in French, early in the twelfth century.
The poem is almost free from the anachronisms of manners and sen-
timent which soon became universal ; and the cast of the story is
simple and antique. Its hero, the orphan child of a Danish king,
exposed at sea by the treachery of his guardian, is drifted on the
coast of Lincolnshire, and fostered by the fisherman Grim, who after-
wards gives his name to an English town. A princess of Enghutd,
imprisoned by guardians as false as Ilavelok's, is forced by them to
many him, that she may thus be irretiiw , ably degraded : he reveals
his royal descent, already marked by a flame playing round his head ;
and, in fierce battles, he reconquers his wife's inheritance and his own.

The writers of the romances gradually departed, more and more,
from the facts given to them by the chronicles and popular tradi-
tions. They substituted private exploits and perils for national
events, with increasing frequency, till their incidents and their per-
sonages were equally the offspring of pure invention : they ceased
to aim at true representation of the manners and histitutions of anti-
quity, and minutely described the past from their observation of the
present. Seizing on the most poetical features of society, as it ap-
peared among the nobles in whose halls their songs were to bo chanted,
they wove out of these the gorgeously coloured web of chivalry,
with its pictures of life eccentrically yet attractively unreal, and its
anomalous code of morals, alternately severe and loose, generous
and savage. They combined, into startling contrasts, both in the

THE MOBMAN TIMES.

I'U 1

scenery and in the advenlures, the wUd rudeness of ancient bar-
barism with the ambitious pomp of cAstles and palaces. They
conjured up, around their knights and ladies, a shadowy world of
nsonsters and marvels, to which the icy north contributed its dwarfs
and giants, its earthdrakcs and its talismanic weapons; while a
vast array of fairies and magicians, of spells and prophecies, was
fathered from superstitions floating about among the people, which
were partly remembrances of heathenism altered by distance, partly
corruptions of Christian belief natural to tinvcs of general ignorance,
and partly oriental fables that had travelled from Spain and the
Holy Land.

We have noticed the only extant romance, founded on English
Itistory, in which these transformations are not strikingly shown,
riie least extravagant peculiarities of chivalry are introduced freely
in the " Gest of King Horn ;" which relates a story very like in
outline to that of Uavclok, and is believed, by our best criticA, to
iiave had its origin in some genuine Saxon tradition. In " Bevis of
Mamptoun," and " Guy of Warwick," the historical character is
utterly lost; and the heroes and their adventures arc specimens of
tlie most fantastic knight-errantry. In no instance were liberties
taken so boldly with matters of fact, as in the romance of " liichard
( !a>ur de Lion," composed in French not many years after its hero's
<l.!i .h. It gives him a fiend for his mother, distorts his war ui Fales-
linc and his captivity into the wildest farrago o.f impossible exploits
;uid dangers, and exaggerates his fanciful and choleric disposition
into the perfection of chivalrous Quixotism and martial ferocity.

3. Of a" the French romances, incomparably the most interest-
ing are those that celebrate the glory and the fall of King Arthur
;i!i(l his Knights of the Round Table. No poems of the class deviate
so widely from the track of the old legends : none prove so forcibly
to the discriminating reader the hollowness of the chivalrous mo-
rulit}' ; and none display, so brilliantly or so often, pictures roman-
tically beautiful and scenes of tragic pathos.

The series, when con.plcted, embraced the liistory of several
^'onerations. Before it had reached this point, the heroes had be-
come so numerous, and the adventures so complicated, tliat a mere
abstract would fill many pages. The supernatural n.achinery, in-
troduce^ more profusely than in any other of the ^lacs, and breath-
ing a singular tone of mystic awfidncss, touched at many points
ground too sacred to be trodden carelessly. Although, likewise,
the leading outline of the story implies strikuigly a recognition of
moral responsibility and retribution, the terrible lesson of the
catastrophe is often forgotten in the details ; and revolting incident^

ANGLO-NORMAN ROMANCES.

ecies, was

s roman-

interwovcn inextricably into the tissue of the narrative, .pollute all
the principal pieces of the group. Minute description, therefore, of
those singular monuments, is here impossible. But a little acquaint-
ance with them is needed, for a just comprehension of many thin^;^
in our early poetry ; and, although the pieces in their earliest fonjis
arc difficult of access, the research of an eminent scholar has madu
it easy to know something in regard to them.

The order in which the principal parts of the series were com-
I posed, appears to have been the same with that of the events
[narrated.

First comes the Romance of " The Saint Graal, " (the holy vessel
I or cu)> ) which is in truth a saintly legend rather than a chivalrous
tale, it is chiefly occupied in relating the history of the most revered
of all religious relics, which not oiuy proved and typified the mystery
( of the mass, but worked by its mere presence the most striking
1 miracles. Treasured up by Joseph of Arimathea, it was by him or
his descendants carried into Britain ; but, too sacred to be looked on
byasinful people,it vanishedforagesfromtheeyesof men. Secondly,
the " Merlin," deriving its name from the fiend-bom prophet and
magician, celebrates the birth and exploits of Arthur, and the
I gathering round him of the peerless Knights of the Round Table.
The story is founded on Geoffrey of Monmouth, or his Welsh and
Annorican authorities ; but the chivalrous and supernatural features
disguise almost completely the historic origin. Thirdly, in the " I Lance-
lot," the national character of the incidents disappears, a new set of
personages emerge, and the marvellous adornments are of a more
modern cast. The hero, nurtured from childhood by the I.ady of
the Lake in her fairy-realm beneath the waters, grows up to be, not
only the bravest champion of the Round Table, but the most ad-
mired for all the virtues of knighthood ; and this, too, while he live.s
ill foul and deadly sin, and wrongs with secret treachery Arthur, his
lord and benefactor. From his guilt, imitated by many of the otlur
knights, was to ensue the destruction of the whole band; and t)io
warning is already given. The presence of the Holy Graal is
intimated by shadowy apparitions and thrilling voices ; and the full
contemplation of the miraculous relic is announced as the crowning
glory of chivalry. Fourthly, the "Quest of the Saint Graal" tells how
the knights, full of short-Hved repentance and religious aAve, scatter
themselves on solitary wanderings to seek for the beatific vision ;
how the sinners all return, unsuccessful and humbled ; but how at
I length the adventure is achieved by the young and unknown Sir
> Galahad, pure as well as knightly, and how he, while the vision
1 passes before him, prays that he may live no longer, and is im*

THE NORMAN TIMES.

mediately taken away from a world of calamity and sin. Fifthly,
the " Mort Artus," or Death of Arthur, winds up, with tragic and
Bupornatural horrors, the wild tale into which the fall of the
ancient Britons had thus been transformed. The noblest of the
champions perish in feuds, in which revenge was sought, for mutual |
wrongs : and, after the fatal battle of Camlan, the survivors retire to
convents or hermitages, to mourn over their sins and the ruin of
their race. Arthur himself, wounded and dying, is carried by the
Fairy of the Lake to the enchanted Isle of Avalon, there to dream
away the ages that must elapse before he shall return to earth and
reign over the perfected world of chivalry. Sixthly, of several
romances which, though written after these, went back in the tale
to interpolate new incidents and characters, the first part of the
" Tristan," or Tristrem, alone requires notice here. The adventures
of its hero are a repetition, with added impurities and new poetical
beauties, of those which had been attributed to Lancelot of the
Lake.

4. The romances of this British cycle interest us through several
circumstances, besides their national origin and their extraordinary
power of poetic fascination.

The six that have just been described, which were the originals
of all the others, were written, in the latter half of the twelfth cen-
tury, for the English court and nobles, and some of them, it is said,
on the suggestion of our King Henry the Second. Further, although
tliey were composed in French, the authors of all of them were Eng-
lishmen. The Saint Graal is attributed to llobert Borron, the first
part of the Tristan to Luke Gast of Salisbury ; and all the I'est are
assigned to Walter Mapes, whom we know as the leader of the
I -atin'satirists. The circumstances are curious ; and they are equally
so, whether these men were of Norman or of Saxon descent : indeed,
the distinction of races, which must have chiefly disappeared among
the higher classes long before, was probably, by that time, beginning
to lose its importance for the mass of the people. It is to be noted,
likewise, th>;* all our six romances are couched in prose ; a peculiarity
which was hardly to have been looked for in early pieces of such a
class, but which possibly may be supposed to have arisen from want
of skill in French versification. Bo this as it may, the twelfth cen-
tury had not closed when Chretien of Troyes constructed several
metrical romances, chiefly from the prose of our English authors,
but with a good deal of invention ; and the stock was afterwards
increased by other poets of France.

The Metrical Komanccs in the English tongue, which celebrate
Arthur and his Round Table, are (probably with no exccptioa that

SAX0N-KNGLI.S1I LITERATUIIE.

id sin. Fifthly,
with tragic and
the fall of the
5 noblest of the
ught.for mutual
irvivors retire to
and the ruin of
8 carried by the
, there to dream
im to earth and
thly, of several |
back in the talu
irst part of tlie
The adventures
,nd new poetical
Lancelot of the 1

through several
ir extraordinary

sre the originals

the twelfth cen-

them, it is said,

u'ther, although

lem were Eng-

Jorron, the first

all the rest are

leader of the

ley are equally

scent: indeed,

peared among

time, beginning

is to be noted,

e ; a peculiarity

ieces of such a

isen from want

le twelfth cen-

ructed several

glish authors,

vaB afterwardtt

Inch celebrate
3xccptioa that

is older than the fifteenth century) translations, or, at the utmost,
imitations, of those French romances in verse. Such are two of
the finest, " Sir Perceval of Galles," and " Ywaine and Gawayne;"
and such also is the celebrated romance of " Sir Tristrem," which Sir
Walter Scott claimed for the Scottish poet, Thomas of Ercildoune,
on grounds which, now, are generally admitted to be unsatisfactory.

But hardly any of the English translations, belonging to this
series, was made till the fourteenth century. The Tristrem, in-
deed, is the only one that was certainly translated earlier.

There are, however, several extant romances, which may be
regarded, though not without much allowance for modernizing by
transcribers, as specimens of the language of English verse during
the last thirty years of the thirteenth century, or the first decade
of the next. Such are " Havelok," " King Horn," and " Cceur de
Lion," all from French originals lately referred to. Such is also
the " King Alisaunder," one of the most spirited, but most auda-
ciously inventive works of the kind. It devotes eight thousand lines
to accoutring the Macedonian conqueror and his contemporaries
in the garb of feudalism, and transforming his wars into chivalrous
adventures. To these should perhaps be added two extant romances
on themes quite imaginary, " Ipomydon," and " Florise and Blanche-
fleur." All these, with very many others of the Old English
Romances, may be found by curious readers in modern repruits.

SAXON-ENQLISH LITERATURE.

5. Let us now turn back, to watch, somewhat closely, the vicissi-
tudes which the Vernacular Literature had undergone since the Con-
quest interrupted its course.

The ancient tongue of England decayed and died away. But it
decayed as the healthy seed decays in the ground ; and it vegetated
again as the seed begins to grow, when the suns and the rains of
spring have touched it.

The clinging to the old- language, with an endeavour to resist
the changes it was suffering, is very observable in one memorial of
the times, marked otherwise by a spirit strongly adverse to the
foreigners. The Saxon Chronicle was still carried on, in more than one
of the monasteries. The desponding annalists, whUe preserving many
valuable facts and setting down many shrewd remarks, recorded
eagerly, not only oppressions and violence, deaths and conflagra-
tions, but omens which betokened evil to the aliens. They told how
blood gushed out of the Barth in Berkshire, near the native place
of the unroortal Alfred ; and how, while King Henry the First wa«

^ J

! :>l

i :

THE KORMAN flMES.

!IV,S:^

! ;

at sea, not long before his death, the sun was darkened at mid- day,
and became like a new moon; and how, around the abbey of Peter-
borough, (placed under a Norman Abbot, whom it was doubtless de-
sirable to frighten,) horns were heard to blow in the dead of night,
and black spectral huntsmen were seen to ride through the woods.
It is curious, by the way, to observe, in this last story, an ingenious
adaptation of the superstition of the Wild Hunt, which, in vari-
ous shapes, was current for centuries throughout Germany. At
length, when the Saxon language had fairly broken down with the
last of the chroniclers, when French words intruded themselves in
spite of him, and when, forgetting his native syntax, he wrote with-
out grammar rather than adopt the detested innovations, the ven^
erable record ceased abruptly, at the accession of Henry the Second.

6. Our remains of the English tongue, in its state of Transition,
are chiefly or without exception written in verse : and the versifica-
tion shows, as instructively as the .diction, the struggle between op-
posing tendencies. Frequently, even in the romances and other
translations, the Anglo-Saxon alliteration kept its ground against
the French rhymes.

The most important group of these works throws us, once more,
back on the Normans.

In the course of the twelfth century, two Frenchmen, both of
them residing in England, wrote Metrical Chronicles of our country.
About the middle of the century was composed the " History of the
Angles," (L'Estorie des Engles,) by Geoffrey Gaimar of Troyes,
which comprehends the period from the landing of the West Saxons
hi the year 495, to the death of William the Red. It was not tran-
slated or otherwise used by later English writers ; but it is histori-
cally curious both for its matter and its sources. Its narrative, till
near the close of the tenth century, is founded chiefly on the Saxon
Chronicle, whose meaning, however, the foreigner has often mis-
understood. The second chronicle, that of Richard Wace, a native
of Jersey, was completed in the second year of Henry the Second's
reign. It is called " The Brut of England," (Le Brut d'Angletene,)
from Brutus, the fabulous founder of the British monarchy : and,
following Geoffrey of Monmouth closely, it proceeds from the
landing of the Trojans to the death of the Welsh prmce Cadwal-
lader in the year 689.

About the beginning of the thirteenth century, or the end of the
preceding, Layamon, a priest, living in the north of Worcestershire,
composed, in the mixed Saxon of the day, his " Brut " or English
Chronicle. This work deserves especial notice, alike as one of the
fullest specimens of our early tongue, and on account of its eminent

SAXON-EMOLISU LITERATURE.

US, once more,

literary merit. It traverses the same ground as Wace's Chronide, on
which indeed it is founded m all its parts ; borrowing only a little
from Bede, and a good deal from traditional or other authorities of
a fabulous kind. It is not a translation of Wace, but rather an
amplified imitation. It has more than double the bulk: it adds
many legends to his : and, throughout, but especially in the earlier
parts, it dramatizes speeches and incidents, and introduces, often
with excellent effect, original descriptions and thoughts. The versi-
fication is very peculiar. The old alliteration prevails ; but there
are many rhyming couplets, many which are both rhymed and
alliterative, and others that are neither.

Since the recent publication of this venerable record, Layamoti
seems likely to be honoured as " The English Ennius." But this title
had formerly been bestowed on Robert of Gloucester, a metrical
chronicler then known better. His work was probably completed
about the close of the thirteenth century, and certainly not three
years earlier. Extending from Brutus to the death of Henry the
Third, it follows Geofirey of Monmouth so far as his work goes,
adopting, as its chief authority afterwards, William of Malmes-
bury. It is in rhymed lines of fourteen syllables or seven accents,
usually divisible into a couplet of the common measure of the
psalms. Although it is much more than a mere translation, it
shows exceedingly little of literary talent or skill.

There is still less of either in the last two of the metrical chronicles,
in search of which, to complete the set, we may look forward into
the fourteenth century. Soon after the death of Edward the First,
a chronicle from Brutus to that date was written, in French verse,
by Peter Langtoft, an ecclesiastic in Yorkshire, who follows Geoffrey
till the close of the Anglo-Saxon times. A little before the middle
of the century was compiled, in English, the chronicle of Kobert
Mannyng, called De B^unne from his birthplace in Lincolnshire.
1 1 is book is entirely taken from two of the French authorities, used
in succession, and each translated in the rhymed metre of the origi-
nal. Thus he renders Wace into the romance-couplets of eight syl-
lables or four accents, and Langtoft into Alexandrines.

7. Of English Metrical remains, besides the romances and chron-
icles, we have very few, and none of any importance, from the
time between the Conquest and the middle of the twelfth century,
't is to be observed, as a feature very impoi*tant, that, on the revival
f such compositions, after the latter of those dates, they imitated,
from the beginning, the comparative simplicity and bareness of style
that prevailed in the French pieces. The old Anglo-Saxon taste
fur obscure metaphor and pompoua diction had entirely vanished.

I'i

!' I

TUE NORMAN TIMES.

Vhe versification also shows, more decisively than that of the trans-
\i.tions that have been noticed, the progress from the ancient
^alliterative metres to those rhymed measures which, at first copied
I rom the French, soon supplanted all the older forms.

From the latter }ialf of the twelfth century we have a compos i-
■'ion which its author, a canon of some priory in the east of England,
Thimsically called the " Ormulum," from his own name Ormin or Orm.
Vhe design, executed only in part, was that of constructing a kind of ^
netrical harmony of those passages from the Gospels, which are con-
tained in the service of the mass. It has less of poetical merit than
»>f ingenuity in reflection and allegory : but great praise has been be-
stowed on its purity of doctrine ; and it is second only to Layamoii
as an instructive specimen of the Semi-Saxon stage of our tongue. I
Its measure is a line of fourteen syllables, oi, more properly, of
seven accents ; which ii usually or always divisible into two lines,
making a couplet of our common psalm-metre. The verses are!
unrhymed, and very imperfectly alliterative.

Perhaps to the same time, and certainly to no later period than I
the close of Edward the First's reign, belongs the long fable of " The
Owl and the Nightingale." This is one of the most pleasing of our
early relics, easy in rhythm, and natural and lively in description. It I
is a contest for superiority of merit, carried on in dialogue between
the two birds. The measure is that which is most common in the
romances, and has been made familiar to us by Scott ; consisting of
rhymed couplets, in which each line has eight syllables or four
accents. Alliterative syllables also occur frequently as incidental
ornaments ; a fashion very prevalent in our early poetry, even in |
pieces where rhymes chiefly prevailed. The poem has been attri-
buted, on doubtful grounds, to an author otherwise unknown, called |
either Nicholas or John of Guildford.

To the thirteenth century belong several small pieces by Michael I
of Kildare, the first Irishman who is known to have written verses j
in English ; and to him has been assigned, among others, the fre-
quently quoted satirical poem, " The Land of Cockajme." Of anon-
ymous poems, chiefly l3n'ical, composed towards the end of the cen- j
tury, many have been published ; some of which, both amatory and |
religious, are promising symptoms of the poetical success whici
was to distinguish the succeeding age. Of the same date are not a i
few metrical legends of the saints ; and Robert of Gloucester is said
to have been the author of one large collection of these, the published
specimens of which are, like his Chronicle, more curious thanj
poetical.

It should be recorded, ako, that the origin of the Old English I

BAXON-ENQLlSll LITERATURE.

Drama may be said to have been almost contemporaneous ivith the
formation of the Old English Language. The earliest extant pieces
tare assigned to the close of Henry the Thu'd's reign. But it is
enough to note the fact in the way of parenthesis. The dramatic
jciTorts of our ancestors were, till the -sixteenth century, so exceed-
lingly rude, that we may delay learning any thing in regard to this
Ibrauch of our literature till we have emerged from the Middle Ages.
JThey were designed exclusively for being acted, with no view, and
las little aptitude, to the ordeal of reading : their spectators were
[the least instructed class of the community : and the ecclesiastics,
■in whose hands, (especially those of the monks,) the management
lof them long continued, confined them to sacred and moral themes ;
land used them for communicating to the mass of the people such
iBeraps of religious knowledge as it was thought right to impart.

e Old EnglisH

■4:

TUB LITERATURE OF ENGLAHD

lii

CHAPTER V.

iii

THE LITERATURE OF ENGLAND IN THE FOURTEENTH

CENTURY.

A. D. 1307— A. D. 1399.

Edward XL, 1307-1327.

Edward IIL, 13271377.

Richard 11., 1377-1399.

Introduction. 1. Social and Literary Character of the Period. — Litera-
TURE FROM 1307 TO 1350. 2. Occam's Philosophy— Ecclesiastics— English
Poems. — Prose from 1350 to 1399. 3. Ecclesiastical Kefomis- John
Wycliffe— His Translation of the Bible— Mandeville—Trevisa— Chaucer.
— Poetry from 1350 to 1399. 4. Minor Poets— The Visions of Pierco
Plowman — Character of their Inventions — Chivalrous Romances. — 5. John
Gower — His Works — Illustrations of the Confessio Amantis. — 6. Geoffrey
Chaucer — His Life — His Studies and Literary Character. — 7. ChaucerV.
Metrical Translations and their Sources — His smaller Original Poems--
The Flower and the Leaf.— 8. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales— Their Plan—
The Prologue— Description of the Pilgrims. — 9. The Stories told by tlit
Canterbury Pilgrims— Their diversified Character, Poetical and Moral.

1. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the aflemoon aiin
evening of the middle ages, are the picturesque period in English
history.

In the contemporary chronicle of Froissart, the reign of Edward
the Third shines like a long array of knightly pageants; and
a loftier cast of imaginative adornment is imparted, by Shak-
speare's historical dramas, to the troubled rule of the house of
Lancaster, the savage wars of the Koses, and the crimes and fall of
the short-lived dynasty of York. The characters and incidents of
those stormy scenes, colcfUred so brilliantly in descriptions from
which all of us derive, in one way or another, most of our current
ideas in regard to them, wear, in their real outline, a striking air of
irregular strength and greatness. But the admiring registrar of
courtly pomps, and the philosophic poet of human nature, alike
passed over in silence some of those circumstances of the times, that
Influenced most energetically the state of society and kjnowledg9«

Hi -:

IN THE FOUKTEENTH CENTURY.

It is with the fourteenth century only, that we are in the mean*
time concerned.

The reign of Edward the Second was as inglorious in literature,
as it was in the history of the nation. That of his son, covering half
of the century, was not more remarkable for the victories of Crecy
and Poitiers, than for the triumphs then achieved in poetry and
abstract thinking. Tlie Black Prince, our model of historic
chivalry, and Occam, the last and greatest of our scholastic philo-
sophers, lived in the same century with Chaucer, the father of Eng-
lish poetical literature, and Wycliffe, the herald of the Protestant
Keformation. In the reign of Kichard the Second, the insurrection
of the peasants gave token of deep-seated evils for which the
remedy was distant; while the more powerful classes, thinking
themselves equally aggrieved, sought for redress through a change
of dynasty, and thus prepared the way for several generations of
cons|)iracy and bloodshed.

LITERATURE FROM 1307 TO 1350.

2. The earlier half of this century may conveniently be regarded;
m all its literary relations, as a separate period from the later. The
genius of the nation, which had already shown symptoms of weari-
ness, seemed now to have fallen asleep.

England, it is true, became the birthplace of " The Invincible
b. ab. 1300. » Doctor," William Occam. But this distinguished

d. 1347. J , thinker neither remained in his own country, nor im-
parted any strong impulse to his countrymen. Educated abroad, he
lived chiefly in France, and died at Munich. "While the writings
of his master Duns Scotus were then the chief authorities of the
metaphysical sect called Bealists, Occam himself was thtt^ ablest, as
well as one of the earliest, among the Nominalists. In regard to his
position, it must here be enough to say, that the question to which
these technical names refer, was considered by the schoolmen to be
the great problem of philosophy, and was discussed with a vehe-
mence for which we cannot sufficiently account, without knowing
that the metaphysical speculations of the middle ages were always
conducted with an immediate regard to their bearings, on theology.
Realism was held to be especially favourable to the distinctive
doctrines which had then been developed in the Eoman Catholic
church. Nominalism, on the contr&ry, was discouraged not only as
novel but as heretical ; and Occam was persecuted for having been
the first to enunciate clearly opinions which, in modem times, are
held, in one shape or another, by almost all metaphysicians.

'1^

i:;».

,.;il.

J.5 ^1^'

in!

ii!

TlIK LITi:ilATURE OF ENGLAND

Mcnnwliilc, the Englisli ecclesiastics were not very eminent for
speculative ability, and still less ho for accuracy in classical know-
ledge. Three of the theological writers have some claim to notice
in the history of philosophy. The Augustinian canon Robert Uolcot
was one of the few Nominalists of his day ; while on the other side
Ktood Archbishop Bradwardinc, an able controversialist, and Walter
Hurleigh, a commentator on Aristotle. It is in a dearth of attempts
at classical composition, that such names are cited as that of
Hichard Angarville or De Bury, bishop of Durliam, author of a
gossiping essay on books, (the Philobiblon,) and likely to be
longer remembered for having been one of the earliest of our book-
collectors.

Nor have we any distinguished names in the literature of the
spoken tongue, which as yet had not taken the form of prose.
iMannyng's Chronicle has already been noticed. Richard Rolle,
usually called the hermit of Hampole, and Adam Davie of Stratford-
le-bow, were writers of religious poems, which are not alleged by
the most zealous antiquaries to possess any literary merit.

But the dawn of English literature was close at hand. The
star which preceded its approach had already risen on the birth
of Chaucer. He attained to early manhood in the close of the
short period at which we have glanced; and the generation to
which he belonged inherited a language that had become adequate
to aU literary uses. They were about to record in it high achieve-
ments of genius, as well as precious lessons of knowledge.

•

PROSE LITERATURE FROM 1350 TO 1399.

3. We pass to the latter half of the century, an era never to be
forgotten either in the history of our intellectual or in that of our
ecclesiastical progress.

The prevalence of metaphysical studies, in the thirteenth cen-
tury, has been alleged as a main cause of that decay in accuracy
of classical scholarship, which was already observable in England.
From philosophical pursuits, in their turn, the attention of the clergy
was now called away by matters more practical and exciting.

Learning had several munificent patrons, whose benefactions still
survive. We must be satisfied with being able to note, in the course
of the century, the foimdation of several colleges at Oxford and
Cambridge, with that of Winchester by the bishop and chancellor
William of Wykeham.

Notwithstanding these and other tokens of prosperity, the state
of the church was viewed with great dissatisfaction in many quarteri.

IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

le increase of the papal power led to claims which, affecting the
lemolumentB of the ecclesiastics, were resisted by many of them, as
[well as by the parliament, now systematically organized. Against
abuses in discipline, indignant remonstrances arose, not only from
the laity, but among the churchmen themselves; being prompted
both by the pure zeal which animated some, and also by the rivalry
which always prevailed between the secular priests and the monastic
I orders, especially the Mendicant Friars.

Foremost among those who called for reforms in ^he church,
\b. ab. 1324. ) Stood the Celebrated John "Wycliffe, a native of York-

rf.i384. ]■ ghire. Becoming a priest, and attaining high famt-
{for his knowledge and logical dexterity in dealing with philosophical
and theological questions, he was placed at the head, first uf one and
then of another, of the colleges of Oxford. Ther^, and afterwardti
' from the country parsonages to which he was compelled to retreat,
I he thundered forth a series of denunciations, which gradually in-
creased in boldness. At length, from exposing the ignorance and
I profligacy of the begging friars, and advocating the independence of
tlie nation against the financial usurpations of the Roman see, he
went so far as to attack the papal supremacy in all its relations, to
deny several doctrines distinctively Romish, and to set forth in
fragments doctrinal views of his own, which diligent students of his
works have interpreted as making a near approach to Calvinism.

Although Wycliffe was repeatedly called to account for his
opinions, he was never so much as imprisoned ; and he retained his
church-livings to the last. The papal hierarchy was then weakened
by the Great Schism ; and he was protected by the king's son, John of
Gaunt, as well as by other powerful nobles. But, not long after
his death, there burst on his disciples a storm of persecution, which
crushed dissent till the sixteenth century; and his writings, both
Latin and English, preserved by stealth only, had by that time
become difficult of identification.

We are sure, at least, of owing to him, either wholly or in great
part, the Version of the Holy Scriptures which bears his name, and
which is still extant, and may now be read in print. There seems
to be no reason for doubting, that this was the first tune the Bible
was completely rendered into the English tongue. The date of the
composition appears to have been soon after the year 1380. The
translation is from the Latin Vulgate, the received text of the Rom*
ish church. It has been remarked, with justice, that the language of
Wycliffe's original compositions in English shows little advance,
if any, beyond the point which had been reached in the early part
of the century ; but that his Bible, on which probably greater pains

'V,

THE LITERATURE OF ENGLAND

were bestowed, is very far superior, though still ruder than several
other compositions of the same date. Indeed, besides the reverence
due to it as a monument in the religious history of our nation, it
possesses high philological value, as standing all but first among
the prose writings in our old tongue.

Our very oldest book in English prose, however, is the account given
by Sir John MandevUle of his travels in the East, from which he bad
returned about the year 1355. It is an odd and amusing compound
of facts correctly observed and minutely described, with marvellous
stories gathered during the writer's thirty-three years of wandering.
Soon afterwards, John De Trevisa, a canon residing in Gloucester-
shire, began a series of translations from the Latin, of which the
most remarkable were the ancient law-treatise bearing the name of
Glanvile, and the Polychronicon recently written by Ralph Higden,
which is a history of the world from the creation. But the prose
writings of the time, which exhibit the language in the most favour-
able light, are decidedly those of the poet Chaucer. Besides
translating Boethius, he has bequeathed to us in prose an imitation
of that work, called " The Testament of Love," with two of his
Canterbury Tales, and an astrological treatise.

POETICAL LITERATURE FROM 1350 TO 1399.

4. The principal writings of Chaucer belong to the last few years
of the century ; and, in examining hastily a few of the minor poems
of his time, several of which appeared considerably earlier, we are
preparing ourselves for understanding the better what our obliga-
tions to him have been.

Highest by far in point of genius, as well as most curious for its
illustrations of manners and opinions, was the long and singular
poem usually called " The Visions of Piers Plowman," written or
completed in 1362, by a priest or monk named William Langland.
The poet supposes himself, falling asleep on the Malvern Hills, to
see a series of visions, which are descriptive, chiefly in an allegori-
cal shape, of the vices of the tunes, especially those which prevailed
among the ecclesiastics. The plan is confused ; so much so, indeed,
tliat it is not easy to discover, how the common title of the poem
should be justified by the part assigned in it to the character of the
Ploughman. But the poetical vigour of many of the passages is
extraordinary, not only in the satirical vein which colours most of
them, but m bursts of serious feeling and sketches of external nature.
It has been compared with the Pilgrim's Progress ; and the likeness
lies TOUQh deeper than in the naming of such personages as Do-well,

Itll

IN THE FOURTEENTH OENTURT.

Po-bctter, and Do-best, by which the parallel is most obviously
suggested. Some of the allegories are whimsically ingenious, and
nre worth notice as specimens of a kind of inventions appearing
everywhere in the poetry of the Middle Ages. The Lady Anima,
who represents the Soul of Man, is placed by Kind, that is Ntfture,
in a castle called Caro or the Flesh ; and the charge of it is com-
mitted to the constable Sir In-wit, a wise knight, whose chief offi-
cers are his five sons, See-well, Say-well, Hear-well, Work-well,
and Go-well. One of the other figures is Reason, who preaches in
the church to the king and his knights, teaching that all the evils
of the realm are because of sin ; and among the Vices, who are con-
verted by the sermon, we see Proud-heart, who vows to wear hair-
cloth ; Envy, lean, cowering, biting his lips, and wearing the sleeves
of a friar^s frock ; and Covetousness, a bony, beetle-browed, blear-
eyed, ill-clothed caitiff. Mercy and Truth are two fair maidens ;
and the Diseases, the foragers of Nature, are sent out from the
planets by the command of Conscience, before whom Old Age bears
a banner, while Death in his chariot rides after him. Conscience is
besieged by Antichrist, who, with his standard-bearer Pride, is
more kindly received by a fraternity of monks, ringing their con<
vent-bells, and marching out in procession to greet their master.
It may be noticed that, in the beginning of the poem, an ingenious
use is made of the fable of the cat and the bell, which we discovered
lately among the Latin stories of the monastic library.

The language of this curious old monument wears an air of anti-
quity beyond its age ; wliich, however, may be attributable to the
difficulties caused by the affectation of antiquity in the versification.
It is in effect a revival of the alliterative system of metre, which still
survived in some romances of the day, and was afterwards used in
many imitations prompted by the popularity of Langland. The
best of these, "Piers Plowman's Creed," a piece in every way
inferior to the original, was written towards the close of the century,
and is avowedly the effusion of a Wycliffite.

The very many Chivalrous Komances which were now added to
the English tongue, deserve a passing notice, not only for the merit
really possessed by not a few of them, but also on account of the
good-humoured jests levelled at them by Chaucer, himself in no
small degree affected both by their spirit and their diction. There
is less reason for dwelling on the poems, not devoid of spirit, in which
Laurence Minot celebrated the French wars of Edward the Third,
and found means, in treating of his patron's successes in Scotland, to
luggett consolations for the bloody field lost there by his father.

5. Onp of the best of our minor poets, and very interesting for

I : \':- t

«!''

f f-

I !

TIIE LITEHATURG OF ENGLAND

many relations to our more recent literature, was John Gower, the
d. ab. ) " ancient Gower " of Shakspeare, with whom Chaucer, hia
1408. J contemporary and friend, did not disdain to exchange borrow-
ings. It is worth noting that Gower, a man of much knowledge,
wrote in three languages ; though he is remembered, not for his French
or Latin verses, but for his "Confessio Amantis,*' or "Lover'fc
Confession,'* a huge English poem in the octosyllabic romance-
metre. It is a miscellaneous collection of physical, metaphysical,
and ethical reflections, and of stories culled from the common
repertories of the middle ages. All these are bound together by a
fantastic thread, in which a lover makes his shrift to a priest of
Venus, named Genius, and receives advice and consolation from his
anomalous confessor. The faults are general tediousness, and a
strong tendency to feebleness: but the language is smooth and
easy; and there is not a little that is exceedingly agreeable in
description.

Of Gower's manner in his didactic strain, a specimen is furnished
in the First Book, in a passage where the theme of the dialogue is,
the moral danger arising from the two principal senses, seeing and
hearing. The duty which is thus imposed on us, is illustrated by a
piece of fabulous science, evidently derived from a misunderstood
scriptural saying. There is (so Genius instructs his pupil) a serpent
named Aspidis, who bears in his head the precious stone called the
carbuncle, which enchanters strive to win from him by lulling him
asleep through magic songs. The wise reptile, as soon as the
charmer approaches, lays himself down with one ear pressed flat on
the ground ; while he covers the other with his tail. So ought we ob-
stinately to refuse admission to all evil impressions presented through
the bodily organs. Perhaps there is not here any such ^epth of
thinking, as should entitle us to expect much edification from the
Seventh Book, which is wholly a treatise on Philosophy, as it was
learaed by Alexander the Great from the philosophers and astrol-
ogers who were his tutors. Yet a good principle is involved in
that mediaeval classification which the poem lays down, dividing
philosophy into three branclr.es, the theoretical, the practical, and
the rhetorical.

Of the narratives of the " Confessio** we may gain a fair notion,
by glancirg at some of those which it takes from the " Gesta Ro-
manorum." The longest and best-told of them is the " Apollonius
of Tyre,'* which has already been noticed, and may be understood
from Shakspeare. The dramatist's tale of the Caskets is here, though
in a less poetical drees. We have also an account of the female
disguise put on by Achilles to evade tlie Trojan war. The tale of

A.^

IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

Florent is very like that which Chaucer assigns to tlie Wife of
Bath. The " Trumpet of Death" deserves notice for its striking
tone of reflection. The outline is this. It was a law in Hungary,
that, when a man was adjudged to die, the sentence should be an-
nounced to him by the blast of a brazen trumpet before his house.
At a magnificent court-festival, the king was plunged b deep mel-
ancholy ; and his brother asked the reason. No answer was re-
tunied ; but, at daybreak next morning, the fatal trumpet sounded
ot the brother's gate. The condemned man came to the palacu
weeping and despairing. Then the king said solemnly; that, it
such grief was caused by the expectation of the death of the body,
much more profound sorrow could not but be awakened by tliu
thought which had afflicted him as he sat arrr>ng his guests; the
thought of that eternal death of the soul, >'hich Heaven hut*
ordained as the just punishment of sin.

6. The few facts which we know positively in regard to Geoffi-ey
b. ab. 1328. ) Chaucer, throw very little light on his early history ;
d. 1400. J and, in regard to his writings, they enable us to see
onb', ♦hat these were but part of the occupation of a long life fruit-
ful in activity and vicissitude. He was born in London, and prob-
ably educated for the law : and, being thrown at an early age into
public employment, he attained to confidential intimacy with men of
Iiigh rank, in whose good and bad fortune he was equally a sharer.
His chief patron was John of Gaunt ; who, in his declining years,
contracted a marriage, no way creditable, with the sister of the
poet's wife. In his thirty-first year, Chaucer served in the Frcncli
war, and was taken prisoner ; and afterwards he received and lost
several public ofiices and pensions, and was repeatedly employed
in embassies both to France and Italy. There are symptoms of
his having, in his old age, suffered poverty and neglect; and he
scarcely survived to profit by the accession of Henry the Fourth,
the son of his old patrcn.

The indignant 'reedoin with which Chaucer exposes ecclesiastical
abuses, was, as we have seen, common and long-rooted among
literary men. Accordingly it does not require to be accounted for,
by his dependence on the aristocratic party who advocated reforms
in the church ; nor ih there, in the whole series of his works, any-
thing entitling us to rank him among those who decidedly aban-
doned the distinctive doctrines of Komaaism. John of Gaunt
himself shrunk back from Wycliffe, when he ven*"red on his
boldest steps; and Chaucer did not show, more t)- w Langland,
any leaning to the theological opinions of the reformer. His busy
and adventurous life, however, prepares us for that practical slirewd-

' .1*

TUB LITERATURE OF ESOLANO

ness, which is one of the most marked features in his writings: and
his foreign travels, while tliey were not needed to make him familiar
with French literature, gave him oppoitunities for acquiring an
acquaintance with the language and poetry of Italy, of which his
works exhibit, in the face of all doubts that have been started, clear
and numerous proofs.

7. The frequency of translations and imitations is a striking
characteristic in the poetry of the middle ages. The grave refer-
ence, which the poets so frequently make, to books as their autho-
rities for facts, was much more than a rhetorical flourish. A very
large proportion of Chaucer's writings consists of free versions from
the Latin and French, and perliaps also from the Italian ; and in
some of these he has incorporated so much that is his OAvn, as to
make them the most vahiable and celebrated of his works. The
originals which he chose were not the Chivalrous Romances, but
the comic Fabliaux, (already very common in Latin as well as in
living tongues,) and also an allegorical kind of poetry which the
Tronveres now cultivated ardently, deriving its character in great
part from the Troubadours. The Italian literature fiurnishcd him
with models of a higher class, which, however, he put much more
sparingly to use. Its poets, taking their first lessons from Provence,
had recently founded a school of their own, equally great for inven-
tion and for skill in art. But the awful vision of Dante furnished
to Chaucer nothing beyond a few allusions and descriptions ; and he
was too wise and sober-minded to be carried «way by the lyrical
abstractions of Petrarch, if he really knew much of them. He seems
to have derived from fabliaux, or other French or Latin sources,
those stories of his which are to be found among the prose novels
of Boccaccio ; whose metrical works, however, we cannot doubt
that he studied and imitated.

Three of the largest of Chaucer's minor works are thus borrowed:
the allegorical " Romance of the Rose," translated, with abridgment,
from one of the most popular French poems of the preceding cen-
tury ; the Troilus and Cressida, avowedly a translation, but a very
free one, if its original really was the Filostrato of Boccaccio ; and The
Legend of Good Women, a series of narratives, founded on Ovid's
Epistles. The Troilus, certainly among his earliest poems, is one
of his best, notwithstanding the disgusting tenor of the story. The
same theme, it will be remembered, is handled by Shakspeare, in a
drama adorned by some of his most brilliant flowers of imagination,
and inspired throughout with deep though despondent reflection.
Tlie choice of such a subject by the later of these two great poets
is more to be wondered at than its adoption by the other, wlio

as to

IS one

lU THE FOURTEENTH CEXTUllY.

lived in a time that was much ruder, in sentiments as well as in
manners.

Of the minor poems which appear to be entirely Chaucer's own.
several, such as those which celebrate, in imaginative disguise, pas-
sages in the history of his royal patron, are, hke most of the transla-
tions, chiefly interestingas proofs of the great mastery he had acquired
over an imperfectly cultivated language. Nor, it must be said, would
liis fame be injured by the loss of any of them, except the fine allegori-
cal inventions of l*^e House of Fame, and The Flower and the Leaf;
the former of which has received great iiyustice in its showy moderni-
zation by Pope, while the other also has suffered in the hands of
Dryden. The structure of the latter of the two may serve to illus-
trate a kind of poetry, of which the Romance of the Rose was the
most celebrated example, but which, throughout the later part of
the middle agc" was equally popular among the poets and among
their readers. The piece could not well be described more aptly,
than in the prose sentences, very slightly altered, which the author
prefixed to it as an explanatory argument or analysis. " A gentle-
woman, out of an arbour in a grove, seeth a great company of
knights and ladies in a dance upon the green grass : clie which
being ended, they all kneel down and do honour to the Dai'-y, some
to tl'^ Flower, and some to the Leaf. Afterward this gentl ■\'omaii
kr.iV'th by one of these ladies the meaning of the vision, \ I '.h is
this. They which honour the Flower, a thing fading with ery
blast, are such as look after beauty and worldly pleasure. But
they that honour the Leaf, which abideth with the root not^ ith-
standing the frosts and winter-storms, are they which follow vi tue
and enduring qualities, without regard of worldly respects."

8. The poetical immortahty of Chaucer rests on his Canterb n,'
Tales, which are a series of independent stories, linked together )y
an ingenious device.

A party of about thirty persons, the poet being one, are boui 1
on a pilgrimage from London, to the tomb of Thomas h Becket . \
Canterbury. They meet at the inn of the Tabard, in Southwarl
the host of which joins the cavalcade, and assumes the post c
director. Each person is to tell two tales, the one in going, tht
other in returning : but we are allowed only to accompany tht
travellers on a part of the journey to Canterbury, and to hear
twenty-four of their stories. The work is thus no more than a
fragment ; although its metrical part extends to more than seventeen
thousand lines, being thus longer than the Iliad, and not far from
twice as bug as the Paradise Lost. It contains allusions bringing us
down to a date considerably beyond the poet's sixtieth year : but

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we can hardly suppose the whole to have been a fruit of old age.
It is more probable that a good many of the tales had been written
separately, long before ; while others may have been added when
the design of forming the collection was taken up, to be left un-
completed amidst the misfortunes which darkened the author'8
declining years.

The Prologue, which relates the occasion of the assemblage, and
describes the company, is in itself a poem of ^o small bulk, and of
admirable merit. Here no allowance has to be made for obliga-
tions to preceding inventors ; and a strength is manifest, which in-
comparably exceeds any that was jmt forth when the poet had
foreign aid to lean on. He draws up the curtain from a scene of
life and manners, such as the whole compass of our subsequent
literature has not surpassed; a picture whose figures have been
studied with the truest observation, and are outlined with the
firmest, and yet most delicate pencil. The tone of sentiment, never
rising utto rapture or passion, is always unaffectedly cheerful and
manly; while it frequently deviates, on the one hand, into the
keenest and most lively turns of humour, and, on the other, into
intervals of touching seriousness ; and, over the whole, the imagina-
tion of high genius has throvm the indescribable charm, which at
once animates external nature with the spirit of human feeling, and
brightens our dim thoughts of our own mental being with a light
like that which illuminates the corporeal world around us

A mere catalogue of the Pilgrims, who are thug vigorously de-
scribed, would be an inventory of the English society of the day,
in all ranks, except the very highest and the very lowest. There
is a Knight, with his son, a young Squire. These two represent the
chivalry of the times; and they are described, especially the latter,
in the poet's best strain of gayly romantic fancy. They are attended
by a Yeoman, a master of forest-craft. After them in rank comes
a Franklin or country-gentleman, who is a justice and has often
been knight of the shire. The peasantry are represented by three
men ; a Ploughman, described bilefly and kindly ; a Miller, whose
portrait is a wonderfully animated piece of rough satirical humour ;
and a Reeve or bailiff, whose likeness is an excellent specimen of quiet
sarcasm, relieved by fine touches of rural scenery. There is a whole
swarm of ecclesiastical persons, at whose expense the poet indulges
hb love of shrewd humour without any check. The Prioress of a con-
vent, affected, mincing, and sentimental, is attended by a Nun and
three Priests : the Benedictine Monk is already known familiarly t(>
most of us, being the original of the self-indulgent Abbot of Jorvauh
in Ivanhoc : in contnist to hiip stands the coarse and popular Beg

IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTL'RY.

ging-Friar, " a wanton and a men-y : " and a Somp^ur or officer
of the church courts is yoked with a Pardoner or seller oi indulgences.
Last among the members or retainers of the church, is to be named
a poor Secular Priest from a country village, who is described with
warmly affectionate respect. The learning of the times has three
representatives: the Clerk of Oxford is a gentle student, silent,
thoughtful, and unworldly ; the Sergeant-of-law is sententious, alert,
and affectedly immersed in important business ; and the Doctor of
Physic is fond of money, skilful in practice, and versed in all sciences
except theology. The trading and manufacturing sections of the
community furnish several figures to the picture. Their aristocracy
contains the Merchant, and the Wife of Bath, described with a keen-
ness so inimitable : a meaner group is composed of the Haberdasher,
Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, and Tapestry-maker, with the Cook whom
these have providently brought to attend them ; and this part ot
the company is completed by a Shipman or mariner, and a Manciple
or purveyor of one of the inns of coui^t. These, with the Poet and
the Host of the Tabftrd, are the world-renowned Pilgrims of Can
terbury.

9. In some of the tales which follow, the tone rises from the
familiar reality of the Prologue to the highest flight of heroic,
reflective, and even religious poetry : in others, it sinks not only
into the coarseness of expression which deformed so much of our
curly literature, but into a positive licentiousness of thought and
sentiment. Most of the humorous stories, and more than one of
the scenes by which they are knit together, are quite unpresentable
to young readers.

ITie series opens with the Knight's Tale of Palamon and Arcito,
which, founded on an Italian poem of Boccaccio, has been modern -
ijcd by Dryden, and made the groundwork of a striking drama
KOnetimes attributed to Shakspeare. It is worthy of the delighted
admiration with which poetical minds have always regarded it. It
is the noblest of all chivalrous romances. Or, rather, it stands alone
in our language, as a model of that which the romances might have
been, but ai'e not; symmetrical and hannonious, wliile they are
undigested and harsh; full of clearness and brilliancy and sug-
gcstiveness, in its portraiture of adventures and tharacters which
to the minstrels would have prompted only vague and indistinct
sketches. This, a metamorphosed legend of Thebes and Athens,
borrowing its first hints from the Latin poet Statins, is an in-
structive example of the manner in whicli the classical fables and
iiistory were disguised, m roinftntic trappings, by the poets of the
AVe shall If-^n- stmirthing more in regard to it.

r 5

i. •..

middle

ages.

THE LITEUATURE OF ENGLAND

it ■

when we come to this point in reviewing the progress of the Eng-
lish Lan^age.

The Squire's Tale, a tantalizing fragment, traverses another walk
of romance, ushering us into a world of oriental marvels, some
of which are identical with those of the Arabian Nights. Milton,
whose fancy was keenly impressed by its picturesqueness, chooses
it as his example of Chaucer's poetry ; and he works up its figures
into one of his most exquisite compositions of lyrical imagery.
He wishes that it were possible, for the solace ofhis studious leisure,

«• To call up him that left half-told
Tlie story of Canibuscan bold,
Of Cainliall, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That own'd the virtuous ring and glass
And of the wondrous horse of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride:
— And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung.
Of tourneys and of trophies hung,
Of forests, and enchantments drear,
"Where more is meant than meets the ear."

The tale told by the "Wife of Bath is a comic romance, the scene
of which is laid at the court of King Arthur, and adorned with fairy
transformations. The hero is required, on pain of death, to answer
correctly a question proposed by the queen, what it is that women
most desire ; and he is taught by his wife to say, that they desire
most of all to rule their husbands. Here the chivalrous recollections
of the Round Table are used only as the occasion of one of those
satires on the female sex, wliicli abound so much in the Gesta, (the
original of the story,) and in all the lighter compositions of the
monks. Accordingly, it may not unfairly be regarded as the poet's
protest against the popular tastes for the wilder of the romantic
fictions. The same spirit becomes yet more decided in the rhyme
of Sir Topas, the story -which he supposes to be his own contribu-
tion to the common stock. It is a spirited i^arudy on the ro-
mances, oxprcs.sed chiefly in their own forms of speech ; and the
humour is heightened by the indignation with which tlie host, hi-
tolerant of attacks on the literature he best understood, arbitrarily
puts a stop to its recitation. It tells us how the hero, a knight fair
and gentle, fell in love with the queen of Fairyland ; and how he
rode through many a wild forest, ready to fight with giants if he
should meet with any. Tiie rude interruption prevents us, un-
luckily, from learning whether he was fortunate enough to find an
opportunity of proving his valour.

The learned and gentle Clerk relates the story of GrLsclda, whkh

IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

osed to be made known to all of us in our nursery-libraries, and
whose harshness is concealed, in the poem, by a singular sweetness
of description, and touches of the tcnderest feeling. It is one of the
poet's master-pieces, and owes exceedingly little either to Petrarch,
who is referred to as the authority, or to Boccaccio, whose prose
narrative has by some been supposed to have really been the original.

We are raised almost into the sphere of religious poetry in the
Man of Ijaw's Tale, the history of Constance, which relates adven-
tures used again and again in the romances, but found by all of
them in the Gesta. Tlie heroine, a daughter of the Emperor of
Rome, becomes the wife of Ella, the Saxon king of Northumber-
land, and converts him and his subjects to the Christian faith.
Twice exposed by malicious enemies in a boat which drifts through
stormy seas, and accompanied in one of those perilous voyages by
her infant child, she is twice providentially preserved ; and on an-
other occasion, when she is about to be executed on a false charge
of murder, an invisible hand smites the accuser dead, and a voice
from the sky proclaims her innocence. The legend of 8aint
Cecilia, told by one of the Nuns, is purely a devotional composition :
Jiud of the same cast, with much greater poetical beauty, is the
short story related by the Prioress, of the pious child slain by the
Jews, the pathos of which makes us forget that the poet, in telling
it, was fostering one of the worst prejudices of his age.

The two Prose Tales, which stand so oddly among the metrical
ones, are in several respects curious. The Story of Mclibeus, which
the Poet represents himself as substituting for his unpopular rhymes,
suspends, on a feeble tliread of narrative, a mass of ethical reflec-
tions, recommending the duty of forgiving injuries. That which is
called the Tale of the Parson or Priest, the piece with which the
collection abruptly ends, is in fact a sermon, and a very long one,
inculcating the obligation, and explaining with minute nubiUviaiona
the laws and effects, of the Komish sacrament ol piMiance.

THE UTEBATURE OF EKOLlNO

I ! ■ '

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• CHAPTER VI.

THE LTTERATURE OF ENGLAND IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY^
A^D OF SCOTLAND IN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH.

A. D. 1399— A. D. 1509 ; and a. d. 1306— a. d. 1513.

England.

Henry IV,, 1399-1413.

Henry v., 1413-1422.

Henry VI., 1422-1461.

Edward IV., 1461-1483.

Edward v., 1483.

Kichard III., 1483-1485.

Henry VH., 1485-1609.

ScCrl'LAMU.

Robert the Bruce, 1306-1329.

David II., 1329-1370.

Kobertll., 1370-1390.

Robert III., 1390-1406.

James I., 1406-1437.

James II., 1437-1460.

James III., 1460-1488.

James IV., 1488-1513.

England. 1. Poetry— John Lydgatc— His Storie of Thebes.— 2. Lyd-
gate's Minor Poems — Character of his Opinions and Feelings — Kelapse
into Monosticism — Specimens.— 3. Stephen Hawes — Analysis of bis I'as-
time of Pleasure. — 1. The Latest Metrical Romances — The Earliest lial- 1
lads — Chevy Chase — Robin Hood. — 5. Prose — Literary Dearth — Patrons
of Learning — Ilardyng— William Caxton — His Printing- Press and its
Fruits.— Scotland. 6. Retrospect— Michael Scot— Thomas the Rhymer. [
— 7. The Fourteenth Century— John of Fordun — Wyntoun'g Chronicio
— The Bruce of John lUrbour — Its Literary Merit — Its Language.— |
8. The Fifteenth Century— The King's Quair— Blind Harry the Min.strtl
— Brilliancy of Scottish Poetry late in the Century — Ilenryson — liisj
Testament of Cresaida — Gawain Douglas — His Works. — 9. William Dun-
bar— His Genius and Poetical Works — Scottish Prose still wauting-j
Universities founded — Printing in Edinburgh.

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN ENGLAND.

1. The miseries which afflicted England during the greater part ofl
the fifteenth century, thinly veiled in Shakspeare's heroic pictures |
darken frightfully the true annals of the country. The unjiisti
and unwise wars with France, made illustrious for the last time bvf
Henry the Fifth, had their issue under his feeble son in nationall
disgrace. Fresh revolts of the populace were followed by.furiousl
wars between the partisans of the two royal houses, till the rivall
clainui were united in the family of Tudor. The unnatural contest,!

desolatin
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In the FIFTEENTfl GENttJBY.

desolating the land as it had not been desolated since the Norman
invasion, blighted and dwarfed all intellectual growth. For more
than a hundred years after Chaucer's death, our literary records do
not set down any name the loss of which woidd at all diminish
their lustre, unless Dan John of Bury may deserve to be excepted.

In short, this age, usually marked in Continental history as the
epoch of the Revival of Classical Learning, was not with us a time
either of erudition or of original invention.

The fifteenth century has transmitted to us a large number of
Poetical Compositions ; but most of them are quite valueless, imless
as instructive specimens of the rapidity with which the language
was undergoing the latest of the changes, that developed it into
Modern English. Although, likewise, we know the names of many
of the authors, two of these only call for notice.
d. lief. > John Lydgate, a Benedictine monk of Bury Saint Ed-
i4fii. ; munds, beginnmg to write uefore Chaucer's death, appears
to have laboured for more than half a century, producing an immense
number of compositions, many of which were of a temporary kind.
His most ambitious works were three. The Fall of Princes is versi-
fied from the Latin prose of Boccaccio ; the Storie of Thebes is an
additional Canterbury Tale, borrowing a great deal from Statius and
other classical sources, but uivesting the unhappy sons of CEdipuB
in chivalrous drapery, not without much spirit and picturesque-
ness , and, in the Troy Book, the fall of Ilium is similarly dealt with,
and adorned with many striking descriptions.

Some features in the Storie of Thebes are thus described by
tlie earliest historian of our old poetry.

" This poem is the Thebaid of a Troubadour. The old classical
Tale of Thebes is here clothed with feudal manners, enlarged with
new fictions of the Gothic species, and furnished with the descrip-
tions, circumstances, and machineries, appropriated to a romance of
chivalry. The Sphinx is a terrible dragon, placed by a necromancer
to guard a mountain, and to murder all travellers passing by. Ty-
deus, being wounded, sees a castle on a rock, whose high towers
and crested pinnacles of polished stone glitter by the light of the
moon : he gains admittance, is laid in a sumptuous bed of cloth of
gold, and healed of his wounds by a king's daughter. Tydeus and
Polymite tilt at midnight for a lodging, before the gate of the palace
of King Adrastus ; who is awakened by the din of the strokes of their
weapons, and descends into the court with a long tram by torch-
light. He orders the two combatants to be disarmed, and clothed
in rich mantles studded with pearls; and they are conducted to
repose, by many a stair, to a stately tower, after being served with

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THE LITERATURE OP ENOLAND

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a refection of hippocras from golden goblets. The next day they
are both espoused to the king's two daughters, and entertained with
tournaments, feasting, revels, and masques. Afterwards, Tydeus,
having a message to deliver to Eteocles, king of Thebes, enters the
hall of the royal palace, completely armed and on horseback, in the
midst of a magnificent festival. This palace, like a Norman for-
tress or feudal castle, is guarded with barbicans, portcullises, chains,
and fosses. Adrastus wishes to close his old age in the repose of
rural diversions, of hawking and hunting."*

2. Lydgate is justly charged with diifuseness. He accumulates,
to wearisomeness, both thoughts and words. But he has an earnest-
ness which often rises into enthusiasm, and which gives a very
impressive air to the religious pieces that make up a majority of
his minor poems. Although his originality of invention is small,
he sometimes works up borrowed ideas into exceedingly striking
combinations. His descriptions of scenery are often excellent.

Some of his smaller compositions illustrate, very instructively,
both the literary and the theological character of his time. The
survey which we have now nearly completed of the literature of the
middle ages, has furnished frequent examples of a fact leanied by
us in the commencement of our present studies ; namely, that al-
most all the literary productions of those times fall into groups,
each of them designed and fitted only for a limited audience.
Neither comprehensive observation of society at large, nor a wish
to instruct or please a wide and diversified circle of readers, has
shown itself in any of the periods we have examined, till we reached
the time of Chaucer, He, indeed, was truly a national poet; the
shrewd observer of all facts which were poetically available, the activti
and enlightened teacher of all classes of men who were susceptible
of literary instruction. In passing from his works to those of Lyd-
gate, we feel as if we were turnuig aside from the open highway into
the dark and echoing cloisters. The monk of liury is thoroughly
the monk : ho is guided by the monastic spirit, and has the mo-
nastic blindness to every thing tliat happens beyond the convent
gate. He, an ecclesiastic living in the generation after Wyclilfe,
is as strongly imbued with superstitious belief and priestly preju-
dice, as if he had just returned from the crusades, or had sat at the
feet of Saint Dominic. If he was Chaucer's pupil in manner and
style, his masters in opinion and sentiment were the compilers of
the "Gesta Romanorum."

By marking carefully, and familiarizing to ourselves by one or

* Wurton : History of English Poetry.

IN THE FIFTEENTH CEMTUBY.

two examploH, some of tho characteristics of Lydgate, the best tind
most popular of our English poets in the fifteenth century, we
shall be prepared to hail with more lively satisfaction those great
rcvolutious which, some generations afterwards, impressed a new and
|)urcr dtamp alike on the literature and on the religion of the
nation.

Dan John, like his fellow-monks of earlier times, is fond of satire,
iind sometimes not unsuccessful in it. In his " London Lickpenny"
ho scourges all persons engaged in active business, particularly the
liiwyers, a class of men towards whom the clergy entertained a heavy
f,'rudge, for having gradually wrested from them their old monopoly
of public employment. In other pieces he repeats, with great zest,
the threadbare jokes on the vices and frailties of the female sex.
Several hymns and other devotional pieces are very fine, both in
feeling and in diction. A few stories, borrowed from the Latin col-
lections, the French fabliaux, and unknown authorities, are used for
inculcating precepts moral and religious, and for enforciiig the
duties of the laity to the Church. One of the apologues we shall
use in part, by and by, as a specimen of the English written in his
(l)iy. Some of the others are instances of the superstitious ten-
'lency lately alluded to ; while they are told with a solemn awful
ucss of tone, which, notwithstanding the frequent intrusion of fan-
tastic levity, gives them no small poetical merit.

One of these recommends the duty of praying for the dead.
Wulfric, a priest in Wiltshire, had " a great devotion " for chant-
hv^ requiems. He died about midnight ; and, soon afterwards, a
I)rother-priest went into the church to chant the first service of
the day. He sees, rising from the graves in the pavement, figures
like children, clad in white : they arc departed souls for whom
Wulfric has said mass, and who, after prayer for his repose, return
into their sepulchres. This sliort story is well told by the poet.
Tliere is yet greater force, with a singularly striking air of ghostly
wildness, in a much longer piece, a legend of Saint Augustui, the
apostle of the Saxons in England. Students of foreign literiiture
will be interested in observing that, in the seventeenth century, the
Spanish poet Calderon founded one of his most famous dramas on a
similar story. The poem begins with a tedious history of tithes
from Melchisedec downwards, summed up with a warning whicli
the tale is intended to make more emphatic. Visitmg a villago
called Compton, Austin endeavours in vain to make the lord of the
manor abandon a resolution he had long acted on, of refusing to pay
tithe. The saint, on beginning to say mass in the church, sternly
commands that every man who is not in a state of grace shall

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depart from the holy place. Suddenly a tomb is rent astmder ; and
there issues from it a terrific figure, which crosses the churchyard
and stands trembling at the gate. But the bold priest continues the
service amidst universal consternation. At its close he questions
the spectre, who tells him that he had formerly been lord of the
manor, had refused to pay tithes, and had died excommunicated.
Austin asks him to point out the grave of the priest who had ex-
communicated him ; and, this being done, he summons the dead
priest to arise and absolve the repentant sinner. The second ghost

' appears, and obeys the order ; and the first one quietly goes to his
rest. The living lord of the manor, of course, offers instant pay-
ment; and then, abandoning all his possessions, he follows the saint

„ in his mission through the land. Meanwhile, the resuscitated priest
is disposed of, in some very unpressive stanzas, after a fashion which
the poet himself justly calls strange. Austin, by virtue of his
miraculous powers, gives him his choice of returning to his grave,
or of accompanying him in his preaching of the gospel. The dead
man, after moralizing on the miseries of life, prefers to die again ; and
the saint approves his resolution.

3. Stephen Hawes, writing in the reign of Henry the Seventh,
might be referred either to the fifteenth century or the next. He
is remembered as the author of " The Pastime of Pleasure," a
long allegorical poem, in the same taste as the Romance of tlie
Rose. It is whimsical and tedious, but graced, in its personifica-
tions, with much more of invention than any other English work
near its time ; and it exhibits the language as having now assumed,
in all essentials, the form in which it was used by the great poets of
the Elizabethan age. The prince Graunde Amour, or Great Love,
relates in it the history of his own life and death. Inspired, by the
report of Fame, with affection for La Bel Pucell, (the Fair Maiden,)
he is required to make himself worthy of her, by accepting instruc-
tion in the Tower of Doctrine. He is there received and taught by
the Lady Grammar, and by her sisters Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic,
and Music ; the poet kindly allowing the reader to partake fully in
the lessons. Music introduces him to La Bel Pucell, from whom
he is then separated, to learn yet more in the Tower of Geometry ;
and he has afterwards to visit the Tower of Chivalry, and there to
be made a knight. He thence goes out on adventures, worships in
the temples of Venus and Pallas, is deceived by the dwarf False
Report, and kills a giant who has «three heads, entitled Imagina-
tion, Falsehood, and Peijury. Afterwards he is married to his
lady, and lives happily with her ; till he is made prisoner by Age,
who gives him Policy and Avarice for companions. At length he

IN THE HFTEEKTH CENTUBY.

is slain by Death, buried by Dame Mercy, and has his epitaph en-
grayed by Remembrance.

The emblematical incidents and characters which have thus been
sketched, recall to us the allegorical school of poetry which was so
Avidely spread throughout the middle ages, and in which Chaucer
did not disdain to study. The recollection of them, again, will be
useful, when, in becoming acquainted with the Elizabethan master-
pieces, we shall see the same turn of thought prevailing in Spenser^s
immortal Faerie Queene.

4. In quitting this period, we bid adieu to the Metrical Romances.
The introduction of these into our tongue had begun, •as we have
learned, in the latter half of the thirteenth century ; and they con-
tinued to be composed frequently till about the middle of the
fifteenth. They were, to the last, almost always translations or
imitations ; but some of the later specimens both show much im-
provement in literary art, and embrace an increasing variety of
topics. The chivalrous stories next began to be usually related in
Prose. The most famous of the romances in this shape is also one of
the best specimens of our old language, and, with hardly an excep-
tion, the most delightful of all repositories of romantic fictions. It
is the "Mort Arthur," in which, in the reign of Edward the
Fourth, Sir Thomas Mallory, a priest, probably using French com-
pilations in prose, combined into one narrative the leading adven-
tures of the Round Table.

As the Romances ceased to be produced, the Ballads may be said
to have gradually taken their place. Indeed, many of these are
just fragments of the metrical romances; and many others are
abridgments of them. Our oldest ballad-poetry arose, perhaps, out
of attempts to communicate to a popular audience, possessed of little
leisure and less patience, the same kind of amusement and excite-
ment which the recital of the romances had been designed to pro-
duce among the nobles.

The best of our extant ballads, both Scottish and English, belong,
with few exceptions, to the time of Mary Queen of Scots and her
English kinswoman and jailer. But the lattbr half of the fifteenth
century appears to have been very fertile both in minstrels and
in minstrelsy.

All of us know the famous old chant of which Sir Philip
Sidney said, that he could not hear it without feeling himself
roused as if by the blast of a trumpet. " Chevy Chase seems to be
the most ancient of those ballads that has been preserved. It may
possibly have been written while Henry the Sixth was on the
tlu'one. The style is often fiery, like the old war-sungs, and much

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TlIE LITERATURE OF ENGLAND

above the feeble, though natural and touching, manner of the latei
ballads. One of the most remarkable circumstances about this
celebrated lay is, that it relates a totally fictitious event with all
historical particularity, and with real names. Hence it was
probably not composed while many rememberea the days of Henry
the Fourth, when the story is supposed to have occurred."*

The distinguished critic whose words have just been quoted, is
unhesitatingly of opinion that the Scottish ballads are much superior
to the English : and it is also allowed, universally, that those which
were produced in the border- counties of both kingdoms have much
greater poetio merit, both through their spirited energy, and through
the imaginative use they make of local superstitions, than such as
had their birth in the more southerly provinces.

Of the latter, indeed, the only very interesting examples are those
which celebrate the deeds of Robin Hood, and which, though the
incidents are placed in the midland counties, are in many points
curiously like 'the border -minstrelsy. The gentle and generous
robber of Sherwood Forest is a personage probably as unreal as the
hunting of the Percy in the wilds of Cheviot Fell. There is very
little substance in the theory which would make him to have been
a Saxon, manfully resisting the Norman oppressors. Yet the idea
which this hypothesis involves is not uninstructive. Both in old
histories, and in a curious Latin biography lately discovered, we
are made acquainted with the adventures of a real hero, Hereward
of Brunne in Lincolnshire. This popular chief, leading a band of
Saxons into the marshes of Ely, thence made for years destructive
forays on the possessions of the Normans, and at length forced
William the Conqueror to a treaty ; perishing, however, afterwards
by treachery or in a domestic broil. We know, too, that similar
rebellions were not infrequent for more generations than one.
Many exploits of the leaders were doubtless preserved traditionally
by the conquered race, and were at hand to be woven into any
stories that might be founded on the deeds of other champions.
But, further, even when the national hatred for the Normans had died
away, hatred of the no^'lity was kept up by the tyrannical forest-
laws. It is as a cha. pion of the commonalty against these, that
Robin Hood is distinctively presented to us : and the sense of
wrong which they had awakened in the breasts of the peasantry
could not be embodied more forcibly, than in the affectionate flattery
with which the minstrels beautify his character.

5. During this unhappy age, the spirit of metaphysical specma-

* If allant : Introduction to the Literature of Europe.

IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

i-'' h

tion, and the zeal for classical learning, had alike died away We
might suppose erudition to have been really extinct ; were it not
that a few Latin histories have been bequeathed to us by ecclesias-
tics of the time, and a celebrated law-treatise by Sir John Fortescue.
Ineffectual attempts at encouraging literature are recorded as hav-
ing been made by a few men of rank. Shakspeare has poetized the
tragical fate which destroyed two of these ; " the good Duke Hum-
phrey " of Gloucester, and the accomplished Earl of Rivers, a
writer as well as a patron of literary men.

History having previously begun to be written in English, the
return tot Latin as its organ was a symptom, not less decided than
the spirit shown in Lydgate's poetry, of retrogression towards con-
ventual and scholastic habits. A re-adoption, yet more awkward,
of antiquated modes of communication, was practised in the first
half of the century by John Hardyng, who, writing a Chronicle of
England in the English tongue, couched it wholly in verse. This
man, too, was no ecclesiastic, but a soldier, and an active and
dexterous political agent. Despatched, by Henry the Fifth, on a
secret mission into Scotland, he brought back documents establish-
ing beyond controversy, if they were genuine, the dependence of
the Scottish crown on that of England. The fault of his most de-
cisive articles of proof was this, that they proved a great deal too
much : we have our choice of believing, either that he forged, or
that he was the tool of others who did so.

In the vernacular prose, we have hardly any thing higher than
Fabyan's gossiping " Concordance of Histories."

But, both in prose and in verse, some accessions were made to
our language, through translation from the French, by a writer
whose claim to honour rests on surer grounds than his own literary
compositions.
b. ab. 1412. ) A mighty revolution took place. William Caxton, a

d. 1492. j" merchant of London, residing abroad on business, be-
came acquainted with the recently invented art of printing, and
embraced it as a profession. He introduced it into England,
probably in 1474, and practised it for nearly twenty years
with extraordinary ardour and intelligence. The works which he
printed were in all about sixty-four, some of them bulky, and none
very small : an amount of activity which we should much under-
value, if we did not recollect the great mechanical difficulties which,
then and loi^g afterwards, impeded the process. All the publica-
tions that were certainly his, except two or three, are in English,
many of them translations ; almost all of them are of a popular
cmt, an4 indicate, as it has correctly been remarked, a low

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THE UTE&ATURE OF HCOThASfD

state of taste and information m the public for which they Wfr^
designed.

But Caxton^s enterprise and patience unquestionably hastened
the time when this mighty discovery became available to our
nation : and his name deserves to stand, with honour, at the close of
the survey we have made of English Literature dm*ing the middle
ages. Literary works, thenceforth, were not only to be incalcula-
bly more abundant, but to undergo, by degrees, in almost all de-
partments, a total change of character; a change brought about
indeed by several concurrent causes, but by none more active than
the discarding of the manuscript and the substitution of the printed
book.

: : 1

THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES IN SCOTLAND.

6. While we studied the progress of literature in England from
the Norman Conquest to the close of the thirteenth century, we
were not tempted to turn aside by any important monuments of
intellect in the northern quarter of the island. Scotland, divided,
at the beginning of the period, among hostile and dissimilar races,
was but gradually settling down into a compact kingdom, and
offered few encouragements for the cultivation of the arts of peace.
From the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it is true, there might
be collected the names of a very few scholastic theologians, whose
works have survived, and who were of Scottish birth : but, with
hardly an exception, these men, such as Richard, prior of Saint
Victor in Paris, spent their lives on the continent. This was
also the case with Michael Scot, a native of Fifeshire, whose
fame, as a scientific man or a wizard, was chiefly gained in Ger-
many and Italy, at the court of the emperor Frederick the Second.
The extant writings of Scot are universally admitted to give him
no claim to remembrance, comparable in any degree with that
which belongs to his contemporary Bacon. Thomas Lermont,
again, the Rhymer of Ercildoune or Earlstoun, has left us no data
whatever for estimating the grounds of his traditional celebrity : for
his prophecies are clumsy forgeries; and the allegation that he
wrote the romance of Sir Tristrem is founded on mistake.

7. The fourteenth century has bequeathed to us several noted
names and works.

Its only valuable monument in the Latin tongue is the " Scoti-
chronicon " of John of Fordun, probably a canon of Aberdeen,
which may fairly stand comparison with the more judisious and
trustworthy of the earlier English histories. Closing with the

IN THE FOUETEEMTH OENTUBY.

death of David the First, it was brought down to that of James the
First by Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcohn.

A livelier interest belongs to two Metrical works in the living
tongae, both of which belong to that age.

The later of these in date was the " Original Cronykil " of
b. ab. 1360. \ Andrew Wyntoun, priov of Saint Serf's in Lochleven,
<f. ait 1120. / y^hich is a history, in nine books, partly of Scotland,
partly of the world at large. Far from being without worth as a
record of facts, it is totally destitute of poetical merit.

Not so is it with a work which immediately preceded it, "The
b. ab. 1316. ) Bruce " of John Barbour, archdeacon of Aberdeen, a
d. 1396. f narrative poem, containing more than thirteen thousand
rhymed octosyllabic lines. It relates the adventures of the heroic
King Robert, with a spirit and clearness in narrative, a dramatic
vigour in the depicting of character, and an occasional breadth of
reflective sentiment, which entitle this, our oldest genuine monument
of the Teutonic language of Scotland, to be ranked as being really
an excellent poem. If we were to compare it with the contemporary
poetry of England, its place would be very high, Chaucer being set
aside as unapproachable. Barbour must be pronounced much
superior to Gower, and still more so to the anonymous writers of
the very best of tfie metrical romances.

With the romances, indeed, not with the metrical chronicles, the
Bruce should perhaps be classed, in respect of the freedom with
which it interweaves invented details into its web of historical
facts. Yet the romantic licence is used with much discretion.
The outline of the events is faithful to the truth : the hero, al-
though he is certa'nly a knight-errant rather than a leader of hosts,
does not often exert the fabulous prowess which he displays on one
occasion, when, single-handed, he defends a pass against three hun-
dred wild men of Galloway ; and the only introduction of super-
natural agency is in the account of the siege of Berwick, where
the poet briefly describes, as a miracle, the impunity with which the
women and children carried up arrows and stones to the Scottish de-
fenders of the ramparts. Indeed the work is wondeif ully little tinged
with those superstitions, which we have seen emerging so often in
the poetry of the middle ages. The poet does, it is true, attribute
the king's early calamities, not to his slaughter of Comyn, but to
his having committed sacrilege by slaying his enemy at the altar ;
but his hints as to the popular sciences of astrology and necro-
mancy indicate, at once, a characteristic cautiousness which might
perhaps be regarded as national, and an enlightenment of opinion
for which we should liardly have looked. The prevalent calmneu

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THE LITEBATUBE OF SCOTLAND

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of tone and sobriety of judgment give, by contrast, additional force
to the animated passages describing warfare and peril. . Several of
these are both boldly conceived, and executed with very great
spirit. Such are the desperate combat in which Bruce lost tlie
brooch of Lorn ; and the adventure in which he baffles the blood-
hound of the men of the isles, with the attempted assassination
which is its sequel. Nor is the fierce love of warfare unrelieved
by gentler touches, which occur both in the portraiture of charac-
ters, in the events chosen for record, aud in the sentiments ex-
pressed by the poet. Sir Walter Scott, whose " Lord of the Isles"
'jwes much to "The Bruce," and might profitably be compared
with it, has not forgotten one of the finest of those passages ; in
whi''h we are told hov.' the king, pursued by a superior force,
ordered his band to turn and. face the enemy, rather than abandon
to them a poor woman who had been seized with illness. There
are likewise not a few pleasing fragments of landscape-painting :
and one of these is made unusually picturesque by having, as its
main feature, the mysterious signal-fires that were seen blazuig on
the Scottish shore, and tempted Bruce to a dangerous landing.

In respect of language we do not, in Wyntoun and Barbour, reach
the point of a distinct separation between England and Scotland. If
unessential peculiarities of spelling are disregarded, Barbour's work
may be said to be composed in Northern English. Its style differs
chiefly from that of Chaucer and his contemporaries, in being much
more purely Saxon than theirs ; the writer showing, indeed, no
symptoms of that familiarity with French poetry, which caused so
extensive an importation of foreign words into the literary diction
of the south. It is not, however, to be forgotten, that the arch-
deacon seems to have had English inclinations : he travelled to
Oxford for study after he had become a beneficed priest.

8. In passmg to the fifteenth century, we do not discover any
traces of a dialect distinctively Scottish in the earliest poem it pre-
sents. It is the King's Quair, (or Book,) in which the accom-
plished King James the First celebrated the lady whom he married.
Hut the royal poet was educated in England, and probably wrote
there : and his pleasing poem exliibits, in its allegories and personi-
fications, and in its whole cast of thought, the influence exerted by
his study of those English writers of the preceding age, whom lie
himself respectfully acknowledges as his masters.

The development of the language of Scotland into a distinct
dialect must, even then, have fairly begim. It went on rapidly
i^erwards ; and it was attended by a great partiality to Chaucer
And bis contemporaries and followers, with a fondness' still greatel

J,!

IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

for their French models. In no long time there arose also a taste
for Latin reading, which influenced the style of poetry yet more
strongly.

None of the foreign influences is to be traced, (unless it may be
in the use of Chaucer's heroic stanza,) in the " Wallace " of Henry
the Minstrel, oftener called Blind Harry. This old poem was once
much more popular in Scotland than the Bruce ; and it was likely to
be so, on account of the more picturesque character of its incidents,
its strain of passionate fervour, and the wildness of fancy which
inspires some of its parts. It is altogether, notwithstanding its
formidable bulk, a work whose origin might naturally be attributed
to the class of men to which its author is said to have belonged ;
the same class who, then and afterwards, were enriching the
northern language of the island with 9ur ancient ballads.

Towards the close of the century, and in the beginning of the
next, Scottish poetry, now couched in a dialect decidedly peculiar,
was cultivated by men of higher genius than any that had yet
appeared in Great Britain since tlie dawn of civilisation, the
fatlier of our poetical literature being alone excepted. One of
d. hb.\ them was Robert Henryson, supposed to have been a
1500. j monk or schoolmaster in Dunfermline. His most ela-
borate 'work was his " Testament of Faire Creseide," a con-
tinuation, excellently versified and finely poetical, of a piece of
Chaucer's. This Scottish poem indeed is so exceedingly beautiful
in many of its parts, so poetical in fancy, so rich in allegory, and
often so touching in sentiment, that one cannot help regretting
deeply the poet's unfortunate choice of a theme. Probably its
unpleasant character is the reason why the work is so little known,
even by those who are familiar with our early literature. At all
events, Henryson is oftenest named for his beautiful pastoral of
" Robin and Makyne," one of the gems of Percy's " Reliques."

More vigorous both in thought and fancy, though inferior in skill
b. ab. 1474. ) of expression, was Gawain or Gavin Douglas, bishop of

d. 1522. J Dunkeld, famous alike as an active poUtician, a man of
learning, and a poet. His " King Hart," and " Palace of Honour,"
are complex allegories, of the kind with which we have become
acquainted through other specimens. His Translation of the jEneid,
into heroic verse, is a very animated poem, not more unfaithful to
the original than it might have been expected to be; and it is
embellished with original prologues, of which some are energeti-
cally descriptive, and others actively critical. ' This was, it should
be remembered, the earUest attempt made, in any part of our island,
to render classical poetry into the living language of the country.

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THE LITERATURE OF SCOTLAND

h. sb. 146S.
4. ab. 1520.

}

9. William Dunbar, a native of Lothian, was the best
British poet of his age, and almost a great one. He ap-
pears to have been educated for the church, and to have spent some
of his early years as a begging friar. Afterwards he became a depen-
dant on the court of the dissolute prince who perished at Flodden. His
poems exhibit a versatility of talent which has rarely been paralleled,
and a moral inconsistency which it is humiliating to contemplate.
In his comic and familiar pieces there prevails such a grossness, both
of language and of sentiment, as destroys the effect of their remarlc-
able force of humour : nor is ribaldry altogether wanting in those
serious compositions, which are so admirable for their originality and
affluence of imagination. Allegory is Dunbar's favourite field. It
is the groundwork of his " Golden Terge," in which the target ia
Reason, a protection againsl the assaults of Love ^ and his " Thistle
and Rose" commemorates, in a similar way, the king's marriage
with an English princess. " The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins "
is wonderfully striking, both for the boldness of the leading concep-
tion, and for the significant picturesqueness of several of the per-
sonifications. . Unfortunately it would be almost impossible to de-
scribe, decorously, either the design of this remarkable poem, the
imaginative originality which colours the serious passages, or the
audacious flight of humorous malice with which, in the'close, the
Saxon vents the scorn he felt for his Celtic countrymen.

" In the poetry of Dunbar, we recoipise the emanations of a
mind adequate to splendid and varied exertion; a mind equally
capable of soaring into the higher regions of fiction, and of descend-
ing into the humble walk of the familiar and ludicrous. He was
endowed with a vigorous and well-regulated imagination ; and to it
was superadded that conformation of the intellectual faculties which
constitutes the quality of good sense. In his allegorical poems
we discover originality and even sublimity of invention ; while those
of a satirical kind present us with striking images of real life and
manners. As a descriptive poet, he has received superlative praise.
In the mechanism of poetry he evinces a wonderfid degree of skill.
He has employed a great variety of metres ; and his versification,
when opposed to that of his most eminent contemporaries, will
appear highly ornamented and poetical."*

While Scotland, nothwithstanding the troubles which marked
almost uninterruptedly the reigns of the Jameses, was thus redeem-
ing the poetical character of the fifteenth century from the discredit
thrown on it by the feebleness of the art in England, her living

• Ir\'ing : lares of the Scottish Poets.

IN THE FIFTEENTH CE.NTLU\.

tonguo was, until very near the end of this period, used iu vereified
compositions only. Scottish prosu does mt appear, in any literary
shape, till the first decade of the sixteenth century : and its earliest
specimens were nothuig more than translations.

Nor did Scottish learning take, in that age, more than its very
first steps. The necessity of a systematic cultivation of philosophy
and classical literature had, indeed, begun to be acknowledged. Tho
university of Saint Andrews was founded in the year 1411, and that
of Ghtsgow in 1450. But hardly any immediate effect was pro*
duced except this ; that the style of most of the poets, especially
Douglas, was deformed by a fondness for words formed from the
Latin, which were introduced in as great numbers as French terms
had been by Chaucer and his followers.

The art of prmting was not practised in Scotland till the very
close of our period, when it was introduced in Edinburgh. The
oldest of the extant books, which is a miscellaneous volume, chiefly
filled with ballads and metrical romances, beat's the date of 1508.

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PART SECOND.

THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF TUE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE.

CHAPTER L 1

THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD,
A. D. 449— A. D. 1066.

INTRODUCTION OF THE CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS OP THE

LANGUAGE.

1. The Families of European Tongues — The Celtic, Qothic, and Classical—
The Anglo-Saxon a Germanic Tongue of the Gothic Stock.-- 2. Foanden
of the Anglo-Saxon Kace in England — Jutes, Saxons, Angles — The Old
Frisic Dialect. — 3. History of the Anglo-Saxon Tongue — Prevalence of
the Dialect of tlie West Saxons — Two Leading Dialects — The Saxon —
The Anglian or Northumbrian. — 4. What Dialect of Anglo-Saxon passed
into the Standard English Tongue? — 5. Cl«se Kesemblanco of the Anglo-
Saxon Tongue to the English — Illustrated by Examples. — 6. 7. Alfred's
Tale of Orpheus and Eurydice— ' ' ral Translation and Notes. — 8. Caed-
mon's Destruction of Pharaoh — Translated with Notes.

see

'Kr

[It is hoped that this slight sketch has been so framed as to be available,
not only for private study, but also for use in teaching; although, by reason
of the nature of the matter, lessons cannot bo given from it with tlie same
smoothness and ease as from the Literary Chapters. It may be used in
.any of several ways.

On the one hand, an attempt has been made, through the Translations and
Notes appended to the Extracts, tp include within the four comers of the
book every explanation that could absolutely be required, although the stu-
dent were not to have the aid of an instructor. The Text, on the other
hand, if read without the Extracts and their apparatus, furnishes a plain
summary, from which all the leading facts and doctrines may be Icamedi io

;i 'i^

INTRODUCTION OP THE ELEMENTS.

eases where it nncms unmlvisabic to undertake a closer scrutiny. Indeed u
great deal of knowledge might bo gained from the Fourth Chapter alone,
the study of which cnnnot be difficult for any one.

Or, again, these Chapters may furnish three successive courses of study,
progressively increasing in difficulty. The first would embrace the Fourth
Chapter, in which the results of the historical survey are summed up. The
Hccnnd would carry the student through the Text of tlie First, Second, and
1'hird Chapters, the Extracts being passed over. In the third course, the
Extracts would bo studied carefully, with such re-perusal of the Text tu
might be found convenient.

All that is here given, however, barely deserves to be called so much as
an Introduction to the Study of the English Tongue. Nothing more is aimed
at than pointing out a method of investigation, and showing that the method
is not only easy, but productive of interesting and valuable conclusions.

Exact and systematic acquaintance with the history and structure of our
noble language must be gained in riper studies, guided br T^i^uals more
learned and copious. The inquiry has been prosecuted with g^ .' ' aouteness
and ingenuity in Dr Latham's " English Language " and Uramnt.irg; and, to
say nothing of other meritorious works, the chief results of i ecent philolo-
gical speculations are perspicuously summed up and abl'' iomm'jtited on in
Professor Craik's '* Outlines of the History of the Engliau Language"

T^' om thron h' oks it will appear, how incalculably important < lie Anglo*
Saxon Tongue is, both to our vocabular, and to our grami.ar. Wc may
see ''^esame thing at a glance, by opening the English, S?.ottii>h, and Anglo-
Saxon Dictionaries of Uichardson, Jamieson, and Bosworth. Tt is a fact
not to be concealed, that every one who would learn to understand English
as thoroughly as an accomplished scholar ought to understand it, must be
content to begin by mastering Rask's excellent " Anglo-Saxon Grammar^'*
(in Thorpe's translation,) or at least the useful epitome given in Bosworth's
"Essentials." For practice in reading this, our mother-tongue, full and
well-explained specimens are now accessible, especially in Mr Thorpe's
" Analecta," and other works of the same distinguished philologer ; as
well as in the publications of Mr Kemble, and other eminent Anglo-Saxon
scholars. Mr. Guest's " History of English Rhythms " should be consulted
particularly.

To the books now named, with some others, these chapters are indebted for
all their principal facta and opinions; and they communicate, it is believed,
as much of the fruits of our improved philology as the limits and purpose
of the volume would allow. In the few instances where the teachers are
dissented from, or their reasonings pressed a step or two beyond their own
inferences, the deviation is not made without the hesitating deference justly
due to critics, who have, for the first time, laid down a firm foundation for
English Gramnuir to stand on.]

1. The pedigree of the English languafje is very clear. It is, as
we have seen, directly descended from tht Anglo-Saxon, but derives
much from the Norman-French, and much also fram the Latin.
We must now learn more exactly the position which these throe
hold among the European tongues.

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THE ENQUSH LANGUAGE.

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The Languages spoken in modem Europe are usually distributed
into four or dve groups. All the tongues that have ever been
used by nations inhabiting our islands, are comprehended in three
of these. The first of the three, the Celtic, vraa introduced before
either of the others, in both of its branches, the Cymric and the
Gaelic, and continues to be the speech of considerable sections of
our people : but it has not exercised on the language of the mass of
the nation any appreciable influence^ The tongues with which we
are at present concerned are embraced in two other European
groups ; the Gothic, and the Classical or Grsco-Roman.

The Gothic Languages of the continent -are distributable into
two stocks or main branches, the Germanic or Teutonic, and the
Scandinavian. Those of the former branch presenting two distinct
types, all the Gothic Languages may be said to fall into three
great families; and these are distinguished from each other by
well-marked characteristics. The First family comprehends those
tongues which were used by the tribes occupying the hilly regions
of Southern Germany, and which thence have been called High-
German. It is one of these that has been developed into the
standard German : but our mother-tongue was not among them.
The Second family was the Scandinavian, the farthest north of the
three. Its principal member still exists with little change In the
Icelandic, out of which have grown up the modem Swedish and
Danish. The Norwegians and Danes, by whom our blood and
speech have been to a small degree affected, were Scandinavians.
Thirdly, the name of Low-German has been given to the Gothic
languages which were spoken in the plains of Northern Germany,
and of which, in modem times, the leadmg example is the Dutch.
The Anglo-Saxon, In all its varieties, was essentially a Low-Ger-
man tongue. As being such, it is more nearly allied to the High-
German than it is to the Scandinavian.

The Classical group of European Tongues embraced, in ancient
times, the Greek and the Latin. From the latter of these have
Oowed three modem languages : the Italian ; the Spanish, with its
variety the Portuguese ; and the French, which, as we learned in
our literary survey, was long broken up provinclally into two dia-
lects. The French elements of our speech come from the dialect
of Northem France, which has since passed into the standard
Frencli language.

2. According to the old traditions reported by our historians,
the settlers who founded the Anglo-Saxon race in England belonged
to three Gothic tribes, whose continental seats had lain along the
North Sea and on the southern shores of the Baltic.

INTRODUCTION OF THE ELEMENTS.

101

The .Jutes or South Jutlanderswere the first invaders, but by far.
the least numerous. Tliey are said to have hardly occupied more
than the county of Kent, and were speedily lost among the more
powerful colonies that followed. Accordingly, their history is ui
every view unimportant.

Next came, in succession, several large bodies of Saxons. They
gradually filled the southern districts of England, between Corn-
wall or Devonshire on the south, Kent on the east, and the course
of the rivers Thames and Severn to the north and north-west ; pass-
ing northward also, in their latest migrations, considerably beyond
the valley of the Thames. Both the lineage of our Saxons, and
their place on the continent, have always been matters of dispute :
indeed the name was given, in the Dark Ages, to several tribes, who
spread themselves widely through Germany, and would seem to
have been, in part at least, united by confederacy only, not closely
by blood. The utmost assertion we can safely make is this ; that
our Saxon immigrants must have come from some part of the sea-
coast between the mouth of the Eyder and that of the Rhine.

The third tribe of invaders were the Angles or Engle, who are
described as having been very numerous, and who, in the end, gave
their name to the whole country. The territory which they seized
extended northward from the north border of the Saxons to the Frith
of Forth ; and it embraced within that range all the provinces, both
English and Scottish, to the east of those which were still for a
time held by the Cynuric Celts. They are usually said to have
smigrated from the small district of Anglen, which lies in the west
of the modem duchy of Schleswig.

Some recent antiquaries have endeavoured to throw discredit on
all the particulars of this ancient story. It does bear one difii-
culty on the face of it. So narrow a tract as Anglen cannot well
have furnished the Jarge body of emigrants which it is said to have
poured into England ; hardly even if it was left unpeopled, as Bede
asserts it to have been for generations afterwards. But, although the
doubts thus raised were to be confirmed, our real knowledge of our
ancestors would remain as it was, neither diminished nor increased.

The truth is, thnt very little light is thrown on the origin or
character of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, by the venerable history
which is perpetuated in its name. When we search for pouits of
comparbon among the old Gothic tongues of the continent, we find
none such that is attributed to any nation called Angles. As to
those, again, that were spoken by the contmental Saxons in their
extensive wanderings, none has been preserved tliat comes very
close to our insular uiothur tongue : excepting only tliat which oar

E 2

• 'i

*'!hlp|

1i?i,

I f !.,^

:lr)fl

I H

ii^itli'

• %'■■> ■

»«

rl^ll--

102

rnE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

1 !

l:u

antiquaries at present call the old Saxon : and of it the surviving
monuments are neither numerous nor ancient enough to afford a
solid foundation for comparison.

The most instructive fact which has been discovered is this. Of
all the old Gothic tongues that are tolerably well known, tliat which
the Anglo-Saxon resembles most nearly is the Old Frisic, a Low-
German -^''alect, which was once spoken extensively between the
Rhine and the Elbe, and is the parent of the Modem Dutch. The
Frisic, then, or a Low-German dialect very like it, must have beeii
in use among the mass of our Teutonic invaders, by whatever names
they may have called themselves, or been known by the imper-
fectly informed historians who lived soon after they crossed into
our island.

3. Before the battle of Hastings, the Anglo-Saxon tongue liad
been spoken in England for at least six hundred years. During
that period, it cannot but have undergone many changes, Further,
those who imported it beloNiged, almost certainly, to different Low-
German tribes ; and their descendants, who inhabited our island,
were long divided into several hostile nations. Therefore there must
have been dialectic varieties in the several regions of their British
territory.

The history, both of our language and of its foimdcrs, would be
pertinently illustrated by any information that could be gained,
regarding either those successive changes, or those contempo-
raneous local varieties. But of the former we know nothing wliat-
ever, and of the latter not very much. The evidence as to both
was destroyed by circumstances emerging in the course of the na-
tional progress.

The long conflict between th«^^veral states usually known as
the Heptarchy, was brought to a close, early in the ninth century,
by the subjection of all of them to the kings of Wessex, or the Land
of the West Saxons, whose hereditary realm may be said to have
had its centre in Berkshire and Hants. Accordingly, the speech of
the Siixons or Southern Anglo-Teutons, with any peculiarities it
may have had in Wessex, came to be the ruling language, both of
government, and of such literature as was to bi found. The use of
it, as the instrument of literary communication, was extended and
permanently confirmed by the example and influence of Alfred, him-
self a native of Berks.

Now, our Anglo-Saxon remains, with very few exceptions, are
of the age of Alfred, or less ancient ; and such as are more recent
than his time, were naturally, in most cases, composed in the dia-
lect which he |iad made classical. Nor is this all. Our scanty

INTCODUCTION OP TlIK ELEMENTS.

103

remains of an older time, even wlien tliey must liave been first
written in other dialects, (as in the case of Csedmon, who was a
North Anglian,) have reached us only in manuscripts of more re-
cent date; and in these the copyists have probably modernized
not a little, and have certainly left few traces of local peculiarities
deviating from those of Wesscx. Indeed, when we consider that
our oldest manuscripts are not nearly so old as the time of Alfred,
we can hardly believe that we possess even the works of his time,
free from all alterations intended to accommodate them to more
modern fashions of speech.

In spite of these impediments, however, we do possess some evi-
dence of dialectic diiSerences. It is gathered, in the first instance,
from a few ecclesiastical manuscripts written in the Anglian king-
dom of Northumbria, wliich extended from the Humber to the
Scottish Friths ; and its results are confirmed by a comparison with
relics of the middle ages exhibiting dialectic varieties, and by an
examination of the modern dialects spoken in the North of Eng-
land. Inferences mr^ be founded also on the names of places;
although, for several reasons, these must be used with great caution.*

We are thus entitled to assert that all the local varieties of the
Anglo-Saxon were referable to the one or the other of two leading
Dialects, a Northern and a Southern. The Anglian or Northum-
brian dialect, while possessing the Low-German character in all
essentials, was unUke the Southern or Saxon in several minor feu-
tiures, some of which, though not many, were distinctively Scandi-
navian.

Whence these Scandinavian features were derived, is a disputed
question among our philologers. Some have attributed them
wholly to the many settlements which, in the later Anglo-Saxon
times, the Danes eftected in the north-east of England. One of
the proofs by which this theory is supported is furnished by the
names of places. Many of these, still preserved, indicate unequivo-
cally the presence of the Danes in the North-Eastem counties of
England as far southward as the Wash of Lincoln, and thence a
sliort way to the south-west ; while names of the same origin stretch
westward mto Westmoreland and Cumberland, districts, however,
in which the British Celts long kept their groimd. It is also a
curious fact, that the Scandinavian features are more decided in
the more recent Anglian manuscripts than in those that are older.f

* One very interesting Northumbrian monument, which has now been
tally deciphered, is the inscription engraved on an ancient cross, which
•tands, at this day, in the manse-garden at Uuthweii in Dunifries-shire.

t Qaruett : (u tlie Transactions of tlie Philological ijocivt^ : Vol. II. 1840-

I :

:!•■' '

ill

f 1

Hi , ■

1' ,

,ji

; 1

•1 ■ .2 ! ■ '

!■ A^^^

1 ii

104

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

1^,11

H'l

''I *'

Other scholars find, ui the Scandinavian features, a confirmation
of the tradition which brought the Angles from a land bordering
closely on Scandinavia. If this was their old abode, their Low-
Gennan tongue may naturally have been tinctured by some Norse
peculiarities.* It is admitted, indeed, that the territorial boun-
daries of the two leading dialects cannot be exactly identified with
those which the current history assigns as having separated the
Angles and the Saxons. The Northern dialect has not been traced
satisfactorily over the whole of the Anglian ground. But it is
maintained that this fact has been caused by those political changes,
which speedily separated the most southerly sections of the Angles
from their Northumbrian brethren, and subjected them in all respects
to Saxon influence; that, notwithstanding, Anglian elements are
still traceable in dialects spoken as far south as the Thames ; and
that these can be shown to have prevailed yet more extensively
in the same provinces during the middle ages.

It may be woi'th while to remark, that the two theories are not
properly contradictory of each other. Tlie dialect of the Angles
may have been in some points Scandinavian ; and the Danes may
afterwards have ingrafted on it other peculiarities of the same sort.

4. Leaving this question, however, as undecided, we ought to
remember, also, that, although the two dialects only are traceable
in our r.elics of the Anglo-Saxon period, dialectic varieties much
more numerous showed themselves m no long time after the Norman
conquest. A ^^n•iter of the fourteenth century asserts peremptorily,
that there were then spoken in England three dialects, a Southern,
a Midland, and a Northern. Some such division had probably
arisen much earlier ; and several of our philologers insist on distri-
buting our mediaeval dialects into a still larger number of groups.

The consideration of dialect, indeed, presents a mine of curious
inquiiy, which might be worked filong the whole history of our
language. But the vein has been little more than opened by our
philological antiquaries : and the interesting speculations they have
proposed are still too fragmentary, as well as too special, to be
useful to us in these elementary studies.

We may put to ourselves, however, before passing onward to

observe the decay of our mother-tongue, one question which some

of our scholars have endeavoured to answer. Which of the dialects

of the Anglo-Saxon is specifically the parent of the English Lan-

g'lage ?

* RoBk, himself a Dane, is of opinion, not only tliat his countrymen did not
corrupt our tongue, but that we corrupted theirs. The Danish departs
furtlier from its Icelandic root than the Swedish does ; and the critic datea
the deviation from the establishment of Canute's throne in England.

INTRODUCTION OP THE ELEMENTS.

105

It is not necessarily the classical Saxon of Wesscx. The cir-
cumstances of the centuries next after the Norman Conquest were
such as would make this unlikely rather than otherwise. Tliat
dialect had quite lost its political and social supremacy. It still
possessed, no doubt, the influence due to it as the organ of the oldcr
literary monuments ; but these, there is much reason to suppose,
were little studied by most of those who guided the corruption ot
tlic ancient tongue, or its transformation into the new. When any
tliing like literary composition was attempted, in the early Normnii
times, by natives using their own language, each writer seemingly
aiined at nothing more than expressing his meaning, as he best
could, through the words and idioms that were familiar in ])ii<
neighbourhood.

Besides this, in the transition-stage of the language, we ai'e tempted
to look, both for original writers and for copyists of manuscripts,
chiefly to those Midland coimties which had lain within the Saxon
kingdom of Mcrcia, counties whose Teutonic colonists had been
Angles, but which had for centuries been subjected to the govern-
ment and influence of the Saxons of Wessex. These counties ho-
came soon the seats of the universities; they abounded in rich
monasteries and other religious foundations ; and, when we reach a
time in which the new language was freely used in literature, we.
find a large proportion of its eflbrts to have issued from that
quarter. There, accordingly, the English tongue is by soitt|,critic.s
alleged to have had its birth. w

In support of this theory, it has been argued, that, if Wessex
gave the law to our language, the provincial speech of Berks) li re
and the neighbouring districts, which is admittedly liker to xhv
written Anglo-Saxon than any other of our modem dialects is, ought
also to be that which deviates least from the standard £ngli»l)
But it is alleged by competent scholars that this is not its chai'acter
The provincial dialect which is most nearly pure is said, though
the details still require examination, to be now spoken in Noithamp-
tonshire, or in some of the counties immediately surrounding it.^'

On the other hand, it has been maintained, by a very emuient
antiquary and philologer, (and the conclusion seems to be highly
probable,) that we must be content to seek for the groundwork of

11, i'

If'

'Mil' ,

puii

* Guest's English Rhythms : Latham's English Language. " Before Ldj-
anion's * Brut ' was written, a language agreeing much more closely with
our standard speech, in words, in idioms, and in grammatical forms, existeil
in the Eastern Midland district. ^ This form, which we may for the sake of
distinction call Anglo-Mercian, w'as adopted by influential writers and by tho
cultivated classes of tho metropolis ; becoming, by gradual modifications,
tho language of Siienscr and Shakspeare." Quarterly K-jviuw : Vol. LXXXII-

106

THE ENGLISH LANQUAQE.

r '

our language in a gradual coalescence of the leading dialects of all
the provinces of England except those that lay furthest north.*
The question, how the coalescence was brought about, opens a
very interesting track of speculation.

5. The broad doctrine, that the English Language is the direct
offspring of the Anglo-Saxon, cannot be too strongly impressed on
our minds. That the fact is so, will be plain to every one who
examines a few sentences from our ancient relics, with such previous
knowledge, or such accompanying aid, as enables him to compre-
hend their meaning. We wiU translate an easy passage, before
beginning to watch the process by which the one tongue was gra-
dually transformed into the other.

The resemblance between the Vocabularies of the two is very
strikingly shown in this passage. It contains four or five words,
which our standard speech in. modem times does not possess in
any shape, but all of which occur in provincial dialects, and in
books not older than Chaucer. It contains about as many others,
which perhaps disappeared altogether by the fourteenth century.
With these exceptions, all its words bear so near a likeness to
some with which Ave are familiar, that the idea conveyed by each
of them might be conjectured by a good English scholar, with little
risk of serious error.

As to the Grammatical peculiarities, again, the verbs that occur
are sor^ike our own, (except in having the infinitive in -an, and
plural ilbrms different from the singular,) that the interlined tran-
slation is required rather on account of the uncouth spelling, than
for any other reason. The student has to remember, however,
that the substantives are declined by termination like the Latin,
having all the cases except the vocative and ablative, and that the
termination usually fixes the gender ; and he must be warned, also,
that the adjectives, pronouns, and articles, are sbiilarly declined.

Our Extract is taken from Alfred^s loose translation of Boethius
" On the Consolation of Philosophy." It is a passage in which he
has allowed himself very great scope ; substituting, indeed, for one
of the metrical pieces of the original, a prose .story of his own. He
gives us the classical fable, the lyuig tale, as he calls it, of Orpheus
and Eurydice.f

' ;M

* " It seems unquestionable, that the dialects of the Western, Southern,
and Midland Counties, contributed together to form the language of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and consequently to lay the foundation o!
Modem English." Sir Frederick Madden's Edition of I^yamon's Brut ; 1847,

f Thorpe's " Analecta Saxonica" (with Glossary), 1834: Text and Trans-
lation compared with CnnUue's " Apglo-S^J^on JJqethius," \W-

IMTROOUCTION OF THE ELEMENTS.

sculon^ get,3 of caldum^ leasum^ spellum,*'
will now, from old lying tales,

Bum^ bi'spelP rcccai^
a-certain parable tell.
hcarpere wa?8, on thaere^'
harper was, in the
Thaes^^ numa wses Orfeus.
Ilia name was Orpheus,
v/it^^. Sid wses hdten^*
wife. She was called

107

the'
to-the«

Hit" gelamp^'^ gi<5,^^ thsette an
It happened formerly, that a
theodei" the" Thracia
nation which Thrace
He haefde'^'^ an swithe^^
He had a

Eurydice.

h;Itte.^8

was-called.

senlic'^'-*

very 'incomparable

Th{i25 ongannatJ

Then began

I The First Personal Pronoun: retained in English : sing. nom. tc; gen.
min: dat. ace. me; plur. nom. we (dual, wit); gen. {ire (dual, wiser, Ger-
man) ; dat. U8, {it, or una; ace. us, {ir (dual, una). Here, and elsewliere, tlio
long vowels are marked with an accent ('), in instances where our modern
rules of pronunciation might incline us to suppose them short.

* Scealan, to owe (the English aJudl, but differently used) ; imperf. us
Bceolde, I should. s English, yet.

* Dat. plur. of adj. etdd, whence English eld, elder.

^ Leas, false; whence old English leasing. Also, in composition, void;
whence the English affix 'Uaa.

8 Dat. pi. oi spell, neut. tale, history. In composition, bisjpell, hy-tale, ex-
ample (German, beispiel) ; godspell, good-history, gospel.

' Second Personal Pronoun (with a dual which has long hecn lost) ; sing,
nom. iJi'u^ gen. thin; dat. ace. the; plur. nom. ge; gen. eower; dat. ace. eow.

8 English, some. • See Note G.

^^ To reckon ; meaning also, when conjugated differently, to reck or care
for.

II Third Personal Pronoun ; Sing. ISlasc. nom. he (sometimes sc) ; gen. his;
dat. him; aec. hine; Fem. nom. he6, ae6, sio: gen. dat. hire, hyre; ace. hi;
Neut. nom. hit; gen. his (as in the English liiblc) ; dat. him; aec. hit. Plural
in all ^nders nom. hi, (sometimes hig, he6); gen. hira, heora; dat. him,heom;
ace. hi, hig.

i* From gelimpan, now lost. i' A word now lost.

^* A'n or cm, originally the numeral one.

!<' Dat. oi Definite Article, which coincides in parts with the third personal
pronoun masculine, and with the demonstrative pronoun tha:t. Sing. Masc.
nom.«e; gen. thas; dat. thdm; ace. thane; Fem. nom. ae6; gen. dat. thare;
ace. thd; Neut. nom. thcet; gen. ihcea; dat. thdm; aec. that. Plural in all
genders, nom. aec. thd; gen. thdra, thara; dat. ih&m.

>A Dat. of theod (lost), a people or country.

*^ Relative Pronoun undeclined ; substituted in later Anglo-Saxon for the
.Icfinite article masculine se : and thus producing our definite article. A de-
clined relative pronoun is htoilc oi- hviylc (old Scottish, whilk), compounded
oihwd-lic, what-like. It passed gradually into the English which.

18 Ildtan, to have for a name ; whence old English higJit, named, or is
named.

10 Gen. of definite article, used as third personal pronoun.

*''* Haliban, to have ; he hafth, he hath.

"1 Swithe, awithor, awithost, much, more, most ; adv. from awith, strong.

» One-like, unique, smgular.

*i Wif, wife, woman ; neuter by termination.

2* See Note 18. ^ Then, when. as.

'^ Inf. onginnan ; pret. ongan ; partic. ongvnnm. The root is retainecl in
our word hcgin (from hcginmn).

if ■■■A

I'.r

'if

j »*!h'

;i ' 1

m§^

,: l\[,

•1:j

108

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

monn^^ secgan^®

be™ th^m hcarpere, thaet'" he mihte'^ hearpian

d J

mf''\

people to-say regarding the
thsBt se wudu wagode^^ for
the wood
woldon^*
would

that

thoer

there

harp

deoT^

beasts

t^me^a

tame
with*3

against
onscunedon.*^ Th^ saedon*^

shunned. Then said

sceolde*'"' acwelan,^^ and hire

should die, and her

harper, that he could
»ov,v.« .„. thim Bwoge,^' and wilde
moved for the sound, and wild
to-irnan^''^ and standan^^ swilce'^ hi
to-run and stand as-if they
wasron, swil stille, thedli hf menn**^ oththe^^ hundes''^
were, so still, though them men or hounds

eddon,** thajt hi hi na ne''^
went, tliat they diem not not
hf thset thtes hcai-peres^^ wff
they tiutt the harper's toife
sawle'^ mon^''' sceolde laedaiL^^ to helle.^*
sold one sliould lead to Hades.

^ Man or mon; the same as the French on ; English, one (as, " one would
think"); Qerman, man. In Anglo Saxon, man, or rather mann, signifies
also a man; gen. mannea ; plur. nom. menu (regularly matmaa) ; gen. manna;
dat. tnannum.

^ Infinitive : havir ,> in the prct. sing, aasgde, attde ; pi. sadon.

^ Jk,bf^ preposition with dat. : signifying by, beside, of, for.

^ Irregular spelling ; see another spelling of the word above.

^ Or meahte, mi.^ht ; from magan (whence may) to be able.

82 Pret. from wngian, to wajj.

^ Hence Old English swough (Chaucer) ; Scottish, sough.

** Hardly ever meaning deer, except in composition; German, thier
" Pats and mice, and such small deer." — Shakspeare.

^ Willan, wyllan, to will ; ic wille, I will : thu wilt, thou wilt. Pret. Ic
wold or toolde; thu tooldeat ; lie wold or woWe ; we, ge, hi, tooldon.

^ Example of a compound form, greatly more common in Anglo-Saxon
than in modem English ; from ynum or iman, otherwise rennan (Ueiman,
rennen), to run.

^ Inf. atandan ; ores, ic ataMe, thu aienst or atandeat, he stent or atynt ,
prct. ic atod, we stoaon ; partic. gestanden.

^ Adv. from atoilc or awylc (from awd, so ; and ylc, same), such.

8» PI. from tdm, tame. *> See Note 27.

*^ EitJur, or ; whence the English odier and (by contraction) or.

*^ Sing. nom. ace. Aun<2; gen. Aundc«; dat. hunae; plur. nom. ace. hundaa;
gen. hutida; dat. hundum. The -ea in the plur. nom. and ace. (which con-
founds those cases with the sing, gen.) is an irregular form, which became
more and more frequent as the Umguage decayed, and was one of the steps
towards the English.

^ Against or towards, retained in English, but with a meaning not usual
in Anglo-Saxon : the Anglo-Saxon preposition signifying with is mid.

** Inf. gdn or gangan ; pres. ie ga or gange, he gteth ; pret. ic eCde, we ed-
don; partic. gdn, agcen, agdn, gangen (Scottish, gang, gae, gaen).

*'' Ucpetition of negatives ; very common in Anglo-Saxon.

M Inf. omcunian, from acunian; whence the English ahun.

*^ See Note 28. ** Gen. of litarjtere, used above.

^> See Note 2. Here, as often in Anglo-Saxon and Old English, seealan
is used, like the German sollen, to indicate a reported or indirect recital.

^ Verb neut. from the act. cwellan or acweUan, to kill (quell).

w Scottish. " See Note 27.

Bs Inf. laxlan or gdtedan ; pret. tic Uedde, gelaedde ; part, gelaided, gekcd,
ttedfd, laid.

M Dat. of lull ; from Hcla, the goddess of death in the Norse mythology.

INTRODUCTION OF THE ELEMENTS.

109

7. Th^ ih&m hcarpcre
When to-tlte harper
thinges'^^ ne lyste^^ on
it-listed

.16

ne
not

thing

thast he wolclc
that lie would
eft«3 his wif.
hack hia wife.
th^ lange and
thm long and
cwa5th:«6 " Uton«7
mid: "

thi thdhte,^^ th»t hiue nunes

then it-seemed, tliat him of-no

thisse''* woruUle, tha th<5hto''" he

this world, ilien thouglU he

and biddan''* thaet hi him ageafon'*'^

and beg thai they to him give

* * • Th4 he

When he

lange hearpode, th^ clypode^* se cyning,"^ and

long harped, Vicn called the king, and

igifan thiSm esne^® his wff, forthdm^^ he

give to-Uie fellow his wife, because he

gangan,

go,

hine

underbajc''^
. ^ backward
Ac'* lufe mon
But love one

hi hsefth geeamod:'*^ and swde : gif^^ he

her hath earned: and said: if he

besawe,'* thast he sceoldo forlaetan'* thset wff.

looked, that he should lose theivoman

^ Inf. thincan; pret. thihte; partic. gethiiht; an impersonal verb, signi-
fying, it seems (whence the English meihinka). "* Gen. of ndn.

>7 Gen. ot tiling; an example of the origin of our English possessive in '«.

S8 Inf. lystan; pret. lytte; to desire, be pleased with. Generally used im-
personally, as here. English, list, lust.

"!* Nom. masc. tJiea; fern. the6a; ncut. thia, thjs; plur. nom. in all genders,
ilids. Oblique cases veiy various.

w Inf. thencan (also oethencan, gethencan), to think ; pret. tJi6hte ; partic.
geihuht. Compare Note 55.

61 Inf. hiddan; pret. heed; partic. bedcn ; to beg, to bid; hence English
beadsman. •

62 Or geaf on; subj. pret. plur. from inf. ffi/an (or agifan) ; pret. tc geaf,
0<f[fi 9"if} *"« geajfbn; partic. gifen. ** mck, again, after.

6* Pret. from inf. chmian or cJeopian; partic. gecltjjml; to call, to cry;
whence Old English yclept, idept, named.
66 Otherwise written cynig, cyneg, and cyng.

66 Inf. ewethan ; "pret. cwceih ; whence old English quoth.

67 Said to be used for pving an imperative power to the infinitive of the
verb. An adverb, meaning vnihout or beyond, n-om the adverb ut, oat.

66 A serf. See the manumission of Garth in Ivanhoe.

60 For-tluit; an example of a common kind of Anglo-Saxon adverbs, of
wliich we retain some; as, nohwcer, tharon, tharin; while we have formed
niiiiiy others on the same principle.

76 Inf. eamian (or geeamian) ; part, geeamod. When ge- is a prefixed aug*
incnt of derivative parts of the verb (as it still is usually in German parti<
ciples) it has often been retained by the Old English in the softened form of
y- or *-.

''^ Originally the imperative oigifan, to ^ve.

7S The preposition under, and hoc, a back ; behind backs,

73 Inif. oeae6n (from seOn, to see] ; pret. «e beaedh, thu betmoe, he besmoe or
ficaedh: hine beseSn, to look (literally, to be-see himself, as in the phnse " ti
butliink himself.")

7* Commonly, to permit, or forsake ; from ybr (prep.) and lattm, to let.

" Lost in this shape and meaning; but supposed really the same with eec^
4c, or ^c (also), which was originally the imperative of &an, to eke or add^

:! <i

i '•

- ■ ■ i

! >' ■,; ■ '. ■

■i-r

■: 1^'

•^1

: i :

/"■'; I

11:1 i

i» : j

I \
■*•■ ']■ Ik '

n -ii-'

B:!

wll ^

;! i ;:

III i

THE ENQLISII LANG U AC K.

inag'^ switlic iincatho''^ forbeddan'®! Wei la wei!''^ Ilwaet! •
may very difficuUly forbid: Alas! What!

• • Thii he forth on thset leoht com,^^ thd

Wlim he forth into the liglit came, then
besedh®^ he hine underbaec, with^^ thajs wffes: thd losede*'
looked he ... bacJeioard, towards the woman: then toas-lost
he<5 him sona.®* Thas^' spell laerath^*' gchwylcnc^^ man,

she to-him straigUway. TJiis story teacheth every ma%
thaet he hine ne besid^^ to his ealdum®^ yfelum,^° swd''^ thaet he

thai he

not look to his old vices, so that he

hf fallfremme,»2 swd he hf ser^s dyde.'^*
them practise^ as he them htfore did.

8. We must not quit our Pure Mother-Tongue without glancing
at a specimen of tliat very singular Poetry, of which she has trans-
mitted to us so many efforts. Its characteristics, both in diction
and in versification, have ah'eady been briefly explained.

They may be sufficiently illustrated by the few following verses,
taken from a passage of Csedmon, which relates the destruction of
Pharaoh's host in the Ked Sea. That the nature of the metre may
be easily perceptible, each half-couplet is marked off in the original
by a colon.*

w See Note 31.

77 Adv. from unea^ (literally, un-tasy) ; firom un privative (German, o%n«,
without), tnd eath^ easy.

78 From /or (here negative, as the German ver) and leCdan^ to bid or com-
mand ; pret. beiid, bude, bod; par tie. boden.

7» Etymology and spelling aoubtful ; Old English, weU-awayt

M Inf. cuman; pres. tccunte, hecymth; pret. com; partic. eumen.

8» See Note 73. « see Note 43. ,

^ Lotian, to lose ; also, as here, to be Jost, or to perish.

M English, soon. The Anglo-Saxon, <unu, means son. Tlio Anglo-Saxon
Sunne, sun : it is feminine because of Nprse mytliology ; as numa, moon,
is, for the same reason, masculine.

» Used for thia; See Note 59.

M Inf. laran; substantive Icere, lore (Scottish, laiff lear).

B7 Accusative, in the indefinite form, of gehwylc, every, whatever ; firoin
hwylCf what, which.

08 Subjunctive. See Note 73. » See Note 4.

«> Dat. plur. otyfetj evil. »* Siod-awdf so-as.

» Fhdljremman, to fulfil; from full, full, and /remman, to frame.

^ Adv. earlier, ere ; superlative, (trat, soonest, erst, first.

M Infin. d6n, to do ; pres. tcd6; thu dht, he deth or d6th, we duth ; pret.
ie dyde, tM dydeat, lie dyde or did, toe dydon; partic. gedun; imperat. d6 thU.

* Thorpe's " Coedmon's Metrical Paraphrase of Parts of the Holy Scrip-
tares, with an English Translation, Notes, and a Verbal IndeXv" 1832. Cony*
beve's *' Illustrations of Anglo Saxon Poetry," 1828.

'The)\

INTRODLjrWN OF lllL ELEMENTS.

Ill

Folc W8C8 nfjcrcd:* Fldd egaa- bccw<5m:*
'The) folk Wits ajyuul: ilood/ear came-in:

Castas' gcomre'^: Geafon deathe-hweop :•

Ghosts murmuring gave (the) death-whoap :

Woldon herc^ bicathe : H^mas^ fuiden :

Would (the) host hliOiely homes find.

A'c behindan beleac:® Wyrd^^ mid waege:

Bui behind locked (them) : Fate with (the) wave.

Strcamas stddon: Storm ap-gewdt:^*

Streams stood: Storm up-went :

Weollon" wael-bcnna:" Wfte-rdd" gefeol:^*

Rolled corpses (of) men : (the) punishment-rod feU

Hedh of heofonum:^^ Hand-weorc Godes.^^

high fi'om heavens, hand-work of-God.

* Afeard, Old English.

3 Jigaa is a rare word, and here obscnrely nsed.

* From becuman (whence English become), to enter, to happen.

* Nom. sin^. ga$t; Scottish, gkaiat.

" Oermtan, jammer ; Scottish, j/amm«r.

A fresh instance of the true Saxon form of ottr modem teh-.

7 Heer, German. ^ Nom. sing. Mm; gon. hdmea; Scottish, hame.

" Inf. helucan ; partic. helocen.

10 Old English and Scottish, lodrd', " The weird sisters."— ilfock^.

" Inf. gewitan, to depart.

■^ Fret, of toeallan, to spring or boil up ; weaU, feyll, or luell, a well.

13 Wcel (German, toahlstatt, a battle-field), slaughter ; thence a dead bod/.
Iknn, a man (rare).

1* Substantives were compounded together in Anglo-Saxon, as freely as in
modem German. The toite (Scottish for blame) was the fine paid to the com-
munity by a mm-derer.

16 Int. feallan ; met. feoll, gefeoHj partio. gefeaUen.

10 Dat. plur. of neofon ^ derived rrom heafen, partic. of Aebban, to raise, to
heave. Another derivative is hedfod, a head.

17 Ood, the Holy Name, (vrith short vowel,) from the adjective g6d, good.
Inversely, man in Anglo-Saxon is used derivatively to mean sin.

V i '

';tl;.i:l ii-^

V' H

1;!'

! ' I'M*

& '•

113

T1I£ ENtiUSH LANGUAQS.

^ CHArTEU II.

THE SEMI SAXON PERIOD.
A. D. 10C6--A. D. 1250.

TBANSITION OF THE SAXON TONGUE INTO THE ENULISa.

1. Character of the Language in this Stage— Duration of the Period.— 2. The
Kinds of Corruptions — Illustrated by Examples. — 3. Extract from
the Saxon Chronicle Translated and Analyzed. — i. Layanion's Brut—
Aiulysis of its Language — Comparison with Language of tiie Clironicle.
— 5. Extract from Layamon Translated and Analyzed.

1. We arc next to watch the Anglo-Saxon language at the earliest
stages in that series of mutations, by which it passed into the
Modem English.

When these began, it is not possible to say with precision. It
cannot have been much later tlian the Norman Conquest ; it may
liave been a century earlier, and probably was so. Our manu-
scripts show some tokens of them ; and, as there is reason to be-
lieve, they appeared soonest in the Northern Dialect.

At present it may suffice for us to know, that the changes as*
Bumed, in succession, two very distinct types, marking two eras
quite dissimilar.

First came a period throughout which the old language was pal-
pably suiToring disorganization and decay, without exhibiting any
symptoms which the most intelligent observer could, at the time,
have interpreted as presaging a return to completeness and consbt-
cncy. This was a Transition-era, a period of confusion, alike per-
plexing to those who then used the tongue, and to those who now
endeavour to trace its vicissitudes. The state of chaos came to
an end about the middle of the thirteenth century, a little earlier,
or a little later. One of our best antiquaries sets down its close as
occurring about the year 1230.* These approximate dates give it a
duration of nearly two centuries from the Conquest. It is to this

• Sir f rcilerick Madden ; in hi< Edition of l4i7»mon'8 ^rut, 18^ •

4^ i I

TRANSITION OF SAXON INTO ENGLISH.

113

ttage of the language that our philologers now assign the name of
Semi-Saxon.

With it, in the meantime, our business lies. We shall afterwards
study the second era, that period of lie-constructior, duruig the
whole of which the language may correctly be described as^English.

2. Let a classical scholar imagine a case like this. In the Dark
Ages of Italy, when the Latin was spoken barbarously, and the new
language had not yet come mto being, an ill-educated Roman monk
endeavours to chronicle the calamities of the Eternal City, duly
remembering those of his own convent. The etymology and syntax
of a complex language, whose rules he has never studied, will faro
badly in his hands. The forms of the Latin verb, for instance, will
be prodigiously simplified, the personal pronouns being carefully pre-
fixed to prevent mistakes : and, this precaution having been taken,
" nos scrips! " will seem quite as good as " nos scripsimus.*' The
tioublesomi government of the prepositions, too, will be escaped
from, as soon as it has become the fashion to give nouns no case
but one; and "sub mens" may, perhaps, be forced to do duty
both for " sub monte" and " sub montem." The genders of sub-
stantives, again, will often be used wrongly, in a language which
determines these chiefly by the endings of the words. The voca-
bulary itself, although it will hold out longer than the grammar,
cannot answer all the demands which an ill-instructed writer has to
make on it. Our Roman annalist may, when he is lamenting the
mischiefs ^ rought by Totila the Goth, recollect, for some idea he
has, no fit word but one which had been let fall by the barbarian
troops in their occupation of the city, and had taken root on the
banks of the Tiber.

Now, although this was not in all points what happened in Italy,
it was, substantially, the earliest part of the process by which the
Anglo-Saxon tongue passed, through a state of ruin, into the regu-
lar English. The later parts of the Saxon Chronicle were composed
exactly in the circumstances of the imaginary case ; and some of
the results are close parallels to those which are there figured. The
language wintten is nothing else than ungrammatical Anglo-Saxon,
inflection and syntax being alike frequently incorrect; and the
leading solecisms are plainly such as must have been current in
the time of the writers, being the rudiments of forms which soon
became characteristic features in the infant English. The intro-
duction of new words from Norman roots is rare ; but some of the
instances are curious. We cannot suppose the poor monk of Peter-
borough, writing in the twelfth century, to have forgotten his native
word for " peace." But, in registering the death of Henry th^

^! i

■ 1 1 I • ; 7

! ' !

' ?-■

I TV

>■''

114

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

fim

First, he disdained to bestow, on the quiet which that able king
enforced throughout England, the sacred name which suggested the
idea of freedom.*

3. The passage which will illustrate for us this state of things,
is from'the Saxon Chronicle. It occurs in a frightful descriptluii
of the miseries inflicted on the peasantry by the nobles, during tlie
disturbed reign of Stephen. Therefore it must have been written
after that kmg's death; though it bears the date of 1137.f

Hi Bwencten^ the^ wrecce' men of the land* mid
Tliey oppressed the wretched men of the land with

castel •
castle-

weorces.* Th^ the castles® waren'^ maked,^ tha fylden"
voorks. When the castles were made, tlien Jillcd

hi mid yvele men.**^ Tha namen^^ hf thd^^ men the

they (fJtem) with evil men. Then took they Vie men whom

iM^

I'M' ■

iii

> Infin. swencan, to vex, fatigue, labour; old Englisli, smnk^ nscd \>y
Milton. The preterite jilural retains its final syllable, but not purely : it
should be awenctoa. This -tn for -on was one of the most permanent of the
changes.

> The Undeclined article, formerly used often for the Declined, was now
used almost always.

9 Should be voreccan. The writer has lost one of the nicest distinctions of
the Anglo-Saxon, that between the Definite and the Indefinite forms of the
adjective (as in modem German^.

* The Nominative for the Dative lande. The monk has forgotten the regi-
men of the preposition, or did not know the declension, or never thought of tlie
matter. An old Anglo-Saxon, indeed, would have used the genitive of land
without a preposition.

' Here tne Dative plural voeorcum is lost, and the Nominative used instead.

* A double corruption. (1.) Cattel should have been declined in one of
the neuter forms, which gives the nominative plural like the nominative sin-
gular. (2.) The masculine form which the monk attempts to follow, should
have its nominative plural in -as. See the Extract from Alfred, Note 42. Ob-
serve, further, that the simplest of the masculine declensions of the Anglo-
Saxon (which is exemplifiea in the note just referred to), was the one that
lingerea longest, and founded our English possessive and plural.

' For toasron. See Note 1.

* For maeod or gemaood; from inf. macian.
» See Note 1.

'0 Nominative for Dative both in substantive and adjective.
1* See Note 1. The word is from inf. niman (German, nehmen), still pre-
served in thieves' slang, and in the name of Shaksneare's Corporal Nym.
i< An accusative plual, not unauthorized by older use.

• Peace in Anglo-Saxon is frith {Ocxm. Jriede) ; Free is ^rc^ or frid: but
some of thehr derivatives seem to interoliange meanings. " Peace (pais,
Norman, the modem paix)" says the monk, in summing up tlie character of
the king, ** peace he made for man and beast."

t Ingramii " Saxon Chronicle, with an Englbih Translation," 1823.

TRANSITION OF SAXON INTO ENGLISH.

116

i\e king
istcd the

f things,
scription
iring tlic
n written

i castel •
h castlc-
i fylden^
in Jillcd
ncn the
nen whom

iJfc, used \>y

purely: it

uieut of the

ud, was now

stinctions of
orms of tlie

tcntheregi-
louglitofthe
itive of land

used instead,
jd in one of
minative sin-
»now, should
[ote42. Ob-
f the Anplo-
the one that

in), still pre-
Iral Nym.

mfri6: but

I Peace {pais,

character of

L" 1823.

h( wdnden^' thaet ani" g<5d hefdcn,^" bathe^c be nihtes"

they thought tfuit any goods (tJiey) Juid, both by night
and be daeies.^^ Me^'-* henged'^^ up bi tlic fdt,^^ and

and by day. (Some) men hanged {they) up by the feet, and
smoked'^ hcom mid fiil^^ smoke : '^* me dide^'"' cnotted-'^

smoked them with foul smoke : {some) men did {they) knotted
Btrenges abdtan here^^ hajved,^^ and wn'thcn-'-* to-thoct"*" it"^
strings about their head, and twisted till it

gsede''^ to the hajnies.^^
went to the brain.

4. Our cursory survey of the Semi-Saxon brings us now to
lAayamon's Metrical Chronicle, the " Brut," which belongs to the
end of the twelfth century, or the beginning of the thirteenth.

The editor of the poem has subjected its language to a masterly
analysis, the chief results of which are easily understood, and pro-

" See Note 1. From inf. wenan; ic wdne, I ween (old English).

1* For dniff or anig ; the Terminating Consonant dropped.

IS For ?uBJfdon: Bee Note 1. Irrcgulai'itics of spelling are constant in the
Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of all ages.

10 The original of both (Scottish, baith) ; but the pure Anglo-Saxon is (ad-
jective) bd, begen, or bdtwa (both-two).

" Meant as a Genitive of niht : a praiseworthy attempt at grammar. But
(1.) niht seems to have properly nihte in the genitive. (2.) lie or bH should
have had a dative, mJite. The word nihtes, by night (like modern German),
used adverbially, would have been good Anglo-Saxon.

18 For dcegesy genitive of dag ; should have been the dative, deege : See
Note 17. Good Anglo-Saxon is dceges, by day.

19 Very common in Semi-Saxon MSS., for man or men.

* A very instructive example of innovations. The irregular verb h6n, to
hang, has in pret. ic heng, toe hengon. Our monk and his contemporaries,
(1.) seem to have fonaed a new mfinitivc, such as hengan ; (2.) they have
made from it a regular preterite henged (more correctly hengede) ; (3.) they
have then dropped the plural tenninatitm, which would nave given hengedon.
Tins loss of tne Last Syllable in the Plurals is especially noteworthy. For
it is a decided ste*.:) towards I'juglish.

" Hing.fot' plur./ota, or sometimes /c't; see also Note 4.

** Inf. ameocan, snUician, or amican (Scottish, smeeh) ; pret. ic amedc, we
tnmcon. The Plural -on is lost ; See Note 20.

^ The adjectivt. robbed of its caaes ; should be dat./tfZum.

2* Smetice, smece, or smice, dat.

2-'^ Plural termination lost ; See Note 20. For the verb, see Alfred, Note 94.

^ V or aiottede J Plural of adjective lost.

" For hira or Mora; see Alfred, Note 11.

■' Correctly, hea/od. Grammar right, (purhaps by accident,) nlnitnn taking
an accusative, and the noun having the nominative and accusative alike.

''^ Inf. writJum (English, writhe) ; See Note 1.

^ To-thait, for otli, or soniri such word : unusual.

'* Correctly, ?iit. See Alfred, Note 11. AnothiM- a^proacTi to English.

^ An attempt to inflect an irregular vorb rcgiilnrly. For tiie verb, see
Alfred, Note 44.

** A noon singular ; perhaps not olu Anglo-Saxon , (Scottish, hams.)

;;:i>: H

'' ' !

f:t

« '

i'^

Thiji^;

!j 1
■ 'II

II, I

* '!

t:,' -v;i

THE ENOLISH LANGUAGE.

vide very valuable materials for those who study the early history
of our English tongue.

We have to take account, first, of the words constituting the
vocabulary ; and, secondly, of the manner in which these are dealt
with when they are combined in sentences.

The Vocabulary is especially instructive. Written a century
and a half after the Norman Conquest, the Brut 1ms hardly any
words that are not Anglo-Saxon. Containing more than thirty-two
thousand lines, it has not, ui the older of its two manuscripts, so
many as fifty French words, although we include in the list new
words taken through that tongue from the Latin ; and, of those
which it has, several had been introduced earlier, being found in
the Saxon Chronicle. In a more recent text, supposed to belong
to the reign of Henry the Third, about thirty of the French words
are retained, and upwards of forty others are added.

We have thus decisive proof of an assertion, which we fomid
reason to believe when we reviewed the literature of the Norman
period. The immediate effects of the Conquest, even on the Vo-
cabulary of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, were by no means so con-
siderable as they were once believed to have been.

lu respect of Etymology and Syntax, again, Layamon's devia-
tions from the Anglo-Saxon are set down for us in several articles ;
and of them we may take, first, those (and the proportion is sur-
prisingly large) of which it happens that instances have occurred
to us in our short extract from the Saxon Chronicle.

First : There is a general disregard of Inflections in the Substh.n-
tives : and Masculine forms are given to neuters in the plural. Indeed,
the inflections of the Anglo-Saxon nouns were so complex, that our
gi'ammars are not yet quite at one in describing them. Instances,
which have just been noted in the Chronicle, lead us towards this
very important fact; that the declension which lingered longest
was the simplest of those that had been used for Masculine Substan-
tives, a declension giving a genitive singular in -es, and a nominative
plural in -as. The plural ending was, as we have seen, corrupted
into -68 ; the declension, so changed, then usurped the place of the
more difficult ones in a great in^jority of the most common words;
and this was the foundation of our modem genitive in \ and of
our plural in a ores.

Secondly : There was a like disregard of Gender, which had in
roost instances been fixed by termination, according to rules both
difficult and uncertain, like those which still perplex learners in
the continental Gothic tongues. Not only were the names ofj
things without life masculine, feminine, or neuter, according to i

TRANSITION OF SAXON INTO ENGLISH.

117

their endings ; but some names of living creatures were neuter, the
termination overbearing the meaning.* Confusion was inevitable
In a time when the language was neglected : and a very obv ous
remedy presented itself, after a while, in our modem rule of deter-
mining all genders by the signification of the words.

Thirdly : Tho Definite and Indefinite Declensions of Adjectives
arc confounded ; and the Feminine terminations of adjectives and
/ronouns are neglected. We have seen, in the Chronicle, the in-

ectional terminations of the adjectives disappearing altogether ;
.lit hough some of these did not altogether lose their hold for many
gcnerations.f

Fourthly : there is an occasional use of the Weak preterites and
participles of verbs, (the forms which our grammarians have been
accustomed to call Kegular,) instead of the Strong or Irregular forms.

Fifthly : There is a constant substitution of -en for -on in the
I'hirals of Verbs; and the final -e is often discarded.

Sixthly : There is great uncertainty in the Government of Pre-
positions.

Having already encountered all the corruptions thus enumerated,
we have really few others to learn, and none that are nearly so
impoitunt. A few there are, however, which throw light on the
fonnation of the new tongue.

Besides the article an (still used also as a numeral, and declined),
our other article a now appears, being used as indeclinable, and
prcllxed to consonants, as with us. The gender of nouns, pretty
correct in the earlier text, is less so in the later ; and the feminmc
is often neglected altogether. In respect of pronouns, the accusa-
tive him for hine, (already traceable in the Chronicle,) appears fre-
quently in the later text ; and in it, too, the relative takes the un-
decllned form woche, instead of the older while or wide. The con-
jugation of verbs is generally that of the Anglo-Saxon, with the
exceptions already noted : but it sufl'ers also certain other changes,
which lead us fast towards English. The preposition to is uiserted
before infinitives ; the common infinitive termination -an is changed
into -en (as likewise elsewhere the final -a into rc) ; the final -n of

* Thtis, ttrf/J a woman, was neuter. The word wjis not promoted to the
dignity of real gender till it was compounded in tcif-man (literally, a female'
man), whence comes looman.

t "All the indefinite inflections of the adjective may bo found in the manu-
scripts of the thirteenth century ; but there is much inconsistency in tho
manner of using them, and that sometimes even in the same manuscript.
The only inflections (of the adjective) which survived long enough to affect
the language of Chaucer and his contemporaries, were those of the nomina-
tive and genitive plural." Guest : in the Transactioius of the Philological
Society; vol. i. : 1844.

■( !

lid

TUK ENGLISU LANGUAGE.

the infinitive is omitted, sometimes in the earlier manuscript, &nd
generally in the later ; and a difficult gerundive form in -nne or ne,
(which has not happened to occur to us,) is indeed retained, but is
confounded with the present participle in -nde, the original of our
participle in -ing.

6. A few lines of the Brut, with the scantiest annotation^ may
suffice to exemplify these remarks, and serve, in some degree, a*" •»
gi'ound of comparison with the older diction of the Chronicla

Our extract is from the account of the gi'eat battle of liativ, c
which the illustrious Arthur is said to have signally discomfited the
Saxons. The semi-stanzas are separated by colons.*

.i)\

Thcr weoren Saixisce men : follcen^ alro^ jermest ;'
27ia'e were Saxon men of -folks all most-uordched ;
And th^ AlemaiiJsce men : geomerest* aire leoden:^
And the Alemannish men saddest of-all nations.
Arthur mid his sweorde : fa5ie-scipe® wurhte :
Arthur loiih his sword death-ivorh lorought.
Al that he smat to : hit wes sono^ fordon :
All that he smote to, it was soon done-far.
Al wa3s the king abolgen : ^ swil bith^ the wilde bar :
All was the Icing enraged, 03 is the mid hoar.

* * « ♦ !^

Th^ isaeh Arthur : athelest^'' kingen :^^
When saio Arthur, noblest of-hings,
Whar^2 Colgrim at-stod : and sec staP^ wrohte ;
Where Colgrim at-stood, and eke place worked,
Thd clupede the king : kenliche lude :

Tlien called the king, keenly loud:

* . ■ * » m

* For Jblca] genitive plural, aifolc.

^ Ealra (sometimea olrd^ is the correct genitive plural of call or aU.
8 \Aier &\\y, poorest (German). * bee Caednion, Note 5.

* For leoaa; from Icod (German, hut^).

Literally, fey-ship ; Anglo-Saxon, /age ; Scottish, fey. Sec Guy Man-
iiering.

' For sotia. 8 Qood Anglo-Saxon from inf. ahelgan, •

8 Good Anglo-Saxon. The verb "6con, to be, gives, in tlie present, ic led,
thu hjst, he hjth ; and wesan, to be, gives ic com, thu eai't, lie ts.

V> Superlative from the Anglo-Saxon, ccthel or etliel (German, edel).

U The error marked in Note 1. ^^ Modern spelling, for hto-.

IS Ilence stall; perhaps here it means Jight ; whence stalwart, brave.

* Madden's Layamon, iii. 468-471 ; the text of the older manuscript. Tho
passage, with a translation, is also in Guests *' lliistory of English Uhythms/'
vol. ii. 1838,

TBANSITION OF 8AX0N INTO ENGUSH.

Nd him is al Bvri there gat : thcr ho^^ thene hul wat :

Now to-him is all as to-ihe goat, where she the hill keeps.

Thenne cumeth the wiilf wilde : touward hire winden i^''

T/ien comes the wolf wild, toward her tracks:

Theh the wulf beon^*^ ane : biiten aelc imane :^^

Tlumgh the wolf he one, without all company,

And ther \veoren in ane loken : fif hundred gaten :

And there were in one fold five hundred goats,

Tlie wulf heom to iwiteth : ^^ and alle heom abiteth :

The wolf them to cometh, and all them hiteth.
* « • •

Icb am wulf, and he is gat : the gume^^ seal been fide :'^
I am wolf, and he is goat : the man shall be fet/f

^* The word gat is first used correctly as feminine, being joined M-ith
llicre: and then it is held as 'masculine, being represented by he. But,
possibly, he may be a corruption for the feminine Iie6, which seems to have
sometimes taken that form in the later dialect of the west. See Tr<msac-
tions of the X>hiIdK>g^cal Society : vol. i.p. 279: 1814.

^ A noun from mndtm, to wmd or twme.

i> Plural of subjunctive ; wrongly nsed for singular.

u From man ; as the Old English and So&ttisli word, menye or metnget a

oompanv.
u YFuun, to depart

18 Aiiglo-Saxou, gima. '^ See NoteO.

■'■■ ,1

\§

I !

120

TUG GNGUSII LANGUAOS.

..rii

ii-

/ CHAPTER nL i

THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD.
A. D. 1250— A. D. 1500.

FORMATION OF THE STRUCTURE OP THE ENGLISH TONQUB.

] . Principle of the Change — Inflections deserted — Suhstitates to be fonnj—
The First Step already exemplified. — 2. Stages of the Re-Construction—
Early English— Middle English. Early Enqmsii. — 3. Character of the
Early English — Specimens. — i. Extract from The Owl and the Night-
ingale. — 5. Extract from the Legend of Thomas Recket. Middle
English.— 6. Character of Middle English- The Main Features of the
Modem Tongue established — Changes in Grammr -Changes in Vo-
cabulary- Specimens— Chaucer.— 7. Extracts from Prologue to the Can-
terbury Tales.— 8. Extracts from the Knight's Tale. — 9. Specimen of
Chaucer's Prose.- 10. Language in the Early Part of the Fifteenth Cen-
tury—Extract from Lydgate's Churl and Bird. — 11. Language in the Lat-
ter Part of the Fifteenth Century — Its Character — The Structure of the
English Tongue substantially Completed— Extract from The Paston Let-
ters. The Lanouaoe of Scotland. — 12. A Gothic Dialect in North-
Eastern Counties — An Anglo-Saxon Dialect in Southern Counties —
Changes as in England. — 13. The Scottish Tongue in the Fourteenth
Century — Extract from Barbour's Bruce. — 14. Great Changes in the Fif-
teenth Century — Extract from Dunbar's Thistle and Rose.

I. Escaping from the perplexities of the Semi-Saxon, we have
reached an era in which the language may reasonably be called
English. The principles in respect of which our modem speech
dcv*; tes from its Germanic root, now begin to operate actively.

Some of the changes which have already been observed by us,
(suggest and illustrate these principles : others may seem to lead us
away from them. The primary law is exemplified by very many o(
the words we have analyzed. It is this.

The Anglo-Saxon, like the Latin, though not to the same extent,
was rich in inflections : a given idea being denoted by a given word,
many of the modifications of that idea could be expressed by changes
in the form of the word, without aid from any other words. In
the course of the revolution, most of the inflections disappeared.
Consequently, in expressing the modifications of an idea denoted

111 i^

THE PEBIOD OF EARLY ENOUSB.

121

by a given word, the new language has oftenest to join with thni
word other words denoting relations.

Such a change occurs when the inflections of a Latin verb
iiave their place supplied by auxiliary verbs, and those of the noun
by prepositions. It is exemplified when the genitive " Romse" ir
translated into the French " De Rome," and " Nos amavimus "
into " Nous avons aim^."

The first step of it has been exemplified, again and again, in the
Scmi-Saxon passages which we have analyzed. If we were to tn
the experiment of blotting out, in our extracts, every word that has
not had its inflection corrupted, we should find that very few words
indccd were left. Sometimes a word has lost its inflected part, ami.
along with it, the idea expressed by the inflection. Many word-*
which originally had diverse inflected tciTninations have all been
made to end alike, the inflection thus coming to signify nothing.
Perhaps, also, it may have occurred to some readers, that the verbs
had sufTered less alteration than the substantives and adjectives.
If we have made this remark on the few words contained in onr
specimens, we had better not lose sight of it. It will immediately
appear to be true universally.

2. We now enter on the period of Re-construction, which may bo
described as extending from the middle of the thirteenth century
through the fourteenth and fifteenth. The language of those two
liMiidrcd and fifty years may be called Old English.

It first appears in a state so equivocal, that we may be inclined
to doubt wlicther it deserves to be called English at all. But
when we leave it, at the close of this period, it has assumed a shape
ronlly difierent in no essential feature from the English of modern
times. The critic to whom we owe our dissection of Layamon*s
Sciiii-Saxon has proposed, for the sake of convenience, to arrange
this new development of the tongue in two successive stages. The
first of these, reaching for a century from his approximate date of
1230, he calls Early English. Ho gives the name of Middle Eng-
lisli to the speech of the period between 1330 and 1500.

It is not possible to fix on any point of time, at which the dis-
tinction between the two stages is clear on both sides. Nor, though
we disregard dates, is the line between the two marked very deeply,
at all its points, by internal characteristics. Yet there are evident
steps of progress, which may aptly be denoted by the use of the two
descriptive terms.

EARLY ENGLISH.

3. As our usher into the region of the Early English, we may

'.yii

■1:M1

:: :,r

■If

' •*' i

Al'

122

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

accept tho fine puein of " The Owl and the Nightln^'ale,** alrcad}
described when we were introduced to the poetry of tlie Norman
period. It occupies a doubtful position, both in the cliaracter ut
its language and in respect of its date, which perhaps should not be
carried forward so far as even the beginning of the fourteenth
century.

Still it shows so near an approach to intelligible English, that
our specimen may be risked without a full translation.

4. It will perhaps be obvious, when the extract has been read,
that there is now a distinct cliange in order as well as in structure.
There are not a few remnants of inflection, with many symptoms of
its retirement, and of the accompanying abbreviations. The pas-
sage shows clearly one of the features usually insisted on as char-
acteristic of the earliest stage of the new tongue ; namely, that
the Anglo-Saxon vowels -a, -e, -u, in final syllables, are all of them
represented by -c. The final -» of the infinitive verb is beginning
to disappear ; and the infinitive and the noun, thus ceasing to be
distinguishable by form, alike dropped also, in no long time, the fuial
\'owel. It should be observed, however, that here, when the final
■e represents any voAvel of the older langimge, it ought to make a
syllable, and be reckoned in the accentual scaniung of the line.*

Hule,^ thu axest^ me, (ho' scide),

Gif ich* kon^ eni other dede,

Bute** singen in sumer tide,

And bringij bliss'e^ for^ and wide.

Wi'' axestu^° of craftes" mine?

Betere is min on^^ than alle thine.

And lyst, ich telle the ware-vore.^* ■

— Wostu^* to-than^^ man was i-bore ?^^ >

* Owl; Anglo-Saxon, <2fe. ^ Vulgar English.

s She. The word is almost nnre Anglo-Saxon. !

* For to, I : already met with in Lavamon,
<^ Know, from Anglo-Saxon ; English, con.
« But; Anglo-Saxon preposition, Au ton.

"> Anglo-Saxon dative ; tlie final -e used as a distinct syllable.

* Far; Anglo-Saxon, /cor. . » IVJiy; Auglo-ISaxon, Aioi.
'<> Ashcat thou ; an unessential contraction.

" Crafts, arts; Anglo-Saxon, cne/i; vlnr. crceftaa. " One.

1' Where/ore. " Wotteatthout Jmoioest thout

u To^Jtat; than, a form of tho dative of the article ; used also in Anglo-
Saxon as relative and demonstrative.
^ Bom ; Anglo-Saxon, geboren, from heran.

* Here, and in subsequent extracts, the vowel, both final and in the middle
of words, is marked (* '), when the syllable in which it occurs should be taken
account of in the prosody, and is likely to be overlooked. The text of the
extract is chicily from Wright'^ edition, (Percy Society,) 1843*

THE PERIOD OF EARLY ENGLISU. 1213

To tharo" blisso^^ of hoveno-riche,^'

Thar^^ ever is song and murhthe'^^ i-liche.^
« « « «

Vor-thr-^ men singth^* in holi chircho,

And clerkcs ginnetli^s songes wirche \^^

That man^^ i-thenchii-^ bi the songe,

"Wider-^'-' ho shall : and thav bon^*^ longc,

That he the murhthe ne vorgete,^^

Ac thar-of thcnchu and bigete.^^

« » • «

Hi^' riseth up to^* midcl nichte,

And singeth of the hovene lihte ;
' And prostes^^ upe^'' londe^'^ singeth,

Wane^^ the liht of daie springeth ;
j And ich hom'^ helpe wat*° I mai :

Ich singo mid^^ hom niht and dai !

6. The Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, which in our literary
review was referred to the close of the thirteenth century, has com-
monly been received, and very frequently quoted, as a.i mdisputable
specunen of Early English, and perhaps the oldest that can be
assigned to a fixed date.

Instead of quoting from it, we will take our specimen from one
of the pieces contained in a collection of Monkish Legends, which
have plausibly been attributed to the same author, and are at all
events very like his Chronicle in style. The story mixes up devo-
tion, history, and romance, in a manner which seems to us very
odd, but is quite common in our old literature.

A young London citizen, going on pilgrimage to the Holy Land,
was taken prisoner by the Saracens. The daughter of his master
fell in love with him ; and, when he had made his escape, eloped to

" ITie; Anglo-Saxon, thcere. See Alfred, Note 15.

18 The dative terminatiou here written, but not sounded ; compare Note 7.

*8 Heaven-kingdom.

*• Where; Anglo-Saxon, ihcer, demonstrative and relative,

«i Mirth. 22 Like (obscure). *» There/ore,

3* Tlie termination -th in the plurals of pres. indie, is Anglo-Saxon.

^ Begin. «> To work. 27 Anglo-Saxon for one ; French, cm.

88 Think; subjunctive. ^ Whitlier; Anglo-Saxon, hwider.

*> There may-be ; heun^ Anglo-Saxon : plural of subjunctive for singular.

'* Forget ; subjunctive. "* Seek ; Anglo-Saxon, begitan.

>3 See Alfred, Note 11. ^ At.

** Priests; Anglo-Saxon, preoff. ^ Ujpon. ^ Land,

^ When ; Anglo-Saxon, nweenne.

^ Anglo-Saxon, heom; see Alfred, Note tl.

« }Vhat ; Anglo-Saxon, hwmt, «> See Alfred, Note 43*

J m

■ 8'V; ''

■ ', ■'■'

1 . ( ;

.T 1

||lh

flPurti

V : i- .

•ny^^

V, !.

il^

1- !

I':

lift

H »":'

I ;,:M

-m^i

. .(iw;

. ii s

124

THE EMOLISII LAN'QUAOE.

^ i£i

follow him. With no syllablo of European speech but the one
word " London," she found her way from Jerusalem into England,
and was found by her lover, searching for him through the street
in which he lived. She was, of course, christened and married to
him : and their son was the celebrated Thomas ^ Becket.

The following are a few of the opening lines in the Legend which
celebrates the ambitious saint and martyr. The measure is tho
common metre of the psalms, the four lines being here written in
two, and the break indicated, as before, by a colon. It will nut
cscjipe notice that we now begin to encounter French words, alniust
always expressing ideas which had become familiar to the pcopU
tlu'ough their Norman masters.*

Gilbert was Thomas fader name : that true was and god.

And lovcde God and holi churche : siththc^ he wit understod.

The croice'* to the holie lend : in his yunghede^ he nom,''

And mid on^ Richard, that was his maii : to Jerusalem com.

Tliere hi^ dude^ here^ pelrynage :^ in holi stedlis^*^ faste ;

So tliat among the Sarazyns : ynome^^ hi were atte laste.

Hi and other Cristene men : and in strong prisoun^^ ido,^^

In meseise^* and in pyne ynough : of hunger and chile also,

For ful other half yer :^^ greate pjmc hi hadde and schamc.

In the Princes hous of the lawe : Admiraud^*' was his name.

Ac Gilbert of London: best grace^^ hadde there.

Of the Prince and alle his : among alle that ther were.

For oftij al in feteres : and in other bende,^**

The Prince he servedU atte mete : for him thochte^^ hendc.^'*
• • * «

And nameliche^i thurf^^ a maid : that this Gilbert lovcde liisto.

The Prince's douchter Admiraud :
him caste.

that hu*e luu'te'^^ al upe-*

'i t»

iS^nce. * French, instead of the Anglo-Saxon, rCd, rood.

» Youth. Tho Anglo-Saxon termination -Jicd gives our -hood.

* Took; see Saxon Chronicle, Note 11. ^ One.

* 77i«y; see Alfred, Note 11.

' See Alfred, Note 94 : the u for y occurs in Layamon, and is snid to he
long to a western dialect.

B Tfteir: see Alfred, Note 11. ^ Ptlgritnage; French.

>o Placet. " Taken; See Note 4.

>< French; found in Layamon, second text. ' ^ Done,jput.

'* Miseaae ; perhaps French.

1' Other-half-pear ; i. e. a year and a ludf; good modem German. A
parallel Teutonism is the Scottish lialf-nine o clock, for half-paat eight.

le French ; in I^yamon, second text. " French.

» Daiida. i» Sec Alfred, Note 55. » DexUrouSf handy.

« Especially. » Through. « Heart. ^ Upon.

* Black's " Life and Martyrdom of Thomas Bcket ;" (Ferry Society;) 1845.

TUB PEBIOD OF lODDLE EMOLUn.

125

And eschtU^^ him of Engelonde : and of tlio mancre there,
And of the lyf of Cristene men : and -what here bileve^^ were.
The manere of Engelonde : this Gilbert hire tolde fore,
And the toun het^^ Londone : tlutt he was inne^^ ibore,^^
And the bileve of Cristene men : thu blisse withouten ende,

In hevcne schal here medu^^ beo : whan hi scholle henne^^ wende.^

• • • •

" Ich wole,"^'' heo seide, " al mi lond : leve for love of the,
And' Cristene womman become : if thu wolt spousi^^ me."

MIDDLE ENGLISH.

G. That new stage of the knguage, which has been called Middle
iMiglish, presents itself quite unequivocally in the latter half of the
fourteenth century. It was used by Chaucer and Wycli£fe : we
rend it at this day in passages of our noblest poetry, and in our first
complete translation of the Holy Scriptures.

Thus interesting as the organ both of inventive genius and of
divine truth, it is, in all essentials, so like to our own every-day
speech, that there is hardly any thing except the antique spelling,
(capricious and incorrect in all our old books, besides being unusual,)
to prevent any tolerable English scholar from understanding readily
almost every word of it. Further, it has peculiarities so well
marked as to make it easily distinguishable in every particular
instance, both from the forms of the tongue that are much older,
and from tliose that are perfectly modernized. Yet our philologers
ai'e not quite agreed in their way of describing it.

The truth is this. On the one hand, this form of our language
is easily understood ; because the foundations of the grammatical
system which rules in Modem English had been immovably laid,
and were by all good writers regularly built on. On the other hand,
its exact character is not easily analyzed ; because now, more per^
haps than in any precedmg period, the modes of speech were rapidly
undergoing transformation in minor points. There still lingered
vestiges of the antique, which could not but very soon melt away.
Although, of the Anglo-Saxon forms which the men of tliis genera-
tion inherited, many were immediately dropped, many others were

SB A$led M JSelief. « Ilight, waa called; sec Alfred, Note 18.
* In, in it. » Bom. » Meed, reward.

u Anglo-Saxon, heona, heotum, hence,
n Wend, to ^o ; still in use. » WiU.

** Infinitive in -t, -ti^x or -y ; found in Jjayuuon, and held to be a token of
western dialect

1 !

■Mi!

;t'

I- » h

126

THE £NOLISII LANGUAGE.

still retained after they had lost their old significance: the step
which still remained to bo taken, was the abandoning of the forms
which had thus become useless. Examples arc the vowel-enduigs,
no longer indicative of difference in gender or declension. It is
observable, likewise, that writers evidently had not yet become
aware, how thorough a remodelling of arrangement was called for
l)y the new foi*ms which the nouns had assumed.

A few specific features should be noticed. In the first place, tho
Anglo-Saxon rules for the Gender of Substantives having, as we
liave seen, been long applied with great caprice and uncertauity, the
principle of fixing gender by termination was now deserted nlto-.
gether. All names of things without life were, as ever afterwards,
treated as neuters. The Semi-Saxon Infinitive in -en was some-
times retained ; sometimes the final -n w^as dropped, as it soon was
always ; and this step was speedily followed by the dropping of the
-c, which had then become of no use. Another change now grew
common in the Plurals of the Present Indicative. These had ended
in 'Oth, afterwards in -eth (or in -ea in the northern Semi-Saxon,
as, " We hopes"). They now passed into -c», though not al-
ways.*

One other change, and that a mighty one, now affected the Vo-
cabulary. This, as we learned long ago, was the age during which
began in earnest the naturalizing of words from the French. The
innovations which the terrors of the Norman lash had been power-
less to enforce, were voluntarily adopted by the literary men. ad-
miringly emulous of the wealth of expression offered by their foreign
poetical models. There is only a slight introduction of French
words in such books as Piers Plowman, appealing to national and
practical interests, and expressly designed for circulation among the
mass of the people. But Chaucer's poems, and Gowcr's, are studded
all over with them : and the style of these favourite writers exer-
cised a commanding influence ever after.

In reading a few passages from Chaucer, we must take with us
one or two rules as to his vcr.4F<2ation, a matter not yet altogctlier
clear, but much less dark than it once was. We must call to mind,
once again, the doctrine, (which cannot be too anxiously uisisted on,)
that here, as elsewhere in our language, the safest way of scanning
is by the accents, not by the number of syllables. The versification
of Clu'istabel, and that of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, are good

* Tlie plural form in -ih has lately been found surviving in a peculiar dia-
lect occupying the barony of Forth, in tho Irish county' of Wexford.^ The
district was colonized by EnglislimRn, brought over by Strongbow in tliS
year 1170. Traosactious of tUo Philological Society, vol. iv. 1850.

THE PERIOD OF MIDDLE ENOLISII.

127

modem examples : indeed they arc modelled on our antique poetry.
This principle we should apply boldly, remembering that vto read
verses constructed in an unripe dialect, and in an uncritical time.
If we freely run unemphatic syllables into each other, a manly and
vigorous melody will often be heard in lines which would defy all
scrupulous prosody. It is niso important to observe, that tlie em-
pliasis was by no means fixed on certain syllables of words with the
precision of modem pronunciation; that there is great vacillation in
tlie accenting of many common words ; and that the accentuation
of the half-naturalized French forms is especially capricious. The
prosodial value of tlie final -e is still the great point of dissension
among Chaucer's critics. Sometimes it is a syllable ; sometimes it
is not : and contradictory rules have been proposed for distinguish*
iiig the cases. Perhaps the truth is nearly this : that generally,
though not always, tlie -e has a syllabic force when it represents
cither an old inflexion or tlie mute e of the French ; and (it has
also been said) when it is nn adverbial ending. Alany difficult scan-
nings will also be disposed of by this rcinurk ; that the terminat-
ing -e may or should be omitted in pronunciation, when the next
word begins with a vowel or an h.*

7. Our first Extracts are two passages occurring in the Prologue
of the Talcs. They are taken from the description of the Parish
Tricst or Parson, and that of the Squire.

A good man was thcr of relig'ioun,

And was a pore Persoun of a toiin :

lint riche he was of holy thought and work.

He was also a lernod man, a clerk.

That CristiJs gospel truly wolde preclie :•

His parischens^ devoutly would he teche.

Iknigne he was, and wondur diligent,

And in adversity ful pacicnt.

« « * ••

Wyd was his parisch, and houses fer aKrnulur ;-
But he nc lafte'' not* for reyn ne* thondur,

* Parishioners. The u for e which afterwards occurs frcqncntly in final
syllables (as toondur for wonder) is worth noting, it excniplitics tliose in
lerinediate sounds of unaccented vowels, to which our Imiguage owes sc
many of its irregal.'uities both in pronunciation and in spelling.

3 A lino requiring, for the melody, a running together of unaccented syl
hhles. > Left, ceased^ omitted. ^

^ Two negatives ; Anglo-Saxon. * Both not and nor ; here nor.

* Wright's " Canterbury Talcs" (Percy Society) : the text of which i«
followed In the extracts. It will be remarked that the same M-ord is not al-
ways spelt exactly in the same way* This feature of the old manuscripts
8<>«med worth preaerviog*

'III

!!;l4'

jrui!

iJi"

128

THE EMQLISn LANGUAGE.

\ n

i «!

; i^. •'•»''

In sicknesse ne in mescliief to visite

The ferrest^ in his parischc, moche and lite,^

Uppon his feet, and in his hond a staf.

This noble ensample uuto his scheep he gaf,^

That ferst he wroughte, and after that he taughte.

Out of the gospel he tho'** wordes caughte :

And this figure he addid yit tliereto ;

That, if gold rustc, what schulde yren doo ?

For, if a priest be foul, on whom we trustOi

No wondur is a lowid man^<^ to ruste.

• • « •

To drawJJ folk to hcven by faimessc,

By good ensample, was his busynessc :

But** it were eny persone obstinat.

What 80^2 he were, of high or lowe estat:

Him wolde he snybbe*^ fichai*ply for the nones.**

A bettre priest I trowe thcr nowher non is.

He waytud after no pomp ne reverence;

Ne maked him a spiced conscience.

But Cristcs love, and his apostles twelve,

He taught; and ferst he folwed it himselvel

With him* ther was his sone, a yong squyer,

A lovyer, and a lusty bacheler;

With lokkes cruUe'' as' they were layde in presse :

Of twenty yeer he was of age, I gesse.

Of his stature he was of evene lengthe.

And wondurly dely ver,* and gret of strengths

And he hadde ben somtyme in chivachie,^

In Flaundrcs, in Artoys, and in Picardie,

And bom him wel, as in so litel space,

In hope to stonden in his lady grace.

Embrowdid^ was he, as it were a mede

Al ful of fresslie floures, white and reede.^

Syngynge he was, or flowtinge,^ al the day :

He was as fressh as is the moneth of May !

* FarthMt. ' Great andtmdU. > See Note 2.
' An approach to those.

*o A ^ffodtnan, i. e. a lawman; very common in Old English.
*^ Umess. M The rudiments of toAa<iO0rer.

*' Chide ; familiarly, tnvb.
** For Vie ooMnon ; common till long after Shakspeare.

* The Kuigbt, described by the poet imm'^diatoly before.

* Curled. * Asif. * AgUe; a ward common in the roniancei.
KnighUy tDot/are. * Embroidend. ' Ited. * Fluting.

TU£ PEiaOD OF MIDDLE LKGLISII. 129

ScLort was his gonne, witli sleeves long and \v}'de.
^ Wei cowde he sitto on hors, and fairii ryde :
He cowde songes wel make and endyte,
Justne^ and eek daunce, and wol purtray and write.^^
Gurteys he was, lowly, and servysable,
And carf" byforn'^ his fadur^* at the table.

8. Our next readings afe from the Knight*s Tale, the Iliad of
the middle-age poetry of England. Palamon and Arcite, Grecian
knights, have been taken prisoners by Theseus, who, as in the Mid-
summer Night's Dream, is Duke of Athens. Imprisoned in a tower
overlooking the palace gardens, they see and fall in love Muth
Emilie, the sister of the Amazon queen Hippolyta. Their former
friendship is now changed into jealousy and hate. Afterwards, the
one escaping and the other being Released, they encounter in a single
combat, which is related whh infinite sphit. Theseus^ coming to
the wood in which they had met, separates them, and proclaims a
touniament, of which the lady diall be the prize. The passages
describing the adornment of the lists, and the supernatural agency
which presides over the strife, are among the most strikingly beau-
tiful in English poetry. Not kss admirable is the touching close.
A seeming accident, caused by the gods, destroys Arcite ; and he
dies, after commending Palamon to the favour of his lady.

The following passages contain the description of May morning
which precedes the intennipted duel, and a few verses from the last
words of Arcite.

The busy larkg, messager of daye,
Salue^^ in hirH^ song the morwe' gray ;
And fyry Phebus ryseth up so bright.
That td the orient kugheth of the light ;
And with his t^tm>U dryeth in the groves^
The silver dro^ ts^ hofttgyag on the leeves.
And knkf, that ffi 2b the tovaet tySi^
With ThefeeuR, hi s si^nySf principal,

h '

it* I

* Jma*: foriMVwi; p«lrb«pf • nUi-spAlUng.

i<* Hn '>ould both oopy mantuonpta and iUuminate them with paintings.
»i '.. nL » jS^bf^ ^^ Father.

1 To b« pmnotuKed in onlj two qrllabloi.

* Pure Anglo-Baxon { used also bj Clkooer for heora.

BeeAlfred,NotelI.

• JAom, nwrroWk

* OnMte* ; AtiKlo-Saton ochrlj ; Chasoer has grove n* o in
" lioi/iil ; one of the French words which occur aimo:

itiib pamage.
iu every Ud«.

I! a '

130

THE EXGLTSII LANGUAGE.

Is risen, and loketli® on the mery day.
And, for to doon'^ his Observance to May,
Remembryng of the poynt of his desire,
He on his courser, stertyng m the fire,
Is riden into feeldes him to ploye,
Out of the court, were it a myle or tweye.
And to the grove, of which that I yow^ tolde,
By ^venture his wey he gan to holde ;
To make him a garland of the greves.
Were it of woodewynde' or hawthorn Icves.
And lowde he song agens the sonne scheene:^^
" May, with al thyn floures and thy greene,
Welcome be thou, wel faire freissche May I"

This al and som, that Arcyte moste^ dye :
For which he sendeth after Emelye,
And Palamon, that was his cosyn deere.
Than seyd he thus, as ye schul^ after hecre.

" Naught may the wofvl spurit in myn herte
Declare a poynt of my sorwes' smerte"*
To you, my lady, that I love most.
But I byquethe the service of my gost
To you aboven every creature ;
Syn* that my lyf may no lenger dure.®
Alias, the woo !^ Alias, the peynes strongo,
That I for you have sufired, and so longe I
Alias, the deth I Alias, myn Emelye !
Alias, departing^ of our companye I
Alias, myn hertes queen I Alias, my wyf I
Myn hertes lady, ender of my lyf I
What is this world? What asken men to have?
Now with his love, now in his coldS grave
Allone, withouten eny companye.
Farwel, my swete ! farwel, myn Emelye I

• Ijoohtth; Anglo-Saxon, Jocaffi.

T Do ; from the Anglo-Saxon d&n. See Alfred, Note S4.

• See Alft'd, Note 7.

• Woodhint ; Anfflo-Baxon, vnidvMnd.

>o Bright, hemittfvl; very common in Old English; Anglo-Saxon, tcunt;
Qerman, mJHin, beautifal ; related to the English ahine.
1 Mutt. B Shall; aee Alfrod, Note 2. " 8orrow'$.

« A halting line? ^ Sino$» • See Note 4. * fTotf.

• Farting or dispnrtittp.

on, Kune ;
Voe,

181

t' t

THE PEllIOO OF MIDDLE ENGLISH.

Forget not Falamon, that gentil man I**
And with that word his speche faile gan :'
For fro^*^ his herte up to his brest was come
The cold of deth, that him had overcome.
And yet moreover in his armes twoo
The vital strength is lost, and al agoo.^^
Only the intellect, withouten more,
That dwelled in his herte sik and sore,
Gan fayle, when the herte felte deth.
Dusked his eyghen^^ two, and foyled breth>
But on his lady yit he cast his ye : ^^
His laste word was, " Mercy, Emelye !"

9. Of the Prose of the fourteenth century, a very short specimen
will suffice. It, too, will be furnished by the Canterbury Tales. It
is the beginning of the Tale of Melibeus, describing the injury which
'0 H.e principal character in the narrative was tempted to avenge.

" A yong man called Melibeus, mighty and riche, and his wif
that called was Frudens, had a doughter which that called was
Sophie. Upon a day byfel, that for hi!> desport he is went into the
ttildes him to play. His wif, and his doughter eek, hath he laft
within his hous. Thre of his olde foos^ han'^ it espyed, and setten
laddres to the walles of his hous; and by the wyndowes ben
entred, and betyn^ h^s wif, and woundid hb doughter with fyve
mortal woundes, in fyve sondry places; that is to sayn, in here
foet, in here hondes, in here eercs, in hero nose, and in here mouth ;
and lafte her for deed, and went away.

" Whan Melibeus retoumed was into his hous, and seigh^ al this

raeschu i^, he, lik a man mad, rendyng his clothes, gan wcpe and

crie, Pi-wkns his wyf, as ferforth as^ sche dorste, bysought him

of hk w(»] . yng to stynte. But not forthi® he gan to crie ever lenger

tJ.3 >•■*;,■>;•«,

« • • •

" Thl;^ ^'^ uie wif Frudens suffred hir housbonde for to^ wepe and
eric, as for a certeyn space ; and, whan she seigh hir tyme, sche
sayd him in this wise : * AUas, my lord I' quod sche, * why make ye
youre self for to be lik a fool? Forsothe it appertcyneth not to a
wys man, to make such sorwe.' "

• P'gan. " From. *» Oona.

*^ ^m; AngIo-3azon, sing, eage; plur. eagtm. " JEye.

Foe*. ^ Have. > Beat. « Saw.

t^o far forth as; a phrase retained in the language, though unuaoal.
"i oi thrrffore, nevertheleaa.
^ I4r to. before inftnitivo : long retained ; still used vulgarfy.

«-iiH'

mi:

182

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGU.

w m

10. The poet Lydgato may represent for us the language written
in the first half of the fifteenth century. Yet, admiringly studious
of Chaucer, he is in style a little more antique than he should be.

His story of "The Churl and the Bird" is imitated (he himself
says, rather too modestly, that it is translated) from a favourite
French fabliau. It is a moral apologue. A churl or peasant catches
a bird, which speaks to him, 9nd implores freedom, promismg him,
in return, three golden precepts of wisdom. Released accordingly,
she flies to her tree, and thence delivers the three lessons : first,
that he shoidd not be easy of belief in idle tales ; secondly, that he
dhould never desire things impossible ; thirdly, that he should never
grieve immoderately for that which is irrecoverably lost. Then,
ainging and rejoicing, the bird taimts the man. She tells him that,
in letting a,.r escape, he had lost wealth which might have ransomed
A mighty > ^ "'^r that there is in her body a magical stone, weigh-
ing fcn ounce. ill ciakes its possessor to be always victorious,
rich, and belovc .. The churl laments loudly. The bird, on this,
reminds him of the tliree precepts, and says he has already dis-
obeyed them all. In the first place, he had believed her story about
the precious stone, which he might have known to be a downright
fib, if he had had wit enough to recollect, that she had descri|)ed it
OB weigliing an ounce, which was evidently more than the weight
uf her whole body. It is plain how he had broken the second and
third rules, although the stone had really existed. Nor need we
follow the poet in his anxious deduction of the moral : it consists in
the three lessons themselves.

The following stanzas are somewhat lame in prosody, as is usual
with Lydgate. They describe the garden, and the bird singing in
It.*

Alle the aleis^ were made playne with sond,^
The benches turned with newe turvis' grene ;

Sote^ herbers,^ withe condito^ at the honde.
That wellid up agayne the sonne shene,
Lyke silver stremes as any cristalle dene :

The burbly' wawes^ in up boyling,

Rounde as byralle^ ther beamys out shynynge.

1 AUqft. * Scmdi ofora; verv eommon. * Turfit tWTe$,

* Sweet; $oU or eoote OBually printed in Chaucer.

* Arbouri. * CondwU : mtntain. ' iiodem, gurgling,

* Wavet, • BeryU

* Text from Holliweirs " Minor Foonu of Dan John Lydgate ;** (Percy
Booiety;) 1840. «

THE PERIOD OF MIDDLE ENGUSH. 133

Aiiiyddls the gardcyn stode a fressh laiwi'er:^**
Theron a bird, syngyng bothe day and nyghte,

With shynnyng fedres brightar than the golde weere i**
Whiche with hir song made hevy hertes lightc :
That to beholde it was an hevenly sighte,

How, toward ev)m and in the dawnjmg,

She ded her payne most amourously to synge.

Esperus^^ enforced hir cor%e,
Toward evyn, whan Phebus gan to west,

And the braunches to hir dvauntage,^*
To syng hir complyn^* and than go to rest :
And at the rysing of the qucne Alcest,^^ •

To synge agayne, as was hir due,

Erly on morowe the day-sterre^** to salue."

It was a verray hevenly melodye,
Evyne and morowe to here the byrddis song,

And the soote sugred armonye,
Of uncouthe^^ varblys^^ and tunys drawen on longe,
That al the gardeyne of the noyse rong :

Til on a morwe, whan Tytan^^ shone ful clere,

The birdd was trapped and kante'^* with a pant^re.^

11. The manner in which English was written during the latt^i
half of the fifteenth century has been examined by a very skilful
analyst ; and his account of it we may profitably adopt, although
it involves a little anticipation of the period which our literary
history will next take up.

" In following the line of our writers, both in verse and prose, we
find the old obsolete English to have gone out of use about the
accession of Edward the Fourth. Lydgate and Bishop Peacock,
especially the latter, are not easily understood by a reader not
habituated to their language : he requires a glossary, or must help
himself out by conjecture. In the Fasten Letters, on the contrary,
in Harding the metrical chronicler, or in Sir John Fortescue's dis-
course on the difference between an absolute and a limited mon-
archy, he finds scarce any difilculty : antiquated words and forms of

u HuptrvMy the evening star

w Laurel; French. " Wire.

1' An obscure line.

M Even-aong ; the last or completing clinrch-oflSce of the day.

*> Akeatia ; doubtftil mythology. ^ Star.

1* Salute ; see Chaucer. i* Unhioim, wnuual, etrange.

w WarUee, W(trhling$. •> TYton, the sou. ** Caught.

i ■

Trap.

! ''

184

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

II,

li:

^Ir

termination frequently occur; but he is hardly sensible that lie
reads these books much less fluently than those of modern times.
These were written about 1470.

" But in Sir Thomas More's History of Edward the Fifth, written
about 1509, or in the beautiful ballad of The Nut-brown Maid,
which we cannot place very far from the year 1500, there is not
only a diminution of obsolete phraseology, but a certain modern
turn and structure, both in the verse and prose, which denotes the
commencement of a new era, and the establishment of new rules ot
taste in polite literature. Every one wiU understand, that a broad
line cannot be traced for the beginning of this change. Hawes,
though his English is very different from that of Lydgate, seems to
have had a great veneration for him, and has imitated the manner
of that school to which, in a marshalling of our poets, he unques-
tionably belongs. Skelton, on the contrary, though ready enough
to coin words, has comparatively few that are obsolete."*

From the part of the fifteenth century whose language has thus
been described, we may be content with one short specimen of
famili.ir Pre o. It is taken from a curious collection of Letters and
other paperii, relating to the affairs of a family in Norfolk during
the latter half of the century. Our extract is from a letter of the
year 1459, in which the writer speaks of the studies of his brother.
The old spelling is discarded in our copy; that the modem cast of
phrase and arrangement may the more readily be perceived.f

" Worshipful Sir, and my full special good master, after humble
recommendaLlon, please it you to understand, that such service as I
can do to your pleasure, as to mine understanding, I have showed
my diligence now this short season since your departing. * *
Item, Sir, I may say to you, that William hath gone to school, to a
Lombard called Karoll Giles, to learn and to be read in poetry, or
else in French. For he hath been with the same Karoll every day
two times or three, and hath bought divers books of him ; for the
which, as I suppose, he hath put himself in danger | to the same
Karoll. I made a motion to William to have known part of his
business: ani he answered and said, that he would be as glud
and as fain of a good book of French or of poetry, as my
master Sir John Fastolf would be to purciiase a fair manor : and
thereby I understand he list not to be communed withal in such
matters."

* Hallam : Introduction to the Literature of Europe.

j- The Paston Letters : Kuight'a edition.

i Jn danger^ i. e. in debt ; b9 used by Shalcspearet and Utert

that lie
'n times.

», written
m Maid,
ire is not
1 modern
notes the
7 rules ot
t a broad
Hawes,
seems to
e manner
! unques-
y enough

has thus

icimen of

stters and

k during

er of the

J brother.

n cast of

d.t

sr humble

rvice as I

e showed
« *

hool, to a
joetry, or
jvery day
1 ; for the
the same
irt of his
i as glud
Y, as my
nor: and
i\ in such

THE SAXON TONGUIi IN ;iCuTLAMJ.

TUB LANGUAGE OF SCOTLAND.

135

12. The history of the transformations sufiered by the Anglo-
Saxon tongue is not complete, till we have marked its fate in
Scotland.

How a language substantially the same with that of the English
Teutons came to be currently spoken in the Scottish Lowlands to
the north of the Frith of Forth, is one of those questions in our
national annals, to which no answer has been made that is in any
view satisfactory. If the old historians have reported to us every
thing that really happened, the Anglo-Saxon settlements did not
extend into those provinces, or a very little way, if at all.

The difficulty is greatest, if we believe that the Picts, who are
named as their early inhabitants, were a Celtic race. But it is
not by any means removed by the theory, which has been made
very probable, that our Pictish ancestors were really Goths. If
tliey were so, they must have been separated from the main stock
at a period so far distant, that it could not but have been difficult
for their language to pass into any of the Gothic dialects that were
transported from the contment in the fifth century. One is tempted,
therefore, to regard with some favour the opinion, that the Danes
or other Northmen, especially the Norwegians, were the planters
of a Gothic speech in the north. If their piratical expeditions are
the only facts to be founded on, the solution is plainly insufficient.
Such incursions, though leaving a stray colony here and there,
could not well have changed the language of a whole people.
Lately, however, the clue to the labyrmth has ingeniously been
sought in the curious fact, already known but overlooked, that,
for thirty years in the eleventh century, a Norwegian kingdom was
actually and regularly maintained in the East ot" Scotland. The
Norse' population which may be conjectured to have then been
introduced, is alleged to have been, with the occasional infusions
of the same blood, the kernel of the race now inhabithig the eastern
counties northward of the Lothians : and the further assimilation
to the Germans of the south, in language as well as customs, is
attributed to the annexation of all these counties to the Scottish
crown. Here, again, our groundwork of facts is scanty. Nor
should it be overlooked, that, although the North-Eastern dialects
of Scotland exhibit many Norse words in their vocabulai'}', the
grammar of all of them is as decidedly Anglo-Saxon as that of
Yorksliire or Norfolk. This fact has greater importance than we
might at first suppose; since the Scandinavian tongues have granv

^M:l

ill

iir

iV^ '

II;

:'i

^'m

I ;'

In! ■ }

. 1-.

^ '

l^LJ

186

THE ENGUSn LANGUAGE.

matical pGculiarltlcs, distinguishing tlicm clearly from all those of
the Teutonic stock.

As to the Lothians and other Scottish provinces lying soutliward
of the Forth, no doubt arises. We have learned that they were
covered by Anglo-Saxon emigrants ; and the descendants of these
invaders gradually spread themselves towards the west. It was
only in consequence of political occurrences, and not till a consider-
able time after the invasions, that they were separated from the
more southerly Teutonic communities. Further, in the twelfth cen-
tury and later, the Scottish kings cherished the Saxon institutions
and habits with constant eagerness.

The speech of these SoutU-Eastem counties, which became that
of Scottish literature, was, in its earliest periods, just one of the
Anglian or Northumbrian varieties of the Anglo-Saxon. It pre-
served its original character, and tmderwcnt changes closely re-
sembling those which took place in England; and this fact, by the
way, is in itself enough to overthrow the old supposition, that the
Norman Conquest was the cause which destroyed the Anglo-Saxon
tongue ; since the Normans in the Scottish kingdom were always
very few, chiefly malcontent barons from the south. In the four-
teenth century, when the language of Scotland began to be freely
used in metrical compositioti, it was not at all further distant from
the standard English of the time, than were other English dialcctn
which, like the Scottish, were frequently applied to literary uses.

13. Barbou", contemporary with Chaucer, has already been
described as having really written in purer English than that
which was used in the Canterbury Tales. The Scottish poet's
dialect has its closest parallel (and the resemblanoe is often striking)
in the more homely and popular diction of Piers Plowman. Tlie
provincial spelling is a mere accident, which must not be aUowe<d to
mislead us.

We may take, from " The Bruce," the animated panegyHo or
freedom, often though it has been quoted elsewhere.*

A ! fredome is a noble thing I
Fredome mayss^ man to haifT^ likfngr
Fredome all solace to man gifHs :*'
lie levys^ at ess,* that frely levys !

> lfdke$. * Jlctve. • Oivet ; Anglo-Saxon, gifan,

* I/ivtt; Anglo-Saxon, Uhban; Danish, Uvim; (Jermati, Uben, * Butt,

* Text from Jam!e.^.on's Braco and Wallace; 1820.

THE SAXON TONOUE IX SCOTLAND. 137

A noble hart may haiff nane^ ess,
Na' ellys* nocht" that may him pless,'"
Gyff fredome failyhe : ^^ for fre liking
Is yharnyt^^ our^^ all otliir thing.
Na he, that ay hass levyt fre,
May nocht knaw weill the propyrt^,
The angyr, na the wrechyt dome,**
That is cowplyt*^ to foule thyrldome.*'*
Dot*' gyff he liad assayit it,
Tlian aU perquer*" he suld*^ it wyt ;'<'
And suld think fredome mar to pryss,'*
Than all the gold in warld that is.
Thus contrar thingis evir mar,
Discoweryngis off the tothir ar.
And he tliat thryll^^ is, has nocht his:
All that he hass embandownyt^^ is
TilP* hys lord, quliat^* evir he be.
Yhey t'-*'' hass he nocht sa mekiU*' fre
As fre wyll to leyve,^' or do
That at^^ hys hart hym drawis to.

14. The close likeness of the two Tongues did not last very lon;^
after the War of Independence. Before the end of the iiftecnth
century, the literary language of ScotUmd, although it continued to
be called English by those who wrote in it, differed widely tVoni
that of England, although not so far as to make it difficult of coin-
prehension to an Englishman familiar with Chaucer.

The deviation is quite established in the poems of Dunbar, and is
made more palpable by the pedantic Latmiems which, as we have

* The a for o, so froqaent in the Scottish dialect, is Anglo-Saxon, and,
as we have seen, lingered long in the English.

' Nor. s EIm. * Not and nought. See Chaucer's prose.

i^ PUase. ii Fail

>* Yeamedf longed /or: Anglo* Saxon, geomian, to desire.

*' Overt above. ** Doom. ** Coupled.

*' Thraldom ; Anglo-Saxon, tftrtel ; ikirlian^ to pierce, drill. *' But.

*c Per/ecUy: Scottish; said to be per^ptair, by book: quair is used b>
Chaucer, and gives oor quire (of paper).

1" 8- for ach- or «&-, an Anglian peculiarity. *> Ktwu). n Prixe.

^ See Note 16. ^ AbandoMd; nearly French.

M 3b; modern Scottish. It is rwdly good Anglo-Saxon, though Ic^s
common than to.

^ In Old Scottish spelling (and in Moaso>Gothic) quh- answers to the Anglo-
Saxon hw-t and the English wk-.

^ Tetf V Scottish; muck; firmn the Anglo-Saxon a^ective mifcclt

m^eJe, icrroat ; comparative, wfrre ; suunrlativo, nurat.

^ Live. ** 4,(, relative, aoottitih for tiiat.

urn-

,:l.

1} W : ■

lis

*'?M'i.! I

§i

U'r^r

■I.T-

■1

138

THE ENOMSII LANGUAGE.

^v f

learned, now infected all the Scottish poetry, coalescing very badly
with the native Teutonic diction. The striking personifications in
his masterpiece, " The Daunce," are for several reasons unsiiii>.ble
as specimens. We are partly indemnified by the opening of the
very be;>utiful poem, "The Thi..ile and the Rose," which com-
memorates, in the allegorical manner of similar poems by Chaucer
%nd his French masters, the marriage of James the Fourth with the
Princess Margaret of England, celebrated in the year 1503.*

I Quhen Mcrch wes with variand^ wmdis past.

And Appryll had, with hir silver schouris,

Tane leif at^ Nature with ano^ orient blast,
And lusty^ May, that mudder^ is of flouris.
Had maid the birdis to begyn thair houris^

Am&ng the tendir odouris reid'' and qahyt,

Quhois armony to heir it wes^ delyt ;

In bed at morrow, sleiping as I lay, ,

Me thocht Aurora, with hu- cristall one,'

In at the window lukit^** by the day.
And halsit^^ me, with visage paill and grene:
On quhois hand a lark sang fro the spleiie : -^

* Awalk,** luvaris,^* out of your slomering ! **
S^ how the lusty morrow dois up spring!"

Me thocht fresche May befoir my bed up stude,
In weid depaynt of mony diverss hew ;

Sobir, benyng, and full of mansuetude ;
In brycht atteir of flouris forgit^^ new,
Hevinly of colour, quhyt, reid, broun, and blew,^ —

Balmit*' in dew, and gilt with Phebus bemys ;

Quhyll^^ all the house illumynit of hir lemys.^'

Varying ; the Anglo-Saxon present participle in -nde ; to be found jt
L'liaucer. ^ Leate of. > An ; Anglo-Saxon and Scottiiih.

* From Anglo-Saxon and Old English, lust^ pleasure, desire.

^ Mother ; Anglo-Saxon, moder, modor, modur.

B i. e. Their prayers ; " horse," an ecclesiastical phrase.

' Red; see Chaucer. > Woia; Anglo-Saxon, wow.

See Chaucer's Death of Arcite, Note 12. ^o Looked.

>^ Literallj, embraced (from hals, neck) ; thence saluted.

•' From the spleen, from the heart. *' Atoake.

^* Lovers ; Anglo-SJaxon, lufian, to love. ^ Slumbering.

w Forged, fashumed. " Embalmed. »» While, tmtU.

*> Oleams, beams ; Anglo-Saxon, leoma, a beam or ray of light ; /eotrum.
to shine or gleam.

* Text from Laiug's " Toems of William Dunbar ;" WH.

y Si
81 Ai

v.iiere,

THE 8AX0M TONGUE IN SCOTLAND. 139

"Slugird!" Bcho^*' aaid, " Awalk annone^^ for schamei
And in my honour sum thing thow go wryt :

The lark hcs done the mirry day proclame,
To raise up luvarls with confort and delyt :
Yit nocht incressis thy curage'^*'^ to indyt ;

Quhois hairt sum tyme hes gltiid^^ and blisfull bene,

Sangis to inak undir the levis grenel"

*" She ; common in England in the foorteenth century.
SI Anon. » Cowage : but meanioff, as in Ljogate, and ofteti elbo-

v.iiere,<2BiKre. * OlacL

wit'

! i

»i

f: i«l|

■M ( : 1

'\l'-

l:\u

iiih^'i

ii ■ I

140

TUK MODKltX INGUSH LANGUAOB.

CHAPTER IV.

H 1 !i

TUB SOURCES OF THE MODERN ENGLISH TONGUE;
AND THEIR COMPARATIVE IMPORTANCE.

:ii

I. Two Points— The Qramniftr— The Vocabnlary— Doctrine as to each.—
Ghaumar. 2. English Grammar in Substance Anglo-Saxon— Enumera-
tion of Particulars. — 3. General Doctrine — Our Deviations in Verbs few
— The chief of them— Our Deviations in Nouns and their Allies many
— Description of them— Consequences.— 4. Position of Modern English
among European Tongues — Leading Facts common to the History of all
—Comparison of the Gothic Tongues with the Classical — Comparison of
the English Tongue with both. — Vooabulary. 5. Glossarial Elements
to be Weighed not Numbered— The Principal Words of the English
Tongue Anglo-Saxon — Seven Classes of Words from Saxon Roots. —

6. Words from Latin Roots — Periods of Introduction — Kinds — Uses. —

7. Words from French Roots— Periods of Introduction — Kinds ar '^ses.
—8. Words from Greek Roots.— 9. Words from Tongues yieli "iw,
— 10. Estimate, by Number, of Saxon Words Lost — Remarks.— .. . esti-
mate of the Number of Saxon Words Retained — Proportion us tested by the
Dictionaries — Proportion as tested by Specimens from Popular Writers.

1. Our hasty survey of the Origin and Progress of the Englisli
Language has now been carried down to the beginning of the six-
teenth century.

Its organization may be held to have been by that time com;)lete.
The laws determining the changes to be made on words, and regu-
lating the grammatical structure oi sentences, had beeu detinitively
fixed and were generally obeyed : all that had still to be gained
in this particular was an increase of case and dexterity in the appli-
cation of the rules. The vocabulary, doubtless, was not so far
advanced. It was receiving constant accessions; and the thre(!-
andra-half centuries that have since elapsed have increased oui
stock of words immensely. But this is a process which is still
going on, and which never comes to a stop in the speech of any
people: and, the grammar being once thoroughly founded, the
olTects of glossarial changes are only secondary, until the tune arrives
when they co-operate with other caubcs in breaking up a language
altogether.

SOURCES OF TUB GRAMMAB.

141

In brief, all the altcrationH which our tongue has &!iflcred, suicu
the end of the middle ages, may bo regarded as nothuig more than
changes and developments of Style ; that is, as varieties in the
manner in which individuals express their meaning, all of thcui
using the same language.

Here, therefore, we may endeavour to sum up our results.

We have no time to spare for eulogies on the English Ijauguage.
It is not only the object of affection to all of us, for the love we
bear to our homes and our native land, and for the boundless
wealth of pleasant associations awakened by its familiar sounds.
It is worthy, by its remarkable combination of strength, precision,
and copiousness, of being, as it olrtfady is, spoken by many millions,
and these the part of the human rftce that appear likely to control,
more than any others, the future destmics of the world. It may
also be remarked, that the very nature of our tongue, the t)osition
it occupies between the Teutonic languages and those of Boman
origin, fits it especially for the mighty functions which press more
and more upon it.*

Again, it is not our part to determine, with the accuracy of
philosopliical grasunar, the character of our 1' nguage, or the prin-
ciples which dictate its laws.

Our investigation is strictly Historical : and it will be closed when
we have obtained a general view of the relations which the Modem
English bears to those other tongues, from which it derives its laws
and its materials.

The leading doctrines may be asserted in two or three senteficcs.

First, our Grammar, the system of laws constituting our Etymol-
ogy and Syntax, is Anglo-Saxon in all its distinctive chsnoterisiics.

Secondly, our Dictionary, though we take it in its ^t^ ind
fullest state, derives a very laige proportion of its word^ firoAi the
Anglo-Saxon. The only other tongues to which it owes mhch are
those of the Classical stock : the French and Latin fttrmshing a
very great number of words ; and the Greek giving to ptur ordinary
speech hardly any. thing directly, though much through the Latin.

These twq points, the Grammatical and the Glossarial character
of the Ei^lish hmguage, will now successively be glanced at.

i;!

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ITHE OSAMHAS OF TBB ENGLISH iANQUAG^.

2. In regard to our Grammar, so msny facts have gathered abetl

* "It is calculated that, before the lapse of the present century, a tine
that 80 manv now alive will live to witness, English will be the nattvtf and
vemaottlar langoaffe of about one hundred and fifty millioaa of hnoND
•)uing8." Watts : in Latham's '' English Language ; *^ Ed. 1850.

4,^:

142

TnE MODERN ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

U8 in the course of our historical inquiry, that little is now left to
be done except the generalizing of particulars.

" Our chief peculiarities of structure and of idiom are essentially
Anglo-Saxon ; while almost all the classes of words, which it is the
office of grammar to investigate, are derived from that language.
Thus, the few inflections we have are all Anglo-Saxon. The
English genitive, the general modes of forming the plural of nouns,
and the terminations by which we express the comparative and
superlative of adjectives; (-er and -est;) the inflections of the
pronouns ; those of the second and third persons, present and im-
perfect, of theverbs ; the inflections of the preterites and participles
of the verbs, whether regular or iiregular ; and the most frequent ter-
mination of our adverbs (ly) : are all Anglo-Saxon. The nouns, too,
derived from Latin and Greek, receive the Anglo-Saxon termina-
tions of the genitive and rlural; while the preterites and participles
of verbs derived from the same sources, take the Anglo-Saxon
inflections. As to the parts of speech, those which occur most
frequently, and are individually of most importance, are almost
wholly Saxon. Such are our articles and definitives generally, as
'a, an, the, this, that, these, those, many, few, some, one, i^one;*
the adjectives whose comparatives and superlatives are irregularly
formed; tLe separate words 'more* and 'most,' by which we
express comparison as often as by distinct terminations ; all our
pronouns, personal, possessive, relative, and interrogative ; nearly
every one of our so-called irregular verbs, including all the auxili-
eries, ' have, be, shall, will, may, can, must,' by which we express
the force of the principal varieties of mood and tense; all the
adverbs most frequently employed ; and the prepositions and con-
junctions almost without exception."*

3. The valuable enumeration which we have thus received,
admits of being reduced to a very short formula. In no point of
importance is the Grammar of the English Language any thing
more than a simplification of the Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon.

Our Etymology is simpler than that of our mother-tongue, in
proportion to the extent to which we have carried our abandon-
nuint of its inflections. We have stripped our words to the bonefi,
les.ving little more tlian their root-forms, and making ourselves
tlependent on auxiliary words for denoting their relations. This
procetw indeed has gone so far, as to make our Syntax nearly a
nonentity.

But here, again, a distinction should be taken. We have not
dropped the inflections alike in all classes of words. The inflected

* Edinburgh Uevlew ; Vol. LXX j 1830.

SOURCES OF THE GRAMMAR.

143

con-

5vords were, the verbs on the one hand, the nouns, pronouns, and
articles on the other. On the former we have made comparatively
little change: the latter we have metamorphosed almost com-
pletely.

In respect of our Verbs, then, we are still in substance Anglo-
Saxon. The alterations we have made, so far as worth notice, are
these. On the one hand, we have, it is true, retained the -st and
-th of the second and third pei*sons singular in the present, and the
-Rt of the second person in the preterite; but the -th is nearly
displaced by the -s or -es of the Northumbrian Saxon, and the
second person singular by the second plural. On the other hand,
in the way of abandoning old forms entirely, we have made changes
of which three only here require notice. One of these seemA to
have been harmless ; namely, the dropping of a difficult gerundive
form, importing obligation. The two other changes have been seri-
ously hurtful. First, the verb Weortht^n, "to become," did the
work of an auxiliary to the passive voice, much as the German,
Werden. With the passive participle, it made a proper present
tense ; Beon, or Wesan, To be, taking its place in die perfect and
past. Thus, "Domus sedificatur," ''Domus sedificata est," and
" Domus sedificata fuit," had each its ready and idiomatic version.
The useful verb Weorthan was preserved in Scotland till the six-
teenth century, or longer. But in England it vanished much
earlier ; and we have not yet been ingenioi'^ enough to discover
any efficient substitute for it. We shall, indeed, seldom if ever be
misunderstood, if we are content to say, in a passive sense, " the
houre is building :" and a genuine ancient prefix gives us a phrase
quite unequivocal, in " the house is a-building." But those forms
have nob found favour in the eyes of our most authoritative gram-
marians : and punctiliously correct speakers insist on using a cum-
brous circumlocution, or compounding an awkward and novel auxi •
liary.* Secondly, the Anglo-Saxon had past tenses fcr the verbs
Mot and Sceal, now represented by the defective auxi; iaries Must
and Ought. Our loss of these preterites forces us, vfhi^n we wi»li
to express past obligation by these words, to adopt th. expedient
of throwing the main verb into the past. We interpret su»*Ji phr«Hr;,
correctly by common cooseiiit : but they really misrepresoit the re-
lations of the two verbs in point of time. " He oug!u tu have
written" is a filse transladou of " Dcbuit sci'iberc;" uuiiougli,

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Horace Walpolo's Correspondenci^

144

THE MODERN ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

IP*i -i

if we arc to use this auxiliary, it is the only translation that our
language enables us to give.

The on!y noticeable form which we have added to our hereditary
verbs is this. Our ancestors long ago became dissatisfied with the
Saxon manner (certainly a rude one) of denoting futurity. It wua
usually attempted by the tense which we call the present, but whieli
our Anglo-Saxon grammars correctly regard as an indefinite. Pre-
cision was sought by new applications of the auxfliaries Sccnl and
Wille, properly expressive of obligation and resolution : and tliosu
^ew up into our Shall and Will, the shibboleth which betrays
Irishmen and Scotsmen. The modem distinctions between them
not only were unknown to the countrymen of Alfred, but are
at variance with the applications of similar words ^ made both
in the Gothic tongues and in the French and ItaliaL and none of
our etymologers has yet been able to reconcile them under any one
consistent prixt^Pe.

Now, howevi^, trie nitist consider the Nouns, (substantive and
adjective,) and the words allied to them. Here om* innovations
have been prodigious : we have, in £eict, revolutionized the whole
system. Except for the pronouns, the only inflections we have
retired are two. We have, in substantives, the plural forms,
whidh,' as has been seen, are corruptions from one of several
Anglo-Saxon declensions. We have also the genitive or pos-
sessive: but this case itself, partly superseded by the preposi-
tion from the earliest stages of English, has had its application
restricted still further by modem osbge. Though we may say
" man*s" and '' men*t|" we now use, by fkr ofienest, the compound
forms " of man" and '* of ihen:** and, in veiy many instances, we
cannot do otherwise without introducing awkwardness or confVision.
In adjectives, again, as the extracts have shown, we not only lost
very early the fine disthiction between defhutes and indefinites, but
made the words totally indeclinable. Further, we have dropped all
the various and convenient inflections of the articles.

These mnovations on the nouns and thehr allies aflect the strac-
ture of every sentence we utter. They involve these two serious
consequences. Modem English words admit very Uttki Inrersion
(whence mainly comes the bareness of 'our Syntax) : they hare a
great and troublesome inaptitude of Gomposition.

The efliBct of these two philological mnrmities will be better Un-
derstood, if we take advantage of the position we have reached,
for comparing, in the leading points, the history of our own language
with that of others which are n^w spoken abroad.

4. We have to Icarni in the ^t place, 4 doctrine maintained by

mg,

led by

SOURCES OF THE GBAMMAR.

145

all our most philosophical philologers ; a doctrine which they do
not seek to apply to language in its primitive Btage, but which
seems to hold in regard to all Tongues after they have undergone
considerable development. All such tongues appear, successively,
in two very dissimilar forms. In the first of these, which is the
more complex, they are highly inflectional : and, in the second, they
gradually become less so. The discarding of inflections, and the in-
troduction of the new modes of expression which it makes neces-
sary, are steps which take place in the history of all living tongues.

What the circumstances are that enforce or encourage the me-
tamorphosis, is a question which no one has convincingly answered.
In particular, it remains open for scrutiny in our own national
history : in these elementary inquiribsi we have made no attempt to
speculate on it. But we have silently discarded the old notion,
according to which the English language was regarded as the fruit
of a compromise between the Saxons and the Normans ; as being orig-
inally, ill fact, a kind oi mongrel gibberish, like the lingua franca
which, in the times of the crusades, passed to and fro between
the Europeans and the Saracens. Yet there does seem to be some
reason for doubting whether our philological antiquaries do not at
present go too far, when they assert that, on our grammar, the Nor-
man French had no influence whatever.

Secondly : It is to be noted, that every one of the Modem Euro-
pean Languages has been formed chiefly by this very method, of
dropping inflections and finding substitutes. This is, especially, the
characteristic change which has transformed the Latin into the
Italian, French, and Spanish. It is in the same way that the Ger-
man, Dutch, and Scandinavian tongues now spoken, have grown
up from their Gothic roots.

Thirdly: All the Modem Gothic Tongues deviate less widely from
their originals, than do the Modem Classical Tongues from theLatm.
The great cause of difierence lies in the Verbs. In the Latin verb,
the active voice is wholly inflected, the passive partly so : in its
descendants, the auxiliary forms have intruded far into the former,
and taken complete possession of the latter. But, in all the Old
Gothic Tongues, (the Anglo-Saxon included,) the disentanglement
had, at the most remote date of our acquaintance with them, gone
through some of the stages which the Latin of the Roman Empire
had still to undergo. The Gothic verbs of all the dialects had
ahready assumed most of the auxiliaries which they now have ; be-
ing, in particular, (except in the old Icelandic,) entirely dependent
on them for the formation of their passives.

Fourthly : While Englishmen have dealt with thu verb much in tl>o

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146

THE MODERN ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

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same way as thoir kindred on the continent, they stand very differ-
ently in regard to the Nouns and Articles. The Modem Continental
Languages of the Teutonic stock retain, in one shape or another, the
inflected forms, which, as was lately noted, our Language has dropped ;
and they have retained with them the old susceptibility of inversion
and composition. These differences are, in themselves, sufficient to
give to the English a structural character very unlike that of such
tongues as the German. Through them, indeed, we are, even in
respect of the structure of our sentences, less purely Gothic than
any other modem Goths. We bear, by means of them, no incon-
siderable resemblance to the French. They cause us, in short, to
occupy among the nation^ of Europe a philological station which is
somewhat anomalous.

Fifthly : We are brought still nearer to our nearest continental
neighbours, by the large amount of our Glossarial borrowings from
the French and Latin. Nor is it unworthy of remark that these im-
portations have, in all likelihood, acted reflexly on our Grammatical
Structure. Our acquisitions in diction are foreign, both in place
and in pedigree. If they had come from any tongue belonging to
our own Gothic stock, not only would our speech have been more
harmonious in character ; but it would not improbably have been
also more flexible in use, especially in respect of compounding, tlian
it can be with words so distinctly alien in origin as are the Latin and
French. No other European race has made similar appropriations,
to an extent at all parallel to ours. The Spaniards seem to stand
next to us, but are very far distant.

THE VOCABULARY OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

5. The Dictionary of the English Language will now be opened.
We must leam, more precisely than we have hitherto been able to
do, the character and origin of the words it contains*

Our task would soon be over, if we were to be content with know-
ing how many of oiu* words are Anglo-Saxon, and how many come
from foreign roots. But the question of Number, although we wiU
put it by and by, is really more curious tlian useful. Th^ answer
to it tends, indeed, to deceive us as to the comparative value belong-
ing to the several elements of a language. Words which are very
numerous in the dictionary, may be of secondary consequence, and
occur infrequently : words which are much fewer may be so essen-
tial to ordinary communication, as to be coming up incessantly.

The extent to which a tongue really depends on its various roots,
b known only when we have discovered, what the Classes of Words

SOURCES OF THE VOCABULABY.

147

are that eacli has furnished. The roots are important, in the
ratio of the importance which belongs to the classes of words arising
out of them.

When our vocabulary is scrutinized in this way, its obligations to
the Anglo-Saxon appear in a much more striking light, than tlmt
which they wear when we look only to the proportional nimibers,
large as we shall iind that proportion to be.

Let us see, then, in entering on this inquiry, what kinds of words
we derive from oiur Mother-Tongue.

First : We have from it almost all those words, and parts of words,
which import Relations. This is merely repeatmg in another shape
tlie assertion already made, that our grammatical forms and idioms
are Anglo-Saxon : the vocabulary and the grammar react on each
other. The fact, that our words of this class are chiefly Teutonic,
cannot be too earnestly impressed on us. It is the most widely*
reaching of all the circumstances affecting the character of our
speech : it does more than any thing else in making the Teutonic to
be the preponderating element.

Secondly : W^e owe to the same source not only, as has been seen
already, all the adjectives, but also all the other words, both nouns
and verbs, which the grammarians are accustomed to call Irregular.
Such words are in all languages very old, indeed among the very
oldest : they express idea" '^hich occur to all of us continually in
the business of life ; and, for these reasons, they are oftener in our
mouths than any others of their class. This £ict, again, brings up
Anglo-Saxon words continually.

Thirdly : The Saxon gives us in most instances our only names,
and in all instances the names that are aptest and suggest them-
selves most readily, for the greater number of the Objects Perceived
through the Senses, and for all of them that are most impressive
and of the greatest consequence to us. Such are the most striking
things which we see ; as, sun, moon, and stars, land and water, wood
and stream, hill and dale : to which may be added the most common
animals and plants. Such are the great changes which take place
in nature, and the causes of the changes ; as the divisions of time
(all except autumn*) ; with light and darkness, heat and cold, rain
and snow, thunder and liglitning ; and also the sounds, and postures,
and motions of animal life. Here is another class of words remark-
ably numerous : and it is a chvss peculiarly energetic and vivid in
impression

Fourtlily : Although we usually borrow from Latin or French

* We have the Anglo-Saxon In harvcet^ which meant the season M well
aa the work.

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148

THE MODERN ENGLISH LANGUAQB.

wich words as involve a wide abstraction, and are very exten-
sive and general in meaning, yet those whose Signification is Speciilc
are, with few exceptions, Anglo-Saxon. We use a foreign term
naturalized, when we speak of colour universally : but we fall back
on our home stores, if we have to tell what the colour is, calling it
red, yellow, or blue, white or black, green or brown. Thus, also,
we ai-e Romans when we speak, in a general way, of moving : but
we are Teutons if we leap or spring, if we stagger, slip, slide, glide,
or fall, if we walk or run, swim or ride, if we creep, crawl, or fly.
Now, not only are such precise words by far the most frequent :
it is also a law of style, that, by how much a term is more specific,
by so much is it the more animated and suggestive.

Fifthly : We possess, without going abroad to seek for them, a
rich fund of apt expressions for the ordinary kinds of Feeling and
Affection, for the outward signs of these, for the persons who are
the earliest and most natural objects of our attachment, and for
those inanimate things whose names are figuratively significant of
domestic union. Of this class are love and hate, hope and fear,
gladness and sorrow; such are the smile and tear, the sigh and
groan, weeping and laughter ; such are father and mother, man and
wife, child, son and daughter, kindred and friends ,* such are home,
hearth, roof, fireside. These are instances of a multitude of words,
which, even when they are not the only names for the things, are
the first we learn to give to them. Therefore they not only occur
to us mcire readily than others, but have the power, through asso-
ciation, of recalling a host of the most touching images and emotions.

Sixthly : " The Anglo-Saxon is, for the most part, the language of
Business ; of the counting-house, the shop, the market, the street,
the farm." Among an eminently practical people, it is eminently
the organ of practical action : it retains this prerogative, in defiance
alike of the necessary innovations caused by scientific discovery,
and of the corruptions smuggled in by ignorant and mercenary
affectation.

Seventhly: " A very large proportion (and that always the
strongest) of the language of Invective, humour, satire, and collo-
quial pleasantry, is Anglo-Saxon."*

It must surely be evident, that the Teutonic elements of our

* The whole substance of this section is borrowed from an essay already
cited ; Edinburgh Keview, Vol. LXX ; 1839. To the seven classes of words
wliich it has sug^ted, there may be added one other at least. It consists
of those idiomatic phrases, and words, and -parts of words, which are con-
demned in most or oar current books on style, because they are not under-
stood : but which are genuine fragments of our ancient tongue, and abound
in pith and expressiveness.

SOURCES OF TnE VOCABULARY.

149

vocabulary are equally valuable in enabling us to speak and write
perspicuously, and to speak and write with animation ; in making
what we say easy to be understood, and in making it impressive
and persuasive. Our mother-tongue, besides dictating the laws by
which our words are connected, and furnishing the cement which
binds them together, yields all our aptcst means of describing ima-
gination, feeling, and every-day facts of life.

6. Next in the order oif importance, and incalculably more citen-
sive than all borrowings to be afterwards examined, stand those
parts of our vocabulary which we take from the French and Latin

The former tongue being itself the offspring of the latter, it is
often difficult for us to know which of the two has been our imme-
diate source. Many of our words exist in an ambiguous form, which
does not determine the question : and some we have in two shapes,
as if they had been imported twice over.

The parent may first be looked at ; since our obligations to her
began earliest. From the I^tin we have boiTowed more or less
for two thousand years, and freely for more than six centuries.

The first period was the Koman, to which we are but little
indebted. It left a very few military terms, one or two of which
have remained independent, while others have been incorporated in
names of places. Examples, perhaps the only ones, are Street, the
syllable Coin (from Colonia) in names like Colne and Lincoln, and
Chester (from Castrum) alone or as part of a word.

Next, in the Anglo-Saxon period, the learning of the churchmen
brought in a considerable number of teims, chiefly ecclesiastical.
Such words, still in use, are monk, bishop, saint ; minster, porch,
cloister ; mass, psalter, epistle ; pall, chalice, and candle.

With the period after the Conquest, begins our difficulty in dis-
tinguishing our words of Latin origin from those of French. Im-
portations which are plainly ot the former kind make up nearly our
whole nomenclature in theology and mental philosophy ; while our
most modem additions of the sort have embraced many miscellane-
ous terms. Our Latinisms have chiefly arisen in three epochs.
The fii'st was the thirteenth century, which, as we have seen,
followed an age devoted to classical studies. Both its theological
wi-iters and its poets coined freely in the Roman mint. The second
period was that which is loosely spoken of as the Elizabethan,
beginning with the last twenty years of the sixteenth century, and
extending yet farther into the next. In this age, during the enthusiasm
of a new revival of admiration for antiquity, the privilege of natu-
ralization wan used, cluclly by ite latest prose writers, to an extent

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150

THE MODERN ENGLISH LAWGUAQE.

which threatened serious danger to purity and ease of speech.*
Thirdly came the latter part of the eighteenth century, the time
when Johnson was the dictator of prose stylo. The pompous
rotundity then prevalent has been permanently injurious. The
number of new Latin words it has directly bequeathed to us, is
really far from being largo. But those it has given have come into
very common use, instead of old Saxon words supposed to be less
dignified: some of the words which were at first remonstrated
against, are now heard in our most familiar sentences. Besides this,
our ordinary forms of speech liave received a Latin cast, quite alien
from the old idiom ; and the tendency seems to have been in no
way diminished by the revived study of our early literature.

Our Latin words have done us, on the whole, very much more
good than harm.

They go greatly farther than those from the French, towards
making up for the laming which the tongue had suffered through
the retrenclmient of its power of composition.

A large proportion of them are expressive of complex ideas, each
of whose elements might be separately expressed by Teutonic words
still retained, and the union of which is still so expressed in the
other languages of the same stock. Many such words were imper-
Htively needed, after our speech had acquired even that degree of
rigidity which had infected it so early as the thirteenth century.
But it seems plain, that the ease with which the Latin, after it had
begun to be decently understood by literary men, was found to
furnish substitutes for the native compounds, must have tended
much to discourage even that limited use of compounding, which
might have been practised till the fifteenth or sixteenth century.

Many Latin words, too, have been introduced without such
necessity, yet not without advantage. To those who trode the
most thorny and obscure paths of thought, they often gave apt
means of expressing nice dbtinctions ; and the poets reaped from
them, though usually by a sacrifice of suggestiveness, increased
roundness and variety both in melody and in phrase.

7. Our French words now present themselves. Though much
communicatioi\ with France took place in the last of the Anglo-
Saxon centuries, there is no surviving evidence of borrowings from
its speech till after the Conquest.

The first stage, then, b that in which, the people and the few

* Shakspeare marked the Latinisms in their earliest stage, and repeatedly
ridiculed them. Desolation, Kemuneration, and Accommodate, are among
those which he puts into the mouths of persons who 40 no^ voderstaud then^

80USCES OF THE VOCABULARY.

151

instructed men being alike averse, the Norman French was intr<»-
duced by the hand- of power. Much of it must have been learned,
in the course of two or three generations, even by reluctant and
harshly used vassals ; and many of its terms have retained a i)lacc
which they must have gained very early. It furnished many law-
phrases, which, oftenest continuing imchanged in form, and never
going out beyond tlie precincts of the courts, need not be reckonc d
at all. But a very large number of words found their way, neces-
sarily and not very slowly, into common conversation. The state
of the laws, and of the political constitution, made it imperative that
those words should be understood and used, which expressed private
rights and the duties of individuals to the public, as well as all the
relations between the sovereign power and the people. FeudaUsm,
again, made the commons but too familiar with the whole array of
phrases designating the rules and apparatus of the system.

In a second stage, the foreign words were sown rather more
thickly. It began with the time, whenever that may have been^
when the few native Englishmen who loved letters entered on
the study of the French poetry. This cannot possibly have been
so much as a hundred years after the Conquest; although our
extant remains of attempts at translations from the French do not
carry us back nearly so far.

Still there was nothing more than a beginning, till we reach tlio
fourteenth century, when the third era of our Gallicisms may be
held to open. Two causes then concurred in bringing about a great
change. The English language was now spoken by all classes of
society ; and, in 13C2, its ascendency was admitted by the laws,
the native speech being mtroduced into the pleaduigs of the
courts. The French tastes of the nobles cannot, as a critic has re-
marked, have failed to contribute to the introduction of foreign
words. These were still farther encouraged by the zeal with which,
as we have already learned, Chaucer and other men of letters studied
the poetry of Fxtincc. Accordingly there now rose that tide of
French diction, which, with many eddies and some checks, flowed
on till the close of the middle ages. By that time the new words
had become so numerous, and were so strongly ingrufted on the
native stocl^, and the tongue had undergone so thoroughly the
change of cliaracter which they imposed, that all subsequent
additions are historically unimportant.

Yet it should be noted, that many words of French extraction
have in modem times acquired a right of citizenship among us,
influencing the turn of style to no small degree, in the periods when
they have been most in favour. We shall learn, soon, to look fur

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THE MODERN ENQLISH LANQUAOE.

Ruch words especially in the latter half of the seventeenth centiuy,
through the literary taste which was then predominant.

The words which we have taken from the French serve, in great
part, the same uses as those which have come to us immediately
from the Latin originals. A great many of our general and abstract
terms are to be found among them. Only, it may pretty safely be
asserted, those which belong to this class ciiter much less into the
nomenclature of serious and philosophical thought, than those which
tlie Koman tongue has directly bestowed. They are, with few ex-
ceptions, conversant with the ideas and feelings of actual and every-
day life : and the fact points out the channels through which tliey
have reached us. Those that have come through books, have been
introduced in the lighter departments of our literature : a vast
number are such as found their way widely over Europe, in t]ie
times when France was, as she has been so often and so long, the
social guide and model of Christendom.

Many other French words serve purposes of their own, which
could iiot have been attained either by the native "words or by the
Latin. The mere possession of an ample supply of terms nearly
8}Tionymous, is, for many kinds of literary communication, an im-
mense benefit in itself. Often, too, the relics of our Teutonic
tongue that have descended to us, would not enable us to express
at all, and our Latinisms -would convey but very clumsily, slight
distinctions and shades of thought : and still oftener would this take
place with minute varieties of feeling and sentiment. We gain
a great deal, in such cases, by that miion of precision with delicacy
which marks the French language. Not seldom, again, we desire
to express our meaning with reserve, as on occasions when the
giving of offence is dreaded : and here, on the one side, our native
phrases would be too energetic and too suggestive ; while, on the
other, the foreign ones are preferable, both as being poorer in
associations, and on account of their own character.

8. The Greek has perhaps received more than justice, in being
named at all, even as the last, among those languages which have
contributed largely to our dictionary.

It would not descn'e to be so ranked, if we were to have regard
only to the dialect of common life. In it the only words of Greek
origin are one or two, which have come to us after having been
adopted and disguised elsewhere. In this predicament is the word
Church.*

Again, though our theological, philosophical, and scientific no-

• Anglo-Saxon, Circ: Diuiish, Kirlei
^e Oroek KyriakCy The LordV (Honso).

Scottish, Kirh: contracted froui

SOURCES OF THE TOCABULART.

153

menclature comprehends a large number of words originally Greek,
almost all of these have come to us, since the revival of learning,
through the lAtin. If we note a very few words like Phenomenon
and Criterion, which retain their Hellenic form, there is hardly,
perhaps, any other certain instance of a direct derivation of such
terms, till within the last two or three generations. In this period,
however, the terminology in several branches of physical science
has been fitted to the improved state of knowledge, by the com-
bination of Greek roots into words entu-ely new. In this process,
not always very skilfully performed, a large part has been borne
by scientific discoverers belonging to our country.

9. There remain for consideration only some borrowings, which
are so few and of so little consequence, that they might, with
small loss of knowledge, be altogether overlooked.

First appears the oldest of our philological benefactors, the Celtic
tongue in both of its native branches. From these we retain a
large number of geographical names, oftenest denorting mountains,
rivers, valleys, and other objects phy^Lally distinguishable. More
recently we have received from the antiquaries a few miscellaneous
words, such as Bard and Druid ; while Tartan, Plaid, Flannel, and
others, have owed their introduction to ordinary occasions. But,
in making this low estimate of the obligations which the English
owes to the Celtic dialects, we are overlooking the probability that
the Anglo-Saxons themselves borrowed a great many words from
thch' Cymrian subjects. Such words were especially likely to find
tlieir way into the speech of the Mercian Saxons : and a consider-
able number of terms, in very frequent use, which are not Saxon
and. may be French, have more plausibly been held to be Welsh,
and to have been introduced in this way.*

Secondly : Whatever we may believe as to the extent of the infln-
ence exercised by the Danes or Norwegians on any of the pro-
vincial dialects, it is certain that thd Northmen of both races have
left us a large number of local names, extending over the whole
ground of their settlements. The most frequent is the word By,
"a town," in such names as that of Grimsby, a place whose origin
we formerly found to be sought in a Danish legend. Wich or
Wic, the same in meaning, is likewise Scandinavian. The word
Hustings, and two or three others, are said to be Danish.

Thirdly : Many foreign languages have contributed, especially in
modem times, to make up for us a considerable stock of exotics.
Tliose of each group relate to the history, institutions, or geography,
of the country whence they come ; and, while it was formerly the

* Gamett : in the Trensactions of the Pbilolofncnl Society ; vol. i. : 1844.

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THE MODERN EMQLISU LANGUAGE.

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fiwhion atrong literary men to attempt giving them a uatire drees,
the inclination at present is to leave tliem unaltered. The matter
u too trifling to justify many examples. From Spain and Portugal
we have, with change, the names of two kmds of wine : the Pcraic
furnishes the word Turban, and the Arabic (from its learning in tliu
middle ages) such scientific terms as Algebra, alkali, alembic, be-
sides a few names of social distinctions. Of late, also, there have been
a good many convenient importations from the native tongues of
India, and some undesirable ones from the provincialisms of our
kinsmen in the United States.

10. It has already been observed, that the Numerical Propor-
tion of words, considered without regard to their kinds, b a very
unsafe test of the comparative importance of the elements consti-
tuting a language. But, as a matter of curiosity, it may justify a
little inquiry, limited strictly to our mother-tongue.

Two questions occur. What proportion of the Anglo-Saxon
words have we lost? What proportion to the bulk of Modern
English is borne by the Anglo-Saxon words which we have in sub-
stance retained?

In answer to the first query, it has been said, on a calculation
somewhat rough, that, of the words constituting the language used
in Alfred*s time, we have dropped about one-fifth. Bosworth's
Anglo-Saxon Dictionary containing from twenty-six to twenty-
eight thousand words, between five and six thousand of these are
obsolete.*

The Extinct portion contains many Uncompounded Words, whose
place is supplied from other quarters. But its numbers are swelled
by a huge mass of lost Compounds, a fact which it is interesting to re-
mark, though not, at all points, very easy to account for. It shows
that the new language, besides speedily acquiring an inaptitude to
the making of compounds for itself, ^ave up very many of those
which it inherited from its parent.

Most of the obsolete compounds are embraced in two classes.

The first consists of Verbs formed by prefixing prepositions or
adverbs to the radical word. Thus the old represent: ives v i ^ur
words " Gome " and Go," brought with them mn "^ «nich words as
these : To out-come and out-go ; to in-come ai ^o ; to up-cc
and up-go; to oflF-come and oflf-go; to before- le and ^efore-go.
Nearly all such old compounds of these two woru ar' jut of use,
and have their places filled by words from the French : while, of the
few which we still have, there is probably not one that is used
otherwise than figuratively.

* Edinburgh Review, as before cited.

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BOUBCES OF TUB TOCADULARY.

155

The second class of coroponnds (in which, by the way, the modern
German is ponderously prolific) united two Substantives, the former
of which took an adjectival or genitival meaning. Instances still sur-
viving are such terms as these : Thundercloud, thunderstorm, earth-
quake, swordbearer. Our vccubulary of art and science has beuii
greatly affected by our abandonment of one group of such words,
formed from the Anglo-Saxon name for Art, which is the parent
of our modern Craft. Exampler are furnished by terms which,
in modem English, would be represented by the following : Song-
craft, book-crailt, star-crafl, number-craft, leech-craft, lliese wc
luve Latinized into Poetry, literature, astronomy, arithmetic, and
medicine : and we have named from the same source all the rest of
our most ambitious pursuits. Of the ancient family once so flour-
ishing, the sole survivors are Handicraft and Witchcraft ; names
which were borne up through all the storms of the middle ages
by the unceasing interest taken in the things they denote.*

11. The answer to our second query, which relates to the Pro-
portion of Saxon Words Retained in our language, may bo sought
by two methods.

The one loads us to the Dictionaries of Modem English. They
are said to contain about thirty-eight thousand words, derivatives
and compounds included. Of these, we are told, about twenty-
three thousand come from the Anglo-Saxon, which thus yields a
little less than five-eighths of the whole number.

The other test has been applied to the proportions in this way.
Passages have been analyzed, from the authorized version of the
Scriptures, and from fourteen popular writers, both in prose and
verse, of whom the poet Spenser is tne earliest, and Samuel Johnson
the latest. Of the whole number of words examined, those that are
not of i^axon origin make less than one-fifth, leaving more than four-
fifths as native. The proportions in the several cases vary widely.
The translators of the Bible are by far the purest. An extract from
the book of Genesis has, of foreign words, one twenty-sixth ; and
another from the Gospel of Saint John has one thirty-seventh ; the
average of the two being one twenty-ninth. Among the other
writers, the extreme places are held by Dean Swift, whoso foreign

* Woodcraft, if the word is now alive at all, is so only after having been
disinterred hy Sir Walter Scott. It was not used by the Anglo-Saxons ;
because they had not, till the Norman times, the thing it signifies. Nor do
they seem to have liad the word Priestcraft Saint Dunstan might have
given occasion for it ; but among^ the Saxon Qlergy we read of very few
punstans,

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156

THE UODERN ENGLISH LA5GUA0B.

words amount to fewer ^'. an one-ninth; and Gibbon, the historian,
who has considerably more than one-third.*

This somewliat whimsical investigation is not worth prosecuting
into our own century. To be really useful, for so much as the
groundwork of a general classification of the words in the language,
the examples would have to be both copious and many, and the
topics treated in the extracts should be very various. As a crite-
rion by which to judge of an author^s style, such an analysis is, for
many reasons, useless in all cases except such as present extreme
peculiarities.

* The particQlars may be amusing; though they will perhajw confirm the
opinion expressed in the text, that style cannot fairly oe tried by such a
standard. The whole number of words is IG'JG, of which the foreign ones
p.re 303. The writers stand thus, in the order of their proportional purity :
Translntors of Bible, having foreign words, ^ ; Swift, less than 4 ; Cowley,
less than ^ ; Shakspeare, less than it ; Aliltoii, full j^ ; Spenser, Addison, and
the poet Thomson, less than |; Locke and Young, full |: Johnson, full i\
Hobertson the historian, less than } ; Pope, J ; ]{um«) the historian, full | ;
Gibbon, much more than J. — The passages examined will be found m
Turner's Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii. (ed. 1836) ; the words were counted by the
Edinburgh Keviewer before cited; ana the proportions have now beco
rackoneoi in detail.

m '*

1 1 \ I '.

TPiET THIBD.

THE LITERATURE OF MODERN TIMES.
A. D. 1509— A. D. 1870.

^U\:

,rU

CHAPTER I.

THE ARE OP THE PROTESTANT KEFOEMATION.

A. D. 1509— A. D. 1558.

Henry VIII., 1509-1547.

Edward YL, 1547-1553.

Mary, 1553-1568.

SECTION FIRST : SCHOLASTIC AND ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATUHF

IN ENGLAND.

iNTUuuurrriOK. 1. Impulses affecting Literature— Checks impeding it—
The Reformation — State Affairs— Classical Learning. 2. Influence of the
Age on the Literature of the Next — Its Social Importance. Classical
Lkarnino. 3. Benefits of Printing— Qreek and Latin Studies — Eminun!
Names — Tiieoloot. 4. Translations of the Holy Scriptures— Tyndah;^
L^feand Labours — Coverdale — Rogers — Cranmer — Reigns of Edward llie
Sixth and Mary — Increase of Printers. 5. Original English WritingH in
Theology— Their Genera? Character — Ridley — Cranmer — Tyndale's Con-
troversial Treatises — Latimer's Sermons— Character of Latimer's Oratury.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PERIOD.

1. TiiE groat frontier-line, between the Literary History of the
Middle Ages and that of the times which we distinguish as Modern,
lies, for England at least, in the early years of the sixteenth cen-
tury. Intellect then began to be stirred by impulses altogether new ;
while others, which had as yet been held in check, were allowed,
one after another, to work freely.

Yet there did not take place any sudden or universal metamor-
phosis, either in literature, or in those phenomena, social, intellec-
tual, and religious, by which its forms and its spu:it were deter-
mined. No such suddenness or completeness of change is possible.
As well might the traveller, in descending southward from the pine^

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158

THE AQE OF TIIE BEFORlf ATtOK.

forests aiid icy peaks of the Alps, hope to find himself transported
at once into the orange-groves of Naples, or to see the palms of Sicily
waving above his head.

All the influences by which English Literature was thenceforth to
be affected,, were of such a nature that their operation could not
but be slow ; and some of them manifested themselves in a fashion,
which caused their immediate effects to be very unlike those that
might have been expected to flow from them. Both of these things
are true in regard to the Protestant Reformation, the mightiest of
the forces which imprinted a new stamp on intellectual activity ;
and the first of them is true in regard to that new Revival of Classi-
cal Learning, which was the second of the predominating literary
influences.

The change of faith, a change destined to generate the most bene-
ficial and elevating developments of opinion and sentiment, was yet,
through the very earnestness and intensity with wliich it concentrated
the minds of thinking men on theological and ecclesiastical ques-
tions, decidedly unfavourable, for a time, to the more imaginative
departments of literary exertion. The zeal, again, with which the
purest models of Latin literature began anew to be studied, and the
enthusiasm, yet keener, which attended the novel studies of our
countrymen in the literature of Greece, produced, as it had in Italy
not long before, both a dearth of originality and an inattention to the
cultivation of tlie living tongue. Neither Protestant truth and free-
dom, nor Classical taste and knowledge, could ripen those literary
fruits which were their natural offspring, until a process of training
had been undergone, for which, in any circumstances, a generation or
two would scarcely have been sufficient. But the circumstances
which actually occurred, were such as necessarily suspended, for a
time yet longer, the salutary operation of the purer and more active
of the two influences. The student of history docs not require to
be reminded, how corruptly prompted, how incomplete and incon-
sistent in themselves, and how tyrannically and obnoxiously enforced,
were the steps by which Henry the Eighth became the instrument
of tlirowing off the yoke of Rome. We all know, likewise, how the
short reign of Henry's admirable son was inadequate for enabling
him and his advisers to purify thoroughly and found soliiUy tlie
revolution thus superflcial and incomplete ; and how it thus became
possible for Mary to compel, for a while, formal submission to a
church in which few of her subjects now trusted, but whose evil
nature still fewer of them knew well enough to be wilUng to sacri-
fice life as the penalty of dissent.
8. When, in a word, we reflect on tho public events which

mftrked
also, that
of digest
and inspi
gradually
of moderr
of its opei
out a grei
assume a
which ha<
worthy oi
the reign

We see
its era
the perio(
bounds m
wliich, for
The scene
august tha
are, in a si
which is (
Among till
none, of wl
were made
writers, th<
of poetry, i
poverty of
settler in a
woods that
was a pove

Accord!)
history of
ature, an a
due to its '.
in themsel
the intellec
with a fre
which a lig
the events
remark in 1
the ecclesii
exercising i

Nor do ^

I '•

CnABACTER OF THE PERIOD.

169

marked the reigns of those three sovereigns; when we consider,
also, that every new kind of knowledge requires to suffer a process
of digestion, before it can nourish the mind to healthy strength
and inspire it with original energy ; and when we remember how
gradually and slowly the art of printing itself, the great instrument
of modem enlightenment, diffused its blessings in the earliest times
of its operation : we shall not be surprised to discover that, through-
out a great part of the sixteenth century, English literature did not
assume a character separating it decisively from that of the ages
which had gone before. It did not really take its station as the
worthy organ of a new epoch in the history of civilisation, until
the reign of Elizabeth was within thirty years of its close.

AVe see, then, that our Literature, like our Language, has had
its era of transition. -• This character belongs emphatically to
the period whose phenomena we are about to study, and whose
bounds might not unfitly be extended a little beyond the point at
which, for the sake of convenience, it is here marked as ending.
The scene is dimly lighted ; and the figures that move in it are less
august than those that will next appear. But the parts they play
are, in a strict and proper sense, introductory to the great drama
which is offered to us in the literary history of modem times.
Among the brilliant works of the Elizabethan age, there is probably
none, of which we may not detect germs in some of the efforts which
were made within the half-century that preceded. The great prose
writers, the masters of the drama, the students in the Italian school
of poetry, all profited by what had then been done. The literarj'
poverty of the Age of the Reformation was the poverty which the
settler in an unpeopled country has to endure, while he fells the
woods that overshadowed him, and sows his half-tilled fields. It
was a poverty in the bosom of which lay rich abundance.

Accordingly this epoch, so unspeakably momentous in the social
history of Christendom, requires, even from the student of litera-
ature, an amount of attention far beyond that which might seem
due to its literary efforts, if these were judged merely as they are
in themselves. The relations, likewise, which subsisted between
the intellectual and the religious changes, present themselves to us
with a frequency which is exceedingly instructive, and through
which a light is thrown, by each of the two paths of progress, on
the events that were occurring in the other. It is very curious to
remark in how many odd ways we see the literature of the day, and
the ecclesiastical and theological reforms, mixed up together and
exercising a mutual action.

Nor do we linger reluctantly over the history of on era, in which,

•l-M

160

THE AGE OF THE BEFORMATION.

for the sake of goodness and of truth, so much, so very much, wai
earnestly thought, and bravely done, and patiently suffered. Alike
in the acts, and in the intellectual efforts, of the men who, in the
face of danger and of death, guided the opinions and the deeds of
that agitated generation, we acknowledge, amidst all weaknesses
and faults and sins, a mighty course of events, governed by the
hand of Ilim who has willed that man should know the trutli and
through the truth be free. On us, the inheritors of the blessings
which our forefathers won, devolves the duty of understandiiig
rightly the lessons which their history teaches, and of applying
those lessons to our lives and sentiments, in the spirit of enlight-
ened knowledge and of Christian love.

CLASSICAL LEARNING.

3. The Classical Learning of the age claims our notice first. Its
cultivation stood in a twofold relation to the changes in the church.
It was, antecedently, one of the causes of deviation from received
opinions ; and it became, afterwards, one of the instruments most
actively used in ecclesiastical controversy, both for attack and for
defence.

This was the department of knowledge, and its students were
the class of readers, that profited, in the first instance, more than
any others, by the diffusion of the art of printing. The early press
was employed in the multiplication of ancient books, much more
frequently than in producing works in any of the living tongues.
Of the ten thousand editions of books, large and small, which arc
said to have been printed before the close of the fifteenth century,
more than half appeared in Italy ; and a very large proportion o»
these consisted of classical works. Our English press, producuig
in all, before that date, no more than about a hundred and forty,
contributed nothing in this department ; but the increased facilities
of communication betAveen different countries put quickly at the
disposal of our scholars both the knowledge and the publications of
the continent. And students were now placed in a position of in-
calculable advantage, by the reduced price of books. They cost, it
is said, one-fifth only of the sums which had been paid for manu-
scripts.

Foreign men of letters^ also, visited England ; and a strong impulse
was given, especially, by the presence of the accomplished Eras-
mus. This celebrated scholar, writmg about the middle of our pe-
riod, pronounces England to have then been more exactly learned
than an^ continental nation, excepting Italy alone. Classical

CLASSICAL LEARNING.

161

Btndics were prosecuted, with remarkable ardour, in both of the
directions in which the improvements of the contmcnt had ahready
begun. Greek was studied accurately for the first time : Latin was
learned with an accuracy and purity never before attained.

The language and literature of Greece had been introduced be-
fore the beginning of the century, by William Grocyn, justly called
the patriarch of English learning, who had studied in Italy under
the fugitive scholars from Constantinople. The appearance of tliis
new branch of erudition excited at first an alaim, which divided
Oxford into two factions, the Greeks and the Trojans. But en-
lightenment speedily forced its way. Thomas Linacre, the first
physician of the day, translated Galen and other authors into
Latin, and wrote original treatises in the same tongue ; and William
Lilly, the author, in part, of the old Latin Grammar which bears
his name, learned Greek at Rhodes, and, on the foundation of
Saint Paul's school, was the first who publicly taught the language
in England. Cambridge next became the focus of Hellenic learn-
ing, through the teaching of two very able men, both of whom were
suon withdrawn from the academic cloisters to the arena of public
business : Sir Thomas Smith, who became one of the most eminent
statesmen of his time ; and Sir John Cheke, whose name will bo re-
membered by most of us as introduced in a sonnet of Milton.

Latin scholarship flourished not less, in the hands of these and
other zealoiij promoters. Among those who became most distin-
guished in this department, were several who likewise attained to
eminence elsewhere. Such was Cardinal Pole, Cranmcr's succes-
sor in the see of Canterbury, and one of tlie most accomplished of
those ecclesiastics who adhered to the old faith. Of the Reformerij,
though several were creditable scholars, none seem to have been
very highly celebrated except the martyr Ridley. Of other Latin-
ists it is enough to name Lchnd, best kno^vn in modem times for
ills researches into En^lij^Si antiquities ; Roger Ascham, the tutor
of Queen Elizabeth ; and the celebrated and unfortunate Sir Thomas
More.

The Latin writing/) of Ascham are miscellaneous, and not
very important. Th« principal work which More composed in
that language, was th'd " Utopia," in which he described an imag-
inary commonwealth, placed on an imaginary isLind from which
the book takes its name, and having a polity whose main fea-
ture is a thorough community of property. The epithet " Uto-
pian" is still familiar to uiy, as descriptive of chimerical and fantas-
tic schemes; and, notwithstanding the good Latinity of More's
treatise, and the similarity of its design to tliat of Plato's Republic,

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162

THE AGE OP THE REFORMATION.

!''

the leading idea really looks so like a grave jest, and sucli jesting
was so much in accordance with the character of tlie man, that we are
reminded by k of those half-serious apologues which we found to
be prevalent in the monasteries of the middle ages. The work, in
truth, is a romance, although clothed in a scholastic garb ; and it
abounds with touches of humour and strokes of homely illustra-
tion. Nor is it wanting in those lessons of wisdom, which its
strong-minded >vi*iter loved so much to inculcate with his quiet
smile. It is striking, perhaps humiliating to modem pride of en-
lightenment, to hear the chancellor of Henry the Eighth urging the
education of the people, asserting solcnmly that it is better to pre-
vent crime than to punish it, and denouncing the severities of the
penal code as discreditable to England.

Among the other scholars of the time, maybe named John Bale,
who, in the reign of Edward the Sixth, was made bishop of Ossory.
Although he was a voluminous writer of English theological tracts,
chiefly controversial, his memory is now preserved only by certain
lighter effusions, to bo named soon, and by his series of Latin
Lives of old British Writers, wliich is still an authoritative book
of reference.

The stock of ancient learning was thus very large. But it was
accumulated in the hands of a few capitalists. The communication
of it, however, to a wider circle, was anxiously aimed at, by the
foundation of schools and colleges, of which a larger number was
established in the hundred years which end witli the accession of
Elizabeth, than in any equal period throughout the course of our
history. The most celebrated benefactors were Dean Colet, the
founder of Saint Paul's School, and himself one of the most skil-
ful Latinists of his time ; and Cardinal Wolsey, who was a man of
learning as well as of political ability.

THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE IN ENGLISH.

4. Among the works couched in the living tongue, the most im-
portant, by very far, were those which were devoted to Theology.

Foremost among such efforts, and claiming from us reverent and
thankful attention, were the Translations of the Scriptures into
English, none of which had been publicly attempted since that
of Wycliffe. The history of these is very interesting ; not only for
its own sake, but also because, as*we shall speedily learn, our
received version of the Bible owes largely to them,
ft. ab. 1485. ■» William Tyndale, a native of Gloucestershire, a man
d. 1636. ]■ of studious and ascetic habits, imbibed, in the early part
of Henry's reign, many of the opinions of the continental reformers ;

TRANSLATIONS OP THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

163

and he expressed these so openly, in private intercourse and occa-
sional preaching in the country, that his stay at home was no longer
safe. He sought refuge In IIambui;g and elsewhere, and, in two or
three years, completed a translation of the New Testament. It was
printed, under his own care, at Antwerp, in 1526 ; but it has lately
been shoAvn that two surreptitious editions had appeared the year
before. In these and other impressions, it was immediately intro-
duced by stealth into England; Tyndale being employed, mean-
while, on the Old Testament. His version of the Five Books of
Moses, "cally printed successively in different foreign towns, was
next collected into one volume, which, the statement of the real
place being dangerous, was described as printed " at Marlborough,
in the land of Hesse." Its date is January 1530, wliich, the' old
style being then in use, corresponds with ihe beginning of our year
1531. His next publication was a revisal of his New Testament,
which appeared at Antwerp in 1534 : and with it his labours were
nearly at a close. Imprisoned at Antwerp for heresy, he was there,
after a long imprisonment, strangled and burnt, in October 1536.
In that very year his New Testament was reprinted in England ;
this being the first translation that issued from an English press.

The scene was now changed. Henry the Eighth had come to an
irretrievable breach with the See of Rome ; and the opening of the
Bible to the unlearned was no longer to be held a crime, or prac-
tised secretly in the fear of punishment. In 1537 there was pub-
lished, with a dedication to the King and Queen, the fii-st complete
Translation of the Bible. The translator was a clergyman, Mile»
Coverdale, who afterwards was made bishop of Exeter. From thi>«
version arc taken the Fsalms still used in the Book of Conunop
Prayer. In the same year there appeared, on the continent, a com-
plete translation, which, veiled under a fictitious name, was callei\
''Matthew's Bible." It was edited by John Rogers, who, some
years later, was the first Protestant bunied by Queen Mary. About
a thurd of it is attributed to the editor himself, perhaps with consul-
tation of Coverdale's version : two-thirds, embracing the whole of
the New Testament, and the Old as far as the end of the Second
Book of Chronicles, were, we are told, taken verbatim from Tyn-
dale.

Besides Tyndale's own editions of his New Testament, as many
as twenty others had been printed on the continent, and curculated
widely through England, before his death. English reprints now
became common; and among them were two or three of Coverdale's
wliole translation.

The reign of Henry gives us, in tlie last place, the Translation

'{ \ '

•i'''

f •■ ' •

■1:

' 1

ts, ., .

I »'

164

THE AQE OF THE BEFORHATION.

commonly called Cranmer's, from its chief promoter, but known
also as the Great Bible, from the size in which its earliest imprcs«
sions were printed. It is usually said to differ very slightly from
Coverdale's, and to have been prepared chiefly by him. But the
most recent writer of the history of the English Bible seems to
consider this as a mistake, foimded on the appearance of other
editions about the same time under the patronage of Craiimcr;
and, according to this authority, Cranmer's Bible is really a re-
vision of Tyndale's. Its date, also, commonly set dowTi as 1539,
appears to be 1540.

The short reign of Edward the Sixth, the Josiah of England, (as
lie has aptly been called,) produced no new translation ; but it was
fertile, to a marvel, in reprints of those already made, Tyndale's
being seemingly the most popular. In the six years and a half
during which this young king filled the throne, the English Bible,
which he had caused to be carried before him at his coronation,
was printed entire in fourteen editions at least ; and the editions of
the New Testament by itself amounted nearly to thirty.

The accession of Queen Mary stopped, of course, the printing of
the Scriptures in England, and made the circulation of the transla-
tions, fortunately for the last time, a thing to be attempted only in
secrecy and with fear. Yet even this perilous time introduced one
new translation from abroad ; namely, the " Geneva " New Testa-
ment. It was a revision of Tyndale's, performed by "William
Whittingham, a refugee fellow of Oxford. Wo shall encounter
him again in the same walk : and then also will appear the received
version of the Bible.

In the meantime, the student of literature may be invited to
observe, how the history of this, the record of the Divine AVill,
and the history of human and uninspired productions, dovetail into
each other, and reflect mutual light. Some of the most valuable
contributions ever made to our knowledge of the progress of intel-
lectual culture in Scotland, were incorporated, not very long ago, in
a summary of 4ho history of Bible-printing in the country. Here,
again, in noting the diffusion of the Scriptures in England, we en-
counter some particulars, showing how far the benefits of the press
were allowed to be reaped under the arbitrary and capricious sway
of Henry, and how rapidly those benefits extended themselves when
free communication of all kinds of knowledge was permitted by his
excellent son.

At the accession of Henry the Eighth, there appear to have been
no more than four printers in England. Before his death the num-
ber had risen to forty-fivo. Of these no fewer than thirty-three

when Et

erance a

whole n

more thi

Scripture

5. Oui

couched :

Chiefly, (

this is no

the work:

the treat!

to us, an

marked b

of literati!

sessed eit)

mated rig

both sides

were toji

struggle, {

mixed up

either to

ability ant

It may

faith whic

terity thai

ary merit.

disputants

noticed as

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possessed

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general his

power; an

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tbe state o

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Hia Engl is

ENGLISU THEOLOGICAL WRITINQS.

16d

I''

I ^

appeared in the last twenty years of his reign ; that is, during the
time when he was gradually seceding from Rome, and had begun
to relax, in his vacillating and arbitrary way, the restrictions by which
literary communication was fettered. Still more remarkable was
that which followed. Fourteen of the forty-five printers surviving
when Edward the Sixth ascended the throne, his shc^t rule of tol-
erance and enlightenment added forty-three to the list, raising the
whole number to fifty-seven. Of these, likewise, thirty-one, or
more than a half, took part in the printing or publication of the
Scriptures.

5. Our attention cannot long be given to the Original Writings,
couched in the English tongue, and dealing with theological matters.
Chiefly, of course, controversial, they discuss questions for which
this is no fit place ; and yet, without treating these, the merits of
the works could not be fairly appreciated. But the truth is, that
the treatises of the sort, which this stirring period has transmitted
to us, are neither so numerous as we might have expected, nor
marked by qualities which make them very important in the history
of literature. Neither the learning nor the power of thinking pos-
sessed either by the lleformers or by their opponents could be esti-
mated rightly, unless full account were taken of the writings, on
both sides, which appeared in the Latin tongue : and, though we
were to judge with the aid of these materials, still the records of a
struggle, so hampered by secular interferences and so inextricably
mixed up with political considerations, would scarcely do justice
either to the momentous character of the contest, or to the real
ability and knowledge of those who maintained it.

It may be enough to name a very few of those who, dying for the
faith which they taught, have a purer title to the reverence of pos-
terity than any that could have been gained by the highest liter-
ary merit, liidley, held to have been one of the most dexterous
disputants of his time, and famous as a preacher, has already been
noticed as the most learned of the Reformers. Cranmer was more re-
markable for his patronage of theological learning, than for the meriJ
possessed by any writings of his own : but his extant EngMsh com-
positions are numerous.

Two others of the martyrs, whoso names seldom occur in any
general history of literature, were men of much though dissimilar
power ; and these might be taken, more fitly than most others, as
examples both of the turn of thinking which then prevailed, and of
tlie state of progress of the lilnglish language.

The one was Tyndale, our honoured translator of tho Scriptures.
Mis English tracts, quite controversial in character, were likewise

■'\

[\rm\'

i* ; . I

> I

166

TUE AGE OF THE REFORMATION.

nothing more than intcrhidcs between his weightier labours. Yet,
slight as they are, his " Obedience of a Cliristian Man/' his disser-
tation on the parable of " The Wicked Mammon," his " rractico of
Trelates," and his few expositions and prefaces, not only show great
clearness of thinking and aptness of illustration, but are exceedingly
favourable specimens of Old English style.^
h. Kb. 1472. > Our second instance is the celebrated Latimer, whose

d. 1665. j literary remains, chiefly sermons and letters, are of a
very different stamp, but exceedingly interesting and instructive.

In the writings of tliis venerable man we discover no depth of
learning, and as little refinement of taste: but they abound in homely
sense and shrewdness ; they show at once earnest and deep piety,
and a quiet courage, prognosticating indomitable endurance ; and

"^1'

• WILLIAM TYNDALE.

IVotn »• The Practice of Prelates ;" jrubliahed in 1530.

[ Tho modem spelling is generally adopted in this Extract, and in those that

follow.]

To see how Our Holy Father came up, mark the ensample of an Ivj
Tree. First it springcth out of the earth, and then a while creepcth along
by the ground, till it findeth a great tree ; then it joincth itself beneath alow
anto the body of the tree, and creepeth up, a little and a little, fair and softly.
And, at tho beginning, while it is yet thin and small, that the burden is not
perceived, it seometh glorious, to garnish the tree in winter, and to bear u(T
the tempests of the weather. But, in the mean season, it thrusteth roots
into the bark of the tree, to hold fast withal ; and ceaseth not to climb up,
till it be at the top and above all. And then it scndeth his branches along
by the branches of the tree, and overgroweth all, and waxeth great, heavy,
and thick ; and sucketh the moisture so sore out of the tree and his branches,
that it choketh and stifleth them. And then the foul ivy waxeth mighty in the
stump of the tree, and becometh a se^t and a nest for all unclean birds, and
for blind owls which hawk in the dark, and dare not come at the light.

Even so the Bishop of Rome, at the beginning, crop? along upon the
earth ; and every man trode upon him in this world. But, as soon as there
came a Christian Emperor, he joined himself unto his feet, and kissed them,
and orope up a little with begging ; now this privilege, now that ; now this
city, now that ; to find poor people withal, and the necessary ministers of the
Word. * » * And thus, with flattering, and feigning, and vain super-
stition under the name, of Saint Peter, he crept up, and fastened his roots in
the heart of the Emperor ; and with his sword climbed up above all his fel-
lowships, and brought them under his feet. And, as he subdued them with
the Emperor's sword, even so, by subtlety and help of them, after that they
were sworn faithful, he climbed above the Emperor, and subdued him also ;
and made him stoop unto his feet and kiss them another while. Yea, Celcs-
tin^s crowned the Emperor Henry the Fifth, holding the crown between hia
feet. And, when he had put the crown on, he smote it off with his feet again,
saying that ho had might to make emperors and put them down again.

ENOUSn THEOLOGICAL WniTINGS.

167

they are inspired with a cheerfulness which never fails. Those who
sneered at Sir Thomas More as a scoffing jester, might have found
Dtill apter ground for censure in many efTusions of Latimer, both
while he preached to the peasants of Wiltshu'e and after he had be-
come the bishop of an important diocese. He jests, and plays on
words, when he writes letters of business to Cromwell the secretary
of state ; and, in the pulpit, seizing eagerly on all opportunities of
interesting his audience by allusions to facts of ordinary life, he
never allows his illustrations to lose their force through any fear of
infringing on the gravity of the place. His " Sermon on the
Plough," the only one remaining from a series of three on the same
text, expounds and illustrates the duties of the ploughman, that is,
the preacher of the Gospel, with equal ingenuity of application and
plainness of speech. In a passage that has often been quoted, he
takes occasion to describe the experience of his own youth, and the
frugality of his father^s rural household. In another place, the duty
of residence, strongly urged on the clergy throughont the discourse,
is enforced by a very original similitude. The spiritual husband-
man, he says, ought to supply conlinual food to his people : the
preaching of the word is meat, daily sustenance : it is not straw-
berries, which come but once a-year and do not tarry long. The
metaphor appears to have been relished, apd to have suggested a
descriptive name for clerical absentees. In an extant sermon of the
time, they are spoken of as " strawberry-preachers." An excursion
yet wider from clerical formalities is ventured on in his set of " Ser-
mons on the Card." Preaching at Cambridge in Christmas, he tells
his hearers, that, as they are accustomed to make card-playing one
of the occupations in which they celebrate the festival, he will deal
to them a better kind of cards, and show them a game in which all
the players may win. One scriptural text after another is pro-
nounced and commented on in the odd manner thus promised :
and the great truth, of the importance of the affections in religion,
is thrown repeatedly into this quaint shape; that, in the game of
souls, hearts are always trumps.*

'i I

i>W

\ 1

* HUGH LATLMER.
From the Sermon on iht Plough ; preached in January 1548.
But now methinkcth I hear one say unto me : Wot yo what you say ?
Is preaching a work ? Is it a labour ? How then hath it happened that we
have had, so many hundred years, so many unpreaching prelates, lordinp
loiterers, and idle ministers ? Ye would have me hero to make answer, and tu
show the cause thereof. Nay I This land is not for me to plough. It is Um
stony, too thorny, too hard for me to plough. They have so many thui^'>
that make fur them, so many things to lay for tliemselves, that it is not t'o'

168

TUE AQE OF TBE BEFORMATIOK.

Sucli eccentricities, however discordant with modem taate, innit
be judged with a recollection of the time in which they appeared ;
and their prevalence is a feature not to bo overlooked, in the elo-
quence of a man who was admittedly one of the most impressive pub-
lic speakers of his day. His sermons deserve commendation more
unqualified, for their general simplicity of plan. They. have little
or nothing of the scholastic complication and multiplicity of subdi-
visions, which made their appearance in the theological compositions
of the next age, and which characterize almost all efforts of the
kind made in our language till we have proceeded beyond the middle
of the seventeenth century.

Before we quit those who acted and suffered in the Reformation,
we must remember John Fox, their zealous but honest memorialist.
Ili3 " History of the Acts and Monuments of the Church," bettor
known as " The Book of Martyrs," was first prmted in his exile,
towards the close of our period.

my weak team to plough them. And I fear me this land is not yet ripo to
be ploughed : for, as the saying is* it lacketh weathering ; this gear lacketh
weathering ; at least way it is not for me to plough. For what shall I look
for among thorns, hut pricking and scratching ? What among stones, bat
stumbling ? What (I had almost said) among serpents, but stinging ? But
this much I dare say, that, since lording and loitering hath come uji, preach-
ing hath come down, contrary to the Apostles' times ; for they preached and
lorded not, and now they lord and preach not. * * * And thus, if the
ploughmen of the country were as negligent in their ofHco as prelates be, wo
should not long live, for lack of sustenance. And as it is necessary for to
have this ploughing for the sustentation of the body, so must we have also
the other for the satisfaction of the soul ; or else wo cannot live long ghostly.
For, as the body w^teth and consumeth away for lack of bodily mcnt, nc\
ioth the soul pine away for default of ghostly mep&i

inSCELLAKEOUS LITrBATtRE tN ENGLAND.

169

CHAPTER II,

THE AGE or THE PROTESTANT KEFOKMATION.
A. D. 1509— A. D. 1558.

.W:.TION SECOND: MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE IN ENGLAND;
AND LITERATURE ECCLESIASTICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS

IN SCOTLAND.

.\lirtC'KM<ANEOUs PuosE IN Enolakd. 1. Secondary Importance of the
Works— Sir Thomas More— His Style- His Historical Writing»-His
Tracts and Letters.— 2. Roger Ascham — His Style — His Toxophilos —
His Schoolmaster — Prosody — Female Education — Wilson's Logic and
Klictoric— Enolisr Poethy. 3. Poetical Aspect aud Relations of the
Ago — Its Earliest Poetry— 3atires — Barklay — Skclton's Works.— 4. Lord
Surrey — His Literary Influence — Its Causes — His Italian Studies — Ilis
Sonnets — Introduction of Blank Verse — His Supposed Influence on Eng-
lish Versification.— 5. Wyatt— Translations of the Psalms — The Mirror
of Magistrates — Its Influence— Its Plan and Authors — Sackville's Induc-
tion and Complaint of Buckingham. — Imfakct of the Enomsh Drama.
6. Retrospect — The English Drama in the Middle Ages — Its Religious
(Jast— The Miracle-Plays— The Moral-Plays.- 7. The Drama in the Six-
teenth Century — Its Beginnings — Skelton— Bishop Bale's Moral Plays—
Hey wood's Interludes. — 8. Appearance of Tragedy and Comedy — Udall's
Comedy of Roister Doister — 'The Tragedy of Gorboduc, by Sackville and
Norton. — Literature ix Scotijind. 9. Literary Character of th*»
Period— Obstacles — State of the Language. — 10. Scottish Poetry —
Sir David Lindsay — His Satirical Play — Its Design and Effects— His
other Poems. — 11. First Appearance of^ Original Scottish Prose — Trans-
lations — The Complaint of Scotland — Pitscottie — State of Learning—
Bocce — John Major.— 12. John Knox — Qeorge Buchanan's Latin Works
—Other Latinists — Melville — Scottish Universities— Schools*

MISCELLANEOUS PROSE LITERATURE IN ENGLAND.

1. Pausing in our survey of ecclesiastical literature in England, at
the moment when Protestantism rejoiced in the accession of Eliza-
beth, VfQ quit the cloister, from which the monks have been cast
out, and the clmrch, in which the mass is no longer chanted;
and wo are content, perforce, with the little we have had time to
loarn in regard to the most abstruse of the studies out of which
cuicr^Td the liglit of tlie Kefonnation. We now look abroad on

•ft

lit'

■'i-v: -

r'.

170

THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION.

tlioso literary pursuits of tho same period, whose aim was neither
religious nor ecclesiastica!, and whose natural and appropriate
organ was tho living tongue of the nation.

New actors will appear on the scene : yet some of those whom
we have encountered as combatants in tho fiery struggle of creeds,
will again be seen in the quieter walks along which our eye is next
to be guided. Nor are the few names, which only can here bo set
down, sufficient to show, at all distinctly, how close was the con-
nexion, in that fervent age, not only between tho ecclesiastical
changes and the progress of literature, but between the men who
led the former and those who most efficiently promoted the latter.

While the theological writings which have just been noticed
are, admittedly, valuable chiefly for their matter, the miscellane-
ous writings of the age in English prose attract us most as
specimens of the language in its earliest stage of maturity. None
of them exhibit either such eloquence or such vigour of thought, as
should entitle them to a high rank among the monuments of our
literature ; and, with few exceptions, the very names of the writers
have been allowed to sink into complete oblivion.
b. 14«>. > Sir Thomas More was commemorated when we studied
d. 1635. ]■ fi^Q progress of the language, as having been called the ear-
liest writer whose English prose was good. This eminent man wrote
purely, naturally, and perspicuously. His style, indeed, has very
great excellence ; and it, with that of the other writer who will hero
be cited, shoidd be studied as characteristically showing, when avc
compare it with tlie manner of the prose which was written in the
next period, a simplicity, both of construction and of diction, which
may be accounted for in more ways than one. Certainly less cum-
brous, as well aL less exotic, the style of More and Ascham may
have- been so, cither because classical studies had not yet become
familiar enough to produce a great effect on the manner of expres-
sion, or because the writers were compelled to be the less ambitious
in proportion to their want of mastery over the resources of their
native tongue.

More's works, Latin and English, are but the recreations in whicli
a highly accomplished man, placed in the midst of a learned ago,
spent the little leisure allowed by a life of professional and public
business. His Historical Writings are among the very earliest that
belong to our period ; and they have received very warm commenda-
tion, not only for their style, but for the ease and spirit of the narra-
tive. There is not any work of the fifteenth century, that has merit
enough to forbid our considering him as t)»e earliest writer of the
English language, who rose to the dignity and skill of proper his-

tory

guag
they
led li
mhid
that

delight

MISCELLANEOUS PROBE LITERATURE IN ENGLAND. 171

toiy. His Controversial Tracts arc perhaps equally good in lan-
guage ; but, occupied with the ecclesiastical questions of his day,
they fall beyond our sphere. His " Dialogue concerning Heresies"
led him into a hot contest with Tyndale. When we arc thus re-
minded that More adhered to the old faith, we must remember also
that this was the losing side, and that the great and good man
proved his sincerity by dying for what he held to be the truth,
lie was as really a martyr as Cranmer ; and ho was much braver
und more upright in conduct. Nowhere do we meet him on ground
where his cheerful kindliness and excellent judgment have freer
room to work, than in his private letters, especially those which he
addressed to the members of his family ; and from none of his
writings could we ciUl examples better illustn'i.ig the character of
his style.*

• SIR THOMAS MORE.

A Letter to Ms Children ; written about 1525.

T'i.'-nas More, to his best beloved cluldren, and to Margaret, whom he
nutnbcreth among his own, sendeth greeting.

The merchant of Bristow brought unto me your letters, the next day after
he had received them of you ; with the wliich I was exceedingly delighted.
For there can come nothing, yea though it were never so rude, never m
meanly polished, from this your shop, but it procurethme more delight than
any others' works, be they never so eloquent : your writing doth so stir up
my afTection towards you. But, excluding this, your letters may also very
well please me for their own worth, being full o( fine wit and of a i)ure Latin
phrase: therefore none of them all but joyed mo exceedingly. Yet, to tell
you ingenuously what I think, my son John's letter pleased mo best ; both
because it was longer tlian the otiier, as also fur that ho secmeth to have
taken more pains than the rest. For he not only painteth out the matter
decently, and spcaketh elegantly ; but he playeth also pleasantly with nic,
and returneth my jests upon r^ a again, very wittily: and this ho doth not
only pleasantly, but tempcmtety withal ; showing that he is mindful witli
whom he jesteth, to wit, V^s father, whom he endeavourcth so to delight
tiiat ho is also afearkd to offend.

Hereafter I expect every day letters from every one of you : neither will
I accept of such excuses as you complain of; that you have no leisure, or
that the carrier went away suddenly, or that you have no matter to write :
John is not wont to allege any such thing. Nothing can hinder you from
writing ; but many things may exhort you thereto. \Vliy should you lay
any fault upon the carrier, seeing you may prevent his coming, and have
them ready made up and scaled two days before- any offer themselves to
carry them ? And how can you want matter of writing un' me, who am
delighted to hear either of your studies or of your play ; uom you may
even then please exceedingly, when, having nothing to write of, you write
as largely as you can of that uuthing, than which nothing is more easy for
you to doi

172

THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION,

s; J i It' «

M5i6.\ 2. The writings of the learned and judicious Ascham
d. 1668. j possess, both in style and in matter, a value which must not
be measured bv their inconsiderable bulk. Their language is pure,
idiomatic, vigorous English : they exhibit great variety of knowl-
edge, remarkable sagacity, and sound common-sense.

Of his three largi treatises, the earliest was a "Report on the
State of Germany," being a digested account of his observations on
the political affairs of the continent ; a discourse highly creditable to
the writer's shrewdness, but now uninteresting, unless to the exact
students of the history of the times.

Next came the " Toxophilus: the Pchool or Partitions of Shoot-
ing." It is a treatise on Archery ; an art which, now a mere
pastime, and even then beginning to be superseded in warfare,
had not yet lost all the importance it possessed when the Eng-
lish bowmen thinned the French ranks at Agincourt. The work
is a dialogue in two books, sustained with much liveliness of
tone, as well as discrimination of character, between Philologus, a
student, and Toxophilus, a lover of archery. The form is thus
adopted from classical models ; and it is a point illustrative of the
tastes of the day, that the author, in his preface, thinks it necessary
to justify himself for writing in English rather than in Latin. The
second of the two books is a manual of the rules of the art ; the
first is a curious dissertation on its value. It i.s recommended for
general adoption on the ground of its military importance, which
is sho^vn by a variety of instances spiritedly related. It is recom-
mended especially to persons of studious habits; being, it is alleged,
the best of all those amusements which, as the writer maintains
with great force of reasoning, arc absolutely required by reading

But this I admonish you to do ; that, whctlicr you write of serious
matters or of trifles, you write with diligence and consideration, premeditat-
ing of it before. Neithei; will it ho amiss, if you first indite it in English ;
for then it may more easily bo trunslated into Latin, whilst the mind, free
from inventing, is attentive to find apt and eloquent words. And, although
I put this to your choice, whether you will do so or no, yet I enjoin you,
by all means, that you diligently examine what you have written before you
write it over fair again ; first considering attentively the whole sentence, and
aft(?r examine every i)art thereof; by which means you may cosily find out
if any solecisms have escaped you; which being put out, and your letter
written fair, yet then It it not also trouble you to examine it over again ;
for sometimes the same faults creep in at the second writing, which you
Itefore had blotted out. V>y this your diligence you will procure, that those
your trifles will seem seriou*? matters. Kor, as nothing is so |)leasing but
may be made nnsavoury by prating garrulity, so nothing is by natunt so un-
pleasant, that by industry may not be made full of grace and plcasaiitneMs.

Farewell, my swei'te^^t ebillnm. Fr'>m the Court, this 3d of ScMtttinbnr

manly

§'. w.

MISCELLANEOUS I'KOSE LITEUATUIJE IN lACIIANH. ITIJ

men, for the sake both of hcaUh and of mental relaxation. (3ain-
ing, and other censurable diversions, are energetically (leiionncod.
The common athletic games are maintained, more ingeniously tliaii
soundly, to be in several ways objectionable ; and music itself, ad-
mitted to bo an essential part in tiie education of a scholar and a
f^ontleman, is yet asserted to have disadvantages from which the
manly old English exercise is quite exempt.*

• ROGER ASCIIAM.

From tlie Pi-cfacc to the " Toxojihilua ;" published in 1544.

If any man would blamo mc, either for taking such a matter in Iiainl, or
cIhc for writing it in the English tongue, this answer I may make him ; that,
wlicit the best of the realm think it honest to' them to use, 1, one of tlio
inoancst sort, oe.^i;*^ not to suppose it vik for me to write. And, though to
have written it in another tongue had been both more profitable for my
study, and also more honest for my name ; yet I can think my hibour well
l)i\stowe'i, if, with a little hindrance of my p-ofit and name, may come any
furtherance to the pleasure or commodity of thb gentlemen and yeomen of
Kugland, for whose sake I took this matter in hand.

And as for the Latin or Greek tongue, everything is so excellently done
ill them that none can do better ; in the English tongue, conl ary, every
tliii'.; in a manner so meanly, both for the matter and handling, 'iut no man
'■:i!( i!o worse. For therein the least learned, for the most part h ve been
always most ready to write. And they which had least hope i Latin,
nave been most bold in English ; when surely every man that is m, st ready
to talk, is not most able to write.

He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this coi isel of
Aristotle : to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do : as
so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise mci allow
him. JMany English writers have not done so, but, using strange wi ds, as
Latin, French, and Italian, do make all things dark and hard. Ooco com-
nuined with a man which reasoned the English tongue to be enrichi 1 and
increased thereby, saying, " Who will not praise that feast, where t num
hliall drink at a dinner both wine, ale, and beer?" "Truly," q';t h I,
" they bo all good, every one taken by himself alone ; but, if you put i ilm-
Kcy and sack, red wine and white, ale and beer, and all in one pof , yow liall
make a druik not easy to be known, nor yet wholesome for the body."

Ei.'slish writers, by diversity of time, have taken divers nuittci in
liaud. In our fathers' time, nothing was read but books of feigneil cliiv; ry,
wherein a man by reading should be led to none other end but only i an-
shiughter and lewdness. If any man suppose they were good enough to ass
the time withal, he is deceived. For surely vain words do woik no si all
thing in vain, ignorant, and young minds ; especially if tlicy be given « y-
thing thereunto of their own nature. These books, as I have heard t ly,
were made the most part in abbeys and monasteries ; a very likely ant' fit
fruit of suc|> an idle and blind kind of living. In our time, now, when ev iry
man is given to know, much rather than to live well, very many do wi te,
but after such a fashion as very many do shoot, ijome shooters take hi 1) md

fl-i^'

.! f

174

THE AGE OF TUB REFOnMATION.

V^ i

- ^ ■;;-

'■'

i| i;:

1,8 '

;i *

Tliere is much greater value in the matter, but considerably less
of liveliness in the composition, of Ascham's most celebrated work,
" The Schoolmaster." It is introduced in a strain reminding us, yet
again, of the manner in which the philosophers of antiquity loved to
give an air of dramatic reality to their speculations. In the year
1503, when the court had sought refuge at Windsor from the plague
which then raged in London, Elizabeth's tutor dines, with several
of tlie royal counsellors, in the chamber of the secretary, the elder
Cecil, afterwards known by his title of Lord liurleigh. The host
says he had just hoard, that some of the pupils of Eton had run
away from the school for fear of beating. The news leads to a con-
versation on the discipline of the young, and the comparative effi-
cacy of love and fear in teaching. The treasurer. Sir Kichard Sack-
ville, who is described as taking a lively interest in the education
of his grandsons, pays close attention to the discussion ; and, after
Aschani had been released from his reading of Demosthenes with
the Queen, the argument is renewed between the two. On Sack
villc's request, Asck'vm proceeds to I'ccord his opinions, dividing his
treatise into two books. The first is described as *' Teaching the
bringing up of Youth." It abounds with good sense and right
feeling, and, though scholastic and somewhat formal in shape, h
still interesting as well as suggestive. The Second Book is an-
nounced as " Teaching the Keady "Way to the Latin Tongue." It
has the appearance of being incomplete ; the excellent critical
remarks on lloman authors breaking oft* abruptly. While the
whole work well deserves to be studied by teachers, this part of it,
in particular, proposes improvements for which there are still both
room and need ; and the value of the hints is not unappreciated.
One of the first classical scholars of our own day, in recently edit-
ing a work of Cicero, has supported his arguments in support of
certain methods of teaching, by a long quotation from Ascham's
Second Book,

stronger bows than they bo able to maintain. This thing inakcth Ihcm some-
tiino to ovcrslioot tlie mark, sometime to shoot fur M'ido, und perchancu
hurt some tliat look on. Otlier, tliat never learned to shoot, nor yet knoweth
good shaft nor bow, will bo as busy as the best. If any man will apjjly
tlu'se things together, he shall not set; the anv far differ from the other.

And I also, amongst all other, in writing this little treatise, have fol-
lowed some young shooters, which botli will begin to shoot for a little money,
and also will use to shoot once or twice about the mark for nought, before
they begin for good. And therefore did I take this little matter in hand, to
assay myself; and hereafter, if judgment of wise men that lookoifthink that
I ean do any good, I may perchance cast my shaft among other, for bettur
game.

Two p

sons, spe
In the
language;
a return
that he
Mnglish t
in all at
which w
j)reciscly
other hail
language
Knglish r
we shall i
unquestio
The ot
well knoi
Grey in
Greek, wl
park. Tl
heth hers
on the in
zeal for tl
a very hi
during tlu
While
writer eni
had long
many oth
matiTc lil
in the m'u
Art of L
The coucl
tion .well
t,'ood: tht
lioforc As
as having
One incid
on Queen
was appre
a new poj
among til
Itefornu'.r

MISCELLANEOUS PROSE LITERATURE IN ENfiLANO. 175

Two passages of " The Schoolmaster" deserve, for diflfcrcnt rca- .
sons, special remembrance.

In the one, the writer tresits the versification of the modem
languages, lie vehemently condemns rhyme as barbarous, urging
a return to the uiuhymcd measures of the ancients. Yet he shown
that he understood thoroughly the prosodial structure of the
r^nglish tongue. For, on the one hand, he prophes'es utter failure
in all attempts to naturalize the classical hexameters; attempts
which were industriously made in the next generation, and had
precisely the issue which this acute critic had foreseen. On the
other hand, he points out the iambic metres as those for which our
language has the greatest aptitude, and recommends, as models for
English rhythm, the recent versification of Lord Surrey : that is, as
we shall immediately learn, he hails the introduction of blank verse,
unquestionably the finest of all our metrical forms.

The other passage that has been alluded to, is one which is very
well known, lie relates, in it, how, visiting his pupil Lady Jane
Grey in Leicestershire, he found her reading Plato in the original
Greek, while her parents and their household were hunting in the
park. The learning of this unfortunate lady, that of Queen Eliza-
l)eth herself, and the similar pains bestowed by Sir Thomas More
on the instruction of his daughters, are striking examples of that
zeal for the dift'usioii of education, and of education reaching up to
a very high pouit, which actuated our countrymen so strongly
(luring the sixteenth century.

While Ascham announced new views in education, another
writer endeavoured, with much talent, to popularize sciences that
had long been known and taught. Thomas AVilson, who, like so
many other accomplished men of the time, transferred himself in
matiTC life from the closet to tlie business of the stafe, published,
in the middle of the century, "Tlie liule of Reason, containing the
Art of Logic," and, a little afterwards, "The Art of Rhetoric."
The couching of such treatises in the living tongue, was an innova-
tion well worthy of being chronicled. Tlie works themselves are
i^ood : the latter, in particular, having been published several yearn
liofore Ascham's book, gives the author some right to be regank-d
as having been the earliest critical writer in the English language.
One incident in his life is interesting. Emigrating to the coiitini*ut,
on Queen Mary's accession, an<l prosecuting his studies in Italy, he
was appreheiwled by the Inquisition \m Rome. On the accession of
a new pope, the populace of the city broke open the prisons ; and
among those captives who escajHtl were Wilson, uid the Scottish
ICefdruMT Craig.

17G

TlIK AGE OF Tin: Ur.FOUMATION.

ENGLISH rOETKY NON-DRAMATIC.

3. Tho Poetry which arose in England, during the reigns of
Henry and lus next succeRsors, is, quite as much as tlic kinds of
literature that liave already been reviewed, important rather fur
its relations to otlicr things than fur its own merit. Yet it occu-
pies a higher place than the prose, in our literary history. It
exhibits, in temper, in manner, and in the nature of tho topics
selected, a very decisive contrast to tho poetry of ^the times that
were past : it bears in several points a close resemblance, and it
turnishcd many materials and many forms, to the poetry of the
energetic age that was soon to open.

Tho poetical names with which we require to form an acquaint-
ance are very few : and the character of the Avorks might be under-
stood most easily if we were to arrange them in three gi'oups, whicli
would exhibit three dissimilar stages in the progress of taste and
literary cultivation. In tho first of these the chief was Skelton :
the second was headed by Surrey; and the third, which shows
deviation, perhaps, rather than progi*ess, may be represented by
Saekvillc. This classification should be remembered ; though the
order of the minor poets would make it inapplicable to a full
history of the tune.

The irregular'pomp of chivalrous and allegoric pageantry, which
accompanied us in our survey of the middle ages, had in the mean-
time vanished. Its last appearance was in the poem of Ilawes,
which, as already noticed, might have been referred, without impro-
priety, to the beginning of this period. It was succeeded, at lirst,
by nothing higher than a Satirical kind of Poetry. In which features
of actual life were depicted and anatomized, in a spirit caught from
the prevalent restlessness and discontent. One of its effusions was
Alexander Barklay's " Ship of Fools," translated from a continental
work, but containing many additions illuslrating tho weaknesses
and vices of English life and manners. It is a general moral satire,
having very little that is either vigorous or amusing.

The poems, if they deserve to be so calknl, of the eccentric
I •J'^''" Skelton, are not only more intcrestmg for their
' i closeness of application to historical incidents and per-
sons, but are singularly though coarsely energetic, and do not
altogether want glimmerings of poetical fancy. After having been
the tutor of Henry the Eighth, he continued to write dunng tho
greater part of his pupil's reign, siitiri/jng ecclesiastical and social
abuses, attacking great men in the full fiush of their power, and
faking greater liberties with none than with the formidable Wolscyt

il li; ..

ntric

their

pcr-

not
been

the
ocial

and

scy,

POETICAL LITERATURE IN ENGLAND.

177

The pohit of his sarcasms is not infrequently lost, throngh obscure
and aimless digressions and mystifications, which may plausibly bo
attributed to an occasional fit of caution. But the pcrsonnlitius
are still oftcner so undisguised, and the malicious bittemcss is
60 provoking, that the impunity enjoyed by the libeller is a
matter of surprise, although we make the fullest allowance for the
cipricc and inconsistency which at all times marked the adminis-
tration of tho king. There are not, in Skelton's works, very
many verses that rise into the region of poetry : but his acutencss
of observation, his keenness of humour, and his inexhaustible fer-
tility of familiarly fanciful illustration, impart to his pieces an ex-
ceedingly curious and amusing grotesqueness. His command of
words, too, is quite extraordinary. It not only gave good augury
of tho future development of the language, but showed that, by
him at least, rapid progress had already been made. Although his
task was much aided by his unscrupulous coinage of now and
ridiculous terms, and by his frequent indentation of Latin words and
lines into his English, yet the volubility with which ho vents his
acrid humour is truly surprising ; and it. is made the more so
through the difliculties imposed on him by the kind of versification,
which, seemingly invented by himself, he used oftcner than any
other. It consists of cxfoodingly short lines, many of which often
rhyme together in close succession, and have double or triple
endings.*

* JOHN SKELTON.

From ^^ Colin Clout;" in toJiich tJie abuses said to prevail in the Church are
^''.t forth in long complaints, put into the mouths of the people, and interspersed
Kith very short and doubtful exjyrcssions of dissent by the poet.

What trow yo they say more

Of the bishops' lore?

I low in matters they be raw :

They lumber forth the law,

And judge it as they will.

For other men's skill,

Kxpounding out their clanscs,

And leave their own cnuscst.

In their principal euro

They make but little sure,

Ajid meddles very light

In the ciiurch's right.
* * «

And whiles the heads do this,
The remnant is amiss
Of the clergy all,
Hoth great and small.

I wot not how they wark :
Dut thus the people cark.
* « «

And all they lay
On you prelates, and my,
Ye do wrong and no right ;
No matins a\ <nidnightl
I look and c' ' lice gone quite 1
riuck away tho leads
Over their heads ;
And sell away their bells,
And all tliat they have else:
Thus the people tells ;
Rails like rebels,
Kedo shrewdly and spells :
How ye break the dead's wills:
Turn uionastcries into water-mills

17d

tllE AGE OF tut REf ORMATIOK.

4. A new era in the history of our poetry was unquestionably
6. Rb. 1516. ) opened by the works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.

d. 1547. j j,^ respect of poetical vigour and originality, this accom-
plished and ill-fated person was inferior to many poets who have
long bsen forgotten : but his foreign studies, and his refinement of
taste and feeling, concurred in enabling him to turn our poetical
literature into a track which had not yet been trodden.

The works through which Surrey's influence was exerted were of
two kinds : a collection of Sonnets and other poems of a Lyrical and
Amatory cast ; and a Translation of the Second and Fourth Books of
the ^^neid. All of them have this in common ; that they are imi-
tations of Italian models, which, in our country, had not yet per-
haps been by any one studied exactly, and had certainly never yet
been imitated. His were the first Sonnets in our language ; so that
he gave us a new form of poetical composition, and a form wliich,
used with zealous frequency by all the greatest poets of the Eliza-
bethan age, has not lost its hold from that time to this. Nor was
there less of novelty in the introduction of that refined and senti-
mental turn of thought, which breathes through all his lyrics, and
which Avas prompted by Petrarch and his other Italian masters.
The Italian studies of our poets of the fourteenth century, lay, as
we have learned, in other quarters: the Petrarr-'?,!) su'rtUti^s and
conceits, and the Petrarchan tenderness and r«!flectiveness, were
alike ungenial to their rougher and more mafily temperament.
Surrey was thus our usher into a poetical school, in which, for
much good and not a little harm, succeeding poets became both
pupils and teachers : and, it should also be remembered, his studies
in the poetry of Italy, as it existed before his own day, prepared the
way for introducing to the notice of his successors the greater
Italian works which were produced in his century. Surrey's fa-
miliarity with Petrarch's lyrics was a step ♦owards Spenser's ac-
quaintance with the chivalrous epic of Tasso.

His ^neid conferred on us an obligation yet weightier. It
was not the first translation of a classical poem into English verse ;
unless indeed we should think ourselves compelled to refuse tlio
name of English to the language used in Gawain Douglas's ver-
sion, from which, indeed, Surrey borrowed not a little. But it was
the first specimen of English Blank Verse : the unwonted metre
was handled, not very skilfully, indeed, yet with a success which

Of an abbey ye make a grange.
Your works, they say, are strange.

What could the Turk do more,
With all his false lore?
Turk, Saracen, or Jew ?
I report mo to you.

TT^

POETICAL LITERATUBE IK ENGLAND.

179

Instantly recommended it for adoption : and thus we liave to tliank
Surrey for a form of versification, in which the noblest poetry of
our tongue has since been couched, and but for which our drama
and our epic would alike have been incomparably meaner and
feebler and less animated. This was another of his importations
from Italy, in which a similar metre appeared early in the century.*

• LORD SURREY.
I. A SONNET ON EARLY SUMMER.

The sweet season, that bud and bloom forth brings,

With green hath clad the hill and eke the val^:
The nightingale with feathers new she sings ; '\

The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.
Summer is come ; for every spray now springs.

The hart hath hung his old head on the pale ;
The. buck in brake his winter-coat he flings ;

The fishes fleet with new repaired scale ;
The adder all her slough away she flings :

The swift swallow pursueth the flies small :
The busy bee her honey now she mings : * •

Winter is worn that was the flower's bale. >

And thus, I see, among these pleasant things
Each care decays ; and yet my sorrow springs.

fa-
ac-

tho
vcr-

was
letre
hich

1. FROM THE TRANSLATION OF THE iKNEID, BOOK SGCONt).

The Ghost of Creuaa vanishing from jEneaa.
Tlius having said, she left me, all in tears
And minding much to speak ; but she was gone,
And subtly fled into the weightless air.
Thrice raught' I with mine arms to accol ' her neck ;
Thrice did my hands' vain hold the image escape.
Like nimble winds and like the flying dream.
So, night spent out, return I to my feres ; *
And there, wond'ring, I find together swarmed
A new number of mates : mothers and men,
A rout exiled, a wretched multitude.
From each where flock together, prest ^ to pnss,
With heart and goods, to whatsoever land
By sliding seas we listed them to lead.

And now rose Lucifer above the ridge
Of lusty Ide, and brought the dawning light.
The Greeks held the entries of tlie gates beset.
Of help there was no hope. Then gave I place.
Took up my sire, and hasted to the hill.

,,.,.

* If ingles. * Reache«T. ' Kuibrace.

' Cum|)ani<ius.

' Kpady.

180

THE AGE Cr THE KEi(>nMATION.

One is strongly tempted to pass over, in silence, on account of its
real frivolousncss, another claim which has been made on behalf of
the noblo poet. Ho is asserted to have been the writer who »uh-
stitutcd, in our poetry, the counting of metres by syllables for the
counting of them by accents. The true state of the case Kccms to
be Rimply this. The accentual reckoning of measure was undoubt-
edly the oldest practice; and, in a strongly accented tongue like
ours, it was the only one at all likely to bo used in the ruder
stages of literature. But the syllabic reckoning naturally and
inevitably began to be taken more and more into account, as some-
thing like criticism arose : and the general substitution of the latter
for the former 4ook place the more readily, because of the tendency
of our words to fall into iambics, which made the two reckonings to
coincide not infrequently even in older times, and to coincide
oftener and oftener as pronunciation became more fixed. Althougli
the accentual counting is the safer and more convenieut of the two
for our reading of all our mediaeval poetry, the other is applicable
in a great number of instances, as early as Chaucer himself: it
prevailed more and more widely afterwards : and it appears to be
almost universally applicable to our later poetry of the iiftccntli
ccntiu'y, in both kingdoms of the island. That Surrey, guided l)y
ins foreign examples, followed the modem fashion more strictly
than any before him, (though by no means always,) is probably
true: and it cannot well be doubted that, in this as in other re-
spects, his example had much effect in making the adoption of it
universal. Just as certain is it, that the old tendency towards
accentual scanning survived his time. It shows itself very strongly
in the versification of the dramatists in the Elizabethan age, and is
used by some of them with much freedom and excellent effect : and,
further, its congeniality to the structure of our language is shown
by the rich and varied melody which, through its re-introduction,
has been attained by several poets of our own time.

5. Along with Surrey is commonly named the elder Sir Thomas
^^'yatt ; a conjunction made proper not only by the friendrfliip of
the two, but by a general likeness in taste, sentiment, and poetical
fcjrms. But Wyatt, wanting his friend's merit as the originator of
valuable changes, does not call for very particular notice by his
gi'eaier vigour of style and keenness of observation. His poetry is
more diversified in kind than that of his friend : he indulged freely
in epigi'am and satire; and he attempted, much more frequently,
versified translation from the Scriptures.

His and Surrey's versions of some of the Psalms are the most
polished among many attempts of the sort made in their time, none

of them

and bet

superset

the nam

psalms T

tratislato

editor of

lawyer, ^

•iistingui

Komanis:

To tin

work, in

signer, ar

Kreat dea

for Alagii

l)r.iting p

history of

tend from

part only

and it wai

caused it

cliief con

occlesiasti

Cluirchyai

wards, an

torical des

tell his o^

several en

some poet

in direct I

none of th

f^pecial not

grandfathei
I'lannin;^
over it a gl
been inspin
liinisclf wn
" Complaini
of Richard t
be closed,
poetical th:

b. irm.

(/. I(i03.

}

POETICAL LITEHATUnE TS ENOLAND.

181

'homas

diip of

oetical

ator of

by liis

etry is

freely

lently,

most
3, none

of them with much success. Not good, but not the worst of these,
and better than the feeble modern rhymes by which it has been
superseded, was the complete Translation of the Psalms which bears
the names of Stemhold and Hopkins. More than a hundred of the
psalms were from the pen of these two; but there were also other
translators. One of them was Wiiittingham, already noticed as the
editor of the Geneva New Testament : and another was Norton, a
lawyer, whom we shall immediately know as a dramatist, and who
distinguished himself likewise as an able controversialist against
Romanism. The whole collection was not published till 15C2.

To the very close of our period belongs an extremely singular
work, in which there was struck out, by the ingenuity of its de-
signer, an idea poorly embodied by his assistants, but suggesting a
^'reat deal to the poets of the next age. It was entitled " A Mirror
for Magistrates." It is a large collection of separate poems, ccle
lirating personages, illustrious but unfortunate, who figure in the
liistory of England. The intention was, that the series should ex-
tend from the Conquest to the end of the fifteenth century: but a small
part only of the plan was executed in the earliest edition of the work ;
and it was not completed by all the additions which its popularity
caused it to receive in the early part of IClizabeth's reign. The
chief contributors to it in its oldest shape were lialdwyne, an
occlesiustic, and Ferrers, a lawyer; and among the others wert
Churchyard, a voluminous writer of verses then and long after-
wards, and Phaer, who translated a part of the iEneid. The his-
torical design, and the method of calling up each of the heroes to
tell his own tale, furnished hints for a kind of poems written by
several eminent men whom we shall encounter in a later age : and
some poets yet greater, Spenser himself for one, have been traced
in direct borrowing of particulars from the " Mirror." Otherwise
none of the pieces contained in this ponderous mass are worthy of
special notice, except the small portions written by the projector,
b. irm. \ who was Thomas Sackville, oftener known as Lord Buck-
d. am. i hiirgt. It was for the benefit of his children that their
giandfather prompted the composition of Aseliam's " Schoolmaster."

Planning the work in the middle of Mary's reign, Sackville threw
over it a gloonri which, as a poet has remarked, may naturally hav(!
been inspired by the scenes of terror amidst which he stood. He
himself wrote only the " Induction," or prefatory poem, and the
" Complaint of Henry duke of Buckingham," the friend and victim
of Richard the Third, with which it was intended that the series should
be closed. The Induction, which is very much more vigorous and
poetical than the Comprint, derives its form, partly at least, from

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■HanmPMaiciiiinMMia

182

THE AGE OP THE REFORMATION,

the ItoliAn pcet Dante ; \yhile its cast of imagination is that which
h4s become so familiar to us in the later poetry of the middle ages.
It is a very remarkable poem, and has furnished hints to other poetical
minds. It has a fine vein of solemn imagination, which is especially
active in the conception of allegoric personages. Its plan is this.
While the poet muses sadly, in the depth of winter, over nature's
decay and man's infirmity, Sorrow appears to him in bodily form,
and leads him into the world of the dead. Within the porch of
the dread abode is seen a terrible group of shadowy figures, who
•ire painted with great originality and force : there are, among them,
Remorse, Dread, Revenge, Misery, Care, Sleep, Old- Age, Famine.
War, and Death. These are the rulers and peoplers of the realm
below. Then, when the dark lake of Acheron has been crossed,
the ghosts of the mighty and unfortunate dead stalk in awful pro-
cession past the poet and his conductor. Here, evidently, a prelude
is struck to some of the fullest strains which resound in Spenser's
faorie Queene.*

* THOMAS SACKVILLE.
From '* Tite Mirror for MagittraUa;" ptiUiahed in 1559<

I. FROM THE INDUCTIOM.

By liim lay heavy Si.eep, the cousin of Death,

Flat on the ground, and still as any stone ;
A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath *

Small keep ^ took he whom fortune frowned on|

Or whom she lifted up into the throne
Of high renown : but, as a living death,
So dead-alive, of life he drew the breath. >

Tlie body's rest, the quiet of the heart,

The travail's ease, the still night's fere' was h«t
And of our life on earth the better part :

Beiver'' of sight, and yet in whom we see

Things oft that tide,* and oft that never be :
Without respect, esteeming equally
King Croesus' pompi and Irus' poverty.

II. FnOM THE COMPLAINT OF BUCKINaHAM*

If idnight was come : and every vital thing
With sweet sound sleep their weary limbs did rflstt

The beasts were still : the little birds that sing,
Now sweetly slept besides their mother's breast ;
The old and young were shrouded in their nest.

The M'aters calm ; the cruel seas did cease ;

The woods, the fields, and all things, held their peace.

0W9f

I Companion.

• B«reav«r,

4 Bftid^

THE AGE OF THE REFOBMATION.

TUB INFANCY OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.

183

6. Our acquaintance with the English literature of this agitated
time is not complete, until we have learned something as to the
progress then made by the Drama. This department of poetry has
been left almost unnoticed in the previous sections of our studies ;
because there did not then arise in it anything which possessed
literary merit deserving of commemoration. But it had existed
among us, as in every other country of Europe, from a very early
date ; and its history now calls for a hasty retrospect.

The dramatic exhibitions of the middle ages, if they did not
take their origin in the church, were at all events speedily appro-
priated by the clergy. They had invariably a religious cast ; many
of them were composed by priests and monks ; convents were very
frequently the places in which they were performed ; and ecclesias-
tics were to be found not seldom. among the actors. These facts
are differently commented on by different critics. Here it is enough
for us to know, that, through the extreme popularity of the drama
in those rude and primitive forms, the mass of the people, during
many generations, probably owed to it the chief acquaintance
which they were permitted to attain with biblical and legendary
history.

All the old religious plays are by some writers described under the
name of Mysteries. When they are narrowly examined, it is found
that they may be distributed into two classes. The first, which was
also the earliest, contained the Miracles or Miracle-Flays. These
were founded on the narratives of the Bible or on the legends of
the saints. To the second class belonged the Moralities, Morals,
or Moral-Flays, which gradually arose out of tlie former by the
increasing introduction of imaginary features. They were pro-
perly distinguished by taking abstract or allegorical beings as
their personages; and by having their stories purposely so con-
structed as to convey ethical or religious lessons.

Some of the Mu'acle-Flays are of a very cumbrous size and texture,
treating all the principal events of the Bible-history, from the Crea-
tion to the Day of Judgment. Such pieces were acted on festivals,
the perfoimancc lasting for more days than one. There have been

The golden stars were whirled amid their race,
And on the earth did laugh with twinkling light ;

When each thing, nestled in his resting-place,
Forgat day's pain with pleasure of the night :
The hnre had not the greedy hounds in sight ;

The fearful deer of death stood not in doubt ;

The partridge dreamt not of the falcon's foot.

*-i

f 1 'ii

134

TUB AGE OF THE BEFOBUATION.

preserved three sets of them ; the oldest of which was probably put
together in the middle of the thirteenth century, and was acted at
Chester, every "Whitsunday, for many generations, under the super-
intendence of the mayor of the city. Tn plays of both kinds, the
prevalent tone is serious, and not infrequently very solemn. Not
only, however, are the most sacred objects treated with undue
freedom, but passages of the broadest and coarsest mirth are inter-
spersed, apparently with the design of keeping alive the attention
of the rude and uninstructed audience. The Moral-Flays had a
character called Iniquity or the Vice, whose avowed function was
buffoonery : he is alluded to by*Shakspeare. Dramas of this sort,
becoming common in England about the time of Henry the Sixth,
were afterwards much more numerous than the Miracle-Plays, but
without ever driving them entirely from the field. In one of the
oldest and simplest of the Morals, the chief personage is called
•* Every-Man," and of course represents Mankind. Being sum-
moned by Death, he in vain endeavours to obtain, on his long jour
ney, the companionship of such friends as Ivindred, Fellowship,
Goods, and Good-Deeds : and he is, in the end, deserted by Knowl-
edge, Strength, Discretion, Heanty, and Five- Wits, who had at fii-st
consented to attend him.

In the later middle ages, the distinction between the two kinds
of works was often lost. Allegorical, charactef^s found their way
into pieces which in their main outline were Miracle-Flays : and
the Moral-Flays began to present personages who, whether histori-
cal or invented, had no emblematic significance.

7. We are now in a fit position for remarking the changes which
took place after the beginning of the sixteenth century. The old
plays, in both of their kinds, still kept their place : nor were they
quite overthrown by the Reformation. For the Chester plays were
publicly acted, in part at least, in the year 1577. Skelton, who has
already become known to us, has recorded that in his younger
days, he wrote Miracle-Plays ; and there were printed two Morali-
ties of his, " Magnificence " and " The Necromancer." A more
respectable contribut to the drama was the learned and pugna-
cious protestant Bishop Bale. Obliged to fly from England on the
fall of his first patron Cromwell, he employed some part of the
leisure forced on Iiim by his exile, in the composition of several
Miracle-Flays, all of which were intended for instructing the people
in the errors and abuses of Popery and in the distinctive tenets of
the Reformation. Their chief merit consists in their being almost
entirely free from the levities which degrade other works of the
kind : and they scarcely seem, now, to possess a literary excellence

b. 1505.
J. 1556.

THE INFANCY OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.

185

justifying the satbfaction they gave to their venerable author, who
has carefully enumerated them in his own list of his works.

There were, however, from the beginning of Henry the Eighths
reign, few dramas written unless in the mixed kind : and there has
lately been discovered a work of Bale himself, which b the oldest
extant specimen of the combination. It is a play on the history of
" King John," in which the king himself, the pope, and other per-
sonages of the time, are associated with the old allegorical figures.

Tlie Mixed-Plays, from that time downwards, are commonly
known, not inaptly, by the name of Interludes. The most cele-
brated productions of this class and age were the plays of John
I ley wood, who, having published a series of epigrams, is usually, to
distinguish him from a later dramatic writer, named " The £pi-
giammatist." His Interludes deal largely in ecclesiastical satire ;
juifl, not devoid of spirit or humour, they have very little either of
skill in character-painting, or of intei'cst in story. One of the earliest
.iinong them is " A Merry Play between the Pardoner and the
I'Viar, the Curate and Neighbour Pratt," which has for its principal
tlicme the frauds practised by the friars, and by the sellers of indul-
gences. In "The Four P's" the only plot is this. The Pardoner, the
•' Poticary," and the Palmer, lay a wager, to be gained by him who
sliall tell the greatest untruth. The first two recount long and
marvellous tales, each of his own craft : and the third, who asserts
ill a single sentence tliat he never saw a woman lose patience, is
jidjudged by the Pedlar, the chosen umpire, to have fairly out-lied
liotli of his rivals.

It is not a loss of time to remark this dramatic focbleness and
these stale and weak impertinences. For Iley wood's life extended
to within twenty years of the time when Shakspeai*e must have
liegun to write. We are still, it should seem, at a hopeless distance
iVom the great master. Fortunately we need not quit our period
without having to mark several wide steps in advance ; although it
is necessary to anticipate a very few years of the next age, in order
to bring all of these conveniently together.

8. About the middle of the dfentury, the drama extricated itself
completely from its ancient fetters. Both Comedy and Tragedy
liad then bcgim to exist, not in name only, but in a rude reality.

Tlie author of our oldest known Comedy was Nicholas Udall,
6.1505.) who was master of Eton School, and afterwards of West-
J. 1556.]" niinster, becoming, in both places, rather notorious for the
severity of his punishments, lie was a classical scholar of some
note ; and he published a school-book, called " Flowers of Latin
Speaking," with other Latin works. He was in part the translator of

; - 1.

f.i'-i'

186

THE AQE OF THE DEFORMATION.

the Paraphrase of Erasmns on the New Testament, puhlishcd undet
the patronage of Catherine Parr, the queen-dowager. He wrote
several dramas, now lost, one of them being an English play called
" Ezekias," which was acted before Elizabeth at Cambridge ; while
another was a Latin play " On the Papacy," probably intended
to be enacted by his pupils. The same may have been the destina-
tion of the English Comedy, through which he holds his place in tlie
general history of our literature. It is called " Ralph Roister Doi-
ster," from the name of its hero, a silly town-rake. The misad-
ventures of this person are represented in it with much comic force.
The story is well conducted ; the situations are contrived dexter-
ously ; and the dialogue, though rough in diction, and couched in an
irregular and unmusical kind of rh3nne, abounds in spirit and hu-
mour. Its exact date is unkno^vn ; but it was certainly written
before the year 1657.*

* NICnOLAS UDALL.
From the Soliloquy with which hia Comedy i» opened^ by Matthew Merryytcek-,

the knave of the piece.

As long liveth the merry man (they say)

As doth the sony man, and longer by a day :

Yet the grasshopper, for all his summer piping,

Starveth in winter with hungry griping :

Therefore another said saw doth men advise.

That they be together both merry and wise.

This lesson must I practise ; or else, ere long,

With me, Matthew Merrygreek, it will be M-rong.

For know ye that, for all this merry note of mine,

He might appose me now, that should ask where I dine.

Sometime Lewis Loiterer biddeth me come near ;

Sometimes Watkin Waster maketh us good cheer ;

Sometimes I hang on Hankyn Hoddydoddy's sleeve ;

But this day on Ralph Roister Doister's, by his leave :

For, truly, of all men he is my chief banker,

Both for meat and money, and my cliief sheet-anchor.

But now of Roister Doister somewhat to express,
That ye may esteem him after his worthiness ;
In these twenty towns, and seek them throughout,
Is not the like stock whereon to graft a lout.
All the day long is he facing and craking
Of his great acts in fighting and fray-making :
But when Roister Doister is put to the proof,
To keep the Queen's peace is more for his behoof.
Hold by his yea and nay, be his white son :
Praise and rouse him well, and ye have his heart won :
For so well liketh he his own fond fashions,
That he taketh pride of false commendations.
But such sport haVe I with him, as I would not lecse,
Thouglt T shoulfl be bound to Uve with bread and cheose«

TUE INFANCY OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.

187

Ten years afterwards, our earliest Tragedy was publicly played
in the Inner Temple. It is known by two names, " Gorboduc " and
" Ferrex and Porrex :" and it was probably the joint production of
two authors, both of whom have already become known to us.
The first three acts are said to have been written by Thomas
Norton, the last two by Lord Buckhurst. Doubts have been ex-
pressed as to the authorship of the former: but they do not seem
to rest on sufficient ground; and it would be wrong to reject
hastily a claim to reputation, presented on behalf of one whom we
b. 1632. > know to have otherwise shown fiterary capability. Nor-
d.i5Si.y ton, accordingly, may be allowed to share, with his more
celebrated coadjutor, the honour which the authors of "Gorboduc^*
receive on two several grounds. It was the earliest tragedy in our
language : it was the first instance in which the recent experiment
of blank verse was applied to dramatic composition. Its story is a
chapter from ancient British history, presenting to us nothing but
domestic hate and revenge, national bloodshed and calamity. The
old king of Britain having in his lifetime shared his realm between
his two sons, these strive for undivided sovereignty. The younger
kills the elder, and is himself assassinated by the mother of both.
The exasperated people exterminate the blood-stained race: and
the country is left in desolation and anarchy. The incidents con-
stituting the plot are very inartificially connected; and all the
great events, instead of being directly represented in action, are
intimated only in narrative, or in dumb shows, like those which we
find m one or two early works of Shakspeare. Between the acts the
story is moralized by a chorus. The dialogue is heavy, declama-
tory, and undramati'* ; and its chief merit, which is far from being
small, lies in the stately tone of the language, no slight achieve-
ment in a first attempt, and in the solemnly reflective tone of the
sentiments.*

• THOMAS SACKVILLE.

F)rom the Fourth Act of Gorboduc: <^etn Vidend'a Lamentation for the death

of her elder ton.

Why should I live, and linger forth my time.
In longer life to double my distress ?
Oh me, most woful wight ! whom no mishap
Long ere this day could have bereaved hence I

Might not these hands, by fortune or by fate,
Have pierced this breast, and life with iron refti
Or, in this palace here, where I so long
Have spent my days, could not that happy hour
Once, once have hapt, in which those huge frames
With death, by fall, might have oppresfipd mo

5 .

I'.l?' s

188

THE AQE OF THE REFOKMATIOM*

THE LITERATURE OP SCOTLAND.

9. The causes which make our roll of eminent English names so
short for this period, acted yet more strongly in Scotland ; and tlie
effect was augmented by other circumstances. The most thought-
ful and best instructed men concentrated their attention, with con-
stant earnestness, on the theological and ecclesiastical questions of
the time: national dangers and aristocratic feuds distracted the
country without ceasing ; and Scottish literature, notwithstanding
the poetic brilliancy which had recently adorned it, occupied really,
in the beginning of this period, a position much less advanced than
that which was the starting-point of England.

It is impossible to avoid believing, that literary progress was
seriously impeded by the state of the Living Language. Uadi-
cally identical with that which was spoken in the south, it hail
yet by this time assumed decisively the character of a separate dia-
lect. It retained much more of the antique than tlie English did ;
because it had not received nearly so thorougli a development h»
literature, and wanted especially the cultivation which would have
been given by a free use of literary prose. It had also contracted,
through the provuicial isolation of the country, many peculiarities,
which were neither old Saxon nor mode: a English : and these were
now receiving continual accessions. Not only, therefore, was the
Scottish dialect a less efficient literary organ than the English;
but, likewise, those who wrote and spoke it were not well qualilied,
either for appreciating perfectly, or for dexterously transfeiTing to
their own speech, the improvements in style and diction whicli
were going on so actively in England. If there was ever to arise
in Scotland a vernacular literature worthy of the name, it could be

Or should not this most hard and cruel soil,
So oft where I have pressed my wretched steps,
Sometime had ruth of my accursed life,
To rend in twain, and swallow me tlicrein ! .

So had my bones possessed now, in peace.
Their happy grave within the closed ground ;
And greedy worms had gnawn this pined heart,
Without my feeling ])ain. So should not now
This living breast rcntain the ruthful tomb,
Wherein my heart, yieldcn to death, is gravcii ;
Nor dreary thoughts, with pangs of pining gricf^
My doleful mind had not alUicted thus.

Oh. my beloved son I Oh, my sweet child I
My dear Ferrcx, my joy, my life's delight 1
Murdered with cruel death I

TUE LTTEBATUBE OF SCOTLAND.

189

only through the adoption of the one or the other of two courses.
The first of those would have consisted in a thorough cultivation,
and enrichment, and systematizing of the native dialect ; a process
which would have placed the two kingdoms of tlie island in a literary
relation to each other, not unlike that which subsists between Spain
and Portugal. This was a mode neither desirable nor likely. The
other was, the adoption of the English tongue as the vehicle of the
standard literature of Scotland. This step, which probably must
have been, sooner or later, the issue in any circumstances, was has-
tened by the union of the two crowns in the beginning of the seven-
teenth century. From that date, accordingly, the literature of
England comprehends that of the sister-country as one of its
branches.

The fact last noticed co-operates with ofhers, in making it con-
venient that this should be the last period in which we take sepa-
rate account of Scottish literature. It will bo in our power to
learn all that needs to be known, by lookmg forward very cursorily
to the literary events that occurred in Scotland during the reign of
Elizabeth, and the Scottish reign of James. Even with this exten-
sion of the period, our review of the northern literature may war-
rantably be brief. The importance of the phenomena, in the aspect
in which they are here regarded, was far from being commensurate
either to the momentous character of the attendant social changes,
to the great ability of many of the literary men, or to the extensive
erudition that was possessed by some of them;

10. In the annals of Scottish poetry during the sixteenth cen
tury, the distinguished posts of its opening years having already
been spoken of, there occurs but one name that claims a memorial.
The brightness which had lately shone out proved to be that of
sunset : and the clouds of the moonless night that succeeded,
dimmed and hid the few scattered stars.

b.hcf. 1600. > ^^ David Lindsay of the Mount, the youthful com-
d. aft. 1567.]" panion of James the Fifth, and afterwards his sagacious
but unheeded adviser, is one of the most celebrated of Scotsmen, in
his native country at least. His fame rests securely on the evi-
dence of natural vigour which his works display, and on our knowl-
edge of the influence which these had in promoting the ecclesia.sti-
cal changes that began to be contemplated in his day. But very
warm national partialities would be required, for enabling us to
assign him a high rank as a poet. The chief characteristics of his
writings are, their sagacious closeness of observation, their rough
business-Uke common-sense, and their fonnidable and unscrupulous

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190

THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION.

vehemence of sarcastic invective. Living in a licentious court,
and under a corrupt church, he attacks, with equal freedom, the
follies and vices of the king and his comrades, and the abuses and
weaknesses which deformed the ecclesiastical establishment.

His most elaborate work is called " The Satire of the Three
Estates," a title which correctly describes it as aimed at a very
wide range of victims. It is a drama of huge dimensions, and the
earliest work of the kind that exists in the northern dialect. It is
not so strictly a Moral- Play as an Interlude, bearing a considerable
resemblance to the works of John Heywood. It abounds in such
allegoric personages as King Humanity, Flattery, Falsehood, and
Good Counsel, Chastity and Sensuality, Spirituality and Temporal-
ity, Diligence and Correction, the latter of whom hangs Theft in
presence of the spectators. These figures, however, mix familiarly,
in the scene, with characters representing directly the classes of the
community. Among them is tlie Friar, who is Flattery in dis-
guise; there is the Doctor, who delivers a pretty long sermon,
answered in another, which is recited by Folly; there are the
Bishop, Abbot, Parson, Prioress, and Pardoner ; and the low comedy
cf the piece is played chiefly by the Shoemaker and Tailor, and
the wives of these two. The date of the composition is conjectured
to have been the year 1535, when it was acted at Cupar,, in Fife,
the native county of the author. The gi'ossness of the humour, in
many passages, is not surpassed by any thing in our old literature :
and the satirical exposure of corruptions, though mainly made at
the expense of the church, (for which, by th?,t time, the rulers pro-
bably cared little,) cuts likewise so deepljr into political questions,
that the toleration of the exhibition by the government is almost as
great a riddle as that which was shown to Skelton. It is needless
to say that, in the controversial design of Lindsay's drama, we have
a parallel to those pieces which were offered to uneducated au-
diences in England by the venerable Bishop Bale.

Our Scottish poet was certainly not endowed largely, either with
poetic imagination or fine susceptibility. The allegorical inven-
tions of the " Satire" have no great originality or beauty. His
other large work, " The Monarchy, a Dialogue betwixt Experience
and a Courtier," is a vast historical summary, with very little to
relieve its dulness : and his " Squire Meldrum," in which a con-
temporary gentleman is promoted to be the hero of a metrical
romance, is, besides its gi'atuitous indecency, conclusive as a proof
of the author's inability to rise into the imaginative and romantic
sphere. He ia much stronger in those smaller pieces which open

If"

THfe LltEfiATURE OF SCOTLAND.

191

ap to him his favourite field of satire. The most poetical of these
is " The Complaint of the Papingo," in which the king's pan-ot
reads a lesson both to the court and to the clergy.

On the whole, Lindsay certainly wanted that creative power of
genius, which would have entitled him to the name adopted, in the
golden age of Scottish poetry, by the masters of the art. Dunbar
and his contemporaries called themselves Makers: and this was
also an English use of the term till the close of Elizabeth's reign.
The poet of the Reformation in Scotland was not a poetic maker :
lie was only a man of great robustness, both of thought and will,
who acted powerfully on a rude and fierce generation.

11. Down to the end of the last period in which we examined
the intellectual progress of Scotland, we did not discover any appli-
cation of the living tongue in the shape of original Prose to uses
that can be called literary. This great step was now taken. Still,
however, the most distinguished relics of Scottish prose that belong
to the first half of the sixteenth century are nut original. They
were versions from the Latin by John Bellenden, ai*chdoacon of
Moray, who had also contemporary fame as a poet. He translated,
with more neatness and variety of phrase than migb.t have been
expected, and with evidence of highly competent scholarship, the
first Five Books of Livy, and the History of Scotland recently
written by Boece. In the year 1548 there was printed, at Saint
Andrews, a monument of Scottish prose which is still more curious.
This piece, "The Complaint of Scotland," is a series of satirical
reflections on the state of the country, enlivened by a great deal of
quaint fancy ; and it possesses much value for the antiquary, not
only through its minute illustrations of manners and sentiment, but
as abounding in characteristically provincial words and phrases.
The promise of further progress is held out by the title of a later
book. The Chronicles of Scotland, written by Robert Lindsay of
Pitscottie, and extending from the accession of James the Second
to the middle of the reign oi Mary. But the literary pretensions of
this prolix, credulous, and undigested record, are not higher than
those of the poorest English chronicles of the middle ages. There
is quoted from it, in one of the notes to Mannion, a passage where
the writer relates, with implicit belief, the story of the apparition
which, in the church of Linlithgow, warned James the Fourth before
the fatal battle of Flodden.

The few other names which have to be selected from the annals
of Scottish prose, belong to the celebrated men who acted in the
great struggles of the Reformation : and the position wliich these

'it, {

193

THE AQE OF TUB SE70BUATI0N.

held, requires us to note the state of erudition in the country from
the beginning of the century.

Scotland posscssod, in this period, two men very eminent in the
history of scholastic learning. Probably there was not then in
England any speculative philosopher comparable to Major : thcio
was certainly no classical scholar accomplished so variously and 8o
exactly as Buchanan. Yet the general progress of Scottish erudi-
tion was slower than in the south; and its benefits were mucli
less widely diffused. The most learned men were partly or alto-
gether educated abroad.

The honour of having been thefirst Scotsman who wrote Latin tokr-
ably, has been assigned to Hector Boece, who, about the year 1500,
resigned an academical appointment in France to become princi)).i!
of the college newly founded at Aberdeen. His most famous work,
the "History of the Scots," is good, though not faultless, as a specimen
of Latinity : the student of antiquity now remembers it only as a re-
ceptacle for the wildest of the fables which used to bo authorita
tively current as the earliest sections in our national annals.

Much inferior to Boece s writings in correctness of Latinity, in
b. ab. 1470. > ^^^^ painfully clumsy and inelegant, are those of John
d. ab. 1560. J Mair or Majoi', who, however, was one of the most
vigorous thinkers of his time. Educated in England and Paris, and
teaching for some time in France, he became the head of one of the
colleges in Saint Andrews. His greatest works are metaphysical :
and these, now utterly n^lected, like others of their times and
kind, fully vindicate the fame which he enjoyed, as one of the most
acute and original of those who taught and defended, in its last
stages, the schohistic philosophy of the middle ages. His " His-
tory of the Nation of the Scots" has little reputation among modem
historical students : but, both there and elsewhere, he exhibits an
uidependence and liberality of opinion, which, it has been believed,
were not without influence oi. .^s most famous pupils. He was the
teacher of Knox and Buchanan.

12. The first of these great names is not to be forgotten in the
record of Scottish learning and talent. But the stem apostle of
the northern Reformation had his mind fixed steadfastly on ob-
jects infinitely more sacred than either fame or knowledge : and
*. 1805. ) Knox's few published writmgs, although plainly indicating
d.vi72.i both his force of character and his vigour of intellect, are
chiefly valuable in then: bearing on the questions of his time. The
most elaborate of them, and the only one that can be described as
anything more than a controversial or religious tract, is his " His*

TIIE LITERATURE OF SCOTLAND.

193

tory of the Kcfoiination of Religion within tho Kcahn of Scothind/*
ThoBO who now read this interesting chronicle, and wlio think that
its language is peculiarly Scottish, may be amused by knowing,
that Knox's stylo was reproached by one of his controversial oppo-
nents with being affuctudly and unpatriotically English.
b. itm. \ George Buchanan, less deeply immersed in tho vortex of
d. 1682. ]■ the times, and en joying, in more than one stage of his life,
the benefits of academical seclusion, found time to earn for himself
a fame which can never be lost, unless the revival of learning in
Europe should be followed by a total loss of all preceding memo-
rials of civilisation. lie is admitted, by those who most keenly
dislike his ecclesiastical and political opinions, to have been not
only a man of eminent and versatile genius, but one of the finest
and most correct classical scholars that ever appeared in Cliristen-
dom. There have been Latinists more deeply ver.. I \n the phi-
losophy of the language, and others more widely intv^. iuod in the
knowledge to which it is the clue ; but hardly, perhrps, has there
been, since the fall of Rome, any one who has ' ; tten Latm iv'ih
an excellence so complete and uniform. Tho chief of \\\u I'roso
Wcrks av" ^<'.i History of Scotland, and his Treatise ov. the Con-
stitution of the Kingdom. The former, certahily tnc work of a
pa : .ian, is nevertheless historically iniportant ; the iatf'^r is re-
markable for the manly independence of its opinions : and both of
them tell their tale with an antique dignity and purity, which the
Roman tongue has seldom been made to wear by a modem pen.
The merit of his Latin Poems is yet higher. They are justly de-
clared to unite, more than any other compositions of their kmd,
originality of matter with classic elegance of style. The most
famous of them is ^his Translation of the Psalms ; besides which,
the list includes satires, didactic verses, and lyrics, one of these
being the exquisite Ode on the month of May.

After the great name of luchanan, a poor show is made by that
of Bishop Lesley, the friend and defender of the unfortunate and
misguided queen : yet he, too, was no mean scholar, and no bad
Latin writer. Much more learned, probably, was Ninian Winzet.
another advocate of the old creed, who had to seek refuge in the
southern regions of the continent. A scholar more distinguished
than either of them withdrew liimself very soon from innovation
and turmoil, and closed his days peacefully as a teacher in France.
This was Florence Wilson, who translates his name into Volusenus
in the Latin treatise, "On Tranquillity i^ Mind," which has pre-
served his name with high honour -ftmong thos9 w)^q ({^p int^^QSt
in cUi85ical studies.

194

THE AGE OF THE BEFOBMATION<

In closing our separate record of northern literature, we mnst go
forward a little to notice, as having been really eminent both for
scholarship and talent, the energetic and restless Andrew Melville,
the founder of iae Presbyterian polity of the Scottish Church.

We must also mark how, the University of Saint Andrews hav-
ing been established first of all, the other academical institutions of
the country arose before the close of the sixteenth century. That
of Glasgow dates from 1450 ; King's College in Aberdeen, from
1494 ; the University of Edinburgh was foimded by Kmg James
in 1582, and Marischal College of Aberdeen in 1593. Still more
important, perhaps, was the foundation which was now laid for a
system of popular education in Scotland. There had long been,
in the towns, grammar-schools where Latin was taught. The estab-
lishment of schools throughout tlie country was proposed by the
Reformed clergy in 1560, the very year in which Parliament sanc-
tioned the Reformation ; and the principle was again laid down, a
few years later, in the Second Book of Discipline. A considerable
number of parochial schools were founded before King James's re-
moval to England ; and the setting down of a school in each parish,
if it were possible, was ordered for the first time by an Act of the
Privy Council, issued in IGIG, and ratified by Parliament in 1633.

THE AQE OF SPENSEB, SHAKSFEARE, BACON, AND HIETON. 195

CHAPTER IIL

THE AGE OP SPENSER, SHAKSPEARE, BACOK, AND MlLtON.
A. D. 1558— A. D. 1660.

Elizabeth, ISfiS-ieOS.

James I., 1G03-1625.

Charles I., 1625-1649.

The Commonwealth, 1649-1G53.

The Protectorate, lu53-lG60i

V i

SECTION FIRST : GENERAL VIEW OF THE PERIOD.

[ntroductiox. 1. The Early Years of Elizabeth's Reign— Summary of
their Literature.— 2. Literary Qreatness of the next Eighty Yeara-^
Division into Four Eras. — Reiox of Elizabeth from 1580. 3. Social
Character of the Time — Its Religious Aspect — Effects on Literature.— 4.
Minor Elizabethan Writers — Their Literary Importance — The Three
Great Names. — 5. Tlie Poetry of Spenser and Shakspeare — The Eloquence
of Hooker. — Rkion of James. 6. Its Social and Literary Character —
Distinguished Names — Bacon — Theologians — Poets. — The Two follow-
ing EuAS. 7. Political and Ecclesiastical Changes — Effects on Thinking
— Effects on Poetry — Milton's Youth. — 8. Moral Aspect of the Time-
Effects on Literature. — Reign of Charles. 9. Literary Events — Poetry
—Eloquence — Theologians — Erudition. — The Commonwealth and Pro-
tectorate. 10. Literary Events — Poetry Checked — Modem Symptoms
—Philosophy— Hobbes — Theology— Hall, Taylor, and Baxter. — 11. Elo-
quence — Milton's Prose Works — Modem Symptoms — Style of the Old
English Prose Writers.

INTRODUCTION.

1. The era which is now to open on our view, is the most brilliant
in the literary history of England. Thought, and imagination,
and eloquence, combine to illuminate it with their most dazzling
light ; its literature assumes the most various forms, and expatiates
over the most distant regions of speculation and invention ; and its
intellectual chiefs, while they breathe the spirit of modem knowledge
and freedom, speak to us in tones which borrow an irregular state-
liness from the chivalrous past. But the magnificent panorama
does not meet the eye at once, as a scenic spectacle is displayed on
the rising of the curtain. Standing at the point which wo have now

•M>^^

■h i I

Mf^l-

THE AQE OF SPENSER, SUAKSPEARE

reached, we must wait for the unveiling of its features, as we should
watch while the mists of dawn, shrouding a beautiful landscape,
melt away before the morning sun.

Our period covers a century. But the first quarter of it was very
unproductive in all departments of literature : it was much more so
than the age that had just closed. Of the poets, and philosophers,
and theologians, who have immortalized the name of Queen Eliza-
beth, hai J!ly one was bom so much as five years before she ascended
the throne.

In whatever direction we look during the first half of her reign,
we discover an equal inaptitude, among men of letters, to build on
the foundations that had been laid in the generation before. A
respectable muster-roll of literary names could not be collected from
those twenty or twenty-five years, unless it were to include a few
of those writers who, properly belonging to the preceding time,
continued to labour in this.

In poetry, the Mirror of Magistrates continued merely to heap up
bad verses. The miscellaneous collection, called " The Paradise of
Dainty Devices," contains hardly any pieces that are above medio-
crity; and old Tusser's "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry,"
though Southey has thought it worthy of republication, teaches
agriculture in verse, but does not aim at making it poetical. It is
only towards the end of this interregnum of genius, that we reach
something of poetical promise ; and then we have only " The Steel
Glass " of Gascoigne, a tolerable satirical poem m indifferent blank
verse, with some smaller poems of his which are more lively.

The drama Imgered in the state in which Udall and Sackville left
it, till about the very time of Shakspeare's youth. Even its best
writers deserve but slight commendation. Edwards, however, who
hardly improved the art at all, was the best of the contributors
to the " Paradise ;" and Gascoigne the satirist, though merely a
dramatic translator, not only used blank verse in tragic dialogue,
but wrote our earliest prose comedy. John Still, who in maturcr
age became a bishop, composed the best of the original comedies,
" Gammer Gurton's Needle ;" which, however, is in every way in-
ferior to " Roister Doister."

In English prose, again, the time was equally barren.. Its repu-
tation is redeemed by one great event only; the appearance of
the Bishops' Bible, which will soon be commemorated more parti-
cularly. Of original writers, it possessed none that are generally
remembered, except the venerable Bishop Jewell. But the " Apo-
logy for the Church of England," the most celebrated work of this ^ I
learned, able, and pious man, was written in l<atin. We muit not,

BACON, AKD HILTON.

107

however, forget Stow's unpretending Chronicles of England and
Survey of London ; and the readers of Shakspeare may be remhided.
that to these obscure years belong the plain but useful historical
works of Hall and Holinshed, of which he made so free use.

Learning in the ancient tongues, which had received a check
during the ecclesiastical troubles, was now allowed to resume its
course. The oriental languages were studied sufficiently to give
l^eat aid to the scriptural critics and translators. But classical
knowledge, which is said to have declined almost everywhere in
the latter half of the century, produced in England no very valuable
fruits. Its first effect was, the setting afloat a shoal of metrical
translations from the Latin poets, with some from the Greek.
These were very far from being useless. They not only diffused a
taste for the antique, but served as convenient manuals for some of
the less instructed among the later poets ; Shakspeare himself being,
in all likelihood, not slow to appropriate their treasures. But, as
specimens either of style or of poetry, they are, one and all, exceed-
ingly bad.

2. The writers bcir. j thus finally disposed of, who appeared in
the first half of Elizabeth's long reign, our inquiries must dwell very
particularly on those by whom they were succeeded. The inunense
and invaluable series of literary works, which embellished the period
now in question, might be regarded as beginning with Spenser's
earliest poem, which was published in the year 1579.

" There never was, anywhere, anything like the sixty or seventy
years that elapsed from the middle of Elizabeth's reign to the Res-
toration. In point of real force and originality of genius, neither
the age of Pericles, nor the age of Augustus, nor the times of Leo
the Tenth, or of Louis the Fourteenth, can come at all into compar-
ison. For, in that short period, we shall find the names of almost
all the very great men that this nation has ever produced; the
names of Shakspeare, and Bacon, and Spenser, and Sidney, of
Raleigh, and Hooker, and Taylor, of Napier, and Milton, and Cud-
worth, and Hobbes, and many others ; men, all of them, not merely
of great talents and accomplishments, but of vast compass and reach
of understanding, and of minds truly creative and original ; not men
who perfected art by the delicacy of their taste, or digested know-
ledge by the justness of their reasonings ; but men who made vast
and substantial additions to the materials upon which taste and
reason must hereafter be employed, and who enlarged, to an incred-
ible and unparalleled extent, both the stores and the resources of
the human faculties." *

* Lord Jeffirey : Contributions to the Edinburgh Keview ; Vol. tf .

it, ;

mn^

«f

198

TUB AGE OF SPENSER, 8IIAKSPEARE,

No ago in our literature deserves to be studied so deeply, as that
which, in respect of its innate power of thought and invention, is
thus justly ranked above the most brilliant eras of ancient Greece
and Rome, of modem Italy and France. Nor, when we survey that
energetic period from its beginning to its close, do we discover any
point at which its activity can be said, with truth, to have either
ceased or flagged. Impediments thrown up in one channel of
thought, served only to drive the current forward with redoubled
impetuosity in another. Some of the highest minds, indeed, lingered
on earth till the bounds of their tune were past, casting the shadow
of their strength on tlie feebler age that followed. Allied, likewise,
so closely, by the originality and vigour ^hich was common to all,
the leaders of our golden age of letters were linked together not less
firmly by the common spirit and tone of their works. Let us look
in what direction we will ; to theology or philosophy, to the drama,
or the narrative poem, or the ever-shifting shapes of the lyric :
everywhere there meets us, in the midst of boundless dissimilitudo
imprinted by individual genius and temperament, a similarity of
general characteristics as striking as if it had been transmitted with
the blood. The great men of that great age, separated from their
predecessors by a gap in time, and distinguished from them yet
more clearly by their intellectual character, stand aloof, quite as
decidedly, from those degenerate successors, amidst whom a few of
them moved in the latest stages of their course. Taylor, and Hall,
and Baxter, are pupils who learned new lessons in the school which
bad niui;ured Hooker ; Hobbes might be called, without injustice
to either party, the philosophical step-son and heir of Bacon ; and
Milton is the last survivor of the princely race, whose intellectual
founders were Spenser and Shakspeare.

While the period thus spoken of, reaching from about 1580 to
1660, must be treated as one, it will not be supposed to have been
void of changes. Eighty years could not have passed along, in one
of the most actively thinking ages of the world, without evolving
much that was novel ; stiU less could thb have happened in a time
when revolutions, political and religious, were bursting out like vol-
canoes, and when all the relations of society were, more than once,
utterly metamorphosed.

Accordmgly, we cannot thoroughly understand the intellectual
phenomena that arose, unless we begin our scrutiny by regarding
them in their order of succession ; and the spirit which prevailed
in public affairs communicated itself sufficiently to literature, to
maka the changes of dynasty represent, in a loose way, the succes-
sive changes which took place in the roahn of letters. We will

BACON, AND MILTON.

199

hastily cxainiuo, one after another, the latter lialf of Kiizubcth^s
reign, the reign of James, tiiat of Charles, and the few years of the
Commonwealth and Protectorate.

■,■

n, :^

THE IJKIGN or ELIZABETH FROM 1580.

3. It is not easy to detect an the impulses, which made th^ last
generation of the sixteenth century so strong in itself, and capable
uf bequeathing so much strength to those who took up its inherit
tance.

The chivalrous temper, of the middle ages was not yet extinct.
Hut it had begun to seek for more useful ticlds of exercise when it
animated the half-piratical adventurers, who roamed the seas of the
west in search of new worlds, and fame, and gold ; and it burned
with a purer flame in Queen Elizabeth's foreign wars, blazing up
with a mingled burst of patriotic and religious zeal when the shores
of England were threatened by the terrible fleet of the Spaniards.
There was an expanding elasticity, a growing freedom, both of
thought and of action ; a freedom which was very imperfect accord-
ing to modern views, but which still was much wider than any that
had yet, unless for very short intervals, been enjoyed by the nation.
There was an increasing national prosperity, with a corresponding
advance of comfort and relinemisnt throughout all ranks of society.
Ancient literature became directly familiar to a few, and at second
hand to very many ; a knowledge of such science as Europe then
possessed began to be zealously desired by educated men; and
there was diffused, widely, an acquaintance with the history and
relations of other countries.

Mightier than all these forces in outward show, and strong in its
slow and silent working on the hearts of the nation, was the influ-
ence exerted by the Heformation, which, now completed, had
moulded the polity of the English Church into the form it was
destined to retain. More gentle than the gales that blew from the
new-found islands of the ocean, was the spirit which pure religion
breathed, or should have breathed, over the face of society ; and
tenfold more welcome was, or should have been, the voice that an-
nounced freedom of spiritual thought, than the loudest blast with
which a herald's trumpet ever ushered in a proclamation of civil
liberty. It cannot be doubted that tlie ecclesiastical revolution,
which was so peacefully effected by Elizabeth, was felt, by the
nation at laige, like the removal of an oppressive weight. But we
must not allow ourselves to imagine, either that perfect religio«$>
freedom was now gained ; or that the old faith vanished from the

■H

^^v

^^^B

^^Bi

sob

THE AGE OF SPENSEB, SHAKSPEARE,

land as a snow-wreath melts before the warmth of spring.; or that
the purification of doctrine and discipluie transformed the hearts
and minds of a whole people with the suddenness of a sorcerer's
charm.

In the deliverance out of the ancient prison-house, the captives
carried with them many of the ancient fetters. This took place
partly because the strong-willed 8oy|Rign so decreed it, partly be-
cause it could not well have been otherwise. If Elizabeth sternly
suppressed the dissent of her Catholic subjects, she prevented, with
a hand equally heavy, all departure of Protestants from the ecclesi-
astical polity which she had established ; and, in church as in state,
her prudent mixture of forbearance with severity checked the
growth, as well as curbed the manifestation, of discontents which
were to be aggravated into destructive violence by the bigotry and
folly of her successors. In regard to the matters in which we are
immediately interested, the great queen's policy, and the state of
doctrine during the gi'eater part of her time, concurred in having
this effect ; that puritanism has not in any shape a place in literary
history till we reach the reign of James. Literature was affected in
a different way by the somewhat doubtful state of opinion and
feeling which is traceable among the people. The cautious and
moderate character of the ecclesiastical changes, while it facilitated
the gradual absorption of the whole community into the bosom of
the reformed church, saved all men from that abrupt breaking up
of settled associations, and that severe antagonism of feeling between
the old and the new, wliich another course of events had caused in
Scotland. It is certain that the effects which this state of things
produced in literature, and most of all in poetry, were, in the mean-
time at least, highly beneficial. The poets, speaking to the nation,
and themselves inhaling its spirit, had thus at their command a rich
fund of ideas and sentiments, passing in an uninterrupted series from
the past into the present. The picturesqueness of the middle ages,
and their chivalry, and their superstitions, still awakened in every
breast an echo more or less loud and dear ; and the newly revealed
spiritual world, which was gradually diffusing its atmosphere all
around, communicated, even to those who were unconscious whence
the prompting 'came, enlarged vigour and independence of thought,
and novel and elevating objects of aspiration. Nor was the morality
of the time, whatever may be our ethical judgment on it, less favour-
able to the progress of literary culture. It was neither lofty nor
ascetic, but neither was it generally impure : it was, like the man*
ners, seldom refined ; but, like these, it was coarse in tone rather
than bad in essence. It was better than that which had preTr.IJi:d in

'!•

BACOHf AND HILTON.

201

ages,
every

caled
ere all

hence
ought,
orality

Ikd in

the early part of the century ; and, unfortunately, that of the time
which succeeded was much worse.

It is a question which tempts to wide, conjectures, what the re-
sults might have been if the social and ecclesiastical relations of
England had been guided into anqthcr channel ; what might have
happened, in the progress of literaj^ure or in tliAt of the nation, if,
for example, the people had b«M trained in such a school as that,
of which the short reign of Eatraffd the Sixth held out the promise ;
if they had been taught by a press subjected to no restrictions, and
guided by a clergy from whom puritanism inherited its doctrines
and its spirit. Probably Charles the First would not have been
dethroned ; but probably, likewise, neither Shakspeare nor Spenser
would have written.

4. The adventurers who flocked into the tourney -field of letters,
during the last half of Elizabeth's reign, are a host whom it would
take hours to muster. Their writings range over the whole circle
of knowledge and uivention, and give anticipations, both in prose
and in verse, of almost every variety which literature has since dis-
played; and, although a few only of the vast number of works
have gained wide and enduring celebrity, there are among them a
good many, which, if seldom read, are known sufficiently to keep
alive the names of the authors.

The minor writers of tliat age deserve much greater honour than
they are wont to receive. The labours of seveitd of them are really
not less important than those of their most celebrated contempora-
ries, as facts in the intellectual history of our nation. In some de-
partments, indeed, the small men worked more signal improvements
than the great ones ; and, everywhere, the credit which is usually
monopolized by the one class, should in justice be shared with the
other. Were it not for the drama and the chivalrous epic, it might*
be said that the less distinguished authors of that generation were
the earliest builders of the structure of English literature. Others
coming after them reared the edifice higher, and decked it with
richer oniament : but the rustic basement is as essential a part of
the pile, as are the porticos and columns that support its roof. Had
it not been for the experiments which were tried by such men, and
the promptings and warnings which their example furnished, their
successors could not have efi^ected what they did.

Further, the social and intellectual character of the last genera-
tion in the sixteenth century descended, in great part, to the race
that followed it. Those to whom the men of letters addressed
themselves in the reign of James, could not have been qualified to
respond to their appeals, if they had not been the sons of those

\\i

1 -S'lT

202

TUG AGE OF SPENSER, SIIAKSPEARE,

who had so strongly acted and thought and felt in the time of
Elizabeth.

Therefore, even although the most distinguished names of that
earlier time had been wanting, it would not be either unjust or in-
correct to speak, as we often do, of the whole mass of our literature
down to the Commonwealth, as belonging to the Elizabethan Age.
Yet tq her time belong strictly ndfUdore than three of the great
men of our period. Its intellectual chiefs were Spenser, Shakspeare,
and Hooker : and, it must now be said on the other side, if these
had stood literally alone, they would suffice to vindicate for the
reign of the masculine queen its right to be described as the most
illustrious era in our intellectual annals.

When we have read the names of those three celebrated men, and
have noted the time in which they lived, we know when it was that
English poetry rose to its culminating point, in style as well as in
matter; and we know also when it was that English eloquence,
though still imperfect in language, spoke, from one mouth at least,
with a majesty which it has never since surpassed.

That the poetical art should be developed more quickly than
other departments of literature, is a circumstance which, after our
study of earlier periods, we should be quite prepared to expect.
The nation grows like the man : it nourishes imagination and pas-
sion before reflective thought is matured ; and it creates and appre-
ciates poetry, while history seems uninteresting, and philosophy
is unknown. All languages, also, are fully competent for express-
ing the complex manifestations of fancy and emotion, long before
they become fit for precisely denoting general truths, or recording
correctly the results of analysis ; and, yet further, all of them can
move freely when supported by the leading-strings of verse, although
their gait might still be uncertain and awkward if, prose being
adopted, the guiding hand were taken away. Here, indeed, it should
be remembered, that, in these, the latest stages in the development
of the English tongue, a high degree of excellence in prose style
followed, more quickly than is usual, on the perfecting of the lan-
guage for metrical uses.

5. Our two immortal poets must be studied more closely here-
after : a few points only may here conveniently be premised.

The Faerie Queens of Spenser, and the Dramas of Shakspeare,
are possessions for all time : yet they wear, strikingly and charac-
teristically, features imprinted on them by the age in which they
were conceived. Their inventors stood on a frontier-ground, which,
while it lay within the bounds of the new moral kingdom, and
commanded a prospect over its nearest scenes of regular and culti-

BACON, AND MILTON.

203

vated beauty, yet also enabled them to look backward oh the past,
and to catch vivid glimpses of its wild magnificence. Both of them
were possessed by thoughts, and feelings, and images, which could not
have arisen if they had lived either a century later or as much earlier.
Yet the attention of the two was chiefly fixed on different objects:
and very dissimilar were their views of man and history, of nature
and art. Spenser's eye dwelt, with fond and untiring admiration,
on the gorgeous scenery which covered the elfin-land of knight-
hood and romance : present realities passed before him imseen, or
were remembered only to be woven insensibly into the gossamer-
tissue of fantasy ; and, lost in his life-long dream of antique gran-
deur and ideal loveliness, he was blind to all the phenomena of thai
renovated world, which was rising around him out of the ancient
cliaos. He was the Last Minstrel of Chivalry: he was greater,
beyond comparison, than the greatest of his forerimners; but still
he was no more than the modem poet of the remote past. Shak-
spcare was emphatically the poet of the present and the future.
He knew antiquity well, and meditated on it deeply, as he did on
all things: the historical glories of England received an added
majesty from his hands ; and the heroes of Greece and Rome rose
to imaginative life at his bidding. But to him the middle ages, not
less than the classical times, were unveiled in their true light : he
saw in them fallen fragments on which men WQ||^to build anew,
august scenes of desolation whose ruin taught men to work more
wisely : he painted them as the accessory features and distant land-
scape of colossal pictures, in whose foregroimd stood figures soaring
beyond the limits of their place ; figures instinct with the spirit of
the time in which the poet lived, yet lifted out of and above their
time by the impulse of potent genius, prescient of momentous
truths that still lay slumbering in the bosom of futurity.

By the side of the Poetry, in which those celebrated men took the
lead, the contemporary Prose shows poorly, with the one great
exception. For, in respect of style, Hooker really stands almost
alone in his own time, and might be said to do so though he were
compared with his successors. His majestic sweep of thought has
its parallels : his command of illustration was often surpassed : both
as a thinker and as an expounder of thought, this distinguished
man is but one among several. But he used the words of his
native tongue with a skill and judgment, and wove them into sen-
tences with a harmonious fulness and a frequent approach to com-
plete synunetry of structure, which are alike above the character of
E)nglish style as it was next to be develo; ed, and marvelloun when

ii '''

204

THE AGE OP SPENSER, SIIAKSPEARE,

we remember that he may fairly be held to have been the first in
our illustrious train of great prose writers.

Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Polity" was printed in the year 1594.
Sir Philip Sidney's " Arcadia" had been written before 1587 : and
in 1696 appeared Bacon's " Essays" and the " View of Ireland" by
the poet Spenser. But none of these are comparable in style to
the roll of Hooker's sentences. Sidney is loose und clumsy in con-
struction; Bacon is stiff in his forms, and somewhat affectedly
antique in diction : and Spenser's prose is in all respects vigorous
rather than polished. But, the value of the matter of the books
being at present out of question, none of these entitle us to do
more than assert, that, before the close of the sixteenth century,
tliere were a few men who wrote English prose very much more
regularly and easily than it had been written before, and that their
fityle is less cumbrous and pedantic than that of the most famous
writers who followed.

In a word, the application of the English language to Metrical
composition may be held to have been perfected by Shakspeare.
It would be hard to discover any improvements which, in this use,
it has received since his time. The moulding of it into Prose
forms had proceeded so far, that, though its development had here
stopped, it would have been fully adequate for expressing all
varieties of thought with perfect perspicuity and great vigour.
But there was mKL much to be done, before English Prose could
satisfy the requirements of an exactly critical taste. We must
remember the real imperfections of style, both in our study of these
writers, a id when we pass to those of the next generation ; because we
are in constant danger of being blinded to them, by the fascination
of the eloquence displayed in the books in which they are contained.

THE REIQN OP JAiMES THE FIRST.

6. The reign of Elizabeth, as we have learned, gave the key-note
to all the literature of the next sixty years. Yet, amidst the
general harmony with which the strains succeed each other, there
break in, not infrequently, clanging discords.

The literary works which belong to this succeeding part of the
period, not only were much more numerous, but really stand, if
tliey are regarded in the mass, higher than those which closed the
sixteenth century. Spenser was unimitated, and Shakspeare inimi-
table : but the drama itself, which, in this generation as in the last,
monopolized nearly all the best endowed minds, received new and
interesting developments ; and other kinds of poetry were enriched

reign.

BACON, AND MILTON.

20/»

beyond precedent. Prose writing, on the otiicr hand, LloMomcd
into a Iiarvest of eloquence, unexampled alike in its irregtdar vigour
and in its rich amount.

Under the rule of James, learning was exact enough to do gocxi
service both in classics and theology : and it became so fashionahk'.
as to infect English writing with a prevalent eruption of pedantic
alFectations. The chivalrous temper was rapidly on the wane : few
men were actuated by it ; and those who were so, found themselves
out of place. The last survivor of Elizabeth's devoted knights died
on the scaffold : and the chancellor of the kingdom, the greatest
thinker of his day, was found guilty of corruption. In the palace and
its precincts, the old coarseness had begun to pass into positive licen-
tiousness: and a moral degeneracy, propagated yet more widely,
began to she^ its poison on the lighter kinds of literature. The
church possessed many good and able men ; but events of various
kinds were bringing dissent to the surface. The civil polity stood
apparently firm ; but it was really undermined already, and about
to totter and fall.

A few names, distinctively belonging to James's reign, may serve
to illustrate its intellectual characteristics. Bacon, the great pilot
of modern science, then gave to the world the rudiments of his
philosophy : the venerable Camden was perhaps too learned to be
accepted as a fair representative of the erudition of his day. Bishop
Hall, then beginning to be eminent, exemplifies, favourably, not only
the eloquence and talent of the clergy, but the beginnings of resist-
ance to the proceedings and tendencies by which the Church was
soon to be overthrown. The drama was headed by Ben Jonson, a
semi-classic in taste, and honourably severe in morals; and by
Beaumont and Fletcher, luxuriating in irregularity of dramatic
forms, and heralding the licentiousness which soon corrupted the
art generally. From the crowd of poets who filled other fields, we
may single out Donne, both as very distinguished for native genius,
and as having been the main instrument in the introduction of fan-
tastic eccentricities into poetical composition.

THE BEIGN OF CHARLES THE FIRST : THE COMMONWEALTH
AND PROTECTORATE.

7. The public events which took place in the last two sections
of our period run gradually into each other, so as to make the suc-
cessive stages not distinctly separable. Charles the First ceased to
reign, long before he laid down his head on the block ; and, while
he still occupied the throne, the measures of his chief advisers,
urged with impotent imprudence, and aggravated by royal perfidy.

206

THE AQE or SrCKSEB, SnAUSPEASDi

had already separated the nation into two great parties, opposed to
each other both politically and ecclesiastically. Strafford alarmed
patriotic statesmen into rebellion : Laud goaded conscientious re-
ligionists into secession from the Church.

The battle of sects and factions began, at the earliest opportunity,
to be fought with the pen as well as the sword : and many of the
ablest men on both sides spent their strength, and forfeited their
claim to enduring reputation, in ceaseless and now-forgotten con-
troversies. But the momentous questions which were then openly
agitated, for the first time in the modem history of England, pro-
duced not a little fruit that was destined to be lasting. Sound
constitutional principles, hitherto but insinuated by any who nou-
rished them, were broadly avowed and convincingly taught, not in
parliament only and in the war of pamphlets, but in liistories and
dissertations designed, and some of them not unworthy, to dcbcend
to posterity. Dissenters from the church, able at length both to
acknowledge their convictions and to defend them, wrote and spoke
with a force of reasoning and of eloquence, which speedily converted
the nickname of Puritans into an epithet which, though it miglit
imply dislike, yet no longer justified contempt. Nor, while the
struggle lasted, did the hierarchy or the throne want champions
brave or pious, learned in books or skilful in argument. On both
sides, and in all the chief sections into which the successive changes
parted the nation, there emerged an admirable strength of intellect
and a wide fertility of resources : the minds of men caught an en-
thusiastic fervour from the fiery atmosphere in which they breathed ;
and some of the most eloquent writings in the English language
had theu: birth, or the prompting that first inspired their authors,
amidst the convulsions of the Civil War, or in the strangely per-
plexed era of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate.

What has now been said, however, bears almost wholly on prose
literature. Poetry was, and could not but be, differently affected.
The storm which desolates a nation -divided against itself, furnishes
themes which, imfortunately for the credit of human nature, are
peculiarly powerful instruments- in the hands of poets who look
back on the tempest after it has blown over : but its real hateful-
ness appears sufficiently from this fact alone, that it withetrs all
poetic flowers that attempt to bud while it rages in the air. English
poetry drooped, by necessity, ever after the breaking out of the poli-
tical troubles. Nor was the serious temper which afterwards, for a
while, ruled the majority of the nation, calculated to form a good
school for the nurture of a new race of poets. It was too keenly ex-
clusive, too fiercely pontroversial, too gloomily ascetic, to leave free

BACON, AMD MILTON.

207

re, are
\o look
kateful-
ieta all

iglish
le poll-

s,fora
good
Inly ex-
ivefree

room for the play of ideal fancy and benignant sympathy. That
stern era did, no doubt, mould into an awful thoughtfulness, which
might not otherwise have dwelt on it, the mind of one man gifted
with extraordinary genius. But, although Milton, in all likelihood,
would not have conceived the *' Paradise Lost" had he not lived
and acted and felt with the Puritans and Vane and Cromwell, we
may warrantably believe that he could not have made his poem
the consummate work of art which it is, if his youthful fancy had
not been fed, and his early studies completed, amidst the imagina-
tive license and the courtly pomp that adorned the last days of
the hierarchy and the monarchy.

8. This train of reflection, however, I iads us to remember, that
the poets of King Charles's time were very far from being so pure
or elevated in sentiment, as to make the gradual silencing of them
a matter of unmixed regret. The poetry of a generation, regarded
in the mass, is, of all its intellectual efforts, by far the quickest, as
well as the most correct, in reflecting the aspects of the world
without. Ii the readiness and closeness, indeed, with which it re-
peats the lights and shades that fall on it from the face of society,
it exceeds other kinds of literature quite as far, as the chemically
prepared plate of the photograph exceeds a common mirror in its
repetition of the forms and hues of the objects that are presented
to it. Above all, this is true ; that the Muses have always been
dangerously susceptible to impressions from the moral climate of
the regions in which they are placed.

Now, it has been hinted already, that the roughness of speech
and mannen which in Elizabeth's time prevailed to the last, was
followed, in the next reign, by a real coarseness and lowness of sen-
tuneut and principle. This grew worse and worse under James's
son. The morality of those classes of society with which most of
the poets associated, and in which their audiences were sought, un-
derwent a rapid and lamentable declension from the time when the
antagonism between the national parties vhm fairly established.
Another issue might have been hoped for. The refined taste and
studious habits of the unfortunate king were not, seemingly, a
surer presage of royal countenance to literary genius, than liis de-
vout meditativeness, and his severe strictness of private conduct,
were of encouragement to literature in teaching purity and good-
ness. But, most unfortunately for all men, the morality of the
cavaliers took, in spite of every obstacle, a course precisely parallel
to that of the policy wliich had been adopted by the statesmen who
ruled them. Just as every fresh demand made by the parliament
on behalf of the people had brought forth some wider assertion of

,'t

208

THE AGE OF SPENSER, SllAKfePEAIlE^

the prerogative of the crown ; not otherwise, throughout the war,
with every step which the puritans and parliamentarians took to-
wards purification of doctrine and amendment of life and manners,
there arose, among the royalists, a new access of sneering at hypo-
critical pretensions, an increase of zeal in the profession of religions
indifference, and a waxing boldness in proclaiming the comfortaMu
creed which declared profligacy to be the necessary qualification of
a gentleman. The good men of the party (and there were many
such) resisted and grieved in vain. If it was a bitter thing for tlic;
patriotic Falkland to die for a kuig against whose acts he had
indignantly protested, it must have been bitter, doubly bitter, for
truly pious men, like Hall, and Taylor, and Usher, to find them-
selves preaching truth and goodness to hearers, by whom truth and
goodness were equally set at nought.

THE REIGN OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

9. It remains, still, that we learn a few of the principal literary?
names, and one or two of the most prominent literary character-
istics, that may be referred to the two eras which, in their social
aspects, have now beea considered together. The changes may bo
indicated most clearly if they are arranged in two successive stages ;
and these are naturally marked off from each other by the suc-
cessive changes of government. Yet neither the men nor the tacts
can be kept entirely separate.

The time of Charles's rule was, naturally, more variously prolific
than that which followed.

In Poetry it was especially so. The quantity of beautiful verse
which it has bequeathed to us is wonderful ; the forms in which
fancy disported itself embrace almost all that are possible, except
gome of the most arduous ; the tone of sentiment shifted from the
gravest to the gayest, from rapturous devotion to pla3rful levity,
from tragic tearfulness to fantastic wit, from moral solemnity to
indecent licence; the themes ranged from historical fact to in-
vented fable, from the romantic story to the scene of domestic life,
from momentous truths to puerile trifles. No great poet, however,
appears in the crowd ; and it is enough to say, that among them
were most of those whose sonnets, and odes, and other lyrics, will
call for some notice hereafter. The Drama, though now no longer
the chief walk of poetic art, was still rich in genius ; its most dis-
tinguished names being those of Massinger, Ford, and Shirley.
But here the aristocratic depravity had taken deeper root than any-
where else : it was a blpssing to t|ie public that, soon after th^

le war,

ok to-

iniiers,

hypo-

sligitnis
ortJiljli;
ition of
5 iriaiiy
for tlu!
he had
;ter, for
I them-
uth and

literary
laractcr-
lu* social
5 may be
e stages ;
the suc-
tlie tacts

y prolific

ful verse
in which
e, except
from tho
il levity,
mnity to
5t to in-
BStic life,
iDwever,
ing them
[ricB, will
|0 longer
lOst d's-
Shirley.
lan any-
ifter the

BACON, AND MILTON.

breaking out of the war, the theatres were shut, and their poets left
to idleness or repentance.

The Prose writers of the reign are worthily represented by two
of the clergy. Hall was in the full maturity of his fame and
usefulness ; and it is touching to see him, who had urgently remon-
strated against the iimovatioiis of Laud, now combating generously
for tho church, and punished because he refused to separate him-
self from her communion. Jeremy Taylor, also, now begins his
career of eloquence and vicissitude ; as yet suffering little in the
growing tumult, but destined to pass through a course of troubles
hardly less severe than those of his elder contemporary. That tlic
age was not without much erudition, is proved by his name, as
well as by several others. But the greatest among all these is that
of the universally learned Selden : and his position is in several
respects illustrative of the character of his time, more than one of
these indeed being common to him with Camden. Both were lay-
men, as were one or two others of the most eminent scholars of this
half century ; a point deservmg to be remembered, as denoting the
commencement of a social ttate widely different from the mediaeval.
Both, again, not only were variously learned, but busied themselves,
besides the ancient studies in which they were so eminent, with
the antiquities of their native country ; while Selden's most suc-
cessful literary labours were of a peculiarly practical cast. He,
too, by far the most deeply read scholar of his agi^, found time and
will to be a statesman and a lawyer. He sat in parliament ; and it
was his own fault that he was not raised to the woolsack. In quit-
ting this eventful reign, we may note, as its chief fact in philosophy,
that Hobbes was then preparing for his ambitious and diversilied
tasks, and piiblishmg some of his earliest writings.

THE COMMO:SWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE.

10. The Commonwealth and Protectorate, extending over no more
than eleven years, made, for literature not less than for church
and state, an epoch which would be very wrongly judged of, if its
unportance were to be reckoned as proportional to its brief dura-
tion. The political republic worked strongly on the republic of
letters ; but the impulse expended itself within a narrow circle, and
produced total inaction in several quarters by coming into collision
with the older tendencies.

The Old English Drama was extinct. Poetry of other kinds had
fewer votaries : most of the poets who had appeared in the courtly
times were already dead ; and the room they left vacant was filled

. ^

|..

V'i

ii:

!.'

210

THE AGE OF SPEKSEB, SHAKSPEARE,

up very thinly. The younger men were affected, powerfully anc
in most uistances permanently, by the stem seriousness of the
time : vrhen the overstretched cord suddenly snapped at the Res-
toration, the moral looseness which infected poetical sentiment
showed itself chiefly in writers who, by one cause or another, had
been placed beyond the puritanical influence. The literary aspect
of poetry exhibited several very interesting symptoms, marking the
time emphatically as one of transition from the old to the new.
Cowley now closed, perhaps with greater brilliancy than it had
ever possessed, the eccentric and artificial school of which Donne
has been recorded as the founder : and Milton, though labouring
vehemently, in the meanwhile, among those who strove to guide the
social tempest, was thus really undergoing the last steps of that men-
tal discipline which was soon to qualify him for standing forth, in dig-
nified solitude, as the last and all but the greatest of our poetical
ancients. At the very same time, the approach of a modem era
was indicated, both by the frivolity of sentiment, and by the ease
of versification and style, which prevailed in the poems of Waller.
The works of Butler and Dryden belong, it is true, to the age that
followed. But these were the days when the former was marking
the victims who were afterwards to writhe under his satiric lash :
and the latter was already beginning his devious and doubtful
course, by offering his homage at the feet of the Protector.

Philosophy could command little attention; but philosophers
were neither idle nor silent. Hobbes, fortified by exile in his un^
compromising championship. of royal supremacy, sounded his first
blasts of defiance to constitutional freedom and ecclesiastical inde-
pendence. In the cloisters of Cambridge, on the other hand, two
deep though mystical thinkers, imdistracted by the din which was
heard around, grappled quietly with the most arduous problems of
philosophic thought. Henry More expounded those Platonic dreams
of his, which were not altogether dreams ; while Cudworth began to
vindicate belief in the being of the Almighty, and in the essential
foundations of moral distinctions.

Theology, the highest of all sciences, and that which then direct-
ed both opinion and practice among the leading men of England,
was cultivated with general alacrity, in many and diverse depart-
ments, and with great variety both of feeling and thought. ' Among
its teachers were several of our great prose writers. The venera-
ble Hall, towards the end of the period, closed his honourable life,
persecuted and poor, but cheerful and courageous : Jeremy Taylor,
like the non-conformists in his own later days, toiled the more
vigorously at his desk when the pulpit was shut against him. The

BACON) AND MILTON.

211

direct-
ngland,
depart-
Among
venera-
ble life,
Taylor,
more

Puritans, who were now the ruling power in the state, becanne also
a power in literature : and their force of reasoning, and their impres-
siveness of eloquence, are nobly represented by the distinguished
uame of Kichard Baxter.

11. Among the prose works of Milton, some belong to the theo-
logical «nd ecclesiastical controversies of the time ; others deal
with those social and political questions then discussed in many
very able writings, of which his may here suffice as examples. He,
like several of his remarkable contemporaries, lived into the suc-
ceeding generation : and he may be accepted as the last represen-
tative of the eloquence of English Prose, in that brilliant stage of
its history, which, when looked at from a general point of view, b
found to terminate about the date of the Kestoration.

It should be observed, indeed, that, in prose not less than in
verse, the earliest aspirants of the new school were producing ex-
cellent assay-pieces, while the ancient masters worked with undi-
minished vigour after their accustomed models. The works of the
eccentrically eloquent Sir Thomas Browne, who lived, though with-
out writing, for twenty years in the reign of Charles the Second,
are exaggerated specimens, both for good and evil, of all the qual-
ities characterizing the style of his predecessors. Cowley the poet,
on the contrary, who hardly survived the Protectorate, has given
us a few prose writings which, in point of style, stand alone in
their age : they have a modern ease, and simplicity, and regular-
ity, which, if we did not know their date, miglit induce us to
think they must have been composed thirty or forty years later.
In a word, the anticipation of the future, with which Hooker's
style surprised us at the beginning of our period, is paralleled by
that which Cowley's exhibits at its close.

At this point, then, ends the first great section in the History
of English Eloquence. Hardly taking more than a beginning in
the last generation of Elizabeth's reign, it stretches forward till a
little past the middle of the seventeenth century. In regard to the
contents of the books in which the most remarkable prose com-
positions of our language are thus embodied, we shall learn some-
thing immediately. In the meantime, we may enable ourselves to
understand the Character of the Style which prevails among their
writers, by studying an analytic description of it, given by one of
our highest critical authorities.

" To this period belong most of those whom we commonly reckon
our Old English Writers ; men often of such sterling worth for
their sense, that we might read* them with little regard to their
language; yet, in some instances at leiut. possessing rouuli tliat

■it- -I

312 THE AGE OF SPENSEU, BllAKSl'EAnE, BACON, AND BOLTON.

demands praise in this respect. They are generally nervous and
effective, copious to redundancy in their command of words, apt to
employ what seemed to them ornament with much imagination
rather than judicious taste, yet seldom degenerating into common-
place and indefinite phraseology. They have, however, many de-
fects. Some of them, especially the most learned, are^ fidl oi'
pedantry, and deform their pages by an excessive and preposterous
mixture of Latinisms unknown before : at otl^er times we are dis-
gusted by colloquial and even vulgar idioms or proverbs : nor is it
uncommon to find these opposite blemishes, not only in the same
author, but in the same passages. Their periods, except in a very
few, are ill constructed and tediously prolonged : their ears, again
with some exceptions, seem to have been insensible to the beauty
of rhythmical prose : grace is commonly wanting : and their notion
of the artifices of style, when they thought at all about them, was
not congenial to our ianguage. This may be accepted as a general
description of the English writers under James and Charles : some
of the most famovu may, in a certain degree, be deemed to modify
the censure."*

* Ilallam : Introduction to the Literature of £urope in the Fiftecntbi
Sixteeutb, and Seveateeath Centarios.

IMS.

THE AGE OF SPENSER. SHAKSPEABE, BACOK, AND MILTON. 219

!^,

I-

X n

CHAPTER IV.

THE AGE OF SPENSER, SHAKSPEARE, BACON, AND MILTON.
A. D. 1558— A. D. 1660.

SECTION second: THE SCHOLASTIC AND ECCLESIASTICAL

LITERATURE.

Ercdition, Classical and Ecclesiastical. 1. General State of Eccle-
siastical Learning — Eminent Names — Raynolds— Andrewes — Usher-
Classical Studies— -Camden and Selden— Latin Prose and Verse. — Trans-
lations OF THE Holt Bible. 2. The Geneva Bible— Whittingham—
The Bishops' Bible— Parker.— 3. King James's Bible— Its History— The
Translators— Its Universal Reception. — Orioinal Theological Writ-
INOS. 4. The Elizabethan Period — Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity—
Reign of James — Sermons of Bishop Andr ewes— Sermons of Donne. — 5.
Reign of Charles — Hall and Taylor compared. — 6. Bishop Hall — His
Sermons— His other Works.— 7. Jeremy Taylor — His Treatises— His
Sermons — Character of his Eloquence.— 8. The Commonwealth and Pro-
tectorate—Controversial Writings— The Puritans— Richard Baxter— His
Life and Works.

5^-

i '•■ ;

'.'»'

■ \

■!i[r-...>

Mi..'. i

ERUDITION, CLASSICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL.

1. The Proee Literature of the illustrious period with 'which we
are busied, is equally vast in amount and various in range. Our
ambition must limit itself to the acquiring of a little knowledge, in
regard to a few of the most distinguished names, and a very few of
the most valuable or characteristic sorts of writing.

The successive changes having already been traced hastily in
the order of time, our task will now be easiest if the phenomena
are regarded according to their kinds. Theology and its contribu-
tory sciences will first present themselii!e»: philosophy will be fol-
lowed by history ; and, ttfterwards, fronik i varied and interesting
mass of miscellaneous compositions, there may be selected and
arranged the most remarkable specimens.

The study of the Oriental I.anguage8, and other pursuits bearing

w '%V^

214 THE BEIQMS OF ELIZABETH, JAMES, AND CHABLES.

m P

i'i'
is

ii -

11 m

immediately on Theology, flourished largely throughout our period,
or, at any rate, from the middle of Elizabeth's time. Several of
those churchmen whose English writings will soon call for notice,
were honourable examples of the high professional knowledge pos-
sessed by their order. Hooker, however, is said to have been the
first divine of the Reformed Church who was both remarkably
learned and remarkably eloquent. The credit of having been the
most erudite among the theologians of the great queen's reign, is
assigned to Thomas Raynolds, whose opinions tended to piu'itanism,
and whose works a* j very little known. The path of learning in
which he and other ecclesiastics were most highly distinguished,
was that which has been called Patristic Tlieology, that is, the
study of the early Fathers of the Christian Church. The reputa-
tion which Raynolds had enjoyed in this field, devolved, in the time
of James, on Bishop Andrewes, whose celebrity as an orator will
present him again to our view. Ho may here be described as
having been one of the best and wisest of those who held the
ecclesiastical views, developed afterwards so uncompromisingly by
Archbishop Laud : indeed, if not the founder of this High Church
party, he is said to have been certainly the eail-st of its literary
advocates. In the next reign, the Low Church party, and the Irish
nation, possessed the man most famous of all for Patristic learning ;
one indeed who, while his knowledge extended widely beyond tlie
studies of his profession, has been declared to have been in these the
most profoimd scholar whom the Protestant Church of our country
has ever produced. This learned man was Archbishop Usher,
who was at the same time one of the most pious and devoted of
ministers.

While Theological erudition prospered thus signally; the study of
the Pure Classics was by no means prosecuted with so much success.
It could not boast of any very celebrated name, either in the more
exact school which had formerly prevailed, or in that historical
method of philology which was followed so actively on the con-
tinent throughout the first half of the seventeenth century. When
it is said that the times o^ James and Cliatles were learned,
what is meant is this ; that the literary men were deeply read in
classical books, but not that they were deeply versed in classical
philology. Greek, likewise, was not so well known as Latin.
Probably the most correct and profound of our scholars were such
laymen as Camden and Selden : and they, as it has already been
remarked, were far from bounding their studies by the limits of
the ancient world. Among those men whose pursuits were chiefly
classical, Gataker was eminently distinguished. The name of the

TBAMSLATIONS OF TUE HOLY BIBLE.

215

industrious Farnaby will sometimes come in the way of the Latin
reader : and Sir Henry Saville, eminent for his own learning, was
still more so for the munificence with which he aided the studies
of others.

Many of the philosophical and polemical writings of the times
wore couched in Latin : so likewise were some of its histories. In
the last stage of the period, poetry was composed elegantly in that
tongue by May and Cowley, and still more finely by Milton.

THE TRANSLATIONS OP THE HOLY BIBLE.

2. Oriental learning and Classical, a love of goodness, and a zeal
for national enlightenment, co-operated in producing the most valua-
ble of those efforts which present themselves in the field of Theol-
ogy. We have to mark a second series of Translations of the
Holy Scriptures : and, to reach its beginnings, we look back, for
the last time, to the middle of the sixteenth century.

The first of the three versions whose appearance is now to be
recorded, came from the same little knot of exiles, English and
Scottish, who had sought refuge in Geneva, and had there already
published a revised edition of the New Testament. Their entire
Translation of the Bible was printed at the cost of the congregation,
one of the most active of whose members was the father of the
founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Being completed soon
after the accession of Elizabeth, it was published in 1560 : it was
'accompanied by a dedication to her, and a prefatory epistle " To
our beloved in the Lord, the brethren of England, Scotland, and
Ireland." Coverdale, John Knox, and several others, have been
said to have had some share in the work ; but three only can posi-
tively be niamed, all of whom were afterwards ministers in the
Church of England. Whittingham, Calvin^s brother-in-law, who
had edited the New Testament, was for nearly twenty years Dean
of Durham, though troubled by his metropolitan for his Genevese
tendencies ; Gilby died at a good old age as Rector of Ashby-de-la-
Zouch; and Sampson, refusing a bishopric, became successively
Dean of Christ Church, and a Prebendary of Saint Faid*s, losing
the first offiee by being a non-conformist in the matter of costume.
The Geneva Bible became, and long continued to be, the favourite
version among the English Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians.

It was not, indeed, adopted by the Church of England. But
Cranmer*s version, which had been restored to public use, was
admittedly open to improvements ; and measures were quickly taken
for the purpose. The chief promoter of the good work was Matthew

h ' r '

h ; '.

' r ' ■

'■''i ' ,

'J-.-:

. .,■•■' ■■

'''":

h *'

216

THE BEIONS OF ELIZABETH AND JAMES.

I 'r

b. 1604. ) Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the most eminent
d. 1575. J among the fathers of the English Church. He had the honour,
in early life, of declining to become a professor in Oxford, under the
patronage of Wolsey ; and, attaching himself to the Protestant
party, and losing valuable preferments on the accession of Queen
Hilary, he improved his- knowledge still further in his enforced
leisure, and was held to be, both in theology and history, one of
the best informed men of his day. Now placed at the head of the
church, he conducted its organization with great ability and skill,
though not always to the satisfaction of those among the clergy
who had inclinations towards Puritanism.

It seems to be generally allowed, that his great undertaking, of
revising the version of the Scriptures, was executed by men fur-
nished with ampler resources of learning, theological, -classical, and
oriental, than any that had yet been applied in England to the
sacred task. His version, which was published in 1568, is usually
called the Bishops* Bible, a majority of the fifteen translators having
been selected from the bench. Those of them whose names are
most widely known were probably the following : Grindal, Parker's
energetic successor in the Primacy ; Bentham, who was esteemed
as a commentator ; the despotic and learned Sandys ; and Cox, the
venerable bishop of Ely, who had been the tutor of Edward the
Sixth.

Thenceforth, till our last step, the two new versions were, with
hardly any exception, the only ones that issued from the press.
We are told that, in the course of Elizabeth's reign, there appeared
eighty-five editions of the English Bible, and forty-five of the New
Testament ; sixty of the former being impressions of the Geneva
version.

It is right alsb to note, in passing, ti;9 dates of the Roman
Catholic version, commonly known as the Douay Bible. The New
Testament appeared in 1582, and the Old Testament in 1610.

3. Our current translation, as every one knows, belongs to the
reign of James. The first movement towards it was made in the cele-
brated Conference at Hampton Court, when the learned Raynolds,
the leader of the puritanical party, and then president of Corpus
Christi College in Oxford, proposed to the king that there should be a
new version. In 1604, a royal letter, addressed to the Primate Ban-
croft, announced that the sovereign Iiad appointed fifty-four learned
men for translating the Bible, and ordered that measures should be
taken, by securing the co-operation of eminent Greek and Hebrew
scholars, and otherwise, for the commencement and progress of the
undertaking. The labours of these persons, however did not begin

TBAK8LATI0NS OF THE HOLT DHILB.

917

till the spring of 1607 ; they lasted about three years ; and the ver>
sion which was the fruit of them was published in 1611- Among
the other instructions issued to the translators, are aiticles directing,
that the Bbhops' Bible " shall be followed, and as little altered as
the original will permit;" but that the translations of Tyndale,
Matthew, Coverdale, Cranmer, and the Geneva Bible, shall " be
used when they agree better inritli the text than the Bbhops' Bible."

Of the forty-seven translators whose names are recorded, there
were many in regard to whom enough is known to show, that, in the
kinds of knowledge qualifying for such a task, they were among
the most learned men in a learned age. Oxford, Cambridge, and
Westminster, supplied their most eminent scholars, who were dis*
tributed into sections, varying in number from ten to seven ; the
work being apportioned among these, and provision made for an
exchange of corrections among the several companies, and for a
final revision by a committee. Perhaps Bishop Andrewes was the
most famous man among the translators, Raynolds the most profound
theologian,' and Sir Henry Saville the most distinguished for classi-
cal and general accomplishment. The array of Oriental and Rab-
binical erudition seems to have been particidarly strong.

The Geneva version still for a time retained its popularity : and
a new version was one of the abortive schemes of the Long Parlia-
ment. A committee of the Protector's Parliament of 1657 con-
sulted several profound scholars, among whom were the philosophical
Cudworth, the celebrated Orientalist Brian Walton, and Edmund
Castell, his chief coadjutor in the Polyglott Bible. On the evidence of
these competent judges, they reported to the House that, taken as a
whole, King James's is " the best of any translation in the world."
Its reception maybe considered as having thereafter been universal.

It is needless to say how nobly simple are the st}'le and diction
of this, the book in which all of us read the Word of Truth. Just
as little does any one require to be informed, that it has had a wide
influence for good on the character of our language. But it may be
well that we call to mind the manner in which it was concocted ;
and that we remember how, as a necessary consequence of this, its
phraseology is considerably more antique than that of the time in
which it appeared. It was well for the purity of the English tongue,
that the history of the English Bible took the course it did.

ORIGINAL TnEOLOOIOAL WRITINaS.

4. Our brief memoranda of original writings, produced by the
Old English Divines, open auspidously with the venerable name of

Iff'^

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218

THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

».1663.) Hooker. His great work, the "Ecclesiastical Polity," is
d leoo.j highly valued as an exposition and defence of those views
of the relations between church and state, according to which tlie
Reformed Church of England was organized ; but it is also a noble
effort of philosophical thinking, which is conducted with especial
force and mastery in the ethical disquisitions making up its First
Book. In point of eloquence, the work is at this day, perhaps, the
very noblest monument which our language possesses : it is certainly
unapproached by anything that appeared in the next century.
More than Ciceronian in its fulness and dignity of style, it wears,
with all its richness, a sober majesty which is equally admirable
and rare.*

• RICHARD HOOKER.

From the First Booh of tJie Treatise ^^0/the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity;'*

published in 1594.

Albeit much of that we are to speak in this present cause may seem to a
number perhaps tedious, perhaps obscure, dark, and intricate ; (for many
talk of tho truth, which never sounded the depth from whence it springeth;
and therefore, when they are led thereunto, they are soon weary, as men
drawn from those beaten paths wherewith they have been inured ;) yet this
may not so far prevail, as to cut o£F that which the matter itself requireth,
howsoever the nice humour of some be therewith pleased or no. Thej
unto whom we shall seem tedious are in no wise injured by us, because
it is in their own hands to ?pare that labour which they are not willing
to endure. And if any complain of obscurity, they must consider, that in
these matters it cometh no otherwise to pass, than in sundry the works both
of art and also of nature, where that which hath greatest force in the very
things we see, is notwithstanding itself oftentimes not seen. The statcli-
ness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we behold them, dclighteth the
eye : but that foundation which beareth np the one, that root which minis-
tereth unto the other nourishment and life, is in the bosom of the earth con-
cealed ; and if there be at any time occasion to search into it, such labour is
then more necessary than pleasant, both to them which undertake it and for
the lookers-on. In like manner, the use and benefit of good laws all that
live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort ; albeit the grounds and
first original causes from whence they have sprung be unknown, as to the
greatest part of men they are. But when they who withdraw their obedience
protend that the laws which they should obey are con-upt and vitious ; for
iietter examination of their quality, it behoveth the very foundation and root,
the highest well-spring and fountain pf them, to be discovered.

« « * « *

Now, if nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it
were but for a while, the observation of her own laws ; if those principal and
motlier elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are
made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that
heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if

TUE SERMONS OF OISUOP ANDBEWES.

219

" His periods, indeed, are generally much too long and too intri-
cate; but portions of them are beautifully rhythmical: his language
is rich in English idiom without vulgarity, and in words of a Latin
source without pedantry. He is perhaps the first in England who
adorned his prose with the images of poetry. But this he has done
more judiciously, and with greater moderation, than others of gi'cnt
n^me ; and we must be bigots in Attic severity, before we can ob-
ject to some of his grand figures of speech." *

Of the turn of theological writings in the time of James, an ade-
quate idea might probably be gained from the pulpit-oratory of
two of its divines. The first, who has already been named for
his eminent learning and his position as an ecclesiastical leader,
was the most popular preacher of the day : the other, whom we
took as the representative of the poetry of his time, transferred
himself in middle age from civil life to the church, and appears to
have become particularly acceptable to refined and well instructed
hearers.

&. 1S6S.> The sermons of Bishop Andrewes exemplify, very pcr-
d. 1626./ tinently, the chief defects in style that have been attributed
to the writers of his period ; while to these they add other faults,
incident to the eflfusions of a mind poor in fancy, coarse in taste,
ingeniously rash in catching at trivial analogies, and constantly
burying good thoughts under a heap of useless phrases. Yet, though
they were corrupt models, and dangerous in proportion to the fame
of the author, it is not surprising that they made the extraordinary
impression they did. They contain, more than any other works of
their kind and time, the unworked materials of oratory ; and of ora-
tory, too, belonging to the most severe and powerful class. There
is something Demosthenic in the impatient vehemence, with which
the pious bishop showers down his short, clumsy, harsh sentences ;
and the likeness becomes still more exact, when we hear him alter-
nating stem and eager questions with sad or indignant answers.

celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and bj irregular volu-
bility turn themselves any way as it might happen ; if the prince of the lights
of heaven, which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, as it
were, through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and to rest himself;
if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the
year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixtures, the winds breathe
out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly
influence, the fruits of the earth pine away as children at the withered breasts
of their mother no longer able to yield them relief: what would become ot
man himself, whom these things now do all serve? See we not plainly that
•bodiense of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world ?
* Uallam : Introduction to the Literature of Europe.

^,: i

220

THE BEION OF JAUSS.

His Latin quotations, though incessant, are always brief: his field
of erudite illustration is prudently confined; and his multiplied
divisions and sub-divisions, being quite agreeable to the growing
fashion, may have helped to increase the respect of the hearers for
the great strength and ingenuity of thought which the preacher so
often showed. Tliere is often much aptness in the parallels, which
it is his besetting fault to accumulate so thickly, and overdraw so
grotesquely ; and an overpowering effect must sometimes have been
produced by the dexterous boldness with which, anticipating an
adverse opinion or feeling, he throws it back in the teeth of those
who were likely to entertain it. Thus, in a charity sermon, catch-
ing at a plirase of Latimer's, which (it appears) was not yet for-
gotten, and briefly admitting the justice of the censure which it im-
plied, he suddenly turns away, to work out, in an opposite direc-
tion, the very vein of thought which we found in the martyr's
Seinnon on the Plough.*

* BISHOP ANDREWE8.
Fiom the Sermon (1 Tim. vi. 17, 18, 19,) preached at Saint Mary's IloapUal.

Well then I if to '* do good" be a part of the charge, what is it to do good ?
It is a positive thing (good) ; not a privative, to do no harm. Yet, as the
world goeth now, we are fain so to commend men : " He is an honest man :
he doth no hurt :" of which, praise any wicked man, that keeps himself to
himself, maybe partaker. But it is to do some good thing: — What good
thing? I will not answer as in the schools : I fear I should not be under-
stood. I will go grossly to work.

This know, that God hath not given sight to the eye to enjoy, but to lighten
the members ; nor wisdom to the honourable man, but for us men of simple
shallow forecast ; nor learning to the divine, but for the ignorant ; so neither
riches to the wealthy, but for those that want relief. Think yon Timothy
hath his depoaitum, and we ours, and you have none ? It is sure you have.
We ours, in inward graces and treasures of knowledge ; you yours, in out
ward blessings and treasures of wealth. But both are deporita ; and we both
are feoffees of trust.

I see there is a strange hatred, anil a bitter gainsaying, everywhere stirred
up against nnpreaching prelntes (a^ yiu tervi them) and pastors that feed
themselves only : and they are wt^ll worthy. If I might see the same hatred
begun among yourselves, I wot>id think it rincere. But that I cannot see.
I'^or that which a slothful divine is in things spiritual, that is a rich man
for himself and nobody else in things carnal : and they are not pointed at.
But sure you have your harvest, as well as we ours ; and that a great harvest.
Lift up your eyes and see the streets round about you ; the harvest is verily
great, and the labourers few. Let us pray (both) that the Lord would thrust
out labourers into both these harvests : that, the treasures of knowledge being
opened, they may have the bread of eternal life ; and, the treasures of well-
doing being opened, they may hare the bread of this life : and so they may
want neither.

THE 8EBM0NB OF DOHME.

221

may

i>. 1A73. » Donne*B Sermons arc of a very difTeront cast. They
d. 1681. j* m.Q immeasurably superior in every point bearing on
style ; and, if the taste of the writer cannot be called pure, it errs,
as in his poetry, by being fantastic, not by being coarse. The poet's
fancy sometimes prompts images, and figures of speech, that are full
of a serious and thoughtful beauty ; and the language, while it flows
on with a sustained though not very musical fulness, reaches, in some
passages, though not so often as might have been expected, a fine
t'clicity of phrase, not unlike that which adorns so many of his verses.
But, when regarded as oral addresses, these interestmg composi-
tions are not only not comparable to those of Andrewes, but much
below many others of the time. Their tone is essentially medita-
tive, not oratorical. The structure of the style, and the turn of the
thoughts, are alike appropriate to the writer in the closet, not to the
speaker in the church. While, also, the reflections are sometimes
profound, and very often striking, many of them are as subtle and
far-fetched as those which deform his lyrical pieces. Many of his
most dazzling illustrations are made plausible only by feats of rhe-
torical sleight-of-hand : the likeness between the objects vanishes,
the moment we translate the thoughts into plain terms. In one
place he remarks, that east and west are opposites in a flat map,
but are made to unite by rolling the map on a globe ; and he detects,
in this, a parallel to the application of religion to a dejected con-
science, which causes tranquillity to take the place of trouble. He
produces a very impressive effect, by odd means, in treating the
text, '' Who hath beUeved our report ?" He declines at first to say
where the words are to be found ; he dwells on the frequency with
which the sacred writers repeat truths that are momentous ; and
then, announcing that the complaint of the text is made three times
in scripture, he uses the fact as a proof of the prevalence of unbelief
in all ages. The discourses of Donne derive a touching interest -
from the course of his history. They are memorials of those twenty
years of devotion and charity, of religious study and action, which,
when youth had been wasted in the search for worldly £une, and
when manhood had been left solitary, closed the life of a man emi-
nent both for genius and fw learning.

5. The theological literature of the reign of Ch&rles, is represented
in its most brilliant light by two of his celebrated prelates. Joseph
Hall and Jeremy Taylor are the most eloquent of all our Old Englisli
Divines; and their works were, in themselves, enough to make an
epoch in the religious literature of the nation. It may reasonably be
questioned, however, whether the younger of the two does not receive
more than justice, in the comparisons U8^ally drawn between them>

'l>

222

THE SEION OP CHARLES THE FIRST.

Alike eminent for Christian piety and conscientious zeal, alike
warmed by feelings of deep devotion, they yet exhibit mental char-
acteristics distinguishing them as clearly, as did those differences
in opinion and inclination, which exposed tht former to the imputa-
tion of Puritanism, and intrenched the latter impregnably in his
reverence for ecclesiastical antiquity and ritual pomp. Much infe-
rior to Taylor in wealth of imagination. Hall stands immeasurably
higher in strength of reasoning. Both abound in originality of
thought : but the one is clear, systematic, and often profound, in
tracing out the relations of the ideas that have suggested themselves
to him ; the other is hardly ever methodical or exact, is often incon-
sistent, and still oftener confused. Taylor has no command over
his fancy : it continually hurries him away from his path, wafting
him so far that we, who are irresistibly carried along with him, lose
ourselves in the attempt to find our way back. Hall, on the con-
trary, hardly ever loses sight of the road for a moment : the finest
images which he conjures up (and many of them are wonderfully
fine) never displace in his mind the great truths, for the sake of
which they are admitted. He is remarkable, also, for the practical
plainness and directness of the appeals he makes ; nor is he less so
for the shrewdness of observation with which he enforces them.
Beginning his literary career as a writer of poetical satires, he never
forgot the habit of looking around him, on the scenes of life, as well
as those of inanimate nature. Hall is as pedantic as Taylor, but
not in the same way. His Latin quotation, or his old story, is
usually allowed to work its effect without much pains on his part :
it is while he develops tlie course of his own reflections, that he
imagines and presents his illustrative sketches of scenery or society.
Taylor, while he hardly ever, in his oratorical works at least, stoops
to describe familiar Ufe, seems always to have his imagination most
actively kindled, not when he is prosecuting his o^vn track of
thought, but when a first hint has been given by a book studied, or
by a striking event recollected and repeated to us. In the conception
and representation of emotion, both of these eloquent men are very
powerful. But Taylor's moods of passion bear him onward through
long and equably sustained flights: HalUs depth of feeling, often
mor? intense than that of the other, comes in quick bursts, which
speedily die away into argument and reflect^'on, or are interrupted
and chilled by thoughts suggesting quaint antithetic comparisons.
In this last point, not improbably, lies the reason why the former
was so much more effective in public oratory than the latter.
b. 1674. > 6' Among those works of HalFs which are not contro-
4. 1666! i versial, the best known, as well hs the largest, ia his series

BISHOP HALL.

223

of " Contemplations " on historical passages of the Bible. These
ire equally admirable for their soundness of judgment, their correct*
ness of commentary, and the devoutness which continually pervades
their temper. Perhaps the cast of his genius is better shown in
some of his other efforts.

His Pulpit-Discourses cannot be said to equal Taylor^s ; yet some
of them, such as the " Passion Sermon," are nobly and even ornately
eloquent. If his erudition is obtruded frequently, it is seldom
paraded at great length ; and he works up, with great force, some
illustrations which remind us that his generation had not long
emerged from the middle ages. Citing Bromyard as his authority,
he tells his hearers an improved version of the story of the goldtn
apple, which we met with in the Gesta. Again, desiring to exem-
plify the spiritual warfare of Saint Paul, he describes, from an Ixis-
torian of the Norman Time, the ceremonies which attended the
consecration of Hereward the Saxon to the dignity of knighthood.
Frank allusions to social habits and contemporary occurrences are
as common in his sermons as in his other compositions; nor do
we escape without two or three puns. The prevalent tone is
serious, heartfelt, and anxiously eaniest ; and there are many out-
breaks of vehement emotion. In one majestic passage, of a dis-
course denouncing the cruelties of war, he describes the Queen and
people of England kneeling in prayer, while the colossal fleet of
Spain floated towards the shore like a moving wood : in another
place he contrasts, with remarkable picturesqueness of portraiture.
the prevalent worldliness of the time with the Christian's mortifica-
tion of body and spirit : and a discourse on the transformation and
rene^ving of the mind is embellished with a profusion of analogies and
instances, resembling not remotely the favourite strain of Taylor.

But Hall's strength is put forth most successfully in some writ-
ings akin to the " Contemplations ;" and these are so few, so small
in bulk, ruid so little marked % tho odditif^^s of the age, that ever}*
reader may become acquainted with this great man, more easily
and pleasantly than with any of }m contemporaries. His " Charac-
ters of Virtues and Vices," though they were among the earliest
models of a kind of sketches, whi. :h became very fashionable, might
safely be overlooked ; unless we wished to see the author freely in-
dulging his inclination to epigrammatic contrasts. He will be stu-
died, with greatest advantage, in two coUectvins, containing detached
fragments o^ ■ ^flection : the " Occasional Meditations ;" and the
" Three Ceui.iries of Meditations and Vows " The latter scries is
the more various of the two, both in tone and in foi-m. Brief
apophthegms, and acute hinta on life and manners, at^aitftti Vritli

^ ' > *^'

224

THE BEIGN 07 CHARLES TUE FIRST.

prolonged trains of contemplation, breaking out incessantly into
fervent prayer. The pieces of the other series are particularly ricli
in beautiful description. They set down thoughts prompted by
ordinary objects and occurrences, of torm and country, of life and
death, of man and nature ; the redbreast at the window, the weedy
field of com, the starry heavens, the risir>g in the morning and the
lying down at night, a lovely landscape of hill and vale, a spring
bubbling up in the wild forest, a negro and an idiot seen in tlie
street, the red-cross clialked on a door during the plague, the pass-
ing-bell proclaiming the departure of a soul, the ruins of an anciont
abbey, and a heap of stones which might have covered the grave
of the first martyr. In all the meditations, of both groups, the
evidence of great literary power is quite unequivocal. When tlie
witty and accomplished Sir Henry Wotton gave to his friend Bishop
Hali the name of " The English Seneca," he compared our Christian
philo.^oplier with a man to whom, in every respect, he was immeas-
urably superior.*

* BISHOP HALL.
I. From the " Meditations and Vows, Divine and Moral."

I never loved tlioso salamanders, that are never well but when they are
in the fire of contention. I will rather suffer a thousand wrongs, than offer
one : I will suffer an handred, rather than return one : I will suffer many,
ere I will complain of one and endeavour to right it by contending. I have
ever found, that to strive with my superior, is furious ; with my equal,

doubtful ; with my inferior, sordid and base ; with any, full of unquictnc&s.

• • « * «

The world is a stage : every man is an actor, and plays his part, here,
either in a comedy or tragedy. The good man is a comedian, which, how-
ever he begins, ends merrily : but the wicked man acts a tragedy, and
therefore ever ends in horror. Thou seest a wicked man vaunt himself on
this stage : stay till the last act, and look to his end, (as David did,) and see
whether that be peace. Thou wouldst make strange tragedies, if thou
wouldst have but one act. The best wicked man cannot be so envied in lib

first shows, as he is pitiable in his conclusion.

* * « * «

Aa Love keeps the whole law, so Love only is the breaker of it ; being
the ground, as of all obedience, so of all sin. For, whereas sin hath been
commonly accounted to have two roots, Love and Fear ; it is plain that
Fear hath his original from Love : for no man fears to lose aught but what
he loves. Here is sin and righteousness brought both into a short sum, de-
pending bot4 upon one poor affection : it shall be my only care, therefore,
to bestow my love well, both for object and measure. All that is good 1 1
may love, but in several degrees ; what is simply good, absolutely ; what h
good by circumstance, only with limitation. There be these three things
^t I may love without exception ; Oodt n>7 neighbour, my soul ; yet so l«

t.im
d.l667

beyoi
requij

cachhj
the for]

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the reg]

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What I
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BIdnOP HALL.

225

> 1619 > 7. Jeremy TayIor*s controversial tracts, and his essays
' US ' - -

ii.1607.

in dogmatic theology, lie, like similar writings of H{J],
beyond our sphere. But two which fall within this description
require a passing notice. In his " Liberty of Prophesying," Taylor

each have thoir duo place : my body, goods, fame, et cetera, as servants to
the former. All other things I will either not care for, or hate.

« • * • •

The estate of heavenly and earthly things is plainly represented to us by
the two liglits of heaven, which are appointed to rale the night and the day.
Earthly things are rightly resembled by the Moon, which, being nearest to
the region of mortality, is ever in changes, and never looks upon us twice
with the same face ; and, when it is at the full, is blemished with some dark
blots, not capable of any illumination. Heavenly things are figured by the
Sun, whose great and glorious light is both natural to itself and ever con-
stant. That other fickle and dim star is fit enough for the night of misery,
wherein we live here below. And this firm and beautiful light is but good
erougli for that day of glory, which the saints live in.

• « • • •

n. From the " Occasional Meditations."
Upon the SigJU of a Oreat Lihrary.

What a world of wit is here packed up together I I know not whether
this siglit doth more dismay or comfort me. It dismays me to think, that
here is so much that I cannot know : it comforts mo to think, that this
variety yields so good helps to know what I should. There is no truer
word than that of Solomon ? " There is no end of making many books."
This sight verifies it : therr is no end : indeed it were pity there should.
God hath given to man a busy soul, the agitation whereof cannot but,
through time and experience, work out many hidden truths : to suppress these
would be no other than injurious to mankind, whose minds, like unto so
many candles, should be kindled by each other. The thoughts of our
dcHberati-jn are most accurate : those we vent into our papers.

What an happiness is it, that, wit^outalloffencoof necromancy, I may hero
call up ary o;' ib-; ancient worthies of learning, whether human or divine,
and con'*-.'^ witr> them of all my doubts I That I can at pleasure summon
wholb syMO'Is o ' rnvercnd fathers and acute doctors from all the coasts of tlie
earth, f}.T^. tl'<:)ir well studied judgments in all points of question which I
propose t N> Uhet nan I cast my eye casually upon any of these silent mas-
ters out I v>v.' ' . .j:u somewhat. It is a wantonness to complain of choice.
Nj law hinds us to read all : but the more we can take in and digest, the
bcttcr-liking must the mind needs bo.

lilcsscd be Qod, that hath set up so many dear lamps in his Church I
Now none but the wilfully blind can plead darkness. And blessed be the
memory of those his faithful servants, that have loft their blood, thoir
spirits, their lives, in these precious papers; and have willingly wasted
thcmse'vr^ into these during monuments, to give light unto others!

Upon ffearing of Musie by Night,
lii tf > ^etly doth this mqaio iBound in this dead season! In the daytime
it wouid «. it stiuld not, so much aflfoot the ear, AU iMnnonioiw soiin4f

m
1:^

V ■
i ■

226

THE REIGN OP ClUnLES THE FIKST*

was the first to enter a direct protest in behalf of tolerance in re-
ligion ; a principle whicli, however familiar now, was not so before
the CivU War. His " Ductor Dnbitantium" is a treatise on Cas-
uistry, a guide for clerical dealing with cases of conscience : and
the attempt to revive systematic rules of the sort was a* character-
istic instance of the writer's constant hankering after antique opin-
ions and Ullages. Among his practical works, the most popular
are his " Holy Living" and " Holy Dying ;" but, fine as are these,
and his " Life of Christ," he is still more'at home in Ids devotional
treatises, such as the " Golden Grove."

Although these, again, abound with his deep fervour of senti-
ment, their form gives little scope for his great variety of literary
accomplishment. It is his Sermons that have gained for him
tlio fame ' '> commonly enjoys, as the most eloquent of our Old
Divines. u 11 in all, they perhaps evince such a combina-
! ion of powers has not appeared in any other pulpit-orations,
rhcy have been Jtscribed admirably by one of our best critics ; to
whose estimate of tlicm this only should be premised. The faults
.)f the gi'eat preacher are mainly attributable to two causes : to his
abstracted and imaginative turn of mind, which makes him too
often forget his audience in the delighted eagerness with which he
contemplates his own thoughts ; and to the pedantic and uncritical
tastes of his age, which are the root of almost all his other defects.*

Hi '

are advanced by a silent darkness. Thus it is with the glad tidings of sal-
vation : the Gospel never sounds so sweet, as in the night of persecution or
of our own private affliction. It is ever the same : the difference is in our
disposition to receive it. Oh God, whose praise it is to give songs in tlie
night, make my prosperity conscionable and my crosses cheerful I

• JEREMY tIyLOE.
From the Sermon on the Day of Judgment.

Wlien the first day of judgment happened, that (I mean) of the universal
doluge of waters on the old world, the calamity swelled like the flood ; and
cveiy man saw his friend perish, and the neighbours of his dwelling, and the
relatives of his house, and the sharers of his joys, and yesterday's bride, and
the new bom heir, the priest of the family, and the honour of the kindred ;
all dying or dead, drenched in water and the Divine vengeance : and then
they had no place to flee unto ; no man cared for tleir souls : they had none
to go unto for counsel, no sanctuary high enough to keep them from the ven*
goance that rained doAvn from heaven. And so it shall be at the Day of
Judgment, ^vhen that world and tliis, and all that shall be bom hereafter,
shall pass through the same Red Sea, and be all baptized with the same fire,
and bo involved in the same cloud, in which sludl be thunderings and terrors
infinite. Every mah's fear shall be increased by his neighbour's shrieks : and
the amazomont tliat ull the world shall be in shall unite as the sparks of »

JEHEMY TAYLOB.

227

" An imagination essentially poetical, and sparing none of the
decorations which, by critical rules, are deemed almost peculiar to
verse ; a warm tone of piety, sweetness, and charity ; an accumula-
tion of circumstantial accessories whenever he reasons, or persuades,
or describes ; an erudition pouring itself forth in quotation, till his
sermons become in some places almost a garland of flowers from all
other writers, and especially from those of classical antiquity, never
before so redundantly scattered from the pulpit, distinguish Taylor
from his contemporaries by their degree, as they do from most of
his successors by their kind. His sermons on the Marriage Ring,
on the House of Feasting, on the Apples of Sodom, may be named
without disparagement to others, which perhaps ought to stand in
equal place. But they are not without considerable faults, some of
which have just been hirited. The eloquence of Taylor is great ;
but it is not eloquence of the highest class : it is far too Asiatic, too

raging furnace into a globe of fire, and roll on its own principle, and in-
crease by direct appearances and intolerable reflections. Ho that stands
in a churchyard in the time of a great plague, and hears the passing-bell
perpetually telling the sad stories of death, and sees crowds of infected
bodies pressing to their graves, and others sick and tremulous, and death
dressed up in all the images of sorrow round about him, is not supported in
liis spirit by the variety of his sorrow. And at Doomsday, when the ter-
rors are universal, besides that it is itself so much greater, because it can
affright the whole world, it is also made greater by communication and a
sorrowful influence ; grief being then strongly uifectious, when there is no
variety of state, but an entire kingdom of fear : and amazement is the king
of all our passions, and all the world its subjects : and that shriek must needs
be terrible, when millions of men and women at the same instant shall fear-
fully cry out, and the noise shall mingle with the trumpet of the archangel,
with the thunders of the dying and groaning heavens, and the crack of tlio
dissolving world, when the whole fabric of nature shall shake into dissolu-
tion and eternal ashes.

But this general consideration may be heightened with four or five cir-
cumstances.

First, consider what an infinite multitude of angels, and men, and women,
shall then appear. It is a huge assembly, when the men of one kingdom,
the men of one age in a single province, are gathered together into heaps
and confusion of disorder : but then, all kingdoms of all ages, all the armies
tliat ever mustered, all the world that Augustus Cnsar taxed, all those hun-
dreds of millions that were slain in all the Roman wars, from Numa's time
till Italy was broken into principalities and small exarchates ; all these, and
ail that can come into numbers, and that did descend from the loins of
Adam, shall at onco be represented : to which account if we add the armies
of heaven, the nine orders of blessed spirits, and the infinite numbers in every
order, wo may suppose the numbers fit to express the majesty of that God,
and the terror of that Judge, who is the Lord and Father of all thil(kunimagk
inable multitude. Erit terror ingcm tot titiml tantorumqfte populomiH'

-i

228

THE COMMONWEALTH Am) PROTECTOBATE.

much in the style of Chrysostom and other declaimers of the fourth
century, by the study of whom he had probably vitiated his taste.
His learning is ill-placed, and his arguments often as much so *, not
to mention that he has the common defect of alleging nugatory
proofs. His vehemence loses its effect by the circuity of his pleon-
astic language : his sentences are of endless length, and hence not
only altogether unmusical, but not always reducible to grammar.
But he is still the greatest ornament of the English pulpit up to the
middle of the seventeenth century ; and we have no reason to be-
lieve, or rather much reason to disbeUeve, that he had any compe-
titor in other languages." *

8. Many distinguished theologians, whose writings were en-
tirely controversial, or not eminent as literary compositions, must
be allowed to pass unnoticed. But we are not deviating from the
order of time, in here naming two learned controversialists whoso
fame has survived their own age. The one, commonly known as
" the ever-memorable John Hales of Eton," busied himself chiefly
in attacking the ecclesiastical system, of which Andrewes had been
the most skilful defender, and Laud the most active promoter. The
other, "\/!i"iair Chillingworth, has been declared by Locke and
Reid to have been one of the best of all reasoners. The work
which preserves his memory, " The Religion of Protestants a Safe
Way to Salvation," is directed against Romanism, especially im-
pugning the authority of tradition and maintaining- the sufiiciency
of Scripture.

These names introduce us to the theological writings of tho.
Commonwealth and Protectorate, which, however, do by no means
possess a hterary importance comparable with that of the preceding
times. The Puritan divines, with few exceptions, found occupation
more than enough, in the share they now took in public affairs, and
in the contests which sprang out of their own diversities of opin-
ion. Some of the ablest among them vrrote no works that possess
general interest : some, Uke Calamy, the leader, for a time at least,
of the Presbyterians, hardly wrote any thing at all. Others, like-
wise, whose time of action came chiefly after the Restoration, will
then present themselves under another name.

But to the age of our illustrious ancients belonged distinctively,
in spirit as well as in manner, in thought as well as in style, the
celebrated man who. Hall and Taylor and other churchmen having
in the meantime been put to silence, was beyond all doubt the in-
tellectual chief of the theologians belonging to the close of our great
p^iod.^

4* Hollam: Introduction to tbe Literature of Eoropa-

ourth

taste.

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SICnARD BAXTER.

22d

^. ims.) ^6 name of Richard Baxter would claim a place in
(i.ie9i.f the literary history of his time, although the topics on
which his great talents were employed had been the most trifling

of all, instead

of being.

as they were, the most momentous.

Filling many volumes, written with ceaseless haste, produced in
continual pain of body and not infrequent persecution and trouble,
expressed with the clumsiness of a writer who understood little
about laws of style and cared still less, and flowing from a mind
whose knowledge was very various but nowhere very exact, they
are the monuments of an indomitable energy of purpose that has
never been surpassed: and not less extraordinary are they in
the combination of faculties and capacities which they evince,
powers indeed so diverse, and used with so unsparing a readi-
ness, that the work is often all the worse in general effect for
the very fulness of the intellect by which it was dictated. If
Andrewes, with modem discipline, would probably have been one
of the greatest of English orators, Baxter might certainly, had
he 80 willed it, have bequeathed to us either consummate master-
pieces of impressive eloquence, or records of philosophic thought
unsurpassed in analytic subtlety. But the pastor of Kidderminster
lived, not for worldly fame or the pleasure of intellectual exertion,
but.for the teaching of what he held to be truth, and for the service
of the Maker in whose presence he every hour expected to stand.
His thoughts were hurried forward, too quickly for clear exposi-
tion, by the eager impetuosity of his temperament : and they were con-
fined, by his overwhelming sense of religious responsibility, to a track
which admitted too few accessory and illustrative ideas. All his
writings, as he himself has told us, were set down with the haste of
a man who, remembering that he laboured under mortal disease,
never counted on finishing the page he had begun.

When regarded merely in a literary view, liis works aro sur-
prising fruits of cu'cumstances so unfavourable. But they have in
themselves very great value, both for their originality and acute-
ness of thought, and for their vigorous and passionate though very
unpolished eloquence. Nor can any thing be finer than the tono
of piety which sheds its halo over them, or tho courageous in-
tegrity with which the writer now probes every alleged truth to its
roots, and now turns back to acknowledge and retrieve his own
ciTors.

His vast mass of polemical tracts, and the few treatises in which,
as in his Latin " Method of Theology" and his English "Catholio
Theology," he expounds systematically his peculiar views of Chris-
tian doctrinej are declare^ by those who have studied them, to girt

; 1 1

.a:i-

»: ^*%-

230

THE COHMONWEALTU AND FROTECTOBATE.

dccLsIve evidence of his intellectual power. Perhaps the most
interestmg of all his writmgs is the posthumous memoir of " Memor-
able Passages of his Life and Times." It is especially admirable
as a narrative of the progress and changes of religious opinion and
sentiment, in a mind robust both in intellect and in passion. His
Sermons, always irregular in style and often positively vulgar,
abound in passages of great oratorical strength : in truth, it is one
of the most remarkable points about this remarkable man, that, in
starting so many original thoughts, and in tracing out their consc-
({uences with such fulness of inference and such refinement of analy*
8is, he should yet have been able to rivet the attention and arouse
the feelings of a congregation as we know him to liave done. But,
when we read his pulpit-orations, we cannot be surprised by the
great effect they produced.

No religious books better deserve their popularity than some of
his Practical Treatises, especially those that are best known, " The
Saints' Everlastmg Rest" and " The Call to the Unconverted."
They exhibit the essence, both of his eloquence and of his think-
ing, as clearly as the Sermons ; and in point of language they are
much better. But they must not be judged from modem abridg-
ments, the very best of which are to them what the skeleton is to
the statue. None of our old divines will bear being abridged :
and the plan of Baxter's works, embracing a multiplicity of par-
ticulars, each of which is essential to the symmetry of the whole,
id such as to make them less susceptible of the process than most
others of their class.

RICHARD BAXTER.
From " Z^ Saints' Everlasting Rest" pMislicd in 1650.
Why dost thou look so sadly on those withered limbs, and on tliat pining
body ? Do not so far mistake thyself, as to think its joys and thine are all one ;
or that its prosperity and thine are all one ; or that they most needs stand or
foil together. When it is rotting and consmning in the grave, then shalt
thou be a companion of the perfected spirits of the just ; and, when those
bones are scattered about the churchyard, then shalt thou be praising God in
rest. And, in the meantime, hast not thou food of consolation which the
flesh knoweth not of, and a joy which this stranger meddleth not with ? And
do not thmk that, when thou art turned out of this body, thou shalt have no
habitation. Art thou afraid thou shalt wander destitute of a resting-place ?
lb it better resting in flesh than in Qod? * * Dost thou think that those
souls, which are now with Christ, do so much pity their rotten or dusty
corpse, or lament that their ancient habitation is ruined and their once comely
bodies turned into earth ? Oh, what a thing is strangeness and disacquaint-
ane« I It maketh us afhtid of our dearest friends, and to draw back from the
jjfymto of our <mly liappiness. So was it with thee towards thy chiefest friends
r» earth : while thou wast unacciuaintcd with thorn, thou didst withdraw

BICIIABD UAXTEB.

231

from their society; bat, whentlioa didst once know them tlirouglily, thou
wouldst have been loath again to be deprived of thchr fellowsliip. And even
80, though thy strangeneaa to God and to another world do make thee loath
to leave this flesh ; yet, when thoa hast been but one day or hour there, {h
we may ao speak of tiiat Eternity, where is neither day nor hour,) then
would be full loath to return to tUs flesh again^ Doubtless when Qod, for
the glory of his Son, did "end bacl( the soul of Lazarus into its body,
lie caused it quite to forget the glory which it had enjoyed, and to leave bo-
hind it the remembrance of that happiness together with the happiness it^iclf :
or else it might have made his life a burden to him, to think of the blu^cd-
ncss that he was fetched from ; and have made him ready to break down the
priaou-doon of hU flesbi that he might return to that happy state again.

If 'J:

i ■:■ = .■ i

f I '

I, j:* •

232 TtIB AQE OF SPENSER, SIIAKSPEARE, BACON, AND MILTON.

CHAPTER V.

THE AQE OF SPENSER, SHAKSPEABE, BACON, AND MILTON.

< A.D. 1558— A.D. IGCO.

SECTION THIRD : THE MISCELLANEOUS PROSE UTERATURE.

SEMi-THEOtoaiCAL Wmteks. 1. FoUer's Works— Cud worth— Henry »foro.
—Philosophical Writers. 2. Lord Bacon— The Design of his Philoso-
phy—His Two Problems— His Chief Works.— 3. Hobhcs— His Political
and Social Theories- His Ethics— His Psychology— His Style.— Histor-
ic il Writers. 4. Social and Political Theories-Antiquaries— Histo-
rians— Kaleigh— Milton's History of England— His Historical and Po-
lemical Tracts— His Style.— Miscellaneous Writers. 5. Writers of
Voyages and Travels— Literary Critics— Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of
Poesy— Romances and Novels— Sidney's Arcadia— Short Novels— Greene
— Lyly— Pamphlets — Controversy on the Stage— Martin Mar-Prelate—
Smcctymnnus. ~6. Essays describing Characters — Didactic Essays —
iJacon's Essays— Selden— Burton— Sir Thomas Browne— Cowley's Essays.

SEMI-TUEOLOOICAL WRITERS.

1. In passing from theology to other quarters, we may allow
ourselves to be introduced by one of the most eloquent preachers
of Charleses time, a man who was accustomed to have two audi-
ences, the one seated in tie church, the other listening eagerly
through the open windows.

b. 1608. > Thomas Fuller is most widely known through his " Wor-
d. 1661. j" thies of England." But he was a voluminous and various
author, both of ecclesiastical and other works. lie is tlie very
strangest writer in our language. Perhaps no man ever excelled
him in fulness and readiness of wit : certainly no man ever printed
so many of his own jests. His joyousness overflows without ceas-
ing, pouring forth good-natured sarcasms, humorous allusions, and
facetious stories, and punning and ringing changes on wordi with
inexhaustible oddity of invention. His eccentricity fomid its way
to his title-pages : " Good Thoughts in Bad Times," at an early
stage of the war, were followed by " Good Thoughts in Worse
Times:" and this series closed, at the Restoration, -with "Mixcl
Contemplations in Better Times." If this were all. Fuller uiif'lil

THOMAS FULLER.

233

bo worthless. But tho light-hearted jester was one of the most in-
dustrious of inquirers: we owe to him an immense number of
curious facts, collected from recondite books, from an extensive
correspondence kept up on purpose, and from researches which
went on most actively of all while he wandered about as a chaplain
in the royal army. In his " Worthies," the only book of his that
is now valuable as an authority, he b hardly anything else tlian a
lively and observant gossip. But elsewhere ho is moro ambitiouH
Though he has little vigour of reasoning, and no wide conunand oi
))rinciples, his teeming fancy presents every object in some new
light ; oftenest evolving ludicrous images, but often also guided by
sci'ious emotion. His " Church-History of Britain," his " History ol
the Holy War," (that is the Crusades,) and his " Pisgah-View of
Palestine," have no claim to be called great historical compositions ;
but they are inimitable collections of spiritedly told stories : and in
the portraits of character, the short biographies, and the pithy
inaxuns, which make up his " Holy State" and " Profane State,"
he is, more than anywhere, shrewd, amusing, instructive, and often
eloquent. His style is commendable, if compared with that which
was common in his time : his goodness and piety Avcre real, in spite
of his ungovernable levity : he was a kindly man, a peacemaker in
the midst of strife : and his exuberant wit never struck harshly a
personal enemy or an adverse sect.*

• THOMAS FULLER.
From ** The Holy State :" j^lished in 1648.

I. Tlie true Church Antiquary is a traveller into former times, whence he
hath learned their language and fashions. 1. He baits at middle Antiquity,
but lodges not till he comes at that which is ancient indeed. 2. lie dctiircs to
imitate the ancient Fathers, as well in their piety as in their postures ; not
only conforming his hands and knees, but chiefly his heart, to their pattern.
Oh, the holiness of their living and painfulness of their preaching! How
full were they of mortified thoughts and heavenly meditations I Let us nut
make the ceremonial part of their lives only canonical, and the moral part
thereof altogether apocrypha; imitating their devotion, not in the fineness oi
the stulT, but only in the fashion of the making. 3. He carefully marks the
declination of the church from the primitive purity ; observing how, sott^a-
times, humble Devotion was contented to lie down, whilst proud Su; •■' t.
tion got on her back. 4. He doth not so adore the Ancients as to despitte die
Modem. Grant them but dwarfs : yet stand they on giants' shoulders, and
may see the farther. Siu-e as stout champions of Ti*uth follow in the
rear, as over marched in the front. Besides, as one excellently observes,
Antiquitaa seculijuventus mundi. Tliese times are the ancient times, when
tho world is ancient ; and not those which we count ancient by a computa-
tion backwards from ourselves.

II. In Building wo must respect Situation, Contrivance, Ilcccipt, Strength.

vi'i y

\ y

234

CHARLES THE FIRST AND THE COMMONWEALTH.

Two contemporaries of Fuller, eminent in theology, were still
more so in Philosophy. Regarding existence from that lofty and
spiritual point of view which had been taken up anciently by Plato,
both Ralph Cudworth and Henry More are among the few instances
of deviation from the track which English speculation has in mod-
em times chiefly followed, and into which the two most celebrat-
ed philosophers of their own day co-operated in leading it. They
are alike opposed to the empiricsd tendencies which lay hidden in the
theories of Bacon, and to the sensualistic doctrines that v :oro
du^ctly developed by Hobbes. Cud worth's " True Intelle*. „* Sys-
tem of the Universe," a work which has been very diversely estimated,
has for its chief aim the confuting, on & priori principles, the system
of Atheism : its ethical appendix is directed against the selfish
theory of morals. More's works, very jRne pieces both of thinking
and of eloquence, are still more deficient in clearness than those of
his friend : he loses himself in a twofold labyrinth of New-Platonism
and Rabbinical learning.

In the generation before the two Oxford friends, we find the
meditative sceptic Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose writings,
though unfortunately teaching different lessons from theirs, resemble
(hem in their deviation from the prevalent turn of thinking.

and Beauty. 1. Chiefly choose a good air. For air is a dish oi Is on

every minute ; and therefore it need be good. Wood and water at o . ^laplo
commodities where they may be had. The former I confess hath made so
much iron, that it must now be bought with the more silver, and grows
daily dearer. But 'tis as well pleasant as profitable, to see a house cased with
trees, like that of Anchiscs in Troy. Next a pleasant prospect is to bo
respected. A medley view (such as of water and land at Greenwich) best
entertains the eyes, refreshing the wearied beholder with exchange of objects.
Yet I know a more profitable prc£];«<>''t ; where the owner can only see his
own land round about. 2. A fair entrance with an easy ascent givis a great
grace to a building : where the hall is a preferment out of the court, the
parlour out of the hall ; not as in some old buildings, whmc the doors are so
low pigmies must stuop, and the rooms so high that giants may stand up-
right. Light, Heaven's oldest dauehter, is a principal beauty in a building ;
yet it shines not alike from all parts of heaven. An east window welcomes
the infant beams of the sun before they are of strength to do any harm, and
is piTensive to none but a sluggard. In a west window, in summer-time
towards night, the sun grows low and over-familiar, mth more light than
delight. * * * 3. As for receipt, a house had better be too little for a
day, than too great for a year. And it's easier borrowing of thy neighbour
a brace of chambers for a night, than a bag of money for a twelvemonth.
4. As for strength, country-houses must be substantives, able to stand of
themselves. 5. Beauty remains behind as the lost to be regarded ; because
houses drc made to bo liv^^ in, not looked oo. *

* *

TUE PHILOSOPHY OF OACON.

235

PHILOSOPHICAL writers.

2. At the extremes of our period wc encounter, in the Philo-
gophical field, two of the strongest thinkers that have appeared in
Modern Europe. Francis Bacon's smaller writhigs belong to the last
years of the sixteenth century, his great efforts to the reign of
James : Thomas Hobbes, beginning to write in the reign of Charles
the First, continued to do so for many years after the Restoration.
b. 1B61.) Some of Bacon's minor writings will come in our way by
(/. 1626. i nn J ijy^ Qj^^ yfj]i exemplify that union of wide reflection with
strong imagination, which, while it gave its character to his philos-
ophy, was not less active in its clfect on his style. In the mean-
time, we are concerned with those efforts of his for aiding in the
discovery of truth, which have made his name immortal in the
records of modem science.

An attempt at exactly expounding the philosophy of Bacon
would here be as much out of place, as it would be to aim at
accounting for the differences of opinion that have arisen as to the
value of his doctrines. But we may prepare ourselves for under-
standing his position in the history of intellect , if we consider him
as having aimed at the solution of two great problems. The answers
to these were intended to constitute the " Instauratio Magna," the
Great Restoration of Philosophy, that colossal work, towards which
the chief writings of the illustrious author were contributions.

The first problem was, an Analytic Classification of all Depart-
ments of Human Knowledge ; the laying down, as it were, of an
intellectual map, in which all arts and sciences should be exhibited
in their relation to each other, their boundaries being distinctly
marked off, the present state of each being indicated, and hmts
bemg given for the correction of errors and the supplying of defici-
encies. Imperfect and en*oneous as his scheme may be allowed to
be, D'Alembert and his French coadjutors, in the middle of last
century, were able to do no more than copy and distort it. The
accomplishment of the task which Baton undertook, at a time
when materials enough had not been amassed, is now beginning to
be acknowledged as one of the weightiest desiderata in philosophy.
It has anew been attempted, in its whole compass, by two power-
ful though irregular thinkers of our century, the one in France,
the other in England : and it has been prosecuted very success-
fully in the physical sciences, especially by Whewell and Ampere.

This part of Bacon's speculations may be studied by the Eng-
lish reader, in his o^vn eloq^ucnt exposition gf it. It occupies^

236

THE REIQN OF JAMES THE FIRST.

chiefly though not wholly, his treatise " On the Advancement cf
Learning." Desiring, however, to make his opinions accessible to
all learned men in Europe, he caused the book, with large additions,
to be translated into Latin, under the title " De Augmentis Scienti-
arum."

In the same language only did he teach the other sections of his
system. The most important of these he called the " Novum Or-
ganum," challenging, in the courageous self-confidence of genius, a
comparison with the ancient " Organon," the logical text-book of
Aristotle. In this treatise mainly it is, that lie expounds the me-
thods he proposed for solving the second of bis problems. Tliis is
the portion of his speculations which has been most studied, and
which has given rise to the greater part of the controversies in re-
gard to the value of his philosophy. The design on which ho
worked may easily be understood.

The " Novum Organum" is a contribution to Logic, the science
which is the theory of the art of Reasoning : it undertakes to
supply certain deficiencies, under which the Ancient or Aristotelian
Logic admittedly labours. In all sciences, mental as well as phy-
sical, the premises on which we found are of such a character, that
wo are in a greater or less degree liable, in reasoning from them, to
infer moio than they warrant. The ancient logic is able to show
that such inferences are bad, as involving, in one way or another, the
logical fallacy of inferring from a part to the whole : but it is
powerless when, presenting to it several conclusions, all invalidly
infeiTcd, none of them certainly true, but all of them in themselves
more or less probable, we ask it to aid us in determining their com-
parative probability. What Bacon did was this. He endeavour-
ed to purify our reasoning from such premises, by subjecting it to a
system of checks and counter-checks, which should have the effect,
not indeed of totally expunging the error of the conclusion, but of
making it as small as possible, and of reducing it in many cases to
an inappreciable minimum. This is, on the one side, the purpose
of those laws by which he guards our assumption of premises, as in
his famous exposition of the " idols" or prejudices of the human
mind: and it is also, on the other side, the use designed to be
served by the rules he lays down, for determining the comparative
sufficiency of given instances as specimens of the whole class in re-
gard to which we wish to draw inferences from them.

The perfect solution of this ambitious problem is unattainable ;
but, in every science, progress will be proportional to the extent
to which the partial solution is carried. In the pliysical sciences it
may bo worked out very far ; and, in tliis wide region of knowledge.

TOE PniLOSOPUY OF nOBBES.

237

not only wore Bacon's principles happily accordant with tlie turn
which philosophy was about to take, but the spirit and the details of
his system alike chiriied in with the practical and cautious temper
of the English nation. It cannot well be doubted, that his writings,
though they received in his lifetime the neglect for wliich he proudly
prepared himself, gave a mighty impulse to scientific thinking for at
least a century after him. It is perhaps equally certain that; even
in the pliilosophy of corporeal things, discovery has now reached a
point, at which I3acon*s methods are much less extensively useful ;
and, in our ctth country, as well as abroad, some of the most active
minds h£.ve lately begun to aim at fitting new instruments to the
strong and flexible hand of modem science.

3. On philosophy in England, though not in Scotland, the indu-
h. inss.) ^°c^ 0^ Uobbes has been much greater than that of Bacon.
(/.i679.i" In our own generation his memory has profited, more
largely than that of almost any other philosopher, by that prevalent
disposition, half-paradoxical, half-generous, which has resuscitated
80 many defunct celebrities, and given defenders to so many opin-
ions that used to be universally condemned as dangerous or false.

Some of his doctrines, and these making the very key-stone of his
system, are not vindicated by any one. When he lays down his
political theory of uncontrolled absolutism ; and when, with strict
consistency, he desires to subject religion and morality themselves
to the will of the sovereign : his most zeal 's admirers content
themselves with interpreting him for the better, in afa-ihion remind-
ing one of that which has been adopted, in a more plausible case, by
the excusers of Machiavelli. By the writer himself, all his other
speculations seem to have been intended as merely subordinate to
the social system which he thus expounded : into his great politicil
treatise, the "Leviathan,'* he incorporated all those minor in-
quiries, which wo may read elsewhere also both in his English
and in his Latin works.

Ilis Etlucal Theory, which resolves all our impulses regarding
right and wrong into Self-love, does, however objectionab^" in itself,
admit of being brought, by convenient accommodations, A/ithin no
very great distance of tlie utilitariixn theories of morals wh. cii 'lave
generally been the most populai in England. Unprejudic^jd read-
ers will be more likely to agrcf in their estimate of the services he
1ms rendered to other branches of mental philosophy. Always
tending, if notTnore than tending, towai'is that metaphysical school
which derives all human knowledge from without, and which issues
in nwking reason and conscience ftUke subject to the senses, he in

P-'

■ ••

r- ji

238 THE AGE VU 5PENSER, SUAKSPEAnE, BACON, AND MTLTON..

yet, for those who can use his hbits aright, one of the most instruc-
tiv« of teachers in Psychology. What he has written on the
Association of Ideas, is among the most valuable contributions that
have ever been rendered to this branch of science : nor are there
anywhere wanting masterly pieces of analysis. He has also used
his skiU of reflective dissection, with great effect, in his treatise on
Logic, The patient accuracy with which he observed mental phe-
nomena, seldom led astray unless when he was mastered by some
favourite and deep-rooted idea, has justly been commended by the
celebrated critic whose opinion of his language will immediately be
quoted ; and who is not indisposed to claim for Hobbes the honour,
assigned by Dugald Stewart to Descartes, of havmg been the father
of Experimental Psychology.

In his reasoning, Hobbes is admirably close and v- isistent. If
we grant his premises, it is hardly ever possible to question his con-
clusions : and it is always easy, if attention be given, to trace every
step by which the process of inference is carried on. In style, he
has all the excellence which is compatible with a profound sluggish-
ness of imagination, and a total want of emotive power. It has justly
been said to be the perfection of mere didactic language. In the
history of our literature, too, he deserves commemoration as one of
the earliest of those wi-iters who were distinguished, negatively, by
the general absence of great faults in style. " Hobbes is perhaps the
first of whom we can say that he is a good English writer. For
the excellent passages of Hooker, Sidney, Raleigh, Bacon, Taylor,
Chillingworth, and others of the Elizabethan or the first Stuart
period, are not sufficient to establish their claim ; a good writer
being one whoso composition is nearly uniform, and who never
sinks to such inferiority or negligence as we must confess in most
of these. Hobbes is clear, precise, spirited, and, above all, free in
general from tlie faults of his predecessors: his language is sen-
sibly less obsolete : ho is never vulgar, rarely, if ever, quaint or
pedantic." *

HISTORICAL WRITERS.

4. Wo have dwelt long in the company of our Old Divines, men
who not only were the most eloquent prose writers of their time,
but influenced their contemporaries more powerfully than any gen-
eration has since been influenced by theology, whether from the press

ft. 1R52.
d. 1C18.

* Hallam : Literaturo of Europe.

IfT"

POLITICAL SCIENCE, ANTKiUITlES, AND HISTOIIY. 239

or from tlie pulpit. Nor have wc been able to part very speedily
from those two celebrated philosophers, who, livuig in a great age,
commmiicated, for good or for evil, a strong impulse to the race
that succeeded. Other departments in the Prose Literature of the
period, though all were thickly filled, and several of them richly
adorned, must be passed over with a haste which it is difficult
not to be sorry for.

Speculations on the Theory of Society and Civil Polity were
frequent throughout the whole of our period. First may be named
the Latin work, or rather works, " On the State," by William
Bellendcn, a Scotsman, which have been restored to notice in
modern times by Parr's famous Whig preface. Ideas on social
relations were thrown into the shaps of an English romance by
Lord Bacon in his " New Atlantis ;" and Harrington, in his
" Oceana," delineated an aristocratic republic in the same man-
ner. The " Leviathan " of Ilobbes may close this series.

In the collection of materials for national history, the period was
exceedingly active. Camden and Selden stand at the head of our
band of Antiquaries ; and along w^ith them may be named Spelman,
Cotton, and Speed. Under this head also might be classed Arch-
bishop Usher's valuable contribution" to the Ecclesiastical Antiqui«
ties and History of the country.

Camden himself was an historian. So were several others whose
nantes we encounter elsewhere : such as Bacon, whose " History ol
Henry the Seventh" is in no way very remarkable; the poets
Daniel and Drummond ; and the many-sided Hobbes, who wrote
in his old age " Behemoth, or a History of the Civil Wars."
KnoUes's " Turkish History " has been pronounced, by some of our
best critics, to be one of the most animated narratives which the
language possesses. A little before its appearance, a " History of the
World," from the Creation to the middle of the republican period
of Rome, was composed in the Tower of London, by a man lying
there under sentence of death. The case is parallel to the produc-
tion of the great work of Boethius : and the name of the writer is
ft. iBr>2.> better known in England. He was Sir W^alter Kaleigh:
d.iGi8.j and the work, while it displays so much learning as to
have excited a suspicion probably ungrounded, is, in its fine and
poetic eloquence, and its solenm thoughtfulness, at once worthy
of the chivalrous author and touchingly suggestive of the circum-
stances in which he stood. Though it is full of discussions, these
are both striking and instructive : the narrative is often uncom'
monly spirited ; and its tone of sadly devout sentiment justifies the

..ii

240

THE COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE.

honour that was paid to it by Bishop Ilall, in citing it as a signal
instance of the blessed uses of adversity.*

Towards the close of the period, while Lord Clarendon was col-
lecting the materials for his famous royalist history, Thomas May
was writing, in tlie opposite interest, the " History of the Parlia-
ment." His work is less polished or eloquent than his poetical
tastes might have led us to expect. Then, likewise, amidst moro
exciting and angry labours, John Milton recorded the early tradi-
tions of our country in his " History of England." To real histor
ical value no claim could be made by a work, treatmg the lioman
and Anglo-Saxon periods with the means then accessible. But
there reigns through it a spirit of discriminating acuteness, uniting
not inharmoniously with the animated pleasure inspired in the
poct^s mind by the heroic adventures he contemplates.

But, in no instance throughout that disturbed tune, would those,
who should look no further than the literary results of intellect,
1. 1008. > ^^ <^^c^^ reason as in the case of Milton, for lamenting thu
d.ier4.i absorption of extraordinary power in controversies be-
tween sects and parties. Some of us indeed will believe that thu
" Defence of the People of England," against the scurrility of an
alien hireling, was, notwithstanding the heavy misdoings of the
nation or its chiefs, a duty in the performance of which the highest
genius and learning might be not unworthily employed. Others may
rejoice, on similar grounds, in the strenuous toil with which 'the
poet laboured in attacks on the liierarchy. But there are several oi

* SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

From " The niatory of the World ;" jpuUUJied in 1614.

History hath triamphod over Time, which, besides it, nothing but Eter-
nity hath triumphed over : for it hath carried our knowledge over the vast
and devouring space for so many thousand years, and given to our mind
such fair and piercing eyea^ that we plainly behold living now, as if we had
lived then, that great world, Magni Dei sajnens opus, the wise work, says
Hermes, of a Qreat God, as it was then when but now in itself. By it it is,
I say, that we live in the very time when it was created. We behold how
it was governed ; how it was covered with waters and again repcopled ; how
kings and kingdoms have flourished and fallen ; and for what virtue and
piety God mode prosperous, and for what vice and deformity he made
wretched, both the one and the other. And it is not tlie least debt which
we owe unto liistory, that it hath made us acquainted with our dead ances-
tors, and out of the depth and darkness of the earth delivered us their mem-
ory and fame. In a word, we may gather out of history a policy no less
wise than eternal, by the comparison and application of other men's forepost
Qoiseries with oar own Uk9 errors and Ul-deservings,

THE PROSE WHITINGS OF MILTON.

241

his polemical writings which had little value, even in leading or en<
lightenmg the optnions of his contemporaries ; and of those which
had that effect, two only need to be named. The royalists having,
after King Charleses death, published the "Eikon Basilike," or
" Boyal Image," a clever collection of spurious meditations said to
have been written by the unfortunate prince in his imprisonment,
Milton dissected the book in his " Eikonoklastes," or "Image-
breaker," with great force both of reasoning and eloquence, but
with a pamful want of forbearance towards the unhappy deceased.
It is with different feelings that we turn to his " Areopagitica, a
Speech to the Parliament of England, for the Liberty of Unlicensed
Printing." This defence of the freedom of the press, triumphant
in argument, is one of the noblest and most impressive pieces of
eloquence in the English tongue. It may likewise bo noted, that
the more sedate "Tractate on Education," composed about the
same time, aimed likewise, among other objects, at the end de-
signed in the oration ; the convincing of tlie dominant party in the
state, that the suppression of opinions by force was as wrong. in
them as it had been in those whom they displaced. These two
treatises give, in dissimilar shapes, sufficient specimens of Milton's
extraordinary power in prose writing. His style is more Latinized
than that of his most ebquent contemporaries : the exotic infection
pervades both his terms and hb arrangement ; and his quaintness
is not that of the old idiomatic English. Yet he has passages
marvellously sweet, and others in which the grand sweep of hL
sentences emulates the cathedral-music of Hooker.*

pp'j^'

* JOHN MILTON.

From " Areopagitica : m Speech far f>.<? Liberty of Utdicetued PriiUing ;"

puUiahed in 1641.

I deny not bat that it is of greatest concernment in the church and common-
wealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves, as well as men ;
and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as male-
factors : for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny
of life in them, to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are ; nay,
they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living
intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously pro-
ductive, as those fabulous dragons' teeth ; and, being sown up and down, may
chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wari-
ness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book : who kills a man
kills a reasonable creature, Qod's image ; but he who destroys a good book
kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man
lives a burden to the earth ; but a good book is the precinns lifeblood of a
ina8teiHq;>irit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.
It ij truD no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss ;

H2 TUG AQG OF SPENSEB, SHAKSPCASG, BACON, AMD MILTOM.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. •

5. The miscellaneous writings of our eighty years must not be
allowed to detain us very long. Such was their variety of form and
matter, and so great the ability expended on them, that many pages
might be filled by a mere description of their kinds, and the bare
names of those who wrote, in each, something that is interesting to
the student of literary history. AVe must content ourselves with
learning a few facts, under each of a very few heads.

First may be commemorated briefly Hakluyt and Furchas, our
earliest collectors of accounts of voyages ; with several travellers
who told their own tale, such as Davis, the celebrated navigator,
Sandys, whose name we shall meet in the poetical fde, and the
garrulous and amusing Howell.

After these may stand the Literary Critics, chiefly for the sake
J. 1554. > of the earliest among them, the accomplished Sir Philip
d. 1586. j" Sidney. His " Defence of Poesy," written in 1581, is an
eloquent and high-minded tribute to the value, moral and intellec-
tual, of the most powerful of all the literary arts. In regard to the
distinctive function and character of poetry, it rather evinces fine

Our

ponder
in pros
tlie wr
continu
romanci
from en
whole b

and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the
want of which whole nations fare the worse.

We boast our light : but, if we look not wisely on the son itself, it smites
U3 into darkness. Who can discern those planets that are oft combust, and
those stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the sun, until the
opposite motion of their orbs bring tliem to such a place in the firmament
where they may be seen evening or morning ? The light which we have
gained was given us, not to be ever staring on, bu^b> it to discover jonward
things more remote from our knowledge.

Behold now this vast city, a city ^f refuge, the mansion-house of liberty, en-
compassed and surrounded with Mis protection. The shop of war hath not there
more anvils and hammers working, to fashion out the plates and instruments
of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and
heads there sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving
new notions and ideas, wherewith to present, as with their homage and their
fealty, the approaching reformation. * * Methinks I see in my
mind a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself like a strong man after
sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle
renewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-
day beam ; purging and unsealing her long abused sight at the fountain itself
of heavenly radiance ; while the wliole noise of timorous and flocking birds,
with tlioso also tliat love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she
means, and in thoir envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and
iirfilBms.

There:

its princij

so depend

have set fi

snbjection

effect into

eth forth, .

demi-goda,

hand with

freely rang

earth in so

rivers, frui

the too-mu(

deliver a go

the Jiighest

right honoti

to his own 1

nature; whi

force of a dr

no small arg

lince our en

^iUkwpeth

MISCELLANEOUS PSOSfi.

219

intuition, than lays down dear doctrines ; but pcrlups it did all
that could have been hoped for at the time when it«appeared.*

Puttenham's " Art of English Poesie," published five years later,
has dawnings of critical principles, and, though far from being elo-
qucnt, is a creditable attempt at regularity in prose composition.
Of his contemporary Webbe it needs only to be said, that ho is a
vehement advocate of the experiment which then endangered our
poetry, of adapting to our tongue the classical metres. A part in
one of the prose treatises of Ben Jonson the dramatist entitles him
to be ranked, with honour, among the earliest critical writers whose
opinions were supported by philosophical thinking.

Our next division will contain Romances and Novels. Here,
again, our list opens with Sir Philip Sidney. His * Arcadia" is a
ponderous concatenation of romantic and pastoral incidents related
in prose, many pieces of verae being interspersed, in imitation of
tlie writer's Italian models. Enjoying a popularity which, long
continuing to increase, paved the way for the wearisome French
romances, it has in modem times received all varieties of estimate,
from enthusiastic admiration to surly contempt. Unreadable as a
whole by any but very warm lovers of genius, it is the unripe pro-

* SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. ^

From (lie " Defence of Poesy : " toritten. in 1581.

Thcro is no art delivered to mankind, that hath not the works of nature for
its principal object ; without which they could not consist, and on which thej
80 depend, as they become actors and players, as it were, of what nature will
have set forth. " • Only the Poet, disdaining to be tied to any such
subjection, lifted up with the vigonr of his own invention, doth grow in
eiTect into another nature ; in making things either better than nature bring-
eth forth, or, quite anew, forms such as never were in nature, as the heroes,
dcmi-gods, cyclops, chimeras, furies, and such like : so as he goeth hand in
hand with nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but
freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit. Nature never set forth the
earth in so rich tapestry as diverse poets have done ; neither with so pleasant
rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make
the too-much-loved earth more lovely. Her world is brazen : the poets only
deliver a golden. Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison, to balance
the highest pomt of man's wit with the cflRcacy of nature. But rather give
right honour to the Heavenly Maker of that maker ; who, having made man
to his ovm likeness, set him beyond and over all the works of that second
nature ; which in nothing he showed so much as in poetry, when with the
force of a divine breath he bringeth things forth surpassing her doings ; with
no small arguments to the incredulous of that first accursed fall of Adam ;
lince our erect wit maketh us know what purfection is, and yet our iaSMtd
will keepeth ua from roaohing onto it.

944 TnE AOB OF SPENSER, SHAKSFEARE, BACON, AND MILTON.

duction of a young poet, and abounds in isolated passages alike
beautiful in sentiment and in language.

A little later, the press begai^^ to pour forth shoals of short novels
and romances, sometimes collected into sets, and embracing both
original compositions and translations. They were chiefly tho
hasty effusions of the readiest or most needy in that largo crowd
of professional authors, who abounded in London from about the
beginning of our period, and among whom were nearly all tho
dramatists. The most indefatigable, and one of the most inge-
nious, of these novel-writers, was the imfortunate play-writer,
Robert Greene ; one or two of whose pieces derive a painful in-
terest from telling, doubtless with Byronic disguises, romantic but
discreditable incidents in the author^s dissipated career. From h^s
novels, and others of the class, Shakspeare borrowed not a few of
his plots. But the most whimsical of all of them were the two
parts of a strange kind of novel, written by the dramatist Lyiy :
"Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit;" and "Euphues his England."
The affectations, both of thought and language, which were the
staple of these exceedingly fashionable pieces, doubtless corrupted
the diction of good society, and certainly were not without their
effect on literature. Sir Piercie Shafton's speeches, in " The Mon-
astery,*' are a poor imitation of them : they may be better under*
stood from the parodies of them in " Love's Labour Lost." This
class of writmgs has no interest, calling for a further prosecution
of their history. But they continued to be produced freely, till
the civil war brought them to a stand.

The Pamphlets of the tune might deserve a chapter for them-
selves. Written for the day, and to earn the day's bread, they treated
every theme that arose, from public occurrences to private eccen-
tricities, from historical facts to apocryphal marvels. From the
beginning to the end, very many of them were polemical ; and this
employment of them may be instanced from three controversies.
The earliest of these regarded the moral lawfulness of the stage.
It was keenly conducted, on both sides, from the time when Shak-
speare's works began to appear, several of the smaller dramatists
taking an active part in it : and it had not quite died away when,
in the time of Charles the First, it was prosecuted in a more ambi-
tious form by Prynne, who was punished so cruelly for the ani-
madversions on the court, thrown out in his " Histriomastix" or
" Player's Scourge." The second war of pamphlets raged in Queen
Elizabeth's tune. Its character is signified by the name of the imag-
inary person who was the mouth-piece of one of the parties. He
was called " Martin Mftr-prelate." The third series of hostilities

ESSAYS, DESCBIFTIVE AND DIDACTIC.

245

lovcls
; both
y tho
crowd
ut the
lU the
t inge-
■writcr,
ifttl m-
itic but
rora h's
, few of
;ho two
: Lyly:
igland."
?ere the
orrupted
»ut their
he Mon-
sr under-
;." This

br them-
y treated
,te eccen-
'rom the
and this
roversies.
the stage,
[en Shak-
•amatists
ray when,
[ore amhi-
the ani-
lastix" or
in Queen
the imag-
■ties. He
bostiUtiee

might perhaps deserve a more dignified place, on account of the
celebrity of some persons concerned in it. It was opened in the
beginning of the Troubles, by the appearance of a pamphlet attack-
ing episcopacy, and bearing the signature of Smectymnuus ; a name
indicating by initials the names of the five presbyterian writers,
among whom Edmund Calamy was the most famous. In tho battle
which followed. Bishop Hall fought on tho one side, and John
Milton on the other.

6. A very largo number of the Miscellaneous writings might be
classed together as Essays : and the frequency and popularity ot
such attempts show how busy and rc3tles3 men's minds were, and
how widely thought expatiated over all objects of interest. A great
many of these effusions assumed something like a dramatic shape,
taking the form of descriptive sketches of character ; a fact, again,
symptomatic of another feature of the times, that* love of action
and lively sympathy with practical energy, out of which the Old
English Drama extracted the strength that inspired it.

The two kinds of Essays, the Descriptive and the Didactic, may
be considered separately.

Small books of the former class, beginning to bo written early in
Elizabeth's reign, were abundant throughout the seventeenth cen-
tury. They may have been suggested by Greek models; but
their cast was always original, and their tone very various. Of the
lightest and least elevated kind was one of the earliest that can
here be named, " The Gull's Honibook" of tho dramatist Dekker,
which is a picture of low society in I^ondon. Of others, entertain-
uig more serious aims, examples are furnished by sketches of Hall
and Fuller, already mentioned. One of the most famous and lively
books of the sort was the "Characters" of the unfortunate Sir
Thomas Overbury, the dependent and victim of James's minion,
Somerset : and among later attempts were the " Resolves" of Fel-
tham, and the " Microcosmography" attributed to Bishop Earle.

The Didactic series begins with a valuable work of a great man ;
Bacon's fifty-eight "Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral." In
this volume the active-minded writer sets down his thoughts on
man and nature, on life and death, on religion and polity, on learning
and art. It was a favourite work of his own, and has made hb
manner of thinking known to many who are ignorant of his sys-
tematized philosophy. In the elaborated shape in which we read
them, the Essays are not less attractive for the fulness of imagi-
nation that fills them with stately pictures, than for the reach of re-
flective thought that makes them suggest so many valuable truths.
But it is a fSftCt worth remembering, that the few Essays which were

246 THE AGE OF SFENSER, BIIAKBPEARE, BACON, AMD MILTON,

first published, wanted almost altogether the illustrative enrichment
which the whole scries now presents. This development of rea-
soning power before imagination, although it is the exception, has
several parallels : it was a distinctive feature in the mental history
of Dryden and of Burke.*

Among the Didactic Essays of the time after Bacon, may justly
be included the "Table-Talk" of the learned Selden, not for the
bulk of the book, but for its mixture of apophthegmatic wisdom
and lively wit. Two of his contemporaries have transmitted to us
in this shape a much greater number of words, if not a larger quan-
tity of knowledge. Robert Burton^s undigested farrago, crllcd
" The Anatomy of Melancholy," became famous on its beinj^ dis-
covered tlmt Sterne had stolen from it largely : and, as irregular in
taste as in judgment, as far deficient in good writing as in power of
consecutive reasoning, it can never do more than serving patient
readers as a storehouse of odd learning and quaintly original ideas.

* FRANCIS BACON.

Fjroif:, tht " Esaaya : or Counaeh Civil and Moral : "Jiret pulliahed in 1597 ;
reviaed and augmented till 1G25.

I had rather believe all tho fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and tho
Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind. And therefore
God never wrought miracle to convince Atheism; because his ordinary
works convince it. It is true that a little philosophy inclincth man's muid
to Atheism ; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to Kelt-
gion : for, while the mind of man lookcth upon second causes scattered,
it may sometimes rest in them and go no farther ; but, when it beholdeth
the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Pro-
vidence and Deity. * * The Scripture saith, " Tho fool hath said in his
heart, there is no God :" it is not said, " The fool hath thought in his heart :"
BO as he rather saitlt it by rote to himself, as tliat he would have, than that
he can thoroughly believe it or be persuaded of it. For none deny there is
a God, but those for whom it maketh that there were no God. * * But
the great Atheists, indeed, are hypocrites ; which are ever handling holy
things, but without feeling. * * They that deny a God, destroy man's
mobility : far certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body : and, if ho
be not akin to God by his spkit, he is a base and ignoble creature. It de-
stroys likewise magnanimity and the raising of humav nature : for, take an
example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on
when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God
or Melior Natura: which courage is manifestly such, as that creature, with-
out that confidence of a better nature than his own, could never attain, ijo
man, when he resteth and assureth himself upon Divine protection and
favour, gathereth a force and faith, which human nature in itself could not
obtain. Therefore, as Atheism is in all respects hateful, so in this, that it
dopriveth human nature of the means to exalt itself above human frailty,

ESSAYS OF BROWNE AND COWLET.

247

[1, has

justly
or tlio
risdom

to ua
' quan-

crllctl
ni dis-
rular in
awcr of
patient
I ideas.

in 1597;

d, and tlio
i therefore
\ ordinary
tan's mutd
,t to Reli-
scattered,
beholdeth
By to Pro-
said in his
liis heart :"
I, than that
ly there is
* But
lling holy
•oy man's
and, if lio
ire. It de-
fer, take an
rill put ou
of a God
iture, witli-
ittiun. So
[ection and
[f could not
is, that i(
frailty,

In some respects not unlike Burton, but very far above him both
». 1606.) in eloquence and in strength of thought, is Sir Thomas
tf. 1882.]' Browne, the favourite author of not a few among the ad-
mirers of our older literature. In point of style, his writings pre-
sent to us, in the last stage of our Old English period, all the dis-
tinctive characteristics of the age in a state of extravagant exaggera-
tion. The quaintness of phrase is more frequent and more deeply
ingrained than ever : terms are coined from the Latin mint with a
licence that acknowledges no interdict; and the construction of
sentences puts on an added cumbrousness. liut the thoughtful
melancholy of feeling, the singular mixture of scepticism and cre-
dulity in belief, and the brilliancy of imaginative illustration, give
to his essays, and especially to that which has always been the
most popular, a peculiarity of character that makes them exceed-
ingly fascinating. " The Religio Medici," says Johnson, " was no
sooner published, than it excited the attention of the public by the
novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of sentiment, the quick succession
of images, the multitude of abstruso allusions, the subtlety of dis-
quisition, and the strength of language."*

Readers who delight in startlLig contrasts could not bo more
easily gratified, than by turning from ]3ro\vne to the prose writings
b. iflos.) of t^e P06t Cowley. His eleven short " Discourses by way
d. 1668. i of Essays, in Prose and Verse," the latest of all his works,
show an equal want of ambition in the choice of topics and in the
manner of dealing with them. The titles, describing objects of a

• SIB THOMAS BROWNE.

From (he " Ilydriotaphia, or Urn-Burial : " pulliahed in 1648.

Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the irregularities of vain-glory, and
wild enormities of ancient magnanimity. But the most magnanimous reso-
lution rests in the Christian religion, which trampleth upon pride and sits on
the neck of ambition, humbly pursuing that infallible perpetuity, imto whicli
all others must diminish their diameters, and be poorly seen in angles of oon-
tingency. Pious spirits, who passed their days in raptures of futurity, made
little more of this world than the world that was before it, while they lay
obscure in the chaos of preordination and night of their fore-beings.

To subsist in lasting monuments, to live in their productions, to exist ii\
their names and predicament of chimeras, was large satisfaction unto oht
expectations, and made one part of their elysiums. But all this is nothing in
the metaphysics of true belief. To live indeed is to be again ourselves ;
which being not only a hope but an evidence in noble believers, it is all one
to lie in Samt Innocent's churchyard as in the sands of Kgjpt ; ready t j be
anything, in the ecstasy of being over, and as content with six feet as th«
mo2e« of Adrianus.

248 THE AOE OF SPENSER, SHAK8PEARE, BACON| AND MILTON.

common-place kind, but possessing mterest for every one, fulfil the
promise which they hold out, by introducing us to a few vbvious
though judicious reflections, set off by a train of thoughtfully placid
feeling. The style calls for especial attention. Noted in his
poems for fantastic affectation of thought generating great obscurity
of phrase, Cowley writes prose with undeviating sunplicity and
perspicuity: and the whole cast of his language, not in diction
only, but in construction, has a smoothness and case, and an ap-
proach to tasteful regularity, of which hardly an instance, and cer-
tainly none of such extent, could be produced from any other
book written before the Restoration.*

• ABRAUAM COWLEY.

From the Euay '• 0/ Solitude.^

Tho first minister of state has not so mach business in public, as a wise
man has in private : if the one have little leisure to be alone, the other han
less leisure to be in company : the one has but part of the affiiirs of one nation,
the other all the works of God and Nature under his consideration. There
is no saying shodcs me so much as that, which I hear very often, that a man
does not know how to pass his time. 'Twould have been bat ill spoken by
Methusalem in the nine-hundred-sixty-ninth year of his life : so far it is
from us, who have not time enough to attain to the utmost perfection of any
part of any science, to have cause to complain that we are forced to be idle
for want of work. But this, you'll say, is work only for the learned : others
are not capable either of the employments or divertisements that arrive from
letters. 1 know they are not; and therefore cannot much recommend soli-
tude to a man totally illiterate. But, if any man be so unlearned, as to want
entertainment of tho little intervals of accidental solitude, which frequently
occur in almost all conditions, (except the very meanest of the people, who
have business enough in the necessary provisions for life,) it is truly a great
shame, both to his parents and himself. For a very small portion of any
ingenious art will stop up all those gaps of our time. Either music, or
pamting, or designing, or chymistry, or history, or gardening, or twenty
other things, will do it usefully and pleasantly : and, if he happen to set his
affections on Poetry, (which I do not advije hiUi too immoderately,) that
will overdo it : no wood will be thick enough to hide him from the importo-
nities of company or business, which would abstract him from his beloved.

Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good I

Hail, ye plebeian underwood.

Where the poetic birds rejoice,
And, for their quiet nests and plentcc

Fay with their grateful voice!

Here Nature does a house for mo erect.

Nature the wisest architect,

Who those fond artists does despise.
That can the fidr and living trees neglect,

Yet tho dead tmibcr prize.

COWLET's E88AT8.

Here lot me, carelera and nnthoaghtftil lying,
Hear the soft winds, above me flying,
With all their wanton boughs dispute,

And the more tuneful birds to botli replying:
Nor be myself too mute.

A silver stream shall roll his waters near.
Gilt with the sunbeams here and there,
On whose enamell'd bank I'll walk.

And see how prettily they smile, and hear
How prettily they talk.

All wretched and too solitary ho
Who loves not his own company I
Hell feel the weight oft many a day,

Unless he call in Sin or Vani^
To help to bear 't away i

249

: v

250

TUE OLD ENGUSU DBAMA.

CHAPTER VI.
THE AGE OF SPENSEK, SHAKSPEARE, BACON, AND MILTON,

A. D. 1558— A. D. ICGO.

SECTION FOUUTII: TlIK DRAMATIC POKTRV.

i NTRODircTiON. 1. Tlio Drama a Species of Poetry — Recitation of Narrative
Poenis and P^ays — Effects of Recitation on the Character of the Works-
Relations of Prose and Verso to Poetry. — 2. The Regular and Irregular
Schools of Dramatic Art— The French Rules — The Unities of Time and
Place— Their Principle— Their Effects.— 3. The Unity of Action— Its
Principle — Its Relations to the Other Unities — The Union of Tragedy and
(/omedy. — Shakspeare and the Old Enoush Drama. 4. Its Four
Stages.- 5. The First Stage — Shakspeare's Predecessors and Earliest
Works — Marlowe — Greene. — 6. Shakspeare's Earliest Histories and
Comedies — Character of the Eariy Comedies.— 7. The Second Stage—
Shakspeare's Later Histories — His Best Comedies. — 8. The Third Stage
— Shakspeare's Great Tragedies — His Latest Works.— 9. Estimate of
SIiakspeaTA's Genius. — Minor Dramatic Poets. 10. Shakspeare's Con-
temporaries — Their Genius — Their Morality. — 11. ])caumont and Flet-
cher. — 12. Ben Jonson. — 13. Minor Dramatists — Middleton — Webster—
Heywood — Dckker. — 14. The Fourth Stage of the Drama — Massiuger—
Ford— Shirley— Moral Declension.

INTRODUCTION.

1. SiiAKsrPiARE, the greatest of the great men who have created
the imaginative literature of the English language, is so commonly
spoken of as a poet, that it can hardly surprise any of us to hear
the name of Poetry given to such works as those amongst which
his are classed. But we ought to make ourselves familiar with the
principle which this way of speaking involves.

The Drama, in all its kinds and forms, is properly to he consi-
dered as a kind of Poetry. A Tragedy is a poem, just as much as
an Epic or an Ode. It is not here possible, either to prove this
cardinal doctrine of criticism, or to set it forth with those explana-
tions by which the practical application of it ought to be guarded.
It must be enough to assert peremptorily, that Spenser and Milton,
9iur masters of the chivalroua and the religious epos, are not more

THE NATURE OP DRAMATIC POETRY.

251

imperatively Bubjcct to the laws of the poetical art, t^han are Shak
Bpeare, and Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletch&r, and the othev
founders and builders of our dramatic poetry. Tlie Epic and the
Drama are alike representations of human actior* and suffering, of
human thought, and feeling, and desire ; and they are representa-
tions whose purposes are so nearly akin, that the processes used are,
amidst many secondary diversities, subject primarily to the same
theoretical laws.

Modem habits cause the Narrative poem and the Dramatic to
wear a greater appearance of dissimilarity than they wore in older
times. We consider the one as designed to be read, the other as
designed to be acted. Before the invention of prmting, and long
afterwards, recitation was the mode of communication used for
both. The romance, in which the poet told his tale in his own
person, was chanted by the minstrel; just as the morality or miracle-
play, in which every word was put into the mouths of the charac-
ters, was declaimed by the monks or their assistants. Our recol-
lection of this fact suggests several considerations. It is exceedingly
probable that the expectation, which our middle-age poets must*
have had, of this recitative use of their works, may have been one
chief cause of the vigorous aninmtion which atones for so many of
their irregularities. It is at all events certain, that a similar feeling
acted powerfully on those dramatic poets, whose progress we are
now about to study. All of them wrote for the stage : none of
them, not even Shakspeare himself, wrote for the closet. Their
lia /mg this design tended, beyond doubt, to lower the tone both
of their taste and of their morality ; but as certainly it was the
mainspring of their passionate elasticity, the principal source of the
life-like energy which they poured into their dramatic images of
human life.

Another doctrine also should be remembered, both for its own
importance and for its bearing on the history of our dramatic litera-
ture. Works which wo are accustomed to call Poems are almost
always written in verse. But the distinction between Verse and
Prose, a distinction of form only, is no more than secondary : the
primary character of a litcniry work depends on the purpose for
which it is designed, the kind of mental state which it is intended
to excite in the hearers or readers. Consequently a work whicli,
havftig a distinctively poetical purpose, is justly describable as a
poem, would not cease to deserve the name, though it were to be
couched in prose. It would, however, by being so expressed, lose
much of its poetical power. The truth of this last assertion has been
olearly perceived in Ul kinds of poetry except tlie dramatic* N9

:;.u

. I

252

THE OLD ENOLISn DRAMA.

one would dream of composing an ode in prose ; and the adoption
of that form for a narrative poem is an experiment which, though
it has been tried, as in the Telemachus of Fenelon, has never been
successful. But metrical language has not always prevailed in
the drama. In our own country, the example of Shakspeare has
fortunately preserved Tragedy from the intrusion of prose : no man
of genius has ever written an English tragic drama in any otlier
form but that of verse ; and even the infrequent intermixture of prose,
in which our great dramatist indulges, has not found many imitators.
But, with us as elsewhere, prose has gradually become almost uni-
versal as the form of language in Comedy. Now, this class of dra-
mas, by reason of its comparative lowness of purpose, has in its own
nature a much stronger tendency than the other, to sink below the
poetical sphere : and it is, in a degree yet greater, liable to that risk of
moral corruption, by which the drama of Modem Europe has always
been beset. Both of these dangers are aggravated by the use of
prose. Comedy, on decisively adopting this form, not only loses
more rapidly its poetical and imaginative character, but becomes
more readily a minister and teacher of evil. The fact is pertinently
illustrated by the state of the comic stage in the time of Charles the
Second : and the better period with which we are at present engaged
does not want proofs of it, proofs especially strong in their bearing
on the moral part of the question. Even for Comedy, verse con-
tinued to be the prevalent form of expression till the fall of the Old
Drama : prose was introduced but occasionally, though ofteuer than
in Tragedy. The poetical declension, however, caused by the writing
of whole dramas in prose, is exemplified in comedies of Ben Jonson :
and, of the coarse indecencies that deform so many of our old plays,
a large majority (and those the worst) are written in prose, as if the
poets had been ashamed to invest them with the garb of verse.

2. Before beginning to consider the works of Shakspeare and his
fellow-dramatists, we must still pause for a moment. They will be
better understood if we know a little as to certain peculiarities, which
distinguish the Old English Drama from that of some other nations.

When our National Drama is described as Romantic, in contradis-
tinction to the Classical Drama, whose masterpieces were framed in
ancient Greece, principles arc implied which relate to the poetical
spirit and tone of the works, and which are applicable to all kinds
of poetry. The inquiry into these lies beyond our competency.

When the English Drama is called Irregular, and contrasted with
the Regular Drama of Greece, and of modem France, the compari-
son is founded on differences of form. In regard to these it u well
we should learn something. The epithet *given to our dramatic

lis-

cnl

ids

TUB DBAMATIG UKITIES.

253

works intimates that they do not obey certain rules, which, it is
alleged, arc observed by those of the other class. We cannot here
attempt to take account of the Greek Drama ; nor are we called on
to do so. We know enough when we are told, that its forms were
the models on which the French forms were foimded ; but that, in
more than one important respect, the true character of the ancient
works was misapprehended by the imitators ; and that, especially,
the drama of France became a thing very different from its supposed
original, by refusmg to adopt its chorus or lyrical element, while it
adopted those other forms which had then' just effect only when
the chorus was used along with them.

To criticise Shakspeare according to the French dramatic rules,
is really to judge him by a code of laws, which had not been en-
acted when he wrote. The critics by whom the Parisian theory of
dramatic art was systematized, belonged to the reign of Louif the
Fourteenth : and Comeille, the earUest of the great dramatists of
France, and himself hardly an adlierent of the regular school, v as
a child when our poet died. Nevertheless the foreign standard hsu;
BO often been applied to our old drama, that some knowledge of its
principles is required by way of introduction; and, uidecd, tliu
dramatic forms of Greece and Ronie were neither quite unknown in
Shakspeare*s time nor altogether unimitated.

The principal law of the French system prescribed obedience to
the Three Unities, of Time, Place, and Action.

The first two of these rest on a principle quite different from that
which is involved in the third. They were founded on a desire
to make each drama imitate as closely us possible the scries of
events which it represents. If this aim were to be prosecuted with
strict consistency, the incidents constituting the story of a play
ought to be such, that all of them, if real, might have occurred durmg
the two or three hours occupied in the acting; and, the stage
actually remaining the same, the place of the action represented
ought to remam unchanged from begimiing to end. But, the com*
position of a drama so cramped being the next tiling to an impossi^
bility, some relaxation of the statute was needed and allowed : the
time of the action, it was decreed, (somewhat arbitrarily,) might
extend to twenty-four hours ; and the scene might be shifted from
place to place in the same city. By Shakspeare, on the other
hand, and by most of his contemporaries, no fixed limits whatever
were acknowledged, in regard either of tune or of place. In some of
his plays, though not in any of liis greatest, the action stretches
through many years : m all of them the scene is shifted fircc^ueutly,
and sometimes to very wide distances.

t '

, t

' ti

254

THE OLD ENGLISH DSAMA.

Now, if the dramatic art has for its paramount fum the imparting
to the spectators the pleasure which they may receive from con-
templating exact imitations of reality, wo ought surely to refuse
to the dramatist even the slender concessions granted him by
the French critics. If, on the contrary, the drama aims at im-
parting some pleasure which is Iiighcr than this, the value of close
adherence to reality ouglit to be estimated according to the effect
which it may have in promoting that higher end. The latter is
undoubtedly the true state of the case ; and, without insisting on
having a very clear apprehension of the nature of the end really
aimed at by the drama, we shall perhaps be disposed to believe that
the attainment of that end may be impeded, equally, by a slavish imi-
tatipn of the realities of time and place, and by a wanton and frequent
deviation from them. If this is the tendency of our opinion, it will
be strengthened by a glance at the third section of the French law.

3. The rule prescribing unity of action, is founded on a principle
much sounder than that which supports the other two. The phrase
imports a requirement that the action or story of a drama shall be
one, not two actions or more; and that, by consequence, every
thing introduced shall be treated as subordinate to the series of
events which is taken as the guiding thread. The doctrine thus
expounded is not onl^ true, but holds in regard to every process by
which we design to effect any change on the minds of others. The
poet, whether in narrative or dramatic composition, aims at con-
veying to his audience such suggestions, as shall enable them to
imagine for themselves promptly and vividly the series of events
he describes, and to experience strongly the train of emotions which
has passed through his own mind. It is a truth not only evident,
but exemplified sometimes in the works of Shakspeare himself,
that a total neglect of the unities of time and place exposes the
poet to a risk of losing unity of action altogether ; or that, if it
does not go so far as this, it issues in his having only a unity so
complex and so little obvious, that the observer may find it difficult
to grasp it, and may lose altogether the train of feeling which is
intended to issue from the apprehension of it. Yet, in most of
our great poet's works, and in not a few other dramas of his time,
this unity of impression (as it lias -aptly been called) is not only pre-
served with obvious mastery, but becomes instinctively percep-
tible through the harmonious repose of feeling in which the work
leaves us at its close. On the other hand, the punctilious observ-
ance of the two minor unities does really not carry with it advan-
tages so decisive as we might suppose. The imagination, the power
appealed to, yields with wonderful flexibility when the poetic ploft*

THE DRAMATIC UNITIES.

255

rare begins to dawn on the mind : and the prosaic scale of reality is
utterly forgotten, unless critics dispel the dream of fancy by recall-
ing it. Indeed it is further true, tliat the first and second unities,
as managed in the French school, go much farther than the most out-
rageous of our English licences, in impairing the general effect of
the works. They carry with them, unless in a few felicitous in-
stance^!, a bareness of story, a difHculty of devising means of fully
developing passion and character, and a consequent necessity of
constant recourse to little artificial expedients, which are disappoint-
ingly apt to chill both fancy and emotion, in all minds but those
that are fortified by habitual prepossessions.

There is another doctrine of the French school, to which our old
dramatists paid still less regard than to the unities. It forbade the
union of Tragedy and Comedy in the same piece. This prohibition
is a practical corollary from the law which enjoins unity of action:
but, like several other rules laid down in the same quarter, it
violates the spurit of the law by formal adherence to the letter.
Every drama ought to be characteristically either a tragedy or a
comedy : a work as to wliich we are left in doubt whether it is the
one or the other, cannot have produced either a forcible or an har-
monious impression on us. There are instances in which it may
fairly be doubted, whether Shakspeare himself has not thus failed.
But there does not seem to be any good reason, why a work of the
one class si ould not admit subordinate elements borrowed from
the other. The refusal of the permission narrows very disadvan-
tageously the field which tragedy is entitled to occupy, as a pic-
ture of human life in which the serious and sad are relieved by
being contrasted w. th the gay : it lowers tlie tone of comedy, both
in its poetical and i;i its moral relations.

SHAKSPEARE AND THE OLD ENQLISH DRAMA.

4. All the events which wo are called on here to notice in the
history of the Old English Drama, are comprehended in a period
of little more than sixty years, beginning about 1585, and closing
in 1C45. Before the first of these dates, no very perceptible ad-
vance had been made beyond the point which we had previously
observed : the second of the dates is that of the shutting up of the
theatres on the breaking out of the Civil War. For the whole of
this period, we may take the history of Shakspeare's works as our
leading thread. Men of eminent genius lived around and after him :
but there were none who do not derive much of their importance
from the relation in which they stand to Urn ; and there were hardly

256

THE OLD ENGLISH DBAMA.

any whose works do not owe mucli of their excellence to the in*
6uence of his.

Thus considered, the stages through which the Drama passed
may be said to have been four, unequal in endurance and very
unlike in character. Three of them may be regarded as having
chiefly occuiTcd during his life, the fourth as falling wholly after
his death.*

5. The first of these witnessed the early manhood of Shakspcare.
The year already noted as its commencement was the twenty-first
of his age : it comes to a close about 1503, being the earliest date
which is universally admitted as belonging to any of his character-
istic works.

It should be observed, in the outset, that there were at this time
court-dramas, to which alone persons of rank condescended to give
attention. Of these the most fashionable were the comedies of
John Lyly, productions not without value, but distinguished both
by fantastic unreality in the plots, and by those strained affectations
of style which we Imve already noted in his "Euphues." The
courtiers patronized also dull tragedies on the classical model;
some of which were translated from the French, while the most
famous of the oi'iginal writers was the poet Daniel.

The popular dramas were quite unlike these. They were com-
posed by a knot of men, several of whom possessed genius so dis-
tinguished, as to make us regret deeply that then* lives should liavc
been wasted in idle pamphlet-writing, and in the composition of
plays framed on rough and faulty models. Yet these were the
teachers, the immediate predecessors, and the earliest coadjutors
df Shakspeare. The character of the class may be fairly under-
stood, if three writers are taken as its representatives : the un-
fortunate Christopher Marlowe; the equally unfoitimate Robert
Greene ; and the author of the Three Parts of Henry the Sixth,
which are usually, and probably with good reason, inserted among
Shakspeare^s works. Feelers name, though valuable to the liter-
ary antiquary, is less important than any of these. His chief
merit lay in his improvement of ditimatic verse.
£. ifi62.> Marlowe's plays are stately Tragedies, serious and so-
«i. 1603.1 lemn in purpose, energetic and often extravagant in pas-
sion, with occasional touches of deep pathos, and in language
richly and even pompously imaginative. His " Tragical History
of Doctor Faustus" is one of the finest poems in our language.
Greene's are loose Legendary Flays, of a form which is exempliiicci
In Cymbeline. They are fanciful or fantastic rather than dramatic
* Edinburgh Beview, vol. Izxi.: 1840.

». 1864. >
rf.l616.j" J

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doubtful
in this c
Comediet
which w<
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comedy, i

THE EARLY WORKS OF SUAKSFEARE.

257

in design, romantic in sentiment, and not unlike the metrical
romances in their complication, hurry, and confusion of incident.
Of Henry the Sixth, it is enough to say that it is a kind of fore-
taste, a rudimental outline, of Shakspeare's later Historical Plays ;
and that it is obviously distinguished from them by wanting the
comic elements, and, indeed, all that is purely imaginary.

AH these three kinds of dramas, the tragedies of Marlowe, the
romantic pictures of Greene, and the chivalrous panoramas of the
Historical Plays, were clearly the offspring of the inartificial old
drama which had so long been native in England. Although some
of vhe authors were scholars, learning furnished none of their
models. But, if they inherited from the writers of the morals and
miracle-plays their defiance of the unities, and their prevalent dis-
regard for regularity of plan, they had suddenly attained, as if it
liad been by a happy instinct, a wonderfully just conception of the
true function of the drama, as a representation of human life, in-
tended to excite interest and awaken reflective pleasure. It is
important likewise to remember, that they profited eagerly by Sur-
rey's introduction of blank verse. They adopted it at once, im-
proved it with extraordinary skill, and owed to it in great part
the remarkable success which they reached in uniting imaginative
richness with freedom and force of dramatic imitation.
b. 1564. > ^' ^ ^^ ^ ^^^ ^0 assign Henry the Sixth wholly to Shak
d. 1616. i gpeare, this fine group of dramas might by itself account well
for his time, tUl his twenty-ninth or thirtieth year. But, tlirowing
doubtful questions aside, we can positively assert his having composed,
in this earliest period of his author-life, three other works, all
Comedies and still extant. The first is The Two Gentlemen of Verona,
which we probably possess in its original shape : another is the
Comedy of Errors, which likewise does not seem to have ever been
remodelled : and the third is Love's Labour Lost, which subsequently
underwent many changes before it assumed the form in wliich it
now survives. There are likewise two of the great Tragedies, which,
although the edition in which we commonly read them was framed
much later, were first written in this early period, in a form which,
by fortunate accidents, is still in existence. The one is Hamlet, of
which the older version is little more tlmn a sketch : the other is
Romeo and Juliet, which was altered much less.

In the little we have thus learned about the other dramas of the
time, there is enough to show that the mighty master, even in these
Ilia juvenile essays, had taken a wide step beyond them all. It
is a &ct especially to be remarked, that, in already attempting
comedy, and in bringin^^ it into » shape whiQb be hinuelf uev^

THE OLD ENQLISU DRAMA.

much improved, he was doing that which was more diffictilt than
anything else he could have aimed at. For of pure comedy it may
safel}- be asserted, that it had no existence in England till he
created it.

It would be an employment at once interesting and conducive to
improvement in criticism, to compare these early works with those
of the poet's full maturity, in respect of the views of life which the
two etas respectively exhibit. Here, it will be evident, everything
is still juvenile and unripe : the world in its externals, and the
heart and intellect and character of man, are alike known but
vaguely and fi'om the distance. Tlie comic characters are by
livr the most distinctly conceived : the power of observation was
.-ilready so far developed in the young poet's mind, that he could
apply his knowledge to the act of invention felicitously and freely,
w^hen he did not need to do more than embellishing the actual with
pleasant wit or grotesque humour. But his reflective faculty was
not yet enough practised, his imagination not yet possessed deeply
enough by the shapes which serious feeling afterwards prompted,
to enable him to create elevated character, or to venture on a
broad and bold cast of incident. The tint of the comedies that
nave been named is a slight and careless tale of fickleness in love,
among personages who have perhaps less of individuality than
any others that the poet ever drew. The second is an ingenious
comedy of intrigue, that is, a play dependent for its interest on
the combination and gradual unravelling of perplexing incidents :
and this is pretty nearly its greatest merit. The other rises higher
into the world of poetry : but its whimsically original mimicry of
chivalry and romance has an air of unreality and coldness ; and
the poet is nowhere so much at his ease as in ridiculing the little
affectations which his obserx'ation had shown him, in manners, io
feeling, and in the fashion of language.

Marvellously unlike is all this to the grand pictures of life, which
he soon afterwards began to paint : pictures which group all their
characters, whether elevated or mean, in situations exciting uni-
versal sympathies ; pictures whose tone of sentiment, whether serious
or comic, is always coloured by the finest poetic light ; pictures
which, from the deepest tragedy to the broadest farci^, we cannot
behold without being forced to meditate on some of the most
important problems of human life and action.

7. If Shakspeare was more than the scholar in that stage of his
progress which we have now considered, he was indisputably the
teacher and model ever afler. We may set down a second period
for him and for the drama, as extending, from the point at which wc

SHAKSrEARE's HISTORIES AND COMEDIES.

359

bat left him, to his thirty-sixth year, or till about 1600. This was,
so far as existing works are the evidence, the most active part of
his literary life : indeed the number of works which flowed from his
pen during those seven or eight years, might strengthen the current
notion of his carelessness in writing, if we did not know positively
that, in some of his dramas at least, the pointedness and strength
were reached by laborious correction.

The most elevated works of those years were his magnificent
scries of Historical Plays, or, as they were called. Histories. Then
were written all of them except Henry the Sixth and Henry the
Eighth, a collection of six plays m all. Of Comedies the period
produced, before 1698, four at least : The Taming of the Shrew,
the Midsummer-Night's Dream, All's Well that Ends Well, and
The Merdiant of Venice. Also, either about that year or very
soon after it, there appeared four other Comedies ; Much Ado about
Notliing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and the Merry Wives of
Windsor. Towards the end of the time Komeo and Juliet was
re- written.

If the poet's career had closed at this point, his place would
have been the highest in our literature, yet not so high as it is.
Those works which have just been enumerated, as belonging to his
middle stage, are distinguished, much more than the later ones, by
variety in the views of life which they present to us. But the
loftiest and most earnest views of all, those which open up the
world of tragedy, were but dawning in his mind at the commence-
ment of this period, when the early Hamlet had just been com-
posed : they gradually became familiar to him in those bold com-
binations which his historical pieces suggested : and, ia the Romeo
and Juliet, they exhibit themselves with a clearness aitd force which
presaged a new era. The ruling temper of the poet's mind was the
cheertul and hopeful one which gives birth to genuine comedy, and
which, in that mind, as in none other, had its images coloured by
the gorgeous hues of poetic fancy. Never, either before or after-
wnrds, did he cherish tliat purely comic train of thought and inven-
tion, at once real and dramatic, poetical and passionate, which
flowed and ebbed through his mind like a mighty sea during the
last few years of the sixteenth century. The variety of characters
and scenes which then rose up before him, is altogether marvellous.
The extremes are instanced in the fairy loveliness of the Mid-
summer-Night's Dream ; the woodland romance of As You Like It ;
the harmonious blending of fanciful gaiety, sympatheti sorrow,
and satirical mirth, which runs through Much Ado about Nothing ;
and the yet bolder union of dissimilar materials, whichi in The

;ii

960

THE OLD ENGLISH DBAHA.

Merchant of Venice, raises us almost to the height of tragic
terror.

8. Shakspeare's last days were his greatest. His skill as an
artist was perfected : his poetic imagination was full to overiiowiug :
his power of conceiving and representing passion was, if less in-
tense, at least under more thorough control Yet it is not chimeri-
cal to think, that there is spread over most of the works of thoRe
Inst fifteen years a tone of sadness which had not heen perceived
before.

The series after 1600 began with the remaining four of the five
great Tragedies: Othello, the sternest and gloomiest of all his
dramas, coming first ; the re-composed Hamlet following, and being
succeeded by Lear ; and Macbeth appearing before 1610. To the
same decade belong Henry the Eighth ; the three Roman tragedies of
Coriolanus, Julius Csesar, and Antony and Cleopatra ; and those
two singular pieces, Timon of Athens, and Troilus and Cressida,
which almost strike us as parodies both on the drama and on
human life. A similar jarring of feeling in the poetls mind is trace-
able in Measure for Measure, which in all likelihood is nearly of the
same date. But his genius next assumed a new temper, proba-
bly afler he had retired from the turmoil of his harassing profes-
sion to the repose of his early home in the country. Amidst tlie
soothing influences of nature and solitude, anxiety and despon*
dence gave place to a tone of placidly thoughtful imagination,
worthy to close the days of the greatest among poets. In Cymbe-
line and the Winter's Tale, he fell back on that legendary kuid of
adventures, which had occupied the stage so frequently in his
youth : and in The Tempest, which we have good reason to sup-
pose his last work, he peopled his haunted island with a group
of beings, whose conception indicates a greater variety of imagina-
tion, and in some points a greater depth of philosophic thought,
than any other characters or events which he has bequeathed
to us.

9. " The name of Shakspenre is the greatest in oiur literature : it
is the greatest in all literature. No man ever came near him in
the creative powers of the mind : no man had ever such strength at
once, and such variety of imagination. The number of characters
in his plays is astonishingly great : yet he never takes an abstract
quality to embody it, scarcely perhaps a definite condition of
manners, as Jonson does. Nor did he draw much from living
models : there is no manifest appearance of personal caricature in
his comedies ; though in some slight traits of character this may
oot improbably have been the case. Compare with biro Homer,

THE GENIUS OF SnAKSFEARE.

261

the tragedians of Greece, the poets of Italy, Plautus, Cervantes,
Moli^re, Addison, Le Sage, Fielding, Richardson. Scott, the ro-
mancers of tlie elder or later schools : one man has far more than
surpassed them all. Others may have been as sublime; others
may have been more pathetic ; others may have equalled him in
grace and purity of language, and have shunned some of his faults :
but the philosophy of Shakspeare, his intimate searching out of the
human heart, whether in the gnomic form of sentence, or in the
dramatic exhibition of character, is a gifl peculiarly his own. It
is, if not entirely wanting, yet very little manifested in comparison
with him, by the English dramatists of his own and the subsequent
period.

"These dramatlsto are hardly less inferior to Shakspeare in
judgment. To this quality I particularly advert ; because foreign
writers, and sometimes our own, have imputed an extraordinary
barbarism and rudeness to his works. They belong indeed to an
age sufficiently rude and barbarous in its entertainments, and are
of course to be classed with what is called the romantic school,
which has hardly yet shaken off that reproach. But no one who
bas perused the plays anterior to those of Shakspeare, or contem-
porary with them, or subsequent to them down to the closing of
the theatres in the civil war, will pretend to deny that there is far
less irregiilarity, in regard to everything where regularity can be
desired, in a large proportion of these, (perhaps in all the tragedies,)
than in his own. We need only repeat the names of Tlie Merchant
of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, The Merry Wives
of Windsor, Measure for Measure. The plots in these are excel-
lently constructed, and in some with uncommon artifice. But, even
where an analysis of the story might excite criticism, there is gene-
rally an unity of interest which tones the whole. The Winter's
Tale is not a model to follow ; but we feel that the Winter's Tale is a
single story : it is even managed as such with consummate skill."*

THE MINOR DRAMATIC POETS.

10. When we look away from Shakspeare to his dramatic con-
temporaries, we find it needless to revert farther than the com-
mencement of the second stage in his history. The fact that was
characteristic of the earlier part of the period which then began,
was the predominating influence exercised by him, not over those
dramatists only who were avowedly his pupils and imitators, but
also over those who probably believed that they were quite inde>

• Eallam : Introduction to the literature of Eorope.

T '

.. i

THE OLD ENOUSn DRAMA.

pendent of him. The effects of this influence are not traceable
merely in style, in the repetition of scattered reflections and images,
or in the imitation, designed or undesigned, of characters and inci-
dents. They show themselves still more in community of senti-
ment, in general resemblance of plan, and in those finer points of
analogy which are more readily felt than described.

It would have been well if there had been as decided a likenesr
in the moral aspect. Although it cannot seriously be maintained
of Shakspeare, that he keeps always before him the highest sanc-
tions of conduct, it is yet true that, if his works were weeded of a
Y«ry few obnoxious passages, they might be pronounced free from
all gross moral taint : while it b likewise the fact, that hardly any
imaginative Writings, not avowedly religious in structure, are so
strongly suggestive as many of his are, of solemn and instructive
mieditation. In regard to almost all the other dramatists of the time
it must be said, that, if they do teach goodness, they teach it in their
own despite : and of the men of eminent genius, Ben Jonson alone
deaerves the praise of having had a steady respect for moral dis-
tinctions ; while even with him there is an occasional coarseness not
reconcilable with his general practice. The licentiousness began .
in the earlier years of the seventeenth century ; and it increased
with accelerated speed, till dramatic composition came to ai en-
forced pause. Writuigs having sich a character must, in a course
of study like ours, be passed over very cursorily. The pleasure
which their genius gives can be safely enjoyed only by minds
mature and well truned ; unless in such purified specimens, as
those which have been placed at the disposal of youthful readers
by a man of letters in our own time.*

11. Highest by far in poetical and dramatic value stand the works
». 1686.) bearing the names of Beaumont and Fletcher. A great
* 1578.' { nmny of these are said to have been written by the two
d. teas./ poets jointly, a few by the former alone, and a- larger num-
ber by the latter after he had lost his friend. Beaumont, tlie
younger of the two, died before he was thirty years old. Alliances
of this kind have taken place in no kind of poetry but the drama-
tic : there they have been common : they were especially so in
England at the time now in question, and were often prompted
merely by the necessities of the writers. The association of those
two poets seems to have been the effect of friendship : but it was soon

> Charles Lamb's '* Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets." Lamb
gives no quotationa from Shakspeare's dramas. Nor are any inserted here :
the noblest passages may be read in very many books ; and inferior oneii
would do injustice to the great poet.

BBAUHONT AND .FLBTCnER.

263

dlMoIved ; and it it not easy to mark any decinive clumge of literary
character in the works which were certainly Fletcher'i, and written
after he had been left alone. It is too certain, however, that tbe
looseness of fkncy which deformed all those dramas from the begin-
ning, degenerated afterwards into confirmed and deliberate licen-
tiousness : and it is a circumstance not to be overlooked, that the
moral badness which was common to all works of the kind thea
written, is nowhere so glaring as in these, which were the most
finely and delicately imaginative dramas of their day, and are
poetically superior to everything of the sort in our language except
the works of Shakspeare. There may be quoted from them many
short passages, and some entire scenes, as delightful as anything in
the range of poetry; sometimes pleasing by their rich imagery,
sometimes by their profound pathos, and not infrequently by their
elevation and purity of thought and feeling. But there are
very few of the plays whose stone's could be wholly told without
offence ; and there is none that should be read entirely by a youngw^^
person.*

* FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER.
THe rrinee's deteription of hit Page BtOano, tit ikeplaif of *• PhihUer.**

Hontiog the back,
I found him sitting by s fountain's side,
Of which he borrowed some to quench his thirst,
And paid the nymph as much again in tears.
A garland laid him by, made by himself,
Of many several flowers bred in the bay,

Stuok in that mystic order, that the rareness i

Delighted me : but, ever when he turned
His tender eyes upon them, he would weep,
As if he meant to make 'em grow again.

Seeing such pretty helpless innocence .j; .

C>well in his face, I asked him all his story.
He told me that his parents gentle died.
Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,
Which gave him roots ; and of the crystal springs.
Which did not stop their courses ; and the sun,
Which stUI, he thanked him, yielded him his light.
Then took he up his garland, and did show ;

What every flower, as country people hold, j

Did signify ; and how all, ordered thus,
Express'd his grief; and, to my thoughts, did read -
The prettiest lecture of his country art
That could be wished : so that methought I could
Have studied it. I gladly entertained him.
Who was as glad to follow ; and have got
The trustiest, loving'st, and the gentlest boy
That ever master -kept.

264

TOE OLD ENGLISn DRAMA.

12. In Beaumont and Fletcher's works, those irregularities of
plan, which are often made a reproach to tlie English drama, reach
their utmost height. On the other hand, the regular classical
model was approached, as closely as English tastes and habits would
b. 1674. > Allow, in not a few of the writings, both tragic and comic,
dAesi.i of Ben Jonson. This celebrated man deserves immortal-
ity for other reasons, besides his comparative purity of moral senti-
ment. He was the one man of his time, besides Shakspcare, wlio
deserves to be called a reflective artist ; the one man of liis time,
besides Shakspeare, who perceived principles of art and worked in
obedience to them. His tragedies are stately, eloquent, and poeti-
cal : his comedies are more faithful poetic portraits of contemporary
English life than those of any other dramatist of his age, the one
great poet being excepted. His vigour in the conception of char-
acter has been generally allowed, and perhaps overvalued. Less
justice has been rendered to the union of poetical vigour and deli-
cacy, which pervades almost every thing that he wrote. He is
poetical, though not richly imaginative, not in his pastoral of The
Sad Shepherd only, or in his masques, or in his beautiful lyrics.
His poetry is perceptible even among the comic scenes of Every
Man in His Humour, or through the luUf-heroic perplexities of the
Alchymist and the Fox.*

• BEN JOSSON.

JWw» the Comedy of " The New Inn.'*
Did you ever know or hear of the Lord Beaufort,
Who serv'd so bravely in France? I was his page,
And, ere he died, his friend. I followed him
First in the wars ; and in the times of peace
I waited on his studies ; which were right.
He had no Arthurs, nor no Rosicleers,
No Knights of the Son, nor Amadia de Gauls,
I'rhnalions and Fantagnicls, public nothings,
Abortives of the fabulous dark cloister,
Sent out to poison courts and infest manners :
Hut great Achilles*, Agamemnon's acts,
Snge Nestor's counsels and Ulysses' sleights,
'I'ydides' fortitude, as Homer wrought tbem
I II his immortal fancy, for examples
Of the heroic virtue :— or as Virpl,
Tliat Master of the Epic Poem, limn'd
Pious JEneaa, his religions prince,
Bearing his aged parent on his shoulders.
Rapt from the flames of Troy, with his young son.
And these he brought to practice and to use.

He gave me first my breeding, T acknowledge ;
Then shower'd his bounties on me, like the Honm.

.r- iwn

ran

JONSON AND MIKOR DRAMATISTS.

265

13. Jonson miglit be held to have written chiefly for men of Dense
and knowledge, Fletcher and his friend for men of fasliion and the
world. A similar audience to that of Jonson may have been aimed
at in the stately, epical tragedies of Chapman. The other class of
auditors, or one a step lower, would have relished better such plays
as those of Middleton and Webster : the former of whom is chiefly
remarkable for a few striking ideas imperfectly wrought out ; while
the latter, in several of his tragic dramas, b singularly successful in
depicting events of deep horror.

Along with these men wrote others who, clinging to the older
forms and ideas, may be regarded as having been in the main the
dramatists of the commonalty. The chief of these was Thomas
Ileywood, an author of extraordinary indji<i;ry, who boasted oi
having in his long life had a share in more ima tvo hundred plays.
In some of his best works there is a natural and quiet sweetness,
which makes him not undeserving of the title a critic has given
him, " the prose Shakspeare ; " and he is one of the most moral
pla3rwriters of his time. To the same class belonged Dekker, also
a Voluminous pamphleteer, and known as having co-operated in
several plays which appear among the works of more celebrated
men, especially Massinger.

14. The name whicli has last been read, introduces us to that
which may be treated as the closing age of the Old English Drama.
As its representatives may be taken Massinger, Ford, and Shirley.
h. 1684. ) Massinger is by some critics ranked next after Shakspeare.
d.i640.j Assuredly, his skill in the representation of character is
superior to that of any of the secondary dramatists except Jonson,
and his poetical beauty not much less than Fletcher's ; while,
further, he has a quaint grace of language not known to either.
Of pure comedy he give? r% hardly anything ; and for pure tragedy
he wants depth of ^jauio's. But his vigour of portraiture, the
chivalrous turn of L's slories, the inventive novelty which distin-
guishes many of Lis situations and incidents, and the melancholy
dignity of his imagery and sentiment, make Ids finest pieces in-
teresting in the extreme. The theatres have retained, unaltero'l,

T]iat open-handed sit upon the clouds^

And press the liberality of heavea

Down to the laps of thankful men t But then.

The trust committed to me at his death

Was above all ; and left so strong a tie

On all mj powers, as time shall not dissolve.

Till it dissolve itself, and bury all:

The oare of his brave heir and only aon.

266

THE OLD ENGLISU DBAMA.

his New Way to Pay Old Dvbts, for the sake of its sketch from
life in Sir Giles Overreach: and his Fatal Dowry also has been
preserved, in Rowe's plagiarism from it in The Fair Penitent. But
these are hardly his best works : others, at any rate, exhibit Iiis
characteristic peculiarities more strikingly. Such are The Unna-
tural Combat, an extravagant tragedy, in which a son avenges by
parricide the murder of his mother ; and The Duke of Milan, full
of variety, and ending in a catastrophe of wildly conceived horror.
Such also are The Bondman, spirited and rough; The Picture,
fanciful and romantic; and The City Madam, remarkable for the
richness of the poetry with which it invests contemporary life, and
still more for the energy with which, in the person of Luke, the
dramatist depicts the changes caused by circumstances in a cliar-
acter uniting meanness with ambition.*
It is instructive to note how the low moral tone, if not of the

* PHILIP MASSINGES.

From the Tragedy o/" The Fated Dowry:'

The Mar$hai of Burgundy hmm'ng died vahile imprisoned for ddtt, his son
Charalois surrenders himself to redeem the dead body. He spealts from tlte
ftisonrdoor^ as tlie funeral passes^ attended by a few soldiers of the deceased as
mourners.

How like a silent stream shaded with night,

And gliding softly with our windy sighs,

Moves the whole frame of this solemnity;

Tears, oiRhs, and blacks, filling the simile I

Whilst I, the only murmur in this grove

Of death, thus hollowly break forth! Vouchsafe

To stay awhile. Rest, rest in peace, dear earth 1

Thou that brought 'st rest to their unthankful livos,

Whose cruelty denied thee rest in death 1

Here stands thy poor executor, thy son,

That makes his life prisoner to bail thy death;

Who gladlier puts on this captivity,

Than virgins long in love their wedding-weeds.
Of all that ever thou hast done good to.

These only have good memories ; for they

Remember best, forget not gratitude.

I tliank you for this last and friendly love I

And, though this country, like a viperous motho?,

Not only hath eat up ungratefully

All means of thee, her son, but last thyself.

Leaving thy heir so bare and indigent,

He cannot raise thee a poor monument,

Such as a flatterer or an usurer hath ;

Thy worth iu avery honest breast builds one,

Maidng their friendly hearts thy funeral stoqel

FOBD AND 8BIBLET.

267

nation, yet at least of those for whom plays were written, is indi-
cated by all these works. With Massinger the most heroic senti-
ments, rising sometimes, as in his Virgin Martyr, into religions
rapture, prevail through whole scenes, along with which come
others of the grossest ribaldry. By Ford, on the other hand, inci-
dents of the most revolting kind are laid down as the fonndation of
his plots : and in the representation of these he wastes a pathos and
tenderness, which, though lyrical rather thun dramatic, are yet
deeper than anything elsewhere to be found in our drnma.*

• JOHN FORD.

Drom the Flay o/" The Lover'i MeUiHcholij."

Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales
Wbich poets of an elder time hav j feign 'd
T ; .glorify their Tempe, bred in me
Desire of visiting that paradise.
To Thessaly I came ; and, living private,
Withoat acquaintance of more sweet companions
Than the old inmates to m7 love, my thoughts,
I day by day frequented eilent groves.
And soUtary walks. One morning early
This accident encountered me. I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention
That art and nature ever were at strife in.

A sound of music touch 'd mine ears, or rather
Indeed entranc'd my soul. As I stole nearer.
Invited by the melody, I saw
This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute,
With strains of strange variety and harmony,
Proclaiming (as it seem'd) so bold a challenge
To the clear quiristers of the woods, the birds,
That, as they flock'd about him, all stood silent,
Wond'ring at what they heard. I wouder'd too.

A nightingale,
Nature's best-skiird musician, undertakes
The challenge ; and, for every several strain
The well-shaped youth could toudi, she sung her own.
He could not run division with more art
Upon his quaking instrument, than she.
The nightingale, did with her various notes
Reply to.

Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger ; that a bird,
Whom art had never taught clcf&, moods, or noteSj
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study
Had busied many hours to perfect practice :
To end the controversy, in a rapture,
Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly,
80 many voluntaries, and so quicki

2G8

THE OLD EKOLISn DHAICA.

Wlien we open the pages of Shirley, again, a man of very fine
poetic fancy, Trith an excellent turn for the light comedy of man-
ners, we are tempted to suppose that we must, by mistake, have
stumbled on some of the foulest births that appeared in the reign
of Charles the Second. Vice is no longer held up as a mere pic-
ture : it is indicated, and sometimes directly recommended, as a fit
example. When the drama was at length suppressed, the act de-
stroyed a moral nuisance.

That there was cariosity and canning,

Concord in discord, lines of differing method

Meeting in one Ml centre of delight.

The bird, (ordain'd to be

Mosic's first martyr,) strove to Imitate

These seTersl sounds ; which when her warbling throat

Fail'd in, for grief down dropt she on the lute

And brake her heart I It was the quaintest sadness

To see the conqneror upon her hearse

to weep a funeral elegy of tears.

4. !r ■:

THE EUZADETHAN POETKY.

369

Wm T'F, ! ' '

CHAPTER VII.
THE AQE OF SPENSER, SHAKSPEAKE, BACON, AND MILTON.

A.' D. 1558— A. D. 1660.

SECTION HFTH .* THE NON-DBAMATIG POETRY.

Si-KN9CK'sPorrRT. 1. His Qenias— His Minor Poenui. — 2. Spender's Faerie
Queene—Its Design.— 3. Allegories of the Faerie Qucene— Its Poetical
Character.— 4. The Stories of the Six Books of the Faerie Qaeene.— Miiiou
Poets. 5. The Great Variety in the Kinds of Poetry— Cbssification of
them.— 6. Metrical Translations — Marlowe— Chapman— Fairfax— Sandys.
— 7. Historical Narrative Poems— Shakspeare — Daniel— Drayton— Giles
and Phineas Fletcher. — 8. Pastorals— Pastoral Dramas of Fletcher and
Jonson — Warner — Drayton— Wither — Browne. — 9. Descriptive Poems —
Drayton's Poly-Olbion — Didactic Poems — Lord Brooke and Davies — Her*
bert and Qaarles— Poetical Satires— Hall — Marston — Donne. — 10. Earlier
Lyrical Poem»— Shakspeare, Fletcher, and Jonson — Ballads — Sonnets of
Dnunmond and Daniel. — 11. Lyrical Poems of the Metaphysical School —
Donne and Cowley— Lyrics and other Poems of a Modem Cast — Denham
and Waller. — Milton's Poktry. 12. His Life and Works.— 13. Hi.^ Minor
Poems — L' Allegro and II Penseroso — Comns — Lycidos— Ode on the Nativ-
ity—Later Poems— Paradise Begained and Samson Agonistes.- 14. The
Paradise Lost.

THE POETRY OF EDMUND SPENSKR.

5 i«53. > !• In our study of the Non-Dramatic Poetry of this period,
d. ifi09. j the firgt name we require to learn is that of Spenser, a
word of happy omen, one of the most illustrious names in the liter-
iii-y annals of Europe ; the name of

-That gentle Bard,

Chosen by the Mases for their Page of State ;
Sweet Spenser, moving through his cloaded heaven
. With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace.

Among English poets he stands low^ only than Shakspeare, and
Chaucer, and Milton : and, if we extewi the parallel to the continent,
lus masterpiece is not unworthr of companionship with its Italian

M 2

270

THE ELIZAnETlIAN POETRY.

model, the chivalrous epic of Ariosto. But no comparison is needed
for endearing, to the pure in heart, works which unite, as few such
unite, rare genius with moral purity ; or for recommending, to the
lovers of poetry, poems which exhibit at once exquisite sweetness
and felicity of language, a luxuriant beauty of imagination which has
hardly ever been surpassed, and a tenderness of feeling never else-
where conjoined with an imagination so vivid.

Spenser's earliest works broke in on what may be considered, in
the history of our poetry, as a pause in the march of improvement.
Since the middle of the century, no more decisive advance had taken
place than that which is 8ho^vn by the homely satire and personal
narrative of Gascoigne. In his " Shepherd's Calendar," Spenser,
while he exhibited some fruits of his foreign studies, purposely
adopted, as a means of gaining truth to nature, a rusticity both
of sentiment and of style, which, though ardently admired at the
time, does not now seem to have presaged the ideality of his later
works. His Italian tastes were further proved by an elaborate
series of sonnets ; and several other poems of greater extent may,
with these, be summarily passed over.

2, AVe must make ourselves acquainted more closely with his
greatest work, a Narrative Poem, which, though it contains many
thousand lines, is nevertheless incomplete, no more than half of the
original design being executed. It is asserted, on doubtful author*
ity, that the latter half was written, but perished by shipwreck.
The diction is not exactly that of the poet's time, being, by an un-
fortunate error of judgment, studded purposely with phrases and
forms that had already become antiquated ; and odd expressions arn
also forced sometimes on the author by the difficulties of the mea-
sure he adopted, that fine but complex stanza uf nine lines which
all of us know in Childe Harold.

His magnificent poem is called " Tlie Faerie Queene." The title
does in some degree signify the contents ; but the notion which it
tends to convey is considerably different from the reality. Tlie
Fairy Land of Spenser is not the region which we are accustomed
to understand by that term. It is indeed a realm of marvels ; and
there are elves and other supernatural beings among its inliabitants :
but these are only its ornaments. It is ratlier the Land of Chi-
valry, a country not laid down on any map : a scene in which heroic
daring and ideal purity are the objects chiefly presented for our
admiration; and in which the principal personages are knights
achieving perilous adventures, and ladies rescued from frightful
miseries, and enchanters, good and evil, whose spells affect the
destiny of those luiman persons.

SPENSER S FAERIE QUEKNl!.

271

Tbe imaginary world of the poem, and the doings and sufferings
of its denizens, are, in a word, those of the chivalrous romances :
and the idea of working up such subjects into poems worthy of a
cultivated audience, had already been put in act in the romantic
epics of Italy. Our great poet would not, probably, have Mrritten
exactly as he did write, if Ariosto had not written before hiin ; oor
is it unlikely that he was guided also to some extent by the more
recent example of Tasso. But his design was, in several striking
features, nobler and more arduous than that of either. His deep
seriousness is thoroughly unlike the mocking tone of the Orlando
Furioso ; he rose still higher than the Jerusalem Delivered in his
earnest moral enthusiasm ; and he aimed at something much beyond
either of his masters, but unfortunately at something which marred
the poetic effect of his work, when he framed it so that it should
be really a series of ethical allegories.

3. The leading story, doubtless, is based, not on allegory, but on
traditional lustory. Its hero is the chivalrous Arthur of the British
legends. But even he was to be wrapt up in a cloud of symbols :
Gloriana, the Queen of Faerie, who gave name to the poem, and
who was to be the object of the prince's reverent love, was herself
an emblem of virtuous renown ; while, to confuse us yet more, she
was also respectfully designed to represent in some way or other
the poet's sovereign, Eliz;abeth. If this part of the plan was to bo
elaborated much in the latter half of the poem, we may regret the
less that we have missed it.

In the partb which we have, Arthur emerges only at rare inter-
vals, to take a lecisive but passing share in some of the events in
which the secondary personages are involved. It is in the narra-
tion of those events tliat the poem is chiefly occupied ; and in them
allegory reigns supreme. All the incidents are significant of moral
truthd , of the moral dangers which beset the path of man, of the
virtues which it is the duty of man to cherish. The personages,
too, are allegories, quite as strictly as those of Bunyan's pilgrim
story. Indeed the anxiety with which the double meaning is kept
up, is the circumstance that chiefly renio> s the poem from ordi-
nary sympathies. Yet, regarded merely c stories, the adventures
possess an interest, which is almost everywhere lively and some-
times becomes intense. We often forget the hidden meaning, in
the delight with which we contemplate the pictures by which it is
veiled. Solitary forests spread out their glades around us; en-
chanted palaces and fairy gardens gleam suddenly on the eye ; the
pomp of tournaments glitters on vast plains ; touching and sublime
sentiments, couched in language marvellously sweet, are now pre-

972

THE EUZADBTHAN POETRY.

sented as the attributes of the human personages of the tale, and
now wrapt up in the disguise of gorgeous pageants.

4. The adventures of the characters, connected by no tie except
the occasional interpositio.i of Arthur, form really six independent
Poetic Tales. These are related in our six extnnt Books, each
containing twelve Cantos.

The First Book, by far the finest of all, both in idea and in exc-
ontion, relates the Legend of the Red-Cross Knight, who is the type
of Holiness. He is the appointed champion of the persecuted Lady
Una, the representative of Truth, tho daughter of a king whose
realm, described in sliadowy phrases, receives in one passage the
name of Eden. In her service he penetrates into the labyrinth of
Error, and slays the monster that inhabited it. But, under the
temptations of the enchanter Archimago, who is the emblem of
Hypocrisy, he is enticed away by the beautiful witch Duessa, or
Falsehood, on whom the wizard has bestowed the figure of her pure
rival. This separation plunges the betrayed Knight into severe
suffering; and it exposes the unprotected lady to many dangers,
in the description of which occurs some of tho most exquisite poetry
of the work. At length, in the House of Holiness, the Knight is
taught Repentance. Purified and strengthened, he vanquishes tlie
Dragon which was Una's enemy, and is betrothed to her in her
father's kingdom.

In the Second Book we have the Legend of Sir Guyon, illustrat-
ing the virtue of Temperance, tliat is, of resistance to all allurements
sensual and worldly. This part of the poem abounds, beyond all
the rest, in exquisite painting of picturesque landscapes ; in some of
which, however, imitation of Tasso is obvious. The Legend of
Britomart, or of Chastity, is the theme of the Third Book, in which,
besides the heroine, are introduced Belphocbe and Amoret, two of
the most beautiful of those female characters whom the poet takes
such pleasure in delineating. Next comes the Legend of Friend-
ship, personified in the knights Cambel and Triamond. In it is the
tale of Florimel, a version of an old tale of the romances, embel-
lished with an array of fine imagery, which is dwelt on with admir-
ing delight in one of the noblest odes of Collins. Yet this Fourth
Book, and the two which follow, are generally allowed to be on the
whole inferior to the first three. The falling off is most perceptible
when we pass to the Fifth Book, containing the Legend of Sir
Artegal, who is the emblem of Justice. This story indeed is told,
not only with a strength of moral sentiment unsurpassed elsewhere
by the poet, but also with some of his most striking exhibitions of
porsoniticAtion : the interest, howev^ri is weakened by the constant

Ttv

spenser'b faebis queeme.

373

•nxiety to bring out that subordinate signification, in which the
namtiTe was intended to celebrate the government of Spenser's
patron Lord Grey in Ireland. The Sixth Book, the Legend of
Sir Calidore, or of Courtesy, is apt to dissatify us through its want
of unity ; although some of the scenes and figures are inspired with
the poet*B warmest glow of fancy.*

* EDMUND SPENSEB.
From ** The Faerie Queene.*'

h UXA DESERTED BT THE REDHntOSS KRIOUT.

Yot she, most fidthful Lady, all this whUe

Forsdcen, — woeful, solitary maid,
Far from all people's press, as in exile,

In wilderness and wasteful deserts strayed,

To seek her Knight, who,— subtilely betrayed
Through that late vision which the Enchanter wrought,

Had her abandoned :— She, of nought afraid.
Through woods and wasteness wide him daily sought :
Yet wished tidings none of him unto her brought

One day, nigh weary of the irksome way,
From her unhasty beast she did alight;

And on the grass her dainty limbs did lay.
In secret shadow, far from all men's sight :
From her fair head hor fillet she undigb%

And laid her stole aside :— her Angel's £M^3,
As the great eye of heaven shined bright.
And made a sunshine in the shady place :
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace !

It fortuned, out of the thickest wood,

A ramping lion mshSd suddenly.
Hunting full greedy after savage blood >•

Soon as the Royal Virgin he did spy.

With gaping mouth at her ran greedily.
To have at once devoured her tender corse :

But, to the prey whenas he drew more nigh.
His bloody rage assuaged with remorse,
And, with the sight amased, fbrgot his furious force.

Instead thereof, he kissed hier weary feet.
And lick'd her lily hands, with fawning tongue,

As he her wronged innocence did weet:
Oh, how can Beauty master the most strong.
And simple Truth subdue Avenging Wrong 1

Whose yielded pride and proud submission,
Still dreading death when she had marked lung^

Her heart gan melt in great compassion,
And4rissUog tears did shed for pore affection.

374

TIIE ELIZABETHAN POETBT.

THE MINOR POETS OF TUE TIME.

6^ Our file of Non-Dramatic poets from this age, beginning with
the name of Spenser, will end with that of Milton. Between these
two men, there wcl'c notie whose genius can fairly be held equal to
that of the minor plny-writors. The drama would, though Sliak*
^peare's works were withdraMm, be the kind of poetry, for the sake
of which the time of Elizabeth and her next successors is most
worthy of admiration.

Yet the non-dramatic poetry of those two or three generations
Dot only was abundant, but contains many specimens possessing
very great excellence. Indeed the merit of the drama is a guar-
antee for merit here. For the same poets generally laboured in
both fields; and the truth is, that the prevailing fashion, which
Jrew away the most imaginative men to write for the stage, pro-
duced not a few indifferent dramas, whose authors might have been
eminent in other walks if they had confined themselves to them.

In endeavouring to form a general notion of the large mass
of literary works here lying before us, we find ourselves to be
embarrassed by the remarkable variety of forms which poetry took,
and in many of which also the same poet exerted himself by turns.
Thus Shakspeare and Jonson, best known as dramatists, were
successful writers of lyrical and other pcems ; Drayton and Daniel,
remembered now, if at all, for their non- drau:atic poems, possessed in

n. ANOELS WATCHINQ OVER UANKIHD.

And is there care in heaven, and ia there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,

That may compassion of their evils move ?
There is : — else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts: But, oh I the exceeding grace

Of Highest God, tliat loves his creatures so,
And all his works with mercy doth embrace ;

That blessed angels he sends to and fro.
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe 1

How oft do they their silver bowers leave,

To come to succour us that succour want!
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave

The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant,

Against foul fiends to aid us militant 1
They for us fight : they watch and duly ward,

And their bright squadrons round about us plant ;
And all for love, and nothing for reward :
Oh, why should heavenly God to men have such regard I

W 1
L

THE KINDS OP POETRY.

27r)

their own day no small note as play- writers. Drayton, again, if wv
look beyond his plays, wrote poems belonging to almost every one
of the kinds which will immediately be enumerated.

We require to classify, but cannot easily find a principle. One
which is somewhat famous must be discarded at once, but, being
instructive, should be described. It is that according to whiih
Samuel Johnson classed together, under the title of Metaphysical,
a large number of the poets of James's reign and the following gen-
eration, beginning the list with Donne, and closing it with Cowley.
" These were such as laboured after conceits, or novel turns of
thought, usually false, and resting upon some equivocation of lan-
guage or exceedingly remote analogy." This is just a descrip-
tion of that corrupt taste towards which our English poets leant
throughout the first half of the seventeenth century, and which had
had its beginning even earlier; a taste, likewise, which infected
prose literature deeply, and which we have seen hurting especially
the eloquence of the pulpit. It would be impossible to name any
[)oet of the time, in whose writings s.vmptoms of it could not be
traced. The unly distinction we could draw is, between those who
gave wry to it only occasionally, (like Shakspeare, whose besetting
sin it wp.s,) and those who indulged in it purposely and incessantly,
holding its manifestations indeed to be their finest strokes of art.
The disease had doubtless travelled from Italy : but it was natural^
ized as early as Lyly, assuming only some peculiaiities which suited
it for diffusion in its new climate.

6. All the poetical works of that age, whose authors demand our
acquaintance, may be distributed into Seven Classes, which, though
the distinctions between them are not quite exact, may easily be
kept apart from each other. They are these : the Metrical Trans-
lations ; those Narrative Poems whose themes may be described as
Historical ; the Descriptive Poems ; the Pastorals ; the Satires ; the
Didactic Poems ; and the Lyrics.

The earliest of the Translations, worthless as poems, exerted per-
haps greater influence than the more meritorious works which fol-
lowed. They were the means of kindling, more widely than it
would otherwise have spread, that mixed spirit of classicism and
cliivalry which breathes through so much of the Elizabethan poetry.
This doubtful praise was earned, ui the early part of the queen's
reign, by several attempts which were alluded to when we began
to study the literature of this great period. Translations from the
Italian, both in prose and verse, showed themselves as early, and
furnished stories to Shakspeare ; and others from th9 French wea*
yet more common

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276

THE ELIZABETHAN POETAY.

We do npt discover in those efforts any thing deserving to be
called poetry, till we r'each the translations of Marlowe from Ovid,
Lucan, and the pseudo-Musaeus. An undertaking still bolder was
that of the dramatist Chapman, who, beginning in 1596, published
at length an entire translation of the Iliad into English Ale}(an-
drines. This work, spirited and poetical, but rough and incorrect,
was not ill despribed by Pope MC^en, he said, that it was such an
Iliad as Homer might have writtenltefore he came to years of dis-
cretion. The Odyssey followed, frgim the same pen. Among the
translations from the great poets of Italy, Harrmgton's Orlando
Furioso deserves notice only as having just followed the Faerie
Queene. Fairfax's Tasso, published in IGOO, has been called by a
modem poet one of the glories of Elizabeth's reign. It is equally
poetical, accurate, and good in style : and no modern work can
contest with it the honour of being still our best version of the
Jerusalem Delivered. Sandys' Metamorphoses of Ovid, and his
Metrical Translations from Scripture, are poetically pleasing : and
they have a merit in diction and versification which has been
acknowledged tliankfully by later poets.

7. Poems of that second kind, which our list has called Historical
Narratives, were the most ambitious of the original compositions.
But, though all that are worth remembering came after Spenser,
none of them attempted to re-create his world of allegoric and
chivalrous wonders. Nor was this by any means the most success <
ful walk of the art.

The iiavourite topics, besides a few religious ones, were Classical
stories, which were treated frequently, or passages from English
history, which were still more common, and were often dealt with
in avowed imitation or continuation of the old Mirror of Magis-
trates. In the former class, the most striking are two youthful
poems of Shakspeare, the Lucrece, and the Venus and Adonis ;
pieces morally equivocal in tone, but characteristically beautiful
in sentiment and imagery. Of the extracts from the national
history, there are not a few which were very celebrated. Daniel's
series of poems from the Wars of the Roses, is soft and pleasing
m details, but verbose and languid. Drayton's '' Barons' Wars," ,
and " England's Hcroical Epistles," are much more interesting,
and in many passages both touching and imaginative ; but in
neither of them is there shown a just conception of the poet's
prerpgi^tive of idealizing the actual. The good taste of our own
time has rescued from forgetfulncss two interesting poems of this
class : Chamborlayne's " Pharonnida ;" and the " Thealma and
QeArchus/' which W'alton published as the work of an usknown

Tire BROTHEBS FLETCHfiR*

exan-
rrect,
ch an
jf dis-
ag the
rlando
Faerie
d by a
jqually
irk can
of the
and his
ig: and
as been

historical
lositions.
Spenser,
oric and
success -

poet named Chalkhill. Several others must be led qul^e unno-
ticed : and this series may be closed with the vigorous fragment of
" Gondibert," by the dramatist Sir William Davenant.

But different from all these were the religious poems composed by
the two brothers Fletcher, cousins of the dr:imatic writer. " The
Purple Island" of the younger brother, Fhineas, is the nearest tiling
we have to an imitation of Spenser ; but it is hardly worthy of its
fame. It is s(n undisguised and wearisome allegory, symbolizing all
parts and functions both of man's body and of his mind ; and it is
redeemed only by the poetical spirit of some of the passages,
ft. ab. 1680. 1 Giles Fletcher, however, has given us one of the most
/. 1623. i beautiful religious poems in any language, animated in nar-
rative, lively in fancy, and touching in feeling. Over-abundant it is,
doubtless, in ajlegory; but the interest is wonderfully well sus-
tained in spite of this. It is a narrative, which reminds us of Mil-
ton, and with which Milton was familiar, of the redemption of man ;
and its four parts are joined together under the common title of
" Christ's Victory and Triumphs."*

* GILES FLETCHER.

From •• ChfUt'a Victory in Heaven.*

But Justice had no sooner Mercy seen

Smoothing the wrinkles of her Father's brow,
But up she starts, and throws herself between >^
As when a vapour from a moory sloughi
. Meeting witli fresh EoUs, that but now
Open'd the world which all in darkness lay,
Doth heav'n's bright face of his rajB disarray,
And sads the smiling orient of the springing day.

•

She was a virgin of austere regard ;
Not, as the world esteems her, deaf and blind ) •

But as the eagle, that hath oft compared
Her eye with heav'n's, so and more brightly shifted
Her lamping sight : for she the same could wind

Into the solid heart ; and with her ears

The silence of the thought loud-speaking hears ;
And in one hand a pair of even scales she wean.

No riot of afTection revel kept

Within her breast ; but a still apathy
Possessed all her soul, which softly slept,

Securely, without tempest : no sad cry

Awakes her pity : but wrong'd poverty,
Sending his eyes to heav*n swimming in tears,
With hideous clamours ever stmok her ean,
Wbetting the blazuig sword that in her band di6 beam

278

THE ELIZABETHAN METRT.

8. Not easily distinguishable from our last kind of poems, in some
points, are the Pastorals, a kind of composition which probably
gave birth, early in the seventeenth, century, to a larger array of
attractive passages of verse than any other. From Spenser on-
wards, there was hardly any poet but contributed to the stock, if it
were nothing more than a ballad or a rural dialogue. The ex-
ample of the Italians, too, prompted the dramatists to bring on the
stage the imaginatively adorned picture of rustic life : and among
the finest works of the time were Fletcher's " Faithful Shepherdess,"
and " The Sad Shepherd" of Jonson.

In the more ambitious attempts at the Eclogue, one of the most
curious features is the air of nationality and local truth which,
almost always, the poets put on. Four collections of Eclogues were
tlie chief. Warner's " Albion's England" has been called, not in-
aptly, an enormous ballad on the legendary history of our country.
lt» most obvious &ult is the awkwardness with which it oscillates
between the rude simplicity of the ballad, and the regularity of the
sustained narrative poem : but it contains some very pleasing pas-
sages in a quiet strain. Drayton's " Eclogues" are hardly wortliy
of him ; but we might fairly refer to the same class his delightful
fairy ballad, called " Nymphidia." Wither, best known in his own
time as a controvertlal writer on the side of the Puritans, wrote,
principally in early life, poems which are among the most pleasbg
in our language, delicately fanciful, and always pure both in taste
and in morals. Some of the bestof these are the pastoral dialogues
called " The Shepherd's Hunting," which have more of thoughtful
reality than most works of the kind. Browne's poems are delight-
fully rich in the description of landscapes, and in all their accessory
ornaments, but deficient in dramatic force, and tediously long. His
connected poem, called " Britannia's Pastorals," is especially abun-
dant in fine pictures, and especially verbose: his "Shepherd's
Pipe" attempts the ballad-style with small success.
b. 16B3. ) 3' "^^ " Poly-Olbion," the largest and most celebrated
d. 1681. j work of Dray*'>n, is in its outluie Descriptive. But it
may serve us also as c point of connexion between the Pastoral
Poem and the Didactic, while it has very close relations to the His-
torical. It is designed, without disguise, to furnish a topographiail
description of England ; a purpose so dangerously prosaic, as to
deserve in an eminent degree the ban, which condemns, as going
out of the sphere of poetry, all poems whose mam design is instruc-
tion. Huge in length, as well as injudicious in purpose, Drayton's
work has seldom perhaps been read from beginning to end ; but no
one susceptible of poetic beaqty can look into any part of it, with-

obayton's poly-olbion.

279

some
►ably

ay of
f on-
, ifit
e ex-
m the
Lmong
dess,"

out being fascinated and longing to read more. Tliere is not in
existence any instance so signal, of fine fancy and feeling, and great
comnumd of pure and strong language, thrown almost utterly away.
Beautiful natural objects, striking national legends, recent facts, and
ingenious allegorical and mythological inventions, are all lavished
on this thankless design.*

An older didactic poet, Fulke Greville lord Brooke, who de-
sired to have it written on his grave, that he was the friend of Sir
Philip Sidney, exhibits, in his " Trcatiso of Human Learning," less
of poetical power, than of solemn ethical and philosophical thought,
couched in diction strikingly pointed and energetic, though often
very obscure. There is less of thinking, with more of fancy, in
the poems of Sir John Davies : the one, on the Immortality of the

* MICHAEL DBAYTON.

From the "PoltfOIbion.*'

Lament ever ihe tkeay of Chamtoood Forest in Lekeaterdhire,

Oh Chamwood, be thou call'd the choicest of thy kind !
The like in anj place what flood hath happ'd to find?
No tnust in ail this isle, the proadest let her be,
Can show a sylvan nymph for beauty like to thee.
The sa^^ and the fkons, by Dian set to keep
Bough hills and forest-holts, were sadly seen to weep,
When thy. high-palmed harts, the sport of bows and honnds,
By gripple borderers' hands were banished thy grounds.
The Dryads that were wont about thy lawns to rove.
To trip from wood to wood, and scud from grove to grove,
On Bhiurpley that were seen, and Chadman's aged roclu,
Ag.i!nst the rising sun to braid their silver locks.
And with the harmless elves, on heathy Bardon's height,
By Cynthia's colder beams to play them night by night,
Exil'd their sweet abode, to poor bare commons fled :
They, with the oaks that liv'd, now with the oaks are dead I

Who will describe to life a forest, let him take
Thy surfkce to himself; nor shall he need to make
Another form at all ; where oft in thee is found
Fine sharp but easy hills, which reverently are crown'd
With aged antique rocks, to which the goats and sheep
(To him that stands remote) do softly seem to creep,
To gnaw the little shrubs on their steep sides that grow :
Upon whose other part, on some descending brow.
Huge stones are hanging out, as though they down would drop ;
Where nndergrowing oaks on their old shoulders prop
The others' hoary heads, which still seem to decline.
And in a dingle near, (ev'n as a place divine
For contemplation fit,) an ivy-ceiled bower,
As oature had therein ordain'd some sylvan power.

2d0

THE ELIZABETHAN POETBT.

Soul ; the other, solemn m spite of its title, " Orchestra, or a Poem
on Dancing." From the generation after this, vre have several
writers of religious poems, who may most conveniently be referred
to the same class. Two in particular, Herbert and Quarles, might
likewise be taken as specimens of the oddest peculiarities charac-
terizing Johnson's " metaphysical poets." One was " Holy George
Herbert," by whose writings, both in prose and verse, not less than
by the record of his life, the belief and offices of the Cliurch of Eng-
land are presented in their most amiable aspect. Herbert has been
compared to Keble : Quarles has been truly said to be not unlike
Young. The " Emblems," the best known of Quarles' woiks, are
alternately striking and ridiculous.

The Didactic poems run, naturally, both into the Satirical and
into the Lyrical.

The Satire, finding its way into every place where thought and
action are not quite fettered, has, in rude forms, encountered us
among the literary attempts of the middle ages. Near the close of
the sixteenth century, a series of such poems, wearing a more classical
air than any that had preceded, was begun by the juvenile " Satires"
of Bishop Hall, which are full of strength and observation, not with-
out poetry, but obscure in language. The Satires of Marston the
dramatist, severe beyond the bounds of decency, followed soon :
and then came those of Donne, as obscure as Hall's, and hardly in
any respect better than they, but more widely kn'own in recent
times through Pope's modernized alterations of them.

10. Our last class of poems, the Lyrical, may be understood as
comprehending the Ode, the Sonnet, the Song, and other small
compositions in which the poet's chief aim is the expression of his
own moods of feeling. The kind of works thus described was, as
it is in most societies that are at all cultivated, more abundant than
any other. Really one of the most difficult kinds of poetry, it seems
to be the easiest of all. Among the dramatists who have been named,
there was luirdly any who did not write something of this sort. Some
of Shakspcare's songs, and not a few of his sonnets, are very fine.*

• William Shaespeare.

A Sonnet.
Tliat time of year thon may'st in me behold,

When yellow leaves, or few, or none, do hang
tjpon those boagha which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou ecest the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

LTBICAL POEMS.

281

Many of the lyrics of Jonson and Fletcher are exquisite. Not a
few of our oth^r poets owe their fame chiefly to their lyrics : and
some which came to us from the age in question are among the
most beautiful flowers in the poetic chaplet'of our country.*

The Pure Lyric, of which the Ode may be taken as an example,
was not common in the earlier part of the psriod. Much more
frequent were those mixed kinds, with which Narrative is incorpo-
rated, (as in many specimens of the Ballad,) or Reflection, as in
the Sonnet and in many irregular Lyrico-didactic poems. Thus
a good many pieces of Warner and Drayton might be considered
as Lyrical Ballads : and the Sonnet was common from the time of
Sidney and Spenser. Of the many Sonnet-writers, the best was
the Scotsman Drummond of Hawthomdcn ; unless the palm may
be contested by Daniel, some of whose sonnets are singularly beau-
tiful. The eccentric Earl of Stirling, a better sonnetteer than most
others, was decidedly inferior to these two.

11. To the Lyrical class, in one or another of its mixed forma,

In me thon seest the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it mast expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thoa perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

* Ben Jonson.

FTymn to Diana, from his Play of " CyntiMs EevtU.*

Queen and Huntress, chaste and £air,

Now the sun is laid to sleep.
Seated in thy silver car,
. State in wonted manner keep :

Hesperas entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright I

Earth, let not thy carious shade

Dare itself to interpose :
Cynthia's shining orb was made

Heav'n to clear, when day did clooe :
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright I

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal shining quiver ;
Give unto the flying haii

Space to breathe, how short soever)
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright I

If^^

iKn

,.. i

282

THE ELIZABETHAN POETRY.

belonc; many of the poems of Donne, which, with affectations and
conceits as bad as any thing to be found in his centivy, are in many
passages wonderfully fine, both for pictiuresque fancy and for sug-
gestive pointedness of diction.* The poems of Herrick, the best of
which are short snatches of verse, are always lyrical in substance
and usually so in form. In graceful fancy and delicate expression,
many of them are unsurpassed and inimitable : in subject and in
moral tone ^.hey vary astonishmgly, from amorous addresses, often
indecently expressed, to the utmost warmth of devout aspiration.!

• John Donne.

The Meuagt of a Lover to his FtUee Mittreas.

Send home vay long-stray'd eyes to me,
Which, (oh, ica long I) have dwelt ^n tiiee.
Bat, if they there have learned such ill,

Such foro'd fashions

And fidse passions.

That they be,

Made by thee.
Fit for no good sight, keep them still t

Send home my harmless heart again.
Which no unworthy thought could stain :
But, if it be taught by thine

To make jestings

Ofprotestings,

And break both

Word and oath.
Keep it still : 'tis none of mine t

Yet, send me back my heart and eyes.
That I may know and see thy lies ;
And may laugh and joy when thou

Art in anguish.

And dost languish

For some one

That will none,
Or prove as false as thou dost now I

f BOBERT HERRICK.
Addret* to ihe Meadoum m Winter, '-

Ye have been freflh and green,

Ye have been fill'd with flowers:
And ye the walks have been,

Where maids have spent their hours.
Ye have beheld where they

With wicker arks did come,
To kiss and bear away

The richer cowslips home.

MINOR POETS AND MILTON.

28:i

Cowley, one of the latest, and without any exception the most cele-
brated, among the lyrists who have been classed in the metaphysical
school, has been very variously estimated by diiferent critics. That
he was a man of extraordinary poetic susceptibility and fancy, can-
not be doubted ; and his poems abound in short passages exceed-
ingly beautiful : but his very activity of thought made him more
prone than ahnost any other poet of his time, to strained analogies
and unreal refinements. Among minor lyrical poets, to whom we
owe poems still worthy to be read, it is enough to name such as
Carew, Ayton, and Habington ; along with whom might perhaps be
placed in our list Suckling, Lovelace, and several others.

Two names have been reserved to the close of the series, because
those who bore them were, especially in point of language, a sort of
link between the time before the Restoration and that which fol-
lowed. Denham's " Cooper^s Hill," a poem of reflective descrip-
tion, was so good a piece of heroic verse that it did not leave very
much for Dryden to effect in the improvement of that measure. The
diversified poems of Waller, especially those which hovered between
the didactic sphere and the lyric, were remarkable advances in ease
and correctness both of diction and of versification.

' ',

THE POETRY OP JOHN MILTON.

12. The poetry of the imaginative period which began with
Bpenser, closes yet more nobly with Milton. He, standing in some
respects as far apart from his stem contemporaries of the Common-
wealth, as he stood from those who debased literature in the age of
the Restoration, does yet belong rather to the older period than the
newer.

His youth received its intellectual nourishment in the last days
of the old monarchy. While the beautiful images of Greek and
Roman antiquity warmed his mind with a delight which never
forsook it, the recent literature of his native tongue was studied

You've heard thorn sweetly sing,

And seen them in a round,
Each virgin lilce a Spring

With honeysuckles crown'd.
But now we see none here,

Whose silvery feet did tread,
And with dishevell'd hair
. Adom'd this smootlier mead.
Like nnthrifts, having spent

Your stock, and needy growni
TouVe left here to lament

Your poor estates alone*

284

THE POETRY OP JOHN MILTOIf.

quite as eagerly and admiringly ; and a love Iiardly less intense was
kindled towards tliose wild pictures of knighthood and magic, which
were painted in the romances of the middle ages. No poet, hardly
Virgil himself, has ever claimed more boldly the self-assumed pre-
rogative, which genius uses in appropriating the thoughts of its
predecessors ; and none has ever more felicitously transformed the
borrowed stores, so as to make the new image truly original. His
imitations of the older English poets are innumerable : so are his
borrowings from the classics : and his delight in the artless litor-
atiure and the shadowy tiaditions of the early times, tempted him,
when young, to contemplate, as the great task of his life, a chival-
rous poem on the exploits and fate of King Arthur. If this de-
sign had been executed, the English tongue might have received
a monument rivalling the Italian epics of the sixteenth century.
Those early visions still dwelt in his mind, after his aspirations had
been fixed on objects higher and more solemn. The classical
allusions in all his writings are as numerous as fine ; and hardly
less often does he enliven and vary his descriptions of sacred things,
by passages in which he clothes, with a more majestic beauty than
their own, his chivalrous and romantic recollections. But, like that
fervid pleasure in extern9,l nature which glowed still more brightly
when the earth had become dark to the poet's eye, his classicism
and his fondness for romance became but subordinate as guides t(»
his thoughts and wishes. Poetical dreams made way for the action
and reflection of one who was at once a religious man, a states
man, and a man of business. Diplomatic papers, and controversial
treatises, sometimes mixed with matter of more permanent interest,
diverted from its higher offices the energetic mind, in which, never-
theless, there was ever brooding the thought of a poetical work
more ambitious and more vast than any of those that had been
fancied in his youthful hours. At length, amidst evil men and in
the gloom of evil days, the great idea was matured ; and the Chris-
tian epic, chanted at first when there were few disposed to hear,
became an enduring monument of genius and learning and art, never
perhaps destmed to gam the favour of the many, but always cherished
and reverenced by all who love poetry inspired by high genius, and
who honour, most of all, poetry which is consecrated to holiness and
virtue.

13. The prodigal variety of Milton^s imagination, and the delicate
tenderness of feeling which was overshadowed by the solemnity of
his great work, are exhibited in those poems which he wrote in
early manhood, before his mind had been made stem by the turmoil
of active life in a turbulent age. It is not too much to say, that

UILTON^g MINOB POEMS*

285

« <

those early poems would, if he had given us nothing else, vindicate
his superiority to all the poets of his period, except Sliakspcaro and
Spenser. The most popular of them, the descriptive pieces of
" L' Allegro," and " II Penseroso," are perhaps perfect in their kind,
and certainly the best in their kind tlmt any language actually pos-
sesses. Never was voice given, more sweetly, to the echo which
the loveliness of inanimate nature awakens in the poetic heart :
never were the feelings of that heart invested with a finer medium
of communication through images drawn from things without. In
the " Comus," Milton gave vent to that hearty admiration, with
which he regarded the di'amatists of the preceding generation. He
licre emulates the most poetical form of composition which they
had adopted ; the Masque, a pageant designed for court and other
festivals, usually interspersed with lyrical pieces, and, if not ni/tho-
logical or allegorical, at least open everywhere to free imaginative
adornment. For exhibition eith .1* of intense passion, or of strongly
developed character, such a composition gives no adequate scope
There is not in our tongue any poem of similar length, from which
could be cidled a larger collection of passages that are exquisite for
imagination, for sentiment, or for the musical flow of the rhythm, in
which indeed the majestic swell of the poet's later blank verse begins
to be heard. The " Arcades " may be described as a weaker effort of
the same sort. The elegy called " Lycidas" is one of the fullest
examples of the author's poetical learning, and of the skill with
which he used his materials. It is in form Italian, and brimful of
classical allusion ; unattractive to most minds, but delightful to
those which are trained highly enough to relish the most refined
idealism of thought, and the most delicate skill of construction.
The Ode on the Nativity has been pronoimced to be, perhaps, the
finest in the English language.

Much less poetical than these youthful works, are those with
wliich the great poet closed his course. Tlie " Paradise Regained"
abounds with passages which in themselves are in one way or
another beautiful : but the plan is poorly conceived ; and the didac-
tic tendency, which the defective design created, prevails to weari-
somcness as the work proceeds.* Nor is the " Samson Agonistes"

• JOHN MILTON.
From " Paradise Regained.^
Look once more* ere we leave this specular mount.
Westward, much nearer by south-west, behold
Where on the iEgean sea a city stands
Bnilt nobly ; pure the (lir and light the soil ;
Athens, the eye of Greece, motUer of arts

286

THE POETRY OF JOHN MILTON.

by any means so successful an imitation of the Greek drama, as the
" Comus" had been of Jonson and Fletcher. It wears a striking
air of solemnity, rising indeed into a higher sphere than that of its
classical models ; but it is neither impassioned, nor strong in char-
acter, nor poetical in its lyrical pai'ts. It is an interesting proof of
that long-cherished fondness for the dramatic form of composition,
which shows itself in the structure even of his epics, and which had
tempted him to begin the " Paradise Lost" in the form of a play.

14. That the theme of Paradise Lost is the noblest which any
poet ever chose, and that yet its very grandeur may make it the
less pleasing to many readers, are points that will be admitted by
all. If we say that the theme is managed with a skill almost un-
equalled, the plan laid down and executed with extraordinary exact-
ness of art, we make assertions which are due to the poet, but on the
correctness of which few of his readers are qualified to judge. Like
other great works, and in a higher degree than most, the poem is

And eloquence, native to famous witi

Or hospitable in her sweet recess,

City or suburban, studious walks and shades.

See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long :
There, flowery hill, Ilyntettos, with the sound
Of bees' industrious rannnui:', oft invites
To studious musing : there Ilyssus rolls
His whispering stream. Within the walls then view
The schools of ancient sages ; hia who bred
Great Alexander to subdue the world ;
Lyceum there, and pamted Stoa next :
There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power
Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various-measured verse,
iEolian charms, and Dorian lyric odes ;
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung.
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called.
Whose poem Phoebus ohalleng'd foi ai^own.
Thenoe, what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In chorus or iambic, teachers best
Of moral prudence with delight received
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life {
High actions and high passions best describing :
Thence to the fiiunous orators repair,
Those ancients, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce demoemtie,
Rhook the arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greeooi
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.

THE PARADISE LOST.

287

oftonesi studied and estimated by piecemeal only. Tlioiigh it be so
taken, and though its unbroken and weighty solemnity should at
length have caused weariness, it cannot but have left a vivid impres-
gion on all minds not quite unsusceptible of fine influences. The
stately march of its diction ; the organ-peal with which its versifica*
tion rolls on; the continual overflowing, especially in the earlier
books, of beautiful illustrations from nature or art ; the clearly and
brightly coloured pictures of human happiness and innocence ; the
melancholy grandeur with which angelic natures are clothed in their
fall : these are features, some or all of which must be delightful to
most of us, and which give to the mind images and feelings not
easily or soon effaced. If the poet has sometimes aimed at dcscrib-
mg scenes, over which should have been cast the veil of reverential
silence, we shall remember that this occurs but rarely. • If other
scenes and figures of a supernatural kind are invested with a costume
which may seem to us unduly corporeal even for the poetic iuvr'':/or,
we should pause to recollect that the task thus attempted is on i a
which perfect success is unattainable ; and we shall ourselves, nukss
our fancy is cold indeed, be awed and dazzled, whether ^e will
or not, by many of those very pictures.

" The mnrt strikinr; characteristic of the poetry of Milton, is tl-o
extreme remoteness oi the associations by means of which i;, acts
on the ree \r. Its effect is produced, not so inuch by what it
expresses, as by what it suggests; not so much by the ideas
which it directly conveys, as by other ideas which are connected
with them. He electrifies the mind through conductors. The
most unimaginative man must understand the Iliad ; Homer gives
him no choice; but takes the whole on himself, and sets his
images in so clear a light that it is impossible to be blind to them.
Milton does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere pas-
sive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the out-
line : he strikes the key-note, and expects his hearer to make oat
the melody."*

* Macanlay: Essays from the Edinburgh Beview.

288

THB BE8T0BATI0N AND REYOLUTIOM.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE AGE OP THE KESTOfiATION AND THE REVOLUTION.

A. D. 16C0— A. D. 1702.

Charles II.,... 1000-1685.

' James II., 1685-1687.

WmUm 111., 1G88-1702.

t. Social and I^itorary Character of tha Period. — PsosE. 2. Theology—
Leighton — Sermons of South, Tillotson, and Barrow— Nonconformiiit
Divines — Banyan's Pilgrim's Progress — Tlie Plulosophy of Locke— Bent-
ley and Classical Learning. — 3. Antiquaries and Historians — Lord Claren-

' don's History — Bishop Burnet's Histories. — 4. Miscellaneous Prose —
Walton — Evelyn— L'Estrange — Butler and Marvell — John Dryden'g
Prose Writings — ^His Style — His Critical Opinions — Temple's Essays.—
Poetry. 5. Dramas — Their Character — French Influences — Dryden's
Plays— Tragedies of Lee, Otway, and Southcnie — The Prose Comedies
»— Their Bloral Foulness. — 6. Poetry Not Dramatic — Its Didactic and
Satiric Character — Inferences. — 7. Minor Poets — Koscommon — Marvell
— Butler's Iludibras — Prior. — 8. John Dryden's Life and Works.— 9.
Di^deu's Poetical Character.

1. The last forty years of the seventeenth century will not occujjv
us long. Their aspect is, on the wliole, far from being pleasant ; and
«ome features, marking many of their literary works, are positively
revolting.

. In the reign of Charles the Second, England, whether we have I
regard to the political, the moral, or the literary state of the nation, j
resembled a fine antique garden, neglected and falling into decay.
A few patriarchal trees still rose green and stately ; a few cliaiicc-
Bown flowers began to blossom in the shade : but lawn and parterre]
and alley were matted with noisome weeds ; and the stagnant waters!
breathed out pestilential damps. When, after the Kevolution, thel
attempt was made to re-introduce order and productiveness, many I
of the wild plants were allowed still to cumber the ground ; and!
there were compartments which, worn out by tne rank vegctatioiil
they had bon^e, became for a time altogether barren. In a word,!
the Restoration brought in evils of all kinds, many of which luigeredl
through the age that succeeded, and others were not er!!,dicated forj
several generations.

Of all the social mischiefs of the time, none infected literature
deeply as that depravation of morals, into which the court and thel

KOBAL AND LITERARY ASPECT.

289

UTIOH.

Theology—
nconformiut
)cke— Bent-
^ord Claren-
tos Prose —
m Dryden'g
»'b Essays.-
j8— Dryden'g
ise Comedies
Didactic and
ion — Marvell
Work8.-9.

not occupy
easant; awl
re positively

lier we have

[f the nation, I

into decay.

few cliaiicc-

land parterre]

int waters I

[volution, the I

renesB, many I

round; ami!

vegctationj

In a word,!

Ihichlingeredl

Eradicated for|

literature
)urt and tM

aristocracy plunged, and into which so many of the people followed
them. The lighter kinds of composition mirrored faithfully the
surrounding blackness. The drama sank to a frightful giossiiess :
the tone of thinking was lowered also in other walks of poetry.
The coarseness of speech survived the close of the century : the
cool, selfish, calculating spirit, which had been the more tolerable
form of the degradation, survived, though in a mitigated degree,
very much longer. This bad morality was ui part attributable to a
second characteristic of the time, which produced likewise other
consequences. The reinstated courtiers imported a mania for foreign
models, especially French. The favourite literary works, instead of
cx)ntinuing to obey native and natural impulses, were anxiously
moulded on the tastes of Paris. This prevalence of exotic predi-
lections endui'ed for moi'e tlian a century. .

Amidst all these and other weaknesses and blots, there was not
wantmg eif her strength or brightness. The literary career of Dry-
den covers the whole of our period, and marks a change which con-
tained improvement in several features. Locke was the leader of
philosophical speculation : and mathematical and physical science,
little dependent on the political or moi;al state of tlie times, had its
active band of distinguished votaries headed by Newton ;

-a mind for ever

Voyaging throughjstrange seas of thought, alone I"
Tliat philosophy and science did not even then neglect goodness, or
despise religion, is proved by the names which we have last read ; and,
in many other quarters, there were uttered, though to inattentive
ears, stern protests against evil, which have echoed from age to age
till they reached ourselves. Those voices issued from not a few of
the high places of the church ; and others were lifted up, sadly but
firmly, in the midst of persecution. Tlxe Act of Uniformity, by
silencing the puritan clergy, actually gave to the ablest of them a
gi'eater power at the time, and a power which, but for this, would
not so probably have bequeathed to us any record. The Noncon-
formists wrote and printed, when they were forbidden to speak. A
younger generation was growing up among them : and some of the
elder race still survived ; t>uch <as the fiery Baxter, the calm Owen,
and the prudent Calamy. Greatest of all, and only npw reaching
the climax of his strength, Milton sat in the narrow chamber of his
neglected old age : bating no jot of hope, yielding no point of honesty,
abjuring no word or syllable of faith ; but consoling himself for the
dis^pointments which had darkened a weary life, by consecrating
its waning years, with redoubled ardour of devotion, to religion, to
truth, and to the service of a remote posterity.

r -t

290

THE RUSTOKATION AKD BEVOLTJTION.

PEOSE LITERATURE.

2. Among those good and able Churchmen, vrho passed from the
troubles of the Commonwealth and Protectorate to the seeming vic-
tory but real danger of the Restoration, -were Jeremy Taylor, and
several other men of eminence. Of those who, so situated, have not
yet been named, the earliest we encounter is Leighton, Archbishop
of Glasgow; a man whose apostolic gentleness of conduct endeared
him deeply to his contemporaries, and whose devoutly meditative
eloquence made him, in our own day, the bosom-oracle of Coleridge.

Much more famous, and possessed of much greater natural power,
were three Theologians whose wiitings, all able and learned, yet want
the charm of sentiment which Leighton's warmth of heart diffuses
over all his works. These were South, Tillotson, and Barrow.
b. ic>rx\ South was a man of remarkable oratorical endowments :
d. 1716. X but probably no one would now claim for him a high rank
as a Christian preacher. Dogmatical, sarcastic, and intolerant;
shrewd in practical observation, unhesitatingly abundant in familiar
flrit, and possessing a wondeiful stock of vigorous and idiomatic
phrases : he is often impressively strong in his denunciation of
prevailing vices, stronger still when he ridicules clerical bretliren,
(as in his parody of Taylor^s peculiarities,) and strongest of all in
fierce polemical attacks on papists, and nonconformists, and all
I. ift^.) dissenters from the Church of England. Tillotson's writ-
d. 1(594. ]■ ings are pervaded by a much higher and better spirit. They
are not only kindly and forbearing towards opponents, but warmly
earnest in their inculcation of religious belief and duty. But, in
point of eloquence, he never rises above what has justly been
called a noble simplicity : his fancy prompts to him no striking
illustrations ; and his style always tends to being both clumsy and
feeble. His fame as a preacher must have been owing, in a gr»at
degree, to the well-founded reliance which was placed on his sound
judgment and excellent character, and to the ability with whicli
he combated the papal doctrines on the one hand and those of
5.1630.) ^^6 puritaiis on the other. Barrow's sermons cannot but
d. 1677. f strike every one as being the works of a great thinker : they
are, in truth, less properly orations, tlian traii.s of argumentative
thought. His reasoning is prosecuted with an admu-able union
of comprehensiveness, sagacity, and clearness : and it is expressed
in a style which, at once strong and regular, combines many of the
virtues of the older writers with not a few of those that were appear-
ing in the new.

In this age, however, we have lost, almost wholly, that force of tin*

THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS.

991

>mihe

ag vic-

)r, and

ive not

ibisliop

tdeared

iitativc

leridge.

. power,

^etvrant

diffuses

aw.

;m»ents :

gli rank

tolerant;

i familiar

idiomatic

iation of

brethren,
of all in

, and all

m'B writ-
it. They

it warmly
But, in
Btly been
) striking
umsy and
n a groat
his sound
th which
I those of
>annot but
iker : they
imentative
ible union
expressed
my of the
sroappear-

orcoof on*

disciplined eloquence, which had been so commanduig in the first half
of the century. None of the writers that have been named come
nearly up to the point : and there is still less of the old strength of
impressiveness in those divines who, like Stillingfleet, Pearson, Bur*
net, Bull, and the elder Sherlock, hold a more prominent place in
the liistory of the church than in that of letters.

Among the contributors to theological literature were several of
the leading men of science. Barrow was one of the greatest mathe*
maticians of our country : Bishop Wilkins was one of the founders
of the Royal Society. Such also were three distinguished laymen :
ihe amiable and e ^^cellent Boyle ; Ray, a Nonconformist, in whose
writings are to be found the principles of the Natural System of
Botany ; and the philosopher whose name would alone have made
the age immortal, the illustrious Sir Isaac Newton.

The Nonconformist clergy were active writers, casting bread on
the waters, to be found after many days. But, though Baxter lived
to see the Revolution, he has already been named among the men
of that previous generation, to which in spirit he belonged : nor
were there in the yoimgr race any who, in a literary view, are
entitled to be ranked as his equals. Yet the excellent John
6. 1630. > Howe, whose "Living Temple" is still one of our religi-
d. 1705./ Qng classics, was not far from being worthy of a place by
his side. At once through his enlightened kindliness, and his con-
templative piety, he merited to be described by Baxter as heavenly-
minded : and, though his turn of style has little regularity or com-
pactness, and liis diction no fine felicities of genius, there are in his
works not a few passages tliat rise, nearer than anything of his
time, towards the old force of eloquent persuasiveness. Owen,
esteemed highly as a theologian, alike sound, and able, and learned,
is a very indifferent writer : to the praise of eloquence he has no
claim whatever ; nor is he very clear in thinking, or very precise in
style. The pious Flavcl, and other authors of the class, possess
still less literary importance. But the great though untrained
b. 1628. > genius of Banyan may most conveniently be commemorated
d. 1688. i here ; unless indeed we were, in virtue of the form of his best
work, to set him down in another department, as a writer of
romances. The fervently religious temper of " The Pilgrim's Pro-
gress" needs no commendation; and as little do the richness of
cliaracteristic representation, the ingenuity of analogy, and the
semi-scriptural force and quaintness of style, which have placed
the name of the self-trained tinker of Bedford on the file of our
permanent literature.

1. 1683. \ Last among the religious writers, John Locke might be
d.1704. j named, in virtue of some of his works. Thb celebrated

3-.'

292

THE RESTORATION ANO REVOLUTION.

man may be taken as the representative of the English Philosophy
of the time. His influence on speculative opinions in his own day
was only second to that of Hobbes ; while by and by it became
paramount, being indeed, in regard to the leading problems of
metaphysics, an ofishoot from the same root. The philosophical
value of Lockers system is a matter of controversy ; especially
between English thinkers on the one hand, and the followers of
the Scottish school, or the German, on the other. But no one that
is well acquainted with his "Essay concerning Human Under-
standing," can refuse him very high praise, as a patient and singu-
larly acute cultivator of that experimental and tentative kind of
psychological analysis, from which has been gathered so much of
valuable fruit. His merits as a writer are not very distinguished,
his style being neither elegant, vigorous, nor exact.

The Classical Learning of this period was respectable, but can
hardly be called high, with the exception of Gale, till we reach the
b. 1662.) name of Bentley, the greatest of all British scholars. He,
d.i742.j at the close of the seventeenth century, was in the flower
of his age, and occupied in triumphantly closing his controversy on
the genuineness of the Epistles of Phalaris ; a curious instance of
the possibility of giving importance to trifling questions, by using
them as an occasion for raising greater ones. The dispute, indeed,
besides bringing out Bentiey's admirable contributions to Greek
philology, history, and criticism, both began and ended in a discus-
sion on the comparative unportance of ancient and modem literature.

3. When we turn to the Historical field, we find several indus-
trious collectors of materials, among whom may be named Wood,
Dugdale, and Rymer. There is a dearth of compositions sufH-
ciently original or systematic to deserve the name of history. But
two of our most famous historians may most conveniently be referred
to this period. Lord Clarendon's writings were partly composed be-
fore its beginning: those of Bishop Burnet extended beyond its close.
b. 1608. \ Clarendon's " History of the Rebellion" indicates by its
d.i«ii.y title the opinions of the author, one of the best and ablest
men among the royalists, though too little of a partisan to be always
acceptable to his own party. Its historical value is small in respect
of minute accuracy, but great when we regard it as a picture of the
times ; and its portriuts of characters, drawn with remarkable pre-
cision and spirit, give to the work a literary merit which j<) very
(Estinguished. But he is not an animated narrator; and the
mechanism of his style is very poor. He wants both the regularity
of the newer writers and the vigour of the old : and of the improve-
ments which were beginning to show themselves he may be said to
have only one, namely, a less inverted method of arrangement. He

6. 1620. ■»

Aie/a/

MISCELLANEOUS PROSE WHITINGS.

293

singu-
ttind of
auch of
juished,

but can
jach the
1-8. He.
le flower
versy on
itance oi
by using
3, indeed,
^0 Greek
a discus-
iterature.
al indus-
jd Wood,
ons Buffi-
)ry. But
e referred
posed be-
lts close.
|tes by its
md ablest
le always
in respect
lure of the
;able pre-
;h h very
and the
•egularity
improve-
|be said to
lent. He

.13 not only tedious and verbose, but also complex in construction ;
l-.eaping up parenthetical explanations till the meaning of a sentence
lias often to be guessed at like a riddle. He writes with the care-
lessness of a man of business ; while his diplomatic and legal habits
have disqualified him from gaining the clearness and precision which
>i. 1643. ) even memoranda of business-matters ought to possess. Bur-
d.ni6.i jjg^'g "History of the Reformation" is one of the most thor-
oughly digested works of the century : and his carelessly written
" History of His Own Times," while it expresses opinions very dif-
ferent from those of the writer named last before him, is extremely
valuable for many of its facts, and for the cool shrewdness with which
he describes the state of thmgs about him. He has as little elo-
([uence as Clarendon ; but, writing long after him, he had acquired
a style which partakes fairly of the improvements of his time.

4. Miscdlaneous writings in prose were more numerous than im-
portant. Partly to the time of the commonwealth belong those of
b. 1593. \ Izaak Walton, a London tradesman, who wrote some sin-
d.i683.j gularly interesting biographies, and the quaint and half-
poetical treatise on Angling, through which his name, and that of
his friend Cotton, are preserved and extensively known. Both in
diction and in sentiment, these works remind us forcibly of the
preceding age : and Walton, surviving Milton, might be held as
tinally closing the series of Old Englbh prose writers.

John Evelyn, a highly accomplished and excellent man, wrote,
in the leisure of wealth, several useful and tasteful works, the style
of which is singularly polished for the time. In strong contrast
both to " The Complete Angler " of Walton, and to Evelyn's
" Sylva," were the numberless controversial pamphlets, newspaper
essays, and translations, manufactured by Sir Roger L'Estrange.
This venal man, and worthless scribbler, may serve as a specimen
of the hack authors who became so numerous in his time, and of
the kind of services which merited knighthood from the govern-
ment of the Restored House of Stuart. But scurrility and vulgar-
iRm did not always fill up the place of talent. Two men of genu-
ine wit and humour, whose versified compositions will inunediatcly
come in our way, were likewise writers of excellent prose. Samuel
Butler, the unfortunate and ill-requited laureate of the royalists,
threw his satire of the puritans and republicans into a metrical
form, in his celebrated " Hudibras." But he left some exceedingly
vigorous and witty prose writings ; the best of which is a series of
" Characters," resembling those with which we became acquainted
5. 1620.1 ^ ^^® preceding period. Andrew Marvell, the friend and
d. 1678! J protector of Milton, and the member of parliament who
t\stoni8hcd Charles the Second's ministers by refusing to be bribed,

1^:

294

THE RESTORATION AND RETOLUTION.

was witty even in the letters in which he regularly reported his pro-
ceedings to his constituents in Hull. There is still greater force of
wit, most successful in the form of sarcastic irony, in his satirical
attacks on the High-Church opinions and doings.

Among those whose livelihood was earned by literature was,
unfortunately both for his happiness, his fame, and his virtue,
ft. 1631.) John Dryden himself, the literary chief of the whole in-
ii.i700.j terval between Cromwell and Queen Anne. His prose
writings, besides the comedies, are few, embracing, indeed, hardly
anything beyond dedications and critical prefaces. In these, how-
ever, he not only taught principles of poetical art previously un-
known to his countrymen, but showed the capabilities of the Eng-
lish tongue in a new light. He has passages which, while their air
is almost perfectly modem, unite spirit with grace of style, as com-
pletely as any which modem times have been able to produce.

In regard to the poetical art, as in regard to more practical ques-
tions, Dryden's opinions were far from being fixed or consistent.
But the position which he held, in most respects, will be understood
from his " Essay of Dramatic Poesy ;" which, while it may fairly
stand as the earliest attempt in our language at systematizing the
laws of poetry, was carefully written, and as carefully revised by
the author. It is constructed, with much liveliness, in the form of
a dialogue, the writer and three of the literary courtiers being the
speakers. The main business of the conversation is a comparison
between the English Drama and that of France, whose rules were
now attracting much attention in England. On one point, the sub-
stitution of rhyme for our blank verse in tragedy, the decision is
given in favour of the French practice ; from which, however, at
a later stage, Dryden himself departed. As to all other questions
of importance, the victory is given to the speakers who defend the
native drama ; while a tribute of wai*m admiration is paid to Shak-
speare and Jonson.*

* JOHN DRYDEN.

Drom " An Essay of Dramatic Poesy :" pMisJied m 16G8 ; and again, teUh

revision, in 1G84.

The extract is from a tpeccA put into the mouth of Sir Charles Sedley, who,

in the dialogite, is tJie advocate of tlie French Drama.

And now I am speaking of Relations, I cannot take a titter opportunity
to add this in favour of tlie French ; that they often use them with better
judgment; and more apropos, than the English do. Not that I commend
Narrations in general. But tliere are two sorts of them : one of those things
which are antecedent to the play, and are related to make the conduct of it
more dear to us : but it is a fault to choose such subjects for the stage as
will force us on that rock i because wo see the/ are seldom listened toby tin

THE FROSE OF DBYDEN AND TEMPLE.

295

Much inferior to Dryden in vigour of thought, but not much
b. 1028. > helov him in the mechanism of style, was Sir William
J. 1698. i Temple, who indeed may share with him the merit of hav-
ing founded regular English prose. Long employed as a statesman
and diplomatist, this accomplished person left few writings, besides
his correspondence, and his historical and statistical memoirs. His
favourite topics intrude themselves, and the minute manner of
treating everything is exhibited, in those miscellaneous Essays or.
which chiefly his literary character rests. His essay " Of Garden-
ing " is full of good sense and good descriptions. In the essay
" Upon the Ancient and Modem Learning," and the supplementary
treatise, he takes the classical side ; and the same opinions are sup-
ported, with much more of spirited writing, in the essay "Of Poetry."
In the latter only is any account taken of English Literature : and
it is treated in the fashion of a man who knew very little of it, and
jecretly despised what he did know. Sidney, the oldest of our

audionce, and that is many times the ruin of the plaj : for, being once let paa«
without attention, the audience can never recover themselves to understand
the plot. And, indeed, it is somewhat unreasonable that they should be put
to so much trouble, as that, to comprehend what passes in their sight, they
must have recourse to what was done, perhaps, ten or twenty years ago.

But there is another sort of Ilclations, that is, of tilings happening in the
action of the play, and supposed to be done behind the scenes ; and this is
many times both convenient and beautiful : for by it the French avoid thd
tumult to which we are subject in England, by representing duels, battles,
and the like ; which renders our stage too like tiie theatres where they fight
prizes. For what is more ridiculous, than to represent an army with a drum
and five men behind it ; all which the hero of the other side is to drive in
before him? Or to see a duel fought, and one slain with two or three thrusts
of the foils, which wo know are so blunted, that we might give a man an
hour to kill another m good earnest with them ?

1 have observed, that, in all our tragedies, the audience cannot forbear
laughing when the actors are to die : it is the most comic part of the whole
play. All passions may be lively represented on the stage ; if, to the well
writing of them, the actor supplies a good-commanded voice, and limbs that
move easily, and without stiffness : but there are many actions which can
never be imitated to a just height. Dying, especially, is a thing which none
but a Roman gladiator could naturally perform on the stage^ when he did
not imitate or represent, but do it : and therefore it is better to omit the re-
presentation of it.

The words of a good writer, which describe it lively, will make a deeper
impression of belief in us, than all the actor can insinuate into us, when ho
flcems to fall dead before us ; as a poet, in the description of a beautiful
garden or a meadow, will please our imagination more than the place itsoif
can please our sight. Whan we see death represented, we are convinced it
is but fiction : but, when we hear it related, our eyes (the strongest witnesses)
are wanting, which might have undeceived us ; and we are all willing tq
favour the sleight, when the poet does not too grossly impose on as.

'' h

296

Till: ItiiSTORATlON AND REVOLUTION.

writers that is at all naincil, is declared to have been our greate£t
poet ; Spenser is looked down on with a kind of compassion ; and
Shakspcare is just allowed to have had some merit in comedy.*
Wotton's answer to Tem])le, defending the literature of modem
times, has, indeed, no brilliancy of any kind, and was ridiculed by
the wits of the day : but it deserves honourable remembrance for
its solid knowledge and sound judgment. The question was far
from being thoroughly argued on cither side.

POETICAL LITERATURE.

5. The example of symmetrical structure and artificial polishing,
which had recently been set by the literature of France, evidently
was not without influence, for good, on the whole, rather than evil,
on tlie style of English Prose after the Kestoration. The efiects of
Parisian taste on Poetry were not so beneficial.

On tlie English Drama, however, the rules of the French critics
operated but slowly. The formal observance of the unities has
never become general among us ; and tlie reception of them liardly

• BIL WILLIAM TEMPLE.
From (he " Essay of Poetry ;'* jmbliahed in 1689.

\Vbetlier it be that the fierceness of the Gothic humours or noise of their
peri)etual wars frighted it awaj, or that the unequal mixture of the modem
languages would not bear it ; certain it is, that the great heights and excel-
lency both of Poetry and Masic fell with the Uoman Learning and Empire,
and have never since recovered the admiration and applauses that before
attended them. Yet, such as they are amongst us, they must be confessed
to be the softest and sweetest, the most general and most innocent amuse-
ments of conunon time and life. They still find room in the courts of princes
and the cottages of shepherds. They serve to revive and animate the dead
calm of poor or idle lives, and to allay or divert the violent passions and
l)erturbation8 of the greatest and busiest men. And both these effects are of
equal use to human life : for the mind of man is like the sea, which is neither
agreeable to the beholder uor the voyager in a calm or in a storm, but is so
to both when a little agitated by gentle gales; and so the mind, when moved
by soft and easy passions and affections.

I know very well, that many, who pretend to be wise by the forms of
being grave, are apt to despise both Poeti7 and Music, as toys and trifles, too
light for the use or entertainment of serious men. But whoever find them-
selves wholly insensible to these charms would, I think, do well to keep
their own counsel, for fear of reproaching their own temper, and bringing
the goodness of their natures, if not of tlieir understandings, into question.
It may be thought an ill sign, if not an ill constitution. AVliile this world
lasts, I doubt not but the pleasure and requests of these two cutcrtauuncnts
will do so too ; and happy those that content themselves with these, or any
other so easy and innocent, and do not trouble the world or other men, be-
cause they cauuot be quiet themselves though nobody hurts then.

THE DttAMAS OP ORYDBN AND OTHERS.

20T

took place, in any instance wortli noting, till the early years of tho
eighteenth century. The separation of tragedy from comedy,
which had already been practised often by the Old English Drama-
tists, became common much sooner. The French models by which
our ))lay-writers were first attracted, belonged to an older day, and
a ruder school, than those of llacine and liis followers in the regular
drama. They prompted to Dry den the idea of his Heroic Plays,
which are not unlike the wildest chivalrous ronuuices, dressed up
in modern sentimentalities, exaggerated into extravagant unreality of
incident, and thrown into the form of dialogue with, very little dra-
matic skill. All the French serious plays, regular as well as irre-
ijidar, concurred m furnishing the unlucky example of rhymed dia-
logue ; which however was not long followed, though supported for.
:\ time by all Dryden's energy.

The worst cfiect of the foreign models was that which they had,
'n the case not of Dryden only but of our dramatic writers in gen-
eral for several generations, on the notion which was entertained as
to the true character of the dramatic poem. Our Tragic Dramas,
while the writers aimed sedulously at making them poetical, really
left oft' being dramatic. In a few years after the Restoration, most of
them had ceased to be pictures of human beings in action : they were
no more than descriptions of such pictures. They became, in their
whole conception, imitations of that declamatory manner, wliich
makes a regular French play to be little else than a senes of beau-
tiful recitations, ^^^lile, likewise, the tragic writers, and Dryden
himself among them, speedily returned to the use of blank verse,
the Comic writers, guided perhaps in part by the undramatic char-
acter which the serious dialogue had assumed, sank contentedly
into familiar and ununaginative prose.

On Dryden's Flays all the praise has been bestowed that is de-
:crved,4vhen it is said that the serious ones contain many very
striking andpoctical pieces of declamation, finely versified. Yet,
in tins walk as in others, Dryden was the literary chief of his tune.
His Comedies, doubtless, are bad in all respects, not morally only,
but as dramas. They are much worse than those of Shad\^ell, the
rival he so much disliked, in which there is a great deal of clumsy
(lauitingthat looks very like real low-life. There is a greater disphiy
uf poetry and vehemence at least, if not of nature or of pathos,xin
those Tragic Plays, in which Dryden imitated the rhyme of tho
French stage and the extravagance of the French romances : and
these, cliiefly his earliest dramas, are far more spirited than those
which he afterwards couched in blank verse.

Iiee, though some eloquent passages fi-om his tragedies have sur-

298

THE BE8T0BATI0M AND BEVOLUTION.

▼ived, was really nothing more than a poor likeness of Dryden.
There is something much nearer to a revival of the ancient strength
of feeling, though alloyed by false sentiment and poetic poverty,
in the " Orphan " and " Venice Preserved " of the unhappy
Otway. Congreve, also, showed the power of writing the language
of tragedy at least, if not of breathing its spirit very strongly : and
there is not a little of nature and pathos in Southeme.

In Comedy, very soon, the fame of Dryden and Shadwell was
eclipsed by that of a small knot of dramatists, systematically adopt-
ing prose instead of the old metrical language. The works of these
authors are, morally, among the foulest things by which the litera-
ture of any nation was ever disgraced. But, if this kind of dramatic
writing is to be excused for wanting altogether the poetical or ideal,
some of them must be acknowledged to have high skill as works
of art. They are excellent specimens of that which has been called
the Comedy of Manners, a dramatic exhibition of the externals of
society. But vice is inextricably interwoven into the texture of all ;
alike in the broad humour and lively incident of Wycherley, (tho
most vigorous of the set,) and in the wit of Congreve, the character-
painting of Vanbrugh, and the lively, easy, invention of Farquhar.
It is difficult to avoid believing, that, in their pictures of licentious-
ness and meanness, those men caricatured even the heartless and
treacherous voluptuaries for whose diversion they wrote.

6. When we turn from the Drama to other kinds of Poetry, we
observe similar changes of taste ; changes which afTected the art
injuriously, and which, coming immediately from France, would
yet, like the changes in the drama, have probably come soon though
no such example ^lad accelerated them. .

That, in constructing verse as in constructing prose, increased
attention was paid to correctness and refinement, was a step of im-
provement : and, although the writers of Louis the Foufteenth's
court led the way, the process had to be performed independently
and with original resources.

The»mischievous changes related both to the themes of poetrv
and to its forms. In neither of these respects can the true functioiu^
of the art be forgotten, without serious injury to the value of the
work : and in both respects the poet, yielding, as the imaginative
mind must always yield, to the prompting of tho world he lives in.
may be either raised above his natural power, or sunk below it, by
the temper and opinions of his time. An age must be held un-
poetical, and cannot produce great poetical works, if its poetry
chooses insufficient topics; and especially if it attempts nothing
higher than the imaginative embellisliment of the present. Wi;

It was

MON-DRAUATIG POETRY.

S99

have seen how very differently the best poets of the Elizabethan reign
occupied themselves. But in those whom we lutve now reached,
the low choice was continually recurring ; and it produced a con-
stant crop of poems, celebrating events of contemporary history or
incidents in the lives of individuals. Again, the form may be
wrongly chosen as well as the theme ; and that either through a
wrong choice of the theme, or without it. The Narrative Poem and
the Dramatic are unquestionably the two kmds of poetry, in which
may be worked out most powerfully that imaginative excitement of
pleasing emotion, which is the immediate and characteristic end of
the art. It is to those two kinds that all the greatest poems have
belonged ; and, where the cultivation of those kinds is rare, the
poetry of the age cannot attain a high position. We have seen
how zealously both were cultivated in the palmy days of our old
poetry: we see a very different sight in the days of the Restoration.
The drama, as we have learned, had lost, in great part, its poetic
significance and elevation : original narrative poetry, as we next
find, was hardly known. Again, next below the two Iiighest kinds,
stands Lyrical Poetry ; and it, although it was now cultivated, was
not the favourite sort, nor was treated in a poetical spirit. Almost
all the most famous poems of the day may be referred to the class of
the Didactic. Now, it must be asserted, the prevalence of didactic
poetry is a palpable symptom of an unpoetical age ; of an age that
either misunderstands theoretically the function of poetry, or wants
imaginative strength to do its part in the creation of poetical works.
Satire itself, available as it has been made incidentally by poetic
minds eminently endowed, cannot rank much higher than the didac-
tic in the scale of poetical purity. In it, likewise, the last half of
the seventeenth century was abundant.

7. If all versifiers were poets, our muster-roll from the reigns of
Charles the Second and his next successors might vie in number
with that of any period equally long. But it would be diverting,
were it not so mortifying, to remark how dead a level the verse-
making of those forty years maintains, when we have set aside
a very few of the Avorks.

Amidst those dwarfish rhymers there yet lingered, for a time,
some of the august shapes of a former age. Milton still walked
on his solitary course, like one who had lost his way, a benighted
traveller on a dreary road. Waller's odes and occasional verses
show him to have been more at home. But, of names not already
noted, there are positively no more than two or three, that really
require or reward commemoration in studies so general as ours.
It was a strangely pregnant evidence both of narrowness in thought,

■Mi

800

TIIU nesTOlUTlON AND RGVOLUTtON.

and of dulncss of car to tho higher tones of the lyre, that one of the
most famous poems of tlte day should have been au *' Essay on
Translated Verse." The author, Lord Roscommon, was honour-
ably distinguished by the moral purity of his writings : and the
same merit, with that of much felicity, both in feeling and in dic-
tion, may rescue likewise from forgetfulness the small poems of
Marvell.*

h. 1612. ) Butler^s Hudibras, which perhaps belongs more properly
i<.i680.i iQ the i^Q before, is a work of genius, and a remarkable
phenomenon in the history of our literature. His pungent wit ; his
extraordinary ingenuity in drawing whim and jest out of the driest
stores of learning ; his smgular command of apt and sterling words :

* ANDREW MARVELL.
TAe EmigranW Hymn.

Where the remote Bermudas ride
In th' ocean's bosom unespj'd ;
From a small boat tluit row'd along,
The list'ning winds received this song.

*' What should we do but sing lib praise,
That led us through the wat'ry maze
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own I
He gave us this eternal spring,
Which here enamels every thing;
And sends the fowls to us in care
On daily visits through the air.
He hangs in shades the orange bright.
Like golden lamps in a green night ;
And does in the pomegranates close
Jewels more rich than Ormuz shows.
With cedars, chosen by his hand
From Lebanon, He stores the land ;
And makes the hollow seas that roar,
Proclaim the ambergris on shore.

He cast (of which we rather boast)
The Gtospel's pearl upon our coast ;
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple where to sound His name.

Oh I let our voice His praise exalt.
Till it arrive at heaven's vault ;
Which then, perhaps, rebounding, may
Echo beyond the Mexique bay I "

Thus sung they, in the English boat,
A holy and a cheerful note ;
And all the way, to guide their chime.
With falling oars they kept the timu.

TIIE POETRY OF nUTLF.R AND DUYDEN.

301

these are rare ondowr..ent8. B<it his, though shedding many bean-
tifitl gleams of fancy, is no poetic vein that yields jewels of the first
lustre. He has justly been described as having followed out, in the
track of the ludicrous, the turn for strained analogies which had
been indulged by Cowley and his predecessors in a serious direction.
We read Butler to be amused ; and not seldom we are instructed
also, and made to think curiously, if not always to profit. But
such poets can never hold more than a low step, in the path which
loads us upward towards the ethereal region of imagination : and
the time must be a poor one which yields no brighter fruits than
b. ifMi.) those we gather from such writings. Prior, whose time of
d. 1721. f authorship went forward into the next generation, may bo
named, along with Butler, as showing, in his lig iter pieces, wit of
a much less manly kind. His serious poems are chiefly meritorious
for their facility of phrase and melody.

8. The life of Dryden is a scene on which we cannot look back
without respectful sorrow. A man of very high endowments, both
as a poet and as a thinker, condemned to labour for a corrupt
generation, and yi()uing with melancholy consciousness to the
tempta'iions which beset him, receives from posterity hardly any
higher fame than that of having improved our prose style and our
versification. Indeed, most of his works in verse are perhap:i
classed too high, when they are called poems. They are, with few
exceptions, rather essays or disquisitions, couched in fine and
vigorous verse, and containing here and there passages of very
great poetical beauty. The most vague description of his best
works shows how utterly impossible it was, to construct poetry out
of such materials. His "Annus Mirabilis," celebrating, with great
animation, the memorable year 1666, is an effusion of historical
panegyric. The " Absalom and Achitophel," versified with such ad-
mirable spirit, and so astonishingly rich in poetical portraiture, is
a satire on tlie unfortunate Duke of Monmouth and his adviser
Shaftesbury. The " Hind and Panther," an allegory, ill sustained,
hut full both of poetical and satirical force, was an argument in verso
to justify the writer's own recent change of religion. One of tlio
pieces in which the poetic character is most thoroughly sustained,
is the well-known ode on Alexander's Feast ; which yet is not con-
ceived in a very pure or high tone of lyric inspiration. His fancy was
often kindled to very liappy flights, when he was occupied in re-
casting and embellishing the thoughts of others. We thus find
many of his finest images, with an ease of style such as he hardly
reached elsewhere, in those modernizations of Boccaccio and Chau-
cer, which he called his " Fables." Some of these contain very fine

8Q3

THE RESTORATION AND UEVOLUTIOlf.

passages, both original and imitated; with not a few symptoms,
especially in his dealings with the Canterbury Tales, that betray a
very imperfect sense of the merit of his model. His translation of
the jEneid, as imperfect a picture of the origmal as Pope*s of the
Iliad, is indeed deficient in grace, but full of vigour ; and it equals
any of his works as a specimen of the heroic couplet, a measure
never so well written in our language, either before Dryden or
since.*

• JOHN DRYDEN.
I. Froin. Ok " Kt*i(i^U^s Tfde" modernized aiid altered from, Chaucer,

1. THE INTRODUCTION TO THE TOCBXAUENT.

TLe day approached when Fortune should derittr
Tho important enterprise, and give the bride ; <■
For now the rivals round the world had sought,'
And each his number weU>appointed broughL
The nations far and near contend in choice,
And send the flower of war by public voice ;
That, after or before, were never known
Such chiefs, as each an army seemed alono.
Beside the champions, all of high degree,
Who knighthood loved and deeds of chivaliy,
Thronged to the listb, and envied to behold
The names of others, not their own, enrolled.
Nor seems it strange ; for every noble knight
Who loves the fair, and is endued with might,
In such a quarrel would be proud to fight.
There breathes not scarce a man on British ground,
(An isle for love and arms of old renowned,)
But would have sold his life to purchase fame,
To Palamon or Arcite sent his name ;
And, had the land selected of the best,
Half had come hence, and let the world provide the rest.

2. THE DEATH OF ABCITE.

"Have pity on the faithful Palamon t"

This was his last : for death came on amain,
And exercised below his iron reign :
Then upward to the seat of life he goes :
Sense fled before him : what he touched he firoze :
Yet could he not his closing eyes withdrawi
Though less and less of Emily he saw :
So, speechless for a little while he lay ;
Then grasped the hand he held, and sighed his soul away.

n. .PVvm ** Theodore and Honoria^^ ver$ifiedJrom BoocaceUa proU.

THE AFPABinOir.

While listening to fbe murmuring leaves he stood|
Vore than a milQ immersed within the wood,

dqtden's poetrv.

303

9. Tlie poetical character of this illustrious but unfurtunate man
lias been portrayed, with equal kindliness and justice, by one who
himself founded a poetical school very unlike his.

"The distinguishing. characteristic of Drydcn's genius seeins to

At once the wind was laid ; the whispering sound
Was damb; a rising earthquake rock'd the ground :
With deeper brown the grove was overspread ;
A sudden horror seized his giddy head,
And his ears tingled, and his colour fled.
Nature was in alarm : some danger nigh
Seem'd threatea'd, though unseen to mortal ejZi
Unused to fear, he summoned all his soul.
And stood collected in hinuielf, and whole:

Not long: for soon a whirlwind rose around.
And from afar he heard a screaming sound.
As of a dame distressed, who cried for aid.
And fiU'd with loud laments the secret shade.

A thicket dose beside the grove there stood,
With briars and brambles choked and dwarfish wood :
From thence the noise, which now approaching near,
With more distingnif ned noics invades his ear.
He raised his head, and saw a beauteous maid.
With hair dishevelled, issuing through the shade :
Two mastifik, gaunt and grim, her flight pursued,
And oft their fastened fangs in blood imbrued :
Oft they came up and pinch 'd her tender side :

"Mercy, oh mercy, heaven I" she ran, and cried.

When heaven was named, they loosed their hold again :
Then sprung she forth : they followed her amain.

III. From "Absalom and Ackitqphel."

CHARACTER OF ELKAKAH SETTLE, A SMAIX 1>0ET OF THE DAT.

Doeg, though without knowing how or why,

Made still a blundering kind of melody;

Spurred boldly on, tuid dash'd through thick and thin,

Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in :

Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,

And, in one word, heroically nud.

He was toe warm on picking-work to dwell,

But fagoted his notions as they fell :

And if they rhymed and rattled, all was well.

Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire ;

For still there goes some tliinking to ill-nature.

He needs no more than birds or beasts to think;

All his occasions are to eat and drink.

If he call rogue and rascal from a garret.

He means you no more mischief than a parrot:

The words for friend and foe alike were made :

To fetter them in verre U all his trade.

30i

TU£ RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION.

Jiave been the power of reasoning, and of expressing the result in
appropriate language. This may seem slender praise: yet these
were the talents that led Bacon into the recesses of philosophy, and
conducted Newton to the cabinet of nature. Tlie prose works of
Dryden bear repeated evidence to his philosophical powers. * *
The early habits of his education and poetical studies gave his
researches somewhat too much of a metaphysical character ; and it
was a consequence of his mental acnteness, that his dramatic per-
sonages often philosophized or reasoned when they ought only to
have felt. The more lofty, the fiercer, the more ambitious feelings,
seem also to have been his favourite studies. * * Though his
poetry, from the nature of his subjects, is in general rather ethic
and didactjic than narrative ; yet no sooner does he adopt the latter
style of composition, than his figures and his landscapes are pre-
sented to the mind with the same vivacity as the flow of his reason-
ing, or the acute metaphysical discrimination of his characters.
• * The satirical powers of Dryden were of the highest order.
He draws his arrow to the head, and dismisses it straight upon his
object of aim. But, while he seized, and dwelt upon, and aggra-
vated, all the evil features of his subject, he carefully retained just aa
much of its laudable traits, as preserved him from the charge of want
of caudour, and fixed down the resemblance upon the party. And
thus, instead of unmeaning caricatures, he presents portraits which
cannot' be mistaken, however unfavourable ideas they may convey
of the originals. The character of Shaftesbury, both as Achitophel,
and at drawn in ' The Medal,' bears peculiar witness to this asser-
tion. * * The ' Fables' of Dryden are the best examples of
his taints as a narrative poet ; those powers of composition, de-
scription, and narration, which must have been called into exercise
by the Epic Muse, had his fate allowed him to enlist among her
votaries. The account of the procession of the fairy chivalry m
the ' Flower and the Leaf;' the splendid description of the cham-
pions who came to assist at the tournament in the ' Knight's Tale;'
the account of the battle itself, its alternations and issue : if they
cannot be called improvements on Chaucer, are nevertheless so
spirited a transfusion of his ideas into modem verse, as almost to
claim the merit of originality. Many passages might be shown, in
which this prais0 may be carried 'still higher, and the merit of
invention added to that of imitation. Such is, in the ' Knight's
Tale,' the description of the commencement of the tourney, whicli
is almost entirely original ; and such are most of the ornaments in
the translations from Boccaccio, whose prose fictions demanded
more additions from the poet tlian the exubentnt ima^ry of Chaucer.

-:i

nZC CHABACTER OF DRYDBn's GEMIUB.

305

To select instances would be endless : but every reader of poetry
has by heart th<) description of Iphigenia asleep : nor are the lines
in 'Theodore and Ilonoria,' which describe the approach of the
apparition, and it's effects upon animated and inanimated nature,
even before it becomes visible, less eminent for beauties of the
terrific order."*

• Sir Walter Seott: Life of Drydea.

806

THE EiaUTEENTn CEMTUBT.

CHAPTER IX.

THE EIGHTEEXTU CENTURY.

A. D. 1702— A. D. 1800.

BECTION FIRST : THE LITERARY CHARACTER AND CHANQES

OF THE PERIOD.

1. Character of tho Period u a Whole— Its Rela'^.oiu to Oar Own Time.—
2. Litenuy Character i>t its First Generation— The Age of Queen Anue
and George I. — 3. Littfi-uy Character of its Second and Third Gener-
■ ations— From the Accession of George II.— 4. The Prose Style of the
First Generation— Addison— Swift.— 5. The Prose Style of the Second
and Third Generations— Johnson.

1. No period in our literary history has been, at various times,
estimated so variously as the Eighteenth Century. If it was over-
valued by those who lived in it, it is assuredly undervalued m our
day ; a natural result of circumstances, but not the less a result
to be regretted. In regard to ages more remote, the beautifying
charm of antiquity tempts us to err, oftenest, by entertaining for
their great men and great deeds, although the principles may be
very unlike ours, a respect exceeding that which is their due. But
the century immediately preceding our own is not far enough dis-
tant to be reverenced as ancient ; while its distance is sufficient to
have caused, in the modes of thinking and varieties of taste, changes
so material as to incapacitate us for sympathizing readily with its
characteristics.

It is true, no doubt, that in England, as elsewhere in Europe, the
temper of the eighteenth century was cold, dissatisfied, and hyper-
critical. Alike in the theory of literature and in that of society,
in the theory of knowledge and in that of religion, old principles
were peremptorily called in question ; and the literary man and the
statesman, the philosopher and the theologian, alike found the task
allotted them to be mainly that of attack or defence. It is true,
likewise, that the opinions which kept the firmest hold on the minds

of the
were qi
ceived i
edged n
found iti
into the
which h{
composit
more reg
gance of
excellenc(
Whate^
as a whoI(
'tis plain
^ook with
deeply int
a'so, that a
literature p
of poetry
^e cannot
much pleasi
possessed b
from that
opinions by
this in litera
manyliterar
especially ex
the literature
partly for go(
every sentent
2. The div
the Eighteent
Jn taste, divei
understood su
off into Three
thus bo about
The First C
named from (;
also the reign
Ms chiefly deriv,
I and his friends,
[pared with the
ho compared by

k-e

TOB TOREE STAGES.

ce.ved adequate litemry Se, ™ ° M'f "'^ = -""J «"'' they S
odged no high„ „„„ J,3; »"; » « P "losophy which «,5^

found its favourite field in SaSit '•" * ''■"'' "' P»«ry whS.
".to the comic and domertic ftl f T"'™^ »"'' » "«n»ti'^
"hich had a very wide influeL uZ " 'Z '""■ (»'' i' '•» « S
composition, b„t most of aU In .„ ,' f '^"'"'•'■''^''of Uteraw
more regarded than the matttX^' '"Z"™ '""J <=»">« '^
SMce of phrase, and symmetrj' f " ™''"'>' »' '''J'"'"', and ele!

- « whole, this LeriX~.: th*r ' "' ™«''™- "Wch,

he,. tore possessing the loftt td molH^ " """ ^™ "^^ S
of peetry or of eloquence. B„t h-^^^ ""« qnaUlies, either
»e cannot overlook, withonT iL- " "" "S* "hose monimenL
ranch pleasure. It in'crlS ''?•'"« T''' ""™«ion a, ^^^
possessed by mankinrerecS^rr'^*i« knowledge "rewfu^^
from that of literatm-;: Kt"™"'' "^'^ "'"'^ •■« A^S
opmions by which aU precedSl T. ' "*" "mnber of wtom
«h« to literature as weU«rin^l''"''*''S« '"^ beai alloyedTf
■"any literary worksTxceUen" bo^h''-™"'' °' "'<'«8'«= i'S^
-P-jally excellent m th„ ^^M^h ""' » "P«^4 »1
the literature of our time • and if 1 •i"'' "^ ""ely wantuLr in
partly for good and pa^?; f" tvil an^M °" *' ^S"^"- '"SC
Trrr^ -0 now sp^eak or wrli" "" "''''='' " *»"• i"

!heES:e™il1rt„TyryvS,£-'» •^".Eng.i.h Ute».„« „,
» taste, -Uversitiesin,^;.; STnsrvk'T'""''" »"'™™'. »d

, *^."'aenS^3= '' " "" -^
"amed from Queen Anne bSVlS^' sZ mT *'"""' ^ «>»«ntly
«Iso the reign of her successor ^Xt^'^^}f '^^ " mcludln^
fa cinefly derived from the po^L „f Po " f ?' '"»™'^ '*«>«S?
"d hi, friend,. I, wasIongSded T' ""'' **" P«»« »' Addi«,"
pared with the Augustm 4The liS" "' fr^^'^ '" ^ 'o^-

.ii.

308

THE EIGIITKKNTII CENTUnY.

not only to all that had gone before, but to all that was likely to
follow. There was really not a little likeness between the ancient
age and the modem ; and the likeness prevails especially in the ten-
dency to didactic coldness which pervaded the writings of both, and
in the anxious attention paid to correctness of style and formal
symmetry of method. But the works of Virgil and his contem-
poraries were not the noblest efforts of tlie Koman mind : still less
could England, which had already given birth to Chaucer and
Shakspeare, to Spenser and Milton, to the Old Divines and other
masters of eloquence, be believed to have reached the culminating
point of her poetry in F jpe*s satires and didactic verses, or that of
her prose in the light elegancies of the Essayists. In pliilosoph-
ical thinking itself, which is seldom taken into account in those
popular estimates, Berkeley and Clarke, though we shall probably
place them higher than Ilobbes and Locke, will by few be estimated
as standing above Bacon.

In its own region, a region which is not low, though a good way
below the highest, the lighter and more popular section in the
literature of Queen Anne's time is distinguished and valuable.
The readers it addressed were sought only in the upper ranks of
society rand the success which attended its tcachi'^'' was equally
honourable to the instructors and beneficial to the pupils. liB
lessons were full of good sense and correct taste ; they insinuated as
much information as an audience chiefly composed of fashionable or
literary idlers could be expected to accept ; and, never affecting im-
aginative or impassioned flights that were alike beyond the sphere of
the teachers and that of the taught, they were generally pervaded by
right and amiable feelings, and by well-directed though not widely-
reaching sympathies. As literary artists, those writers attained an
excellence as eminent as any that can be reached by art, when it is
neither inspired by enthusiastic genius, nor employed on majestic
themes ; but an excellence which, tlu'ough the want of such inspira-
tion and such topics, was of a negative rather than a positive cast.
Sub'octing themselves cordially to the laws of that French school
of criticism, of which Dryden and his contemporaries had been iii
part disciples, they exhibited, perhaps more thorouglily than the
Rterary men of Louis the Fourteenth's court, the results to which
those laws tend : and their polish, and grace, and sensitive refine-
ment of taste, were accompanied in not a few of them, and in some
quite overpowered, by a national and masculine vigour, of which
the French court-literature was altogether destitute. In its moral I
tone, again, the early part of the eighteenth century, actually much
better than the age before it, communicated a better tone to its

r «'i

THE SECOND AND THIRD STAGES.

809

jly to
icient
^e ten-
li, and
formal
mtera-
ill less
er and
1 other
linating
that of
losopU-
n those
irobahly
itimated

cod way
a in the
valuable,
ranks oi
3 equally

pils. It^
inuatedas

,onable or
jcting im-
sphere of
fvaded by
ot widely-
ttained an
vrhen it is
n majestic
ah inbpira-
iitive cast.
nch school
id been iw
f than the
;8 to "which
tive refinc-
nd in some
■, of which
a its moral I
,uallymuch
Uone to its

literature. It is much purer, at least, if uot always so lofty as we
might wish to see it.

3. The Second Generation of the century may be reckoned, loosely,
as containod in the reign of George the Second. It was a time in-
ferior to that of Queen Anne for care and skill in the details of lit-
erary composition : but it was much more remarkable, in almost all
departments of literature, for vigour of thinking, for variety and
ingenuity in the treatment of themes, and for the exhibition, in not
a few quarters, of genuine poetic fancy and susceptibility. The
clearer accents in which poetry began to speak, awakened, doubt-
less, no more than faint echoes in the minds of the listeners : but
the efforts of the seekers after truth, not being too ambitious for
the temper of the tune, were, on the whole, justly appreciated^

Samuel Johnson, entering on his toils soon after the beginning of
this period, had produced his principal works before its close;
ahhough his influence, whether on thinking or on style, was not ma-
tured till later. In singular contrast to his writings, stand those of
the novelists : Richardson alone having any thing in common with
him ; while Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, are equally distant from the
dignified pomp of his manner, and from the ascetic elevation of his
morality. It deserves to be remembered, too, that a more solemn
spirit was beginning to be prevalent in thinking ; and that, in the
same generation Avith the looseness of the novels and the scepticism
of Hume, the manly reasoning of Butler was employed in defence of
sacred truth, and the stem dissent of Wesley and Whitefield was
entered against religious deadness. Poetry began to stir with a new
life. ohnson himself belonged essentially, in his versified compo-
sitions, to the school of Pope ; but a nobler ambition anunated
Voung and Akeuside, and a finer poetic sense was perceptible in
Thomson, Gray, and Collins.

About the accession of George the Third, we may conveniently
consider ourselves as entering on a new development of literary
elements, and as approachmg, with accelerated rapidity, the state
of things which arose about the close of the century.

This Third Generation of the eighteenth century was by no means
so fertile in literary genius as either of the other two. But some
of the men who were its sons were very richly gifted ; and the tone
both of thinking and of feeling was such as we can readily sympa-
thize with. The earliest of its remarkable writers were the historians,
headed by Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon; writers whose works,
some cf them defective as records of truth, have hardly ever been
exceeded as literary compositions of their class. In philosophical
thinking, the efforts were both active and varied. They embraced

810

THE EIGUTEENTn CENTURY.

ethics in Paley and Adam Smith ; the theoij of public wealth in
the great work of the latter of those two ; psychology and meta-
physics in Reid and the other founders of the Scottish school.
Criticism, conducted by Johnson during his old age in the narrow
spirit which he had learned in youth, was now called on to give ac-
count of its principles ; and poetry began to traverse paths which she
had long deserted, with some which she had never trodden before. In
the roll of the poets who adorned those forty years, we read suc-
cessively the names of Goldsmith, Cowper, and Bums.

4. There is one feature of our literature on which the influence of
the eighteenth century has been great and permanent, namely, the
character of our Prose Style. In the course of that time, there were
formed two dissimilar manners of writing, each of which has con-
tributed towards the formation of all that is distinctive in our more
modem forms of expression. The earlier of those manners we may
understand by studymg the language of Addison, or still better by
comparing his with that of Swift. The later of the two is instanced
most distinctly in the language of Johnson ; if indeed we should not
rather consider him as carrying its peculiarities to excess.

In style, as in so much else, the writers of Queen Anne's time
pursued the track of their predecessors, but cultivated successfully
the ground on which the latter had done only the rough work of
pioneers. Dryden and his followers had cleared away, almost en-
tirely, the quaintness and pedantry of the times preceding the Resto-
ration, and had written with neatness or attained elegance whenever
they wrote with care. But there was in all of them an inclination
to looseness of structure and meanness of phrase, which, in the
more hasty writers, degenerated, as it has aptly been said, into what
we now call slang.

Addison and his friends aimed assiduously at rising above this,
yet without rising higher than the ordinary language of refined
social life. Their great merit of style consisted in their correct
knowledge and accurate reproduction of those genuine idiomatic
peculiarities of our speech, which had been received into the con-
versation of intelligent and instructed men. They wrote such
English as an accomplished person of their day would naturally
have spoken. This is true of all of them, though most emphatically
so of Addison. It is true of Swift himself, whose worst coarse-
ness of matter is very seldom accompanied by decided vulgarisms in
phraseology. Yet there are great diversities among them ; and these
two leaders of the band furnish apt instances of the extremes :
Addison being admirable for ease and grace, but sometimes feeble
throvigh fastidiousness ; Swift being often qlumsy, but always vigor*

oils an(

liar wo

It is

was CO

serious

Seeminj

with fai

tone, he

irreguJai

disposed
Q-ee, J£
"aids el<
this new
easy and
which, all
model.

5. Itwj
s(m shoul
popularity
on it by a
die of the
characterit
admired, i
His wrii
after his de
signed can
imitated b>
characterisi
• and we mui
was the rea
person wha
It deviate
in vocabulai
In Idiom,
characteristi
into those
said to be C(
ularly inher
tences and p
fate, with lit
in Johnson's
but could 1
Italian, the

\^t

PROSE STYLE.

811

OUB and pointed, and presenting a greater stock of good and fami-
liar words and idioma than any other writer of our language.

It is instructive to remark, that the principles on which this style
was constructed, exposed it to an imminent risk of contracting
flerious faults in the hands of writers not more than usually adroit.
Seemingly ea^, it was really very difficult. If the author dealt
with familiar topics, or aimed at nothing more than a colloquial
tone, he was liable to fall back into the old defects of vulgarism or
irregular looseness ; faults to which the nature of the style directly
disposed it, and from which the chief himself had not fdways been
free. Tf. again, the kind of topic, or any other motive, tempted to-
^aids elevation of style, the adaptation of the -familiar language to
this new exigency was apt to cause a complete evaporation of that
easy and unf(»eed union of extreme clearness with sufficient strength,
which, almost everywhere, stamped so firmly the style of the skilful
model.

5. It was not to be expected that the colloquial elegance of Addi*
son should be inherited by any successor, nor perhaps that the
popularity of such a style should long survive the discredit thrown
on it by a series of bad imitations. The case was, that, by the mid- ^
die of the century, the new style, of which Johnson became the
characteristic example, was both the most common and the most \
admired.

His writings, indeed, gave to his style, during his old age and
after his death, a fame which made it ridiculous through the unde-
signed caricatures perpetrated by his copyists. But the features
imitated by such writers are, in many points, merely the accidental
characteristics produced by Johnson*s own manner of thinking ;
and we must not be tempted by them, either to misapprehend what
was the real character of the style, or to believe that he or any one
person whatever was the sole parent of it.

It deviated from the style of the age before it, both in idiom and
in vocabulary.

In Idiom, its tendency was, to abandon the familiar and native
characteristics of the Saxon part of our language, and to fall
into those expressions and modes of arrangement, which may be
said to be common to all the modem European tongues and partic-
ularly inherent in none. In Addison*s Spectator therft are sen-
tences and phrases innumerable, which we could not posstbly trans-
late, with literal faithfulness, into any other language <A l^urope :
in Johnson's Rambler there is hardly perhaps a clause or a wtntence
but could be transferred, by close rendering, to the French or
Italian, the modem tongues whose idiomatic structure is lartUe^st

'iiii<i

¥:■ t

313

THE EiailTEENTH CBRTI7BT.

distant from that of the English. Tlie change in idiom thus described
can hardly be attributed at all to any special influence exercised by
Johnson. It is also to be remembered that it has had, on the Si ')•
of more recent times, an effect much wider and more pormanaue
than the other class of changes.

In the changes on the Vocabulary, Johnson*s writings operated
much more actively ; although here, also, all that he did was to accel-
erate the working of a tendency already existing, and closely allied
to that which caused the idiomatic transformations. By others as
well as by him, though by none so much, large use was made of
words derived from the Latin. A very considerable proportion of
such words had beeii formed by the writers who belonged to the
first half of the seventeenth century, but were become obsolete in
the course of the hundred years that had since elapsed. All that
Johnson and his contemporaries did as to these, was to revive the
use of them, and thus, in a certain degree, to throw our diction
back on its older character. A good many others were new in the
tongue ; but those of this group were by no means so numerous as
they have sometimes been believed to be. TLe new importations
and the restorations of the old were alike prompted by various
motives. A few of these terms may really have been required, for
the expression of new facts. But, iu a large majority of cases, there
were already words denoting the same ideas ; and what was gained
was not even an improvement in precision, but only, in addition to
the effect of novelty, greater impressiveness and pomp. These at-
tributes of style were held valuable, when language was beginning
to be wanting In grace and nature, and needed other qualities to
make up for the loss.

BZCTIO]

I'OETBT.

— Hiooi
Poetry.-
HuLatc
nral The
—5. Mi
Craaoe— '
6. The :
Chancte

1. In our

scarcely d

about it i

Comedies,

manners a

ever, cannc

of the kii

"Careless

dramas oft

of the age

able fact w

has already

the IVench
natural cok
impressive
dramatic,
though it wi

TBB AOE OF QUEEN ANNE.

813

CHAPTER X.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUliY.

SECTION SECOND : THE UTERATURE OF THE FIRST FENERATION.

A. D. 1702— A. D. 1727.

Anne, 1702-17U.

George I., 1714-1727.

L'OBTBT. 1. The Drama — Non-Dramatio Poetry— Its Artificial Character
—Minor Poets. — 2. Alexander Pope — Characteristics of his Genius and
Poetry. — 3. Pdpe*s Works — His Early Poems — Poems of Middle Age —
His Later Poems. — Pbose. 4. Theologians — Philosophers — Clarke's Nat-
ural Theology — Bishop Berkeley's Idealism — Shaftesbury— Bolingbroke.
— 5. Miscellaneous Prose — Occasional Writings— Defoe and Robinson
Crnsoe — Swift's Works and Literary Character— Other Prose Satires.—
6. The Periodical Essayists— Addison and Steele— The Spectator— It*
Character — Its Design.

POETICAL LITERATURE. .

1. In our study of the Poetry of Queen Anne's time, the Drama
scarcely deserves more than a parenthesis. The one pleasant point
about it is the improvement in morals, tvhich was shown by the
Comedies, although accompanied by great want of delicacy both in >
manners and in language. That the ethical tone was high, how-
ever, cannot be asserted of a time, in which the most famous works
of tiie kind were Gay's equivocal "Beggar's Opera," and the
" Careless Husband** of Cibber. Nor are these, or any other comic
dramas of that day, comparable in ability to those of the best writers
of the age immediately before tliem. In Tragedy, the first notice-
able &ct was, the appearance of Howe's " Fair Penitent,** which
has already been noticed as an impudent but clever plagiarism from
Massinger. In Addison's celebrated "Cato,** the strict rules of
the French stage became triumphant, and co-operated with the
natural coldness of the author, in producmg a series of stately and
impressive speeches hardly in any sense deserving to be called
dramatic. Young's " Revenge" had much more of tragic passion ;
though it wanted almost entirely that force of characterization, which

THE AQE OF QUEEN ANNE.

seemed to have boon buried with the old dramatists, and which had
not even in them been the strongest point.

When we turn from the Drama, we find some Minor Poets, who
should not be altogether overlooked. Such were Gay, whose name is
preserved by his " Fables," cheerful pieces of no great moment; and
Somerville, whose blank- verse poem, "The Chase," is not quite foi-
gotten. Swift's octosyllabic satires and occasional pieces, as excel-
lent as his prose writings for their diction, are quite guiltless of the
essence of poetry.

The Heroic Measure of our poetic language, written by Drydon
ruggedly and irregularly, but with a noble roundness and variety of
modulation, was now treated in another fashion, which continued to
prevail throughout the greater part of the century. Two qualities
were chiefly aimed at ; smoothness of melody, and brief pointedness
of expression. The master in this school was Pope, whose versifica-
tion has been described by a more recent poet, fairly on the whole,
though with somewhat of the afiection of a disciple. " That his
rhythm and manner are the very best in the whole range of our
poetry, need not be asserted. He has a gracefully peculiar manner ;
though it is not calculated to be an universal one : and where indeed
shall we find the style of poetry, that could be pronounced an ex-
elusive model for every composer ? His pauses Iiave little variety ;
and his phrases are too much weighed in the balance of antithesis.
But let us look to the spirit that points his antitheses, and to the
rapid precision of his thoughts ; and we shall forgive him for being
too antithetic and sententious." *

The same turn, with less both of poetry and of terseness, is shovm
by other poets, some of whom began to write before Pope. Of
these, Pamell comes nearest to him in manner ; Ambrose Phillips
was a particularly pleasing versifier ; and Addison's best poem, the
Letter firom Italy, catches, from the fascinating theme, more warmth
of feeling than its author has elsewhere shown in verse. Within
this period £Eill the later works of Sir Ricliard Blackmore ; who, al-
though his poetic feebleness, as well as his Iieaviness of thought and
language, made him a tempting buti for the witty men of his time,
deserves remembrance on other grouiuls. Amidst the licence which
followed the Restoration, he had rlndicated the cause of goodness
by the example which all his wiitmgs furnished : in a time when
poetry was hardly ever narrative, he ventured to compose regular
epics : and in his didactic poems he rose above the trivialities that
fvere universally popular, and, as in his " Creation," touched the
''-ighest religious topics.

* Campbell ; Specimens of the British Poets.

'rl

TUB POETUY OF POPE.

815

2. It luis gravely been asked whether Pope was a poet. They
h. 1688. ) who put the question, expecting to compel an an^wttr in
d. 1744. j ^]^g negative, must have fallen into some confusion in
their use of words. But, if they ask, with a similar deHJgn, wlie«
ther he was a great poet, or a poet of the first order, we sliuU tuU
the truth in answei'ing them as they wish. We might perl)ai)s say,
fiurther, that the works which he has given us do not possess
nearly all the value, which his fine genius might have imparted to
them.

There abound, in his poems, passages beautifully poetical ; passnges
which convey to us, on the wings of the sweetest verse, exquisite
thoughts, or dazzling images, or feelings delicately pleasing. Still
more frequent are vigorous portraits of character, and sketches of
social oddities, and evidences, widely various, of shrewd observation
and reflective good-sense. The diction, almost everywhere, is as
highly finished as the versification. Further, if we turn from the
details of a work to its aspect as a whole, we can hardly ever fail
to admire the care and skill with which the parts are disposed and
united.

Amidst all these excellences, we want, or find but seldom, those
others, in virtue of which poetry holds her prerogative as the soother
and elevator of the human soul. Those few works of his which com-
municate to us, with unity and sequence, the characteristic pleasure
of poetic art, yet, (it cannot but be allowed,) raise that pleasure
from excitants of the least dignified kind that can excite it at all.
We are wafted into no bright world of imagination, rapt into no
dream of strong passion, seldom raised into any high region of
moral thought. If emotion is shown by the poet or his personages,
it is slight ; if fancy is excited, it is avowedly but in sport. Often-
est, however, it is only by fits and starts that we arc at all tempted
towards a poetical mood. The passages which make the poetry, are
but occasional intervals of diversion from trains of observation or
strokes of satire. If the words here used resemble those which
occurred to us when wo glanced at the works of Dryden, it is
because a strong likeness prevails between the things described.

For this continual alloy of Pope's poetry by non-poetical in-
gredients, several reasons may be assigned, all of them common
to him with the other poets of his day. In tho first place, they
were agreed in setting a higher value on skill of execution, than on
originality or vigour of conception. He himself prized liis lively
fancy and fine susceptibility much less than his delicacy of phrase
and his melodious versification. Secondly, those poets abstained
systemAtically from all attempts at excitmg strongly either imagina^

I !*

ir.

316

THE AGE OF QUEEN ^ANNB.

tion or feeling. No group of writers, calling themselves poets, could
have shunned more anxiously the heroic and the tragic. It has been
said that Pope never tried to be pathetic except twice ; and this is
scarcely an unfair description of his tone of sentiment. All the
poetry of his school was carefully prepared for a refined and some-
what finical class of readers, who shrunk from the idea of being
called on to fancy any scenes, more stormy than those of their own
level and easy life. Tlurdly, there was also, arising in part out of
this disinclination to passionate excitement, a constant tendency to
make poetry lose that representative character in which it appeals
directly to the imagination, and to force it on assuming avowedly
and principally the function of communicating knowledge. This
tendency moulded the whole form of almost every work then written
in verse. Satires on men or opinions, ethical treatises, or discus-
sions on questions affecting the theory of literature, were written
in good verse, and with much prosaic good eonse ; and a few pas-
sages of an imaginative or seutimental cast, often truly and intensely
poetical, were thrown in here and there, figuring as ornaments,
rather tlian as essential parts of the design.

3. The reflectiveness and polish of Pope's poetry might have led
us to suppose, that his genius, like that of Dryden, must have come
slowly to maturity. But this was not the case. His life, indeed,
was a short one, and full of bodily suffering : and all his best works
were written before he was forty years old.

Nor do they give evidence of decided progress in any of the qual-
ifications of the poet, unless those minor ones which cannot but
be improved by practice. Tlie " Pastorals," the earliest of them,
are merely boyish imitations : and in the " Windsor Forest," like-
wise in great pait an effusion of early youth, he evidently feels but
little at home among the landscapes of the fields and woodlands,
scarcely becoming poetical till he turns away to contemplate his-
torical events. The taste, both of the poet and of the times, is yet
more clearly shown in his " Essay on Criticism," published before
he had attained his twenty-first year. It is very instructive to
observe, that the topic of this poem was chosen, not by a man of
mature years and trained reflection, but by an ambitious boy who
had not yet emerged from his teens. Nor is the execution less
ripe than the design. None of his works unites, more happily,
regularity of plan, shrewdness cf thought, and beauty of verse.

To these excellences w^ere cidded the richest stores of his fancy,
in that which is certainly his most successful effort, *' The Rape of
the Lock." This exquisite work of art assumed its complete shape
in the author's twenty-sixth year. It is the best of all mock-heroio

TUB POETRY OF POPE.

317

poems, and incomparably beyond those of Tassoni and Boileau, its
Italian and French models. The sharpest wit, the keenest dissection
of the follies of fashionable life, the finest grace of diction, and the
softest flow of melody, come appropriately to adoiii a tale in which
wc learn how a fine gentleman stole a lock of a lady's hair. And
tlie gay mockery of human life and action is interwoven, in the fan-
tastic freaks of the benignant sylphs and malevolent gnomes, with
a parody, not less pleasant, of the supernatural inventions by which
sarious poetry has been wont to attempt the elevating of reality
into the sphere of the ideal.

In the " Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard," and the " Elegy on an
Unfortunate Lady," Pope attempted the pathetic, not altogether
In vain, reaching in some passages a wonderful depth of emotion ;
nnd "The Messiah," smooth and highly elaborated, is agreeable as
showing that the kindly and generous feeling which his other poems
liad often betrayed, was not unattended by more sacred thoughts
and aspirations.

The last achievement of those, the poet's best years, was his
Translation of Homer. The Iliad was entirely his own : of the
Odyssey he translated only a half; the remainder being performed
by Fenton and Broome, small poets of the day. Elegant, pointed,
and musical ; unfaithful to many of the most poetical passages of
the original ; and misrepresenting still more the natural and simple
majesty of manner which the ancient poet never lost : the Iliad of
Pope assuredly did not merit the extravagant admiration which it
generally received in his own day. Yet, if we could forget Homer,
we might not unreasonably be proud of it. It is an excellent poem,
one of the best in the English language.

Among the poet's later works, were his Satires and Epistles;
which are imitations and alterations of Horace, and extremely good
in the Horatian fashion. In the " Dunciad," he threw away an
infinity of invention and wit, and showed a discreditable bitterness
of temper, in satirizing obscurp writera, who would have been for-
gotten but for his naming of them, and whose weak points he was
too angry to discern cleu'ly. Indeed it is a curious fact in the
history of this singular work, that, on being re-cast, it changed the
name of its hero without changing anything material in the descrip-
tion of him. Theobald, a dull man, with a good deal of antiquarian
knowledge, who had offended Pope by publishing a better ed' 'on
of Shakos* rare than his own, was displaced to make room for Cibbor,
the aii^ .op of coffee-houses and theatrical green-rooms. Yet, if
satire were the highest kind of poetry, it is questionable whether
the Dunciad, with all its faults, would not entitle P(\pe ^) be called

818

THE AGE OF QUEEN ANME.

the greatest of poets. Amidst all other occupations, however, the
most remarkable production of those declining years was the "Essay
on Man," a work which contains much of exquisite poetry and finely
solemn thought ; but which, designedly didactic, cannot but be cen-
sured as conveying false instruction, because failing to communi-
cate the highest portion of the truth. It seeks to reconcile, on the
principles of human reason, those anomalies and contradictions of
mortal life, for which no just solution can be found unless that
which is revealed by the religion of Christianity.

The " Essay on Man " abounds, more than any other of Pope's
compositions, in those striking piss.iges, which, by their mingled
felicities of fancy, good-sense, and music, and (above all) by their
extraordinary terseness of diction, have gained a place in the memory
of every one. No writer of our tongue, except Shakspeare alone,
has furnished so many such. Tliey guarantee his immortality so
securely, and are almost always so exquisite, that one cannot with-
out reluctance acquiesce in those objections to the artificial scope
of his poetry in the mass, which a just sense of the fmictions of the
art compels us to entertain as unanswerable.*

* ALEXANDER POPE.
I. FROM "WINDSOR FOREST."

TIio groves of Eden, vanished now so long,
Live in description, and look green in song.
These, were my breaat inspired with equal flame,
Like them in beauty, should be like in fame.

Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain,
Here earth and water seem to strive again ;
Mot chaos-like together crush'd and bruised,
But, as the world, harmoniously confused ;
Where order in variety we see,
And where, though all things differ, all agree.
Here waving groves a chequered scene display.
And part admit and part exclude the day :
There, interspersed in lawns and opening glades,
Thin trees arise that shun each other's shades.
Here in full light the russet plains extend ;
There, wrapped in clouds, the blueish hills ascend.
Even the wild heath displajrs her purple dies ;
And 'midst the desert fruitful fields arise,
That, crown'd with tufted trees and spruigiiig com,
Like verdant isles the sable waste adorn.

n. FROV ** THE RAPE OF TUB LOCK.**

Description 0/ Belinda, the Heroine.
Not with more glories, in the ethereal plain,
The sun first rises o'er the purpled main,

n^^

THE POETRY OP POPE.

819

PBOSE LITERATURE.

4. Of the Theological Writings of Queen Anne's time, there are
(e\lr on which we are tempted to linger. Bishop Atterbury's con-
troversial eloquence is forgotten; while, without eloquence, and

Than, issuing forth, the rival of his heams

Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames.

Fair nymphs and well-dress'd youths around her shone ;

But every eye was fix'd on her alone.

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,

Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.

Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,

Quick as her eyes, and as unfix 'd as those :

Favours to none, to all she smiles extends :

Oft she rejects, but never once offends.

Bright as the sun, her eyes tlie gazers strike ;

And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.

Yot graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,

Slight hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide.

If 'i:o her share some female errors fali.

Look on her face, and you'll forget them all.

m. FROM THE " ELEOT OM AN CNFORTCNATE LADY."

What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade,
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
*Tis she! — But why th<>t bleeding bosom gored?
Why dimly gleams tl j visionary sword?
Oh, ever beauteous, ever friendly I tell.
Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well ?
To bear too tender or too firm a heart ?
To act a Roman's or a lover's part ?
Is tb(>re no bright reversion in the sky,
For tliA»e 'ivho greatly think or bravely die?

So p^:^> 'iful rests, without a stone, a name,
ySiha'i cL;ce had beauty, titleSf wealth, and fame.
>!o.«; 'i'A':d, how honour 'd once, avails thee not}
To wi. Til le's.tcd, or by whom begot :
A nt;a.i> ^f ^«;ist alone remains of thee :
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be I

Poets themselves must fall, like those they aung
Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneftil tongue.
Even he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall shortly want the generous tear he pays.
Then from his olosing eyes thy form shall part,
A'ju the last pang shall tear thee from his heart;
J *.fe's idle business at one gasp be o'er,
3f^ mosQ forgot, and thou beloved no more I

820

THE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE.

with no distinguished power of thought, a devout spirit and doc*
trinal accuracy have preserved the works of Matthew Henry.
Laymen fui-nishcd some religious works, such as Addison's treatise
On the Evidences of Christianity, a kind of writings required
as an antidote to others of evil tendency. The deepest thinker
b. if^s.) o^ ^^3 ^^7 ^^ <Buc^ questions was Samuel Clarke, a singu-
d.i7'JQ.i larly acute metaphysician, whose argument to prove a
priori the existence of the Supreme Being introduces us to the
Philosophical Writings of that argumentative generation. None of
these holds so prominent a place in the history of philosophy
(. 1684. > ^^ ^^^ speculations of Bishop Berkeley, a writer whose
d. 1763. j style has a quiet refinement that is exceedingly delightful;
while his subtlety of thought has very seldom been equalled. The
philosophical Idealism of this pious and philanthropic man exer-
cised, afterwards, much influence on the course of metaphysical in*
quiry ; and, in e v ral quarters, as in his " Theory of Vision," he
has given us mas. ■:, 3 of psychological analysis. Lord Shaftes-

bury's brilliant but i . .incl treatises have similarly been the germ
of not a few discussions in ethics. His style exhibits a mixture,

rv. FROM "the dunciad."
Part of the Hero's Invocation to hia Guardian Spirit,
Then he: Great Tamer of allhuman art!
First in my care, and ever at my heart 1
Dukiess I whose good old cause I yet defend ;
' With whom my Mnse began, with whom shall end I
Oh thou I of business the directing soul.
To this our head like bias to the bowl,
Which, as more ponderous, made its aim more true,
Obliquely waddling to the mark in view ;
Oh I ever gracious to perplex'd mankind,
Still spread a healing mist before the mind I
And, lest we err by wit's wild dancing light,
Secure us kindly in oiu: native Kight :
Or, if to wit a coxcomb make pretence,
Guard the sure barrier between that and sense ;
Or quite unravel all the reasoning thread.
And hang some curious cobweb in its stead I

As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And ponderous slugs cut swiftly through the sky ;
As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe.
The wheels above urged by the load below;
Me empCineM and dulness could inspire,
And were my elasticity and fire.

Some demon stole my pen, (forgive the offence T
And once betrayed me into common sense :
Else all my prose and verse were much the same
This prose on stilts ; that, poetry ^I'a lame.

of the u]

were oft

lets: but

foi^gotten,

the unost

and the i

which arc

pearance (

where he J

of a Cava!

that one <

acters ant

He is verj

•re such a

for this sei

life with <

never-lailii

the people

more refini

idiomatic I

J. 1667.) -

* "44. ]• ma
none, perha
ferocious il
writers, poi
guished; bi
more envia
posed on th

^fr

DEFOE AND SV/IFT.

321

very odd thougli very natural, of refined and pleasmg animation with
afTccted novelties and other whimsicalities of diction. Lord Boling-
broke, once famous as a writer, is now justly forgotten, unless for
having taught Pope some of the errors that deform his " Essay on
Man." He wrote with gi-eat liveliness, and with equal shallowness
of thought and of knowledge. His political speculations are admit-
tedly no better than they might have been expected to be from the
inconsistent course of his public life : and his attacks on religion
are among the feeblest that have ever been directed against it.

5. But we are more accustomed to judge of the Prose Literature
of that time by works of a more popular cast, some of them indeed
being in their design merely things of their day, which are remem-
bered through their force of language or ingenuity of invention.
h. 1661. ) Daniel Defoe is the first person who, in our literary history,
d.i73i.y deserves to be named as a good newspaper- writer. Some
of the undertakings of his busy, c^tentious, and unfortunate life
were of this sort : he wrote also a lai'ge niunber of political pamph-
lets : but he is now remembered only, and is not likely soon to bo
forgotten, on account of one of his many Novels. Every one feels
the unostentatious aptness of invention, the practical good-sense,
and the circumstantial plainness making everything so plausible,
which are characteristics of " Robinson Crusoe." The strong ap-
pearance of reality is nowhere better produced than in some pieces
where he professes to be relating historical facts ; as in his " Memoirs
of a Cavalier." Similar merits abound so much in his other fictions,
that one cannot but regret his frequent selection of vicious char-
acters and lawless adventures as the objects of his descriptions.
He is very far from being an immoral writer : but most of his scenes
are such as we cannot be benefited by contemplating. Were it not
for this serious drawback, several of his stories, depicting ordinary
life with extraordinary vigour and originality, and inspired by a
never-failing sympathy for the interests and feelings of the mass ot
the people, might deserve liigher honour than the writings of his
more refined and dignified contemporaries. Nor is the author's
idiomatic English style the smallest of his merits.
b. 1667.) Among Swift's prose writings, there is none that is not a
d. nU.i masterpiece of bai-e, strong, Saxon English ; and there is
none, perhaps, that is quite destitute either of his keen wit or of his
ferocious ill-nature. He, one of our shrewdest observers and best
writers, possesses a celebrity which can never be enturely extin-
guished ; but which, through his moral perversities, is not much
more enviable than the notoriety a man would obtain by being ex-
posed on the pillory. His works which are still read are a strange

i»-V..

< ll
; V

;i«

322

TOE AGE OF QUEEN AMNE.

kind of Satirical Romances. Tliese are most pungent, doubtless,
when, as in Gulliver's Travels, human nature is his victim : but he
makes them hardly less amusing when he ridicules forgotten literary
controversies in the Battle of the Books, commemorating the dispute
in which we saw Temple taking part ; when he treats church-dis-
putes, in the Tale of a Tub, in a manner noway clerical ; or when
he jeers at Burnet, a shrewd and useful historian, in the Memoirs of
P. P. Clerk of the Parish. His style deserves so much attention
from the student, that it must here be very fully exemplified. Nor
can its character be thoroughly understood unless we scrutinize it
m its most familiar shape, as well as in the form it wears in his
more elaborate compositions.*

* JONATHAN SWIFT.
I. From tJie Dedication of •' A Tale of a Tub.**
[The Satire, written about 17014 is dedicated to Posteritj, figured aa a
Prince not come to years of discretion. His Qovemor or Tutor is Time,
who will teach him what to think of authors and their works. Besides
^ making half-sneering allusions to the greatest poet and the greatest scholar
, of the day, the -.atirist describes, with an irony not to be mistaken by anj
one, some of the small writers who have not found a place in our text. Yet
' fame has its !<inds as well as its degrees. Kymer, a bad poet and worse
". britic, is respect. db^ Iiistorical students as the editor of the "Foedera:"
f.- and the metrical version of the Psalms has made the name of Tate famil-
:. ; iar to many thousands of persons, who never heard of Dean Swift.]

>'' Sir, I here present your Highness with the fruits of a very few leisure

-hours, stolen from the short intervals of a world of business, and of an em-

.{i^oyment quite alien from such amusements as this ; the poor production of

^that refuse of time which has lain heavy upon my hands, during a long pro-

.rogation of parliament, a great dearth of foreign news, and a tedious fit of

l^ilny weather. For which and other reasons it cannot choose extremely to

idfeserve such a patronage as that of your Highness, whose numberless vir-

!t\i6B, in so few years, make the world look upon you as the future example

tto;^l princes. For, although your Highness is hardly got clear of infancy,

yet has the universal learned world already resolved upon appealing to your

future dictates with the lowest and most resigned submission ; fate having

deisreed you sole arbiter of the productions of human wit, in this polite and

most accomplished age. Methinks the number of appellants were enough

•'td'sliock and startle any judge, of a genius less unlimited than yours. But,

;• in-order to prevent suth glorious trials, the person, it seems, to whose care

. tha jeducation of your Highness is committed, has resolved, I am told, to

.keep you in almost an universal ignorance of our studies, which it is your

l^hei-ent birthright to inspect.

' ' Tiis amazing to me that this person should have assurance, in the face of
I Itho «un, to go about persuading your Highness, that our age is almost wholly
-iUilorate, and has hardly produced one writer upon any subject. I know
,.^T|^^ well, that, when your Highness shall come to riper years and have
~]^ne through the learning of antiquity, you will be too ourious to neglect

I profess
going to sa;
•nay happ€
warrant : he
politeness,
fflan, that tl
whose trans
Md, if dilii
There is an<
'"w caused ._
••ookseller (:
fore wonden
is a third, ki
**"n» and un

SWIFT'a SATIUES.

323

None of the serious writings of the generation contains so mncli
of really go6d criticism, as the burlesque Memoirs of Martinui

inqniring into the authors of the very age before yon. And to think that
this Insolent, in the account he is preparing for your view, designs to reduce
them to a number so insignificant as I am ashamed to mention : it moves my
zeal and my spleen for the honour and interest of our vast flourishing body,
as well as of myself, for whom I know by long experience he has professed
and still continues a peculiar malice.

It is not unlikely, that, when your Highness will one day peruse what I
am now writing, you may be ready to expostulate with your Governor upon
the credit of what I here affirm, and command him to show you some of our
productions. To which he will answer, (for t am well informed of his de-
signs,) by asking your Highness, "Where they are?" and, "What is become
of them ?" and pretend it a demonstration that there never were any, because
they are not then to be found. Not to be foimd I Who has mislaid them ?
* * * It were endless to recotmt the several methods of tyranny and
destruction which your governor is pleased to practise on this occasion. His
inveterate malice is such to the writings of our age, that, of several thou-
sands produced yearly from this renowned city, before the next revolution
of the sun there is not one to be heard of: unhappy infants t many of them
biirbarously destroyed before they have so much as learned their mother-
tongue to beg for pity l » • »

The concern I nave most at heart, is for our corporation of poets ; from
whom I am preparing a petition to your Highness, to be subscribed with the
uames of one hundred and thirty-six of the first-rate ; but whose immortal
productions are never likely to reach your eyes, though each of them is now
a humble and earnest appellant for the laurel, and has large comely volumes
ready to show for a support to his pretensions. The never-dying works of
these illustrious persons, your governor, Sir, has devoted to unavoidable
death ; and your Highness is to be made believe, that our age has never
anived at the honour to produce one single poet.

We confess Immortality to be a^eat and powerful goddess: but in vain
we offer up to her our devotions and our sacrifices, if your Highness's gov-
ernor, who has usurped the priesthood, must, by an unparalleled ambition
and avarice, wholly intercept and devour them.

« • « • • •

I profess to your Highness, in the integrity of my heart, that what I am
going to say is literally true this minute I am writing. What revolutions
may happen before it shall be ready for your perusal, I can by no means
warrant : however, I beg you to accept it, as a specimen of our learning, oiur
politeness, and our wit. I do therefore affirm, upon the word of a sincere
man, that there is now actually in being a certain poet called John Dryden,
whose translation of Virgil was lately printed in a large folio, vrell boundi
and, if diligent search were made, for aught I know, is yet to be seen.
There is another, called Nahum Tate, who is ready to make oath that he
has caused many reams of verse to be published, whereof both himself and his
bookseller (if lawfully required) can still produce authentic copies ; and there-
fore wonders, why the world is pleased to make such a secret of it. There
u a third, known by the name of Tom D'Urfey, a poet of a vast compreben*
non, and universal genius, and most profound learning. There are tiho on9

824

TUE AGE OF QUEEN ANNE.

Scriblerus, with its appendixes : the work is also abundant in the
most biting strokes of wit. The authorship of it was shared, in
proportions now uncertain, between Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot.
The last of these was a Scotsman, who practised physic in London.
He is supposed to have been the sole author of the whimsical na-
tional satire called The History of John Bull, the best thing, taken
as a whole, which the day produced in that class. The Letters of
Lady Mary Wortley Montague claim merely a passing notice.

6. Of all the popular writers, however, that adorned the reigns of
Queen Anne and her successor, those whose influence, both on thoir
own age and on posterity, has been at once greatest and most salu-
tary, are the Essayists. Among these, Joseph Addison and Richard
Steele were so pre-eminently distinguished, that no injustice would
be done were we to forget their occasional assistants, such as Bud-
gell, Tickell, Hughes, and Eusden.

The Tatler, begun in Ireland by Steele, (aided at first by Swift,
and afterwards by Addison,) was continued, three times a-wcck,
from April 1709, to January 1711. The Spectator, in which Ad-
dison speedily took the lead, commenced in March 1711, and wap
stopped after having gone on every week-day till December 1712.

Mr Rymer, and one Mr Dennis, most profound critics. There is a person
•ttjrled Do<^r Bentlej, who has written nearly a thousand pages of immense
eradition, giving a full and tme aocoont of a certain squabble, of wonderful
importance, between himself and a bookseller.

n. A Letter.

Sir, You stole in and out of town without seeing either the ladies or me ;
which was very ungratefully done, considermg the obligations you have to
OS for lodging and dieting with you so long. Why did you not call in a
morning at the Deanery ? Besides, we reckon for certain that you came to
stay a month or two, as you told us you intended. I hear you were so kind
as to be at Laracor, where I hope you planted something : and I intend to
bo down after Christmas, where you must continue a week. As for your
plan, it is very pretty, too pretty for the use I intend to make of Laracor.
All I would desire is, what I mention in the paper I left you, except a walk I
down to the canal. I suppose your project would cost me ten poimds and a |
constant gardener. Pray come to tOAvn, and stay some time, and repay your-
self some of your dinners. I wonder how a mischief you came to miss us.
Why did you not set out a Monday, like a tme country parson? Besides,]
you lay a load on us, in saying one chief end of your journey was to see us :
but I suppose there might be another motive, and you are like the man thatl
died of love and the cholio. Let us know whether yon are more or leiisl
mookiah, how long you found yourself better by our company, and how lony
before you recovered the charges we put you to. Tlie ladies assure you ol[
their hearty services ; and I am, with great truth and sincerity, Your mo
fiuthflil humble servant, J. Swift

T|IE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS.

325

Tlie Guardian, becoming political, lived only through a part of the
next year ; and, in the last six months of 1714, papers published three
tfmes a- week made up the eighth and last volume of the Spectator.
b. 1A76. ) Steele, an' irregular thinker as well as an irregular liver,
({.1729./ has had his merits, especially in the Spectator, somewhat
unfairly over-clouded by the fame of his coadjutor. Much in-
ferior in style, in refinement both of sentiment and of reflection,
and in the higher kinds of information, he yet knew both mankind
and the world, and had a dramatic force, as well as an originality
of humour, by which the series of papers has profited largely. In
not a few instances, such as the description of the Spectator's Club,
we can trace to him the invention of striking outlines, which his
friend afterwards filled up, imparting to them a new charm by his
own characteristic gracefulness of colouring and placid cheerfulness
of feeling* .

The extraordinary popularity of those periodicals, especially the
Spectator, was creditable to the reading persons of the community,

* SIR RICHARD STEELE.
From the Deaeriptton of the Spectator's Club: in No. 2.
The first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of an ancient
descent, a baronet, his name Sir Roger De Coverley. His great grand*
&ther was inventor of that famous country dance which is called after him.
All who know that shire, are very well acquainted with the parts and merits
of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very singular in his behaviour :
but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to
the manners of the world, only as he thinks the world is in the wrong.
However, this humour creates him no enemies ; for he does nothing with
sourness or obstinacy : and his being unconfined to modes and fontas, makes
him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him.
It is said he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he was crossed in love by a
perverse beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before that disappoint-
ment Sir Roger was what you call a fine gentleman. But, being ill-uJsed by
the widow, he was very serious for a year and a half: and though, his tem-
per being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, h6 grew careless of himself,
and never dressed afterwards. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of
the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse ; which, in his
merry humours he tells us, has been in and out twelve times since he first
wore it. He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty : keeps
a good house both in town and country ; a great lover of mankind : but there
is such a mirthful cast in his behaidour, that he is rather beloved than
esteemed. His tenants grow rich ; his senrants look satisfied ; all the yoxuig
women profess love to him ; and all the young men are ghid of his company.
When he comes into a house he calls the' servants by their names, and talks
all the way up stairs to a visit. I must not omit, that Sir Roger is a justice
of the quorum ; that he fills the chaur at a quarter-session with great abili-
ties, and three months ago gained tmlversal applause by explaining a pas-
sage in the game act.

826

TUB AGE OF QUEEN ANNE.

then Tery much fewer than now. But it was a tribute to extraor-
dinary merit, and to a soundness of judgment which appreciated cor-
rectly, how far, and by what means, the attempt to elevate and purify
the public taste and sentiment could safely be ventured on. Thi>
idea of the projectors was that of adopting the form of those flying
sheets, which had hitherto been hardly ever anything better than
indifferent little newspapers; of discarding from their pages allthnt
could nourish partv-spirit, or provoke par -prejudice; of making
them the vehicle oi judicious teaching in morals, manners, and liter
ary criticism ; and of paying homage, now and then, to truths yet
more sacred.

If the design was not quite that of founding a literature for the
people, it combined at least the two aims, of widening the circle of
persons who might be made to take an interest in literary affairs, and
of raising the standard both of thinking and of taste for those who
had already acquired the habit of reading. To the mere literary
lounger, their comic sketches of society, their whimsical autobio-
graphies, their exposures of social weaknesses and follies, in petitions,
letters, or skilful allegories, offered themselves as supplying the place
of the worn-out comic stage, and as supplying that place not only
purely but instructively. It might indeed be said, with yet greater
aptness, that the Spectator offered itself also to the novel-reader. It
is full of little novels, or of fragments of such : if we take consecu-
tively the scattered sketches, telling the history of Sir Roger De
Coverley, we shall find them to constitute a novel as properly as any
work openly bearing the name. For those who were something
more than idlers, there were held out objects much higher ; objects
of contemplation which lead us to think better of the age, than
we could if we had only Pope or Swift to look to as its expositors.
Of this more Ambitious and serious (character are many single papers
h. 1672.1 of Addison's, and several gi-oups of papers in each of which
d,i7i9.j jje carried out a systematic train of thought. "We might
find such, especially, throughout the last volume of the Spectator.
But it is enough to cite, of his religious meditations, the essays on
the Immortality of the Soul ; and to point out a few where he
expatiates in another walk of reflection. His papers on the Pleas-
ures of the Imagination are highly meritorious as sinking a shaA
in unbroken ground; and his criticisms on Milton, if not very
abstruse, are full of taste and sensibility, and were the earliest public
recognition of the greatness of that great poet. *

• JOSEPH ADDISON.
I. A Qhoit Story : from tie Spectator; No. 110.
At a little distance from Sir BogQr's liouso, among the rniqs of an old abbey,

tiful,

9|>ort,

TOE PROBE OF ADDISON.

827

there ii a loug walk of aged einu ; which are shot np so rery high, that,
when one passes under them, the rooks and crows that rest on the tops of
them seem to be cawing in another region. I am very much delighted with
this sort of noise ; which I consider as a kind of natural prayer to that
Being who sapplies the wants of his whole creation, and who, in the beau*
tiful language of the Psalms, feedeth the young ravens that csJl upon him.

I like this retirement the better, because of an ill report it lies under of
being haunted ; for which reason (as I have been told in the family) no living
creature ever walks in it besides the chaplain. My good friend the butler
de«ixed me, with a very grave face, not to venture myself in it after sunset ;
fur that one of the footmen had been almost frighted out of his wits, by a spirit
that appeared to him in the shape of a black horse without a head : to which
he added, that about a month ago one of the maids, coming home late that
way with a pail of milk upon her head, heard such a rustling among the
bushes that she let it fall.

I was taking a walk in this place last night between the hours of nine and
ten ; and could not but fancy it one of the most proper scenes in the world
for a ghost to appear in. The ruins of the abbey are scattered up and down on
every side, and half covered with ivy and elder-bushes, the harbours of
several solitary birds which seldom make their appearance till the dusk of
the evening. The place was formerly a churchyard, and has still several
marks in it of graves and burying-plaoes. There is such an echo among the
old mina and vaults, that, if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary, you
hear the sound repeated. At the same time the walk of elms, with the
croaking of the ravens which from time to time are heard from the tops of
them, looks exceedingly solemn and venerable. These objects naturally
raise seriousness and attention ; and, when night heightens the awfulness of
the place, and pours out her supernumerary horrors upon everything in it,
I do not at all wonder that weak minds fill it with spectres and apparitions.

In this solitude, where the dusk of the evening conspired with so many
other occasions of terror, I observed a cow grazing not &r from me, which
an imagination chat was apt to startle might easily have construed into a
black horse without a head ; and I daresay the poor footman lost bis wits
upon some such trivial occasion.

•f ^^ \i

>Id abbey,

u. B^fUcUont: from ihe Eataya *^ Onihe Pleasures of the Imagination;^*

Spectator^ Xoa. 411-421.

The Supreme Author of our being has made everything that is beautiful
in all objects pleasant, or rather has made so many objects appear beau>
tiful, that He might render the whole creation more gay and delightful.
He has given lUmost everything about us the power of raising an agreeable
idea in the imagination ; so that it is impossible for us to behold His works
with coldness or indifference, and to survey so many beauties without a secret
satisfaction and complacency.

We are everywhere entertained With pleasing shows and apparitions ; we
discover imaginary glories in the heavens and on the earth, and see some of
this visionary beauty poured out upon the whole creation : but what a rough
unsightly sketch of Nature should we be entertained with, did all her colour-
ing disappear, and the several distinctions of light and shade vanish I In
sborti ow souls are at present delightfully lost and bewildered in a pleasing

■«!<

828

THE AGE 0? QUESN ANNE.

delosioD : and we walk about like the enchanted hero in a romanee, who aecs
beautiful castlea, woods, and meadows, and at the same time hears the war-
bling of birds and the purling of streams ; but, npon the finishing of some
secret^speli, the fantastic scene breaks up, and the disconsolate knight finds
himself on a barren heath or in a solitary desert It is not improbable that
something like this may be the state of the soul after its first separation, in

respect of the images it will receive firom matter.

• • • tt •

As the writers in poetry and fiction borrow their several materbis from
outward objects, and join them together at their own pleasure, there are
others who ore obliged to follow nature more closely, and to take entire
scenes out of her. Such are historians, natural philosophers, travellers,
geographers ; and, in a word, all who describe visible objects of a real exis-
tence.

Among this set of writers, there are none who more g^tify and enlarge the
imagination than the authors of the new philosophy; whether we consider
their theories of the earth or heavens, the discoveries they have made by
glasses, or any other of their contemplations on nature. We are not a little
pleased to find every green leaf swarm with millions of animals, that at their
largest growth are not visible to the naked eye. There is something very
engaging to the fancy, as well as to our reason, in the treatises of metals,
minerals, plants, and meteors. But, when we survey the whole earth at
once, and the several planets that lie within its neighbourhood, we are filled
with a pleasing astonishment, to see so many worlds hanging one above
another, and sliding round their axles in such an amazing pomp and so-
lemnity. If, after this, wo contemplate those wild fields of ether, that reach
in height as far as from Saturn to the fixed stars, and run abroad almost to
an infinitude, our imagination finds its capacity filled with so immense a
prospect, and puts itself upon the stretch to comprehend it. But, if we yet
rise higher, and consider the fixed stars as so many vast oceans of flame, that
are each of them attended with a different set of planets ; and still discover
new firmaments and new lights that are sunk farther in tiiose unfathomable
depths of ether, so as not to be seen by the strongest of our telescopes : we
are lost in such a labyrinth of suns and worlds, and eonfonnded with the im-
numsity and magnificence of natm-o.

iritJTl

MIDDLE OF Tin: KIGIITIiKNTll Cr.NTURV.

a29

CUAPTEB XI.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUItY.

ihlCTIUN THIRD : THE LITERATURE OF THE SECOND GENEEATIOH.

A. D. 1727— A. D. 17G0.

GEORGE II. : — 1727 — 1760.

Frobb. 1. Theology— Warbnrton— Bishop Butler'a Analogy— Watts and
Doddridge — Philosophy— Butler's Ethical System— The Metaphysics of
David Home — Jonathan Edwards — Franklin.— 2. Miscellaneous Prose-
Minor Writers — New Series of Periodical Essays — Magazines and Reviews.
— 9. Samuel Johnson — His Life — His Literary Character.— 4. Johnson's
Works.— 5. The Novelists— Their Moral Faultiness.- Poetry. 6. The
Drama— Noq-Dramatio Poetry — Kise in Poetical Tone — Diuactio Poems
— Johnson — Toung — Akenside — Narrative and Descriptive Poems —
Thomson's Seasons. — 7. Poetical Taste of the Public — Lyrical Poems of
Gray and Collins.

PROSE LITERATURE.

I. Among the Theological Writers who maybe assigned to the reign of
George the Second, the most widely famous in his day, though by no
means the most meritorious, was the arrogant and pugnacious Bishop
Warburton. His best-known work, " The Divine Legation of Moses,**
is admitted to be, notwithstanding its curious variety of illustra-
tion, worthless in regard to its main design. Greater value is attrib-
uted to his defence of church-establishments, t:nd his vindications of
the Christian faith against infidelity. The latter task, however, was
b. 1692.1 pei*formed with incomparably greater ability, in Bishop
d.1762.]' Butler's "Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to
the Constitution and Course of Nature.** This admirable treatise,
one of the most exact pieces of reasoning in any language, is in-
tended to show, that all objections which can 4)e urged^ cither
against the Religion of Nature or against that of Christianity, are
equally valid in disproof of truths which are universally believed,
nnd which regulate the whole tenor of human action. No writer

830

MIDDLE OF TUE EIGHTEENTH CENTUXY.

can be further than Butler from being cither eloquent or elegant :
and his incisssant tide of dose reasoning calls for very severe exertion,
on the part of those who would be borne along on the stream with
intelligent attention. His bareness and clumsiness of style are proofs
of that sterling and extraordinary force ofthougl^t, which impresses
us so deeply without any eztraneoos assistance.

The works in Practical Theology were increasingly numerous ; and
some of them, such as the eloquent sermons of Sherlock, retain a
place in literary hbtory. Hervey*s writuigs do not deserve that
honour for any thing except their goodness of intention. But there
is much literary merit in those of the gently pious Watts, and still
more in those of the fervidly devout Doddridge. Nor were these
two the only men who supported the reputation of the Nonconfor-
mists. Leland did good service by his dissections of deistical
writers ; and Lardner's works are still of very high worth, as stores
both of learning and of thought.

In the Church of England, and out of it, there was a waxing zeal,
and a mere cordial recognition of the importance of religion : and
much good was done, through seeming separation, by the increased
prosperity of the Dissenters, and the formation of the two bodies of
Methodists. These were things which gradually leavened much of
the literature of the times.

Meanwhile Philosophy had distinguished votaries, with Butler at
their head. The high-toned Ethical System of this excellent thinker
has received full justice from most of our recent speculators on the
theory of morals. Much inferior in power as well as clearness, but
still useful, in the same field, was Hutcheson, an Irishman, who
t8.ught in Glasgow, and has sometimes been called the founder of
the Scottish school of mental science. He contributed abo to the
Theory of Art in which, and in that of Language, much ingenuity
was shown by Harris. To that generation belongs Hartley's at-
tempt to resolve all mental phenomena into the association of ideas ;
a view which, though almost always resisted in Scotland, has found
in England many distinguished supporters.
h. 1711 ) 1° ^^^^ earlier portion of his life, too, David Hume pub-
A 1776.1 liahed his Philosophical Works — works which must be
allowed, even by those who dissent most strenuously from their
results, to have constituted an epoch and turning point in the his-
tory of Metaphysics. We must not be alarmed, by the religious
infidelity of this celebrated man, into a forgetfulness of the value
which belongs to his metaphysical speculations, wrong as his opin-
ions here also will be admitted to have been. In accepting the
principles of philosophy, which had been received by the metapliy*

sicians

but uni

the owi

Tlie ex

his cleai

thinkeri

opinion

been mc

philosop

Kant, bi

rest of tl

Befon

this gen(

able nan

ft. 1708. > <

d.nsa.f {

matched,

possessec

their onl

which th

phy. Pc

ing has e'

celebratei

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distinctio:

Along

ment, the

h. 1706. )
d. 1790. f

physical t

practical (

forbid his

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2. The ]

not in any

by Addiso

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poor succe

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liveliness I

very heav^

But it is f|

■V" '.'! r \f

THEOLOQY, PUILOSOPnY, AND MISCELLANIES.

331

Bicians of our country, and showing that these led to no conclasioa
but universal doubt, he served philosophy as the architect serves
the owner of a house when he lays bare a flaw in its foundations.
The exposure could not have beei^ore thoroughly made, than in
his clear, calm, thoughtful fragments of acute objection. Succeeding
thinkers have accepted the challenge ; and, amidst all differences of
opinion as to the success of the metliods by which the attack has
been met, it may at least be asserted safely, that, but for Hume,
philosophy would have wanted, not only the subtle speculations of
Kant, but tue more modest and cautious systems of Reid and the
rest of the Scottish school.

Before quitting the theological and philosophical literature of
this generation, we must record, as belonging to it, the first remark-
able name which America contributed to the history of English Ict-
A.1708.) ^6^'B* Of Jonathan Edwards, it was said by Mackintosli,
d. 1768.J that "his power of subtile argument was perhaps un-
matched, certainly unsurpassed among men.*' The religious value
possessed by the writings of this excellent man, is far from being
their only claim on our attention. Some of them hold a place,
which they are not likely to lose, in the annals of mental philoso-
phy. Perhaps no process of metaphysical and psychological reason-
ing has ever had a wider or more commanding influence, than his
celebrated treatise On the Will ; and his works On Religious Afiec-
tions, and On the Nature of Virtue, entitle him to be enrolled with
distinction among the cultivators of ethical scie' "e.

Along with him we may set down, in passing to a different depart-
ment, the name of another of the great men who have arisen among
ft. 1706.) ^^^ Transatlantic kinsmen. Benjamin Franklin, though
d. 1790. i most iamous in the history of his country and in that of
physical science, might almost be ranked among the teachert.^ of
practical ethics ; and, at any rate, his homely sagacity and vigcur
forbid his being forgotten among the miscellaneous writers of hm
time. His literary activity belongs chiefly to the period n'hich wo
are now surveying. '

2. The Miscellaneous Literature of this, the age of Johrscn, can*
not in any respect stand comparison with that which wa? hoiided
by Addison.

We encounter a new group of Periodical Essays, which are but
poor successors to the Spectator. First, commencing in 175C, came
the " Rambler," written almost entirely by Johnson. It has little of
liveliness beside? che inapt name : its fev attempts at humour are
very heavy, and its sketches of character disappointingly meagre.
But U is fuU of the author's finest vein of religious moralizing. It

332

MIDDLE OP THE EIGHTEENTll CENTUHV.

■was followed by the " Adventurer" of Hawkesworth, the best anil
earliest of Johnson^s imitators, but not more than an imitator ; by
the " World," edited by Moore the dramatist, and more amusing,
though without much substance ; and by the Connoisseur, -which
is chiefly notable for containing several papers by the poet Cowper,
the only links connecting him with the time we are now studying.
The series was closed in 1758 by the " Idler" of Johnson.

Essays, Criticisms, and Imaginative Sketches, were now received
into another class of periodicals, the Magazines and Reviews.
These, though as yet neither very systematic nor exercising much
influence, employe! the talent, and assisted in furnishing the liveli-
hood, of some of the best writers of the time. The " Gentleman's
Magazine," which still survives, was enriched for years by the
toil of Johnson: the Monthly Review, conducted ably bv less fa-
mous writers, called forth, by its patronage of Whiggi. >Aid Dis-
sent, the Critical Review to advocate Tory and High-Church prin-
ciples ; a task chiefly performed, with equal ability and vehemence,
by Smollett, and sometimes assisted in by Johnson.

Throughout this generation, as in that before it, Ilistorical Writing
had hardly any merit beyond the industrious collection of materials.
Almost the only exceptions were Hooke's spiritedly written Roman
History, Middleton*s Life of Cicero, and Jortin's Life of Erasmus.

We lose little by not learning the names of other rouior writers,
and passing to that of one who was the most industrious as well as
the most celebrated among the professional authors of the eighteenth
century.

^. 17(».> 3' Samuel Johnson, compelled by poverty to leave his
d. 1784. j education at Oxford uncompleted, came to London in 1737,
to seek the means of living. Thenceforth, unpatronized and long
obscure, and failing in repeated attempts to extricate himself from
a profession which is always more harassing and uncertain than any
other, and was then peculiarly painful to a high-minded man, he
laboured with dogged perseverance till, in the beginning of George
the lliird's reign, a pension enabled him to telax his efforts, and
enjoy in his decUning years the fame he had so hardly won.

Won it was not till, in his own desponding words, " most of those
wliom he wished to please had sunk into the grave, and he hud
little to fear or to hope from censure or from praise." Yet tlie
celebrity which did at length surround him, in the generation after
that which we are now surveying, was such as might have satiated
the most grasping literary ambition ; and the influence which his writ-
ings had was so vast, that it now makes us wonder, whether we look
to their bulk, their topics, or their contents. That their reputation

WMal

arethi

irnperf

neglect

are gu

deflciei

express

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in weak

and apt

wrought

smoulde

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convey i

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ments, m

of genen

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he exanii

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his age ; j

of the po

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being kec

equal; pa

vated by

because t

coherent

which he

The hernn
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implore youi

"To him I
(ood; Dorca
rent wH.''

"Ho Willi

THE WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON.

833

WM above tlielr deserts, cannot and must not be denied. But they
are the fhiit of a singularly strong and original mind, working -with
imperfect knowledge and inadequate scope for activity : and the
neglect to which they are now consigned does harm to those who
are guilty of it ; because the literature of our time is generally
deficient in many of the excellences he has, both of thought and of
expression.

His language is unquestionably superior to his matter. Hidlcu-
lous as his antithetically balanced pomp of words always becomes
iri weaker hands, and sometimes in his own, he has striking force
and aptness of diction, especially when his feelings are so highly
wrought as to kindle his sluggish imagination into the intensely
smouldering heat which it often assumes. Many of his sentences roll
in on the ear like the sound of the dist.,nt sea ; and the thoughts they
convey impress us so vividly, that we are slow to scrutinize their
quality. Ilis merit as a thinker lies almost entirely in two depart-
ments, morals and criticism. In the former he has little originality
of general principles, but much in special views, with very great
clearness, sagacity, and elevation. In the latter he is weak when
he examines details, and in all points dependent on fine suscepti-
bility : but in his mastery of general laws he is much in advance of
his age ; and his theoretical opinions, in regard to many questions
of the poetical art, are as sound as any that could be formed by a
man whose natural sense of poetical beauty was very far from
being keen. Everywhere, however, he is inconsistent and un-
equal ; partly through gloominess and irritability of temper, aggra-
vated by a life of disappointment and excessive toil ; and partly
because he never was able to bring to ripeness in his mind any
coherent system of opinions, even in regard to those questions oo
which he oflenest thought and wrote.*

* SAMUEL JOHNSON.
I. From " Saaaelat :'* The Bcrmit Hrcd of Solitude,

The hermit set flesh and wine before them ; though he fed only upon
fruits and water. Uis diiioourse was cheerful without levity, and pious with-
out enthusiasm.

At last Imlao began Urns : " I do not now wonder that your reputation ia
so fur extended : we fiave beard at Cairo of your wisdom, and came hither to
implore your durection for this youn^'* man and maiden in the Choice of Life>"

'* To him that lives well," answered the Hermit, " every form of life is
good ; nor can I give any oUier rule for choice, than to remove from all q>pa-
rent evil."

**Ile will removf most certainly fSron evil," said the prince, "who shall

334

MIDDLE OF TUE EiaHTEEXTU CENTURY.

4. The only great undertaking ho engaged in was his Dictionary,
which was his cliief occupation for eight yearsi Higlily honourable
to the writer, in the circumstances in which it was produced, it
is now worthless to the student of language, being very poor and
incorrect in etymology, and unsatisfactory though acute in definition

devote himself to that solitude wliich yon hare recommended by your ex*
ample."

*' I have indeed lived fifteen years in solitude," said the hermit, " but have
no desire that my example sliould gain any imitators. In my youth I pro-
fessed arms, and was raised by degrees to the highest military rank. I have
traversed wide countries at the head of my troops, and seen many battles and
sieges. At last, being disgusted by the preferments of s younger officer, and
feeling that my vigour was beginning to decay, I resolved to close my life in
peace, having found the world full of snares, discord, and misery. I had once
escaped from the pursuit of the enemy by the shelter of this cavern, and there-
fore chose it for my final residence. I employed artificers to form it into
chambers, and stored it with all that I was likely to want.

" For some time after my retreat, I rejoiced like a tempest-beaten sailor at
his entrance into the harbour, being delighted with the sudden change of
the noise and hurry of war to stillness and repose. When the pleasure of
novelty went away, I employed my hours in examining the plants which
grew in the valley, and the minerals which I collected from the rocks. But
that inquiry is now grown tasteless and irksome. I have been for some time
unsettled and distracted : my mind is disturbed with a thousand perplexities
of doubt and vanities of imagination, which hourly prevail upon me, because
I have no opportunities of relaxation or diversion. I am sometimes ashamed
to think, that 1 could not secure myself from vice, but by retiring from the
exercise of virtue ; and begin to suspect that I was rather impelled by resent-
ment, than led by devotion, into solitude. My fancy riots in scenes of folly ;
and I lament that I have lost so much and have gained so little. In solitude,
if I escape the example of bad men, I want likewise the counsel and conver-
sation of the good. I have been long comparing the evils with the advan-
tages of society, and resolve to return into the world to-morrow. The life of
a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout."

They heard his resolution with surprise, but, after a short pause, offered to
conduct him to Cairo. He dug up a considerable treasure which he had hid
among the rocks, and accompanied them to the city ; on which, as he ap-
proached it, he gazed with rapture.

II. From the '* liambler;" No. 2 ; Man's Propensity toLooTi to Hie Future.

That the mind of man is never satisfied with the objects immediately be-
fore it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing
itself in schemes of future felicity; and that we forget, the proper use of the
time now in our power, to provide for the enjoyment of that which perhaps
may never be granted ua, has been frequently remarked: and, as this practice
is a commodious subject of raillery to the gay, and of declamation to the
serious, it has been ridiculed with all the pleasantry of wit, and exaggerated
with all the amplifications of rhetoric.

11i)s quality, of looking forward into (Utnrityi seems the unavoidable con-

THE WORKS OF SAUtJEL JOHNSOM.

835

HU other Prose Writings were short ; tnd a huge mass of them, in
the shape of prefaces, essays, criticisms, and controversial tracts, is
lost in periodicals or otherwise forgotten. His Poems are of Pope's
school, and would hardly have preserved his name. Yet his " Lon-
don," published at the same time with a satire of Pope's, was warmly
and deservedly admired by that jealous poet : and " The Vanity of
Human Wishes," while it contains some flashes of poetry, is mov-
ing for the deep and thoughtful melancholy of its tone. The
" liambler " is perhaps more characteristic, both for merit and defect,
tluin any of his other works ; unless we choose rather to derive our
knowledge of him from " Rasselas," a novel in form but in little
else. After his release from penury came his edition of Shak-
Kpeare, of which it is small praise to say that it is not so bad as
Pope's : but the famous Preface to it is highly valuable, not for
its eloquence only, but for many of its speculations on the theory
juf dramatic poetry. It is an extraordinary mixture of narrow and
erroneous trifling, with true and novel opinions, clearly conceived, and
titatcd with great vigour and vivacity of expression. Among the other

ilition of a being, whose motions are gradual, and whose life is progressive.
Aa his powers are limited, he must use means for the attainment of his ends,
and intend first what he performs last: as, by continual advances from his
Br8t stage of existence, he is perpetually varying the horizon of his prosiiects,
he most always discover new motives of action, new excitements of fear, and
allurements of desire.

The end, therefore, which at present calls forth our efforts, will be found,
when it is once gained, to be only one of the means to some remoter end.
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but
from hope to hope.

He that directs his steps to a certain point, must frequently turn his eyes
to that place which he strives to reach : he that undergoes the fatigue of
labour, must solace his weariness with the contemplation of its reward. In
agriculture, one of the most simple and necessary employipents, Xd'man
turns up the ground but because he thinks of the harvest ;'tImtKi^ar£s^^)(4Kch
bh'ghts may intercept, which inundatioU8/My¥W§ej^<4WttyTWaddiah:daitk
or calamity may hinder lilefi f^o'^iMliq^gVo h-ir.Lus:1;-, -ihil: uuii vIji^.ti

Yet,- as ftfw iHaaiim» aic^ widely tto^JHtAn^^vo^, nQta^ne^p but j^ j^b^^^n-

foTMi^ witk truth fttid nature it jn^t.he,c<)iT^^

-.'k9«]^ng:o|ur'yiew tog inte|it'.u|;^iiL re^noi^e, '^dvjintages, is~h5t'WIniai(it ln'](lh>•
ll]■i^^ orusefulnes?;' though it may ^v^'il|eent¥cKed Wtthto&ihitcli VMiy,
V Enforced wfih't4Miiuiedlslifi^eti^:''foif,''ii<^^
dusTri SvMcH presses' tbi^oUp^ri^f^aMj-iirroug to Mta;ciAti$Q«^i(#t ^^,9^^

anxious inquietude viliichr^'pdiSljjii$tei9M9t;yf'*lth^^^JiV^
-j«ett'tOtfiolBnir:fDV!ihjfj)Wsput!|>qr§^^ U, frequently. ^iJi'pjP^nsVia^^
d|{|siig:;e«n^:M>^n)Htures; pf: sucpew. yr.i rorget tli^ m'c^siirej n«ice.<S!lry to
8eewa^t,r»Rd'UiQer th$ imaginafron to riolih tti'^ fraftioiiH)l'^A^ {ioBMbl^
gwd,'titr(lie ««6^r6i'ttofgtf'litt'ilif>t^'i^ '^'' ;-^''^io r: Inu: o:>.;;;

d3C

UIDOLE Of Til£ mGUTECNTH CENTUKT.

works of his later years, xfas the Tour to the Hebrides, wliich is
one of the most pleasant and easy of his wi'itings. Afterwards
came his " Lives of the Poets," a series of biographies and criti-
cisms, admirable beyond any of his compositions for its skill of
narration; alternately enlightened and misound in. its critical prin-
ciples ; and frequently debased, as in the lives of Milton and Gray,
by political prejudices and personal jealousies.

5. When we pass from Johnson to the Novelists of his time, we
seem as if leaving the aisles of an august cathedral, to descend into
the galleries of a productive but ill-ventilated mine. Around us
clings a foul and heavy air, which youthful travellers in the realm
of literature cannot safely breathe. We must emerge as speedily
as possible to the light of day.

».168B.) The series of Novels began in 1741, with Richardsou^s

I.; «]

d. 1761.

' Pamela," which was followed at long intervals by his " Cla-
rissa Harlowe" and "Sir Charles Grandison." These have a virtu-
ous aim, and err chiefly by the plainness with which they describe
vice. Richardson gains, through his business-like minuteness of
detail, an air of reaUty which is sometimes as strong as that of
Defoe: and it is a pity that his tediousness, his unrelieved serious-
ness, and his over-wrought sentimentality, go so far towards dia-
qualifying the reader from appreciating liis extraordinary skill
both in the invention of incidents and in the portraiture of char-
acter.

These qualities are united with greater knowledge of the world,
pregnant wit^ much power of thinking, and remarkable ease and
h. 1707.) idiomatic strength of style, in the works of Fieldmg, whose
d. 1767. j mastery in the art of fictitious narrative has never been ex-
celled. But his living pictures of familiar life, the whimsical carica-
tures of Smollett, and the humorous fantasies of Rterne, are alike
polluted by faults, of which the very smallest are the coarseness of
language which tlieyhad inlierited, and the unscrupulous bareness of
licentious description in which th'^y out-did Richardson. It is not
merely that their standard of morality is low: they display indiffer-
ence to the essential distinctions between right and wrong, in regard
to some of the cardinal relations of society. The personages whom
tliey represent to us, with praise or without blame, act in a way
which is not merely unworthy of responsible moral agents, but dis-
graceful according to the most indulgent code that could be laid
down to regulate the conduct of gentlemen.

The beginning of the next period (to which indeed some of Smol-
lett's novels belong) will exhibit a gratifying improvement both of
taste and mor^ vfi th§ povels and similar writings of Goldsmith.

A 1765.'

poetical,

and stud

the seven

mo5t sul

much of

Akin to 1

was the tj

In this po

into whid

M721.) ea
*wo./^.

language,

of beauty J

and poeti;

other writ

thinker fo

unless he i

by the obt

It 8houI(

fonuB of pa

FOETBTi DBAMATIO AND KON-DRAUATIC.

887

POETICAL LTTERATUBE.

6. The Drama of the period now before us has very little literary
importance. Johnson's one tragedy of " Irene " contains some fine
blank verse : and the tragedies of Thomson are the undramatic efiu-
sions of a descriptive poet. The "George BamwcU** of Lillo and
the " Gamester" of Moore are clever specimens of a mongrel kind
of tragedy ; which, adopting domestic incidents not easily raised into
the poetical region proper to the drama, fortifies itself impregnably
against poetry by couching its dialogue in prose instead of verse.
The comedies and farces of the actors Garrick and Foote soon lost
their value for the stage, and never had much for the literary student.

In Non-Dramatic Poetry we have to obserye, not only the appear-
ance of several men possessmg distinguished genius, but also changes
which indicated the formation of views in regard to the art, more
just and comprehensive than those that had been prevalent in the
preceding generation.

In the first place, neither personal sarcasm, nor the chronicling of
the externals of polite society, was now held to be the task most
worthy to receive the embellishments of didactic verse. Thekey-note
of a higher strain was struck by Johnson, and repeated in the Sat-
».1681.) ires of Toung. This* writer, afterwards, in his "Night-
i. 1765. 1 Thoughts," produced a work, eloquent perhaps rather than
poetical, dissertative where true poetry would have been imaginative,
and studded with conceits as thickly as the metaphysical poems of
the seventeenth century ; but yet dealing in a fit spirit with the
mo?t sublime of all themes, and suggesting to meditative minds
much of imagery and feeling as well as of religions reflection.
Akin to it in not a few points, but with more force of imagination,
was the train of gloomy scenes which appears in Blair's " Grave.*'
In this poem we note the return of Scotland to the literary arena,
into which she had for a long time sent no champions of great prow*
h. 1721.) ess. In Akenside's "Pleasures ui Imagination," a vivid fancy,
d. 1770. j 1^ ^rann susceptibility of fine emotion, and an idluring piomp of
language, are lavished on a series of pictures illustrating the feelings
of beauty and sublimity. The mischief is, that the poet, theorizing
and poetizing by turns, loses his hold of his readers more than
other writers whose topics are less abstract. The philosophical
thinker finds biBtter teaching elsewhere; and the poetical student,
unless he is also metaphysically inclined, has his enthusiasm chilled
by the obtrusive dissertations.

It should next be remarked, that the more direct and effective
fonns of poetry came again into &vour. The Scottish pastoral drama

v^.

338

MIDDLE OF THE EIGUTEENTH OENTUBT.

of Ramsay need not be more tlian named : closer attention might
be claimed for the spirited narrative of Falconer's " Shipwreck.**
But the most decisive instance of the growing insight into the true
i. 1700. ) functions of poetry is fumbhed by the " Seasons" of Thorn-
d. 1748. t 8on, which appeared very soon after the completion of Pope's
Homer. No poet, not Wordsworth himself, has ever been inspired
more than lliomson was, by that love of external nature which is
the prompter of poetic imagery ; and none has felt, with more
keenness and delicacy, those analogies between the mind and the
things it looks on, which are the fountain of genuine poetic feeling.
Many of his bits of scenery are more beautiful than any thing else
of the sort in the whole compass of our literature. His faults are
heavy : triteness of thought when he becomes argumentative ; sen*
timental vulgarism when he aims at the dramatic ; and a prevalent
pomposity and pedantry of diction, which at once forestalled John-
son and surpassed liim. His later work, " The Castle of Indolence,"
is hardly less poetical; while it is surprisingly free from his .beset-
ting sins. Jt is, too, the only very strong symptom which the age
manifested, of sympathy with the older English poets.*

• JAMES THOMSON.
A StJlOCBB DAWir, VBOX THB SKASOai.

And soon, otwervant of approaching day,

The meek-ej'd Mom appears, mother of dews,

At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east ;

Till fkr o'er ether spreads the widening glow,

And, firom before the lostre of her faet^

White break the clouds away.— With qaicken'd step

Brown Night retires. Young Day pours in apace,

And opens all the lawny prospect wide.

The dripping rooks, the mountain's misty top,

Swell OD the sight, and brighten with the dawn.

Blue, through the dusk, the smoky currents shine :

And from the bladed field the feaiftal hare

Limps, awkward ; while along the forest-glada

The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze

At early passenger. Mosio awakes,

The native voice of nndissembled Joy ;

And thick around the woodland hymns arise.

Boused by the cock, the soon-elad shepherd leaves

His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells

And from the crowded fold in order drives

His fiock, to taste the verdare of the mom.

Falsely luxurious, will not man awake,
And, springing firOm the bed of sloth, eqjoy

TOE POETICAL TASTE OF TIIE AGS.

839

7. The middle of the eighteenth century garo birth, ire flee, to
good poets ; but it was nevertheless an unpoetical time. Some of
tliosti with whom we have just become acquainted, owed their pop-
ularity in part to those very qitalities' which are the blots of their
w6rks ; and their genius would have grown up more freely and
borne richer fruit, had the climate been more propitious. Still later
in the century, we find the prevailing poetical taste to be curiously
illustrated by Johnson's " Lives of the Poets.*^ These were introdttic-
tory to a large collection of English Poetry ; the choice bemg niade
by the booksellers, who may fairly be presumed to have known what
books were likely to tempt purchasers. We are not surprised to
find that the older poets of the language were quite excluded ; but
it is amusing and wonderful to reckon the host of dull rhymers
from the early part of the century, whose works were admitted, and
thought worthy to employ the pen of the first critic of the day.

Before that time, two of the finest and most poetical minds of our
nation had been dwarfed and weakened by the ungenlal atmosphere,
80 as to bequeath to posterity nothing more than a few lyrical frag-
ments. In the age which admired the smooth feebleness of Shen-
8tone*8 pastorals and elegies, and which closed when the ferocious
libels of Churchill were held by many to be good examples of the
poetical satire, Collins lived and died almost unknown, and Gray
turned aside from the unrequited labours of verse to idle in his study.
y 1716. ) ^'^7 ^^ '^ consummate a poetical artist as Pope. His
d. 1771.]* fancy, again, was much less lively : but his sympathies were
infinitdy wanner and more expanded ; and he was unfettered by

The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hoar*
To meditation dae and sacred song I

tt • • • »

Bat yonder comes the powerfnl King of Daj^
Rejoicing In the east. The lesseidng clond,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow
lUomed with fluid gold, his near approach '

Betoken glad. Lo i now apparent all.
Aslant the devr-bright earth and eolonr'd dr,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad ;
And sheds the shining day, that bnmlsh'd plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streami^
liigh-gleaming from afkr. Prime cheerer, Light I
Of all material beings firs^ and best!
Efflux dirine I Nature's resplendent robe t
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom ; and thou^ oh Sun I
Boul of surrounding worlds, in whom best seen
SUnes out tby Maker! Hay liingoftheeT

840

MIDDLE OF TUE EIQIITEENTII CENTURY.

the inatter-of<fiict tendency of the French schooL Tlie polished
ftptnou of language, and exact symmetry of construction, which
giv9 so classical an aspect to his Odes, do unquestionably bring
with them a tinge of classical coldness ; and the want of passionate
movement is felt particularly in his most ambitious pieces. He ia
stronger in feeling than in imagery : the Ode on Eton College, witli
its touches of pathos and flashes of allegory, is more genuinely
l)Tical than "The Bard;" and the "Progress of Poesy** is most
poetical in its passages of fanciful repose. The Elegy in a Coun*
try Churchyard is perhaps faultless.*

• THOMAS GRAY.
JVom the" Ode on a DiatatU Prospect of Eton CoUegeJ"

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,

That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful science still adores

Her Henry's hoary shade ;
And ye that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights the expanse bolow

Of grove, of lawn, of mead surrey ;
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along

His silver-winding way I

Ah, happy hills I Ah, pleasing shade I

Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood strayed,

A stronger yet to pain :
I feel the gales that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow.

As, waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth.

To breatlie a second spring.

Say, Father Thames 1 for thou hast seen

Full many a sprightly race.
Disporting on thy margin green,

The paths of pleasure trace ;
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?

The captive linnet which enthral?
What idle progeny succeed.
To chase the rolling circle's speed,

Or urge the flying ball ?
• « « •

Gkiy hope is theirs, by fancy fed,

Less pleasing when possess'd,
The tear forgot as soon as shod.

The sunshine of the breast .

uri

THE ODES OF C0LUN8.

841

». ITM.) ^6 Odes of Collins are fuller of the fine and spontane*
tf.i7M.i ous enthusiasm of genius, thrfn any other poems ever writ-
ten by one who wrote so littfe. We close his tiny volume with the
same disappointed surprise, which overcomes us when a harmoniona
piede of music suddenly ceases unfinished. His range of tones if
very wide : it extends from the wannest rapture of self-entranced
imagination, to a tenderness which makes some of his verses sound
like gentle weepmg. The delicacy of gradation with which he
passes from thought to thought, has an indescribable charm, though
not always unattended by obscurity; and there is a marvellous
power of su^estion in his clouds of allegoric imagery, so beautiful
in outline, and coloured by a fancy so purely and ideally refined.
His most popular poem, " The Passions," can hardly be allowed to
be his best : of some of his most deeply marked characteristics it
conveys no adequate idea. Readers who do not shrink firom having
their attention put to the stretch, and who can relish the finest and
most recondite analogies, will delight in his Ode entitled " The

Theirs bnxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,

And lively cheer, of vigour bom ;
The thoughtless day, the easy night.
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,

That fly Uie approach of mom.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,

Then whirl the vnretch from high|
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice.

And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall tfji
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye*

That mocks the tear it forced to flow|
And keen Remorse, with blood defiled}
And moody Madness, laughing wild

Amid severest woe.

;.'-y\

To each his sufferings ! All sre men,

Condemn'd alike to groan ;
The tender for another's pain,

The unfeeling for his own.
Yet, ah I why should they know their fkte }
Since sorrow never comes too late.

And happiness too swiftly flies ?
Thought would destroy their paradisMBi
No more ! whiBre ignorance is bliss,

'TIS folly to be wise I *

849

MIDDLE OF TUE EIGBTEENTn CENTUBY.

Haimen,** «nd in that, still nobler and more imaginative, " On tlif
Poetical Character." Every one, aurely, can understand and feel
the beauty of such pieces as the Odes ^< To Pity," « To Simplicity,"
** To Mercy." Nor does it require much reflection to fit ns for
appreciating the spirited lyric *'To Liberty;** or for being en-
tranced by the finely*woven harmonies and the sweetly romantic
pictures, which, in the " Ode to Evening," remind ui of the yoathfol
poems of Milton.*

* WItUAM COLLINS.

I* ora warrrBX n TUB Bxounmo or TUB TKAa 1746.

How ileep the brave who link to rest,
9j ell their coontry's wiihes blett I
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
^tnmi to deok their hdlowed moold,
Bha there shall dreas a sweeter lod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By Fidry hands tbehr knell is mng;
By forms unseen thdr dirge is song:
l^ere Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay
And Freedom shall awhile repair.
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there.

n. ODl TO FITT. •

fWIs's Bard i$ Euripidei: The river Jrun run* ly Ae bMhjllac€ iff Otuajt

Oh thou, the firiend of man, aasign'd
With balmy hands his wounds to bind.

And charm his frantic woe ;
Whenfirst Distress, with dagger keen.
Broke forth to wastahis destined scene,

His wild unsated foe I

By Fella*s Bard, a magic name.

By all the griefii his thought could framOi

Receive my humble rite I
Long, Pity I let the nations view
Thy sky-worn robes of tenderest blue,

And eyes of dewy light t

But wherefore need I wander wide
To old UysBUs' distant side.

Deserted stream and mute?
Wild Aran too has heard thy stndns,
And Echo, 'midst my native plahu,

Been soothed by Pi^'s lute.

mn sT

THE ODES OF COLUIIB.

848

Come, Pity, oome I B7 Fanoj't aidi
Ew*n now mj thooghta, relenting maid I

Th/ temple's pride design ;
Iti soathern site, its tnitli completei
Shall nise • wild enthnsiast heat

In all who riew the shrine.

There Piotnre's toil shall well relate
How Chance, or bard-inrolring Fate,

O'er mortal bliu prevail :
The boskin'd Mose shall near her standf
And, sighing, prompt her tender hand

With each disastrous tale.

There let me oft, retired hj day,
In dreams of passion melt away,

Allowed with thee to dwell ;
There waste the monmfhl lamp of nlg^t.
Tin, Tlrg^t then again delight

To hear a British shell t

844

LAST AQB OF TtlE EIGUTEElfTU CEKTUBY.

CHAPTER Xn.

THE EIGHTEENTH CEKTUBT.
SECTION FOURTH : THE LITKBATUBE OF THE THIBD OEMEBATION.

A. D. 1760— A. D. 1800.
Qeoi^ III.,. 1760-1800.

Pbosb. 1. The Historiann>-Their Literary Character and Views of Art-
Hume's History.— 2. Robertson and Gibbon— The Character of ea£h—
Minor Historical Writen.— 3. Miscellaneous Prose— Johnson's Talk and
Bosweirs Report of it— Goldsmith's Novels— Literature in SootUmd^The
firat Edinburgh Review— Mackenzie's Novels— Other Novelists.— 4. Crit-
icism—Percy's Reliques— Warton's History— Parliamentary Eloquence
—Edmund Uurke— Letters.— 5. Philosophy— (1.) Theory of Literature-
Burke— Reynolds— Campbell— Homp>—Blair— Smith— (2.) Political Econ-
< ' ly — Adun Smith. — 6. Philosophy continued— (3.) Ethics-^ Adam
bmith — Tuckf — Paley — (4.) Metaphysics and Psychology — Thomas Rcid.
—7. Theology— (1.) Scientific— Campbell— Paley— Watson— Lowth— (2.)
Practical — Porteous — Blair — Newton and othen. — POetbt. 8. The
Drama — Home's Douglas — Comedies of Goldsmith and Sheridan— Gold-
smith's Descriptive Poems. — 9. Minor Poets — Thehr Various Tendencies
—Later Poems — Bcattie's Minstrel. — 10. The Genius and Writings of
Cowper and Burns.

PROSE UTERATURE.

1. Between the period we Iiave last studied, and the reign of
George the I'hird, there were several connecting links. One of
these was formed by a group of Historians, whose works must
always be classical monuments in English literature. The publica-
tion of Hume's History of England began in 1754 : Kobertson's
History of Scotland appeared in 1759, ard was followed by his
Ueign of Charles the Fit'th, and his History of America ; and Gib-
bon's Decline and Fall of the Koman Empir'* was completed iii
twelve years from 1776. *

These celebrated men, and others who profited by their teaching,
viewed a great history as a work of literary art, as a work in whidi
the manner of communication ought to possess an excellence corre-

W^ (*'

Ttm HISTORICAL WMtERS.

345

flpondent to the value of the knowledge communicated. It is like-
wise characteristic of them, that, while all were active thinkers, and
found or made occasion for imparting the fruits of their reflection,
their works are properly Histories, not Historical Dissertations.
They are narratives of events, in which the elucidation of the laws
of human nature or of the progress of society is introduced merely
as illustrative and subordinate. The distinction is note-worthy for
us, in whose time the favoiurite method of historical writing is of the
contrary kind.

Perhaps history, so conceived and limited, was never written
ft. 1711.) better than by Dand Hume. Never was the narrative of
d. 1776.]" interesting incidents told with greater clearness, and good-
sense, and quiet force of representation : never were the characters,
and thoughts, and feelings of historical personages described in a
manner more calculated to excite the feeling of dramatic reality, yet
without overstepping the propriety of hbtorical truth, or trespass-
ing on the prominence due to great &cts and great principles. His
style may be said to display, generically, the natural and colloquial
character of the early writers of the century. But it is specifically
distinguished by features giving it an aspect ve^y unlike theirs. It
has not their strength and closeness of idiom ; a want attributable
to two causes. Hume was a Scotsman, bom in a country whose
dialect was then yet more distant than it now is from English
purity ; and French society concurred with French reading in de-
termining still further his turn of phraseology and construction.
It has b'sen the duty of more recent writers to protest agamst his
strong spirit of partisanship, which is made the more seductive by his
constant good-temper and kindliness of manner; and his consul-
tation of original authorities was so very negligent, that Ins evidence
is quite worthless on disputed historical questions. But, if his
matter had been as carefully studied as his manner, and if his social
and religious theories had been as sound as his theory of literary
art, Hume*s history would still have held a place from wMch no
rival could have hoped to degrade it.

2. In their manner of expression, Robertson and Gibbon, though
unlike each other, are equally unlike Hume, lliey want liis seem-
ingly unconscious ease, his delicate tact, his calm yet lively sim-
plicity. Hume tells his tale to us as a friend to friends : his succes-
sors always seem to held that they are teachers and we their pupils.
This change of tone had long been coming on, and was now very
general in all departments of prose : very few writers belonging
to the last thirty years of Johnson's life escaped the epidemic dis-
ease of dictatorsliip. Both Robertson and Gibbon may haye been,

846

LAST AOE OF TUE EIOnTEENTH CEMTUBT.

by circanutances peculiar to each of them, predisposed to adopt
the fitshionable garb of dignity. The temptation of the former hy
simply in his provincial position, which made his mastery of the
language a thing to be attained only by study and imitation. An
untravelled Scotsman might have aspired to harangue like Rasselas,
but durst not dream of talking like Will Iloneycomb. Yet Robi^'-t-
son attamed a degree of facility, smoothness, and correctness, which
in the circumstances was wonderful. Gibbon's pompousness, which
has justly become proverbial, was probably caused in part by his
^If-esteem, naturally inordinate, and pampered by years of solitary
study ; and it must have been cherished, also by his half-avowed
consciousness of the hostility in which his evil religious opinions
placed him, towards those to whom his work was addressed. The
peculiarity of his very peculiar style may perhaps be analyzed into
a few elements. Ilis words are always those of Latin root, not of
Saxon, unless when these cannot be avoided : his favourite idioms
and constructions are French, not English : and the structure of bis
sentences is so complex as to threaten obscurity, but so monoto-
nously uniform that his practised dexterity of hand easily avoided
the snare.

h. 1722. Y Kobertson is an excellent story-teller, perspicuous, lively,
d.nm.i and interesting : his opinions are formed with good judg-
ment, and always temperately expressed : and his disquisitions, such
as his view of the Progress of Society in the Middle Ages, are sin-
gularly able and instructive. His research was industrious and
accurate, to a degree which, notwithstanding many unfavourable
drcumstanccs, makes him stUl to be a valuable historical authority.
h. 1737. ) '^^^ learning of Gibbon, though not in all points very ex-
d. 17M. j* act, was remarkably extensive ; and it was fully sufficient to
make him a trustworthy guide through the vast region he traverses,
unless in those quarters where he was inclined to lead us astray.
His work was first conceived in Home, " as he sat musing amidst
the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing
vespers in the temple of Jupiter : " and its prevalent tone might,
witli no very wide stretch of fancy, be supposed to retain symptoms
of that evening's meditation. There is a patrician haughtiness in
the stately march of his narrative, and in the aur of. careless supe-
riority with wliich he treats both his heroes and his audience ; and,
contemplating the actions of his story in such a spirit as if he
shrunk from Cliristian truth because he had known it only as
alloyed by superstitious error, he honours the ruthless bravery of
tlie conqueror and the politic craft of the statesman, but is unable to
appreciate the hermit's humble piety or the heroic self-sacrifice of

rr^w'

HISTORICAL AND OTUEB WBITERS.

317

thtf martyr. His manner wants tliat dramatic animation, which would
entitle him to be ranked in the highest order of historians, and for
which he was disqualified by his coldness of feeling. He seems to
describe, not scenes in which living men act, but pictures in which
those scenes are represented : and in this art of picturesque narra-
tion he is a master. Nor is he less skilful in indirect insiduation ;
which, indeed, is his favourite and usual method of communicating
hts opinions, although most striking in those many passages in his
history of the church, where he covertly attacks a religion which
he neither believed nor understood.

Among other historians of the time was Smollett, whose History
of England has no claim to remembrance except the celebrity other-
wise gained by the author. Ferguson's History of the Boman
Republic is not only well written, but meritorious for its researches
into the constitution of Rome. Of the many historical and anti-
quarian works, the value of whose matter exceeds their literary
merit, it may be enough to name those of two Scotsmen ; Henry's
History of Great Britain, and Sir David Dahymple's AnnaU of
Scotland, both of wliich have saved much toil to their successorb
To this period, more conveniently than to the next, may be assigned
the Grecian Histories of Gillies and Mitford, each useful in its day,
especially the latter, but both now .Jtogether surierseded.

3. While the historians thus produced works on which, more than
on anything else, the literary reputation of the time depended, other
men of letters exerted themselves so actively and so variously, that
it is difficult to describe their efforts briefly.
».17(».) Johnson, seated at last in his easy-chair, talked inces-
ii.1781. j* gantly for twenty years: his dogmatical announcements of
opinion were received as oracular by the literary world : and, soon
after his death, Boswell's clever record of his conversations gave
to the name of this remarkable man a place in our literature, which,
in our day, is commonly held to be more secure than that which
he had obtained by his writings.

In the large circle of his friends and admirers, none was more
».17S8.) respectful or more beloved than the amiable and artless
A 1774. J Goldsmith. Yet none of them had so much native origi.
nality of genius, or deviated so far from the track of his patron.
Though his poems had never been written, he would stand among
the classics of English prose, in virtue of the few trifles on which
he was able, in the intervab snatched from his literary drudgery,
to exercise his power of slurewd observation and natund invention.
And to exhibit his warm affections and purity of moral sentiment.
filach is hlff inimit«^b)9 Uttle novel, " The Vicar of Wakefield {" and

':t

848

LAST AGE OF THE EIGIITEENTU CENTURT.

roch, though less valnable, is the good-natured satire on socilty
which he called " The Citizen of the World." It consists of letters
in which a Chinese, visiting England, relates to friends at home
what he saw and what he thought of it. In good-humoured irony,
Goldsmith is here admirable : there are some comic scenes of do*
mestic life, such as the household of Beau Tibbs, which are not
surpassed by anything of the sort in our language ; while the in-
terest is varied by little flights of romance, lively criticisms on the
state of leamini;^ and the arts, and despondent caricature (which
no one had better opportunities of sketching from the life) of the
miseries of raen whose trade was authorship.* Goldsmith^s style

* OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

From " The CUixen o/ihe World:'* Letter zzvm.

Were ve to estimate the learning of the English by the number of books
that are every day published among them, perhaps no country, not even
China itself, could equal them in this particular. I have reckoned not less
than twenty-three new books publbhed in one day; which, upon computation,
makes eight thousand three hundred and ninety-five in one year. Most oi
these are not confined to one single science, but embrace the whole circle.
History, politics, poetry, mathematics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of
nature, are all comprised in a manual not larger than that in which our
children are taught the letters. If, then, we suppose the learned of England
to read but an eighth part of the works which daily come from the press,
(and sure none can pretend to learning upon more easy terms,) at this rate
every scholar will read a thousand books in one year. From such a calcula-
tion, you may conjecture what an amazing fund of literature a man must be
possessed of, who thus reads three new books every day, not one of which
but contains all the good things that ever were said or written.

And yet, I know not how it happens : but the English are not, in reality,
so learned as would seem from this calculation. We meet but few who
know all arts and sciences in perfection ; whether it is Uiat the generality are
incapable of such extensive knowledge, or that the authors of those books are
not adequate instructors. In China, the Emperor himself takes cognizance
of all the doctors in the kingdom who profess authorship. In England,
every man may be an author that can write : for they have bylaw a liberty,
not only of sayuig what they please, but of being also as dull as they please.

Yesterday I testified my surprise to the man in black, where writers could
be found in sufficient number to throw off the books I daily saw crowding
from the press. I at first imagined, that their learned seminaries might take
this method of instructing the world : but my companion aasored me that the
doctors of colleges never vrrote, and that some of them had actually forgot
their reading. " But, if you desire," continued he, " to see a collection of
authors, I fancy I can introduce you this evening to a club, which assembles
every Saturday at seven, at the sign of the Broom near Islington, to talk over
the business of the last and the entertainment of the week ensuing."

I accepted his invitation : we walked together, and entered the house some
time before the usual hour for the cumiMiny assembling. My friend took

m^ 4^

MISCELLANEOUS FBOSE.

849

is fls near an approach as his time made possible, to the colloquial
ease of Addison.

In the meantime, intellectual action had begun to diffuse itself
from a new centre. Edinburgh was the dwelling-place of Robert-
son and Hume, around whom were gathered other thinking and
instructed men. In 1755, there was attempted an "Edinburgh
Review," designed to be half-yearly ; but only two numbers ap-
peared, containing several papers written by Robertson, with others
by Adam Smith and Blair, whom we shall soon meet again in com-
pany with aspirants from more remote parts of Scotland. In 1779,
the Periodical Essays of Queen Anne's time were revived, almost
for the last time, by a new race of men of letters, in the Scottish me-
tropolis. " The Mirror," and its successor, " The Lounger," were
^. 1745.) edited by Henry Mackenzie, whose venerable old-age car-
4.1831./ fjgj 1^^ ^j^Q 1^ patriarch surviving the flood, through the
Brst generation of the nineteenth century. Tasteful, rather than
vigorous, those periodicals owe their chief merit to his smaller tales.

He had already published hb best novel, " The Man of Feeling,"
which, coming not long afler Goldsmith's masterpiece, was far
from being unworthy of the companionship. With little force of
character, and a finical refinement both of diction and of sentiment,
Mackenzie's novels have a delightful harmony of feeling, which
often flows out into pathetic tenderness.

Among the later novelists of the time, there are none that call for
much notice. It is enough to name Walpole, Moore, Cumberland,
Mrs Inchbald, and Charlotte Smith. The last of these, especially,
did much to prepare the way for the greater prevalence of nature
and common-sense in this kind of writing, the seductions of which
for the writer are not less than those which it holds out to the
reader. We might not unwilling^iy be tempted to linger a little
longer, by the fifurcical humour of Miss Bumey, or the melo-drama-
tic horrors of Mrs RadcliiTe ; and, if we were here inclined to study
novels deeply, these two writers would, for different reasons, re-
quire close attention.

4. In Literary Criticism, the authoritative book of the day was
Johnson's " Lives of the Poets," with which we liave become ac-
quainted already. Sixteen years before its appearance, there had
been laid in silence the foundations of a new and purer poetical taste.
The year 1765 was the date of Percy's "Reliques of Ancient Englitih

this opportunity of letthig me into the characters of the principal members of
the dub; not even the host excepted, who, it seems, was once an author
himaelA bat preferred by a bookadler to this situation as a reward for hie
former service.

850

LAST AQE OP THE CIGIITEENTIt CCNTtHT.

Poetry,** a selection from old ballads and other early poems of a
lyrical cast, many of the ruder pieces being modernized and com-
pleted by the editor. This delightful compilation, quite neglected
for many years, became the poetical text-book of Sir Walter Scott
and the poets of his time. A greater impression was made by a
more scientific and ambitious effort in the same direction, War-
b. 1729. > ton's " History of English Poetry," which was commenced
d.ii90.j in 1774, and left unfinished when the author died. His
survey starts from a point not long after the Conquest, and is broken
off abruptly in the reign of Elizabeth. The work has so much both
of antiquarian learning, of poetical taste, and of spirited writing,
that it is not only an indispensable and valuable authority, but in
many parts an interesting book to the mere amateur. Not without
many errors, and presenting a still larger number of deficiencies, it
yet has little chance of being ever entirely superseded. Along
with Warton should be named his ill-natured adversary Ritson,
who rendered great services to our early poetry, especially by
setting the example of scrupulously correct editing.

In elementary studies lUce ours, we cannot undertake to deal
with the Parliamentary Eloquence of our country. But we ought
to learn, that the earliest specimens of its greatness may be said
to have been given before the middle of the eighteenth century, in
the commanding addresses of the elder Pitt, more commonly known
as Earl of Chatham. The close of our period shows us, as still
leading the senate, the younger Pitt, Fox, and Sheridan; along
b. 1790.) ^^^^ whom stood a much greater man, Edmund Burke, the
d. 1797.]* most gorgeous and rotund of orators. Burke, indeed, must
be remembered, in virtue not only of his speeches, but of hia writ-
ings on political and social questions, as a very great thinker, com-
prehensive and versatile in intellect, and deriving an extraordinary
power of eloquence from that concrete and imaginative character
which belonged distinctively to his manner of thought.

Our miscellaneous memoranda must contain two collections of
Letters, thoroughly unlike each other in everything except their
goodness of style : those of Walpole, poignantly satirical and bad-
hearted ; and those of the poet Cowper, which are not only models
of easy writingj but lessons of rare dignity and purity in sentiment.

6. In the History of Philosophy, for Qreat Britain as well as for
the continental nations, the middle of the eighteenth century was a
very important epoch. It introduced, in our own country, a series
of thinkers, whose opinions, whether adverse to those of their pre-
decessors or founded on them, were yet, in most departments of
philosophical study, entitled to be regarded as new : and, before

FmtosopnicAL writikos.

351

the century was ended, almost all those works had appeared, nhich
have had the greatest influence on more recent thinking.

The purpose of our present studies does not allow us to attempt
knowing thorouglily, or weighing exactly, speculations of an abstract
kind. The little we can take time to learn may be gathered most easily,
if all the works we have to deal with are arranged in Four Classes.

The First of these includes disquisitions on the Tlieory of Litera-
ture or any of its applications ; a theory which now began to be
known among us by the name of Philosophical Criticism, and which
is really a branch of philosophy properly so called, the philosophy of
the human mind. Our earliest specimen was Burke*s treatise '' On
the Sublime and Beautiful,*' an inquiry, neither successful nor elo?
([uent, into phenomena, the explanation of which is essential to a
just theory of poetry. The close relations between poetry and the
other fine arts, such as painting, might entitle us to include in our
list a series of treatises much more valuable, the Discourses of the
celebrated painter Sir Joshua !Re3molds. The other works to be
named are confined to literature ; and, all the writers being Scots-
men, it was perhaps natural that they should occupy themselves
much with the laws of style. By far the ablest of these was
1: 1709.) CampbelFs " Philosophy of Rhetoric," a treatise showing,
d. 1796. i like all the author's works, very much both of cool sagacity
and of independent thmking. " The Elements of Criticism," by
Henry Home, usually known as Lord Kames, has a great deal of
speculative ingenuity ; and the merit of Blair's " Lectures on Rhe-
toric and Belles Lettres" lies in their good taste and the elaborate
elegance of the language. Some contributions which Adam Smith
made to this field of inquiry contain very original views. It :<i
convenient, though not quite correct, to class along with these
writers Home Tooke, who produced, at the close of the century,
its best contribution to the Philosophy of Language. No book on
the subject has caused more thinking than his acute and paradoxical
" Diversions of Purley."

h. 1728.) Adam Smith will stand alone in our Second Department,
d.i79o!/ in virtue of the great work, "The Wealth of Nations,"
which is still universuliy acknowledged as the standard text-book
in Political Economy.

6. We encounter Smith yet again, when we pa8s,Tlurdly,to Ethics
or Moral Philosophy. His " Theory of Moral Sentiments" is the
most readable of abstract treatises: its style is excellent ; and its illus-
trations are abundant and interesting. Many of its special analyses
of mental phenomena are masterly : but the leading doctrine, which
rerolves all moral fediuss into Sympathy, is nothing better tlian

852

LAST AQE OF THE EIQIITEENTU CENTUBT.

*n ingeniously defended paradox. A more prominent place in the
history of moral science belongs to two English writers, who stand
related as master and pupil, and agree in seeking to establish the
identity of Virtue with Utility. The earlier of them was Tucker,
whom Faley frankly avowed to have given, by his finely reflective
"Light of Nature Pursued," very much assistance towards the
». 1748. \ ethical section of his own " Principles of Moral and Political
d. ia». J Philosophy." Vigorously homely in language and illustra-
tion, methodical and dexterous in argument, and imposingly posi-
tive in assertion, Paley*s work could not fail to be welcomed by
.English thinkers, on account of its skilful defence of a view of human
.nature, which chimes in with thetendencies of the national character.
Works falling into our Fourth Department would commonly be
described as dealing with Metaphysics. But, as they undertake to
inquire, not only into the origin and validity of human knowledge,
but also into the nature and relations of all mental phenomena,
they should be described as treating likewise of Psychology. They
are often described by their authors as relating to the Philosophy
of the Human Mind. We require here to flote only the rise of that
which has been called the Scottish School of Metaphysics ; and in
ft. 1710. > ^^ again we do enough, if we make ourselves acquainted
d. 1796.]* with Thomas Reid the founder. For Beattie, the most
eminent of his immediate disciples, and a very pleasing writer, did
little or nothing of real service to philosophy. Reid*s doctrines
were first Explained in his " Inquiry into the Human Mind," and
afterwards systematically expounded in his "Essay? on the In-
tellectual and Active Powers of Man." His position is essen-
tially controversial. He combats each of three schools of philosophy :
first, the Sensualistic, evolved out of Locke, which holds all our
ideas to be primarily derived from sensation ; secondly, the Ideal-
istic, in the form proposed by Berkeley, which, allowing the exist-
ence of mind, denies that of matter ; thirdly, the Sceptical, headed
by Hume, which denies that we can know anything at all. The
first of these doctrines, accordmg to Reid, overlooks important
elements of knowledge, and leads directly to the third; the
second is refuted by every man's consciousness; and the third
we cannot so much as assert, without contradicting that very asser-
tion. The positive doctrines of Reid*s own system could not be
understood without much explanation ; and his OAvn exposition of
them is very imperfect. Indeed the constant occurrence of polemi-
cal matter, and the repetitions which his Essays derived from their
original shape of Lectures, are the circumstances that chiefly injure
the literary value of the work. He is a bald and dry, but very

Wr *^

THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS.

353

clear and logical writer ; and never was there a more sincere lover
of truth, or a more candid and honourable, disputant. Uis slow and
patient thinking, notwithstanding a strong aversion to close analysiSi
led him to some very striking results, out of which his whole scheme
is developed. The originality of these is much greater than his
own manner of expounding them would lead us to suppose ; and
their importance in the history of philosophy may be estimated
from this fact, that Reid*8 metaphysical creed does really coincide
with the first and most characteristic step in that of his German
contemporary Kant.

7. It is satisfactory to find, among those we have learned to know
as leaders in philosophy, several who distinguished themselves also
as advocates of truths yet more precious.

The most valuable contributions to Theological Literature were
those which undertook to defend religion, natural and revealed,
both against the attacks of avowed infidelity, and against the more
insidious dangers that arose, towards the close of the century, from
the ferment of opinions communicated by the convulsions of the
tontinent. 'The series began with Campbell's excellently reasoned
" Essay on Miracles," an answer to the most popular of Hume's
arguments against revelation. Paley's three works of this class are,
all of them, standard authorities. In the "Horse Paulinas" he
proves, from undesigned coincidences, the genuineness both of Saint
Paul's Epistles and of the narrative given in the Acts of the Apos-
tles. His " View of the Evidences of Christianity" is chiefly cm-
ployed in establishing the credibility of the evangelists ; from which
must be inferred the truth of the gospel miracles, and from that
again the divine mission of the Saviour. His " Natural Theology"
is an illustration, alike skilful and interesting, of that which has
been called the & posteriori argument for the existence of the Su-
preme Being; an argument founded on the proofs of benevolent de-
sign manifested in the works of creation. Last of all we have Bishop
Watson's vigorous "Apology for Christianity," directed against Gib-
bon ; and his " Apology for the Bible," in which he answers, witli
equal force, the cavils of a more recent and less able adversary.

Among the other works of the times, in which theology was
treated scientifically, the most noticeable arc those which may be
described as Critical. Such were Bishop Lowth's refined and
tasteful " Lectures on the Poetry of the Hebrews," and his " Trans-
lation of the Prophet Isaiah." Of another temper, energetic and
original in thinking, and very powerfully suggestive of thought,
were the views set forth by Campbell, in his " Translation of the
Gospels," with its dissertations.

854

LAST AGE OF THE EIGUTEENTU CENTURY.

The press now teemed with Sermons, and gave forth also not a
few larger treatises on points of Practical Theology. Most of these,
however, do not exemplify so well the literary ability of the age, as
the increasing inclination of men^s minds to serious thought and
sentiment. Of the sermon-writers who were then most popular,
especially among educated persons, but whose works are now much
neglected, those whose literary merit is highest were Bishop Per-
teous and Dr Blair. An influence much more permanent has been
exerted by a class of religious writers, whose views had always
found literary representatives in the Church of England, but had
been more decisively expressed by the earlier Nonconformists:
writers whose ecclesiastical code was taught by Usher, not by
Laud ; writers whose confession of religious faith, not less than their
tone of religious feeling, was inherited from Usher and Owen, not
from Tillotson or South. Eminent among the most devout and
energetic teachers of religion in this devout and enei;getic school,
was John Newton of Olney, the spiritual guide of the poet Cowper.
We might refer either to the last century, or to the present, a
few other writings of no great literary merit, bearing the same hoA-
ourable stamp: the novels and miscellaneous works of Hannah
More ; Wilberforce's " Practical View of Christianity ; and " The
History of the Church of Chrbt*' by the brothers Mihaer.

POETICAL LITERATURE.

8. Sinking from theology to the Drama, we shall not be detained
long from other kinds of poetry. The only Tragedy of our forty
years which has really survived, is the " Douglas" of Home, whose
sweet melody and romantic pathos lose much of their effect through
its artificial monotony of tone, and its feebleness in the representa*
tion of character. Mason*s Caractacus, an historical tragedy with
a classical chorus, is memorable for the courage of the attempt.
Comedy, now always written in prose, was oftener successful, yet
not very often. There was no literary merit of a high kind in the
plays of the elder Colman, of Mrs Cowley, or of Cumberland. At
the beginning of the time, however, appeared the comedies of Gold-
smith, abounding (especially " She Stoops to Conquer") in humour,
variety of characterization, and lively and harmless gaiety. Later
comes Sheridan, with his unintermitted fire of epigrammatic witti-
cisms, his keen insight into the follies and weaknesses of society,
and his great ingenuity in inventing whimsical situations : qualities
which entitle him to be compared, in respect of literary skill, with
the comic writers of Congreve^s time ; while his moral tone, though
far from being actually impure, deserves no positive commendation.

THE POETRY OF GOLDSMITH.

85S

Of the Writers of Verse in the tima of Johnson^s old age, Gold-
mnith alone has achieved immortality. " The Traveller" and " The
Deserted Village'* cannot be forgotten, until the English tongue
shall have ceased to be understood. A pleasing poet, not a great
one, he was nevertheless greater than he or his friends knew. An
indescribable charm pervades those beautiful pieces of poetical de-
scription and reflection, so musical in versification, so vividly nat-
ural in scenery, so gently touching in sentiment. Both of them
were valued, in their own day, not for their poetical excellence only,
but for the principles which they maintained in regard to the or-
ganization of society. It is a fact not to be overlooked, by those
who assign a high rank to the didactic functions of the poet, that
Goldsmith did his best to teach a false political economy, while
Adam Smith was writing " The Wealth of Nations." *

* OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

Drom •• The Deserted Vittage.''

• In all my wanderings round this world of oarei

In all my griefs— and Qod has giren my 8har»—
I still had hopes my latest yeara to crown.
Amidst these hamble bowers to lay me down {
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting by repose.
I still had hopes, (for pride attends as still),
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill |
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt and all I saw.

And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursuef
Pants to the place from whence at first he fleW|
I still had hopes, my long vexations past.
Here to return — and die at home at last I

Oh blest retirement I Mend to life's decline I
Retreat from care, that never must be mine!
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like thesei
A youth of labour with an age of ease ;
Who quits a world where strong temptations try
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly I

For him no wretch is bom to work and weep
Explore the mine or tempt the dangerous deep
Ko surly porter stands in g^iilty state.
To spurn imploring Famine from the gate.
But on he moves to meet his latter end.
Angels around befriending virtue's friend ;
Binks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While Resignation gently slopes the way ;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last.
His Heaven commences ere the world be put I

866

LAST AOE or THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

9. The i'ouudations of a now poetical school were already laid.
Percy*i Collection of Reliques was published between Goldsmith's
two poems : and, a little earlier, Macpherson had electrified the re-
public of letters by " Fingal, an ancient Epic Poem." The atten-
tion bestowed, not altogether unworthily, on his Ossianic fragments,
was a hopeful symptom : so were the attempts made, though mainly
for political reasons, to push into fame the elegant but cold Epics
of Glover. The seed was sovm : but it was long in vegetating. In
onr own day we still encounter^ though not very often, verses of
some of the minor poets : such as Armstrong, Smollett, Langhome,
Warton, and Mason ; or Bruce, Logan, and Fergusson. Hoole trans-
lated Tasso and Ariosto very tamely from the Italian ; while the
"Portuguese poet Camoens was rendered by Mickle with spirit but
incorrectness. Some light poetical pieces of our own time, especially
satires of Moore, have been modelled on the comic rhymes of Anstey.

The short career of the unhappy Chatterton held out wonderful
promise, both of genius, and of the employment of it in a worthy
sphere. But, when we enter "The Botanic Garden'* of Darwui,
we find that we have been enticed back into the wildei^cM of
didactic verse : while this masterly versifier exemplifies also, almost
everywhere, one of the most common of poetical errors ; namely,
the attempt to make poetry describe minutely the sensible appear-
ances of corporeal objects, instead of being content with com-
municating the feelings which those objects awaken.
ft.i78S.\ Beattie's "Minstrel" presents a marked and agreeable
tf.i8oe. j contrast to Darwin. It is the outpouring of a mind exqui-
sitely poetical in feeling, and instinctively true to the just methods
of poetical representation. Many of his descriptions are most viv-
idly suggestive ; although his strength lies, not so much in illus-
trating external objects by describing the emotions which they
cause, as in the converse process of illustrating mental phenomena
by touches of external scenery. Indeed, his deficiency in keen ob-
servation of the material world is one of the pomts in which he falls
short of Goldsmith : and another is his want of that dramatic power,
by which a poet becomes qualified to represent the characters and
sentiments of others. The Minstrel is a kind of autobiography, au
analytic narrative of the early growth of a poet's mind and heart.
Taken all in all, it is one of the most delightful poems in our
language.*

• JAMES BEATTIE.

lirom " The Mnatrd: " Book FvrtU
Then grieve not, thou, to whom th' indalgeut Hme
Voaohsafes a portion of celestial fire :

10.

smith,

»■ 1781.1

favour

extendi

promise

genuine

istic fea

predece

tied and

verse, hi

venient,

yet great

and reiai

which ai

and not 1

cessful pi

life and n

of the d(

Thomson'

importanc

aim of a]

not a littlJ

assigned \

standing,

combining

Wyl or p

M
Oh,

THE POETRY OF COWPCB.

857

10. The poetical annals of our period, opening with Oliver Qold-
smith, close with William Cowpcr and Robert Bums.
». 1781.1 '^^ unequalled popularity, gained and still preserved by
(<. 1800./ Cowper*8 poems, is owing to several causes, besides the
favour which, in the rarity of good religious poetry, is so readily
extended to all productions of that class showing either power or
promise. The most powerful of these causes is, doubtless, their
genuine force and originality of poetical portraiture. The character-
ietic features which distinguish this renutfkable writer from his recent
predecessors are two. Refusing to confine himself to that digni-
tied and elaborate diction which had become habitual in English
verse, he unhesitatingly made poetry lue, always when it was con-
venient, the familiar speech of common conversation. He showed
yet greater boldness, by seeking to interest his readers in the scenes
and relations of every-day life, and in those objects of reflection
which are most strikingly real. Yet his language is often vulgar,
and not least so when his theme is most sublime ; and his most suc-
cessful passages, his minutely touched descriptions of familiar still-
life and rural scenery, are indeed strongly suggestive, but have little
of the delicate susceptibility of beauty which breathes through
Thomson's musings on nature. Wordsworth, who knew well the
importance of classifications of kind, as indicating the particular
aim of a poem, and thus modifying all its elements, experienced
not a little difiiculty in determining the genus to which should be
assigned Cowper*s masterpiece, "The Task." He regards it as
standing, along with " The Night-Thoughts," in a composite class,
combining the Philosophical Satire, the Didactic Poem, and the
Idyl or poem of deseription and reflection. The pioet*s para-

Nor blame the partial Fates, if they refuse
Th' imperial banquet and the rich attire :
Know thine own worth, and reverence the lyret

Wilt thou debase the heart which Qod refined?
No ! let thj Heayen-tanght soul to Heaven aspirei

To fiucy, freedom, harmony, resigned ;
Ambition's grovelling crew for ever left behind I

Oh, how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields!
The warbling woodlands, the resomiding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields ;
All tiiat the genial ray of morning gilds.
And all that echoes to the song of even ;
, All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven ; ,
Oh, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be for^venf

858

LAST AGE OP THE FIGHTEESTH CENTURY.

mount aim, in that work as elsewhere, is perhaps didactic: and
he often delights us most by exciting trains of thought and feel-
ing, which are not in any just sense poetical. This tendency
being united with his idiomatic plainness of style, we seem often as
if we were listening to an observant, thoughtful, and imaginative
speaker, who now argues and comments in sensible prose, and now
breaks out into snatches of striking and poetical verse. Yet, in
spite of these things, in spite of the frequent clumsiness of the
satire, and the painful impression caused by the gloom which some-
times darkens the devout rapture, the effect is such as only a
genuine poet could have produced.*

Perhaps it may be merely an eccentricity of taste, that here
suggests a protest on behalf of our poet's neglected version of
Homer in blank verse. His Iliad, it must be allowed, if it has the
simplicity of the original, wants its warlike fervour ; but we cannot

♦ WILLIAM COWPEB. *
Drom " The Winter Walk at Noon.''

There is in aools a sTmpathy with soonds ;
And, as the mind is pitch'd, the ear is pleased
With Jielting airs or martial, brisk or grave :
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within ns ; and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells.
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away ;
Now pealing load again, and loader still,
Clear and sonoroas, as tiie gale comes on t

With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.

• • • • «

The night was winter in his roughest mood,
The morning sharp and clear. But now, at noon,
Upon the southern side of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast,
The season smiles, resigning all its rage,
And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue
Without a cloud ; and white without a speck
The dauling splendour of the scene below.

Again the narmony comes o'er the vale
And through the trees I view th' embattled toweT}
Whence all the music. I again perceive
The soothing influence of the wafted strains ;
And settle in soft musings, as I tread •

The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms,
Wbo9e outspread branches overarch the glade.

help thii
above all
felicity oi
Our esi
love and
tion, and
reverent 1
will not b

*. 1769. 1 ^

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ijrrD»»

iUE POETRY OF BUBKS.

359

help thinking that the romantic adventures of the Odyssey, and,
above all, its descriptions of scenery, are rendered with exceeding
felicity of poetic effect.

Our estimate of Cowper*s poems is inevitably heightened by our
love and pity for the poet, writing, not for fame, but for consola-
tion, and uttering, from the depths of a half-broken heart, his
reverent homage to the pow^r of religious truth. Ou:* affection
will not be colder, and our compassion is tenfold more profoimd,
ft. 1769. ) "^l^en we contemplate the agit«ited and erring life of Robert
d. 1796. i Bums. Shutting our eyes to everything in his works that
is unworthy of him, and proud to know that in the rest a Scottish
peasant has given to the literature of the Anglo-Saxon race some of
its most precious jewels, we yet cannot but feel, that all which this
extraordinary man achieved was earnest of what !io might have done,
rather than performance aJequate to the power ^-..d the Vast variety
of his endowments. His Songs have entranced readers who were at
first repelled by their dialect ; and it is on these that his fame rests
most firmly. No lyrics in any tongue have a more wonderful union
of thrilling passion, melting tenderness, concentrated expressiveness
of laugiUige, and apt and natural poetic fancy. But neither the
song, nor any of the higher kinds of lyrical verse, could have given
scope for other qualities which he has elsewhere shown : his aptness
in seizing and representing the phases of human character; his
genial breadth and keenness of humour ; and the strength of creative
imagination with which he rises into the regions of the allegoric
and supernatural. The strange tale of " Tarn o* Shanter " is the
assay-piece of a poet, who, if bom under a more benignant star,
might perhaps have been a second Chaucer.

1 I

860

TDE NINETEENTH CENTDB7.

CHAPTEE XIIL

THE NINETEENTH CENTUBT.

SECTION nRST : CHARAGTEB AND CUANQEB OF THE PERIOD.

A. D. 1800— A. D. 1870.

1. General Character of the last Seventy Years — Three DiTlsions embraced
in the Period. — 2. Summary of the Imaginative Literature of the Period
— llevival and subsequent Development of Poetry — Rise and subsequent
Development of Modern Fiction. — 3. Summary of the Historical Litera-
ture of the Period — Historical Research. — 4. Summary of the Didactic
Prose of the Period — Revival and subsequent Development of Brititih
Philosophy.— 5. Foreign Influences affecting the Period— Contemporary
American Literature.

1. That portion of the Nineteenth Century which has already
elapsed has been fraught with changes powerfully affecting the
domain of letters. The progress of material prosperity and the
spread of education have quickened literary enterprise, and increased
the numbers of the cultured classes. With these external influ-
ences have co-operated such mechanical and legislative improve-
ments as the application of steam to printing, and the repeal of the
Newspaper Stamp Act and Paper-duty. We see the combined
results in the rapid rise and vast power of journalism, the diffusion
of useful knowledge, and the growth of cheap popular literature.

To a large extent the influences above mentioned have determined
the quantity of modern literature ; its quality is to be sought for
in internal and less obvious changes, which may be conveniently
studied by a division of the whole period into three generations.
The men of the first generation were directly influenced by the com-
plex issues of the French Revolution, and may be supposed in great-
est activity before 1830 ; those of the second witnessed mechanical
triumphs far more brilliant than the victories which fired the
patriotism of their immediate predecessors; while, from among
their survivors about the middle of the century we see a new genera-
tion of literary workers emerge to serve the cause of truth and
ait in a way and with a pu''pose of their own.

The p

■^f

CnARACTEtl AND CIIANOES OP THE PERIOD.

36t

From the English Caialoguu of Books and its supplements we
can form .a rough estimate of the quantity of recent literature. Its
statistics extend over a period of about forty years, during which
time it has recorded the publication of (approximately) 100,000
books, giving an average of 2500 annually. The entries for 1869
amount to 40G6, which number includes 1319 new editions and 397
American importations.

2. The remarkable poetical revival which ushered in the present
century is its most striking feature. The appearance of Words-
worth's Lyrical Ballads in 1798 was the first precise intimation of
the change. Wordsworth — with whom Coleridge was virtually
associated — by his own practice, and much critical exposition of its
principles, declared himself the apostle of this revival. He main-
tauicd, that from the Restoration to his own time there had been
no pure poetry in England. A refined poetic diction, fitted to
convey, grace "uUy and effectively, an artificially-constructed train
of thought, had uocn widely prevalent in the interval ; but it was
unaccompanied by any genuine emotion issuing naturally in met-
rical fc.vour. Though this is a partial statement of the facts,
Wordsworth's theory, with much inherent weakness and an incon-
sistent application of it by himself, lifted the poet into a freer and
more spu'itual atmosphere, and taught that effective ve; ?>e is the
^u:-: of feeling and retlection, warm from the presence of ni tire, and
J J l< Mired with the tints of actual sunlight. This revival, \t vever,
lay not so much with Wordsworth as with his time. Its .recise
origin would be hard to find. The French Revolution — thi t gi*im
protest against the conventional and the false — seems the most
notable external fact wherewith to connect it. Not Words vorth
alone, but all his contemporaries who contributed to the pc tical
revival, were powerfully affected by it. We see how thoroi ?hly
Byron and Shelley express the revolutionary spirit. No com der-
ations restrained them from carrying their art to its highest is ics.
With them, the vivid apprehension of external nature was fust \ in
the glow of intense personal feeling ; yet they also worked in he
direction of revival. To Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats, «ve
must look for the pure poetry of lifelike presentment, of sinr. ile
sensuous beauty, apprehended for its own sake. Individual difi ir-
ences apart, they agree in exemplifying that artistic realism wh ih
eschews everything not actually experienced by the senses a td
feelings of the artist. Their writings combined to give that co i-
plexion to tlie imaginative literature of the century which is si U
Its most essential feature.

The poetry of Scott sliows in yet another aspect that reviv jd

362

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

energy of tbe poetical faculty of \vhich we have been speaking.
His ballad restorations were more palpably novel and striking than
either the revolutionary passion of Byron, or the sensuous beauty
of Wordsworth and Keats. That subtle charm which invests the
archaic, and that vague grandeur in it which renders it so suitable
for poetic treatment, had never before been bodied forth by a ge-
nius so profoundly in sympathy with the age of romance. The Percy
Reliques had already turned attention to the antique; but that
work appealed more to literary dilettanti than to the general public.
It was reserved £of Scott to powerfully and profoundly interest his
generation in narrative poetry.

During the generation after Scott, the capacity of producing n
work of high art, combining grandeur of conception with power
and sweetness of execution, had either waned or been directed else-
where. Its poetry was chiefly lyric ; and, to a large extent, showed
the influence of Wordsworth and Keats. Wordsworth, indeed, a
literary recluse in whom the love of reflection was as strong as the
poetic faculty, directed his muse to didactic purposes, but this was
due to the bent of his mind, and even in his hands poetry of pur-
pose proved deficient in warmth and general interest. The succe&s
of poets like Moore and Campbell, Hogg and Cunningham, shows
that at this time the spirit of song was in the ascendant — a view
which is further borne out by the fact that the early pieces of
Tennyson, and the most of Mrs Browning's poetry, belong to the
second generation.

The presence of narrative verse is as conspicuous in the last
twenty years as its absence was in the preceding twenty. The
present laureateship has been characterized by a revival of the
antique, which recalls that of the first half of the century. But
genuine art repeats itself no more than nature does. The Arthurian
legends, in their subtle symbolism and weird glamour, are as unlike
as possible to the frank and well-defined narration of Scott's minstrel
lays. There is a significant coincidence in the fact that the second
half of the century opens, as the first did, with high-class narrative
poetry. But a still more conspicuous feature of recent poetry is
that intense spirit of metaphysical contemplation which pervades
it. The greatest living poets recur continually, with Hamlet-like
melancholy and mystery, to the simple fundamental themes of
death and immortaUty, of sin and Providence, of the limits of the
present and the hopes of the future.

We have seen how great the first age of the century was in
poetry. It was equally great in the kindred department of fiction.
Wh^n Scott, at the height of his reputation, cultivated imaginative

prose,

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"T-rr ■ \fi

CnARACTER AND CHANQES OF THE PERIOD.

863

the

lion.
Itive

prose, he was still exercising suhstantially the old and familiar art
of the bard. He had set to music the tourney, the chase, and the
battle ; he now resuscitated the past through the more sober me-
dium of prose, and on a wider scde. To him, on penning his first
romance, the chivalrous past ended sixty years before : — to us,
threescore years ago, a new pleasure was discovered in the art of
imaginatively representing real modern life under the guise of
Hction. Since his time, the novel has received developments
unknown to him. Dickens and Thackeray, and, more recently,
George Eliot and Charles Kingsley, have infused into it a more
genial humanity, a profounder philosophy, a higher and finer glow
of imagination ; yet it is fitting to connect with Scott the influence
and the worth of modern fiction. WhUe resuscitating the past, he
was conferring a boon on the future in which the whole range of
literature participated ; for the Waverley romance established this
important principle, that for immediate success, as well as lasting
profit, books must be interesting in the best sense — not relying oif
mere sensation, but on a genuine fascination. That books are now
more readable, more frank and candid, is in a large measure due to
that enchanting interest which the author of Waverley scattered,
broadcast over the literature of his time. Moreover, he taught
authors the art of reaching a wide audience, and producing an
immediate efiect ; out of which has been developed our popular
style of writing. The first magazine — the Gentleman's — had been
started in the preceding century by Cave, and the first review — the
Edinburgh — early in the present century, independently of Scott ;
but the popularity of his and kindred fiction, growing up alongs'ule of
these serials, gave a decided impetus to their development. A large
proportion of serial literature is fiction ; the remainder closely resem-
bles it in general sprightliness of manner. To such extraordinary
din.ensions has this species of writing now attained, that, during
the year 1869, there were published, in London alone, of monthly
magazines and serials, 372 ; of quarterlies, 72 ; of newspapers and
other periodicals, 298 ; making a total of 742.

3. The Historical Literature of the current century will here-
after command no small share of attention. Its growth was slower
than that of the department of imagination ; yet it exhibited the
same revived energy, enlightened art, and wide sympathy. It has
been characterized by unusual grace and precision of style, as well
«s by that scrupulous fidelity to fact which has given an impetus to
the collection of the materials of history, and to thoroughness in
the handling of them. Hallam cultivated history with calm and
patient judgment; Macauiay infused into it the brilliance and

364

TOE MINETEENTB CENTURY.

effectiveness of the orator and the critic; while Carlyle carl/
diverted a remarkably speculative mind from systematic philosophy
to historical narration of a peculiar kind, revealing in its every page
a profound ethical meaning and painstaking thoroughness of treat-
ment.

Not less remarkable is the labour which has been directed to the
collection of historical facts. Numerous archaeological societies
have devoted time, money, and talent to literary work of this kind :
Government has contributed by the calendaring of the State papers
— ^a work contemplated about the middle of last century ; while a
wider search has recently been undertaken by the Historical
Commission, which purposes to produce from monasteries, ancient
burghs, and the seats of noble families, the fullest possible evidence
before the bar of historical inquiry.

4. The Philosophy, like the History of the century, was long in
experiencing that general intellectual revival which followed the
French Revolution. Its new energies came from Germany ; and,
hardly noticeable during the first age, were in full force during the
second. At the hands of Hamilton and J. S. Mill, Philosophy

' received original and potent developments. Like general literature,
Philosophy has, especially since 1848, tended towards practical
ends. It has set more strongly than ever in the direction
of Ethics and Theology, and has assumed novel forms, devoted ,
specially to the elucidation of the principles of government, as well
as of those rights and duties which a refined society and intricate
commercial system evolve.

5. We find that during this century, as heretofore, our literature
has been peculiarly sensitive to foreign influences. In the depart-
ment of imagination, these have been comparatively slight, though
the early Italian poetry and Norse legends have powerfully affected
some of onr greatest minds. We can trace the influence of Goethe's
" Wilhelm Aleister '* in a peculiar variety of fiction both in proso
and verse. In Philosophy, Theology, Criticism, and Philology, the
teaching and speculation of Germany, and latterly of France, have
been very conspicuous. We have proLted much by that German
criticism which Coleridge first taught us vo underhand, though the
influence of France is at the present time most potent. But it is
with the thinkers of Germany that we have been made most
familiar. Humboldt, Bunsen, and Maz Mtiller, are as well known
as English authors. Of all our own writers, no one has been so
much in sympathy with the German mind as Carlyle, or with that
of France as J. S. Mill. They are the best native representatives
of these respective foreign influences.

here.

f|F^,

CUABACTER AND CHANGES OF TUE PLUIOD.

3G5

Contemporary American literature is semi-foreign to us. Its
growth, entirely confined to the present century, has not so much
affected the native mind as imparted elements natural in a literature
cultivated under social and physical condition's dissimilar to our
own. In the following pages only such Transatlantic authors can
be noticed as are well known here. On the whole, the literary
activity of the United States is unequal to the extent and resources
of the country. During the year 1869 there were (approximately)
2406 new works produced in America — being scarcely more than half
of the number published in Great Britain. In America, fiction
heads the list with above one-third of the whole, theology contribut-
ing about one-tenth ; while here fiction is represented by about one-
tenth, and theology by one-fourth. In America, works of fiction
are seven times as numerous as those of poetry and the drama :
herO; they are less than twice. These facts bear out the general
impression of American literature — that its best energies are en-
grossed by journalism and similar litcraiy pursuits.

r^/

866

THC FinST AGE OF TUE NINETEENTH CENTUBT.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

SECTION SECOND : THE POETKY OF THE HEST AGS.

A. D. 1800— A. D. 1830.

George III 1800-1820.

George IV 1820-1830.

1. First Group of Leading Poets — Campbell.— 2. Southey.— 3. Second
Group — Scott and Byron.— 4. Scott's Characteristics and Works.— 5.
Byron's Characteristics, Ethical and Poetical.— 6. Third Group— Coleridge
and Wordsworth— Coleridge's Genius and Works.— 7. Wordsworth— Fea-
tures of his Poetical Character. — 8. Wordsworth— His Poetical Theory-
Its rffect on his Works.— 9. Fourth Group— Wilson— Shelley— Keats.—
10. Crabbe and Moore — Dramatic Poems — Miscellaneous Names — Sacred
Poetry— Contemporary American Poetry.

1. In the illustrious band of poets, who enriched the literature of
our language during the first generation of the present century,
there are four who have gained greater fame than any others, and
exercised greater influence on their contemporaries. These are,
Wordsworth and Coleridge, Scott and Byron ; and they, although
each is individually unlike all the rest, might yet, in respect of their
ruling spirit and tendencies, be classed in pairs as they have now
been ntimed. Others, however, are hardly less distinguished : and
all whose works call for exact scrutiny may conveniently be distri-
buted in Four Groups.

In the first of these stand Thomas Campbell and Robert Southey,
writers very dissimilar to each other, but differing as widely from
all their contemporaries.

b. nrr. \ We should hardly expect that the character of Campbell's
*i844.j works would have been other than it is, though he had
begun his career thirty years earlier. His larger poems would have
deliglited all who loved the few pieces truly poetical which that
time produced. But to no one living then, would it have occurred
to hail him as tlie precursor of a new school ; and no one living now
woul4 have wondered to see such compositions as his, succecdmg

or accoi

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TUB POETRY OF CAMl'ItCLL AND SOUTUEY.

8G7

or accompanying those of Goldsmith and Gray. He employed, as
they did, an unusually delicate taste, in elaborating his verses, both
in diction and melody, with the minute care of execution which had
been an orthodox requirement since the days of Queen Anne ; and
to the descriptive poems of the former of the two his earliest and
best work bore a likeness in tone, though it was more vigorous
in fancy and less so in reflection. In narrative, Campbell is, at
the best, slow and unimpressive : quick sympathy with energetic
action is scarcely traceable, unless in the flashes of enthusiasm
which light up his nutrtial odes ; and even of these fine lyrics
there is not one, perhaps, into which there does not irtrude some
heavy or feeble phrase, a token that the flame is flickering and
growing dim.

It is a fact not without a meaning, that, while his " Pleasures of
Hope " was written between youth and manhood, the " Gertrude
of Wyoming," the latest of his productions that is worthy of him,
had appeared before he was much past his thirtieth year. The
reason may suggest itself if we remember, on how slender a thread of
origmal or coherent thinking are strung the jewels of fancy and
feeling, that make the charm of the earlier, which is also by much the
more vigorous, of the two poems. Not only does it fail to redeem
the promise of its title ; but its beautiful descriptions, and its reflec*
tions and sentiments, (often deeply touching, but as often very trite,)
are related to each other by no unity of purpose, or by none but
such as depends on the most casual and indistinct asso'^.iations. His
mind, deficient in manly vigour of thought, had worked itself out in
the first few bursts of youthful emotion. But no one has clothed,
with more of romantic sweetness, the feelings and fancies which
people the fairy-land of early dreams; and no one has thrown
aroimd the enchanted region a purer atmosphere of moral contem-
plation.

(. 1774. > ^' Southey, with an ethical tone higher and sterner than
d.i8i3.j Campbell's, offers in every other feature a marked contrast
to him. He is rough and careless in working up details : he in-
dulges in no poetical^ reveries, and scorns everything approaching
to sentimentalism : he throws off rapid sketches of human action,
embellished with great pomp of external imagery, interesting through
grandeur and seriousness of feeling, and seldom touching the key of
the pathetic. In much of this, he is the man of his own age : but
he is above his age in one view, in respect of which he has not
received justice. Writing narrative poetry before any of his cele-
brated contemporaries had entered the ground, he stood solitary
among them to the last : the only poet of his day who strove to

808 TUB FIKST AOK OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

emulate the great masters of epic song ; the only one who took pains
to give his works external symmetry of plan ; the only one who at-
tempted bestowing on a poem an internal unity, by making it the
representative of one leading idea. This, it must firmly be main-
tained, is a loftier and worthier theory of poetic art, than that which
ruled the irregular outbursts of Scott and Byron. But it may he
that the aspiration was too ambitious for the time : it was certainly
far above the competency of the aspircr. The reflective skill of the
artist was insufficiently supported by the native temperament uf the
poet. Southey wanted spontaneous depth of sympathy : his emo-
tion has the steady and measured flow of the artificial canal, not tlie
leaping gush of the river in its self-worn channel. His imagination,
likewise, is full and picturesque, rather than original : he couhl
elaborate fine images out of objects whose poetical relations are
obvious ; but he was not gifted with the strong and exquisite sense,
which discerns poetical elements in things seemingly unpoetical.

In two of his three best poems, he has imitated his epic models
in a fashion which cools all but highly imaginative readers. He
has founded the interest mainly on supernatural agency, and that
of a kind which not only is obscure to most of us, but cannot com-
mand so much as a momentary belief of reality. The novelty whicli
he desired to gain is purchased at an extravagant price : the splen-
did panoramas pass away like the figures of a magic lantern. In
his Arabian tale, " Thalaba the Destroyer," we are placed amidst
the array of striking superstitions which surrounds the Deism of
Mahomet: and the scattered rays of truth and goodness, which
twinkle through the darkness of the false creed, are concentrated in
a series of scenes, whose moral dignity of thought, and solemn por-
traiture of conscientious self-sacrifice, cannot fail to impress us
vividly ; if only we are ablo to make ourselves at home among the
witches and talismans, the fallen angels who haunt the ruins o<
Babylon, and the gigantic brood of sorcerers who fill the lurid
caverns stretching under the roots of the ocean. " The Curse of
Kehama," relating a story yet more touching, and adorned with
passages of great tenderness, tries us still more severely, by seeking
to interest us in the monstrous and mischievous fables of the Hindoo
mythology. The supernatural machinery, and the bold use of the
lyrical metres, are alike abandoned in the blank- verse epic, " Rode-
rick, the Last of the Goths." It is much to be regretted that the
choice of a story, containing circumstances irrem ;alably revolting,
should deform this noble poem, which is otherwise the fairest proof
the author has given Qf the practicability of his enlightened poetig
theory.

THE POETRY OP SIR WALTER BCOTT.

369

3. Oar second groap of poets will, (unless Moore ought to find a
place in it,) contain only Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, who
were ia succession the most popular of all, and owed their popularity
mauily to characteristics which they had in common.

They are distinctively the poets of active life. They portray,
in spirited narrative, idealized resemblances of the scenes of reality ;
events which arise out of the universal relations of society, hopes
and fears and wishes which are open to the consciousness of all
mankind. Were it not for some higher flights which Byron took,
inspired from without rather than from within, we might say of
them, without exception, what is true of him generally ; that they
neither aspired to the praise of wedding poetry with abstract
thought, nor ascended into those secluded walks of fanciful musing,
in which none delight but minds very finely toned.

Both of them have described some of their works as tales ; and
it has been said of Scott, while it might with not less truth have
been said of Byron, that his works are romances in verse. It is
unquestionable, that they have neither the elevation nor the regu-
larity belonging to the highest kind of narrative poetry ; and, while
the poems of the one are in many points strikingly analogous to his
own historical novels, those of the other often de ve their popular
attractiveness from sources of interest nearly akm to that which
prevails in less worthy works of fiction.

But the model of both poets was something different from the
regular epic ; and, if there must be a comparison, the standard is
to be sought elsewhere. Scott, fondly attached to the early litera-
ture of the land, began his authorship, in " The Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Bordar," with the republication and imitation of ancient
ballads ; and he avowedly designed his poems as restorations, with
changes suited to modem tastes, of a very interesting class of
poems with which he was not less familiar. His originals were the
Romances of Chivalry ; and, after the extraordinary success of his
attempts at embodying the chivalrous and national idea, nothing
was more natural than that tlie example should be applied, by
Byron as well as by others, in the construction of narratives
founded on a different kind of sentiments. The likeness to the
old romances wan completed by the adoption of their most usual
measure, the couplet of lines in eight syllables or four accents.
This metre, although long in use, had recently been held fit only
for comic rhyming or lyrics : a poet of Johnson's time would no
more have thought of using it for a long and serious narrative,
than of choosing the common measure of the psalms. But it is
not to be forgotten that the idea of imitatmg the romances, as

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370

THE FIRST AGE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

well as the use of their metre and the accentual way of treating it,
belongs really to Coleridge, whose " Cliristabel " was the immediate
model of Scott's earliest tale.

It was to be expected, and it was right, that compositions of this
sort, executed admirably by both writers, should gain extensive
popularity. It may be that the audience was the larger, because no
heavy demand was made on them for reflection or fine feeling.
■ IJut the public, in preferring narrative poems to philosophical ones,
were vmwittingly affirming a sound critical principle. On the other
hand, it was not to be wondered at, though both of the poets them-
selves flagged and grew weary, in treading again and again so nar-
row a round. It was in the course of things that Scott, finding in
his first field no scope for some of his best and strongest powers,
should turn aside to lavish these without hindrance on his prose
romances. It was in the course of things that Byron, as his know-
ledge grew and his meditations became deeper, should rise from
Turkish tales to the later cantos of Childe Harold.
b. 1771. 1 ^' ^^ ^^^ neither rate Scott's originality high enough,
d. 1832. J nor perceive exactly how it was that his poems became so
popular, unless we remember that he was the earliest adventurer
in a region hitherto unknown ; and that, on his first appearance,
he stood, in the eye of the world at large, quite unaccompanied.
It was another key that had been struck in " The Pleasures of
Hope:" " Thalaba" had been published, only to be neglected: and
** Chri;- label," though already written, was known but to a few men
of letters. No note of preparation \id.d been sounded unless by Scott's
own " Minstrelsy," when, in 1805, he broke in on the public with
his series of poetical narratives. In these he appealed to national
sympathies through ennobling historic recollections ; he painted the
externals of scenery and manners with unrivalled picturesqueness; he
embellished with an infectious enthusiasm all that was generous and
brave in the world of chivalry ; and he seldom forgot to dress out the
antique in so much of modem trappings, as might make it both intel-
ligible and interesting. " The Lay of the Last Minstrel," really, as
he himself called it, " a romance of border-chivalry, in a light-horse-
man sort of stanza," has not only a more continuous fervour and
a more consistent unity than its successors, but is more faithful to
the character of its ancient models : and it is faithful to them with-
out injury to the interest of the poem with modern readers, in almost
all points except its use of the supernatural, which is exceedingly
clumsy. "Marmion" is otherwise designed: it seeks to combine
the cliivalrous romance with the metrical chronicle ; a union neither
impossible nor witliout old preQedent, but hero very far from being

TIIE POETRY OP SIR WALTER SCOTT.

vrell-executed. The blot by which the work is most deeply defaced,
was pointed out, on its appearance, in a famous criticism which gave
much offence to the poet. It lies in the degradation of the nommal
hero, and in the every-day and prosaic nature of some of the offences
he is made to commit. But the poem abounds in very striking
passages: the battle of Flodden is especially grand. "There is,"
says the author of the critique just referred to, " a flight of five
or six hundred lines, in which he never stoops his wing or
wavers in his course ; but can-ies the reader forward with a
more rapid, sustained, and lofty movement, than any epic bard
we can at present remember." * " The Lady of the Lake" is more
original in conception : it is a kind of romantic pastoral: and a
good deal of vagueness, both in character and in narrative, is hidden
from us by the charm of its magnificent landscapes, and the cheer-
ful airiness of the sentiment and adventures. " Rokeby" is a Wav-
erly novel in verse, without the liveliness, but overflowing with
couplets poetically pointed : and " The Lord of the Isles" is hardly
more than a spirited metrical chronicle, deserving, in the circum-
stances, infinitely less praise than its model, the " Bruce " of Bar-
bour. It may be through an oddity of taste, that some of us seem
to pepcei^ie a new blazing up of the ancient spirit, in those wild and
irregular sketches of Scandinavian and chivalrous superstitions,
which are contained in " Harold the Dauntless" and " The Bridal
of Triermain." Published anonymously, as the writer's first exper-
iment of the kind, they were supposed to be imitations, and suffered
a neglect which confirmed Scott's intention of deserting composition
in verse : and the preponderance of the supernatural machinery in
the stories of both must always prevent them from being generally
agi-eeable or interesting. But nowhere does the poet seem more at
home, than in the romantic scenes which he there painted.
b. 1788. > ^' "^^^ moral faults of Byron's poetry became, unfortu-
d. 1824.]" nately, more glaring as he grew older. Starting with the
carelessness of Ul-trained youth in regard to some of the most seri-
ous of all truths, he provoked censure without scruple, and was cen-
sured not without caprice : and thus, being placed speedily in a
dangerous and false position, he hardened himself into a contempt
for the most sacred laws of society, or at least made a point
of professing such contempt in his later writings. The closing
scenes of his short life give reason for a belief, that purer and more
elevated views were beginning to dawn on his mind : but he died
before the amendment had found its way into his literary efforts.

* Lord Joflrey i Contributions to tlie Edinburgh Review.

872

TUE FIRST AGE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY.

His wanton disregard for the distinction between right and wrong
is nowhere paraded so obtrusively, as in one of his last works,
which is also the most decisive proof of his genius; a work,
indeed, in which his poetical powers appeared not so properly to
have reached maturity, as to show a new and wider development.
But his earlier poems themselves, which are in the hands of every
one, cannot be named to the young without a word of warning.
From Scott, it is true, we receive no lofty lessons of morality : but
with him no great law of ethics is set at nought. His brilliant
rival endeavours assiduously to inculcate lessons which are posi-
tively bad. The root of his delinquency is laid bare by one of the
ablest as well as most friendly of his critics. It did not consist m
Ills continually choosing for representation scenes of violent passion
and guilty horror : it lay deeper than in his theatrical fondness
for identifying himself with his misanthropes, and pirates, and
seducers. These were ethical faults, as well as poetical errors : but
he sinned more grievously still, against morality as against possibil-
ity, by mixing up, incessantly, in one and the same character, the
utmost extremes of virtue and vice, of generosity and ferocity, of
lofty heroism and sensual grossness. " It is still worse when he
proceeds to show, that all these precious gifts, of dauntless courage,
strong affection, and high imagination, are not only akm to guilt,
but the parents of misery ; and that those only have any chance of
tranquillity or happiness in this world, whom it is the object of his
poetry to make us shun and despise." *

Thus equivocal, or worse than equivocal, as a teacher, in his prac-
tice of an art which cannot but teach indirectly through its excite-
ment of the imagination, Byron fixes his suggestive pictures with
an extraordinary impressiveness. Narrow in his range of thought,
and very often really commonplace in its results; monotonously
gloomy in his models of character, and never able to pass a step
beyond the self-drawn circle ; and stooping frequently t6 seek for
soivces of excitement among the very dregs of human nature : he
yet, by a rare union of faculties, vindicates his poetic power over
the very readers who struggle agamst it. He excelled all the poets
of his tune, beyond the reach of comparison, in impassioned strength,
varying from vehemence to pathos : he was excelled by very few ot
them in his fine sense of the beautiful : and his combination of pas-
sion with beauty, standing unapproached in his own day, has hardly
ever been surpassed. His originality, likewise, is great, though
ilttiuaed in an odd way. In his tales he modelled freely after Cole-

* X^ord Jeffirey : Contributions to the Edinburgh Beviow.

ridge and

the Pilgri

the mock

ventive m

air; he ra

from a ha

a melody i

His Ta](

sages, yet,

than his oj

by the Iov<

Cantos of i

thought an(

its shortcon

his poetical

of the poetj

the man.

6. We pa
In it are wri
liam Words^
elements of ]
impulse^hic
of them^in(
rity, which :
Byron's melo
poets of imag
whatever m&y
ideal elevatioi
Coleridge maj
from the verj
since been woi
&• 1772. ) "We

all drawbacks,

of its thinkers

poetical chara(

him in his hapi

giiage, perliapj

affluence of imj

and romanticaU

variety, trains

frequent tone

It is a kind of

c
c

HIHiii

■iiiMi

BYRON AND COLERIDGE.

873

ridge and Scott : and it would be difficult to say how veiy much
the Pilgrimage owes to Wordsworth. But he did not borrow as
the mocking-bird, merely repeating the notes ; nor y§t as the in-
ventive musician, who draws out admu-able variations from a given
air : he rather resembles one who watches a few striking movements
from a half-heard strain of distant music, and constructs on these
a melody which is all his own.

His Tales, though they contain some of his most beautiful pas-
sages, yet, except Parisina and The Prisoner of Chillon, rise seldomer
than 1^ other poems into that flow of poetic imagery, prompted
by the loveliness of nature, which he had aUempted in the first two
Cantos of Childe Harold, and poured forth with added fulness of
thought and emotion in the last two. Manfred, however, with all
its shortcomings, is perhaps the work which most adequately shows
his poetical temperament. And the Tragedies, though not worthy
of the poet, are, of all his works, those which do most honour to
the man.

6. We "pass to the third section in our honoured file of poets.
In it are written the names of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Wil-
liam Wordsworth ; men endowed pre-eminently with the distinctive
elements of poetry, and communicating to their contemporaries an
impulse^hich, sooner or later, was decisively paramount. Neither
of them^ined, or used the means of gaining, the general popula-
rity, which followed Scott*s tales of battle and adventure, and
Byron's melodramatic mysteries. They are characteristically the
poets of imagination, of reflection, and of a tone of sentiment, which,
whatever may have been their own aim, owes its attraction to its
ideal elevation. Admired and emulated by a few zealous students,
Coleridge may be said to have virtually become the poetical leader
from the very begmning of his age ; and effects yet wider have
since been worked by the extended study of Wordsworth.
6. 1772.) We cannot err in regardmg Coleridge as the most origi-
<j.i834.]" nai among the poets of his very original time : and, with
all drawbacks, he may as safely be ranked among the most original
of its thinkers; a &ct bearing, at more points than one, on hia
poetical character. The fragmentary lyrical dreams which visited
him in his happiest moods of inspiration are unequalled in our lan-
guage, perliaps not equalled in any other, for their overflowing
affluence of imagery, so solemnly and deeply meditative, so purely
and romantically beautiful, and suggesting, with such intensity and
variety, trains of novel thought and of touching emotion. His most
frequent tone of feeling is very peculiar, but hardly dcscribable.
It is a kind of romantic tenderness or melancholy, often solemi.ized

374

TIIK FIKST AOE OF TUB NINETEENTH CENTURY.

by an intense access of profound awe. This fine passion is never
breathed out so finely, as when it is associated with some of his airy
glimpses of external nature : in these it colours every one of the
forms which possessed his teeming fantasy. Nor is his power of
suggestive sketching more extraordinary than his immaculate taste
and nervous precision of language. His images are often obscure,
and as often owe their beauty to the moonlight haze in which they
float : they are very seldom obscure through faults of diction, and
never degraded through such faults.

It would be impossible for any one, except another Coleridge, to
say what would have been the character, or what the merit, of any
great work which Coleridge might have executed. But it is disap-
pointing to remember that this gifted man did execute nothing more
than fragments. His life ebbed away in the dangerous happiness of
contemplating undertakings still to be achieved. His fault was
hardly to be called indolence, but rather an habitual weakness of
will. The most powerful of all his works, the romance ojf " Chris-
tabel," the prompter both of Scott and of Byron, was thrown aside
when scarce begun, and stands as an interrupted vision of myste-
rious adventures and strange horrors, clothed in the most exquisite
and appropriate fancies. His tragedy of " Remorse" is full of poetic
pictures, which are very fine, though not so characteristiMps many
others which he designed. In " Tlie Ancient Mariner, if any-
where, he has learned from Wordsworth, and not to his profit. The
idea of calling up all its awful pageantry of evil to punish tlie
thoughtless slaughter of a bird, teaches, no dovibt, a good moral
lesson, but involves a puerility which is not redeemed by the foun-
dation it has in the superstitions of the sailor : and the incongruity
between the cause and the consequence concurs with the profuse
introduction of the supernatural, in injuring the effect of this most
suggestive and original composition.

If one were condemned to forget all Coleridge's poems except a
few, there are pex'haps three that would best keep in mind the varie-
ties of his genius. The highly poetical " Ode to the Departing
Year " shows his force of thought and moral eainestness : " Kubla
Khan," which is literally the record of a dream,, represents, in its
gorgeous incoherence, his singular power of lighting up landscapes
with thrilling fancies ; and " The Dark Ladye" is one of the most
tender and romantic love-poems ever framed.
b. mo.\ 7. The name of Wordsworth cannot be pronounced with-
4.1600. j* out an admiration and respect not easily to be chilled, but
a little apt to be so by the reaction which ensues, when all bounds
t^Q overleaped by his undiscriminating eulogists. A prodigality of

praU
theli
ence
manli
and J
seekL
to th
arisinj
the la
taste 1
poems
The
wearie
of run
truly p
of the «
part, a:
wild fl<
or the
hills: a
these ol
of expre
ferprete
dignity
descripti
conceive
sages in
templRti(
which th
sion. Y
tensely 8(
pathos^ ;
what are
the delinc
recent po
an incapa
the conce
unpassion
not but fa
than his i
terspersed
" The Wl
AJmostall

Wordsworth's poetry.

375

cept a
varie-
parting
Kubla
, in its
iscapes
e most

praise, not justly due even to Milton, has been heaped on him during
the last few years of his life, and ever since. Yet this overddhe rever-
ence for a man of great genius and far-reaching views, a lover of
mankind, and a reformer in poetical art, is an error of a generous
and pleasing kind, and might be passed over silently were not the
seeking after truth a duty in all things. It is a wliimsical sequence
to the neglect and ridicule which he long suffered; the former
arising inevitably for * time out of the character of his w^orks, and
the latter being (it must be said) merited by eccentricities both of
taste and judgment, such as never perhaps deformed any other
poems of equal merit.

The most obvious feature in Wordsworth is the intense and un-
wearied delight which he takes in all the shapes and appearances
of rural and mountain scenery. He is carried away by a rapture
truly passionate, when he broods over the grandeur and loveliness
of the earth and air : his verse lingers with a fond reluctance to de-
part, and dwells agam with pleased repetition and return, on the
wild flower, or the misty lake, or the sound of the wailing blast,
or the gleam of sunshine breaking through the passes among the
hills : and the thoughts and feelings, for the suggestion of wliich
these objects are cherished, flow forth with an abstracted enthusiasm
of expression, which, in a man less pious and rational, might be in-
terpreted as a raising of the inanimate world to a level with human
dignity and intelligence. Many of the analogies involved in such
descriptions of his, are among the most originally and poetically
conceived, and the most exquisitely apt in diction, of all metrical pas-
sages in our language. The tone which prevails, again, in his con.-
tempMion of mortal act and suffering, is a serene seriousness, on
which there never breaks in any thing rightly to be called pas-
sion. Yet tit often rises, especially in religious musing, into an in-
tensely solemn awe, and is not less often relieved by touches of a quiet
pathos. In learning what are the poet's feelings, we have learned
what are those of his personages when he introduces any: for, wliile
the delineation of character is not the strong point with any of our
recent poets, none of them, not Byron himself, has had so thorough
an incapacity as Wordsworth of throwing himself dramatically into
the conception of characters different from his own. With this un-
impassioned temperanient, and this self-absorbed rigidity, he can-
not but fail in narrating events with spirit : nothing can be heavier
than his sustained attempts at narrative, such as those which, in-
ter'spersed with fine meditation and fancy, make up the staple in
" The White Doe of Rylstone." But the attempt is seldom made.
Almost all his poems might be called, as he has himself called one sec-

1:1:1

: If'-'

376

THE FIRST AGE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY.

tioD of them, " poems of sentiment and reflection." They are lyrical,
descriptive, or didactic, or a union of the three; and his ovin ambi-
tion was that of being, in all that he did, worthy of being honoured
as a philosophical poet. Few have so well deserved the name as he
has, by the labours of a studious and reflective lifetime, devoted with
conscientious ardour to the service of poetic art*, andtp the teachmg,
through picture and feeling, of lessons ministering to the happiness
and virtue of mankind. His unceasing syn^athy with the every,
day interests of life, while it has produced some of his faults, has
brought out his greatest strength both of thought and of invention:
and nowhere is he more energetic or more truly poetical, than when
he is sedulously occupied in obeying his own maxim, that " poetry
is most just to its divine origin, when it administers the comforts
and breathes the spirit of religion." •.

8. It is not surprising that a man like Wordsworth, living and
meditating in seclusion, should have constructed his works, or per-
suaded himself that he constructed them, in obedience to a system-
atic theory of poetical art. But we might not easily have inferred,
from the works themselves, what the theory was. He has ven-
tiured on the hazardous step of informing us : and, while a study of
his declared eesthetical principles is one of the most instructive
employments in wliich mature students of literature could engage,
one or two points require attention from all who would rightly
estimate his poems.

Nothing can be better than his leading doctrines, especially the
law on which he so anxiously insists, that all poetry is laid under
" a necessity of producing immediate pleasure;" or that, as he
otherwise phrases it, " the end of poetry is to produce excitement
in co-existence with an overbalance of pleasure." This great the-
orem, although now perhaps it is seldom disputed in words, is yet so
apt to be mbunderstood or forgotten, that it cannot be pondered tgo
carefully. The enunciation of it comes with especial force from the
lips of a philosophical poet, who aimed undeviatingly at causing
poetry to become, by every method consistent with the observance
of the primary rule, the instructor and refiner of the noblest faculties
of man^s nature. Not less valuable are the specifications and corol
laries with which the central truth is fenced and illustrated. There
is greater room for controversy in some of those views which were
first proposed by the writer himself, and to which he was led Dy a
just scorn for the endeavours, current among the weaker pupils in
the school of Pope, to manufacture poetry by mere skill in the choice
and collocation of words. He was thus tempted, in the furthest
step of his reasoning, to something not unlike the very equivocal

MMI

Mil' ""\^ '>

WORDSWORTH'S POETICAL THEORY.

377

assertioD, that the poet's function is limited to an exact representa-
tion of the natural and real ; a heresy which his own best pieces of
verse triumphantly refute. In detail, however, he sought to make
this rule operative by a choice, both of subjects and of diction,
which, it must reluctantly be confessed, issued too often in nothing
better than triviality and meanness. This paradoxical opinion of
his, his grave self-esteem, and the peculiarities of thinking and
sentiment arising out of a secluded and meditative life, co-operated
in making him deliberately present to us many passages, and some
entire poems, which it is really difficult to read with seriousness. Still
oftener they gave birth to thoughts and expressions, which, like ec-
centricities in conduct, seem, in the mass, absurd to a large majority
of men ; but each of which, when regarded by itself, strikes an
answering chord in the breasts of many, who share more or less in
the unusual habit or taste that dictated it.

It is thus that opinions so diverse have been caused, and the feel-
ings of different readers so diversely affected, by his early works
the " Lyrical Ballads,*' and by others of the same cast. There is
hardly one of these, along which there does not glance some bril-
liant ray of poetic light : but, even in those throughout which
the ethereal illumination is purest and most steady, shadows flit in-
trusively across, sometimes offending the eyes of all, at other times
not perceptible to those who are accustomed to them. It would
probably be impossible to name any of those smaller poems, which
would not be pronoimced and felt by many readers to possess
faultless beauty, and by many others to have their beauty irre-
trievably marred by some of the characteristic blemishes. It may
be enough to cite, as instances, the pastoral ballad of " The Pet-
Lamb," the solemn " Thanksgiving Ode," and even " The Thorn."
The lovely " Ruth " herself, and " The Seven Sisters," do not pass
uncensured. The three poems on " Yarrow," and some of the
larger ones, would perhaps be more fortunate, though really less fine :
and the adoption of the longer forms of metre, such as the ten-syl-
labled rhymes, or the heroic blank-verse, acts on the poet, almost
uniformly, as a spell which exorcises all oddity and affectation.
" Laodamia " and " Dion" are classical gems without a flaw : and many
of the Sonnets unite original thought, poetic vividness, and symme-
try of parts, with a perfection hardly to be surpassed. Above all,
"The Excursion" rolls on its thousands of blank- verse lines with
the soul-felt harmony of a divine hymn, pealed forth from a cathe-
dral-organ. We forget the insignificance and want of interest char-
acterizing the plan, which embraces nothing but a three days' walk
among the mountains : we refuse to be aroused from our trance oi

878 TUB FIRST AGE OF TIIK NINETEENTH CENTUUY.

meditative pleasure by the occasional tediousncss of dissertation :
and we are startled but for a moment by the poet's repe.ited de-
mand on us, to regard tliis as only one part of a gigantic philosophi-
cal poem. In that vast undertaking were to be included "The
Prelude" and the portions unpublished at the time of his deatli ;
and the completion of it was superseded only by the incorpo-
ration of many of its materials in his other works. The Excursion
abounds in verses and phrases which, once heard, are never for-
gotten : and it contams not a few long trains of poetical musing,
through which the poet moves with a majestic fulness of reflection
and imagination, not paralleled, by very far, in any thing else of
which our century can boast.

9. John Wilson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Jolm Keats, make
up our fourth poetical group. They are pkced together as bearing,
in essentials, a likeness to Coleridge and Wordsworth rather than
to others.

b. 1785. ) The poetry of Professor Wilson is in its substance the
d. 1854. j" voice of imagination and sentiment, with an under-current
of reflection which seems as if it were kept down by an apprehensive
intuition of its possible incongruity with the elements that are pre-
dominant. In form, his principal works depart from that to wliich
he might have been expected to incline. " The Isle of Palms " is a
narrative romance of shipwreck and island-solitude, full of rich pic-
tures and delicate pathos, and treating the short stanza of Coleridge
and Scott with very ingenious varieties of melody. " The City of
the Plague " is a scries of dramatic scenes, representing, with very
great depth of emotion, a domestic tragedy from the Plague of Lon-
don. Both in the warm love of nature, and in the ruling tone of
feeling, Wilson is more like to Wordsworth than to any other of his
contemporaries : but no poet ever admired another with such rever-
ence, yet imitated him so very little. There prevail, everywhere, an
airiness and delicacy of conception which are very fascinating ; and
the tender sweetness of expression is often wonderfully touching.
Everywhere there arises the impression* that these works, the effu-
sions of early manhood, were imperfect embodiments of a strengtli
that lurked within, and which might yet, like the hidden endow-
ments of Scott, find in prose a freer outlet.

It is sad, though not equally sad, to contemplate the fate of the
other two who have been named. Shelley, the victim of a way-
ward perverseness contrasting painfully with his natural gentle-
ness of disposition, fancied himself an Atheist in his seventeenth
year, and made himself a martyr to a chimera, through which he
insisted on wanting such companionship and teaching as would

SHELLEY AND Kr.AT».

379

endow-

8 of the
a way-
gentle-
nteenth
icli he
would

have fortified and enlightened alike his moral being and his intel-
lect. Keats poured forth with extraordinary power the dreams of
his immature youth, and died with the belief that the radiant forms
had been seen in vain. In native felicity of poetic endowment, em-
bracing both wealth of imagination and warmth of susceptibility to the
beautiful, it is hardly too much to say that these two were the tirst
minds of their time. But the inadequacy of their performance to
their poetic faculties shows, as strikingly as any thuig could, how
needful, towards the production of effective poetry, is a substratum
of solid thought, of practical sense, and of manly and extensive sym-
pathy.

b. 1792. > Never did any man revel more than Shelley in the warm
d. 1822.; transports of true poetic vision. If we would readily appre-
heiid the fulness and fineness of his powers, without remaining
ignorant of his weakness, we might study either of two pieces : the
lyrical drama "Prometheus Unbound,*' a marvellous gallery of
dazzling images and wildly touching sentiments ; or the " Alastor,"
a scene in which the melancholy quiet of solitude is visited but by
the despairing poet who lies down to die. We want, everywhere,
two requisites of poetry really good. We want sjmipathy with
ordinary and universal feelings ; instead of which we find warmth
seldom shown but for the unreal or the abstract, or when the poet's
own unrest prompts, as in the " Stanzas written near Naples," a
strain of lamentation which sounds like a passionate sigh. Again,
we want clearness of thinking, and find, instead of it, an indistinct-
ness which sometimes amounts to the unintelligible: in his most
ambitious poem, the narrative called " The Revolt of Islam," it is
often difiicult to apprehend so nmch as the outline of the story.
b. 1796. ) It is impossible to say what Keats might have been, had he
d.i820.i lived to become rightly acquainted with himself and with
mankind. But never did any youthful poet exhibit a more thorough
possession of those faculties that are the foundation on which
genius rests. It was said of his " Endymion," most truly, that no
book could more aptly be used as a test, to determine whether a
reader has a genuine love for poetry : and the intensity of the poetic
spirit is not less in others of his poems. His works have no interest
of story, no insight into human nature, no clear sequence of thought,
no measure either in the colouring or the number of the concep-
tions : they are the rapturous voice of youthfid fancy, luxuriating
with deep delight in a world of beautiful unrealities.

10. When we were about to scrutinize the works of the two
leaders in narrative poetry, a doubt was thrown out in regard to
the position which should be assigqed to Thomas Moore. ThQ

880

THE FIRST AQE OP THE NINETEENTU CEXTUUV.

ft. 17M. ) name of George Crabbe, likewUe, has not yet been com*
d. 1889. ) memorated. Both of these popular poets stand out promi-
nently enough to claim particular notice : yet it may be questioned
whether either of them is entitled to be ranked with those that
have already been reviewed. If we are positively to receive them
into the first order of their time, they might not only occupy tlic
extremes in date, but exemplify some of the strongest contrasts that
the age presented in respect of poetical character. The former wa.^
too unreal to be a great poet : the latter failed by attaching himscli
too closely to what was present and actual. Crable, beginning his
career among the writers of the eighteenth century, and nearly akin
to them in many features, might have begun our series. His Metri-
cal Tales, describing every-day life, are strikingly natural, and some-
times very touching : but they are elevated by nothing of ideality,
ft. 1780. ) ^^^ warmed by no kindling thoughts. Moore, one of the
d. 1851.]" most popular of our poets, will long be remembered for his
Songs, so melodious, so elegant in phrase, and wedding his grace-
ful sentiment so skilfully with glittering pictures. His fund of
imagery is inexhaustible : but his analogies are oftener ingenious
than poetical. He might be described, if we w\<)re to adopt a dis-
tinction often made of late, as having fancy rather than imagination.
His Eastern Romances in " Lalla Kookh," with all their occasional
felicities, are not powerful poetic narratives. Probably he is no-
where so successful as in his Satirical effusions of Comic Rhyme: for
in these his fanciful ideas are prompted by a wit so gaily sharp,
and expressed with a pointedness and neatness so very unusual,
that it is a pity these pieces should be condemned to speedy forget-
fulness, as they must be by the temporary interest of their topics.

Over the Minor Poets of that fruitful time, good as some of them
are, we have not time to linger. Two or three must be hastily
passed over, who might have deserved greater honour

It would have been pleasant to do just' to the Tragedies of
Joanna Baillie. These, with all their faults as plays, are noble ad-
ditions to our literature, and the closest approach that has been
made in recent times to the merit of the old English drama. After
these, Coleridge's tragedy having already been named, would come
the stately and imposing dramatic poems of Milman ; Maturings im-
passioned " Bertram ;" and the finely conceived " Julian " of Miss
Mitford.

Samuel Rogers and William Lisle Bowles have given us much of
pleasing and reflective sentiment, accompanied with great refinement
of taste. To another and more modem school belong Bryan Procter,
(better known by his assumed name of Barry Cornwall,) and Leigh

MINOR POETS.

381

cter,
eigb

Hunt : the former the purer in taste, tho latter the more original and
inventive ; and both the authors of interesting and romantic poems.
Walter Savage Landor could not be understood or fairly estimated
without much detail. Some of his. short lyrical and meditative
pieces are very beautiful: his larger poems, both "Gebir," the
" Hellenics," and the Dramas, sometimes delight but oftener puzzle
us, by their occasional happiness of fancy and expression, their pre-
valent obscurity of thought, and their extraordinary want of con-
structive skill. The poems of Mrs Hemans breathe a singularly
attractive tone of romantic and melancholy sweetness ; and, them-
selves owing large obligations to minds of gi'eater originality, they
have in their turn become the models, in sentiment, in phraseology,
and in rhythm, for an incalculable number of pleasing sentimental
verses. The ballads and songs of Hogg and Cunnmgham, some
of wliich will not soon be forgotten, must merely be allude(^ *".

Nor can much more notice be bestowed on the Religious 1' );ry'^
of the time. Except a few pieces which we have received from
authors already named, it contains nothing of the very- € st otihr.
The poems of Kirke White, all but posthumous, are mi./6 pleaning
than orifrinal. Tho. 3 is much sweetness, but no great force, ir the
" Sabbath " of (jraname. By far the highest in thiu class I, Jrimes
Montgor y. He, besides some interesting pc3ms of considurable
bulk, narrative and descriptive, has written not a few pieces, de-
votional and meditative, which are among the best religious poems
in our language. Pollok's " Course of Time,*' much over-lauded
on its appearance, is the immature work of a man of genius
who possessed very imperfect cultivation. It is clumsy in plan,
tediously dissertative, and tastelessly magniloquent : but it has
passages of good and genuine poetry. Mention may also be claimed
by the agreeable verses of Bishop Heber, and by the more recent
effusions of Keble. The " Christian Year " of the latter, published
anonymously in 1827, is refined in style and true in sentiment. Its
author was a leader of the famous Tractarian movement.

Only a few American poets deserve notice here, of whom the
most eminent are Dana, Bryant, Halleek, and Poe. Richard Henry
^ Dana's longest work is " The Buccaneer," — a narrative poem
' ^ 'i relating, with great spirit, a murder committed by a pirate ;
and following this is a picture, conceived much less happily, of the
supernatural visitation by which the crime was punished. The
pointed, concise diction has extraordinary expressiveness, not always
without obscurity; the landscapes are very vi.'d; and not a few
passages kindle inco a dramatic force of passion. The well-known
description of a sea- voyage under the title of " Two Years before

! )

383

THE FIRST AG£ OP THE NINETEENTH CENTUllTt

. > the Mast" waswritten by a son of this poet. William CuUen
'» Bryant — ^theleastnationalofTransatlanticpoets — was intro-
duced here by Washini^ton Irving. He is a sentimental and descrip-
tive poet, neither rising into passion nor prompted to deep reflection ;
but his thoughts flow naturally and easily, his imagery is often
fine, and his pathos as often quietly touching. His blank verse is
of rare excellence ; and his diction, always refined, is sometimes
very felicitous. He has never fulfilled the promise of genius held out
by his youthful " Thanatopsis ;" but his most ambitious composition,
'' The Ages," is a beautiful representation of gentle fancy and kindly
sympathy; and among his smaller pieces, if there be no decisive
originality, there is an ideality of taste which has produced some
lyrical gems — such as the "Hymn to the North Star," and the
verses " To a Waterfowl." This veteran author produced, in his
peyenty-sixth year,* a book of Eastern Travel, and a blank-verse
translation of Homer*s " Iliad," of considerable merit. Fitzgreen
i^. 1795.) Halleck^s first appearance was as a satirist. His longest
d. 1867. / piece' is a noble martial ode on " Marco Bozzaris" — a hero of
the Greek War of Independence — whose exploits he celebrates with
b. 1811. > elevation and poetical feeling. Edgar Allan Foe's singular
rf. 1849. / poem, " The Raven," and his weird prose stories, confer upon
him a distinction not merited by the unrestrained sensuality of his
life. Of the minor poets, Sprague is often very rich in imagery ;
Fierpont is an exceedingly skilful poetic artist ; and Ferceval, though
more vigorous, frequently shows those unconscious imitations of
English models which abound among all the writers now in question.

THE FIBST AGE OF THE mNETEEN'TH CENTURY. 383

i-\

CHAPTER XV.

THE NINETEENTH CENTUBt.

SECTION. THIRD : THE PROSE OF THE FIRST AOB.

A.D. 1800— A. D. 1830.

I. Novels and Romances— The Waverley Novels — Minor Novelists.— 2.
Periodical Writing — The Edinhargh Beview — The Quarterly Beview—
Blackwood's Magazine. — ^3. Criticism — The Essays of Francis Jeffirey.—
4. Criticism and Miscellanies — Coleridge— Hazlitt — Lamh — Christopher
North. — 5. Social Science — Jeremy Bentham — Political Economy— His-
tory— Minor Historical Writers— Hallam's Historical Works. — 6. Theo-
logy — Church History — Classical Learning — Scientific Theology — Prac*
tical Theology — John Foster —Robert Hall — Thomas Chalmers. — 7.
Speculative Philosophy — (1.) Metaphysics and Pyschology — Dugald
Stewart and Thomas Brown — (2.) Ethical Science— Mackintosh — Jeremy
Benthaui -(3.) The Theory of the Beautiful— Alison— Jeffirey— Stewart-
Knight — Browm — Symptoms of Furt|ier Change.

1. After the metrical works which adorned so eminently the
period we are now studying, the next place belongs to the Novels
and Romances in Prose, both for the kindred nature of the sorts of
composition, and for the worid-wide fame achieved in this field by
Sir Walter Scott.

It had undergone, before he trode it, much of that purifying and
elevation, of which symptoms were traceable in the last period we
surveyed. In " Caleb Williams " and " Saint Leon," the strong
but narrow mind of Godwin had sought to make the novel a vehicle
for CDmmimicating peculiar social doctrines, with views of human
life allied to the tragic. Miss Austen's scenes of every-day society
had much merit for their cheerful reality, and their freedom from
false sensibility. Miss Poiter's " Scottish Chiefis," published before
the earliest of Scott's historical* ronumces, had the merit of first
entering the ground, but occupied it very feebly. Above all, Miss
Edgeworth, in her Irish Tales, showed how novel-readers may. be
■fc oace interested and instructed, by acute and humoroui oommoD-

■{

884

THE FIBSr AOB OF «HE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

sense, not only unalloyed by tmsel sentimentality, bat little warmed
by lofty feeling of any kind.

In 1814, Scott published his novel " Waverley ;" and the series,
thenceforth carried on with surprising rapidity, attained from the
beginning a popularity unexampled as well as fully deserved. The
Waverley no veJs have been excepted, by many very cautious judges,
from the sentenco'which banishes most works of prose fiction from
the libraries of the young. The exemption seems to be justified by
two considerations. These are not mere love-stories, but pictures of
human life, expressing broad and manly and practical views, and
animated by sentiments which are cheerful and correct, if not very
elevated or solemn ; and, further, most of them exhibit history in a
light which is extremely effective in exciting curiosity and interest,
without degrading facts or characters to the sentimental level, or
falsifying either of them beyond the lawful and necessary stretch of
poetical embellishment.

Tliis is no fit occasion for dwelling with close scrutiny on those
celebrated works, or for endeavouring to analyze satisfactorily the
sources of their power. They may safely be pronounced to be the
most extraordinary productions of their class that ever were penned,
and to stand, in literary value, as far above all other prose works of
fiction, as the novels of Fielding itand above all others in our lan-
guage except these. Nor need we pause over their usual looseness
of plan, and their general carelessness and clumsiness of style, or
animadvert on other faults which are perceptible to every reader.
One point only may detain us for a moment : their felicitous union of
familiar humour in the portraiture of characters, with force and skill
in the excitement of all varieties of serious passion short of the most
intense. It might be hinted, also, that the former of these elements
is decidedly the stronger, and that the combination of the two is
most successful where that tone is allowed to predominate. This is
especially the case with the few earliest of the series, " Waverley,"
" Guy Mannering," and " The Antiquary," vigorous and easy por-
traits of society and manners in Scotland during the eighteenth cen-
tury. " Ivanhoe," on the other hand, coming nearest of all to being
a reproduction of one of the versified romances, and admirably
spirited in its pictures of chivalry and warfare, is feeble in those
comic scenes where the writer's strength naturally lay. When
he put on again his knightly armour, its weight impeded the free-
dom of his movements.

Among the friends of Scott who cultivated fiction was his son-
in-law and biographer, Lockhart, whose novels are very powerful
in their representations of tragic passion. Such was also the vari*

NOVELS AMD HEYIEWS.

ously-g^fted Wflson, in whose " Lights and Shadows " the visionary
loveliness of his poems shines out again with even an increase of
pathos, but still without free scope for those powers of sarcasm and
humour which he has conspicuously proved in the " Noctes Ambro-
sianse." " Here," says Professor Masson, " he burst away in a riot
of Scotticism on which Scott had never ventured — ^a Scotticism not
only real and humorous, but daringly imaginative and poetic to
the verge of Lakism and beyond — displaying withal an originality
of manner natural to a new cast of genius, and a command of
resources in the Scottish idiom and dialect unfathomed even by
Scott." Extremes in the tone of thought and feeling are exhibited
by the despondent imagination of Mrs Shelley — whose "Frank-
enstein " is a rare and remarkable work of fiction — and the coarse
and shrewd humour of Gait. The faculty of close observation
exhibited by Miss Ferrier in " Marriage" and some of her other
novels, forms, in like manner, a contrast to the union of reflective-
ness with pathos which gave so much interest to Hope's " Anas-
tasius." To this time al!*'^ belong the delightful scenes which Miss
Mitford constructed by elaborately embellishing the facts of rural
English life ; as well as the fashionable novels of Theodore Hook,
which soon outlived their extraordinary popularity, but are inter-
esting pictures of contemporary society.

The most distinguished representative of American fiction in this
b. 1783. > age is Washington Irving. The sparkling humour shown by
d.i859.i" him in "Salmagundi" and the burlesque "History of New
York" survived to some extent in those later works which evinced so
much predilection both for English literature and for English habits
and manners. The earlier portion of his career was devoted to fic-
tion ; the later portion, to his numerous historical and biogi'aphical
sketches. Inclining always towards a nice elaboration of style
and a feminine refinement of serious sentiment which combined to
enfeeble their general efiect, the writings of this graceful novelist
and essayist are yet among the most pleasing to which our time
has given birth. His stories of Rip Van Winkle and the Sleepy
Hollow will long rank among the best creations of modern fiction.

2. In beginning to look further around us on the prose litera-
ture which adorned the early part of our century, we are arrested
by a class of works which embraces, in one way or another, all its
departments.

Nq fact is more curious or important in the Uterary history of the
age, than the prominence which was acquired in it by the lending
Reviews, and by those periodicals which, bearing the name of Maga-
zines, and thus opening their pages to poetry and to prose fiction, yet

380 THE FIBST AQE OF THE KINETEEMTH CENTUBY.

were successful also in dissertations like those which were the only
contents of the others. None but those who know accurately what
Reviews and Magazines were at the beginning of this century, can
judge how vast is the rise in literary merit ; how wonderfully the
compass ot, matter has been extended ; and how incomparably the
little-heeded dicta of the older writers are exceeded in influence by
the papers that appear in the modem periodicals, furnishing topics
of talk or rules of thinking to the whole instructed community.

The high literary position of the periodicals was speedily se-
cured, their combination of pure literature with political and. social
discussions settled, and their power founded beyond the possibility
of overturn, by the earliest of the series, The Edinburgh Review.
Commenced in 1802, it was placed, almost immediately, under the
editorship of Francis Jeffrey, who conducted it till 1829.

In that earlier part of its history which is here in question, there
were not very many distinguished men of letters in the empire
that did not furnish something to its contents. At first it re-
ceived aid from Sir Walter Scott, as well as from other famous
persons who, like him, held Tory principles. But, becoming more
and more decidedly the organ of the opposite party, and sometimes
using very little reserve in its denunciations of those whom its con-
ductors held to be in the wrong, it came at length to be supported
chiefly, though never quite exclusively, by writers who, while most
of them were linked by private friendships, concurred likewise in
political opinion. Among these were several eminent statesmen
of the Wliig party : sych as Lord Brougliam, so energetic both in
speech and writing, and so various in his range of thought and
knowledge ; and Francis Homer, so universally honoured for the
purity of his character, and for the masterly comprehensiveness
of intellect which he brought to bear on public questions. John
Allen discussed constitutional problems, with that combination of
historical knowledge and mental power for which he was so dis-
tinguished : Malthus expounded the principles of political eco-
nomy: Flayfair made physical science both clear and interesting:
the calm and dignified compositions of Mackintosh illustrated alike
philosophy, and literature, and politics : and, in the papers contri-
buted by Sydney Smith, one of the wittiest men of the day, the
driest discussions became diverting, the liveliest ideas were ex-
tracted from the heaviest books, and inexhaustible showers of
satirical raillery were discharged on the dullest opponents. Above
all, the essays of the Editor, equally wonderful, in the circum-
stances, for their number, and the variety of their topics, for their
^ace and mt, their spirit and ori^pnality, rendered, both to the

REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES.

387

Review and to the world of letters, services which we must iinme-
diately endeavour to estimate somewhat more exactly.

The increasing differences of political creed, aggravated by some
personal coolnesses, caused, in 1809, on the suggestion of Sir Wal-
ter Scott, the establishment of the Quarterly Review in London,
designed to be, both in literature and politics, a counterpoise to the
Scottish organ of the Whigs. William Gifford, previously known as
an accomplished scholar and a vigorous satirical poet, edited it till
1824; soon after which his place was taken by Scott's son-in-law,
John Gibson Lockliart. The new Review was distinguished, from
the beginning, by talent and knowledge fully justifying the high repu-
tation it attained : and it numbered among its contributors not a few
of the most famous and able men of the time. Both of its editors
showed, in it as elsewhere, their fiill possession of the powers and
accomplishments, qualifying them both to direct such a work, and
to enrich it by writings of their own. Scott furnished to it some
of the best of his dissertativeiand critical compositions': and Southey,
one of the very best prose writers of our century, was a steady and
invaluable coadjutor, discussing in its pages a great variety of
themes. The statesman Canning found time to give some aid from
his fund of brilliant wit and polished eloquence : and. owing some-
thing to the wit and learning of Frere, the Quarterly Review was
mdebted still more to qualities of the same sort possessed by the
accomplished Ellis. Solid and valuable knowledge was commu-
nicated, embracing several departments, such as classics, in which
its resources were peculiarly ample. Much, likewise, of that which
it taught was imparted in a manner admirably calculated to make
it both easily intelligible and generally attractive : a task which
was nowhere perhaps executed better than in the geographical and
other papers of Barrow.

The Westminster Review, set on foot in 1825, as the organ of
Jeremy Bentham and his disciples, hardly falls within our period.

Blackwood's Magazine was begun in 1817, m the same political in-
terest as the Quarterly Review. It is the only periodical of its class
that here calls for notice. Unequal and very often careless, and in
its youth petulant and severe beyond the worst offences of the Edin-
burgh Reviewers, it has contained articles of the highest literary
merit, especially in criticism ; while its form has allowed a variety
from which the heavier periodicals were shut out. As to its con-
tributions, during the first twelve or fifteen years of its career, it
must sufiice for us to learn, that the names of Wilson and Lock-
hart were connected with it by universal and uncontradicted be-
lief. Two points regarding it should be remembered. It was

888 THE PIRST AGE OP THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

the unflinching and idolatrous advocate of Wordsworth ; and some
of its writers were our first translators of German poetry, as well as
the most active introducers of German taste and laws in poetical
criticism.

3. Our best efforts in Literary Criticism, named already as one of
the brightest spots in our recent literature, have been, with few ex-
ceptions, Essays in the Periodicals.

&.177S.1 Highest in the file stands the name of Francis Jefirey,
d. isso./ whose history is an instance, without a parallel, of ceaseless
mental activity and of rapid versatility in mental action. Practis-
ing an arduous profession with the greatest success, he, the first bar-
rister of his court, was also the most celebrated periodical essayist
of his time, a very remarkable thinker, and one of the best writers
in the English language. Though we look no further than his four
volumes of Essays selected for republication, we shall hardly find
any branch of general knowledge untouched ; and, treating none
without throwing on it some ray of brilliant light, he has contrib-
uted to several of them truths which are alike valuable and ori-
ginal. His frequent depth of thought is disguised by the cheer^
ful ripple which continually sparkles on the surface of the current :
and his acuteness is marvellous, and incessantly awake. It hardly
falls within our province to notice his many Political Disquisitions,
further than by saying, that their masterly reasoning, and their ani-
mation and clearness of exposition, concur in giving to their patrio-
tic and courageous author one of the highest of all places among
the literary advocates of the principles to which he so steadily
adhered.

His Criticisms on Poetry are probably the best of his Essays in
matter, as they are certainly the most eloquently written. They
are always flowing and spirited, glittering with a gay wit and an
ever-ready fancy : they very often blossom into exquisite felicities
of diction; and, in many passages, he speaks with the voice of one
who was hunself almost a poet. Indeed his poetical susceptibility,
and his love of the beautiful in art as well as nature, had an inten-
sity very seldom co-existing with such keenness of the anal3rtic
faculties. His sensitiveness of feeling was nourished by an extra-
ordinary aptitude for associating ideas ; and this powor, again, had
been strengthened by much meditation, the fruits of which, in his
Essay on Beauty, entitle him to a place in the history of our recent
philosophy. His writings, especially the critical, are- beautifully
rich in the suggestion of moral ideas: and he is most fully
entitled to advance the claim he did, " of having constantly endea-
voured to combine ethical precepts with literary criticism, and

CBITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE.

889

Issays in
They
and an
felicities
ie of one
.tibUity,
in inten-
analytic
m extra-
;ain, had
sh, in his
ir recent
[autifully
ist fully
endea-
Bm, and

earnestly sought to impress his readers with a sense both of the
close connexion between sound intellectual attainments and the
higher elements of duty and enjoyment, and of the just and ultimate
subordination of the former to the latter."

Lastly, however, those admirable criticisms are properly critical.
While Macaulay uses poets and their works as hints for constructing
picturesque dissertations on mar and society ; and while poetical
reading prompts to Wilson enthusiastic bursts of original poetry of
his own : Jeffrey, fervid in his admiration of genius, but conscien-
tiously stem in his respect for art, refuses to abstain from trying
poetry by its own laws'; to accept evanescent paroxysms of poetical
power as equivalents for the fruit of reflective and earnest perform-
ance ; or to grant an indenmity to any faults, which seem to him se-
ductive enough tc be dangerous as precedents for the future. The
very familiarity with which he knew the old masters of English song,
whose works indeed he was one of the first to reinstate in public
favour, co-operated with his exalted view of the poet's functions,
in making him a severe though instructive judge of the poetry of
his day. When, also, his taste or his judgment was offended, he
was certainly apt to lose, for a time, his sympathy with any excel-,
lencies that might accompany the faults. And, in the hasty passing
of sentence on offenders, the ebullition of exuberant wit sometimes
exceeded its usual bounds of playful good-nature. But his writings
are invaluable to those who desire to learn the true principles of
poetical criticism ; and it is they, if any works of his age, that will
be accepted hereafter as critical gmde-books to the literature which
sprang up around him.

4. The Critical Writings of Coleridge, in his Lectures and else-
where, are, like all that he has given us, tantalizing contrasts of great
capacity with small fulfilment. His speculations of this sort, based
on his German studies, add very much of his own fine discernment
and poetical intuition to their sedulous striving after primary laws.
Obscure, vacillating, and sometimes c&pricious, he yet sowed the
seeds of a kind of philosophical criticism, which will never perhaps
be cultivated very successfully in our cold climate.

The poet Campbell wrote criticism with fine taste and sentiment,
in his " Specimens of the British Poets," as well as elsewhere. Isaac
DTsraeli's books, though very weak in their critical attempts, may
be named for their pleasant gossiping, and their large assemblage of
curious facts in literary history. One of the earliest and best of
the works which aimed at creating a taste for the old literature of
tho language, was living's " Lives of the Scottish Poets."

890

THE PIBST AGE OF THE KINETEENTH CENTURT.

A very high place among the critical essayists must be assigned
h. 1778.> to William Hazlitt, who, in his Lectures and other \nriting8,
* wso.r did manful service towards reviving the study of our ancient
poetry,e8pecially thatof the Elizabethan age. Veryacute^though in-
consistent, in judgment, and exceedingly successful in many instances
of analysis ; moody and uncertain in feeling, but warmly sensitive to
gome varieties of literary merit ; and displaying, both ip his style
and in his appreciation of poetry, more of blunt vigour than of well-
balanced taste ; this very original writer prompts speculation and
study to all, and not least to those who hesitate at accepting his
critical opinions.

Of another temper is the kind of criticism given us by Charles
h. 1776.\ Lamb in his " Specimens of the Dramatic Poets," and inter-
d. 1838.; spersed among his other effusions. Among these are the
" Essays of Elia," miscellaneous sketches of life, fanciful and medi-
tative, not easily reducible to a class, and probably not intended by
their eccentric author to be placed in any. It is really impossible
to describe Lamb's writings, ir such a way as to make their charac-
ter be understood by those who have not read them. His critical
Remarks issue from a wonderfully fine poetic feeling, and express
opinions indicating at once force and naiTowness of thought. His
half-fictitious scenes are, in sentiment, in imagery, and in style, tlie
most anomalous medleys by which readers were ever alternately
perplexed, and amused, and moved, and delighted.

The selected " Recreations of Christopher North " present but a
very few of those critical dissertations and imaginative sketches,
which, appearing in Blackwood's Magazine, have currently been
attributed to the same pen. In this place it must suffice if the at-
tention of literary students is called to the acknowledged volumes,
as containing more of spontaneous poetry than ever before was
couched in prose ; more of original reflection than ever before
was linked with so unrestrained a revelry of imagination ; and an
alternation, not less unexampled in its extent and frequency, of the
quaintest humour and the most practical shrewdness with tender
and passionate emotion.

». 177a > Hallam's "Introduction to the Literature of Europe" in
d.i859. j* the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, is one of
our most valuable contributions to the art of criticism, and has long
occupied a place among our standard works. There are not many
books resting on so diversified and exact a fund of learning; not
many that are written at once so clearly, so chastely, and so attrac-
tively; few which show, as the endowments of one mind, such
aonndness of judgment, mastery of philoEophical principles, end

SOCIAL SCIENCE AKD POLITICAL ECOMOMT.

391

refinement and susceptibility in literary taste ; and stiU fewer are
there so uniformly dignified, fair, and kindly.

5. The great mass of writings relating to Social and Political
questions, already noticed as making a very important part in the
literature of the day, cannot to us furnish matter for any special
study. A scrutiny of them would involve an analysis of the con-
tents of the leading Reviews : but a few writers may be introduced
to us, besides those who have been named as contributors to the
periodicals.

No man of the time has influenced social science so much, often
indeed against the will of those who were instructed, as Jeremy
b. 1748. ) Bentham, whose name will also have to occur again in an-
(/. 1832. /other department. The masculine sagacity and indefati-
gable search after truth, which distinguished this eccentric man, led
him to doctrines which have enlisted under him an enthusiastic train
of able followers : but the antagonism of his views, at many points,
to the existing course of things, kindled from the beginning
vehement dislike and opposition; and his extravagant oddities
of language have given a hold to much wicked wit. James
Mill should be mentioned as the ablest of his immediate pupils.

So tax as the teaching of truth is concerned, wa need not notice
William Cobbett, who was, in the course of his long life, the advo-
cate of all varieties of political principle. But he will long be re-
membered as uncommonly dexterous in conducting controversy to
the satisfaction of a mixed class of readers ; and he will be known
still longer, as having written the most vigorous and idiomatio
English that has appeared in our time.

The teaching in Political Economy, commencing very early in the
century, has had effects on public policy which, vast though they
are, have as yet 40 more than begim. In our literary studies we
can only note, among its earliest teachers, the acute Mill ; the com-
prehensive and accurate M'Culloch ; Malthus, best known through
his theory of population ; and Ricardo, who is pronounced by com-
petent authority to have been the most original thinker in the
science since Adam Smith.

In the Historical department this period may either be said to
have begun, or that before it to have closed, with the labours of
Chalmers and PinkertOn, chiefly useful as collectors of antiquarian
materials. They may fairly be regarded as having paved the way
for a school of historical writing, in which, almost for the first time,
our national records were consulted with strenuous industry, and
accuracy of research was held to be a highcfr merit than elegance
or animation in composition. The early history of England, especi-

392

TOE praar age op the nineteenth centurt.

ally for the Anglo-Saxon times, was illustrated by more than one
writer of this class : Sharon Turner is most honourably laborious
find trustworthy, but wearisomely heavy and pompous ; Lingard,
a Roman-Catholic priest, followed, as the skilful and uncommonly
impartial advocate of the views of his Church; and Brodie and
Godwin, as controverters of the doctrines which Hum^ had taught
in his history of the Stuarts. In Hallam's " Constitutional History
of England," the good qualities of the antiquarian student arc
united with a masterly and impartial analysis of the growth of our
political institutions, and set off by a classical grace of diction, and
much power of exciting interest. The work is the only one of its
kind and time, that combines, in a high degree, literary skill with
valuable matter ; and its merit is the greatest that can belong to
an historical work, avowedly and designedly dissertative rather
than narrative. The distinguished writer, (whose varied learning
we shall yet meet on different ground,) conferred another standard
work on our language, in his " View of the State of Europe during
the Middle Ages." After it may be named the tasteful Italian
Histories of Roscoe ; nor should we forget the industry, and know-
ledge, and mastery of easy and correct language, which was shown,
in this walk as in so many others, by the poet Southey, whose
"Life of Nelson " has long ranked as one of the best and most
pleasing of our popular biographips.

Tytler's "History of Scotland" is honourably distinguished for the
industry and variety of its independent researclfts, as well as for
the perspicuity and general liveliness of its style. A very able and
valuable " History Oi India," it may be noticed, was contributed to
this department by the philosopher, James Mill. Colonel Na-
pier's " History of the Peninsular War," as the record of great events
by an actor in them, and a work combining literary skill with
technical knowledge, is unique in our language.

6. Southey, as the fond Historian of the Church of England,
and the interesting biographer of Wesley, will usher us, from our
last department, into the Theology of his tune. Overagainst him
may be placed M'Crie, the formidable advocate of old Scottish
views, in his lives of Knox and Melville, works distinguished by
great ecclesiastical learning, ingenuity of argument, and force of
style.

In passing from the history of the Church, we must turn aside
for a moment to the Classical Learning of England, chiefly to be
•found among her churchmen. It has been neglected by us, since
we left it in the hands of Bentley ; but now, in Porson, it found a
chief whgse Grccl 1 iar/iing was superior even to his, and whose

PRACTICAL THEOLOGY.

303

critical acutcness, if not greater, was at least more wificly directed.
The name of Elmsley is the only one ^vhich our time allo\w uh tu
Heluct, from the large list of Porson's able followers and rivals.

A new kind of erudition, tliat of tlie biblical critics of Germany,
was imported by Bishop Marsh : and from his studies in the philo-
sophy of that country Coleridge derived much of the prompt uig,
that led him to the perplexing mixture of devout reverence, alter-
nate largeness and narrowness of opinion, and obscure struggling to
gain ultimate truths, which make up the character of his religious
reveries and aspirations.

If we turn from Scientific to Practical Tlieology, we find ourselves
embarrassed, beyond hope of extrication, amidst a vast mass of ser-
mons, devotional treatises, and the like, many of which have fair
literary merit, while none decisively excel the rest. The labyrinth
must not be entered. But, in the glance we throw from witliout
over its multiform windings, we see enough to be satbfied that reli-
gious thought and sentiment have occupied, among tlie varioua
piursuits of the time, an increasingly high place ; and that, with the
di£Eusion of secular knowledge among the people, energetic attempts
have been coupled to sow not less widely the seeds of spuitual life.
Three of the agents, in the good work tower above theur fellows,
alike honourable for religious real, and for powerful thought elo-
quently delivered. The yoimgest readers among us are already
familiar with the names of liobert Hall, and Jolm Foster, and
Thomas Chalmers.

1770. ) Foster, who failed as a preacher, had a much wider grasp

1843. J of mind than either of the other two, both of whom gained
brilliant success as pulpit orators. He never fails to seize his
topic as a whole ; and the details in his treatment of it, though
always sagacious, and often strikingly acute, are never allowed to
tempt us or him into a forgetfulness of the truth he is mainly bent
on expounding. Perhaps the secret of his originality lies in his
uniting so much reflective power with so much of close observation.
His style is not peculiar : it is both easy and strong, moderately
h. 1764. ) embellished, and not infrequently very graceful. Hall is,
d. 1631./ even in print, much more of the orator ; although his Ian-
guage, with all its richness, beti'ays, in his published writings,
symptoms of anxious elaboration. Probably there could not be
cited from him anything equal in force or originality to some
passages of Foster's ; but it would still more certainly be impos-
■ible to detect him indulging in feeble common-places.
1. 1780. > ^ point of oratorical power, Chalmers was one of tho
d. 1847.1 great m^n of our century ; perhaps, indeed, the very great*

894

THE FIIIST AGE OF TUE NlNETKENTll CENTURY.

est of those whose genius we have an opportunity of estimating
by the publication of its fruits; and, unlike Hall, he fully justifies,
by His writings, the impression felt by all who heard him preach.
Looking at his them« steadily from one point of view, which often
does not command a very wide prospect, he represents this aspect
of his question with wonderful force, at once analyzing with max-
vellous subtlety, illustrating with magnificent force of imagination,
and clothing everything in a diction, which, though cumbrous and
unrefined, wears a commanding air of strength and fervour. Our
century has already produced several thinkers who have possessed
more remarkable comprehensiveness, many who have been clearer
expositors, and very many who have had greater logical closeness
without being deficient in mastery of principles. But it has produced
very few that are comparable to Chalmers in the original keenness
of intuition with which he perceived truths previously imdetected ;
and it has had, probably, no man whatever, who has combined so
much power of thought with so much power of impressive com<
munication.

7. Although, in Abstract or Speculative Philosophy, our period
was less strong than in those fields of thinking which lie closest to
practice, yet here also it was the parent of much that was both
ingenious and eloquent.

In the inquuies usually classed together by the name of Mental
Philosophy, the only waiters who gained extensive fame were two,
who were, in succession. Professors of Moral Philosophy in Edin-
burgh. Their writings, like their teaching, ranged widely, and with
advantage, beyond the province described in the title of their chair.
b. 1759. ) Dugald Stewart is one of the most attractive, of all philo*
(f.i82& j sophical writers. He is equally perspicuous and eloquent,
fertile in liappy illustrations drawn from life, and nature, and books :
he rises to an animated fervour in hi& contemplation of grandeur or
beauty ; but he rises highest of all when warmed by his ever-felt
admiration of moral excellence. His style, classically regular, is not
far from being a perfect model for all philosophical writings, which
are intended to impress a wide circle of cultivated readers. As a
thinker, he attained no decisive originality : yet he was more than
what he called himself, a disciple of Reid. In Ethics especially, he
was much above this : but his Psychological and Metaphpical sys-
tem was, in aU essentials, that of his master. He has given us not
a few very acute analyses ; and he would have given more but for a
decided want of logical sequence, and a timidity which often
checked his advance when he 9tood at the very verge of a new and
valuable tnitb.

TII0MA8 DRO'V^N AND 811. JAMES MACKINTOSH.

395

M778.) Hii successor, Thomas Brown, exhibited a subtlety of
i. 1810. j" thought hardly ever exceeded in the history of philosophy.
Some of his psychological dissertations are masterpieces of mental
analysis. Nor is he ever arrested either by respect for the opinions
of his predecessors, or by pausing to ask himself whether a truth he
seems to have discovered may not clash with some other doctrine
already announced by him with equal confidence. His power of
speculative vision, with all its wonderful keenness, is very far from
being truly comprehensive : he has been proved, also, to have mis-
apprehended, in his hastily-conducted inquiries, the real state of tfte
most important metaphysical questions on which he pronounced
judgment : and the doctrine which he adopted from older writers
as the keystone of his symmetrical system of psychology, (namely,
that all mental phenomena are but varied instances of association
or suggestion,) is one in regard to which it may not be rash to say,
that, instead of solving difficulties, it merely evades them. His
style, though neither \ ,2;ovous nor very pure in taste, is ornate and
lively ; and his Lectures generally carry on the reader easily and
with interest. Probably no writings on Mental Philosophy were
ever so popular.

Less celebrated than the writings of these eminent men, but in
many points of view not less worthy of a place in the annals of their
era, are those Dissei'tations on the History of Philosophy which
were contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica by Playfkir, Les-
lie, and Mackintosh. The works of the first two, dealing with
Mathematical and Physical Science, can here receive no special
1. 1765, ) attention. Sir James Mackintosh's treatise on the History
d.iBS2.f Qf Ethics, which deals likewise with that of Metaphysics,
is rightly described by Whewell, its last editor, as alike valuable for
its learning, its critical sagacity, its classical style, and the modera-
tion and good-sense of the author^s own opinions.

Nor were these the only important accessions that were made to
the science of morals. Among the encyclopaedic labours of Bentham
was a System of Ethics. His doctrine was a variety of the Utili-
tarian scheme, declaring virtue to be simply that which tends
to produce the greatest possible happiness.

Other branches of the theory of mind were likewise studied by
this indefatigable tliinker. Among his posthumous works are trea-
tises on Logic, Ontology, Grammar, and Language; and he had
early attempted one of the most important of all philosophical tasks,
a Classification of the Arts and Sciences, the undertaking which we
saw to have been one of the two great problems aimed at by
Bacon. Bentham's writings on all such questions have the im«

396

THE FIRST AQE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

perfections incident to one who wrote for his own satisfaction,
without asking what was ahready known ; and who consequently
cared equally little, though he proved at great length positions cur-
rently received by other philosophers, or assumed without proof
doctrines that had long ago been refuted. But there is none of his
fragments that does not suggest to us some valuable truth, which
probably we should not have thought of for ourselves, and could not
find set down elsewhere.

Among the speculations in mental philosophy must be placed,
lastly, a group of interesting treatises on the Theory of the Sublime
and Beautiful, a matter deeply important to poetiy and the other
fine arts. All the writers concur in tracing the feelings in question
to processes 5f Mental Association; a doctrine which certainly is not
sound in regard to all the phenomena, but which explains many of the
most common and curious of them, and prompts a vast variety of
striking and instructive illustrations. The inquiry was first under-
taken in Alison's pleasing Essays on Taste ; it was prosecuted, with
much greater force of reasoning, in Jeffirey's Essay on Beauty, and
in one portion of Stewart's Philosophical Essays; and contribu-
tions of worth were made also by the learned and paradoxical
Payne Knight, and in the Lectures of Thomas Brown.

It should be noted, in the last place, that, towards the dose of
this period, some facts occurred, the consequences of which are
to be sought rather in the time that has followed. The novel
science of Phrenology was introduced. Developments of philoso-
phy, which promise to have more permanent effects, were heralded
by the commencing study of the Metaphysics of Germany, and by
the attention which anew began to be paid to the doctrines of tb«
Aristotelian liOgic

TIIB rOISTUY OF TUOMAS UOOD«

397

CHAPTER XVL

THE NINETEENTH CENTURT.

SECTION FOURTH : TOE POETRY OF THE VICTORIAN AQB.

A. D. 1830— A. D. 1870.

William IV. :-1830-1837.
Victoria :-1837-1870.

I. Leading Poets of the Second >?e — ^Minor Poets.— 2. Leading Poets of
tlie Current Age — Minor Poets. —3. Dramatists.— 4. Metrical Translators.
—5. Contemporary American Poets.

1. The poetry of Mrs Browning and Tennyson is the best of tho
early portion of this period ; bat, before noticing these writers, we
shall allude to a few of the more important of their contemporaries.
b. 1798.1 Thomas Hood was bom in London, though by ancestry a
d. 1845. y Scotchman. His brief literary career of about twenty years
began in 1821 with journalism, to which ephemeral kind of literature
his writings belong. The part he played in the creation of modem
humorous prose anr! verse was no unimportant one. The leading
comic journal, started shortly before his death, had been anticipated
by him in almost all but the name. His life was the Impersonation
of a double meaning ; for beneath the gay ripple of fun and fVolic
there flowed an under-current of sadness as deep and solemn as that of
the melancholy Jacques. The mo»t characteristic feature^f Hood's
genius was this combination of contradictories, which gives point to
his merriest jest as well as his deepest pathos. His poetry was bora
of the fjEtncy rather thm of the imagination, revealing, as it did, more
of apt resemblance than of the profound emotion of creative genius.
His earliest pieces were pleasing phantasies after the manner of Keats.
In the closing years of his life appeared the finest and most lasting
products oi his muse. " Miss Kilmansegg,** his happiest and most
sustained humorous eflUsion, appeared in the New Monthly (1841),
which he edited ; the " Song oi the Shirt," in Punch, 1843 ; and the

I . ■: 1

398

THE POETRY OF THE VICTORIAN AGE.

" Bridge of Sighs," the best of all his poems, was written in the year
of his death. The last two show him to be even a greater master
of the springs of tears than of laughter. Beautiful specimens as
they are of realistic poetry, and of that subtle gift which brings
" pleasure out of men's misery,*' they are still more significant in
connexion with some of the most difficult social problems of the
day.

h. 1800. > 'I'be distinguished historian, T. B. Macaulay, was a poet
d. 1859. ]" of an entirely different stamp. His poetry, the graceful ac-
complishment of a highly-cultivated mind, is pleasing from its melo-
dious rhetoric, and the chivalrous fire of its sentiments. His " Lays
of Ancient Rome" were illustrations of Niebuhr's well-known hypo-
thesis ; while the Lay on Ivry and the fragment on the Armada
are tasteful chronicles in his favourite walk of history. In the late
h. 1813. > Professor Aytoun were combined Hood's genial flow of
d. 1865. j spirits and Macaulay's refined appreciation of the chival-
rous past. His " Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers" form a kind of
metrical history of Scotland from Flodden to the last Jacobite rebel-
lion, and abound in patriotic fervour, martial vigour, and strams of
pathos. He has left a rich store of fun and wit in his imitations and
burlesques. "Firmilian," and the "Bon Gaultier Ballads" (written
in conjunction'with Theodore Martin), possess a lifelike freshnes.^
totally unlike the generality of imitative poems. His racy prose
sketches exhibit the same happy gift of genial satire. He com-
menced his literary career as one of the earliest and most eneigetic
supporters of Tait's Magazine — the first of the Shilling Monthlies—
started in 1835. We cannot sufficiently admire the beauty of his
prose style in its rare union of grace, perspicuity, and good taste.

We can simply mention the pleasing poetry of Caroline Bowles,
^outhey's second wife ; the long-sustained excellence of the Hon.
Mrs Norton (who, not only in her impassioned verse and poetical
fairy tales, but in her powerful novels and eloquent pleadings on
social themes, worthily sustains, in the third generation, the genius
of Sheridan) ; the vigorous conceptions of Elliott, the Corn-Law
Rhymer; the popular songs of Mackay; the grand ideality of
Thomas Aird ; and the' elegant verse of Lord Houghton ; and pro-
ceed to a detailed notice of the leading names of this time.
i. 1810. > '^^0 ^^ ^^ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, sustained through
d. 1861. j* half a century despite fragile health, convinced the world,
once for all, that sublime genius, equally with lowliest worth, owns
no distinctions of sex. Mrs Browning appeared after a succession
of popular poetesses, but speedily took rank far above them, and
ve now remember her, along with the Laureate and her husband,

URS browning's poetry.

IS a singer -not of mere fluent sweetness, but of thought and imagi-
nation of the rarest kind. Her earliest works — an essily on Mind,
and a translation of the Prometheus of ^schylus — ^were evidence
at once of severe taste and masculine vigour of intellect. After
her marriage in 1846, she removed with her husband to Italy,
leaving a reputation which in the eyes of the appreciative few had
been vastly heightened by a previous collection of profoundly
imaginative poems. One of these, the " Drama of Exile," stands as
a sort of complement to Paradise Lost, in its special reference to
the experience of Eve, borne down by consciousness of guilt, yet en-
nobled by self-sacrifi&c^ This poem, as well as the Sonnets, breathes
tiie holy fervour of the finest religious poetry. The latter, worthy
to rank with those of Milton and Wordsworth, abound in that in-
tense personal emotion which has always been the special charm of
such compositions. In Italy, as formerly in England, Mrs Browning
led that secluded life from which her art suffered in completeness.
The Revolution of 1848 broke in on this seclusion, and won for
Italian freedom her most ardent sympathies. From the windows of
her Florentine home — the Casa Guidi — she describes the stirring
events of that time m a strain of passionate moralizing, full of
practical energy and poetic fire. The vehement feeling, not to be
tamed into musical smoothness, which she could at aH times infuse
into her themes, was now intensified by a definite object, pursued
with singleness of heart, yet not without the prejudice of a partisan.
We see this characteristic energy, combined with other qualities,
at its best in " Aurora Leigh " — regarded by its author as the most
mature of her works. It is a modem novel in blank verse, longer
than Paradise Lost, as full of passionate fire as Childe Harold, and
as thoughtful in its semi-philosophy as the Excursion. The metri-
cal novel, now common, was anticipated last century in Miss Seward's
" Louisa " and in Crabbe's Tales. " Aurora Leigh " is a poetess who
tells the story of her life, sometimes in fervid bursts of imaginative
thought, relieved by beautiful descriptive landscapes and powerful,
delineation of character and incident ; sometimes in prosaic common-
place, interspersed with jarring ccUoquialisms, but everywhere
showing uncommon sweep of thought, sage observation, and a firm
grasp of what is most real and heroic in modem life. The mechani-
cal breaks in the printed page form a silent criticism on the irregu-
larity of the thought ; while the materials of the story are as incon-
gruous as the style. The whole poem is a monument of the rare
intellectual strength, the lofty imaginative genius, and the unequal
art of its gifted authoress, who now lies in the sacred land of song
where reposes the dust of Shelley and of Keats,

iOO

THE POETRY OF THE VICTOSIAN AQB.

\ 2. Our survey now brings us to the Laureateshlp of Alfred
'} Tennyson, whose career of forty years connects the second
quarter of the century with that now current. Like Heber and
Macaulay, Tennyson first distinguished himself— T^hen only nineteen
years of age — in a university prize poem. He is the son of a Lin-
colnshire clergyman, and the youngest of three brothers — all more
Oi* less gifted with poetical talent — ^in conjunction with the second of
whom his earliest efforts saw the light. In 1842, despite much dis-
couragement, Tennyson published a large collection of poems, con-
taining, along with some obscure conceits an^ mannerism, those gems
of lyrical melody which establish, in the opinion of many, his most
genuine claims to fame. ■ Here we find those universal favourites,
"The May Queen," "Dora," "The Miller's Daughter," "Locksley
Hall," and " The Lotos-Eaters," poems which present such a rare
combination of delicate thought, matchless melody, and genial
sympathy with Nature in her calmer moods, that they stand alone
within the range of modem poetry, and must be placed by the side
of Milton's early lyrics — ^hey, too, unequalled in their time.
Tennyson's next work was " The Princess, a Medley," — a poem on
a novel plan, being substantially an epic narrated in a series of
lyrics, whosq-beauty lies in its detached passages ; thereby showing
that as yet the poet had not quitted the meditative mood of the
ballad for that union of epic narration and lyrical reflection which
he has since cultivated. The premature death of a college
companion, a son of Hallam the historian, gave occasion for the
" In Memoriam," one of the most remarkable poems of the century,
combining, as it does, the subtlest phases of recent speculation
with Goldsmith's picturesque description, and the mournful jpathos
of Lycidas. While still singing those lyric strains which charmed
hb early admirers, the Ijaureate has alternated between mythical epic
pictures and the tragic complications of modem society. " Maud,"
one of his most striking and novel essays in the latter field, is a
dramatic monologue exhibiting all the varied modulation, involution
of narrative, and subtle symbolism, so characteristic of this poet.
Its hero, a youth of delicate sensibility and culture, has his views of
life soured by the recollection that his father had died by his own
hand, the victim of commercial speculation. His splenetic cyni-
cism, mellowed for a time by his love for Maud, is revived through
a tragic incident ; and the dreamlike rhapsody which succeeds is
dispelled by the outbreak of war, when the aimless unrest and
passion of the hero give place to practical energy. The whole
poem is another " Locksley Hall," painted on a wider canvas and
in deeper colours. "£noch Arden" is still another proof that

THE POETRY OF TENNYSON.

401

Tennyson ft a poet of the living present ; but it is to be regretted
that its profound pathos and touching incident win our sympathies
for what is morally wrong and false.

In the " Mort d' Arthur '* and " Sir Galahad," the Laureate early
struck that mine whence he has since enriched at once his age and
his own fanj^e with precious treasures. The cycle of Arthurian
myth has formed an inexhaustible store of poetry and romance, and
enchanted the mediaeval chronicler and the warm imagination of
modern genius. Springing out of Welsh mountain scenery, and
coloured by the heroic sublime, caught from long and desperate
resistance to invasion, these scattered legends were collected in
the twelfth century by Geoffirey of Monmouth, a refugee who had
found shelter from the Saxon in hospitable Bretagne. Dimmed by
the lapse of time, they were renovated in the reign of Edward IV.
by the kindly hand of Sir Thomas Mallory ; and we know that
while Milton was casting about for the subject of a great epic, his
eye rested fondly on^he tale of Arthur and his Knights. And,
as in Augustine Rome a great national poet blended the dreams of
a Trojan ancestry with the social and political progress of his time,
so now our Laureate weaves out of his country's originea a tissue of
modem sentiment and civilisation all aglow with elf-land romance.
He has gone beyond the monkish chronicle of Geofirey, and in
ancient Cymric poetry found the materials from which it was
compiled; The irregular publication of the Laureate's Arthurian
Restorations somewhat marred their effect, to us at least. We
might have had the epic of the Round Table narrated as a whole,
with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. As it is, we have the
romance of Camelot and the passionate deeds of its nobles repro-
duced in a series of exquisite pictures, each complete in itself, and
contributing at the same time to the general epical effect. The
" Coming of Arthur " stands as the prologue to the epic, the body
of which is found in the six beautiful idylls of Enid, the " chaste
Griseld " of Camelot ; Elaine, a tragic tale of unrequited love ; the
weird and powerful "Vivien;" the "Quest of the Holy Grail,"
the mystic cup whence was quaffed the first . Eucharist ; " Pelleas
and Etarre," a painful episode in the general story ; and the in-
tensely passionate " Guinevere." " The Passing of Arthur " forms
the epilogue to this profoundly significant tragedy. How the Arthu-
rian society of the castle and the palace lives again in these glowing
pictures 1 What a magnificent panorama of heroic life do they pre-
sent I Here is magnanimity tarnished by flaws within and a vicious
atmosphere without : here are the finest natures undermined and
ruined by the leaven of moral wrong and falsehood. Let us read,

402

THE POETRY OP THE VICTORIAN AGB.

then, not for pleasure alone but also for profit, remenfbering that
these Idylls are n8t merely contributions to the " Gay Science,"
but profound lessons in Social Ethics.

•t Robert Browning has been longer than the Laureate in
i achieving a position in the first rank of those leaders of
thought who have something new to tell their generation. It i^
noticeable that both these writers at once selected that departmciu
most congenial to them. As the one, the subjective lyrist, for many
years wrote pure lyrics, so the earlier works of the other, the
objective psychological poet, were real dramas that were put upon
the stage. These pieces, inough supported by the talent of
Macready, met with but slight success. They proved, indeed, that
their author was a true dramatist, for they evinced the simplicity
of structure, careful management of light and shade, and emo-
tional power, which the drama demands ; but they were much too
subtle and full of thought ever to be popular. It is on his later
works that Robert Browning's fame most securely rests, as these
exhibit a more refined art, and a less irritating mgnnerism. The
fact that much of their matter and inspirati^^ jU Ibreign to our
literature is an evidence of the manly originafity of their author's
genius. Among the most pleasing of his writings are " Paracelsus "
— remarkable for its philosophical meaning; "Pipi Passes" — a
graceful dramatic phantasy; " Men and Women" — delightful pic-
tures of Italian art and scenery ; and " Dramatis Personse " — a col-
lection of poems exemplifying what he characterizes as the leading
feature of his art, — viz., that it is " lyrical in expression but dramatic
in principle." As a voluntary exile from his native land for twenty
years, he has become thoroughly acquainted with Italian life and
manners, his familiar knowledge of which he has embodied in " The
Ring and the Book." The " Book " is the contemporary record of
A Roman murder case, found by the poet on an old bookstall in
Florence, while the " Ring " symbolizes the leading aim and spirit
of the poem, which, extending to more than 20,000 lines, forms a
drama in tw jive books. Of these books, the first and the last are,
respectively, the prologue and epilogue, while the remaining ten
are the dramatic monologues of the actors in the tragedy. The
interest of this remarkable work does not lie in its plot —
which, extremely simple in its general features, is revealed at the
outset in a narration of the clearest possible kind, rich with
the hues of imagination. It secures our attention as a profound
psychological study, whose key-note is the relative nature of human
truth ; and it shows that nothing is less demonstrable than matters
of fact, no intellectual task so difficult as the sifting of evidence, and

lOBERT BROWNING.

403

nothing so humiliating to human nature as the judgments we glibly
pass on current events. It shows, likewise, how a knotty problem, '
worthy the subtlest logic of casuistry, may, by the all-pervading
and refining imagination of the poet, be surcharged with passion,
may light up the dark path of duty, and be made to glow with vivid
pictures of real life, as well as of the complicated relations therein
involved. Few recent works afford such indubitable evidence of in*
tellectual power, spiritual insight, earnest purpose, and daring yet
candid thoughtfulness. The inherent difficulties of the task to which
the poet set himself were very great. His art, as was before men*
tioned, is "lyrical in expression, but dramatic in principle.** In
lyrics, the poet is personal, and sings the mood of the moment, while
the dramatist must merge his personality in his creations. Mr BroWn>
iiig, combining the two styles, reveals, in the monologue of each
character, without scenery or acted incident, the clash of temper
and purpose, and the involution of circumstance, which form the
setting of every individual life. So novel and difficult a form of
art, demanding the avoidance of family likeness in the characters,
the preservation of the fictitious disguise from the inroads of per*
sonal emotion, and the prevention of the capricious suggestion of
the lyric from further complicating the cross-lights of the drama,
has rendered much that Mr Browning has hitherto written pecu-
liarly bracing and instructive. " The Ring and the Book," for
example, requires the close and sustained attention of the reader ;
but it is by no means obscure. The plot is frequently disclosed ;
but we never tire of the many versions of the story, which are so
thoroughly assimilated to the mental habit and feeling of each
narrator that they come upon us with the freshness of a new
revelation; while over each view of the tragedy there play the
varied lights of scenery and colour, of genial humour and caustic
satire, of reflection and fact, of passion that enslaves our sympathies,
of subtle analysis that staggers our judgment

Tennyson and Browning stand alone among living poets. Of
the numerous contrasts which they present, the most obvious are
found in their style. The Laureate's verse, it is said, exemplifies
the ornate in poetry — that of Browning, the grotesque. Nothing
can exceed the exquisite polish, the delicate chiselling, and the
chaste colour of Tennyson's lines and stanzas ; rarely is there found
such a delicious blending of sound and sense as in the "Lotos-
Eaters" and "Sir Galahad;" a more fitting form for emotional
mood than the " riddling triplets of old time ; '' or so graceful a rise
and fall with the progress of the tale as in tlie Arthurian blank
verse. Browning, on the other hand, though never careless, and

:{■■ '•

404

TUB POETRY OF THE VICTORIAN AGE,

alwa^rg in tune with the theme floating m the brain, is everywhere
wilfiu, rugged, brusque, and quaint. His ellipse is violent, his
change of key abrupt. There is a reason for these contrasts in the
fundamentally different attitudes in which the two men regard
nature and humanity. The poetry of the one owes its apparent
regularity and simplicity partly to the fact of its elements being
mixed, so to speak, in one vessel — to wit, the personal mood of
the singer — partly to the refining and chastening influence of that
lyric elevation which preserves the utterance at the pitch of song :
the other, again, is a thinker, whose many-sided sympathies, in-
tellectual sweep, and hesitating judgment, find most congenial
expression in the drama — intricate, lawless, inconsistent, and in-
tensely earnest as is human life. Because Browning recognises so
frankly the conditioned both of head and heart, his utterance is
varied and irregular. No poet since Shakspeare has given us so
much of the essentially Shakspearean — so much of what a thought-
ful critic has called " the walking in ijpirit round the perimeter of
being, and looking from the unrest and incompleteness within to
the mysteries beyond." Browning's muse is metaphysical, dealing
with the spiritual problems of life and death, immortality and judg-
ment. His thought is earnest and nervous, and therefore his
utterance is precise, manly, and vigorous, rather than smooth and
elegant. Both poets unite grace and strength ; but in Tennyson
the former quality is the more obvious, while in Browning the
latter predominates. Tennyson also is metaphysical, but not so
uniformly so as Browning. The "Two Voices" is profoundly
reflective, while " In Memoriam " is a valuable contribution to
recent speculation ; but in general he veils his thought under the
guise of symbol and image. " The Vision of Sin " well exemplifies
his characteristic habit. Of all the Elizabethans, Tennyson most
resembles Spenser, though he lacked that human reference which
is ever present to the Victorian Laureate. " In Memoriam " is
largely Shakspearean, but it is the Shakspeare of the Sonnets of
which it reminds us. Browning, dramatic throughout, has nowhere
embodied in verse that absorbing personal sorrow common to
humanity, to which he has been no stranger. He is the Shakspeare |^
of the dramas alone. Marvellous is it that it requires our two
great Victorians to cover the stride of the Elizabethan giant.

While these two poets are indisputably the most original of our

time, their contemporaries, though not without novel and striking

thoughts and fancies, have hitherto been more reproductive than

■k creative. Among them, Matthew Arnold, son of the cele-

h 1822. j- |jj.j^jg^ j)y Arnold, occupies an eminent position. His writ-

ARNOLD, fitJCHANAH, AMD MORBIS.

405

iiigs show two distinct tendencies of his mind — the earlier, poetical ;
the later, critical. His poems include several dramas after the an-
tique, and a series of lyrics and sonnets of an emotional and specula-
t ive kind. Tn the beginning of this century, unusual prominence was
given to the contrasted principles of classicism and romanticism in
literature, which speedily resulted in a decided preference for the lat-
ter. Matthew Arnold, by precept and example, has endeavoured to
reinstate the former in the position of honour, preferring the severe
models of classic antiquity, but superadding to them the spirit and
sentiment of modem civilisation. His " Empedocles on Etna" is a
monologue similar in kind to Tennyson's " liucretius ; " but the
materials — in this case more slender — have been filled out by a
strong dash of modern speculation. The "Merope" is a pure
Greek drama like the " Samson Agonistes " of Milton.

^ Robert Buchanan was only twenty- two years of age when
'i he won the hearty M^come accorded to a new poet of gen-
uine fibre and rhythmic ease. His first essay — " Undertones "—
was a bold foray into the realm of pure phantasy in a poem of subtle
ideality of design, wrought out with a power of word-painting and
rich imagery that marked the hand of no mean artist. Under thd
guise of that Pagan mythology which peopled the shades of Ida and
the rocky glens of Greece with its creations, he endeavoured to
oxpress the thoughts and feelings of the spirit-world by endowing
inanimate nature with speech, wherein to render articulate the
laugh of joy and the wail of sadness which reach the impassioned
ear of the' poet. Love, the one leading principle which imparts
life and dramatic unity to the airy beings of the poem, weaves the
varied tissue of character and incident into one homogeneous whole,
charging the spiritual s*ory with interest to man. This poem was
succeeded by lyrics and idyllic and homely ballads, as decidedly
realistic as the earlier work was fantastic and ideal. In these, the
poet recognises how much heroism and high epical import — found
now in the fisherman's rude hut, now in the gas-lit city — exist in
the world of to-day.

6. circa > The high rank, since well sustained, which William
1825. i Morris speedily reached, is another evidence of the mascu-
line vigour of recent poetical genius, conscious of its own power.
The regard which the early " Guinevere " and other ballads woii for
him was soon afterwards increased by his " Jason," and still more by
his " Earthly Paradise." In grandeur of design and ethical import
" Jason " rises to the level of the epic ; its character and incidents
are heroic, and eminently fitted for poetic treatment; while the
btory is rendered with thorough fidelity to external nature, as well

1 '

406

THE POETRY OF THE VICTORIAN AGE.

as to the spirit and manners of the times in which it is cast. " The
Earthly Paradise " is the work of a modern Chaucer, connectuig,
M it does, on a separate fictitious thread, a series of independent
legends drawn from classical, mediseval, and oriental sources.
Certain Norwegian gentlemen and mariners, ipissing the " Happy
Isles " they seek, meet with much hospitality in a far western land,
which they repay by politic counsel and by old-world tales, nar-
rated twice a month at solemn feasts. The stories are at once
connected and skilfully relieved by pensive reflections on the
changing seasons and the emotions of the wanderers. The whole
would, in primitive* society, have formed an extensive library of
poetry, and a museum of art and culture. With Homeric sim-
plicity of manner, and the childlike faith of the chronicler, the
poet vividly and pleasingly portrays phases of fantastic or real
life, whether in serene repose or active movement, in idyllic enjoy-
ment or tragic situation. We miss tUI genial humour and worldly
wisdom of Chaucer ; but this is no proof that Mr Morris lacks these
qualities, their absence being consistent with the spirit iu which
the work is conceived. The narrators of the tales are wan and
sad-eyed men, ready to depart, satisfied, from the banquet of life ;
there is a mystic burthen in their song, and a uniform sombre gray
suffuses their pictures. In addition to the metaphysical under-
current which pervades the poetry of Mr Morris, there is evidence
of that simple sensuous beauty which marks the influence of
Wordsworth. No poetry exhibits more perfectly the picturesque
presentment of the real or fantastic concrete, which is placed before
our eyes with the vividness of a tangible embodiment.

) Like Mr Morris, Algernon Charles Swinburne found sonic
*> of his finest poetical inspiration in the tragic tales of Greek
Mythology— the " Atalanta in Calydon," written in his twenty-
second year, being modelled on the Greek drama. Still reproduc-
tive, Mr Swinburne next represented, in a powerful tragedy, some
morally repmlsive features in the life of Queen Mary. Passing
over his detached poems, as utterly unworthy of his genius both in
matter and spirit, we may note his fervid " Songs of Italy " — the
rhapsodies of an ardent partisan — abounding in glowing personifi-
cation and dithyrambic fire. In common with the Crownings, he
cordially ftnd vigorously identified himself with the cause of Italian
freedom. In his studies after the antique, the characterization is
true to classic ait, while the choruses finely embody the meditative
mysticism of the Greek drama. ' " Chastelard " contains vivid and
ftartling delineation of character, picturesque grandeur of descrip-
tion, and highly tragic incident. The l^'Hcs f^boiipd in emotional

PANTB GABRIEL B088ETTI AND QGOBaS ELIOT.

407

fervour, strength, and colour, conveyed in highly passionate verse.
All Mr Swinburne^B works exhibit powerfully the faculty of
poetical expression; but the wealth of felicitous, though some'
times too elaborate, description, is more apparent than the dramatic
force.

) We may here notice the poems of Dante Oabriel Rossetti
'i "hB having much in common with those of the three, writers
just mentioned. Long well known as a distinguished member of the
Pre-Eaphaelite school of painters, he had been favourably regarded
as a graceful and appreciative translator of the early Italian poets
before he revealed his native merits in a collection of lyrics, ballads,
and sonnets. These are a marked exemplification in literature of
his artistic principles, the language being nowhei;e void of meaning
or destitute of purpose ; while the sentiment has been felt before it
was expressed, and the pictures mirrored in the poet's soul before
being presented to the reader. The refined emotion of his lyrics
touches the heart as readily and effectively as their rich yet chaste
colour pleases the eye. The tragic interest and pathos of his
ballads are excited by moving incident and the play of ethical pur-
pose; while his sonnets are remarkable of their kind — being a
sedate and pensive expression of that tendency to metaphysical
speculation in poetry recently so obvious.

Our next group includes the names of George Eliot and Lord
Lytton, writers whose verse, intellectual rather than distinctively
imaginative, possesses some qualities in which recent poetry is de-
\ ficient. George Eliot, after ten years of distinguished success
'i as a novelist, turned aside into the kindred walk of poetry.
" The Spanish Gipsy ** blends, in one singularly thrilling dramatic
narrative, the opposing spirit and purpose of the Spaniard and the
Moor towards the close of their protracted struggle ; while from the
clash of crescent and cross the high-souled gipsy chief hopes to
ennoble and comfort his outcast race. On the impressive current
of the drama there play the melody of lyric song and the glad
ripple of humoristic episode. Zarca is a splendid conception, whose
grim enthusiasm and devotion to one idea darken the paradise of
love, and who, baffled by the weakness of the heart, falls at last
mid the ruin of the false and the sensual. Fedalma seemingly
forsakes her love with insufficient reason ; yet, from the author's
point of view, she but obeys the true instinct of hero-worship in
preferring the strong will that dares and succeeds to the half-hearted
evasion that vacillates and fails. She reaches the sublimity of self-
sacrifice, while Don Silva teaches the sad lesson of ill-regulated
greatness " paying his blood for nought." This wealth of ethical im*

ft. 1890. 1

403

THE rOETRY OF THE VICTORIAN AGE.

port constitutes the true worth of the poem; for, despite the fine idea
and the magnificent phrase, it is cast in an intellectual rather than
an emotional mood, and springs from wise meditativeness rather
than from the inward impulse that leads to passionate song. " The
Legend of Jubal *' is a beautiful specimen of epical narration. The
theme is congenial — to wit, the working out of an abstract idea in
the life of a contemplative sage, whose individuality is' finally
merged in that spiritual principle which he evoked. The hidden
meaning of vocal and metrical eipression is finely evolved in a
narrative which marches melodiously on from the antediluvian
idyll of Cain and hb children, through the vocalizing of the tidal
movements of the soul and the mystery of " life's weary brevity
and perilous good,V to the idealized catastrophe in which the spirit
of song wafts the disembodied 'singer to communion with the har-
% monies of the sphere. Lord Lytton (Sir E. Bulwer Lytton)
} was a poet in his fifteenth year; and, throughout his long
literary career, he has again and again yielded to the poetic aspira-
tions of his youth ; but his great fame as a novelist has somewhat
clouded his achievements in this department. His poetry, though
able and cultured, is in some respects alien to the taste of the century.
"Milton" is unquestionably his best pdetical production, whUe
"King Arthur," a serio-comic legendary poem in twelve books,
combines the flippant satire of his " New Timon " and allegorical
phantasy based on sound erudition.

Miss Christina Rossetti is known not only by her numerous
lyrics, uniting plaintive melody and deep feeling, but by lengthy
narratives, poetical in conception and graceful in execution.
The pervading note is a sad one, but full of musical sweetness ;
while the thought, though always healthful, is peculiarly secretive.
Many of her poems are highly suggestive and symbolical ; and, with
interest enough to excite general attention, reveal the richest depths
of meaning to that reader alone who is in imaginative accord with
the sentiment. " The Goblin Market " shows, under the fiction of
elfin-merchants tempting two sisters with thi>ir fruits, the ennobling
influence of self-sacrifice and the yearning < ngendered by indulgence.
" The Prince's Progress " exhibits a modification of the same idea —
the contrasted principles in the one case being symbolized in the
two sisters, and in the other by a prince (who has been drawn aside
from a noble earnest life by the unsubstantial attractions of fortune),
and a princess whose sad lot owes its elevation and consistency to
an abiding love. Miss Rossetti's allegory is never strained or over-
elaborated ; she has a power of picturesque personification, of simple
sensuous beauty, and of plaintive sentiment, in the best manner of

ALEXANDER R^ITtt AND QCORaE IIACDONALD.

409

the minor Elizabethans. Miss Kossetti has recently been well re-
ceived as a novelist.

b. 1890.) 'I'he sudden death ot Alexander Smith made a sad bhuik
(/.laer.j 'm the roll of modem poets. Twenty years of meagre edu*
cational culture, and unremitting toil as a pattern-designer, formed
an honourable but very imperfect proparation for a literary career,
which, extending over only a few brief years, witnessed the produc-
tion of much poetry elevated in theme and spirit, and unusually
popular, despite severe criticis*. The *'Life Drama," "City
Poems," and " Edwin of Deira," showed a marked progressive im-
provement in grace and strength ; and, though we regret the imper-
fect taste and judgment and the ill-regulated vigour they display,
we can see in them undeniable evidence of keen sensibilities, poetic
feeling, and wealth of imaginative power. In the historical epic,
" Edwin of Dciir.",'* his most artistic poem, the canvass is exceed-
ingly broad, but filled in with character%finely and poetically drawn ;
while the scenery and incident are varied and impressive ; and the
exuberant ornamentation, though showing immaturity of genius,
displays the touch of the genuine poet.

^ In the poetry of George Macdonald we see the earnest
i efforts of a delicate imagination and a thoughtful mind to
grasp and clear up some of the perplexities of religious belief. His
muse disports, now in suggestive and profoundly spiritualized alle-
gory, charged with didactic purpose ; now in open-hearted delight in
external nature, strongly suffused with Wordsworthian sentiment.
He has shown his genuine human affection and Christian earnestness
of purpose in connexion with religious poetry and juvenile litera-
ture. Mr Macdonald is known also as a novelist.

The minor poetry of the present day exhibits some of the best
features of that refined sensitive culture which, in a time of wide-
spread education and taste, forms the graceful substitute for original
inspiration. Ladles are honourably distinguished here — a fact
which is shown by the pleasing and touchmg verse of Miss Eliza
Cook atid Miss Jean Ingelow ; by the genial and earnest poems of
Miss Mulock ; as well as by the thoughtful muse of Miss Adelaide
A. Procter (the gifted daughter of Barry Cornwall), which is tinged
throughout by her religious viewa. AJong with irregularities and
defects, there are many beauties in the ballads and lyrics of Gerald
Massey, the healthy, fresh, and musical songs of W. C. Bennett, the
tastef^ patriotic verse of William Allinghara, the religious poetry *
of Sur Aubrey de Vera (similar to that of Miss Procter), and the
refined, sparkling, and intellectual pieces of Robert Lytton, soo of
the distmguished novelist.

410

TUB POETRY OF THE TICTORIAN AQB.

3. The acted Drama has been cultivated during this period 'with
but indifferent success, and, with many dramatists, we have had but
few dramas that deserve to be regarded as substantial additions to
literature. The principle of this department is, however, widely
prevalent both in poetry and fiction-— Tennyson, Browning, and
George Eliot, having all produced poems dramatic in spirit, while
our best acting plays have been written by novelists. The most
valuable recent dramatic works are from the pens of Sheridan
Knowles, Noon Talfourd, Lord!^ Lytton, and Douglas Jerrold.
Sheridan Knowles, cousin of the distinguished Richard Brinsley
&. 1784. > Sheridan, showed early and decided proclivities for the
d.1862.]' stage, having written his first play, "Leo the Gipsy," for
Edmund Kean, in his twenty-fourth year. " Gracchus " secured his
position as a play-wright ; while " Virginius " and " Tell " widened
not only his own fame but that of Macready. Mr Knowles made
the elder dramatists, especially Massinger, his models. Although
wanting in humour, his works are characterized by a prevailing
vein of imagination, a high moral tone, and earnest purpose. Judge
(.179S.1 Talfourd wrote two classic and two romantic dramas, of
<Li864.j ^hich "Ion," his greatest work, finely reproduces, in an
elegant and perspicuous style, the simplicity of theme and moral
import of the Greek stage. Lord Lytton has the rare merit of hav-
ing produced some of the few standard acting plays of this century.
The " Lady of Lyons " is picturesque and romantic, with passages
of fine poetry and genuine feeling, pleasing incidents, and a fasci-
nating plot. Comedy has been written with marked success by
ft. 1803. ) Douglas Jerrold. In his hands it is brilliant and sparkling,
(f. 1867. i full of lively wit, and terse, pungent satire, though it scarcely
affords the reader the pleasure derived from Goldsmith. " Time
Works Wonders " is perhaps his best piece ; but the simplicity of
plot and fine pathos of " Black*eyed Susan " has rendered it his moet
popular work. Henry Taylor, a well-known essayist, and the best
representative of the modern written drama, never surpassed the
beauty and singular merit of his first play, " Philip van Artevelde.^'
" Edwin the Fair" and " St Clement's Eve" have appeared at long
intervals. The latter, though of a high oiMer of intellect, as all Mi-
Taylor's works are, wants that concentration of passion and ima-
ginative sympathy that render the higher drama effective. His play 8
.are thoroughly faithful to the times in which they are laid, stately
and reflective, and rich in sententious observation. We must
simpl}' notice the dramatic pieces of R. H. Home and P. J.
Bailey. Those of the former show much poetic feeling, conveyed
ifi ft cbasfe st^-le; while the "Fest^p" pf t]ie latter attracted

KETBICAL TBA17SLATIOK8.

411

ranch attention from its mysticisni, bold imagery, and striking
ideality.

4. Tlie metrical translations of the period are interesting from their
number and general excellence. Homer has been rendered in a
variety of metres — ^m heroic blank verse by Lord Derby and Mr
Wright ; in the ballad measure of Macaulay*s " Lays " by Professor
Blackie ; in Spenserian stanza by Mr Worsley, a poet of refined
sensibility ; and in classic hexameters by Sir John Herschel. Of
translations from the Greek dramatists, Professor Blackie's " ^s-
chylus" has long been favourably known ; while " Sophocles " and
" JSschylus " have been rendered by the Rev. E. H. Plumptre. Of
the Latin poets, Horace has of course been the favourite ; Theodore
Martin reproduces his spirit and manner in some cases with rare
success. Professor Couington is easy and faithful; while Lord
Lytton, undoubtedly the best qualified to render this author, has
given us a version in rhymeless rhythm which, with individual
merits, is, on the whole, somewhat disappointing. Professor Coning>
ton*s "iGneid,**fresh,.accurate, and the work of a thoroughly capable
scholar, is written in the octosyllabic metre of Scott and Byron.
Mediaeval poetry, on the edge of the classic circle, has attracted
much attention ; and from the field which Lockhart worked in his
I^ys, McCarthy and Longfellow have reproduced some interesting
Spanish poetry, while Dante has been translated by several.
Coleridge, who early in the century familiarized English readers
with the higher poetry of Germany, has been followed by Professors
Blackie and Aytoun and Theodore Martin. Scott^s excursion into
the kindred field of Norse legend opened up a region of unusual
freshness and romantic beauty, whence our literature has been sub-
sequently enriched by Longfellow, Buchanan, and Morris.

5. A brief notice of contemporary American poets will closo
this chapter, and sufiice to pbow that they fulfil the promise of

•J the earlier period. Henry Wadaworth Longfellow, who, to
■]" much native originality, adds elegant culture, gained by
an earnest study of European models, has written poems — senti-
mental, narrative, and descriptive — which have been widely popular
here. His shorter pieces bn :uthe throughout a high tone of morality ;
but they are not altogether devoid of Jthat straining after the moral
type and symbol in external nature, which occasionally borders on
forced e^nceit. The difiicult hexameter metre of the " Evangeline "
and ' .^ ! aes Standish" has perhaps necessitated a verbiage which ren-
ders the paucity of incident more appv.rent ; but both poems are full
.of beautiful description, touching pathos, and highlv tra:;ic interest.
The irregular metre and obscure narration of " Tlv iioUien Legend "

¥M

■JMi

413

THE POETEY OP THE VICTORIAN AGB.

— a vivid picture of monkish life in the middle ages — are in fine har-
mony with the spirit of the poem, which bears a strong resemblance
in characters and plot to Goethe*s " Faust." " The Song of Hia-
watha," the most poetical of Longfellow's works, is an ode in a
novel but charming measure, descriptive of the Satumian age of the
native race of North America. In the highly fanciful personificatione
of natural forces, and in the majestic scenery of the prairie and the
forest, the author finds full scope for his rare gift of imaginative
description. In Longfellow's later poems, characterized by his
usual grace and tenderness of expression, there are traces of that
meditative tendency so prevalent now. No Transatlantic poetry
) smacks so much of the soil as that of Whittier. An ar-
i dent advocate, in prose and verse, of abolition, he has poet-
ized republican themes with great energy. The " Home Ballads "
are more subdued and contemplative in tone than the early " New
England Legends -," while their effect is heightened by a skilful use
of the common psalm metre. " The Tent on the Beach " takes its
title from the fiction by which the author unites a series of other-
wise unconnected poems, remarkable for their keen and lively ap-
preciation of nature.

Passing over the airy sentiment )f Willis, and the humorous and
elegant verse of 0. W. Holmes, we proceed to notice the more
1 popular poetry of James Russell LowelL His " Biglow
'i Papers," a clever Hudibrastic poem in the Yankee dialect,
scarcely prepared us for the pure, tender, and pensive verse of
"Under the Willows." ^'No American poet seems to have so
genuine a love of nature, so playful a fancy, so truthful and genial
a spirit."

CLASSIFICATIONS OF MOTELS.

413

CHAPTER XVIL

THE IMAGINATIVE PROSE OF THE VICTORIAN AGE.
A. D. 1830--A. D. 1870.

FiOTiON Proper. — 1. Classifications of ' bvels — Statistics of Novel- Writing.
—2. Leading Novelists of the Period. — 3. Minor Novelists. — 4. Contem-
porary American Fiction.

Mi::>cKLi,Ai(Eous Probe.— 1. Classification of Miscellanies.— 2. The Familiar
iili^cellariy. — 3. The Intellectual Essay.— 4. The Picturesque Sketch.

i. This chapter will embrace all recent imaginative prose, whether
in the form of the novel or after the manner of fiction. To
this mass of popular literature it will be convenient to apply, at
the outset, some principles of classification. Professor Masson's
arrangement of modern novels in "British Novelists and their
Styles " is sufficiently comprehensive, and (slightly modified) stands
thus — (1.) The Novel of Life and Manners, whether national or pro-
vincial, native or foreign ; (2.) The Fashionable Novel ; (3.) The Illus-
trious Criminal Novel ; (4.) The Traveller's Novel ; (5.) The Profes-
sional Novel ; (6.) The Novel of Supernatural Phantasy ; (7.) The
Art and Culture Novel ; (8.) The Historical Novel. Lord Lytton
furnishes uuother classification, which, being internal, and regard-
ing the viinnei' of the artist, forms the complement to the external
or objo ;t'vp me of Professor Masson. In this aspect, he distin-
guisl; !s, >?» *ho preface to the " Last of the Barons," three schools
of novelist — ^tlip. Familiar, the Picturesque, and the Intellectual.
Professoi r«l«.ivm, in the work just quoted, supplies some interest-
ing statistics of the growth of British fiction, from the publication
of " Waverley " to 1869. During this period he calculates that 3000
novels were written in this country ; and that " the annual yield
had been quadrupled by the time of Scott's death, as compared
with what it had been when he was in the middle of his Waverley
seri" — ^having risen from 26 a year, or a new novel every fortnight,
to ^1^ .»t lOO a year, or nearly two new novels every week." In
18U0, - . -^rdin^ to the " Publishers' Circular," the total was 461,

414 THE IMAGINATIVE PBOSG OF THE VICTOBIAM AOG^

'which, as a novel generally exceeds one volume, gives about three
volumes of fi^^tion for every day in the year.

2. Dividing our period of forty years into two portions as before,
we find ill full activity during the earlier portion those novelists
who began their career about the time when Scott died. Of these,
more than a dozen in number, we note first Fenimore Cooper and
Captain Marryat, who give us stirring tales of adventure and dar-
(.iTsa.! ing. The former delights in the wild Indian life of his
d-issi.]* native America, with picturesque descriptions of its forest
b. 1792. ) scenery ; while the latter is specially at home on the sea, and
d. 1848. f invests the ship and its crew with an absorbing interest.
His maritime tales reproduce the character and humour of Smol-
lett, set in a colouring of natural description foreign to that classic.
G. P. R. James cultivated the historical romance of Scott, in
nearly 200 volumes of liction, which exhibit a tiresome sameness
of Htyle and incident, bt< ~ r^^'.rvellous ingenuity in circumstantial
particulars. " Richelieu Damley " are said to be his best

productions.

To our next group belong such lady novelists as Mrs TroUope,
Mrs Hall, Mrt> Gore, the Brontes, and Mrs Gaskell. Mrs TroUope
b. 1790. ) commenced her literary career at the age of fifty, after she
d.iSG3.y had met with much trial and misfortune. Her books of
travels are marked by strong common sense and acute observation.
Interesting herself in the men and manners she saw, she seized on
the ethical side of her subject, and treated it in a caustic, satirical
style. In a humbler, yet simple and natural manner, Mrs Hall
worked in the field of I^sh life and character, so successfully cul-
tivated by her predecessor. Miss Edgeworth ; whilo Mrs Gore
trod in the footsteps of Miss Austen, though she made a much
nearer approach to the fashionable novel in its latest develop-
ment than did that lady. In *'Jane Eyre" the novel-reading
public hailed the advent of a new genius, " capable of depictinii;
the strong, self-reliant, racy, and individual characters which lin-
6. 1816. > gered still in the north." The authoress was Charlotte
(1.1855./ Brontd, one of three sisters, all endowed with remark'
able power, whose personal history is as singular as their genius.
Emily wrote the weird tale of *'■ Wuthering Heights," and Anne
the less successful "Agnes Gray." "Jane Eyre" belongs to
what is called the real school of novels, and brings into tne do-
main of literature an outlying portion of fiction, previously con-
sidered unworthy of artiutic treatment in its provincialisms and
commonplace experiences. The innovation U notable as forming
the beginning of a tendunoy which haa unce been strongly

LORD LYTTON.

415

devclopccl. The strange life of these sisters has been narrated,
b. 1811.) ^ith all the interest of romance, by Mrs Gaskell, who, her-
d.i8B6.y self a novelist, did for her native Lancashire what Charlotte
Brontd did for Yorkshire. " She was a prose Crabbe, — earnest,
faithful, and often spirited in her delineations of humble life."

The Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Lytton have com-
bined literary pursuits with active political life. During the career
> of the former — interrupted by a protracted and ardent
'i devotion to politics, but recently resumed in " Lothair " —
he produced more than a dozen novels, of which the most notable
are " Vivian Grey " and " Coningsby." These exhibit a mastery
over gorgeous description, and neat and pointed sarcasm ; but thoy
are light, brilliant, and clever political essays rather than works of
fiction.

Lord Lytton — a rare example of literary fecundity and

J versatility — wrote, during a period of about thirty- five
years, many high-class novels ; and, in addition, advanced sub-
stantial claims to rank as a poet, a dramatist, a metrical translator,
an essayist, a historian, a politician, and an orator. Prose fiction
owes much to him, for he has tested its capabilities in many de-
partments ; and that with scientific notions of his art rarely found
among other novelists. Nothing is more notable in his novels than
the progressive improvement in design and execution which they
display : their philosophy deepens and mellows ; their morality
becomes sounder and nobler ; and the author strengthens more and
more his hold on the attention and affections of the reader. Be-
ginnmg with a work of a strongly Byronic cast, and a fashionable
novel in the style of Theodore Hook — brilliantly witty and sarcas-
tic — he advanced from those idealistic sketches of illustrious crimi-
nals, "Paul Clifford" and "Eugene Aram," to those gorgeous
romances which form one of the most secure pillars of his fame.
His " Pompeii " and " Rienzi " restored classic and mediseval Rome,
— ^hb " Harold " and " Last of the Barons," Saxon and Norman
England. Every reader must admure the stately interest, the
breadth of colour, and the imaginative grandeur of these historic
pictures. Leaving such solid ground, his art has soared aloft, in
" Zanoni," into the aerial realms of prose phantasy, and, as in " A
Strange Story," sounded the depths of philosophy and spiritualism ;
but it attained its greatest perfection in the delightful Caxton series
of domestic fiction. In these exquisite pictures of English life, we
have a chaiming interchange of town and country, interesting por-
traiture, and the wise suggestion of a matured intellect.

The works of Thackeray and Dickens connect and explain the

416 THE IMAGINATIVE PEOSE OP THii; VICTORIAN AGE.

latest stages in the development of Britibh fiction, of which they
were for many years the acknowledged leaders. The historicid
relation between them reminds us of that existing between Tenny-
son and Browning. Like Tennyson, Dickens was first in the field :
Thackeray, again, like Browning, had written much that won the
attention of the appreciative few before he commanded general re-
spect and admiration. Other analogies suggest themselves as
exbting among these writers, which cannot here be followed.
b. 1811. > William Makepeace Thackeray, though a year older than
A 1864! I Dickens, wrote his first great novel eight years after the
" Pickwick Papers " had appeared. Not till his thirtieth year was
he seriously reconciled to literature. His short and lively sketches,
communicated to magazines and humorous journals, under facetious
soubriquets, looked more like trifles thrown off by an original but
unsettled genius than earnest work. His early life, slightly repro-
duced in his character of Clive Newcome, had been somewhat
singular. Born in Calcutta, but educated in England, Thackeray
had studied, at home and on the Continent, as an artist, when the
loss of most of his fortune led him into the kindred walk of litera-
ture. Slowly, end after much labour, did he work himself into
that profound acquaint.tnce with men and manners in their ethical
aspects which his difficult variety of fiction demanded. Less gene-
rally pleaiing than that of Dickens, but more bracing, corrective,
and searching, his style was not calculated to win immediate suc-
cess. Dealing with the higher circles of society and the foibles
and frivolity of fashionable life, and mtermingling his sketches with
caustic satire on the innate knavery and pretence common to man-
kind at large, his views contrasted unfavourably with the genial
idealized human nature of his great contemporary. Thackeray
was fond of exhibiting the moral and intellectual development of
his heroes in the fashion set by Goethe, inducing in them, through^
the medium of a foolish youthful attachment, a mocking sceptical
spirit, and leaving them, after a period of perplexity and feud with
the orthodox and conventional, sobered and disciplined, in the
prosaic sphere of wedded life. This is specially observable in
*'Pendenni3," "TheNewcomes," "The Virginians," and "Esmond."
"The Newcomes" is considered his most pleasing and most artis-
tically complete novel, and worthily stands at the head of that
powerful series of pictures of modern society — "Vanity Fair,"
" Pendennis," " Lovel the AVidover," and " PhUip." Beside these
we place those historical novels — " Esmond," a scholarly and sym-
pathetic sketch of the wits and men of action in the reign of Anne;
fmd "The Virginians," a somowhat disjointed tale of the time of

CnARLGS DICKENS.

417

Washington and the American War. The portion of history em-
braced in these two works had strong affinities for Thaclceray — to
wluch fact we owe, in another department, the delightful slcetches
of "The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century," and the
charactwistio " Lectures on the Four Georges."
«. 1812. 1 The " Pickwick Papers " of Charles Dickens appeared
rf.i870.j in J837 — six years after Bcott's concluding fictions, and
eight before Thackeray's "Vanity Fair." Here he exhibits, at
the very outset of his career, the merits and defects peculiar to
him — his genial style, imaginative description, and exuberant
humour, combined with a tendency to caricature and sentimen<
tality. There followed, in the same vein, though showing a
rapidly maturing mastery over character and plot, that series of
noble works which placed him fuddle princeps in the domain of
prose fiction since Scott. As a parliamentary reporter, Dickens
early acquired unusual readiness and ease in writing; while a
familiar acquaintance with London life in its humbler strata
supplied him with an endless variety of character and incident.
Impregnating and moulding all his skill and experience, was the
quick and genial fancy of a true poet. To the field of metro-
politan life he confined himself with all that fondness 'which made
Scott at home in the region of Gothic romance. He leads ns into
the dingy courts and wretched alleys of London, or down its
crowded streets, with the hum of trafiic and the wail of misery
in our ears; while, among barges and ships, and below gloomy
arches, the dark river glides on in solemn stillness, laden with
its burden of woe and crime. Occasionally, however, he breaks
away from London fog and mystery into that vague entity of
peaceful hamlets, sunlit meadows, and bright sky, which the
citizen but dimly knows as the country, and gives us exquisite
pictures of the lone churchyard with its sad memories ; the forge-
lit sky, looking down on i;oaring furnace and grimy workers ; and
the wild sea-beach with its simple pathos of toil and danger ; but
it is only to return to that stage whereon the deepest tragedy and
the broadest comedy are hourly played. It is eminently charac-
teristic oi this author's mission in literature that many of his works
were written with a special social pnrpose. Putting aside the
" Pickwick Papers," as to some extent prescribed in plan, we
observe, in those novels which followed, the warm interest which
this universally-lamented author took in the leading questions of
' the day — witness his exposure o^ defects in the educational and
poor-law systems, of the tricks to which the emigrant is exposed,
and of the miseries of Chancery wards, and prisoners for debt. It

418 THE IMAGINATIVE PROSE OP TOE VICTORIAN AGB.

18 impossible to estimate the effects of preaching insinuated in n
style so picturesque, and so well calculated to enlist oiur sym-
pathies. It charged the old gift of story-telling with a new
purpose ; it armed it with new powers ; it softened and mellowed
the asperities and bigotry of religious sects ; and permeated every
grade of society with a kindlier glow of philanthropy. Mr
Dickens's later works showed his art divorced from such definite
aims, and devoted to the ministering of fascinating pleasure.
Their plot is often elaborate and involved, while their intere8t
is deepened by exciting incident and ghastly situation. Yet what
do we not owe to creative genius at once so rich and so human ?
It has made the reader free of a society for every mood and every
age, and introduced to him specimens of humanity that excite the
liveliest detestation of everything mean and base, or attract with all
the strength of a personal affection. Such rare literary skill and
manly human sympathies won for this gifted writer a sacred place
in our hearts and by our firesides, which the loving remembrance of
him and his noble pages will hallow and endear, when all that earth
holds of him has crumbled into dust.

" The Snob Papers " stand in the same rel&tion to Thackeray's
fictions as fhe " Pickwick " do to those of Dickens ; and we may
study in them the contrasted manners of these writers and the
characteristic features of their genius in the geim. They after-
wards painted on a larger scale and with more varied interest ; but
theue early works reveal their favourite colours and those native
touches in which the hand of each delighted. Pickwickism and
its accessories are eminently lovable, though they do not always
command respect; snobbism and its accessories are essentially
mean and contemptible. Both writers are satirists ; but Dickens
attacks the senseless or the knavish in the corporate rather than in
the individual capacity — ^bantering institutions rather than persons ;
whereas the incisive humour of Thack«ray cuts through the mask
of the hypocrite and the " snob." There is room in art for both
varieties of fiction ; and, to the thoughtful student, the one fonns
the complement to the other. Their style is in perfect accordance
with their contrasted forms of art : Dickens pours out his humour
and pathos with a fluent, facile pen, that loves the graces of diction
and the beauties of imagery ; while Thackeray is vigorous aAd dash-
ing, terse and idiomatic. He adorns his page with scholarly quota-
tion, satiric sneer, or wise Horatian talk ; Dickens with picturesque
glimpses of nature, and bursts of impassioned prose that rise to the
level of poetry. Our library of fiction is richer and more complete in
virtue of this marked individuality of twu of its worthiest contribulors.

CHARLES KINGSLET AND OEOSOB ELIOT.

il9

We may select the names of Charles Kingsley (with -whom may
be associated Thomas Hughes) and George £liot, as occupying a
leading position in fiction after Dickens and Thackeray. Canon
) Kingsley has exhibited, through the medium of the novel,
*) the social reforms of a large-hearted philanthropist, the
ethical views of a thouglitful moralist, and the beautiful fancies of
a poet. It is significant that his first work of fiction — " Alton
Locke*' — was written amid the political and social turmoil of
the year 1848. It forcibly portrays the difficulties which beset
an earnest, thouglitful man ; whether arising, on the one hand,
from our social and commercial system, or, on the other, from
rhe fundamental perplexity whicli lies outside the haven of a
.genuine faith. The enigma propounded in this and subsequent
novels is found in the twofold conditions of real duties in the
>'i*cscnt, and ideal hopes of the future; and its solution is shown
to exist in manly integrity and settled Christian purpose. His
III torical novels form a splendid group — "Hypatia," that tragic
conflict between the poetic philosophy of Paganism and the strong
youth of Christianity ; " Westward Ho," that patriotic tale of
lUlizabethan daring and Protestantism ; and " Hereward," that
picturesque representation of the high courage and simple faith
of a heroic Englishman. Mr Kingsley's fiction has as real a hold
of English industrial society as that of Miss Brontd or Mrs Gaskell,
and handles the mysteries of life as profoundly and conscientiously
as that of Thackeray, while it possesses tliat fine poetic fibre and
susceptibility to pathos which constitute the especial charms of
the art of Dickens. The death of Hypatia, the sudden blindness
of Amyas Leigh, and the sack of Peterborough, could have been
drawn by none but a great imaginative artist. "Tom Brown's
> School Days " — as yet the only really great work of
' / Thomas Hughes — has qualities which claim for its author
a brief notice in this connexion. Like Mr Kingsley, he has charged
his novel with definite and elevated purpose, though its theme i»
but the struggle of a schoolboy towards manliness and Christian
earnestness.

George Eliot is the acknowledged pseudonym of a clergyman's
daughter, who acted for some time as joint editor of the " West-
minster lleview," and wjio, as poet and novelist, ranks high in
literature. Her first work — " Scisnes of Clerical Life " — ^was only
the unimportant precursor of tliat series of fictions — " Adam Bede,"
"The Mill on the Floss," "Silas Mamer," and "Felix Holt,"—
wludi form a splendid set of studies in real life, remarkable alike
for artistic finish, wealth of intellectual power, and moral signi*

%20 THE IHAQINATITB PB08E OF TUB VICTOKIAN AGE.

ficance. " Romola," which immediately preceded " Felix Holt," is
a romance of mediaeval Italy, ivhose central figure i» the martyr
Savonarola. As an etliical teacher, this author is severe and
almost Puritanic in tone ; and the prevailing theme of her work»
is as simple and impressive as the burthen of a Greek chorus
The paramount and solemn claims of duty c > enforced througi,
the medium of singuh rly unique creations, evolved from common
place materials, which, with much skill, are made to declare them-
selves by a process of self-delineation true to real life. The action
of each story is the result of circumstances dramatically con-
structed, which now overmaster, now mould and ennoble, tho
actors. Throughout these fictions, there runs, consciously or un-
consciously, an antithesis of duty and self-pleasing; the play ol
heroic purpose and nobility of soul set in contrast to good in
tentions marred by inherent weakness.

3. There remains a large collection of novelists, who, if they \m\ o
not permanently enriched the library of fiction, have ministered ;;
vast amount of pleasure to their contemporaries. Their works are
more or less faithful photographs of the humours and manners, the
pleasures and speculation, of the day. For abundance and artistic
1 finish, fidelity to nature, and general excellence, Anthony
i TroUope is honourably distinguished after those leaders oi
fiction before mentioned. Appearing as an author in his thirty-second
year, he depicted those features of Irish life, already associated
with the names of Banim and Carleton, after which he cultivated
that variety of middle-class domestic fiction which has since been
so thoroughly identified with him. In all his works there are racy
sketches of character and incident, genuine good sense, easy and
natural dialogue, and a healthy interest in commonplace people,
singularly free from sensational effect. He is an uncommonly ready
writer, and the scrupulous care and elegance with which he per-
forms his work are well seen in his " Last Chronicles of Barset."
After Mr TroUope, the most pleasing delineators of contemporary
life and manners, are Miss Mulock, Mrs Oliphant, Mrs Marsh, and
Miss Yonge. Miss Dinah Maria Mulock is one of our most earnest
) moral teachers. There is a prevailing sadness of tone in
i all her works, as she aims at exhibiting the action of mis-
fortune on the disposition and temper, according as it strengthens
and expands innate worth, or ruins the weak and the vicious.

As our last group forms a class of novelists who in general
tell their story quietly and with some under-current of purpose,
ft. 1814. > Charles Reade and Wilkie Collins, Mrs Henry Wood, and
A. 1884.) Miss Braddon, may represent those writers who delight in

AMEniCAN PICTIOH.

421

fiction for it« own sake, with its exciting macliincry of mysterious
situations and complicated plots. The two first named are writers
for the stage, who carry the tastes and styles of the drama into their
liel ions, —giving us graphic delineations of character and plots, art-
fully constructed, though sometimes extravagant in incident. Their
novels "show rare constructive skill. Mr Keade has occasionally
;i>tcmpted to deal with some of the difficult problems of indiis-
/ ■3='o I t"^l'^">- '^^^ works of Mrs Henry VN''ood are commonly

' ' i free from the excesses of melodramatic fiction ; and arc,
i;:oreover, pure in tone and elevated in principle.

We can give but a passing notice to the humorously gay fictions
"f Samuel Lover and Charles Lever ; the amusing and able sketciics
of Samuel Warren ; the stately classic romance and contemporary
tiles of Whyte Melville ; the thrilling adventure of Mayne lieid
Mild Hannay; the weird stories of Mrs Crowe; the fashion-
able society that figures in the pages of Mrs Gore ; and the lively
travels of Albert Smith.

4. Transatlantic fiction, during the current period, has been as
fertile as our own, but it contains far less of permanent value.
Mrs Stowe's great work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," created an
immense sensation, due more to the subject than to its intrinsic
merits. Miss E. Wetherell has written several pleasing tales of
American life. But by far the greatest and most individual recent
writer of this class in America was the late Nathaniel Hawthorne.
b. 1804. > He was in his thirty-third year before he was known here ;
d. 1864. ]■ but he was speedily appreciated for his dreamy phantasy,
delicate quaintness of thought, and the simplicity, beauty, and
terse vigour of his style. "The Scarlet Letter," "The House «f
Seven Gables," " The Blithedale Komance," and " Transformation,"
could have been produced only by an imaginative writer of un-
common merit. To the same class as " Transformation " belongs
the " Elsie Venner" of Oliver Wendell Holmes, both works being
unique in fiction. " Elsie Venner " is not so much a novel as a
profound study of a blended psychological and physiological
interest, while the story, though evincing a semi-morbid taste, is
managed with consummate skill and delicacy.

MISCELLANEOUS PROSE ESSAYS.

1. On the edge of the pure fiction we have been considering lies
a large quantity of miscellaneous writings, neither historical nor
didactic, but rather a mixed kind of prose, wherem the tale appears
as the thin guise for conveying, In an interesting way, discursive

422 THE IMAGINATIVE PROSE OF. THE VICTORIAN AQB.

reflection, genial humour, or quaint fancy. ClasHifying thcM
miscellanies on Lord Lytton's principle already alluded to, the
Familiar would embrace humorous or satirical portraiture of men
and manners ; the Intellectual, miscellaneous works of more or less
conscious didactic purpose ; and the Picturesque, the real or idciil
treatment of Nature.

2. The Familiar Miscellany is largely connected with the
ephemeral literature of the comic journals, and forms by no means
an unimportant chronicle of the humours of the day. Most of
Hood's works belong to this department, of which we may instance
"Up the liliine," a clever satire on the absurdities of English
travellers, reminding us of Thackeray's " Kickleburys." This
latter work, along with the Cornhill "Roundabout Papers" and
Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, secure for the distinguished
novelist a prominent place here. One of the most brilliant of this
set of humorists was Douglas Jerrold, whose flashing wit and
pungent sarcasm, relieved by tender touches of pathos and fancy,
found fitting expression in the Familiar Miscellany. The " Caudle
Lectures," " Story of a Feather," and " Sketches of the English,"
are his happiest productions of this kind. These writers were all
) novelists. To another writer of fiction — Charles Lever —
*i we owe those clever sketches purporting to be drawu by
a new Censor of Men and Women — Cornelius O'Dowd. The
subjects that interest him are congenial to the lighter portions of
cultivated society, and evince in their treatment sustained char
acterization and ofHcial and literary experience at home and on
the Contint'ut. O'Dowd's anecdotes constitute his greatest charm ;
and his sketches of national character show minute and delicate
portraiture. An original and inimitable specimen of this latter
».179«.> ^'"^ 0^ writing is the late Judge Haliburton's "Sam
d.it365.i Slick." It attempts to portray Yankee commercial
finesse, and abounds in humorous and able delineations of char-
acter. With the adventures of the hero are combined many
shrewd and sarcastic observations on political and social topics, of
colonial or American interest. " The Diary of the Great Westera,"
and "Nature and Human Nature," show the same gift of sly
humou(» and lifelike sketching of individuals. The atlthor was
long a Nova Scotia judge, and latterly a member of the British
Parliament.

».i776.) 3. The "Imaginary Conversations" of Walter Savage
d-iSM.]* L<andor form an excellent example of the Intellectual
Essay. His poetry is not in any way notable, but the prose work
just mentioned is one of the most remarkable productions of its

ARTHUR HELPS AND 0. W. HOLMES.

423

kind in this century. Begun in 182G, the series of " Conversations *'
was continued almost till his death — exhibiting throughout the
unusual classical scholarship of the author, as well as his just
notions of art, and his thoughts and feelings on history, politics,
and religion. Full of beauties for the reflective and cultivated
mind, and sparkling with condensed imagery and quaint colour,
these " Conversations " are always strong and bright, though often
paradoxical, and sometimes extreme.

f ifiiT I " ^'^*®°^'' "* Council " of Arthur Helps is likewise

'i a series of imaginary conversations. Begun in 1847, the
collection is scarcely yet complete. The scene in which they are
laid — originally a country-house, where three college friends discuss
essays written by one of their number — shifts in the "Second
Series" to the Continent, where the Councils are relieved by descrip-
tions of picturesque or historic spots. Latterly, the friends have
discussed tales of a peculiar type. These imaginary characters —
didactic dilettanti, who debate on abstract politics and social
morality — are carefully-drawn types of distinct views of life.
The tale of " Realmah,*' a political romance of the geologic
Stone Period, is named from its hero, who is a highly-idealized
personage of eminently mild and philanthropic views. " Cassimir
Maremraa," again, is an Oriental story. The form of the entire
series is not attractive ; while the tales, though daringly novel in
conception, are not always skilfully managed. The language
throughout is pure and elegant, and the true worth of the matter
lies in its earnest and enlightened speculation.

Oliver W. Holmes — already noticed as a novelist and poet —
has also concealed a scries of intellectual essays under the mask of
fiction. The "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" is a voluble
American, who discourses at a boarding-hou^e on philosophy,
morals, manners, and aesthetics. He is less didactic and more
conversational, less profound and earnest, than the " Friends " of
Mr Helps ; but his vivacity is much more pleasing to the general
reader.

We have much diffidence in placing Mr Carlyle's "Sartor
Resartus," which is properly a philosophical work ; but it contains
so much skilfully-constructed biography and lifelike character-
ization, and makes so free a use of irresistible humour, that we
class it with that sub-variety of imaginative prose — the Intel-
lectual Miscellany. Its central figure is the eccentric German
Professor, Herr Teufelsdrockh, whose character and fantastic
clothes-philosophy embody the transcendentalism of Fichte.

4. Th9 Picturesque Sketch h removed a degree further from

424 TUE IMAGINATIVE PistOSE OF THE TICTOBIAlt AGE.

fiction than the foregoing forms of essay, and requires for its
successful execution a poet, or at least a man of strong poetic
sUsceptibilitties, ftble to transport himself in spirit into external
nature, or into an Idealised region of fancy, and, at the same time,
to connect his imaginings with the passing mood, and the tastes
&.'i786.| aud culture of the mind itself. Thomas de Quincey, above
d.'ifc68.j all modem writers, has carried the spirit and manner of
poetry into prose in the way indicated. The " impassioned prose "
of the " Confessions '* arid the " Suspiria " are ccmscious attempts
at creating a new variety of literature. The norelt}' lies, not in
the imaginative description of real scenes, — though De Quincey is
powerful her$ too, — but of that ideal world, set free from time and
space, which he has created for those spiritual beings that breathe
out the Suspiria. Tt was something new to body forth in prose such '
poetical personifications of gnawing grief, chilling anxiety, and the
perplexity that haunts the earnest soul. The most characteristic
feature of De Quincey's genius is this power of seizing and
vivifying those subtle emotions,--'now throbbing under the influence
of music, now flitting through the soul in dreams or dreamlike
reminiscence, — which had previously defied fitting expression in
prose. The flexibility of his style — ^now prolix to garrulity, now
shy and secretive, now eloquent and lofty — harmonizes with the
thought and the feeling. The life of De Quincey was, in some
aspects, painful and profitless; but his rare gifts, extensive informa-
tion, and meditative intellect, combined, with a character of peculiar
constitution, to produce much that is unique in our literature*
ft. 1802. \ The character and writings of Hugh Miller present the
d. 1866. 1 strongest possible contrast to those of De Quincey. Not
the least interesting portion of the works of both is autobiographic ;
but while the one records misspent opportunities and aimless medi-
tation in an atmosphere of books, the other tells of successful
struggles with adverse circumstances, healthy observation, and the
earnest though limited study of an active man. The author of
" The Old lied Sandstone " occupies no unimportant position as
a man of science ; but he is more remarkable for his beautiful
descriptions of nature, and for the halo of poetic fancy which he
has shed around scientific subjects. The dry facts of geology are
aglow Dvith his picturesque colouring, while he treats its grander
theories with epic sublimity of conception and rich imagery. He
evinces a power of spiritual vision that projects him into a region
of extraordinary conditions, comparable ui real nature to that of
De Quincey in the world of intellect. Mr Miller^s writings have
had n vnf>t influence in popularizing science.

THE HOWITS AND ALEXANPEB SMITH.

In ft style quieter but as full of love for external nature as
Hugh Miller's works, we note the writings of William and Mary
Howitt, which exhibit a kindred vein of poetic fancy and a happy
turn for describing the features of rural bccnery and life.

The " Dreamthorpe " of Alexander Smith is an exquisite spec!"
men of verbal landscape, blended with delineation of character and
the details of country life. Mr Smith makes the well-sustained
fiction of an observant, critical, and meditative old man the medium
of his thoughts and feelings in view of nature and literary art.
The ''Summer in Skye" contains less of fiction, but exhibits
grander scenic tiueets, and a more varied interest in legend and
incident. Both works evince the fine taste of a poet, and the
grace and skill of a practised writer.

■y-.

.^»w

.»

4SiO THE IIISTOBICAL AND DIDACTIC PUOSE OF THE PERIOD.

CHAPTER XVIIL

THE HISTORICAL AND DIDACTIC PROSE OP THE
VICTORIAN AGE.

A. D. 1830— A. D. 1870.

HiSTORiCAii Prose. — 1. First Group of Historians— Macaulay and Carlyle. —
2. Second Group of Historians. — 3. Biography. — 4. Theological History. —
5. Histories of Philosophy.

Didactic Prose.—!. Summary of the Period. — 2. Hamilton. — 3< J. S. Mill.
— 4. Bain and Herbert Spencer.— 5. The Philosophy of History.- 6. Spec-
ulation in America. — 7. Political Economy.— 8. ^Bsthetics, Pictorial and
Literary. — 9. Philology. — 10. Theological and Scientific Literature.

1. The historians of this period fall easily into two groups — the
one embracing authors bom within last century, but writing during
the second quarter of this; the other, those bom in the first
nuarter of the current century, but not actively engaged before
' !50. The works of Falgrave and Alison gave earnest of that
conscientious zeal and painstaking accuracy which are charac-
teristic of the best histories of the period. The most valuable
ft. 1788.) labours of Sir Francis Falgrave were directed to the elucida-
d.i86i. j tion of early English history, and supply, in an agreeable
style, fuller and more accurate information than was formerly pos-
sessed regarding the Saxons and Normans. By birth a Jew, he had
changed his name from Cohen; his son is widely known as a
ft. 1793. V graceful liUSraieur. Sir Archibald Alison's work narrates,
d.i867.i on a scale both extensive and minute, the interesting period
from the French Revolution to the coup d'etat of 1852. The nar-
rative portions are good, but the speculation and inference show
much prejudice and narrowness of view. The book is a marvel of
patient industry, involving, as it did, fifteen years of travel and
study, and requiring as long a period for its composition.

Much attention has been of late directed to the annals of Greece.
Biihop Thirlwairs history is a learned work, combining elegant
9cbolarship with independent judgment, and ranks higher ip egmg

■^

FBE8C0TT AMD BANCAOFT.

427

respects than that of Mitford ; but the labours of both have been
eclipsed by the more elaborate and philosophical history of George
) Grote. This valuable work, opening with a novel inves-
'i tigation of the Myth and its importance to written history,
is remarkable for its independent support of the Wolffian theory
of Homeric authorship, its striking views of Ostracism and the
Sophists, and, in general, for its hearty yet enlightened praise of
Athenian democracy. The production of this history extended
over more than thirty years, during which Mr Grote was also an
active politician. As a philosopher, he has intimate relations with
the school of Bentham and James Mill. The incomplete " Critical
ft 1799 I ^^^'**''y 0^ Greek Literature," by William Mure, resembles
'i the volumes of Mr Grote in extent of plan and exhaustive
investigation of original materials. Every classical scholar and
literary student must anxiously desire the completion of a work
tliat bespeaks a mind so eminently well-informed and judicious.
h. iT86.\ i^^ Arnold's *' History of Rome " is also uniSnished. It is
<i.i842.i strongly charged with the personal qualities of its amiable
and enlightened author, and exhibits throughout warm sympathies
in union with the beauties of a lucid simple style and highly pic-
turesque narration.

Hitherto, the most substantial productions of American literature
belong to the department of history. Frescott, Bancroft, and
Motley, are honoured names. It is pleasing to see, in the labours
6. 1796. > of William Henry Frescott, the New World repaying
dAaoo.f ^ith the pen the gift of civilisation which the Old had pre-
sented with the sword. With energies crippled by partial blind-
ness, this author laboured for more than twenty years in that de-
partment of Spanbh conquest and adventure which Robertson had
already raised to the highest rank in literature. Commencing
with that glorious epoch, the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and
keeping clear of the ground directly taken up by his predecessor,
he narrates the conquests of Cortez, follows Fizarro to Feru, and
finally sketches the decline of Spanish power under Philip II. His
works are characterized by picturesque and masterly narration,
great variety of detail, and abundant evidence in support or illus-
) tration of his judgments. George Bancroft, at one time
'i American minister in England, has devoted almost his
entire literary life to the history of his country. Beginnmg with
\he Colonization of the United States, he has now brought the
record through the eventful struggle for independence. His work —
though imbued, as was natural, with democratic pr^udices — ^hai
^he great merit of being aa candidly as it u ably written.

428 THE HISTORICAL AKD DiDAdTiC PbOSiB OF THE PERIOD*

B.i800.> Tliomas Babington Madaulay^ at an early age, gave evi-
d.WBO.f denee of unusual parts, and particularly of that gift of
memory which afterwards served him in such stead. It is said
that when a boy he could recite an entire Waverley novel. After a
careful education — first at Bristol, where he attractied the attention
of Hannah More, and afterwards at Cambridge, where he was noted
as a debater — he was entered for the bar. His career was a very
active one, whether as a politician, as an administrator, or as an
author. The last twelve years of his life were dievoted almost
entirely to the production of his History, which he left a mere frag-
ment. In four volumes, he has narrated the events of only a dozen
years of the century and a half contemplated in his plan ; but, by
way of grand prologue, he has told us of the infancy and growth of
our nation from the earliest times, in a rapid flight of historical
narration unrivalled for masterly condensation, extensive and varied
illustration, and unfla^ng interest. Grave histbry had never '
before been treated in a style at once so scholarly and so fascitiat-
ing, so perspicuous and so picturesque. Eleven editions df the
first portion of the work were taken up before the second appeared.
Not the historical student alone, but every lover of pure literature
as well, was charmed with such dramatic portraiture of character,
and such scenic effect, combined with minute and familiar details of
social life, found hitherto* only on the stage or in domestib fiction.
The work, indeed, is not so much a history as a grand ^rose epic,
with William III; as hero, and the establishment of representative
government as dinouement. Of his Essays, those on Clive and
Hastings, as embodying the result of residence and studjr in India,
are thoroughly fresh and original, while they contain some of his
finest word-painting. As essayist and critic Macaulay stood high ;
but it is on his History that his fame most securely rests ; and
despite that taint of partisanship from which it is not wholly free.
and those minor inaccuracies and unjust judgments which it hn.«.
been shown to contain, it will ever remain in the library of Britii>h
historicfd literature as one of its brightest ornaments.
» 1785 I ^^* " ^'®"°** Revolution " of thomas Carlyle is one of
'i the great books of the century. Its author was in his forty-
second year when it appeared ; but he had been well known as an
• ardent admirer of Goethe and the rising German literature, and as
an able contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and to various
magazines. The work evinced many novel and striking features.
Never before in our historical literature had there been iritnessed
such a combination of individuality of view and treatment, pietnr-
•squa sketches of scene and incident, quaint and graphic delincA-

THOMAS CARLYLB.

429

tion of cbaracter, and thrilling pathos alternating with dry humour
and satire. And, if every -writer who attempts to inform must
above all impress the imagination and the memory, here was a
style wliich, by perspicuity and emphasis at once unique and effect-
ive, fixed indelibly on the mind a historic drama of surpassing in-
terest and significance. The " French Revolution." is its author's
most purely historical work, the others being mainly biographical.
Of this character were his early " Life of Schiller," almost Vithout
trace of his peculiar manner; " Hero Worship," an exposition of
his philosophy of life ; *' Cromwell," which establishes the charac*
ter of the Protector on original evidence ; and " The Life of Ster*
ling," remarkable alike as a fascinating biography and as a disclosure
of Mr Carlyle's sympathies in the region of religion and morals.
His long literary career terminated with the completion of " Fried-
rich." Though its interest ta the author centred in the per-
sonality of its hero, it far transcends ordinary biography — being
substantially a history of the early German Empire and the forma-
tion of the Prussian Monarchy. To its production Mr Carlyle has
brought not only extraordinary genius, but the most unwearied
industry : he has conferred honour and worth on the patient Dry-
asdust, his fiicetioua personification of his own labours of research.
For this, were it for nothing else, sound literature owes him a debt
of gratitude. It is extremelv difficult, however, to estimate the
value of those ethical and speculative elements with which his
works are saturated. Few writers have given utterance to so many
original and suggestive thoughts: few have more emphatically
itnpressed both true and false ideas. His philosophy seems scarcely
to embrace all or even the purest springs of human action — claying,
as it does, special stress on veracity or loyal conformity to the laws
c»f nature and sound sense, which, if not synonymous with moral
excellence, includes a practical and intelligible form of it. Hence
the value he sets on practical vigour of character : his protagon-
ists are the heroes of Success. Yet there are tender chords in his
philosophy, and often he will break into pathetic eloquence under
the thrill of emotion which some pitiful episode evokes. It is surely
good that genius and an earnest conviction of the reality of life
should unite in insisting that an honest man must ever keep a faith-
ful account with those eternal conditions of right thinking and
right acting under which he lives.

The names of Macaulay and Carlyle connect the second quarter
of the century with that now current. Their careers were widely
different; thd one early becoming an active politician, and the
other remainii^ all along a retired student Macaulay became a

430 THE mSTOmCAL AND DIDACTIC PUOSE OF THE PERIOD.

historian, partly because ambitious of rivalling Hume, partly be'
cause he was a master of rhetoric ; but mainly because he was a
politician. Carlyle set to his task with profound views of life,
warm sympathy for certain phases of character, and a horror of*
the conventional and the unreal. Both are eminently picturesque
and impressive voters, each in his own way. Macaulay — the Ten-
nyson of history — is smooth and ornate in style, delighting in well-
rounded' paragraphs, apt and stately phrase : Carlyle — its Brown-
ing — is emphatic, wilful, speculative, fond of riotous construc-
tion and grotesque diction. Macaulay is a recognised master of
style, but there is equal power and flexibility in that of his con-
temporary. How graphically, for example, does he handle topo-
graphy or physiognomy 1 With what vivacity and delicacy does
he follow the fortunes of a battle or the passions of a mob I How
rapidly and easily he alternates between the brusque levity whicli
suits a Voltaire, and the eloquence prompted by the burning of the
Bastille — the simplicity of a pathetic narrative, and the abrupt
strokes of satiric contempt.

2. The current quarter of the century has already produced
) some valuable histories. Foremost among these stands James
i Anthony Froude's recently completed narrative of the
Tudors. This work — the first portionof which appeared in 1856 —
was designed to extend from the fall of Wolsey to the death of
Elizabeth, but now closes with the defeat of the Armada. The
earlier volumes were remarkable for minute and exact illustration
of industrial and social life in the Tudor period, and for the novel
light in which they set the character of Henry VUI. ; in the later,
the author appears to have concentrated his strength on the un-
ravelling of plots and intrigues, and the evolution of principles.
■Mr Froude conceives that eventful period not as embracing the
struggles of two able and ambitious women, so much as the final
wrestle of English Monarchy and Englisn Protestantism with its
Papal foes. The death of Mary and the defeat of the Armada
thus become the fitting double catastrophe of a great drama that
opened with the fall of Wolsey. The incidents and strongly per-
sonal character of the time — passionately realized by the historian
— are presented dramatically^ rather than epically: the actors in
the scene are drawn in bold colours, while ardent sympathy or un-
qualilied aversion are unhesitatingly expressed. There is, however,
no attempt to enslave the reader^s judgment, or inveigle him into
the author's views. The work is throughout characterized by rare
fulness of evidence and artistic skill.

An earlier period of English history has been naiTlitefl by

HISTORICAL WBITERS.

431

f Ed^vard Augustus Freeman. In the " History of tlio Nor*
') man Conquest," he endeavours to place the origin of the
nation on a true footing, — which he does by going deeper than his
predecessors, by unwearied research and careful judgment. Mr
Freeman*8 work tells of the earliest doings of Englishmen : another
living historian has turned to the latest heroic work of the race.
^ Alexander William Kinglake's "History of the Crimean
' War," coming so closely on the events it narrates, and cri«
ticising them so boldly, is a notable production. As a history of
a definite action by an eyewitness we compare it to Napier's
" Peninsular War ; " but it lacks the minute professional knowledge
of that work. Its deficiencies in this respect are not so conspicu-
ous as might have been expected. Though not free from unneces-
sary detail and prolixity, it is a spirited narrative, in a clear and
brilliant style, and worthy the reputation of the author of that
remarkable work of Eastern travel, " Eothen."

We complete the list of illustrators of English political history
by merely noticing the elegant biographies of Miss Agnes Strick-
land; the thoroughly conscientious but somewhat uninteresting
works of Earl Stanhope ; the popular History of Charles Knight,
— one of the most impartial records of the kind, and ably contri-
buted to by Miss Harriet Martineau ; and the highly picturesque
and fascinating narrative which Hepworth Diton has inwoven with
the fortunes of the Tower of London. Much has been done, it
may be remarked here, towards elucidating the early annals of
Scctland : its archaeology has been treated by Joseph Robertson,
Dr Stuart, and F. W. Skene ; and its political and general history
by John Hill Burton, in a work characterized as " an earnest re-
cord, written with uncommon grace and liveliness."

Of historical works not connected with our own country, the
most notable are the Spanish Histories of Helps and Motley, and
Canon Merivale*s "History of Imperial Rome," a work which,
though diffuse, presents a thoughtful, interesting, and vivid picture
of the time. Helps's " History of Spanish Conquest in America "
deals mainly with the slavery question and the colonial policy of
the Spaniards, and consequently does not trench on the ground so
well occupied by Robertson and Prescott. The style of the work
b chaste, the sentiment pure and elevated, while the matter is fresh

> and extensive. John Lothrop Motley is the worthy suc-

> cessor of his countryman Prescott. He began in his forty-
second year with narrating the Rise of the Dutch Republic ; has re-
cently finished the History of the United Netherlands ; and now
purpose« completing this panorama with an account of the Thirty

432

TUB HISTORICAL AND DIDACTIC PROSE OF THE PEBIUO.

Years' War, " with which the renewed conflict between the Dutch
Commonwealth and the Spanish Monarchy was blenued until the
termination o^ the great struggle by the Peace of Westphalia."
There has been brought to bear on tliis noble theme the most con-
scientious study and painstaking research ; but its abundant illus-
tration sometimes mars the artistic effect. The interest educed
from great catastrophes, graphic portraiture, and striking episodes,
is throughout absorbing.

3. The kindred department of Biography has been cultivated
during the period with marked activity and success. Such a book
as Lockhart*s " Life of Scott," from so ablg and accomplished a
writer, could not fail to be of wide and varied interest. It is fully
worthy of the subject, fair, and impartial. George II. Lewes's
" Life and Works of Goethe," and Professor Masson's " Milton,"
ft 1817 I *"^® likewise notable examples of literary biography. Mr

* r Lewes — a graceful novelist, a profound thinker and his-
torian, and a man of science — is an author of the most varied powers
and attainments. It was fortunate that so rare a combination of
accomplishments was brought to bear on a genius so transcendent
and versatile as that of Goethe. By ten years of patient research,
and. the critical study of his author's writings, Mr Lewes has ex-
hausted the subject of his life and works. The lover of English
literature and the student of English history will alike prize Fro-
1 fessor Masson's '• Life of Milton." In plan it embraces

'i much more than the direct personal interest which centres
in its subject; for the author takes a wide view of biography, and
aims at placing his reader in the position of a well-informed con-
temporary. To this end have co-operated practised literary skill,
unflagging diligence, strong sense, and warm sympathy. Minute
details, equally with prominent features, are managed with con-
summate art; while genial humour alternates with impassioned
eloquence. The work has been planned on a scale so elaborate as
to make it, when completed, an exhaustive history of the time, —
not alone in its literary, but in iti^ political and theological, aspects.
Numerous biographical works, both literary and political, have
proceeded from the pens of John Forster and W. Hepworth Dixon.
All Mr Forster's writings — of which his " Life of Goldsmith" may
be noted as particularly valuable — ^are conceived in a fine spirit of
impartiality and conscientious accuracy. Mr Dixon has done good
service to justice and truth by his able vindication of Bacon's char-
acter from the epigrammatic censure of Pope, and by questioning
some of Mf^caulay's unjust views. • Sir William Stirling-Maxwell's
'* Cloister Lif^ of the Emperor Charles V." supplements and cor«

THEOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY.

433

le,—

[' may

lirit of

I good

char-

ioning

Iweirs

cor-

rects, in a graphic and truthful way^ Robertson's account of the
retirement of the Spanish monarch.

4. In Theological History it is difficult to separate works of
permanent value from those which are likely to be superseded by
the advance of opinion and scholarship. The general literary ability,
b. 1791. ) tc^erant spirit, and varied scholarsliip of Dean Milman
<i. 186a > have served to elevate hb prose to the rank of standard
works, though it may scarcely satisfy the exact scholar. The
"History of Latin Christianity*' is especially valuable, while his
" Annals of St Paul's " are remarkable for breadth and minuteness
of detail, as well as for the warm interest excited in a time-honoured
edifice. These historical labours remind us of the works of Dean
I Stanley, likewise characterized by charitable sympathies
'i and conciliatory tone. Not too erudite to be unattractive
to the general reader, they are sufficiently scholarly to have a sub-
stantial value. His narrative of the external development of the
Jewish Church is always highly picturesque and vivid, as might
have been expected of the author of one of the best books of sacred
travel. While these writers traverse ground which is shifting with
> the surge of Biblical Science, Dr Hook, the Dean of Chi-
i Chester, has chosen a more secure field. His series of
" Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury," begun in 1860 with
Augustine, is now in the turmoil of the Beformation Period ; and
will, when completed, form a biographical history of the Church
of England. According to a recent critic, " the author is one of
the most impartial of hbtorians, and one of the most interesting
and amusing." Similar merits of candour and impartiality are due
to Dr Donaldson's " Critical History of Early Christian Literature
and Doctrine," which supplies a felt want. It is the work of a
learned layman, and is singularly free from theological bias.

6. The history of the change of systems and opinions in the
Mental Sciences is still more mixed up with the expression of in-
dependent speculation than the variety of literature just noticed.
Of works in this connexion remarkable for their influence, the most
notable have emanated from the late Rev. Dr William Whewell,
the Rev. F. D. Maurice, Mr J. D. Morell, and Mr G. H. Lewes.
'^ The History of the Inductive Sciences " of the first named, it has
been remarked, " attempts to unite the History of Science and the
Logic of Scientific Discovery" — ^a work for which this distinguished
writer was peculiarly fitted, not only by philosophical acumen, but
by vast attainments. Mr Maurice's contributions to this depart-
mcmt — originally written for the " Encydopsedia Metropolitana "
-Hire pervaded by a view of speculation peculiar to bim, mixed up

434 THE niSTORICAL AND DIDACTIC PROSE OF THE fERIOD.

with the record of changing systems. Mr J. D. Morell's work is a
clear and comprehensive treatment of his subject. Both he aiid
Mr Lewes have done much to popularize philosophy of late years.
Originally a " Biographical History of Philosophy," Mr Lewes's
narrative has assumed, in the course of three editions, the characttr
of a critical commentary on, as well as a history of, the successivi;
schools of thought. Individual views, especially those of modern
French and German thinkers, have found able expositors in our
language. Kant's philosophy, powerfully introduced here by Cole-
ridge, has been expounded in our period in a special and formal
way by Dr Cairns, an able, independent reasoner m metaphysics.
Hegelianism, the latest and most subtle development of Germnii
philosophy, has found a place here through the labours of the late
Professor Ferricr and Dr J. H. Stirling. The literary remains of
the former of these exhibit the thoughts of a finely speculative
mind conveyed in language of rare beauty. In recent years the
influence of Germany in this connexion has been largely encroached
upon by that of France. Comte's " Positivism " has been well
represented to English readers by Mr J. S. Mill's introduction
of it in the Westminster Review; by Miss Harriet Martineau's
translation of the original work; and by Mr Lewes's elaborate
exposition of its principles. Finally, a somewhat novel field of
philosophical inquiry has recently been opened up by Mr Lecky,
who traces the connexion in the past between philosophy on its
ethical side and religion. His earlier work exhibits, through his-
torical fact and interspersed criticism the progress of freedom of
thought in religion, and the action of this principle on dogma and
belief : the later traces the influence of Christianity on morals and
society. It is imnecessary to criticise here Mr Lecky^s attitude to
current systems : suffice it to say, that he writes in a singularly
pleasing and lucid style, shows great command of apposite illus-
tration, and generalizes easily and suggestively.

DIDACTIC PROSE.

1. The revival of Mental Science at the beginning of this century
is a fact no less remarkable than that of poetry, alr^dy referred to.
Locke's Materialism had, in the succeeding generation, received
new developments at- the hands of CondiUac ; while Berkeley and
Hume carried it in the contrary direction. At the close of last
century there was nothing here to oppose to those extreme views,
save the Common Sense Philosophy of Reid, which, though meri-
torious, was scarcely equal to the occasion. It remained for Kant
again to entrench the science of mind in a less assMlable positioQ,

SIR WILLIAM S. HAMILTON.

435

His views were not without expositors and sympathizers liere from
the first ; and when Hamilton, connecting the Kantian philosophy
with that of lleid, sent on metaphysical speculation in a broad and
deep stream, it was evident to all that the revival was in full force.
Meanwhile, side by side with German Transcendentalism, there was
springing up a native school dissimilar in complexion, but of great
originality and practical tendencies. Its most eminent representa-
tives were Jeremy Bentham and James Mill. Its lineal descendant,
in the hands of John S. Mill, through its application^ not only to
exact reasoning and metaphysical speculation, but to ethics, politics,
and social science, has developed into a system of vast proportions
and great practical usefulness.. The speculation which we may
roughly connect with J. S. Mill as its greatest living representative
has long divided the attention of the thoughtful with that which
is similarly connected with Hamilton. Tlu illustrious transcen-
dentalist is gone, and spirited warfare has been waged over his
literary remains, out of which will in due time emerge a truer
appreciation of his labours and new develov.aents of British
Philosophy.

h. 17S8. > 2. Professor Veitch's recently published " RIemoirs of
</.i856.j Sir William S. Hamilton" throw much interesting light
on the character and work of that eminent thinker. He made his
first appearance in a famous criticism of Cousin's Philosophy,
contributed to the Edinburgh lleview. During the ten following
years he was as actively engaged as his irresolute habits would
allow him to be on papers for that magazine (afterwards collected
as " Discussions"), and on the preparation of his Lectures. The
latter, published posthumously, were written so as to be barely in
time for delivery ; and though he frequently promised revision and
enlargement of them, they assumed their latest form within two
years of his appointment to the Cluair of Logic in Edinburgh
University. Hamilton was fitted to become a leader of opinion
in philosophy, not alone by wide range of reading and original
power, but likewise by liberal training. His early medical studies
were of service to him against the phrenologists : he practised at
the bar oven while a professor, and, as a lawyer, established for
himself his claims to the baronetcy, traced to an ancestor who
fought at Bothwell Bridge. The University of Leyden made him a
doctor of divinity, with which subject he had warm sympathies,
relishing keenly the polemical writings of the reformers.

Hamilton's erudition was unparalleled. The accumulating of
knowledge from books grew to be a mania with him, and clogged
his efforts at production. He seems to have surveyed and mapped

43G TIIC HISTORICAL AND DIDACTIC PKOSE OF THE PERIOD.

out the mind and its faculties much as a general >vho should
resolvo to collect and sift the evidence of every conipetent, or evni
moderately competent, observer that had ever set foot in tliu
country ho was about to invade. Nay, ho seems to have con
ccnicd himself more heartily with these preliminaries than with
the actual mastering of the position, — regarding philosophical
Htudy as a mental training, fitted for all purposes, and particu-
larly for freeing the mind from the tyranny of special systems,
rather than as a means of arriving at a coherent system of one's
own. Yet his writings must be regarded as the most original and
solid contributions to the Mental Science of the century. Their
happy union of erudition and acute reasoning commands the
respect of the student, who finds in them a pleasing exposition
of profound questions, combined with illustrative matter that is
frc.«h and valuable. The "Lectures on Metaphysics" mainly
elucidate the Kantian Psychology: they stop short on the thresh-
old of the more profound science, though the Tlieory of the Con-
ditioned which they contain aims at a solution of the most per-
plexing question in Ontology.

b itm I ^' '^^'^ appearance of Mr Mill's Examination of the Hamil-
* tonian System brought into decided antagonism the two lead-
ing philosophies of our time. Like Hamilton, Mill commenced
authorship in a Review ; and it is curious to note, that this was in
the year of the first Reform Bill. His writings have done much to
liberalise politics, while his Essays on "Liberty" and "Representative
Government " are profound and enlightened expositions of political
principles. His first great work, " The System of Logic," like
Whewell's " Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," is, in effect, a
Theory of Scientific Inquiry. Both attempt to bring the Method
of Bacon into closer accordance with modem science, which has re-
sulted in an increased attention to the principle of Induction as of
more practical value than the scholastic uiquiry in*o the Laws of
Thought. Mr Mill's Method has been applied with Angular
power and originality to ethical inquiry in his " Utilitarianism,"
which, manifestly incomplete as a self-sufficient system of Morals,
is, in his hands, a great advance on Benthamism. All Mr Mill's
works are written in a fine spirit of candour and fairness, wlii li.
is singularly free from narrow-mindedness. His style is luc .,

unimpassioned, and highly fitted for the discussion of n^ tract
problems.

4. Philosophy has in late years been largely affected by Science
on the one hand, and by religious thought on the other. A dis-
cussion of the latest development of Mental Science in its religious

PHILOSOPHICAL WRItEBS.

48T

aapecti, if in pinco here, would introduce the names of such divines
as Mansel, Maurice, Kingsley, and Newman, and such laymen as
Henry Rogers and tlie late Isaac Taylor. Among thinkers, on the
other hand, who have recently prosecuted their inquiries with
special reference to scientific discovery, the most romnrlcable — in
adilition to Wlicwell, J. S. Mill, and Lewes— are Alexander Bain
und Herbert Spencer. The latest and fullest exposition of Mr
b isial ^^*'"'8 views is his " Mental and Moral l^cience." "The
' author,*' it has been said, " decidedly belongs to the school
of Empiricism, and ho roots his Psychology more strenuously and
extensively than any British psychologist since Hartley in Phy-
siology. But, from the fact that his Physiology is that of the
prasent day, he dou8 this with greater intelligibility and effect."
Like Mr Mill, with whom he has close relations as a thinker, he
for .'lo most part eschews Metaphysics. On the contraiy, Mr
Spencer aims at a complete system of Mental Science, grounded
oi: advanced mctniiliysical principles, and competent to the philo-
sophizing of all departments of mental activity. Only the first
portion of his great work has as yet appeared : it evinces lucid ex-
position and beautiful generalizations from scientific facts.

6. Two notable works on the Philosophy of History have lately
appeared— Mr II. T. Buckle's " History of Civilisation in England,"
and Di Draper's "History of the Intellectual Development of
Europe." The former work was not completed by its author,
h. 1822.) whose premature death was a real loss to philosophy. We
rf.i862.i desiderate in it maturer reasoning, a more dispassionate
attitude, and a firmer grasp of facts; though it afford? evidence of
width of perception, extensive reading, and original and acute,
, > though harsh and dogmatic, assertion. Dr Draper, a
^' ■'']" native of Liverpool, who has been long settled in America,
is an eminent authority in medical and chemical science. His chief
work, just named, is the sequel to his " Humcin Physiology," and en-
deavours to trace that law of progress in human society which he had
already established in the development of the animal frame. Dr
^ Vaper works out his vast plan with wide knowledge and speculative
power, and a mastery over picturesque narration and logical arrange-
ir <nt. Despite faults of omission and incoherence, his book is tho
be ,c of its kind. This author has recently written what is said to bo
the most impartial history yet product of the American C5ivil War.

6. The last named writer suggests the very apparent paucity of
original and ble philosophical works in American literature. It
contains such precise and methodical expositions of speculative sub*
JQCts, as we connect with tho names of Wayland, Marsli, Upbami

■If

488 TUB HISTOBICAL AND DIDACTIC PROSE OF THE PEBIOD.

and Tappan; but, save the work of Dr Draper, nothing that ib
novel and valuable in this department. The Estsays of Balph
■k Waldo Emerson, however, are well known for the abundance
. 1808. j> ^^^ variety of their speculative matter, though of an informal
kind. His mission is to stimulate to thought and reflection on
man's position and destiny, rather than to establish definite prin-
ciples by argument. He is parodoxical in the extreme, and abounds
in startling assertions and vague ill-considered ethics; but hr
enunciates many original and striking thoughts, and frequent!;
re-sets old truths with eloquence and beauty. His works ai <
related to philosophy proper, very much as those of Carlyle, whoUi
he greatly resembles in style and manner.

7. That division of Mental Science which addresses itself to
the investigation of social and industrial laws and the principles
of commerce, has made vast progress since the days of Ricardo auc
Malthus. Early in the period, the remarkable views of the lattti
on population were supported by Dr Chalmers, with his accus
tomed eloquence and energy ; while they were ably controverted
by the late N. W. Senior. As a Lecturer at Oxford, Archbishop
Whately found in this department a congenial sphere for his rare
sagacity, practical vigour of intellect, and methodical clearness
of ex[ sition, — qualities which, it maybe observed, secured for his
work on the Syn<%istic Logic of Aristotle a high place as a text-
book on the subject. " The Logic of Political Economy "—a refu-
tation of some Malthusian doctrines — pro^s the versatility of De
Quincey, and has been highly commended. Miss Martineau, who
might honourably appear in many departments of recent prose,
early turned her attention to social subjects. Her doctrines —
mainly anti-Malthusian — ^were not fonnally expounded, but illus-
trated in a series of powerful fictions. All these writers are now
dead, and a new generation of practical thinkers has taken their
place. J. S. Mill, more than any other modern economist, has ad-
vanced the science of Adam Smith and Ricardo, showing himself
here, as elsewhere, a master of perspicuous and simple exposition of
abstract and difficult questions. His speculations on labour and
the intricate problems of supply and demand, have been especially
influential.

8. A few writers of refined sympathies and highly cultivated
tastes have laboured eflecti^ely at the development of an Art
Literature in tliis country. Next to Mr Ruskin, its best known
representative is Mrs Jameson. The daughter of a miniature-
painter, named Murphy, this lady was early instructed in the
principles of Art, and to the unfolding of its beautidv devoted j^o

JOHN RUSKIN.

439

ardaooB but fertile literary career of more than thirty years. No
writer has done so much to acquaint us with the productions of
the early Italian Masters. Her greatest and most elaborate work
is the series on " Sacred and Legendary Art" (a subject of study
started in 1847 by Lord Lindsay's " Sketches of the History of
Christian Art*'), wherein she traces with much eloquence and
beauty the stream of religious history as it has been pictorially re-
presented. The work, left unfinished by its author, has been ably
continued by Lady Eastlake, whose husband, Sir Charles, diffused
a general interest in Italian Art.

> The influence of no modem writer on iEsthetics is com-
' ( parable to that of John Ruskin. His literary activity has
been mainly exerted in connexion with Painting, Architecture, and
Political Economy. In the series of " Modem Painters," written
in the first place to vindicate the cliaracter and genius of Turner,
Mr Ruskin has illustrated his hero by an almost exhaustive refer-
ence to nature as the sole standard of genuine representation. His
letvfling motive is the reference of every true pleasure in nature and
art to its source in human sentiment. That he has latterly turned
aside into the complex field of social science, is but the natural
issue of tliat strong human reference in which his art -writings ori-
ginated. Here he has raised even greater opposition than before ;
tor he is often passionate, paradoxical, and inconsistent ; but he is
an earnest seeker alter truth, strewing his pages with suggestive
thoughts, f.harming word-painting, and on occasion grand eloquence
and exquisite prose-poetry. He has taught not so much the pro-
fessional artist as men of culture and taste to see and to think in
the presence of nature and art, and tliis in the choicest language, and
with ardent practical interest. To him, if to any one man, is due
that interpcnetration of the arts of expression which has given
systematic purpose to criticism. And this leads us to tliat other
division of Esthetics which deals with the princij^ylcs that concem
the verbal artist.

Modem Literary Criticism began with Coleridge and Wordsworth,
and, owing much to the early Reviews, and a ditfusion of tlic know-
ledge of German literature, has in its latest cxpi'es.sion been inti-
mately connected with the spread of Journalism. Macaulay, De
Quincey, and Lord Lytton, were among the most eminent of the
active critics in the generation after those just named. The Essays ot
Macaulay did much to educate towards excellence in literary art ;
De Quincey was a fine critic, rich in illustration and qunuit I'e-
flection ; while Lord Lytton, in the prefaces to his novels and else-
where, has done for fiction in this connexion what Wordsworth did

440 THE mStORICAL AKD btDACTtC PROSE OF THE PERIOD.

for poetry. The more recent works of Matthew Arnold have in-
troduced many new ideas into this subject. His manner of thought
and whole attitude is not that of a precise systematic teacher, but
of one who endeavours to cultivate the taste, and refine and elevate
the intellect. lie is the apostle of culture as the highest expression
of catholicity of view and disinterestedness of motive. Criticism he
maintains to be '^ the free play of the mind on all the subjects which it
touches. Its business is simply to know the best that is known
and thought in the world ; and by, in its turn, making this known,
to create a current of true and fresh ideas." The charge of want
of definiteness and system in exposition brought against Mr Arnold
is not true of another critic, Mr Dallas. His " Gay Science," an
elaborate attempt at constructing a science of Criticism, is still ui-
completc, but the argument so far goes to establish pleasure as the
one end of Art.

9. Classical Erudition has long been on thedccline in this country..
Our scholars have looked to Germany for their best teaching, find-
ing there the purest texts and the most learned commentaries.
Two good examples of native scholarship, however, we can point
to in Mr Monro's " Lucretius,*' and Mr Ilobinson Ellis's *' Catullus,"
which exliibit the painstaking textual accuracy, the wide research
of external and internal illustration, and the general thoroughness
of the best German scholars, with few of their irrelevancies. From
Germany, too, has come the general science of Philology, of which
classical studies form but a small part. Max Miiller, a German,
long resident in this country, has done more than any other to
draw general attention to the value and the beauties of the Science
of Language ; and this in clear, chaste, and even eloquent English.
His theories may be occasionally questionable, and his illustra-
tions overdone ; yet no one can read his works without being con-
vinced that he has raised this subject to the dignity of a lofty anil
subtle philosophy, equally removed from pedantry and shallowness.
The Science of Philology could scarcely have been possible but for
the fortunate discovery of Sanskrit in last century, and the con-
nexion through it proved to exist between the various families of
Indo-European speech. Out of Professor MUller's studies of the
Sanskrit sacred texts has sprung a still more interesting and impor-
tant development of this subject. The various religious systemn
preserved in popular myth and legend, it is supposed, may through
language be traced to some common origin, as has been so success-
fully done with the divergent families of speech. This is the
Science of Religion, as expounded in Max MUller's " Chips from a
Qerman Workshop."

THEOLOaiCAL AND NATURAL SCIENCE.

441

A more homely variety of Philology has been cultiyated in a
pleasing manner by Archbishop Trench and Professor Marsh. The
interest in this subject felt by the former, known in other depart-
ments of literature as an elegant and accomplished writer, he
traces to Home Tooke's " Diversions of Purley ;" and his discussions
partake of that ingenious author's manner, without his crude theo-
rizing and defective knowledge. Making no attempt at scientific
investigation, his delightful lAHxskurea have had a great influence in
exciting an uiterest in the study of the English language. To the
same end have contributed the -writings of Professor Marsh, more
scholarly and philosophical, though somewhat prolix. The " Lec-
tures on Language" of his countryman, Professor Whitney— ^amucb
abler and more valuable work — are similar in sulgect and mannei
to those of Max MUUer, whose views in several particulars, espe-
cially on the oirigin of language, he controverts powerfully and
effectively.

10. ^'o account of the Didactic Prose of this period could
be complete without a reference to the literature of Theological
aud Natural Science, which has attained to great jimensions.
Though embodying much profound thour'ht, conveyed in vigorous,
often highly elegant, language, it is so much imbued with the spirit
and manner of polemics, and contains so many conclusions that are
liable to be superseded or recast with advancing knowledge, that it
can find no place here equal to its intrinsic merits or interest. In
Theology, we can only note that valuable works have emanated
from Drs Blomfield, Hampden, Bickersteth, Davidson, and Alex-
ander; from the brotlicrs Hai'e, and Deans Alford and Stanley;
and from Conybeare and Howson ; while the Revision of tlie Scrip-
tures now in progress, is pregnant wUh important oonsequences.
[n pure Mathematics, such men as AJnms, Airy, Whewell, mid
Thomson, have armed the discoverer with new powers, and a more
searching method : Herschcl, Brewster, and Lockyer, liave inv^ed
the mechanism of the heavens with an absorbing interest : Buck-
land, Lyell, Lubbock, and Murchison, have broken, at many points,
the mysterious veil that shrouds from us the pristine condition of
our globe and its inhabitants: the discoveries of Wheatstone,
Faraday, and Tyndall, have ravolutionised our manufactures : while
Carpenter, Owen, and Hux?ey, have enlai^ed our knowledge of the
Htructure of man and of th'a lower animals.

INDEL

A<iAina, J. C, pagA 441
AddiMNH, JoReph, 807, 810,

311,818,820,826^
\<lrl«n, Abbot, 35
\elMe, Anglo-Saxon, 44
\lrd,T.,898
Airy, O.B., 441
A konnide, Mark, 800^ 887
Albanic Duan,81
Alcuin,86

Aldlu-lm, RiRbop,86, 44
Alcxandflr.W. LindMy,441
Alford, Dean, 441
Alfred, 34, 45-46, 108-10
Alisaunder, a romance, 65
Alifuin, Sir A.,426
Allen, .John, 386
Allinghani, WilIUm.409
A ndrewefl, Bi8hop,214, 217,

219, SiW
Anourin. Welsh bard, 82
Angnrvillp, or Oe Bury, 72
Annals of Tigeniach, 31
Annals of Five Masters, 31
Annalsof Ulster and Innls-

fallen, 81
Anselm, Archbishop, 80
ApoUonlus, romance of, 67,

7G
Arbnthnot, Dr, 884
Armstronff, John, 866
Arnold, Dr,427
Arnold, Matthew, 404, 489
Arthur, King, 32, 62-66
Ascham, Roger, 161, 172-6
Asaer, Alfred's tutor. 35
Atterbury, Bishop, 319
Augustine, St, 33
Austen, Misa, 383. 414
Ay ton. Sir Robert, 283
Aytoun, W. E., 398

Bacon, Francis, 285-6, 230,

215 6
liricon, Roger, 61
II liley, P. J^ 410
llaillie, Joanna, 880
Bain, Alexander, 437
Raldwyne, 181
m; Blibop, 162, IM

Bancroft, 0«org«, 487
Banlm, John, 420
BarTmur, John, 93, 186
Barklay, Alexander, 176
Barruw, Isaac, 200, 291
Barrow, Sir John, 887
Battle of Finsburgb, A.-S.

poem on the, 88, 40
Baxter, Richard, 811, 829-

831, 289, 291
Beattie, James, 858, 356
Beaumont, Francis, 862-8
Bede, the Venerable, 35, 44
Bellenden, John, 191
Bellenden, WiUUm, 839
Bennett, W.C.. 409
Bentl; .n, Jeremy,a87,a91,

895,435
Bentley, Richard, 202, 392
Beowulf, the ule of, 40
Berkeley, Bishop, 306, 820
Bevis of Hampton, 62
Bible, Wycliflb's, 73
Bible,Tyndale'i<,Matthew's,

Coverdale's, Cranmer's,

163-64
Bible, the Geneva, 215
Bible, the Bishops', 216
Bible, the Douay, 216
Bible, current translation,

216
Bickersteth, Rer. E- 441
Blackie,J. S.,411
Blaokmore,Sir Rirhard,314
Blackwood's Magazine, 887
Blair, Mngh, 361, 354
Blair, Robert, 337
Bloiii,Peterof,50
Blomfield, Dr, 441
Boece, Hector, 192
Bolingbroke, Lord, 821
Book sUtistics (EngliabX

861, 8691 418
Book atatistiea, Amerlean,

866
Borron, Robert, 64
Bower, Walter, 98
Bowles, C. (Mra Bonthey),

866
Bowltt, WUU«m Lido, 880

Boyle. Robert. 891
Braddon, M. E.. 420
Bradwardine, 72
Brakelonde, Jocelin de, 51
Brewster, Sir David, 441
Brodie, George, 382
Bromyard, John, 66
Brontes, the. 414
Brougham, Lord, 886
Brown, Thomas, 895, 396
Browne,SirThomas,211,247
Browne, William, 878
Browning, Mrs,362. 398,399
Browning, R,, 402-4
Bruce, Michael, 856
Bryant, WUiiam C^ 388
Buchanan, George, 193
Buchanan, Robert, 405, 411
Buekburst, Lord, 187
Buckland,Dr,441
Buckle, H. T., 437
Bull, Bishop, 291
Bulwer, tee Lyttoa
Bunyan, John, 291
Burke, Edmund, 850, 881
Burleigh, Walter, 72
Bumet,Bishop, 291,292,298^

322
Bumey, Miss, 349
Bums, Robert, 810, 859
Burton, J. Hill, 432
Burton, Robert, 846
Butler, Bi8hop,808, 329, 330
Butler, Samnel.210,293300
Byron, Lord, 361, 366, 868,

871-8
Byrthnotb, A.-S. poem, 41

Cndmon, - Anglo • Saxon

poet, 41, 42, 110-11
Cairns, Dr, 484
Calamy, Edmund, 228, 289
Camden, Wm ., 200, 2t4. 239
Campbell, George, 361, 358
Campbell, Titos., 362, 3(J6-7,

389
Canning, George, 887
Canterbury Tales, TMIL

127 81
CftNur, Tbomai, 888

INDEX.

448

Carleton, Wnitam,420
Carlyle, Thomas, 364, 428,

428-30
Carpenter, Dr, 441
Caatell, Edmund, 217
Cave, IMward, 363
(jaxton, William, intro-
duces printing into Eng-
land, 01
Cerington, Odo de, 64
Clialklilll, 277
(Jlialmers, George, 391
Chalmers, TboimaB, 393-4,

438
Cliamlierlnyne, 276
Chapman, George, 26S, 276
Chatham, Earl of, 3S0
C'>'nttertoif, Thomas, 866
CliUlingirorth,William,228
C 11 K iicer, Geollre]r,74,77-88,

126-31
Clieke, Sir John, 161
Chevy Cliase, 89
Chretien of Troyes, 64
Ciimnicle,the 8axon,46,66,

113-15
Clmrcbyard, Thomas, 181
Cibber, Coiley, 818
Clarendon, Lord, 240, 293
Clarke, Samuel, 306, 320
Coiibett, William, 891
Cockayne, the Land of, 68
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor,
361, 364, 366, 870, 878^
889, 893, 439
Colet, Dean, 162
Collins, Wilkie, 420
Collins, Williar , 309,341-2
Colman, the elder, 364
Columba, St, 33
Complaint of Scotland, 191
Congreve, William, 298
Conington, John, 411
Conybean3,Rev.W.G. 441
Cook, Eliza, 409
Cooper, James F., 414
Cornwall, Barry, 380, 409
Cotton, ChHries, 203
Cotton, Sir Robert, 289
Cnvcrdale, Miles, 163
Cowley, Abraham, 210, 211,

247-8, 276, 283
Cowley, Mrs, 364
Ccwper, 310, 360, 367-8
Crabbe, George, 380, 41S
Cranmer, 164, 166
Crowe, Mrs, 421
Cud worth, Ralph, 210, 217,

234
Cumberland, Richard, 849,

364
CunidnghUD, Allan, 868.
881

Oallaa, E. D., 440
Dalrymple, Sir DaTid, 847
Dana, lUohard H., 881
Daniel, Samuel, 289^ 280,
974,87^291

Dtrwln, Erasmus, 866
Davenant, Sir William, 277
Davidson, Dr, 441
Davie, Adam, 72
Davies, Sir John, 279
Davis, John, 242
Defoe, Daniel, 321
Dekker, Thomas, 24S, 266
Denham, Sir John, 283
Derby, Lord, 411
De Vere, Sir Aubrev, 400
Dickens, Charles, Sifia, 417-

418
Disraeli, Benjamin, 415
D'lsraeli, Isaac, 389
Dixon, W. Hepworth, 432
Doddridge, Philip, 330
Donaldson, Dr J., 433
Donne, Jolin, 206, 210, 221,

275, 280, 282
Douglas, Gavain, 95
Draper, J. W^ 437
Drayton, Michael, 275, 276,

278-9, 281
Drummond of Hawthorn-
den, 289, 281
Dryden, John, 210, 289, 294,

297, 301-5, 810
Dugdale, Sir William, 292
Dunbar, William, 96, 187-8

Earle, Bishop, 245
Easttake, Lady, 439
Eastlake. Sir Charles, 439
Edgeworth, Miss, 383, 414
Edinburgh Review, 863,

386
Edwards, Jonathan, 331
Edwards, Richard, 196
Eliot, George, 863, 407,

419
Elliott, Ebenezer, 398
Ellis, George, 387
Ellis, Robinson, 440
Eimsley, Peter, 898
Emerson, Ralph Wal .10,438
England, the Brut of, •

metrical chronicle, 66
Eothen, 431
Erasmus, 160
2rigena, Joannes Scotos,

35
Essayists, Early, 245-48
Essayists, Periodical, 824-

826, 331-32, 849
Evelyn, John, 203
Exeter, Joseph of, 62

Fabliaux, Norman-French,

60
Pabyan's Histories, 91
Fairfax, Edward, 276
Falconer, Wilihlm, 338
Faraday, Michael, 441
Farnaby, Thomas, 215
Farqnhar, George, 208
Feltham, Owen. 345
Ferguson, Adam, 847
FergussoD, Robnrt, 856

Ferrers, 181
Ferrier, Miss, 885
Ferrier, Profesrar James,

434
Fielding. Henry, 3C9, 336
Flavel, John, S91
Fletcher, Gilps, 277
Fletcher, John, 262-3, 278,

281
Fletcher, Phineas, 277
Florise and Blanchetfeur, a

romance, 66
Foote, Samuel, 337
Ford, John, 267
Forster, John, 432
Fortescue, Sir John, 133
Foster, John, 393
Fox, Charles James, 360
Fox, John, 168
Franklin, Benjamin, 331
Freeman, £. Augustus, 431
Frere, John Uookham,367
Froude, J. Anthony, 430
FuUer, Thomas, 23^ 245

Oaimar, Qeotttey, 66
Gale, Thomas, 293
Gait, James, 885
Garrick, David, 337
Gascoigne, George, 196
Oaskell, Mrs, 415
Gataker, Thomas, 214
Gay, John, 813
Gentleman's Magazine,863
Oerbert, Pope, 66
Gervase of Tilbury, 61, 54
Gest of Kinghom, 62, 65
Gesta Romanorum, 66-68
Gibbon, Edward, 309, 345-6
Gifford, William, 367
Gilby, 215
Gildas the Wise, 84
Gillies, John, 347
Giraldus Cambrensis, SI
Glanville, 74
Gleeman's Song, the, 89
Gloucester, Robert of, 67,

68,123-25
Glover, Richard, 866
Godwin, WiUiam, 888, C92
Goldsmith, 810, 347-8,354-5
Golias the Priest, 53
Gore, Mrs, 414
Gower, John, 76
Orahame, James, 381
Gray, Thomas, 309,330-40
Greene, Robert, 244. 266
Oreville, Fulko, Lord

Brooke, 279
Grocyn, William. 161
Grott*, GcorKe, 427
Guy of Warwick, a ro-
mance, 67, 62

Habington, William, 283

Hakluyt, 248

Hales, Alexander de, 60

Hales, John, of Eton. 228

PaUbttrton,T.g,42«

IND^X.

Ha1I,Bi8hop, aoO, 210,S224,

245,280
Hall, Robert, 893
Hall, Mrs, 4U
Hallam, Henry, 383. 890-92
Halleck, FitEgreene, 882
Hamilton, Sir William, «)7
Hamilton, Sir W. S., S64,

4356
Hampden, Dr R. D^ 441
Hannay, James, 421
Hardyng, John, 91, 183
Hare, Charles Julius, 441
Harrington, James, 2i39
Harrington, Sir John, 276
Harris, James, 330
Hartley, David, 330
I larelock, a romance, 61, 66
llawes, Stephen, 88, 134
Ilawlceswortli, 2SI2
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 421
Haztitt, William, 890
Ileber, Bishop, 881
lielpu, 423,431
llemans, Mrs, 381
Henry, Matthew, 320
Henry, Robert, 847
Henry the Minstrel, or

Blind Harry, 95
Henry son, Robert, 95
llerl)crt, George, 280
IItsrl)ert, Lord,of Cherbury,

234
Ilercward the Saxon, 90
Herrick, Robert, 282
llerschol, Sir John, 411,

441
Ilervey, James, 830
1 ley wood, John, 186
Hey wood, Thomas, 268
]ngden,Balph,74
Historical Commission, 364
History of tbo Angles, a

metrical cbronicle, 66
lIobbes,Thomas,210, 237-8,
239

Hogg, James, 862, 381

llolcot, Robert, 72

Holmes, O. W^ 412, 421,
423

Home, John, 854

Hood, Thomas, 397-8, 422

Hook, Dr, 433

Hook, Theodore, 885

llooko, Nathaniel, 332

Hooker, Richard, 2U3, 214,
218

lloole, 356

Hope, Tiiomas, 385

Hopkins, 181

Home, U. H., 410

Horner, Francis, 386

Houghton, Lord, 398

1 lovudbn, Roger dc, 51

Howard, Henry, Earl of
Surrey, 178-80

Howe, John, 291

Howell, James, 842

Uowitts, the, 425

Hughes, Thomas. 410
Hume, David, 300, 330, 845
Hunt, Leigh, ^
Huntingdon, Henry of, 51
Hutcheson, FranciH, 330
Huxley, T. IL, 441

Inchbald, Mrs, 349
Ingelow, Jean, 409
Interludes, Dramatic, 185
IporoydoD, a romance, 65
Irving, David, 889
Irving, Washington, 385

James, G. P. R., 414

James the First of Scot-
land, 94

Jameson, Mrs, 438

Jeffrey, Frauds, 386, 388-9,
395

Jerrold, Douglas, 410, 422

Jewell, Bishop, 196

John of Fordun, 92

Johnson, Samuel, 809, 811,
331,332-6,339,347

Jonson, Ben,243,S64,278,281

Jortln, John, 332

Kames, Lord, 851
Keats, John, 361, 879, 897
Keble, John, 381
Kinglake, Alex. W., 431
Kingsley, Rev. C, 363, 419,

436
Knight, Charles, 431
Knight, Richard Payne,396
Knolles, 239
Knowles, James Sheridan,

410
Knox, John, 192

Lamb, Charles, 890
Landor, Walter S., 381, 422
Lantranc, Archbishop, 60
Langluume, 366
Langland, William, 74
L&ngtoft, Peter, 67
Lardner, Nathaniel, 880
Latimer, Hugh, 166-8
Lai d Archbishop, 214, 864
Layamon, his Brut, or

English Chronicle, W,

115-19
L('«, Nathaniel, 297
Leigliton, Archbishop, 290
Luliind, John, antiquary,

IGl
Leland, John, theologian,

330
Lermont, Th^nas, the

Rhymer, 92
Lesley, Bisliop, 103
L'Estrange, Sir Roger, 293
Lever, Charles, 4n, 422
Lewes, O. U., 432 34
Lilio, WilllAm, 337
Lilly, William, 161
Linaore, Thomas, 1611
Lindsay, Lord, 438

Lindsay, Hobert, of Pits-

cottle, 191
Lingard, John, 892
Locke, John, 289, 291
Lockhart, J. G., 384,^,432
Lockyer, Normnn, 441
Logan, John, 366
Longfellow, Henry W.,411
Lovelace, 283
Lover, Samuel, 421
Lowell, J. R., 412
Lowth, Bishop, 853
Lubbock, Sir J., 441
Luke Gast of Salisbury, 64
Lydgate, John, 85, 80, 132
Lyell, Sir Charles, 441
Lyiy, John, 244, 250
Lytton, Lord (Sir R. R.

Lyttonr,410, 411, 415, 430
Lytton, Robert, 409

Mnbinogl, Welsh Tales, 32
Macaulay, T. B., 363, 3t<9,

898, 428-9, 439
M'Carthy, D.F,411
M-Crie, Thomas, 392
M'Cullocb, J. R., 891
Macdonald, G., 409
Mackay, Charles, 398
Mackenzie, Henry, 349
Mackintosh, Sir Jame8,3S6,

395
Macpherson, James, 356
Magazines, 332, 363, 386-

888
Magistrates, Mirror for,

181
Mahon, Lord (Earl Stan-
hope), 481
Mair or Mtjor, John, 192
Mallory, Sir Thomas, 89
Malmesbnry, William of,

61
Malthns, T. R., 886, 891
MandevUle, Sir John, 74
Mannyng, Robert, or De

Bninne, 67
ManseiI,DrF.,436
Map or Manes, Walter, 68,

64
Marie of France, 60
Marlowe, Christopher, 256,

276
Mar-prelatfl. Martin, 244
Marriage, a novel, 085
Marryat, Captain. 414
Marsh, Bishop, 893
Marsh, James, 437
Marsh, Mrs, 420
Marsh, Professor, 441
Marston, John, 280
Martin, Tbcodoi-e, SOS, 411
Martineau, Miss, 431, 4Ai,

438
Marvell, Andrew, 298, 800
Mason, Willian, 854, 866
Massinger, PhUip, 266-«
Masaon, Profevwr, 43!l
Mawwy,a.,4O0

INDEX.

445

Mfttthew Parli, Bl, 67
Maturin, C. R., 890
M aurice, Rev. F. D., 438,486
May, Thoman, 840
Melville, Andrew, 194
Melville, WhTte, 421
Mi^rdhin or Merlin, 8S
Mcrivale, Rev. C, 432
MichneIofKlldare,68
Mickle,356

Middleton, Conyers, 332
Middleton, Thomas, 2C5
Mill, James, 391,892, 435
Mill, J. S., 3ff4, 434, 435
Mill, Jobn, 407
Miller, Mngh, 424
Milinan, Henry H„ 880, 438
M'Inor, Joseph and Isaac,

.S54
Milton, John, 210, 211, 240,

241, 283-287, 289, 299
Mi not, Laurence, 76
Miiacle-Plays, 183-4
^lirror, the, 349
Mitford, Miss, 380, 385
Mitford. William, 847
Mnnniouth, Geoffrey of, 33,

51
Monro, Professor, 440
Montague, Lady M.W., 324
Montgomery, James, 381
Moore, Edward, 882, 887
Moore, John, 349
Mm)re, Thomas, 883, 880
Moral-Plays, 183-4
More, Hannah, 854
More, Heniv, 210, 284
More, Sir Thomas, 184,161,

170, 171
Morell, J. D„ 433-4
Morris, William, 405, 411
Mort Arthur, a romance,

80
M' tloy, J. L, 482
Millier, Fr. Max, 440
Mnlock. MisB(Mr8 Craik),

400,420
Miirchison, Sir R., 441
Mure, W., 427
Mysteries, Dramatic, 183

Napier, W. F. P. (Colonel),

392
Newman, Dr, 436
Newspapers, recent, 368
Newton, Sir Isaac, 280, 291
Newton, John, 364
Norton, Hon. Mrs, 398
Norton, Thomas, 181
Novels, Elisabetban, 849
Novels, Waverley, S8i
Nut-brown Maid, the, 134

Oceam, William, 71
Oliphant, Mrs, 420
Ormin, or Orm, hU " Or-

malum," 68
Ossian, 81
Otway, Thomas, 296

Overbury, Sir Thomas, 245
Owen, John. 289, 291, 364
Owl and Nightingale,Fable
of the, 68; 122

Paley, Wm., 810, 362, 863
Pal grave, Sir Francis, 426
Painplilcts, Elizabethan,

244
Paradise of Dainty De-
vices, the, 196
Parker, Matthew, Abp. of

Canterbury, 216
Puniell, 314

PaHquinades, anci<>nt, 53
Pnston Letters, the, 133
Patrick, St, 33
Peacock, Bishop, 138
Pearson, John, 291
Pccle, George, 256
Perceval, 382

Perceval of Galles, a me-
trical romance, 65
Percy, Thomas, 349, 356
Periodicals, 332, 3i^ 385-

358
Phaer, 181

PhilUpH, Ambrose, 314
Pierpont, 382

Piers Plowman's Greed, 75
Piers Plowman, the Visions

of, 74
Pinkerton, John, 891
Pitt, William, 350
Playfair, John, 386, 395
Plegmund, Primate, 45
Plumptre, Rev. E. U., 411
Poe, Edgar A., 382
Pole, Cardinal, 161
Pollok, Robert, 381
Pupe, Alexander, 307, 814,

815-18
Porson, Richard, 302
PnrteouR, Bishop, 354
Porter, Miss Jane, 383
Prescott, Wm. H., 427
Printing in England.91465
Printing in Scotland, 97
Prior, Matthew, 301
Procter, Bryan, 380, 409
Procter, Miss Adelaide A.,

409
Prynne, William, 244
Psalter of Cashcl, 31
Purchas, 242
Puttenham, 243

Quarlcs, Francis, 230
Quarterly Review, 387
Quincey, Thomas de, 424,
488,4!3f

Radcliffe, Mrs, 349
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 239,

240
Rambler, the, 831, 335
Ramsay, Allan, 838
Ray, John, 291
Raynolds, TUomfts, 814, 817

Reade, C, 420

Reid, Mayne, 421

Reid, Thomas, 310, X,2

Reviews, 832, 3*^, SSTt^^

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 351

Ricardo, David, 801

Richard CoBur do Lion, ro-
mance of, 62, ri5

Richard of St Victor, 93

Richardson, Samuel, iXO,
336

Ridley, 161, 165

Kitson, Joseph, 350

Rivers, Earl of, 91

Robert of Sicily, a ro-
mance, 67

Roliertson, Joseph, 432

Robertson, Wm., 309, 345-6

Robin Hood, 90

Rogers, Henry, 437

Rogjers, John, 163

Rogers, Samuel, 380

Rolle, Richard, 72

Romances, Chivalrous, 67,
60,75

Romances, Welsh, 32

Roscoe, William, 392

Roscommon, Lord, 3(M

Rossetti, Miss C, 408

RossetU, D. G.,407

Round Table, King Al^
thnr's, 32, 62-64

Rowe, Nicholas, 313

Ruskin, 4S8

Rymer, Thomas, 292

Sackville, Thomas, 181, 187
Salisbury, Julin of, 50
Sampson, 215
Sandys, 242, 276
Saviile, Sir Henry, 215, 217
Saxon Chronicle, <^5, 63,

113-15
Scot, Michael, 92
Scott, Sir Walter, 362, 363,

866, 369-71, 384, 386
Scotud, Joannes Duns, 50
Selden, John, 209, 214, 230,

246
Senior, N. W., 438
Seven Sages, romance of

the, 64
Shadwell, Thomas, 297
Shaftesbury, Lord, 320
Shakspeare, William, 202,

257-61, 276, 280
Shelley, Percy Uysshe,861,

378-9
Shelley, Mrs, 385
Sheridan, Richard Brins-

ley, 360
Sherlock, Dr Wm ., 291, 330
Shirley, James, 268
Sidney, Sir Philip, 204, 242-

243
Skelton, John, 134, 17G-7,

184
Skene, F. W., 439
Bmectymnnui, 848

446

INDEX.

Smith, Adam, 310, 351
Smith, Albert, 421
Smith, Alex., 409, 425
Smith. Chnrlotte, 849
Smith, Sir Thomas, 161
Smith, Sydney, 386
Smollett, 300, 336, 347, 358
Somervillo, William, 314
South, Robert, 290, 354
Southema, Thoman, 298
Soiitiicy, Robert, 3(i(i,3G7-&

3S6, 392
Spectator, the. 324-28
Speed, John, 239
Spelman, Sir Henry, 209,

276
Spencer, Herbert, 437
Spenser, Edmund, 202, 269-

273
Spntgue, 382
Stanley, Rev. A. P., 433
State Papers, 364
Steele, Sir Richard. 324«
Sterne, liaurence, 309,836
Sternhold, 181
Stewart, Dugald, 894, 396
Still, John, 196
Stillingfleet, Bishop, 291
Stirling, Earl of, 281
Stirling-Maxwell, Sir W.

432
Stirling. J. Hutchison, 434
Stowe, Mrs Bcecher, 421
Strickland, Miss Agnes,431
Stuart, Dr, 432
Style, English, changes in,

211,310-12
Suckling, Sir John, 283
Surrey, Lord, 178-80
Swift, Jonathan, 810,9&l-8
Swiubume, A. C, 406

Tait's Magazine, 398
Talfourd, T. Noon, 410
Taliessin, Welsh bard, 32
Tappan, Uenrv, 437 .
Taylor, Henry, 410
Taylor, Isaac, 437

Taylor, Jeremy, 209, 21(^

225-28
Temple, Sir Wm., 296, 862,

897,400-2
Tennyson, Alfred, 403-4
Thackeray. William M.,

863, 416-18, 422
Theodore, Archbishop, 85
Thirlwall, Connop, 426
Thomson, James, 809, 838
Thomson, Sir W., 441
Tifiremach, 31
Tillotson, John, 290, 854
Tooke, John Home, 861,

441
Trench, Archbishop, 441
Trevisa, John de, 74
Triads, Welsh pieces, 82
Tristrem, Sir, a metrical

romance, 63
Trollope, Anthony, 490
Trollope, Mrs, 414
Troubadours, 59
TrouT^res or Troureurs, CO
Tucker, Abraham, 852
Turner, Sharon, 302
Tiisser. Thomas, 196
Tyndale, William, 162, 166
Tyndali, W, 441
Tytler, Patrick F., 392

Udall, Nicholas, 185
Universities and Schools,

49, 72, 97, 194
Upham, Thomas C, 437
Usher, Archbishop, 214,

239,354

Vanburgh, Sir John, 298
Yinsauf, Geoffrey de, 62

Wsce, Richard, 66
Waller, Edmund, 210, 283,

299
Walpole, Horace, 350
Walton, Brian, 217, 276
Walton, Izaak, 293
Warburton, Bishop, 829

W&mer, William, S78» i^
Warren, S., 421
Warton, Thomas, 860, 860
Watson, Bishop, 858
Watts, Isaac, 880
Wayland, 487
Webbe, 248
Webster, John, 266
Wesley, John, 300
Westminster Review, 887
Wetherell, Miss E., 421
Whatcly, Richard, 438
Wbeatstone, Charles, 441
Whcwell, WilUam,433,4S7,

441
White, Henry Kirke, 381
Whitefield, George, 300
Whitney, Professor, 441
Whittier, J.G.,412
Whittingham, 164, 181,916
Wilberforce, William, dUi.
Wilkins, Bishop, 291
Willis, Nathaniel E., 412
Wilson, Florence, 1U3
Wilson, Professor, 37& 385,

387, 389, 880
Wilson, Thomas, 176
Winzet, Ninian, 198
Wircker, Nigel, 52
Wither, George, 278
Wolsey. Cardinal, 102
Wood, Anthony, 292
Wood, Mrs H., 421
Wordsworth, William,857,

361, 362, 873 78
Worsley, P. S., 411
Wotton, William, 296
Wright, J. C, 411
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 180
Wycherley, William, 296
Wycliffe, John, 73
Wykeham, William of, 79
Wyntoun, Andrew, 93

Yonge, Miss, 420
Young, Edward, 318, 337
Ywaine and Gawayne, •
metrical romance, 66

TnEEMDi.

&>1

160

t^mamw^

■if

!,l

APPENDIX.

UNIVEKSITY EXAMINATION PAPERS.

The questions uf which the followin>( papers are made up
have been selectod from amongst those ijfiven on the history of
the EngHsh language and Hterature during the last fifteen years
in the University of Toronto. For the sake of convenience
they hnve been arranged in three divisions, corresponding more
or less closely to tlie Parts of Mr. Spalding's text-book.

PART FIRST.

1. Name and characterize the works of the principal writers in

Anglo-zSaxon.

2. Give an account of the " Brut " and " '^niaulum," noticing

their vocabulary and versification, their literary place and
importance, and their influence on contemporai*y and sub-
sequent literature.
8. Give a detailed account of the Vision concerning Piers the
Plowman, describing its rhythm and versification, its aim
and subject, its style and lanifuage, its place in English
literature, and what is known of its author.

4. Mention the three early Scottish poets who chose historioal

subjects for their verse, and characterize the masterpiece of
each.

5. Describe the cliaracter of the English metrical romances

written before the fifteenth century, and contrast the state
of feeling which made them popular with that to which Sir
Walter Scott appealed when lie sought to re-awaken a taste
for the same form of literary composition.

6. Name and give some account of the prose writers of the

fourteenth century, and their works.

7. Define the influence of Richard II., Henry VI., and Edward

IV., on the literature of their eras.

8. Sketch the history of the poetical literature of England dur-

ing the last half of the fourteenth century, including its
effects on the thinking and acting of the nation.

APPENBIX.

II.

44n

1. Mention in chronological order the authors and the works

that bPHt exhibit the changes of the lunguago in pasging
from Anglo-Saxon to Modern English through the stngf s
of Semi-Saxon, Early EngUsh, and Middle English.

2. Specify the characteristics of Chaucer's style, and name the

chief sources from which he borrowed in his poetical works.

8. In what forms and languages did tUo ecclesiastical and pro-
fane literature of England appear prior to Edward 111,-'
Name examples of each class. .

4. Compare early English and Anglo-Saxon literature with
reference to the existence or display of wit and humour iu
them.

6. Characterize the style of Lawrence Minot, and mention the
subjects of his principal compositions.

6. What special importance attaches to the writings of Mande-

ville, Asoham, Wicklif, and Surrey, respectively ?

7. Give a concise sketch of the authors and literary works ot

the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II.

8. Tell what is known about Robert of Gloucester, his work,

and its date.

III.

1. What is meant by the " Gesta Romanorum " ? What was

the influence of this production on English literature ?

2. Give an account of the literary labours of Bede, Alfred, and

Csedmon, characterising their principal works.
8. What is tho connection between 5fetrical Romance and
Ballad-Poetry ? Estimate the value of each species of com-
position and its influence on English poetry.

4. State the principal facts in Wicklif s life, and mention the

chief points of interest in his translation of the Bible.

5. Characterize the genius of Chaucer, and describe the plan of

the " Canterbury Tales."

6. Give the contents and character of (a) Lydgate's " Storie of

Thebes," (b) " Thp Pastimes of Pleasure " of Stephen
Hawes, and (c) the "Bruce " of John Barbour.

7. Give some account of the " Vision of Piers Plowman " imd

the imitations which followed it, comparing them with the
poems of Minot and Chaucer respectively.

8. Describe the literary and linguistic character of the extant

specimens of the English of the first half of the thirteenth
century.

IV.

1. Discuss the propriety of regarding Chaucer as the founder of
a " school of poetry. Give some account of the principal
writers usually classed as his disciples, enumerating and
briefly describing their more important works.

444

APPENDIX.

2. How does Barbour compare with Chaucer as a descriptive

poet ?
8. Give an account of the subject, sources, versification, and

language of the Ormulum.

4. Name the more distinguished Anglo-Saxon prose writers, and

describe their chief productions.

5. Compare the " Vision of Piers Plowman " with the " Canter-

bury Tales" in plan, language, and versification.
G. Truce the history of the Romance Poetry prior to Chaucer,
un<l give some account of poetical literature generally during
the same period.

7. Discuss the effects of the study of the Scholastic Philosophy

on the literary life of the Middle Ages.

8. Give some account of John Gower, and describe his principal

works, comparing them with those of Chnucer in language,
versification, and literary merit generally.

PAKT SECOND.

1. Give an account of the introduction of the chief historical

Hloiuonts of the English language.

2. SIk.'w wliiit grammatical changes the language has undergone

since the Anp^lo-Saxon period.

3. Wiiat are the distinguishing characteristics of the Semi-

Suxon ? Give the approximate chronological limits of the
period, and mention the principal writers in it.

4. State the arguments which tend to prove that the loss of

infictions in the Norman period was due to internal causes,
and likewise those which support the view that it was due
to external causes, and estimate their relative conclusiveness.

5. Describe the general character of the Hellenic element in the

English vocabulary, and classify the Greek verbal roots.
G. Craik says : " The English of the ninth century is one lan-
guage, and the English of the nineteenth century is another.
They differ at least as much as Italian differs from German."
Explain what is meant and account for the fact.

7. Compare the relative influences of Latin and French on the

English vocabulary.

8. What is the value of the Celtic element in the English lan-

guage ? What classes of Celtic words have become incor-
porated into English ? Give the reasons therefor.

II.

1. When tlii"" Romans conquered Gaul and Britain the languages
of b. th countries were Celtic; the result in France has
been the substitution of a Neo-Latin or Romance language,
whereas that cf England is German. Account for this.

APPENDIX.

445

2. Fowler says : *' The Saxon element is mncli more expressive
than the Latin part of the laiigiiajje." Assi-^n reuaona for
adopting or rejecting this opinion.

8. Trace the influence of the Normun Conquest on the English
language.

4. Account historically for the introJuclion of the L itiii element

into English, mentioning the different periods at which such
introduction took place, and giving a few examples showing
the kind of words introduced during e.ich period.

5. Give an approximate idea of the proportion in wliich words of

Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon origin occur in our vocabu-
lary, and are employed by our best author-.

6. Mention a few French words which were uloptod into the

language during the Norman period.

7. Explain the term " Littus Saxonicum." State what infer-

ences legitimately arise from its use ; and indicate to what
amount the English language retains elements derived from
tlie Britons, with reasons fc>* such amount.

8. Latham attempts to account /or Bede's mention of Jutes

along with the Anglican and Saxon colonists of England by
a confusion of the Celtic wiht in IVihf-Sdefau with the sim-
ilar element in Vit-land or Jnt-land. Explain what is
meant, and give reasons for adopting or rejecting it.

IIL

1. Trace the origin and formation of the English language,

noticing the various stages of its development, accoiinting
for its composite structure, and specifying the different
social, political, commercial, and other influences that have
effected changes in it. Give dates where practicable.

2. Shew by a table the relatio ship which subsists between Eng-

lish and other languager, ancient and modern, of the Teu-
tonic stock.
8. In what sense and t. what extent is Anglo-Saxon the native
element of the Englisli language ?

4. Compare the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin elements of the

English language, and define the structural changes its
grammar has undergone.

5. Specify some of the peculiarities of Chaucer's English, and

describe the present tendency of the language with reference
to ''mood" and "tense."

6. State the cause of the various changes in the Eng -h lan-

guage which took place during the period immediately suc-
ceeding the Norman Conquest, and define the historical
periods of Gld English, Middle EngUsh, and Modern Eng-
lish, giving characteristic forms of each of the stages.

7. Discuss the character of the English language as a moans of

expressing thought and feeling ; and show the influence it
has exerted and is now exerting.

448

APPEXDIX.

Discuss generally the merits of the authors of Queen Anne's
time, and tae position which they are entitled to hold in
Enghsh literature.

Sketch the chai'acter and literary worth of the English
drama (tragedy and comedy,) subsequent to the Restora-
tion.

Sketch the characters of Locke, Reid and Stewart as writers
on mind, and show their relation to the philosophy of the
present time.

Describe (a) the genius of Burns, (/)) tlie influences under
which his character was found, and (c) the effects of his

writings.

1. Give fjorne account of the authors of the " Confessio Amari-

tis," the " Polyolbion," the "Tragical Hisiory of the Life
and Death of Doctor Faustus," " Ro,lph R )iater Doister,"
the " King's Quair," and the " Shepherd's Calendar." De-
scribe these works and characterize their style.

2. What are Ben Jonson's specialities as a writer?

3. Name the principal poetical works and characterize the style

of Burns, Coleridge, Hood, Cowper, Shelly and Hunt.

4. Describe Wordsworth's theory of poetry and point out the

characteristics of the poetry he wrote, showing how far it
agreed with or differed from his theory.

5. Characterize the prose literature of the Victorian period.

6. Compare as historians and writers of prose Hume, Gibbon,

Robertson, Hallam, and Macaulay.

7. Truce the influence of Pope upon pof'tical literature, nammg

the writers who belong to his school and the chief poems of
each.

8. " After the lapse of nearly a century and a half Swift still

retains his place as the greatest of English prose satirists."
(a) Describe the works on which his fame as a satirist
chiefly rests, and (6) give a list of the principal English
prose satirists who either preceded or succeeded him, men-
tioning their more important works.

VI.

1. Hallam, speaking of the language of the authorized version

of the Bible, says: "It may, in the eyes of many, be a
better English, but it is not the English of Daniel, or
Raleigh, or Bacon, as any one may easily perceive."
Explain fully what is implied in this statement, and account
for the difiference between the English of the Bible and that
of (iontemporary writers.

2. Spalding says that by the middle of the eighteenth century

the new prose stylo deviated from the style of the age before,
both in idiom and vocabulary. Specify particularly the
nature of the deviations and discuss their value.

APPENDIX.

449

3. Craik says : " The fact moBt deserving of remark in the pro-

gress of EugHsh Hterature for the first half of the sixteenth
century is the cultivation that now came to be bestowed
upon the language in the form of prose composition."
Mention the writers referred to and their works, and char-
acterize generally the prose style of the period in quesiion.

4. Give some account of the literary forgeries of the eighteenth

century.

5. Compare Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, pointing out

their respective characteristics.

6. Compare and characterize the language as used by Chaucer,

Milton, and Samuel Johnson.

7. Sketch the history of English literature from Queen Anne to

the presert time, defining tie most important changes
which both p. etical and prose literature have undergone,
and tracing each change to its source and to the authors
most influential in effecting it.

8. Discuss the claims of Sterne to (a) originality, (b) wit, and

men-

VII.

1. Ih , w a comparison between Skelton and Sir David 'j \d8ay

personally and as authors.

2. Sketch the history (d the English essay, and indica e the

influence exerted by it on the progress of literature.
8. Describe the writing and characterize the style of Drn 7tou,

Warner, Daniel, Massinger, Heywood, Greene, Nash, and

Dunbar.
4. Sketch the history of the English Bible, and point the

nature and extent of its influence on the developemei . of

the English language.
6. Sketch the changes which English literature underwent f )m

Elizabeth to Anne.

6. Name the leading prose writers of the times of the Rest( a-

tion and Revolution, and describe their chi;racter and ini n-
ence.

7. Compare the reign of George II. in a literary point of vii w

with that of Queen Anne, naming its chief writers with t e
subjects on which they wrote, and giving the character T
their productions.

8. Compare the influence of Pope and Cowper on the poets f

the generation immediately succeeding each (a) in langua^ :•
and rhythmical structure, and (6) in choice of theme at: I
mode of thought.

9. Compare Thomson, Burns, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Tenn '•

son as poets of nature.

10. Characterize and compare the writings of T^otxias Full ir,

Sir Thomas Browne, Bishop Hall, Jerem; faylc", Ricbsrd
Baxter, ard John Bunyan.

450

APPENDIX.

EXAMINATION QUESTIONS FOR FIRST-CLASS
PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS.

The questions given below have been selected from amongst
tho30 set since 1871 by tlie Central Committee appointed by the
late Council of Public Instruction to examine and classify Pub-
lic School Teachers.

1. Describe the ancient English Minstrel, and give the leading

facts in the historv of tlie English Metrical Romance.

2. Write a brief biographical sketch of Sir Thomas More, and

give an account of his •* Utopia."

3. Point out the chief characteristics of the "Fairie Queen."

4. Write Notes of criticism on '* Pamela " and " Sir Charles
Grandison," and state the just estimate of Richardson's
merits as a novelist.

5. Enumerate the principal forms and schools of poetry, and

show what it is that lifts poetry above the level of mere

8.
4.

2.
3.
4.

1.
2.

verse.

II.

re-

What is the distinctive feature of " Piers Plowman" as

gards a substitute for rhjrme ? Give a specimen.
Write notes on George Buchanan, Dryden, and Southey.
State briefly Wordsworth's theory of poetry.
Who were the authors of the Tale of a Tub, Comus, The

Dunciad, Thalaba, Vanity Fair, Utopia, Novum Organon,

The Task, and The Seasons ?
Name the principal historical writers of the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries.

III.

Sketch the literary history of the fourteenth century.

Write an account of the English drama before Shakespeare.

Sketch the lives of Sir Thomas More and Lord Bacon.

Discuss the influence of the Puritans on the literature of the
seventeenth century.

Who were the authors of " Night Thoughts," *' The Merchant
of Venice," " The Complete Angler," " The Seasons," " The
Deserted Village," and "The Lady of the Lake?', De-
scribe the plan of any one of them.

IV.

Sketch tlie life and give an account of the literary work o ■*

Edmund Spenser and of Francis Bacon.
Sketch the literary careers of Shakspeare and Addison.

APPENDIX.

451

8. Give a general view of literature in the reign of Queen Anne,
and point out the influences which gave that epoch its pecu-
liar character.

4. Name and characterize the chief works of Pope and Cowper.

6. Tell what you know about the " Letters of Junius," the
" Task," the " Excursion," and the " Bime of the Ancient
Mariner."