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NORTHWESTERN
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
The Gift of
MARGARET FITCH
riffillVÍ fiHíi R
A SHORT (ÍNÍlírRÍnV I llit¡íil!V
f l'AüMOlírH I .
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
FOR
YOUNG PEOPLE
BY
MISS E. S. KIRKLAND
author of *'a short history of england," "a short history of france.'
"six little cooks," "dora's houshkekping," and
"speech and manners."
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
CHICAGO
A, C. McCLURG & COMPANY
Ig05
S¿0,9
Kses
copyright
Bv A. C. McClurg and Co.
a.d. 1899
PREFACE.
HIS volume is written as a companion to the
"Short History of France" and "Short History
cf England," with which it forms a series. The
study of literature calls for a knowledge of con¬
current history. Half the value of acquaintance with
writings is gone if the "setting" of each writer, as
he appears in turn upon the pages, is not kept in
sight. We need to know what influences were at
work to make him what he was, and who were his
contemporaries in literature, art, and government.
On the other hand, to record an age without dwell¬
ing on its literature is to draw a face without the
eyes. As John Morley puts it: "History tells us
the deeds, but literature tells us the life of a nation."
In this history—in every history, short or long—
a legion of worthy authors are crowded out; for it
is impossible to tell everything (even in treating a
single branch of a single subject), and we learn to
exercise the self-denial involved in omissions. This
task is a hard one, too, for it is far easier to tell
everything than to pick and choose from the store.
But experience teaches us that young people reniem-
IV
PREFACE.
ber more when only a little is given them. A grea:
array of facts appalls them with a sense of hopeless,
endless toil.
"An attempt to introduce young people to the
study of literature" would be a more descriptive title
for the volume; but title-pages should leave some¬
thing to the imagination. Our aim has been to
achieve what Dr. Arnold describes when he says:
"The harvest gathered in the fields of the Past
is brought home for the use of the Present."
E. S. K.
Chicago, October, 1892,
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER FAGB
I.—Introductory, 7
II.—The First Anglo-Saxon Writers, - - lo
III.—Alfred and other Saxon Writers, - - i6
IV.—Anglo-Norman Writers, - 21
V.—The Fourteenth Century, ... 25
VI.—Geoffrey Chaucer, ... - 32
VII.—Writers of the Fifteenth Century, - 36
VIII.—Caxton and Malory, - 42
IX.—The Transition Period, - - 47
X.—Sir Thomas More and other Writf.rs, - 53
XI.—Early Elizabethan Period, - 61
XII.—Miscellaneous Writers, - - - 69
XIII.—Spenser and lesser Writers, . - 76
XIV.—Elizabethan Dramatic Period, - 83
XV.—William Shakespeare, - - - 91
XVI.—Raleigh. Bacon, 98
XVII.—Seventeenth Century. Miscellaneous
Essayists, . 107
XVIII.—Early Seventeenth-Century Poets, - - 115
XIX.—Seventeenth-Century Poets—continued, 126
XX.—John Milton, - - - 132
XXL—Bunyan. The Diarists, - - - - '39
XXII.—Miscellaneous Writers. Seventeenth
Century, . . - - . 148
XXIII.—Seventeenth - Century Scientific Writers, - 155
XXIV.—Later Dramatists. Seventeenth Century, 159
XXV.—^Jonathan Swift, - - - 168
XXVI.—Pope and other Poets, 172
XXVII.—Addison and Steele, 182
vi
CONTENTS.'
XXVIII.—Age of Anne. Lesser Essayists, - - i99
XXIX.—The First Novelists, - - ■ - i77
XXX.—Early Eighteenth - Century Poets, - 205
XXXI.—Eighteenth-Century Poets—continued, - 211
XXXII.—Samuel Johnson, - - 215
XXXIII.—Oliver Goldsmith, - • 223
XXXIV.—Eighteenth-Century Miscellaneous Writers, 227
XXXV.—Three Great Historians, - - 232
XXXVI.—Eighteenth-Century Miscellaneous Writers, 236
XXXVII.—Literary Forgeries, 242
XXXVIII.—Later Miscellaneous Poets, - 248
XXXIX.—CowPER. Burns, - - 252
XL.—Wordsworth. Coleridge, - - 261
XLI.—SouTHEY. Campbell. Moore, - 268
XLII.—Lord Byron, .... 275
XLIII.—Shelley. Keats. Hood. - - - 281
XLIV.—Some minor Poets, - - 289
XLV.—Walter Scott, .... 298
XLVI.—The minor Novelists, - - 307
XLVII.—The Reviewers, - - 313
XLVIII.—Miscellaneous Writers, - - - 320
XLIX.—Miscellaneous Writers, ... 325
L.—Intermediate Historians, - " • 327
LI.—Lord Macaulay and other Historians, 334
LII.—Some Great Essayists. Carlyle, - 33g
LUI.—Miscellaneous Writers, - - 348
LIV.—Nineteenth-Century Novelists. Thackeray.
Dickens, - - - - 334
LV.—Bulwer. Reade. Collins. The Trollopes, 364
LVI.—Charles Kingsley. The Brontes. George
Eliot, 3^3
LVII.—The Brownings, - 379
LVI 11.—Alfred Tennyson, 383
Index, 353
A SHORT
history of English literature
FOR
YOUNG PEOPLE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
EW of US realize how much we owe to literature.
From the moment when a little child first asks
some one to tell him a story, to the time when
the old man finds reading almost the only pleasure he has
left, and really a solace for the loss of all the others; a
large proportion of what makes life agreeable comes through
those thoughts of men which have been embalmed in the
written word and preserved for our benefit. He who first
invented letters, who conceived the idea of making thoughts
matured at one time and place, available at other times and
places, was the greatest of benefactors. Since his invention
it is said, and truly said, "Words are the only things that
last forever."
It would be gratifying to be able to do anything toward
encouraging and fostering in young people a real fondness
for literature. By this is not meant what commonly
passes for a love of reading, which is often nothing more
than a desire to have a vacant mind entertained without the
slightest trouble to itself. One who loves the best reading
may be and possibly is a great reader; yet on the other
hand, one may be a "great reader," as the words are often
used, whose reading is a mere form of mental dissipation.
(7)
8
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Reading, to do us any good, should be discriminative.
We must learn to know why we prefer one author's style to
another's; why the thoughts of the one seem to become a
part of our own minds, while our eyes wander over the
other with no sense of gratification. We must learn to
appreciate the various kinds of imagery and take pleasure
in books which minister to our sense of the beautiful. Our
souls must be open to the lovely influences of poetry, and
we must draw from it that inspiration which shall transfigure
for us the prose of common life. We are all accustomed
to the idea of the sprouting of seeds in the spring; but
when Lowell writes:
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it which reaches and towers,
And grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers,
the common event is glorified for us. No prose can express
repose as does Tennyson's
Music, that gentlieron the spirit lies
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.
Whoever first applied the term "musical" to the sound of
poetry, told in one word the secret of its charm. It is the
music of the mind, and for this harmony our taste can be
cultivated as well as for that made by instruments. Many
nations have taken in verse their first literary steps, probably
because, having no written works, they were obliged to trust
to oral tradition, and rhythm helped them to remember the
words. Homer's immortal epics were no doubt handed
down by the voice of wandering minstrels for generations
before they were committed to writing.
In reading and talking about literature, it is well for us
to have a clear idea of what the word means. Not all that
is written and printed comes under this head : All technical
works — those peculiar to any art or science—all text-
INTRODUCTORY.
9
books, and nearly all that goes to fill the innumerable col¬
umns of the modern newspaper, should be excluded from it.
Besides the classes of books already mentioned, we can
not, in the highest sense of the word, apply the name liter¬
ature to books which are frivolous or intended merely for
temporary amusement. Such books, doubtless, have their
place; but do not let us confound them with what is enduring.
There must be some appeal to the fancy, the imagination
or the reflective part of man to give what we read a claim
to this title; something tending to elevate the mind above
material things, to warm the heart, to cultivate the taste, to
inspire the imagination in order to bring what is written
within its range. It is in this sense alone that we shall enter
upon our acquaintance with literature.
Reading in its highest sense—not merely an amusement
of the moment, which leaves no results except a craving for
more dissipation of the same sort, but that which informs
and elevates the mind while drawing out its fullest powers
—this kind of reading is one of our purest enjoyments;
and to make the most of it we must look carefully over the
field spread out before us, and see how we can cultivate it
to the best advantage.
The first classification that forces itself on our plan of
work is the dividing of English literature into two parts;
that which we can read as our own vernacular and that
which we can not read except as we read a foreign tongue.
To the latter division—what we can not read—belongs all
that was written by our Anglo-Saxon forefathers before the
middle of the fourteenth century. Until that time, all writ¬
ing in England was in Latin except a few precious books
written in Anglo-Saxon, which latter language some writers
prefer to call Early English, and which is the rude, untutored
beginning of our own language. A convenient division of
English literature, made by a distinguished writer on the
subject, arranges it in four periods, as follows: i. Saxon-
10
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
English, or all that comes before the Norman Conquest;
2. Transitional English, or that from 1066 to about 1350,
during which time the two languages, Norman-French and
Anglo-Saxon, were gradually becoming fused into one; 3.
Early Modern English, from Chaucer to the writers of
Queen Elizabeth's time; 4. Modem English, from the
middle of the sixteenth century to our own day. After the
"transitional" period a secondary division is naturally made
by the close of a century, as it happens that each of the
centuries has a character of its own, differing from that
which precedes and that which follows it.
The earliest British writer whose name has come down
to us is Gildas, supposed to have been a Welsh monk of the
sixth century, who wrote in Latin a history of Britain from
the first invasion of Julius Cœsar to his own time. It is in
his book that we find the famous letter to the Roman con¬
sul in Gaul, begging for help against the unruly Scots and
Picts. Gildas was not an Englishman, for the Angles from
whom England takes its name had"not yet arrived there;
but he was a Briton and belonged to the country, and, as
its first native writer must have a place in our literature.
CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST ANGLO-SAXON WRITERS.
EFORE beginning on the systematic study of that
literature which we are to make our own by assim¬
ilation, we must take a hasty glance at the earlier
writers—those who wrote for the pleasure and benefit of
the people of their own times. And what a pleasure it was !
It is hard for us, to whom reading comes as naturally and
as easily as eating, to understand the eagerness with which
people who did not know Latin, and were therefore shut
THE FIRST ANGLO-SAXON WRITERS.
11
out from the poetry and history in that language, welcomed
the appearance in their narrow horizon of a poem which
they could understand and commit to memory. It was like
the lifting of a curtain toward the sunrise, or the introduc¬
tion of a sixth sense which opened to them a new range of
possibilities and made the world forever richer.
As we have said, the earliest form used by the Saxons,
or English, as also by most other nations, was the poetical.
The first poets did not employ rhyme, but their ears
demanded rhythm, or the regular rise and fall of the voice
at successive syllables; and to this they added what has
been called "apt alliteration's artful aid." There were cer¬
tain fixed rules for the latter, but it would not be profitable
to spend time in learning them now, especially as the thing
itself, in literature's advance in dignity and elegance, has
been abandoned. Collier's "English Literature," gives an
excellent example of it, which, though written nearly seven
hundred years after the first English poem, will show the
nature of this alliteration;
Ac on a May Morwening
On Malvern hills
MebeFel a Ferly,
Of Fairy me thought.
I was Weary for Wanderd
And Went me to rest
Under a Brood Bank
By a Burn!s side;
And as I Lay Leaned,
And Looked on the waters,
I Slumbered into a Sleeping,
It Swayed so mury. [sounded, murmurinf]
There is something touching in the glimpses we get of
these old "men of letters," feeling their way dimly through
the twilight, probably humbly fancying that the real glory
and greatness of poetry and prose would always be, as it
wa« fRe^rg m îhè suuhdmg' aBBt ponderous measures and
\wonder']
[with wandering\
[broody
[brook^
12
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
phrases of the classics. One wishes that some kind fairy
might have whispered to them that the tree they were plant¬
ing would, in a thousand years, throw all others into the
shade; but there is no evidence that their thoughts ever
soared so high.
Gildas wrote in Latin, and English literature, properly
speaking, begins with Caedmon (pronounced Cadmon), who
lived in the seventh century. He was a servant in Saint
Hilda's monastery at Whitby, so little versed in the accom¬
plishments of the day that he was not able to take his turn
with the rest at singing to the harp which was passed from
hand to hand after supper. Mortified at being unable to
contribute his share to the general entertainment, he escaped
to the stables (where it was his place that night to keep
guard over the cattle), and there, overcome by vexation and
loneliness, fell asleep. In his sleep these waking thoughts
were continued in the form of a vision in which a heavenly
visitor appeared to him saying, "Caedmon, sing!" "I can't,"
said poor Caedmon, "that is why I came away!" "But you
must sing to me," said the spirit. "What shall I sing?"
asked the cowherd. "Sing the beginning of created things,"
was the reply, and a poetical version of the story of creation
as told in the book of Genesis, passed through his dreaming
mind, and was remembered by him when he awoke. The
next morning he presented himself before the Abbess Hilda,
to ask what use he should make of his new and wonderful
gift of song. She, to test his power, gave him some portions
of scripture to turn into verse, and when she found that the
power was no transitory possession she persuaded him to
embrace the religious life, that is, to become a monk. From
that time he devoted himself to versifying different parts of
the sacred writings, and his lines in the unlearned, common
tongue, were for generations, the delight and solace of the
pious monks of Whitby.
We give a few lines from the beginning of Caedmon's
THE FIRST ANGLO-SAXON WRITERS.
13
poem, only substituting modern letters for some characters
(th, etc.) peculiar to the Saxon :
The typical Saxon had two sides to his moral nature ;
and while he threw himself earnestly into the devotional
frame of mind called forth by the strains of Caedmon, it
can not be denied that he took the keenest delight in every
thing that had to do with fighting. The story of Beowulf,
the most ancient heroic poem in any Teutonic language,
was written by some unknown hand in Germany long before
an Anglo-Saxon poet, equally unknown, re-wrote it in his
native tongue in England, late in the seventh century. The
hero leaves his home among the Goths and sails to Den¬
mark, where he frees a Danish chief from the attacks of a
terrible fire-breathing monster named Grendel. Then he
returns to his own country and rules in peace until his land
is attacked by a hideous dragon whom he slays, but is him¬
self killed by its fiery breath. The poem is intensely pictur¬
esque from its freshness and simplicity, while it owes very
little to figures of speech. There are few similes, and the
metaphors are of the most obvious kind; but the scene
rises before us as if it were painted on canvas. We sit at
the rudely-spread but abundant banquet, we hear the boast¬
ful talk of the warriors, and we see the desire for gain in the
shape of plunder overtopping the love of glory. It seems,
however, to have given both author and translator the purest
pleasure to tell how its hero was able, after being dragged
down into the den of a wicked she-fiend, to "let her soul
out of its bone-house" or skeleton ; in other words, put her
to death. Homer has many ways of describing the parting
between soul and body, but none more vivid than this.
Nu we sceolan herían
heofon-rices weard,
metodes mihte,
and his mod - ge - thone,
wera wuldor faeder !
the glory-father of men !
Now we shall praise
the guardian of heaven,
the might of the creator,
and his counsel,
14
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Differing both from the lofty imagination of Caedmon and
the warlike breathings of the author of Beowulf, are the
hymns of Aldhelm, who was a young man when, in the
seventh century, Caedmon died.
Aldhelm, at the age of sixteen, joined a monastery at
Malmesbury, where the monks were so poor that they had
not enough to eat. In time he became its abbot, improved
its material condition, and gathered about him a company
of pure-minded and zealous young devotees, whom he
inspired with his own enthusiasm. His special gifts were
for music and poetry, and King Alfred, who lived about
two hundred years after him, thought him unequaled as a
maker of English verse.* It is said that on Sundays, when
many persons from the country came into Malmesbury for
trading purposes, he would station himself on the bridge
and sing to them so sweetly that when the time came for
service they would follow him into the church, putting off
their business until the next day. In Alfred's time people
still remembered and sang the songs of Aldhelm; but
unfortunately all the English ones are lost, and we have
now left of his writing only some rather tame Latin verses.
While Caedmon was cultivating a new sense in the nar¬
row understanding of his fellow-laborers, and when Ald¬
helm had just entered upon his work at Malmesbury,t an
infant in arms was taking his first look at life; the lad who
grew to be the great Bede, so wise, so good, and so
revered as to have earned the title "Venerable." We have
become so much accustomed to coupling this epithet with
the life of the saintly man, that we forget the fact of his
ever having been otherwise than venerable. He was
devoted to the religious life from his childhood, being only
seven years old when he was placed, late in the seventh
* This shows us that there were already other English verse-makers;
of them no record or tradition gives the names or the words.
+ The exact years of these occurrences are uncertain.
THE FIRST ANGLO-SAXON WRITERS.
15
century, in the monastery at Wearmouth, in the bishopric
of Durham. Although he became a man of great learning,
he steadily refused every offer of higher position than that
of a simple monk; a pope in vain invited him to remain at
Rome, whither he had gone on a visit, and his brethren at
Wearmouth had no better success in trying to make him
their abbot. A monk he was, and a monk he determined
to remain, that he might have nothing to distract his mind
from study and teaching. His pupils at Jarrow numbered
at one time six hundred, and young men came from all
parts of the kingdom to profit by his instructions.
His so-called "Ecclesiastical History of England" (most
noted of his many works) was really a general history of his
land, brought down to his own day, and is a storehouse of
valuable information which no one else could have given.
Forty-three other works—religious, scientific, and poetical—
attest his industry, which ceased only with his life; and one
of his young disciples, named Cuthbert, has left us a picture
of his closing hours unsurpassable in its tender grace.*
♦ " When the morning appeared he ordered us to write with all speed
what he had begun, and this done, there was one of us with him who
said to him, ' Most dear master, there is still one chapter wanting ; do
you think it troublesome to be asked any more questions?' He an¬
swered, ' It is no trouble ; take your pen and make ready and write
fast.' Which he did, but at the ninth hour he said to me, 'I have
some little articles of value in my chest, such as pepper, napkins, and
incense ; run quickly and bring the brethren to me, that I may dis¬
tribute among them the gifts which God has bestowed on me. ' Hav¬
ing said much more, he passed the day joyfully till the evening, and
the lad above mentioned said, 'Dear master, there is yet one sentence
not written.' He answered, 'Write quickly.' Soon after, the lad
said, 'The sentence is now written.' He replied, 'It is well; you
have said the truth. It is ended. Receive my head into your hands,
for it Is great satisfaction to me to sit facing my holy place where I
was wont to pray. ' And thus, on the pavement of his little cell, sing¬
ing, 'Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,'
he breathed his last, and so departed to the heavenly kingdom. "
16
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER III.
ALFRED AND OTHER SAXON WRITERS.
FTER the death of the Venerable Bede and before
the birth of Alfred, the next Saxon writer, two
great • scholars arose in England, whose writings
made them famous all over Europe. These were Alcuin
(735—804) and Erigena. As they lived abroad and wrote
only in Latin, their works scarcely belong to English litera¬
ture, but as they were Englishmen, we ought to know at
least their names and something of their writings so far
as they were of a national character.
The year of Bede's death is given as that of Alcuin's
birth. He was born at York, which at that time was a cen¬
tre of learning in England. He was the finest scholar of his
age, and as such was invited by Charlemagne to make his
home at the French court, where ;ie spent the latter part of
his life. His works are on the most varied subjects,—such
as history, divinity, and exposition of the Scriptures, together
with poems and an interesting series of letters to Charle¬
magne, who appreciated his value, and treated him with the
greatest distinction.
The other noted English scholar, John Scotus Erigena,
was probably a native of Ireland, and like Alcuin, passed
much of his life in France; Charles the Bald, grandson of
Charlemagne, being his patron. He was one of the boldest
and most original thinkers of the middle ages, and at the
time when he fiourished, half a century later than Alcuin,
had not his equal in Europe as a metaphysician. He had
a ready wit, too, not dimmed by the subtleties of his meta¬
physical studies. One day the king asked him, at dinner,
what was the difference between a Scot and a sot or fooL
"Just the breadth of the table," answered Scotus.
ALFRED AND OTHER SAXON WRITERS.
17
With Alfred the Great (849—901), begins the true history
of English prose. Bede made many translations into
Saxon, but all this part of his work is lost ; while we still
have enough of Alfred's to show his vigorous style and his
intense love of learning for its own sake. He was no schol¬
arly recluse, enjoying literary work as a relaxation from royal
state. Untiring activity alone enabled him to accomplish
all the duties of a statesman, a general, a ruler and an
author. His large mind desired instruction not only for
himself but for all his subjects; and his life was spent in
trying to encourage the study of letters among his ignorant
people. Schools sprang up everywhere under his fostering
care, and the centre of learning was transferred under him
from the North to the South; from Whitby in Yorkshire to
Winchester, not far from the English Channel, where, in
his own court, he had a school which received his personal
supervision. With all his claims to the rank of a scholar,
he was absolutely free from vanity or pedantry. His noble
simplicity bore the stamp of a mind above pettiness.
Alfred's work began, as was natural in an age whose pos¬
sessions in the way of literature were so small, with transla¬
tions. He rendered into English the "Universal History"
of Orosius, a Latin writer of the fifth century; the "Consola¬
tions of Philosophy," written in the sixth century by Boë-
thius, the high-minded minister of Theodoric, who beguiled
the long hours of his unjust imprisonment by recording his
thoughts ; Bede's "Ecclesiastical History" (really, as we have
said, a history of Britain)written in Latin; and the "Pasto¬
ral Rule" of Gregory the Great, which Alfred called in
Saxon " Gregory's Book on the Care of the Soul." Of his
original works, not much remains beside his excellent code
of laws. Of his " Manual," or hand-book, which would
have been most valuable of all to us as showing his daily
thoughts and habits, no copy is known to exist.
We must not think of King Alfred as working at his task
2
18
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
in luxuriously furnished library, under the ligh of a softly
shaded student-lamp. Cowper says, speaking of a three-
legged stool,
On such a stool immortal Alfred sat,
And swayed the sceptre of his infant realms.
For the light, a single wax or tallow candle (possibly two,
as he was a king) furnished the best that could be had ; and
being without a clock, the methodical student caused his
candles to be notched in divisons each of which would take
an hour in burning, and thus he divided his time so as not
to give to any one occupation more than its due proportion.
One-third of the twenty-four hours, we are told, he gave to
study and devotion, one-third to the business of his king¬
dom, while the remaining eight hours were all that he allotted
to eating and amusement. Finding that the draughts in his
too-well ventilated palace made the candles flame, he in¬
vented a lantern, in which thinly-shaved horn did the work
of glass and prevented the candle from burning down too
fast. Nothing within the range of possibility was too great
for him ; no worthy thing too small ; and when he died, at
flfty-two years old, worn out with hard work, he left a name
which has ever since been revered by the millions in his
country who know how to prize noble work done in a noble
station.
A "Life of Alfred the Great," written in Latin by Asser,
a learned monk contemporary with him, is the authority
for many of the stories connected with this king, who made
the monk his personal friend and preceptor.
An interesting writer of Saxon times, who flourished just
a hundred years after King Alfred, as Alcuin had flourished
a hundred years before him, was Alfric the Grammarian,
who lived until the end of the tenth century. He wrote
a lively little book to teach schoolboys Latin, which he put,
in a quite modern fashion, into the form of a dialogue. He
represents a number of pupils begging to be taught, who
ALFRED AND OTHER SAXON WRITERS. 19
answer various questions as to their respective trades ; in
this way bringing before his pupils a large number of words
used in common life, of which they learn the Latin equiv¬
alents almost as in a game. He also wrote, for the benefit
of his boys, the first glossary, or partial dictionary, of Latin
and English words. He followed in the footsteps of Bede
by translating into English seven or eight books of the
Bible.
Among the most curious and interesting of the literary
monuments of England is the work known as the "Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle," begun, no one knows when, and added
to whenever there was something to say and somebody to
say it, until the middle of the twelfth century. The old
chronicle, with all its shortcomings and its credulity, is
almost the only record we have of the century after Alfred's
death. There are in existence six manuscripts of the
chronicle, each enriched with such additions to the main
story as would be most interesting to the monks of the
particular monastery where it was copied. It is not diffi¬
cult to imagine the gradual formation of one of these chron¬
icles. When the first was begun, it would naturally contain
all the scraps of tradition which had been handed down
from one set of monks to another. Then as various events
of the outside world came to their knowledge, these facts
would be added in their order, together with such local
items as belonged especially to the place where the record
was made. This copy would then be sent to another mon¬
astery, would be copied out as far as it went, and would
receive additions in its turn.
The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" does not, like many simi¬
lar histories, begin at the Creation ; it goes back only to a
few centuries before the Christian era. After a time we
arrive at Caesar's conquest, and the record marches on,
meagre and bare, through the Roman dominion, the fright¬
ful period of the Saxon invasions and the Heptarchy, the
20
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
reign of Egbert, last Bretwalda and first king of all England,
and, after a period of repose during the reign of Alfred,
plunges again into discord and confusion, varied by blessed
times of quiet, until the strong-handed and tyrannical Nor¬
mans reopen the springs of national progress.
This chronicle brings us to the event of greatest impor¬
tance to our language and literature : the conquest of Eng¬
land by William the Norman in 1066. Nor even then does
it cease its curious life and fungus-like growth; but with
the death of King Stephen, grandson of the conqueror,
it comes to an abrupt end. Its last paragraph reads:
This year [1154] King Stephen died. . . And the King [Henry II]
was received at Peterborough with great respect, and in foil procession;
so he was also at Ramsey, at Thorney, and at Spalding, and ....
What was intended to follow "and" will never be known,
but we have not lost anything worth keeping. A new
race of chroniclers arose to replace the rambling, irregular,
straggling annalists of the early centuries, and their later
accounts, though not always trustworthy, are more pictur¬
esque and varied than those of the humble monks who
have been our authority up to the time of the first Plantag-
enet, Henry II.
This poor but precious chronicle, with its tale of disaster
and oppression, creeps on, as we have seen, into Norman
times, but the scholarship fostered by Alfred had dwindled
under his illiterate successors, and in reading the story of
those troubled years we wonder, not so much that England
had not a brilliant literature, as that she had any at all.
In the brief period of Danish rule there was an interval
when a writer might have said his say undisturbed by the
clash of arms, but the writer was not forthcoming; if we
except the poem said to have been composed by King
Canute when he and his warriors were rowing on the river
Ouse, near the site of the old monastery at Ely :
ANGLO-NORMAN WRITERS.
21
Merie sungen the Muneches binnen Ely,
Tha Cnut ching reuther by;
Rotheth cnites ner the land,
And here ye thes Muneches sang.
Merrily sang the monks at Ely
When Canute the king rowed by;
Row, knights, near the land.
And hear ye the monks' song.
CHAPTER IV
ANGLO-NORMAN WRITERS.
ITH the Norman Conquest (1066), began a new
era for England, in which its literature entered a
new phase, influenced—yet never quite domina¬
ted—by a new language. The conquerors brought the love
of letters, and the Anglo-Saxon mind, in which the capac¬
ity for literature had been almost dormant, slowly awoke to
its enjoyment and production. The authors of the twelfth
century wrote mostly in Latin. There were a host of them.
John of Salisbury (1120-1182), the secretary of Thomas à
Becket, satirized the frivolities of courtiers and the follies
of the scholastic philosophers. Ordericus Vitalis (1075-
1143) wrote an "Ecclesiastical History of England and
Normandy," which tells more about the eleventh and twelfth
centuriés than any other work of the period. Then follows
a group of writers vyho, under the general name of "old
chroniclers," give,- in'a mixture of fact and flction, the so-
called annals of England from the age of fable to their own.
The most important of these were William of Malmesbury,
who wrote a "History of the Kings of England"; a pains¬
taking work, authentic as far as his materials went; and
Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welsh monk whose vivid fancy
22 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
led him to set forth, under the title of "History of the
Britons," a romance which caused a plodding historian of
the next century to assert that Geoffrey falsified the facts
of history. We of the nineteenth century are disposed to
be more charitable, and think that Geoffrey was only indulg¬
ing his imagination for the amusement of his countrymen,
as many a writer of romance has done since, without expect¬
ing to be taken literally. We owe to him the story of
King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and
we should feel sorry to be without it; for, though we may
not pin our faith to any one statement in it, we learn from
it what our ancestors believed and enjoyed, and this knowl¬
edge has a historical value quite apart from the facts which
the learned monk professed to relate.
Many chroniclers besides the two already mentioned
divided with them the honor of writing, with more or less
fidelity, the early history of their country. Of those who
flourished in the twelfth century, the best known are Gerald
of Wales, Henry of Huntingdon and Roger of Wendover.
At this time the Saxon and Norman tongues existed side
by side as spoken languages, while all the books which have
come down to us were written either in Latin or Norman-
French—far the larger proportion being in the former.
Of the latter, the most interesting is the "Brut" (or Brutus)
of Wace, an Anglo-Norman poet whose imagination seized
upon the story told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and repro¬
duced it as a metrical romance of many hundred lines.
Not to be outdone in patriotism, an English monk, Laya-
mon, turned Wace's "Brut" into his own language, which
may be called semi-Saxon, and thus produced the first
English poem after the Conquest.
It was a great thing for England, this beginning of story¬
telling in the native tongue. Englishmen who could under¬
stand neither the Latin of Geoffrey nor the French of Wace,
were overjoyed at the opportunity of reading, in their own
ANGLO-NORMAN WRITERS.
23
language, the story which had already become so famous;
and the taste for fiction once acquired, the nation has
advanced unceasingly in its fondness for this fascinating
branch of literature.
To Walter Map or Mapes, England owes a debt only
half-recognized, for his services in bringing together and
harmonizing the Arthurian legends of Geoffrey of Mon¬
mouth and his brother chroniclers (or fabulists). From his
pen came the story of the search for the Holy Grail, as we
now know it, and the romance of Sir Galahad. To these
he added various legends of what is called "The Arthurian
Cycle," blending them so skillfully that they all seem parts
of one story. This work was written in Norman-French.
His satires against the clergy, in Latin, found eager readers
both in and out of the monasteries. An addition to the
literature of the same age, in the latter tongue, is the col¬
lection called " Gesta," a collection of wildly improbable
stories which served to amuse the monks, and the few
scholars who were not monks, in the interval of severer
study.
It was in this same century, the twelfth, that we find the
first traces of what afterward became so famous under the
name of " Mysteries " and " Miracle Plays." These were
an attempt to blend amusement with religious instruction.
The first dealt only with Bible subjects; the second allowed
the introduction of other matters, usually some incident
in the lives of saints. Naturally, the two were often inter¬
woven, and under the same general form continued to
instruct and delight the illiterate until, in the sixteenth cen¬
tury, interludes and masques arose and led the way to the
modern drama.
The only other purely literary work of the thirteenth
century worthy of mention is the rhymed chronicle of
Robert of Gloucester, written in what has been called
"Transitional English"—a step between the semi-Saxon
24
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of the twelfth century and the later English of Chaucer's
time.
With the thirteenth century, literature took a graver turn.
Matthew Paris, who has been called the greatest of the old
chroniclers, lived more than half through the century. Orm
or Ormin, a monk (like most other writers during the same
period), wrote in semi-Saxon English a paraphrase in verse
of the church-service of each day, with the addition of a
homily, or short sermon, also in verse.*
The greatest name of the thirteenth century, and one of
the greatest in any century, belongs not to literature but to
science. It is that of Roger Bacon (1214-94). He was
born of a good family, was educated at Oxford, took holy
orders, and afterward spent some years in Paris, where
he acquired a great reputation for theological learning.
Returning to Oxford he devoted himself to teaching and
study, and entered the strict order of the Franciscans, who
discouraged learning, as a luxury, and even denied him the
use of pen and ink. Clement IV, hearing of his rare
acquirements, sent him a command to write down his
thoughts without regard to the rules of his order. Here a
new difficulty arose. The Franciscans, vowed to poverty,
had no money for writing-materials (in those days a serious
expense for it was not till 1300 that paper began to sup¬
plant parchment), and Bacon's own family had been ruined
*A quotation will serve to show the change in spelling between the
thirteenth century and our own.
Thiss bocc is nemmnedd Orrmulum,
Forrthi thatt Ormin it wrohhte.
This book is named Ormulum
Because that Orm it wrote.
The object of doubling the final consonant occurring after a vowel,
was apparently to serve as a guide to the pronunciation of the words
by strangers, especially those of the Gallic race, which is prone to leave
such consonants unpronounced.
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
25
in the "Barons' Wars" of Henry III. To supply this want
would cost him not less than sixty pounds, equivalent to
more than a thousand dollars of our money now. Loans
were obtained from friends, and with almost incredible
industry. Bacon wrote, within a year and a half, his "Opus
Majus" (great work) and two minor works, which sum¬
med up the study of a lifetime. He urged upon men the
study of nature herself as a means of understanding her
processes] and, as has been said, laid the foundations of
that great system which afterward took form in the mind of
the second Bacon; the Lord Chancellor of James I.
CHAPTER V
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
N entering the fourteenth century we must be pre¬
pared for a long step in advance. Before treating
of Chaucer, the "day-star" of English poetry, and
his contemporaries, we must mention some of lesser note.
Robert de Brunne wrote a religious poem called "Hand-
lynge Sinne," and translated some rhyming French chroni¬
cles. Laurence Minot made war-songs, celebrating the
victories of Edward III. in France. Richard Rolle, "the
Hermit of Hampole," whose life has in it an element of
romance, wrote "The Pricke of Conscience." He had a
strong leaning to the "religious life" and, knowing that his
aspirations toward it would not be favored by his family,
he begged from his sister two gowns, a white and a gray,
which he fashioned as well as he could into a monkish
dress, and from that time lived a life of retirement and
devotion. Having satisfied his friends of his sanity, he
was allowed to spend his years iri a cell not connected
26 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
with any monastery, and then became one of the busiest
writers of the age.
A sentence or two from Rolle's explanation of his own
style will be found interesting as illustrating some of the
principles of transition by which the cumbrous old language
was approaching the form we now use:
I seke no straunge Ynglis, but lightest and comunest & swilk is
moste lyk unto the Latyne, so that thai that knawes noght the Latyne,
be the Ynglis may com to many Latyne wordis. In the translación I
feloghe the letter als-mekille as I may, and ther [where] I fynd no
propre Ynglis, I feloghe the wit [sense] of the wordis, so that thai that
schulen rede it them thar not drede erryng.
It is probably at this date—the first half of the four¬
teenth century—that the first miracle-plays were written in
English. These were the work of Ralph Higden, a monk,
who afterward wrote in Latin a "Polychronicon," or sum¬
mary of general history, of great repute in its day, and still
interesting as bringing to a close the long series of "chroni¬
cles," which were destined to be replaced, a hundred years
later, by the first attempts at history.
We have now arrived at the great period of early modem
English ; the language as it remained, without great altera¬
tion, until the time of Elizabeth (the age of Spenser and
Shakspeare), after which the translation of the Bible, under
James I., may be said to have fixed it in its present form.
It is not easy to assign exact dates to the early works of
the fourteenth century, for, as books were not then printed
but copied by hand and circulated in that form, there was
not the publishers' practice of dating them on the title-page.
For many years the honor of having written the first
English book was assigned to Sir John Mandeville, under
which name a most interesting book of travels was given
to the world. The writer professes to have spent thirty-four
years in visiting the various countries of Asia, making a
détour into Egypt in the course of his wanderings. The
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
27
marvels he relates are enough to make one's hair stand on
end; though he often puts in a discreet remark to the effect
that he did not see these things himself, but only had them
from others. Until comparatively late years, writers on
literature no more thought of doubting the existence of
Mandeville than that of Chaucer. There is, however, a ten¬
dency to dethrone this long-venerated idol, and to think
the work a clever compilation of some writer who never
saw Palestine or China, but made up his account from the
reports of others. Be this as it.may, the result is a most
entertaining book, written in fourteenth-century English and
illustrated with wood-cuts dating evidently from the infancy
of the art. If one takes the trouble to learn only a few
score words and become familiar with the antiquated spell¬
ing, the travels of Sir John will be found well worth reading.
If any spice of humor existed in the author it is carefully
concealed, for he is as grave as a judge in his narrations;
but we can extract abundance of fun for ourselves out of
the quaint recitals, and must always feel grateful to the
laborious author or compiler.
Here is a specimen of his "boke," spelling and all:
The gret King hatha every day 50 fair Damyseles, that serven him
everemore at his Mete. And whan he is at the Table, thei bryngen
him hys Mete 5 and 5 to gedre. And in bryngynge hire Servyse, thei
syngen a Song. And after that, thei kutten his Mete and putten it in
his Mouthe; for he touchethe no thing ne handlethe nought, but holdethe
evere more his Hondas before him, upon the Table. For he hath so
longe Nayles that he may take no thing ne handle no thing. For the
Noblesse of that Contrae is to have long Nayles and to make hem
growen alle ways to ben as longe as men may. And there ben manye
in that Contrae, that han hyse Nayles so longe that they envyronne
alle the Hond: and that is gret Noblesse. And the Noblesse of the
Women is for to have smale Feet and litille; and therefore anon as
thei ben bom, thei leet b3mde hire Feet so streyte, that thei may not
growen half as nature wolde.
A vivid picture of the growth of our language from Saxon
to Norman-English can best be had by transcribing some
28
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of the familiar words of the Lord's Prayer as they were
written in successive centuries:
A.D. 700. Thu ure Fader, the eart on heofenum,
Si thin noman gehalgod,
Cume thin rike, [reich, kingdom—German]
Si thin Willa on eorthan twa on hoefenum;
Syle us todag orne dsegwanlican hlaf [loaf], etc.
A.D. 1120. Ure Fader in Heven rich.
Thy name be halyed ever lich.
Thou bring us thy michel bliese
Als bit in Heven y doe
Evear in yearth bin it alsoe.
That holy bread that lasteth ay,
Thou send us this ilke day; etc.
A.D. 1380. Our Fadir that art in hevenys;
Halewid be thi name,
Thi kyngdom come to,
Be thi wil done in erthe as in hevene.
Give to us this day oure breede oure othir
substaunce; etc.
Somewhat later than Mandeville's work appeared "The
Vision of Piers Plowman," a remarkable poem written by
William Langland, who seems to have been intended for
the church but to have passed into secular life, for we hear
of his wife Kitte and his daughter Calote. The poet rep¬
resents himself as having fallen asleep among the Malvern
Hills, and there having a series of visions (for there are
several wakings), in which he describes the life and manners
of the poor classes of England, and declaims bitterly against
the corrupt lives of the monks and the extortions of the
begging friars. In one place he makes a singular prophecy
which was fulfilled in the sixteenth century in the attack of
Henry VHI. on the monasteries. He warns the monks that
the time will come when they
Shall have a knock of [from] a king, and incurable the wound.
A greater name than Langland's is that of John Wycliffe
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
29
(1324-84), who may be called the first English protestant,
from his earnest protesting against the abuses and corrup¬
tions prevailing in the church of Rome, which was still, as
its name of Catholic implies, the universal church of Chris¬
tendom. Milton, writing three hundred years later, says of
him that he was "honoured of God to be the first preacher
of a general reformation to all Europe." Poetically, he is
spoken of as "the morning star of the Reformation."
Wycliffe's great work is his translation of the Bible into
English. Full of faults and inaccuracies, it was yet the
unsealing of a fountain of living waters to the unlearned
mass of his countrymen, who were thirsting for a better
knowledge of the source of their belief than could be
obtained from listening to the sermons of friars or seeing
the performance of miracle plays. Of the earlier partial
translations of the Scriptures the language had already be¬
come as antiquated as the language of Piers Plowman is to
us ; and nothing like a version of the whole had ever been
attempted.
Of Wyclifie's work as a reformer and a theologian, our
limits do not allow us to speak. Political and religious
dissatisfaction often go hand in hand, and the same party
which was engaged in opposition to the king was prominent
in favoring the opinions of the Lollards, as Wycliffe's fol¬
lowers (for some reason now unknown) were called. The
doctrines preached by him caused him to be accused of
heresy, but he had powerful supporters, and, although the
objectionable books were publicly burned, no penalty was
inflicted on him personally, except that he was expelled
from the University of Oxford. He retired to the little
church of Lutterworth, where the carved pulpit from which
he preached may still be seenj and there, alternating his
work among his flock with the writing of theological works
and tracts in strong, nervous English, he remained until suc¬
cessive strokes of paralysis obliged him to give up his labors.
30 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
In the last year of his life, he was summoned to appear be¬
fore the Pope at Rome, but he disregarded the summons,
and in 1384, death found him in his quiet parsonage. This
was ninety-nine years before the birth of that other great
reformer, Martin Luther. Forty years later, the malice and
violence of the enemies of reformation caused his bones to
be disinterred, burned to ashes, and scattered into a little
brook; but the seeds which he had sowed in men's minds,
though lying dormant for many years, germinated when the
nation awoke to fresh life at the call of Luther. As Fuller,
the church historian, puts it, writing some centuries later:
"Thus the brook conveyed his ashes to Avon, Avon into
Severn, Severn into the narrow seas [Bristol Channel], they
into the main ocean; and thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the
emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed the world
over."
The Avon to the Severn runs.
The Severn to the sea,
And Wycliffe's dust shall spread abroad
Wide as the waters be.
A few verses from Wycliffe's translation of the Bible, given
below, show how far the English of his time was from that
of our day. It was English, however, and not Norman-
French or semi-Saxon; and with some little labor we can
pick out its meaning.
As it is writun in Ysaie, the prophète, Lo! I send myn angel bifore
thi face, that schal make thi weye redy before thee.
John was in desert baptisynge, and preaching the baptysm of pen-
aunce, into remiscioun of synnes.
And alle men of Jerusalem wenten out to him and al the cuntree of
Judee; and weren baptisid of him in the flood of Jordan, knowleching
her synnes.—St. Mark, ch. L
The name most commonly coupled with Chaucer's is that
of John Gower (1320-1408), his contemporary, who survived
him eight years. Gower was also a poet, but so far inferior
to Chaucer that his works are now read only for their anti-
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
3]
quarian interest, and not, like Chaucer's, for the pleasure
they give us. In his day he was much read, for then books
were few. His principal work is the "Confessio Amantis"
—Confession of a Lover—which he wrote at the request of
King Richard II., grandson and successor of Edward III.
The king and the poet met one another in their boats on
the Thames (then used as the great highway or thorough¬
fare of London), and Richard invited his friend into the
royal barge for a little talk. " Book some new thing," said
he, " into which book I myself may often look." The result
was a poem of some 30,000 lines, written in English; Gow-
er's previous writings having been mainly in French or Latin.
Gower lived to a great age, and passed the last eight years
of his life in total blindness. He had a strong personal
friendship for Chaucer, who in his turn calls him "the moral
Gower"—a name which has ever since clung to him.
GoweFs French work, a religious poem which probably
gave rise to this epithet, is lost. His principal Latin work,
"Vox Clamantis," is a satire on the vices and follies of the
age, wherein the king is not spared, a circumstance which,
by a side-light, throws credit on Richard for continuing his
friendship with the poet.
John de Trevisa, a Cornish clergyman, translated Ralph
Higden's "Polychronicon." In this translation he tells us
that he avoids the " old and ancient English," so that the
people of his time can understand it ; and in another hun¬
dred years, when Caxton prints this translation, we read
that he finds it necessary to re-write the " rude and old
English; that is, certain words which in these days be
neither used nor understood." So times change, and lan¬
guage changes with them.
Although the list is closed of ChauceFs English contem¬
poraries, there remains the name of a Scottish writer, who
died some years before him. John Barbour (1320-94) was
the author of a long poem called " The Bruce," describing
32
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the deeds of that hero, who lived about half a century before
he wrote. Barbour held an office in the church and was a
man of scholarly education; he was also a zealous patriot, and
did full justice to the character and exploits of Robert Bruce,
while his own soul was on fire with the thought of Scottish
liberty and independence. He writes from the heart :
Ah, Freedom is a noble thing;
Freedom makes man to have liking;
Freedom all solace to man gives;
He lives at ease who freely lives.
CHAPTER VL
GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
HAUCER was unquestionably the greatest writer
of his time. Unlike the others, he had no espe¬
cial lesson to teach or particular view to inculcate.
He wrote purely for pleasure and because he could not help
it; all his wisdom, fun, pathos, sweet poetic tenderness,
love of nature, and clever insight into human character
had to come out in words. The feeling that he was making
something to live that never lived before, gives the joyous
tone running through his work, and produces the effect of
bubbling over. He was the first great English story-teller;
and when we remember with what eagerness works of fiction
are read even in our advanced age, we can not wonder
that the people of the fourteenth century, living in the
childhood of the new civilization and having little besides
the frivolous French fabliaux or the inventions of Geoffrey
of Monmouth to satisfy their intellectual hunger, should
have seized upon the food offered to their imaginations in
the picturesque tales of Chaucer. This would account for
his popularity in his own and the following century, but he
GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
33
las kept his place for five hundred years only because he
had that to say which will command the ear of humanity at
all times—a representation of human nature as it is, given
by one who sees by intuition into the very heart of things.
The music of his verse, his wit, his humor, his delightful
photographing of the foibles of his characters as well as of
their good qualities and their outward appearance, his deli¬
cate discrimination, his way of raising everything, by the
magic of his touch, above the sphere of commonplace—all
help to mark his work with the stamp of genius. The ver¬
dict of the centuries is justified.
No certainty exists as to the date of Geoffrey Chaucer's
birth; some biographers giving it as 1328, while others place
it as late as 1340. He was the son of John Chaucer, a
vintner or wine-seller, and was born in London. It is be¬
yond question that he had a good education, probably at one
of the great universities. Both Oxford (founded in the elev¬
enth century) and Cambridge (twelfth century) claim him as
a student, though on shadowy grounds. He came early into
royal favor; how, one can not say, but he is mentioned as
belonging to the household of Lionel, Duke of Clarence,
King Edward IH.'s third son. At a later time, he accom¬
panied the king himself to France and was there taken pris¬
oner and ransomed by Edward for the sum of _^i6. Soon
after this we hear of his first ventures in poetry. At this
time he was much impressed by French models, and his
early poems, "The Court of Love," "The Book of the
Duchess Blanche," and others, show strong traces of French
infiuence. He also translated, or rather imitated, a favorite
French poem of the time called "The Romaunt of the
Rose." The Duchess Blanche was the first wife of John
of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of Edward HI. and
Chaucer's life-long patron and friend.
Chaucer's wife, Philippa Roet, was the sister of the Duke's
third wife; so we see that though the poet's parentage was
3
34
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
humble, his own qualities made him the associate of princes.
After his marriage, he was repeatedly employed by the king
on diplomatic missions to Italy, and the works produced
during this period are said to be in his second, or Italian,
manner. The best known of these are, "Troilus and Cres-
sida," "The Assembly of Fowls," and "The House of
Fame." At the time of Chaucer's first visit to Italy, the
poet Petrarch was still living, and a passage in the "Can¬
terbury Tales" leads us to suppose that our poet may have
seen him there.
He had pensions, wardships, offices of various kinds, and
"grants," in other words, gifts, which made him a prosper¬
ous man. He was now at the summit of his fortunes, and
we enter upon the study of his third and best period, the
English, to which all his noblest works belong. A few only
of these can be mentioned here; the dainty apologue of
"The Flower and the Leaf," the longer poem called "A
Legend of Good Women," the "Dream," and, last and best,
the "Canterbury Tales." Our young people, who have so
much to read, can not perhaps spare the time to make a
full study of Chaucer; but they should by all means make
acquaintance with the Prologue to this immortal work.
The "Canterbury Tales" are told by a company of people
assembled to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas
à Becket at Canterbury; and as this is something which
interests all classes of people from the king to the beggar,
the poet finds opportunity to introduce into his story a vari¬
ety of characters, occupying different social positions. The
action of the story includes a long ride on horseback, which
furnishes us with fresh, breezy out-door life, and active
exercise. It was fitting, almost inevitable, that Chaucer
should lay the main scene of his story in the open air. He
was, above all things, a lover of nature. We think of him
and his fellow-travellers (for it is hard to realize that they
made the pilgrimage only in the poet's imagination), always
GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
35
as on the wing—never as having arrived at their destina¬
tion or even as being assembled at the Tabard Inn before
setting out. Mrs. Browning says that all the railroads that
may intersect the earth forever can not hush the "tramp,
tramp," of their horses' feet.
One always forms some mental portrait of a favorite
writer, and it is pleasant to be able to compare this with
the statements of those who knew him. As to Chaucer's
personal appearance we have more testimony than is usual
in regard to those of a long-past time. He was, like King
David, " of a ruddy countenance," with the fair hair of the
typical Saxon; not tall, and, late in life, inclining to be
stout, for he himself intimates that he was "no poppet to
embrace." All agree in ascribing to him that air of cour¬
tesy and good-breeding which is acquired by familiarity with
the best society; and he tells us that at the time of writing
his " Canterbury Tales " he had contracted a habit of walk¬
ing along with his eyes fixed on the ground, for which he is
good-naturedly rallied by one of his companions. Other
writers of his time and that immediately succeeding him
refer to him as their " dear master," their "reverend father";
and it is to the enthusiasm of his fellow-poet, Occleve,
that we owe the beautiful miniature portrait of him which
may still be seen at Oxford.
If men should have suddenly to choose the one English
poem which should survive, all others to be at once
destroyed; a very large number of voices would doubtless
be raised in favor of the " Canterbury Tales." And if the
nineteenth-century reader can spare time but for one book
of all written in English before the Elizabethan age, he
may take the same immortal work, sure of finding himself
better instructed than if he had read all the others and
left that out.
This great achievement distinguishes the fourteenth cen¬
tury from its fellows. It was the period of the waking
36
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
up of the English mind to a condition of full life and vigor ;
of the assimilation of the Saxon and Norman elements of
the language, and of its substantial victory over the Latin
as the medium for the interchange of thought among all
classes and its transmission to future ages.
Chaucer, toward the end of his life, saw the greater part
of his income withdrawn (upon the retiring of his patron
John of Gaunt, "time-honored Lancaster"), but afterward
Fortune again smiled and he ended his days in comfort.
He died at Westminster (now part of London), in a house
near the abbey and not far from the place which Caxton
made memorable by his printing-press. One of Chaucer's
biographers says that his house was removed to make way
for Henry the Seventh's chapel. If this be true it adds
one more to the associations which make that honored spot
so dear to our hearts and our imaginations. It is all ours
as well as England's. The English back of 1776 are our
fellow-countrymen, and when we gained our independence
we did not abandon our heritage.
CHAPTER VIL
WRITERS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
HE fifteenth century has been well called a period
of going backward. No great English writers
flourished in it; even the victories of Henry V.
brought out no poet burning to perpetuate the glory of his
country in spirit-stirring verse; and the dreary Wars of the
Roses seem effectually to have crushed whatever desire
for literary fame might lurk in the hearts of those who held
the pen. In all ages, however, there are persons who must
write, as birds must sing; and of the few whom this turbu-
WRITERS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 37
lent century has to boast we must take those whose writings
have been thought most worthy of preservation.
John Lydgate (1375—1460), a poet of the next genera¬
tion after Chaucer's, was originally a monk at the monastery
of Bury St. Edmunds; and being well read in such history
and literature as were then accessible to English students,
he turned into English verse many a tale of ancient date,
preferring always the lives of the saints. A catalogue of
two hundred and fifty works, of which "The Falls oí
Princes" is the best known, attests his prodigious industry.
His satire of "The London Lyckpenny" is very curious
and interesting from the picture it gives of the streets of
London at that day.* Lydgate had traveled in Italy, and
was looked up to as first among the literary men of his
generation. It is said that he taught the young men who
came to study with him how to make rhymes, an accom¬
plishment which, fortunately perhaps for us, they seem to
have failed to practise.
The name of Thomas Occleve (born 1368) is generally
coupled with that of Lydgate, but it is merely an associa¬
tion in point of time, for Occleve's rhymes are almost
without interest. He, like Gower and Lydgate, avows him¬
self a disciple of Chaucer, and is proud to disclaim any
attempt at originality. He says that Chaucer would wil¬
lingly have taught him, and adds, "but I was dull and
learned little or nothing."
Of a very different cast is our next writer, to whom,
though born in Scotland, we are proud to give a high place
* Then unto London I did me hie.
Of all the land it beareth the price;
"Hot peascods!" one began to cry,
"Strawberry ripe, and cherries in the rise!" [on the stem]
One bade me come near and buy some spice;
Pepper and saffron they 'gan me beed; [offer]
But for lack of money I might not speed, etc.
38 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERA TURE.
among English poets. King James I. of Scotland (i394~
1437I, captured when a lad nine years old from the Scottish
ship which was conveying him to France that he might be
safe from the clutches of his murderous uncle, the Duke
of Albany, passed the next nineteen years of his life in
captivity in England, where he was educated in all things
as became a king's son, heir to a neighboring throne.
Prince James (who became nominally king within a year
after his capture) was transferred, after a detention in vari¬
ous other strongholds, to Windsor Castle, where, looking
out of the window one summer morning, he saw his fate in
the Lady Joanna Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somer¬
set and niece of the famous Cardinal Beaufort. To this
lady he addressed his longest poem, "The King's Quhair,"*
in which he begins by bewailing his loneliness in his solitary
room at Windsor, and goes on to describe how he looked
out of the window and saw
The fairest and the freshest youngë flower
that he had ever seen in his life; this being his metaphor
for the lovely girl who was walking in the garden.t
Released from captivity soon after the accession of
Henry VI., he married his lady-love, and the two went to
.Scotland with every prospect of a long and happy life. The
tragic close of this life—James's assassination by the lawless
* Book; hence our word " quire. "
t The description of the poet's first sight of his lady-love closes thus:
And when she walked had a little thraw [way],
Under the sweete greene boughis bent.
Her fair, fresh face, as white as any snaw.
She turned has, and forth her wayis went.
But tho [then] began mine aches and my torment
To see her part and follow I na might;
Methought the day was turned into night.
In the epilogue to his poem. King James acknowledges his obliga¬
tions to three English poets—Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate.
WRITERS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 39
nobles whom he had ruled justly but too strictly—throws a
shadow over our recollections of the brilliant poet, who was
worthy of a different fate. The tender beauty of his one
love-poem—the only verses which can be with certainty
attributed to him—makes us marvel that a flower so sweet
could grow in a soil so stony and so barren as the war-
shattered reigns of Henrys IV. and V.
Two other Scottish poets contribute to the literature of
the early fifteenth century : Andrew Wyntoun, who wrote a
rhymed history of Scotland, and one Henry the Minstrel,
commonly called "Blind Harry," having been blind from
birth. The latter produced a long poem on William Wal¬
lace, the Scottish hero, and earned his bread by reciting or
chanting it to his own accompaniment on the harp. Neither
of these show any great poetic talent
A writer of more merit was Robert Henryson, a school¬
master of Dunfermline, who lived in a later part of the
fifteenth century (1425-1506), and is considered one of the
best Scottish poets of his time. He was the first to write
a purely pastoral poem, and versified ^Esop's fables with
sweetness and skill. The dates of his life are uncertain.
The list of prose-writers in this century is also very small.
The first in point of time is Reginald Pecock, an English
bishop of great learning and piety, who by his independ¬
ence of thought and moderateness of speech made himself
disliked both by the clergy and their opponents, the Lol¬
lards. A few words of Bishop Pecock's, copied literally,
illustrate the state of our language in the middle of the
fifteenth century, the days of Columbus's boyhood:
Fro eeldist dales contynueli hiderto men weren woned [wont] forto
speke and write her [their] wordis not oonli in treuthe, but also ther-
with togidere forto speke and write tho wordis in sum gaynes and
bewte [gayness and beauty].
The thought set forth is, that style of expression must be
observed as well as truth of assertion; and a quaint illus-
40
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
tration which he appends shows that good style in other
matters is also coming in vogue. It reads:
Euen rizt as menn fro eeldist daies hiderto weren woned not oonli
forto ete her mete, but also therewith forto ete her mete in delicióse
[delicate] maner.
It may be here remarked that one of the characteristic
traits showing the chaotic state of the English tongue up to
within some three hundred years, is the utter irregularity
in the spelling of words. Spelling in Chaucer's day was
entirely arbitrary and unsettled, and the same writer spelt
the same word in two or three different ways on the same
page. Bullokar's "Booke at Large for the Amendment of
Orthography for English Speech" (1580) is almost the first
attempt to bring order out of this chaos.
Some of Pecock's ideas not agreeing with those of the
church of Rome, he was deposed from his bishopric and
sent to Thorney Abbey, where, shut up in a private room,
forbidden ever again to touch pen and ink, and limited to
the Bible and three or four books of devotion as his com¬
panions, the unfortunate man vanishes from sight.
Sir John Fortescue, a learned lawyer and chief-justice of
England, wrote a spirited work on "The Difference between
an Absolute and Limited Monarchy," in which he draws a
comparison highly favorable to England as contrasted with
the despotism of France. He makes out an excellent case
for his own country, though it is by some very odd illustra¬
tions. He says that the Englishman, if he be poor and
sees another man having riches which he may take from
him by force, will not fail to do so; and this—so runs the
inference—proves conclusively that the English are the
bravest nation in the world, and one that will not stand
oppression.
Among the valuable bequests of the fifteenth century to
its modern successors, is the curious collection of letters
from and to the Paston family, which by great good fortune
WRITERS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
41
have been preserved while most of the correspondence of
that date is lost beyond recall. There are more than a
thousand of these letters, ranging in date from 1424 to 1506,
including everything, from a school-boys epistle asking for
a little pocket-money, a pair of new trousers, and permis¬
sion to come home at Christmas for the vacation, to those
discussing important affairs of state, or telling some piece
of public news which has since become a matter of history.
Successive Sir John Pastons correspond with high officials,
and through the long struggle with France and the confused
incidents of the War of the Roses we catch many glimpses
of domestic life. Lady Paston, the wife of the first Sir
John, sends a rather hard-hearted letter to her son's school¬
master, desiring that he will whip the boy soundly if he
needs it, which his mother evidently thinks will be the case.
What small progress had been made toward modem
English, even as late as 1454, will be seen by a sentence
from one of the "Paston Letters" of that date;
And where as it pleasyd yowr Lordship to dyrecte your letter to
me for a maryage for my por suster to a jantylman of your knowl-
eth, in cas she wer not maryd; forsothe, my Lord, she is not maryd,
ne insurid to noman, etc.
We meet in this century our first English female author.
Dame Juliana Berners, a prioress, who wrote both in prose
and verse on hunting and hawking.
At the same time flourished the first "poet-laureate to
the king," John Kaye, appointed to that office by Edward
IV., who was a patron of literature. Of Kaye's poetic
achievements nothing remains, so we may suppose that
they were not of a high order; being probably limited to
perfunctory rhymes on the king's doings. The title of lau¬
reate was then conferred by the universities on any poet
who could make verses according to the rules of rhetoric,
the wearer of the title receiving a laurel wreath. If, in
addition to this distinction, he was allowed to teach boys.
42
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
he was publicly presented with a rod and ferule. " The
king's poet-laureate" was a distinct title, and was soon
dropped, not to be revived until toward the end of the six¬
teenth century.
CHAPTER VIII.
CAXTON AND MALORY.
GLORIOUS name now comes to the front—that
of William Caxton, through whose zeal and indus¬
try the first printing-press was set up in England.
It is a long stride from the manuscripts of Chaucer to the
printed pages of Caxton. The world was waking and
would be wide awake a few years later, when Columbus
should have stretched out his daring hand. Three great
innovations came into full vigor during this fifteenth century:
gunpowder, the mariner's compass, arid, greatest of all, the
printing-press, which empowered all men to make their
own the knowledge of the past ages.
William Caxton, who brought the first printing-press to
England, was an author as well as a printer. He was bom
among the woods of Kent, a shady place better fitted to
give good fibre, mental and bodily, than to provide "book-
learning." He was apprenticed to a silk-merchant, and
traveled extensively on the continent in pursuit of his silk-
business; and when one finds that he secured the friendship
and patronage of Margaret Plantagenet (sister to Edward
IV.) when she went to Burgundy as wife of Charles the
Bold, we are prone to fancy that silks and satins at bargain-
counter prices paved the way to her womanly favor. Before
this time, he had begun translating from the French an old
"History of Troy"; but lacking confidence both in his half-
leamed French and his half-forgotten English, he laid aside
CAXTON AND MALORY.
43
the work; and it was long afterward that his lady mistress,
hearing about the fragment, asked to see it, and by judicious
praise and criticism encouraged him to finish it; and its
simple, pretty story is best told in his own note on its pub¬
lication :
Forasmuch as age creepeth on me daily, and feebleth all the bodie,
and also because I have promised divers gentlemen, my friends, to
address to them, as hastily as I might, this said book, therefore I
have practised and learned at my great charge and expense, to ordain
this said book in print, after the manner and form as ye may here
see; and it is not written with pen and ink, as other books be, but
imprinted to the end that all men may have them at once.
There were in Europe already many printing-houses,
and Caxton went from one town to another, learning in
each what was to be learned. It was at Cologne that he
finished his "History of Troy," and it is probable that it
was there printed and bound. None of his earlier works
are dated—he little thought what interest we should feel
in them—but it is generally believed that the first book
printed in England was his own translation from the French
of "The Game and Play of Chess." This he says he fin¬
ished on the last day of March in 1474. No division of
labor lightened and speeded his task; he was author, ink-
maker, compositor, proof-reader, pressman, folder, binder,
publisher, and book-agent.
The following copy of one of his placards shows that
only the form and not the spirit of advertising has changed
in these four hundred years :
If it please any man, spiritual or temporal, to buy any Salisbury
Church service-books, emprinted after the form of this present letter,
which be well and truly correct, let him come to Westminster, to the
almonry at the red pale, and he shall have them good there.
Like all the world's benefactors, William Caxton "builded
better than he knew." He printed, published, and sold
many volumes of which even the names are forgotten;
44
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
although every authentic issue from his press is now worth
its weight in gold. There are Caxton societies, having for
their sole end and aim the finding out every item, great or
small, connected with his life or works; and by them the
libraries and even the business records of every place he
is known to have lived in have been ransacked.
Among the books printed on Caxton's press was one by
an almost unknown writer. Sir Thomas Malory, of whom
little has come down to us except his name. The book
is the " Birth, Life, and Acts of King Arthur," now com¬
monly called "Morte d'Arthur" or "The Death of Arthur."
Humble and unpretending as was its introduction to the
world, it is safe to say that it will be read as long as the
English language is spoken. Sir Walter Scott says of it:
"It is the best prose romance the English language can
boast." Southey said that there was no book except "The
Eaëry Queen," which he had read so often or with such
deep interest. A later writer declares it to be as truly the
epic of the English mind as the Iliad was of the Greek.
"Morte d' Arthur" was written a hundred years before
Sir Philip Sidney's prose romance, "Arcadia"; and the
reasons why the latter is so much better known to us (by
name, at least) are, first. Sir Philip, the flower of chivalry,
is so interesting himself that everything he did seems en¬
circled with a halo; and second, when Malory's long poem
came out, the mass of the people were only just learning
(under the impulse of the new art of printing! to read. As
to the court, the fine folks of Queen Elizabeth's day loved
to read of the doings of lords and ladies like themselves ;
and such were the characters in "Arcadia." They cared
nothing for impossible old wizards practising magical arts,
or even for knights-errant doing impossible deeds of valor
and knightliness. Perhaps the same spirit still exists, and
it is that which impels the generality of readers to turn
from all improbabilities and revel in the character-painting
and realistic details so popular in our day.
CAXTON AND MALORY.
45
Yet do cultivated people appreciate these strange, wild
dramas of unreal life; and the way in which our poets have
made use of Malory's pages shows us that they, at least,
perceive their merit as a fountain of picturesque romance.
They gave the names, characters, events, and even dialogues
for Tennyson's "Idyls of the King," and his exquisite
shorter poems, "Sir Galahad," "The Holy Grail," and "The
Passing of Arthur." A few other sheaves from the same
great planting are Spenser's " Faëry Queen," Drayton's
"Polyolbion," and the first English tragic drama. Sir Thomas
Buckhurst's " Ferrex and Porrex"; beside a host of smaller
themes.
King Arthur seems to have been the last of the British
heroes who, in the fifth and sixth centuries, tried to defend
their island and the race of Britons, first against the Scots
and Picts, and last against the Saxons, whom the indiscreet
Britons had called in to help them oppose their first ene¬
mies. Our earliest connected account of these mythical
personages and their magical adventures comes through
Geoffrey of Monmouth, already noted in treating of the
twelfth century. Geoffrey professes to have gathered his
information from "an ancient manuscript" found in Brit¬
tany, and gravely tells historians who may come after him
to say what they please regarding the Saxons, but not. to
venture upon any remarks touching the kings of the Britons,
since they have not that book in the British language which
Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, brought out of Brittany.
Regarding "that book," William of Newbury, writing in the
next century, says that "Considering how saucily and shame¬
lessly Geoffrey lied throughout," he advises aU "to trust the
Venerable Bede, whose wisdom and sincerity are beyond
doubt Then that fabler, Geoffrey, with his fables,
shall be straightway spat out by us all."
The excellent William of Newbury knew no distinction
between imaginative writing and "saucy and shameless"
16 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
lying, for prose-fiction was scarcely yet naturalized in Eng¬
land. The explanation given by Caxton of the motives
which led him to print this work of Malory's is as curious
as anything else in the book:
After I had accomplished and finished divers histories, as well of
contemplation as of other historical and worldly acts of great con¬
querors and princes, and also certain books of ensamples and doctrine,
many noble and divers gentlemen of this realm of England came and
demanded me many and oft-times wherefore that 1 had not made to
be printed the noble history of the Holy Grail and of the most re¬
nowned Christian king, the best and worthiest of all, King Arthur,
which ought most to be remembered amongst us Englishmen before
all other Christian kings. . . . And, for to pass the time, this book
shall be pleasant to read in; but for to give faith and belief that all
is true that is contained herein, ye be at your liberty : but all is written
for our doctrine [instruction] and for to beware that we fall not into
vice nor sin, but exercise and follow virtue.
The fact is that Malory did not go directly to Geoffrey
of Monmouth for his tales, hut wove them out of several
French "Arturian romances," some being earlier than Geof¬
frey's chronicle, hut all hearing on the doings of the mighty
king, with the stately knights, graceful ladies, and scheming
wizards of the old romance. These pass before us: their
loves and hates, their quarrels and reconciliations, their
good deeds and their had, all make a stately panorama, with
witchcraft and enchantment serving for background, as did
the interference of the gods in the Homeric scheme.
The young prince Arthur is required, after the death of
his father, to prove his royal blood by drawing out a sword,
fixed by magic in a stone. No other human hand has been
able to stir this weapon, hut the anointed youth draws it
forth as easily as he would a knife from a cheese.
The enchanter Merlin, the deathless wizard whom, cen¬
turies later, Walter Scott finds still inhabiting a lighted tomb
(see his "Last Minstrel"), is ever at Arthur's hand to
guide and guard him; and when he comes to grief, it is
CAXTON AND MALORY.
47
always through going contrary to the sorcerer's counsel.
Merlin warns Arthur not to marry Guenever; and it is
the bad conduct of Queen Guenever and the treachery of
his most trusted friend that ruins his home.
His life has been a failure. The hated Saxons whom he
hoped to drive ignominiously from the land of Britain have
prevailed against him. Worn out, not so much by age as
by grief and disappointment, he meets death in battle.
Having a mortal wound, he withdraws a space to die,
attended only by his faithful knight. Sir Bedever. His last
care is for his magic sword Excalibur. The scene as por¬
trayed by Tennyson in "The Passing of Arthur" is one of
the most thrilling and touching in the entire realm of
romance. The casting of the mighty blade afar over the
bosom of the lake, its being seized before it touches the
water by an arm thrust forth to draw it down, and the death
of the ancient hero at the same moment, seem to mark at
once the end of a life, of an entire world of enchantment,
of an empire and even of a race of men; for the ancient
Briton has now no place among the nations, except as his
blood may survive among the Welsh and Cornishmen, and
across the channel, whither fled a few fugitives who gave
its name to Brittany in France.
CHAPTER IX.
THE TRANSITION PERIOD.
N leaving the somewhat barren fifteenth century
for the rich and abounding sixteenth, our notice
is attracted by a group of poets who belong
to both. The first of these, John Skelton (1460-1529),
was a writer of great spirit and of considerable learning,
to the latter of which attributes we have Caxton's testi-
48
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
mony when he says of him that he had translated from
the Latin ;
Not in rude and olde langage, but in polysshed and ornate terms
craftely, as he that hath reddeVyrgyle, Ovyde, Tullye, and all the other
noble poets and oratours, to me unknowen. And also he hath redde the
nine muses, and understand theyr musicalle scyences, and to whom
of theym each scyence is appropred. I suppose he hath dronken
of Elycon's well.
Skelton was "laurel-crowned," not only at the English
university, but also at Louvain, in Flanders. He became a
priest, but did not on that account restrain his fearless pen,
which satirized coarsely and without mercy the follies of the
court, the oppression of the poor, the exactions of the
church, and the pride and haughtiness of Cardinal Wolsey.
During the early years of the sixteenth century, Skelton was
in favor at court (being tutor to Prince Henry, afterward
Henry VIH.), and also enjoyed the patronage of Wolsey;
but after his satire, "Colin Clout" and "Why come ye not
to court?" the great prelate's friendship turned to enmity,
and the poet was forced to take sanctuary in Westminister,
where he died.*
The next three names in this "transitional literature"
• The peculiarities of Skelton's style may be shown by a quotation
from his elegy on the death of " Phyllyp Sparrow," a favorite bird
KiL'ed by a cat :
0 cat of carlyshe [churlish] kinde,
The fynde was in thy mynde,
When thou my byrde untwyned!
1 wold thou haddest been blyndel
The leopardes sauvage.
The lyons in theyr rage,
Myght catche the' in theyr pawes,
And gnawe the' in theyr jawes!
The serpentes of Lybany [Libya]
Myght stynge the' venymously!
The dragones with theyr tongues
Might poison thy l)rver & longes! etc.
THE TRANSITION PERIOD.
49
belong to Scotland. The first of these, William Dunbar
(1460-1520), was thought by Sir Walter Scott to be the
greatest of all Scottish poets, and has been called "the
Chaucer of the North." He began life as a Franciscan friar,
and begged his bread from door to door, preaching as he
went. Afterward, finding this kind of life for him full of
hypocrisy, he laid aside his friar's gown and was employed
on diplomatic service for the king (James IV. of Scotland),
and in this way visited many foreign countries. He received
a small pension from the king, and although he groans, as
did Spenser at a later period, over the necessity of securing
support by servility, the income thus gained enabled him to
devote his days to literature. His most famous works are
"The Thistle and the Rose," a graceful wedding-song upon
the marriage of King James IV. with Margaret Tudor
sister of Henry VIII.; "The Golden Terge" (targe, target
or shield), an allegorical poem; and a coarse but vigorous
satire, "The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins." Dunbar
is supposed to have died about 1530.
Gavin (or Gawain) Douglas (1475-1522), son of "Archi¬
bald Bell-the-Cat" who appears in such picturesque guise
in Scott's " Marmion," was born at a somewhat later date
than either of the two last mentioned. He entered the
church and became bishop of Dunkeld. He is best known
for the first translation into English verse of Virgil's
"^neid." This work was finished just after the battle of
Flodden, in which two of the poet's brothers were killed.
He died in London of the plague in 1521.
Sir David Lindsay^who lived from about 1490 to 1555, is
the third of the famous Scottish trio. He was a bold satirist
and, belonging himself to the governing class, his denunci¬
ations of the corruption prevailing in it are the more
striking. The young prince, afterward James V. of Scotland,
was placed in his care from the hour of his birth; and in
Lindsay's earnest appeal to the king for right and justice
4
50
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
for Others, he touchingly reminds him of this. He tells him,
in his poem of " Lindsay's Dream," how tenderly he carried
him in his arms till he began to gang (walk), wrapped him
up warmly in bed and told him old stories.*
Now, he says, he will tell him a new story, and under
the usual guise of an allegory he sets forth the tyranny of the
great over the humble, and pictures the misery that had
come upon the people from the neglect of their king, their
natural protector. All this, however, had little effect on a
young man who had been trained from infancy by those
about him to self-indulgence and disregard of his people's
rights. Sir David Lindsay has been called the poet of the
Scottish Reformation, and undoubtedly did much toward
encouraging that change by the force of his verse.
Still is thy name in high ' account,
And still thy verse has charms,
Sir David Lindsay of the Mount,
Lord Lion King at Arms.+ —Walter Scott.
Writers of lesser note during this same period (covering
the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth
centuries) were Alexander Barclay (died 1552), whose "Ship
of Fools" gained him some credit in its day; and Stephen
Hawes, who wrote a dull poem called "The Pastime of
Pleasure," and several others; all of small value.
To the same century belong the fine old ballads col¬
lected by Bishop Percy at a later time, and including such
poems as "Chevy Chase," "The Nut-Brown Maid," and
many others which, being learned by rote and repeated from
one generation to another, helped to make the dull hours of
the ignorant less dreary, and to infuse a spirit of refinement
• Quhen thou was young, I bure the in m3me arm.
Full tenderlie, tyll thou begouth to gang,
And in thyne bed oft happit the full warme.
t Head of the Herald's College in Scotland.
THE TRANSITION PERIOD.
51
into their coarse and sordid lives. It is of one of these
that Sir Philip Sidney writes: "I never heard the old song
of 'Percie and Douglas' that I found not my heart moved
more than with the sound of a trumpet."
With the reign of Henry VIII. we begin upon the true
sixteenth-century literature. The names of Sir Thomas
Wyatt and Lord Surrey in poetry, and Sir Thomas More
and William Tyndale in prose, stamp the first half of this
century with their own peculiar mark; not of greatness
like that of the Elizabethian period, but of an emerging from
the confused language of the Middle Ages into a style and
manner now accepted as the beginning of modern literature.
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42), called "The Elder" to
distinguish him from a son who was executed for being
concerned in a rebellion against Queen Mary, leads,in
point of time, the writers of his century. His name is
linked with that of his fellow-poet. Lord Surrey, who,
though fourteen years younger than himself, was his inti¬
mate friend and fellow-worker. Surrey acknowledges the
elder poet as his "master," and some ten years after his
death their works were published in the same volume,
Surrey's being placed first, probably from respect to his
higher rank. To the two together belongs the distinction
of raising English verse to a loftier place in the matter
of melody and rhythm than it had ever known before.
Both had spent much time in Italy, and become inspired
with the musical literature of that country; Wyatt was the
first to introduce into English verse the true Italian sonnet,
though that honor has often been given to Lord Surrey,
who also used the new measure. Wyatt's sonnets, how¬
ever, conform more exactly to the requirements of the
Italian model, which is very strict in its rules. His poems
are all short, and abound in grace and tenderness, though
marred by the "conceits" or afiectations which at that
time were thought indispensable to fine writing.
52 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Wyatt's history is an interesting and in some respects
a romantic one. Born in the higher circles of society, he
graduated from Cambridge University as Bachelor of Arts
at the age of fifteen, was accomplished in all that makes
a gentleman, and grew into great favor with the king,
Henry VIII., the latter employing him more than once
as an ambassador. He was knighted by his royal master,
and with the exception of a short interval when he was
out of favor on account of his friendship for Anne Boleyn,
he stood high in Henry's regard as long as he lived.
The name of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, brings
before us a young nobleman belonging to one of the
proudest families of England, brought up on terms of inti¬
macy with members of the king's household and known
for his courtly grace and his many accomplishments. Like
Wyatt, he did much to improve English poetry, and first
introduced into it the form now known as blank (un-
rhymed) verse, which was to be made exquisite by Shake¬
speare and majestic by Milton.
Surrey's love-songs and sonnets contain much praise of
the "fair Géraldine," who can not be certainly identified
with any lady of the day, and may have been only a child
whose beauty captivated his imagination.
Surrey's life had a tragic close. Being related by blood
to the king, he rather unwisely, though with authority
granted by the Herald's College, had the royal coat of
arms quartered with his own. He had done this for
years without objection from any one, when suddenly the
jealous tyrant, who was now suffering under a frightful
disease which made him more savage than ever, issued
orders for the execution not only of Lord Surrey, but of
his father, the Duke of Norfolk, pretending that this assump¬
tion meant that they might lay claim to his throne after
his death. Surrey's was the last death-warrant issued by
Henry VIH.—not signed by him, for his bloated fingers
Sm THOMAS MORE AND OTHER WRITERS. 53
could no longer hold a pen. The hand of the dying
tyrant was held while he made some mark that would
connect more closely the infamy of the deed with his
name.
The young, the gallant, the enlightened poet laid his
head on the block, just as his destroyer was gasping out
in agony the last hours of a misspent life; while Norfolk,
whose death-warrant was for some reason delayed, was
spared to linger in prison through the six years of Edward
VI.'s reign, dying soon after he had regained his liberty.
The following is one of Surrey's best sonnets :
The soote seson, that bud & bloom forth brings ,
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale ;
The nightingale, with feathers new she sings ;
The turtle to her make hath told her tale ;
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale,
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings ;
The fishes flete with new repairèd scale ;
The adder, all her slough away she flings ;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale\
The busy bee her honey now she mings ;
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.
CHAPTER X.
SIR THOMAS MORE AND OTHER WRITERS.
F Lord Surrey was the typical man of belles lettres
(polite literature), of his time. Sir Thomas More
(1478-1535), was the type of the statesman, the
patriot, the incorruptible judge. No man has left a purer
record. From a child his wit and love of study caused
him to be singled out from his companions for the delight
of his elders, and as he grew to manhood he still kept up
his high standard. At the age of ten he was placed in
\sweet\
\small\
\mingles\
54 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the household of Cardinal Morton (who figures in Shakes¬
peare's "Richard III." as Bishop of Ely), and enlivened
with his childish vivacity the staid circle, seated around the
Cardinal's table.
"Whoever liveth to try it," said the old prelate, who was
an octogenarian when young More's pranks pleased his
guests, "shall see this child here waiting at table, prove a
notable and rare man." And so he did. His father allowed
him to enter the university, but, finding that Thomas was
throwing himself heartily into the study of Greek, removed
him before he had taken his degree, and made him finish his
studies elsewhere. The study of Greek was then only
beginning to be introduced into the great English colleges.
After the capture of Constantinople by the Turks (1453),
many Eastern monasteries were broken up, and the monks
and students, driven out and dispersed through Western
Europe, carried with them their precious Greek manuscripts
and the enthusiasm which saw in the Greek language an
object worthy of devoted study.
The elder More's disapprobation arose, not from narrow-
mindedness, but from a natural conservatism which shrank
from seeing his son waste time on what he considered a
new-fangled notion. The youth, however, had already
gained so good a knowledge of the new-old language that
its stores of thought were a help to him all his life.
In England the names of Grocyn, Colet, and Linacre are
connected with the effort to make this noble tongue known
to English students; and with them was joined the great
Dutch scholar, Erasmus, the friend and fellow-religionist of
Luther, who could not fail to become likewise the friend of
Thomas More.
At twenty-one. More entered Parliament, where he
opposed the marriage-portion proposed for the king's
daughters and was imprisoned and heavily fined in conse¬
quence. Later he gained great distinction as a lawyer.
SIJi THOMAS MORE AND OTHER WRITERS. 56
The circumstances of his marriage are characteristic of
his generosity and easy temper. A certain friend of his who
had three grown-up daughters, signified to More that he
would like to bestow one of them upon him in marriage.
More consented and chose the second, who is said to have
been the prettiest of the three; but when he understood
that it would be unpleasant to the older sister to have a
younger one preferred to herself, he gave up his own
wishes and took the eldest. She rewarded him by making
an affectionate wife, and he caused her to be instructed
in literature and other things, especially in music, of which
he was very fond. She died a few years after her marriage,
and his second choice (not one of those three sisters) was
less fortunate, the new wife proving both ignorant and
shrewish. Still his sunny good temper was never disturbed,
and he took great comfort with his children, particularly
with his daughter Margaret, who afterward became Mrs.
Roper. She was like him in mind and character, and the
friendship between them is one of the most beautiful
recorded in history.
More's devotion to business did not bar him from literary
pursuits, which, indeed, were more natural to him. His
first work, "The Life and Death of King Edward V.," is
unfinished, but is interesting because the material for it
must have come largely from his old patron. Cardinal Mor
ton, who was a friend to the poor little king, and narrowly
escaped the fate of many others who stood in the way of
Richard III.
A man of More's ability could not long remain in a pri¬
vate station, and we find the king employing him in diplo¬
macy, and adding one office to another until he was made
Lord High Chancellor. It was during the intervals of his
many and various missions to foreign countries that he wrote
"Utopia," a work of such originality that it has given a new
word to our language, and we caU any scheme which seems
56 HISTOR Y OF ENGLISH LITERA TURE.
too lofty to be carried out, Utopian. The word itself is
taken from a Greek one meaning nowhere, and the book
attempts a description of an ideal life under a perfect
government. Some of More's advanced theories have been
adopted by the students of political economy in our own
day; others are impracticable, but all breathe the same love
of equal justice and respect for the rights of all which
distinguished More through life.
One anecdote showing the shrewdness of the chief-justice
is more amusing to us than it was to his wife, who was then
Lady More, her husband having been knighted by the
king. Some one had given her a little dog which had
been stolen from a poor woman, though this was of course
unknown to the lady. The first owner came before Sir
Thomas and claimed the animal, which Lady More was
unwilling to give up. More was equal to the occasion.
He bade his wife stand at one end of the long hall and
the claimant at the other. Then each was to call the
dog and abide the consequences. The experiment resulted
in favor of the poor woman, the little dog running to her
as soon as he heard her voice. Sir Thomas, to gratify
his wife, bought the dog from its owner with a piece of
gold, and she went on her way rejoicing.
It was, unfortunately for public honesty, a general custom
for the judges of that day to take gifts from suitors, either
before or after judgment had been rendered. To this
practice. More sternly refused to conform, and several
anecdotes are told of the ingenious methods by which the
parties to suits tried to evade his determination. One
lady, after he had given a decision in her favor, sent him
a pair of gloves filled with gold angels to the amount of
about $i,ooo of our money. More accepted the gloves
but sent back the money, saying he could not refuse a
lady's present but did not like the lining.
One of More's most striking traits was the rapidity with
SIR THOMAS MORE AND OTHER WRITERS. 57
which he disposed of the cases brought before him as
lord chancellor. On one occasion he was told that there
were no more cases upon the docket; whereupon a wit
wrote :
When More sometime chancellor had been,
No more suits did remain;
The same shall never more be seen,
Till More be there again.
Lord Campbell, in his "Lives of the Lord Chancellors,"
says that the same thing has never happened since that
time.
Sir Thomas More was a conscientious Catholic, even
carrying his zeal so far as to aid in the persecution of
heretics. He was also intensely loyal to his king; but
when the latter loyalty interfered with that to his church
and his conscience, he did not hesitate for a moment.
When Henry VIH., who burnt men when they did not
believe in the doctrines of the church, chose to declare
himself its head in England ; More, with others as unflinch¬
ing as himself, denied the king's right to such supremacy,
and after a farcical trial was convicted of high treason and
suffered death at the block. He never lost his cheerfulness
nor his humor. When the lieutenant of the tower apolo¬
gized for the poor fare he was forced to give him. More
replied that he found no fault with it, but when he did,
the officer was at liberty to thrust him out at once. When
he mounted the scaffold, being then somewhat infirm, he
asked the warden to help him up. "When I come down,"
said he, "I can shift for myself." On kneeling down to
receive the stroke he put his long white beard out of the
way, saying to himself, "Pity that should be cut; it has
never committed treason." After his death, his head was
placed on London bridge, according to the custom of the
time; and his daughter Margaret Roper bribed the keeper
of the bridge to let it fall into her hands as she was rowed
58
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
in a boat underneath. This beloved head she always
kept in her own apartment, and died clasping it to her
breast in a fit of delirium.*
No new translation of the Bible had been made for about
a hundred and fifty years, when William Tyndale (1484-
1536), an English clergyman who had long before declared
that he wished an English Bible might be in the hands of
every ploughboy in the country, finished his version of the
New Testament (1525). He had been obliged to do it in
secrecy and under constant dread of detection, for he was
one of the followers of Luther, and therefore liable to the
penalties of heresy. Hunted from place to place, he still
persevered in his work, and from time to time rendered
other parts of the Scriptures into his native tongue. The
language of Wycliffe's version had become obsolete, and
was therefore out of the reach of the common people.
Tyndale's possessed a force and purity which made his
translation rank among the best specimens of English in
his time.
Knowing himself to be unsafe in England, he took refuge
in Flanders; but the enmity of the king pursued him there,
and through Henry's urgency he was apprehended at Brus¬
sels, and strangled at Vilvoorde, near Brussels; his body
being afterward burnt to ashes. His last words were:
" Lord, open the king of England's eyes ! "
Miles Coverdale (1487-1568) made a version of the
whole Bible, printed ten years after Tyndale's translation
of the New Testament, which does not differ from it widely
in diction. Coverdale was the first to separate from the
body of the Old Testament the books known as Apocrypha
(rejected matter), and place them separately at the end.
From this time, for the next twenty years, repeated ver¬
sions appeared, which were often only revisions of the
*See Tennyson's "Dream of Fair Women.
SIR THOMAS MORE AND OTHER WRITERS. 59
previous ones; and by the time Queen Elizabeth had been
ten years on the throne (1668), the Bible was, or might be,
in the hands of every one who knew how to read.
The remaining writers of this period need only a few
words. Robert Fabyan and Edward Hall wrote chronicles
of English history, of more or less accuracy. Lord Bemers,
at the request of Henry VIII., translated Froissart's chroni¬
cle into English. John Leland (1500-52), the first profes¬
sional antiquarian, made it his business to collect as much
as he could of the vast mass of historical material lying
unrecognized and in danger of destruction in town-halls,
cathedrals, and castles. To further this object he traveled
over England, describing minutely all the places he visited;
his description of these journeys is called "Leland's Itiner¬
ary." He was a man of prodigious industry and enthusiasm,
and overworked his brain, being insane during the last two
years of his life.
Sir Thomas Elyot is noted as being the first English
writer on education. In his treatise called "The Governor,"
he condemns the practice of allowing "cruel and irascible
schoolmasters" to have unlimited power over the helpless
children committed to their care, and recommends a disci¬
pline reasonable, yet firm. He was a physician, and wrote
a professional work called "The Castle of Health," which
was much admired.
Among the writers of the time must be included King
Henry VIII., who wrote, early in his reign, a book in Latin
against Luther, entitled "The Seven Sacraments." For this
service to the church, the pope bestowed on him formally
the title of "Defender of the Faith," which has been borne
by his royal descendants ever since.*
Henry VIII. did much greater service to literature by
* " Fidei Defensor, " abbreviated " Fid. Def., " may still be found on
some English coins.
60
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the encouragement he gave to literary men than by his own
contributions to letters. He gave John Leland the title of
"King's Antiquary," and supported him while he was mak¬
ing his researches ; he sent Roger Aschara abroad to pursue
his studies, and took care that Sir Thomas Elyot was sup¬
ported while he was writing books for the instruction of his
countrymen. We have already mentioned the translation
of Froissart, made by Lord Berners at his request. This
last work, being "chronicles"—pictures of the times—
and being written with simple-hearted faithfulness, marks
almost an era in literature. Men speak of "the time of
Froissart." Even its translation into English was a note¬
worthy event. One simple, thoughtless remark has become
classic, noting as it does the impression made on the French¬
man's mind by the Englishman. He says of some whom
he met, "They took their pleasure sadly, after their fashion."
The drama now began to assume a form somewhat dif¬
ferent from that of the old "Mysteries" and "Miracle Plays."
A new kind of dramas called "Moralities" came into vogue,
having for their characters personages representing the
virtues and vices in a sort of allegory. Next came the
"Interlude," a short play resembling a farce, and full of
the rough jokes suited to the coarse taste of the times. In
one of these interludes, for instance, called "The Four P's,"
there is a dispute between a Pedler, a Palmer, a Pardoner,
and a 'Poticary, as to which can tell the greatest lie. Each
tries to outdo the other; until at last the Pardoner says he
never saw a woman out of temper, and is declared winner.
John Hey wood was the most famous writer of interludes.
The first English comedy was written by Nicholas Udall
(1505-56), and belongs to this same half-century. It
is called " Ralph Royster Doyster,'" and gives a picture
of life in London. It was followed a few years later by
"Gammer Gurton's Needle," by John Still, afterward a
bishop, in which the characters are rustics of the humble
EARLY ELIZABETHAN PERIOD.
61
sort, and the humor is of a lower order than that of
Udall's play. Such was the preparation for the full devel¬
opment of English drama in the plays of Shakespeare,
whose birth took place only a few years later.
Udall was head-master at Eton school, and "Ralph
Royster Doyster" is supposed to have been written to be
acted by his boys. One of these boys was Thomas Tusser,
author of a poem called "Five Hundred Points of Good
Husbandry," and he shows up the methods of Udall as
follows :
From Paul's I went to Eton sent,
To learn straightways the Latin phrase.
Where fifty-three stripes given to me
At once I had.
For fault but small, or none at all.
It came to pass that beat I was;
See, Udall, see, the mercy of thee
To me, poor lad.
CHAPTER XI.
EARLY ELIZABETHAN PERIOD.
S has been noticed by an eminent writer on English
literature, the most splendid authors of Elizabeth's
reign were not bom until just about the time
when that reign began. The era of greatness, therefore,
for this period, does not begin until the Virgin Queen had
been for some twenty-five years seated upon the throne,
and we must first turn our thoughts to some of the minor
lights which served to usher in the day.
A name which brings up a train of gentle and kindly
thoughts is that of Roger Ascham (15x5-68), the tutor of
Queen Elizabeth, and friend of Lady Jane Grey. To a
sweetness of nature which nothing ever embittered, he
62
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
added refinement, uprightness, and a tireless devotion to
study. His father belonged to the humbler walks of life,
but his own education was of the best, a kind friend putting
everything in his power, from his earliest school-boy days
to his graduation at Cambridge University. Living in the
reigns of four sovereigns (Henry VHI. and his three chil¬
dren—Edward, Mary and Elizabeth), he found favor and
employment under all. Henry granted him a pension
which enabled him to travel in Italy for the completion
of his education; Edward appointed him tutor to his
half-sister Elizabeth (his penmanship was so beautiful
that he had the honor of instructing the princess that
accomplishment); he was Latin secretary to Queen Mary,
in spite of his being a protestant; and he was in Queen
Elizabeth's service, in different capacities, until his death;
upon which occasion the thrifty queen remarked that she
would rather have lost ;¿'i 0,000 than Master Ascham.
His first book, "Toxophilus," was written to encourage
the practice of archery, which he considered the most
elegant, healthful and improving sport that a gentleman
could engage in. He rendered his country a service by
writing in English instead of Latin, and had the manliness
to defend what he knew to be an unfashionable course.
His apology in the preface for using his own language
shows how that noble tongue had been neglected by
other native writers:
As for the Latin or Greek tongue, everything is so excellently
done in them that none can do better ; in the English tongue, every¬
thing in a manner so mean, both for the manner and handling,
that no man can do worse. He that wiU write well in any tongue
must follow the counsel of Aristotle : to speak as the common people
do, to think as wise men do, so that every man may understand
him and the judgment of wise men allow [approve] him. Many
English writers have not done so, but using strange words, as Latin,
French and Italian, do make all things dark and hard.
Ascham's next published work was a "Report of the
EARLY ELIZABETHAN PERIOD.
63
affairs of Germany and the Emperor Charles his Court,"
for which his position as secretary of the ambassador to
that country gave him good opportunities. But the book
most interesting to us is his "Schoolmaster," in which
he pleads lovingly for kindness and discretion in the
treatment of young learners, in opposition to the brutal
severity then exercised, and suggests a method of teach¬
ing the ancient languages as we now teach children the
modern, which is pronounced by Dr. Johnson to be
"perhaps the best advice ever given for the study of
languages." How greatly Ascham had at heart the good
of both pupil and teacher may be gathered from some
words in the "Schoolmaster";
It is pity that commonly more care is had, and that among very
wise men, to find out a cunning man for their horse than a cunning
man for their children. To the one they will gladly give a stipend of
200 crowns by the year, and loth to offer the other 200 shillings. God
that sitteth in heaven laugheth their choice to scorn, and rewardeth
their liberality as it should ; for he suffereth them to have tame and
well-ordered horse, but wild and unfortunate children.
Thomas Wilson (1524-81), a contemporary of Ascham's,
was the first English critic. He wrote a "System of Rhetoric
and Logic," in which he strongly advises simplicity of
language, and condemns the "strange inkhorn terms"
which the writers of his time mistook for elegance. "He
that Cometh lately out of France," he says, satirically,
"will talk French-English and never blush at the matter."
Sir John Harington, a godson of Queen Elizabeth, and
himself a poet (he was the translator of Ariosto), appar¬
ently bore no good will to the critics. He wrote several
epigrams, one of which runs as follows:
The readers and the hearers like my books.
But yet some writers can not them digest ;
But what care I? for when I make a feast,
I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks.
64
HISTORY OR ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Another of his epigrams is worth quoting;
Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason?
For if it prosper none dare call it treason.
The first metrical version of the Psalms was made by
Sternold and Hopkins in the reign of Edward VI. A
favorable specimen of the work is to be found in the
versification of part of Psalm XVIII.:
The Lord descended from above, and bowed the heavens most high,
And underneath his feet he cast the darkness of the sky ;
On cherub and on seraphim full royally he rode,
And on the wings of mighty winds came flying all abroad.
The earliest English anthology (a collection of poems
or poetical selections from various authors) was called
"Tottel's Miscellany" (1657). This helped to make verse
familiar to the mass of the nation, who were perhaps hardly
yet educated up to the enjoyment of the best poetry, though
they fully appreciated the interludes and comedies which,
on the stage, appealed to the eye as well as to the mind.
The name which seems more nearly than any other to be
a connecting link between the beginning and end of the
sixteenth century is that of Thomas Sackville (1536-1608),
afterward Lord Buckhurst and later. Earl of Dorset. He is
known to us by any one of the three names, though the first
two seem more especially devoted to him. Like More and
Ascham he received a university education, and like the
former was elected to parliament at twenty-one. He studied
law, and the first English tragedy, "Gorboduc," was written
by him in connection with Thomas Norton, to entertain
the lawyers and students of the Inner Temple.* Sackville,
it is said, wrote the best parts of this.
The plot in this first English tragedy begins like that of
Shakespeare's "King Lear." Gorboduc, a British king.
*The building in London where law-courts were held and where
students pursued the study of the law.
EARLY ELIZABETHAN PERIOD.
65
divides his kingdom during his lifetime between his two
sons, Ferrex and Porrex. (The latter names afterward gave
a title to the play.) The younger kills the elder, whereupon
the mother, in revenge, kills the younger. The people
in revenge for such cruelty, rebel, and kill both father and
mother. The nobility, to avenge the death of the king,
kill the rebels and then the kingdom falls into a most dismal
state of civil war from which it has not emerged when the
play concludes.
Sackville's fame as a poet, however, rests not on "Gorbo-
duc," which is interesting principally as being the forerunner
of that brilliant series of productions known as the modem
drama, but on the remarkable fragment which forms the
"Induction" (Introduction) to the "Mirrour for Magistrates."
Magistrates, in this sense, means rulers—great persons—
and the poem was intended to show to such, as in a glass,
their own possible fate, by reminding them of the misfor¬
tunes of those who came before them. The poet descends
into the regions of the dead under the guidance of an
allegorical personage called Sorrow, and is met by fearful
shapes representing Remorse, Fear, Revenge, Misery, Old
Age, Famine, War, and others; each described with a few
bold touches which individualize the character and make it
stand before you as in a painting. After the description of
all this wretchedness, the poet's intention was to portray the
fate of those of olden times whose greatness had not pre¬
served them from woe or downfall, but he finished only the
stanzas on Henry, Duke of Buckingham—Richard III.'s
Buckingham—whom the king first (according to Shakes¬
peare) through ingratitude maddened and drove to treason
and then beheaded.
Sackville also wrote sonnets, called by an admiring con¬
temporary "poems finely sauced," but of these none remain.
In the "Mirrour for Magistrates" the following stanza
describing Famine is notable:
5
66 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
But, oh, the doleful sight that then we see!
We turned our look, and on the other side
A grisly shape of Famine wrought we see,
With greedy looks, and gaping mouth, that cried
And roared for meat [food] as she would there have died,
Her body thin and bare as any bone,
Whereto was left naught but the case alone.
But Sackville was too useful a man to be allowed to spend
his life in making poetry or writing dramas. When the
"Mirrour for Magistrates" had reached its first historic
character he abandoned it to take part in active political
life, and from that time was in constant occupation as a
statesman, surviving Queen Elizabeth and her generation,
and dying (1608) in a good old age, at the council-table
of King James I.
A poet of high repute in his day, and whose writings are
still interesting as heralding the appearance of the brilliant
group which has made the age of Queen Elizabeth so fam¬
ous, is George Gascoigne (1555-77). His "Steele Glasse"
is a clever satire on the vices and follies of men, and is
the first long poem, not dramatic, written in blank verse.
John Davies (1570-1626), knighted in the reign of James
I. and so known to us by the name of Sir John, wrote in
Queen Elizabeth's time a reflective poem dedicated to her
with the title, "Nosce Teipsum" (Know Thyself). This is
interesting as giving the first example of what was afterward
called the "heroic quatrain"—four ten-syllable lines with
alternate rhymes. Davies had been wild in his youth, but
reformed after some sharp discipline from the Queen, and
ended his life as a prosperous lawyer. One of his quatrains
refers in the following terms to the discipline which had
taught him discretion :
This mistress lately plucked me by the ear.
And many a golden lesson hath me taught ;
Hath made my senses quick and reason clear;
Reformed my will and rectified my thought.
EARLY ELIZABETHAN PERIOD.
67
Of religious writing, there was much during this transition
period. Besides Tyndale's and Coverdale's translations of
the Scriptures, there were four others, namely: a new ver¬
sion, known as "Matthew's Bible," edited by John Rogers
(1505-55), the first martyr in Queen Mary's cruel reign; an
"authorized version" prepared by command of Henry VIII.
and superintended by Archbishop Cranmer, known as "The
Great Bible;" the "Geneva Bible," translated at that city by
Englishmen, in which the present division of the text into
verses first appeared; and finally the "Bishops' Bible," that
translation made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth in response
to an address offered during the joyful ceremonies attending
her coronation; which prayed that she would "liberate some
prisoners who had been shut up in an unknown tongue;"
namely the four Evangelists and St. Paul.* The book of
Common Prayer, prepared by Cranmer, was published
nearly in its present form during the reign of Edward VI.
Of the many religious and theological writers of England
during the reign of Henry VIII. the best known is Bishop
Latimer (1491-1555), a bold and energetic preacher who
suffered martyrdom in Queen Mary's reign. Some idea of
his force of expression may be obtained from a sentence in
one of his sermons in which he upbraids his hearers for
their frivolity : "you velvet-coats, you upskips, you hodipoles,
you doddipecks!" He also reproved the women for "laying
out their hair in tussocks and tufts." His words to his
brother martyr Ridley, as they stood waiting for the fire to
be lighted, have become one of the war -cries in the fight
for freedom of thought. He said, "Be of good comfort.
Master Ridley, and play the man ! We shall this day light
such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as shall never be
put out."
* It is said that the ready-witted queen aptly parried the request by
answering that it would be well first to ask those prisoners whether
or no they desired liberation.
68
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The great preacher of the Reformation in Scotland was
John Knox (1505-71). After several years of preaching in
various places, he settled at Geneva in Switzerland, where
he, in the last year of Queen Mary's reign, published anony¬
mously his "First Blast of the Trumpet against the
Monstrous Regiment of Women." The three Marys of
England and Scotland furnished the text of this book:
Mary of England, Mary Queen of Scots, and Mary of Guise,
the Scottish queen's mother and widow of James V. The
next year Knox went to Scotlai^d, where he preached and
wrote with incessant energy against the Church of Rome.
His last work was the history of the Reformation in Scotland.
While Knox was preaching in Scotland, John Fox
(1517-87), issued in England his famous "Book of Martyrs,"
describing the persecutions under Queen Mary. This book
may not be relied on for correctness, but though lacking
truth as to details, it presents a vivid picture of the horrors
of the time. Bishop Burnet (" History of the Reformation"),
says that having compared those Acts and Monuments with
the records, he had never been able to discover any errors or
prevarications in them, but the utmost fidelity and exactness.
The most famous Greek scholar of the sixteenth century
was Sir John Cheke (1514-57), of Cambridge University.
The most famous Latin scholar was George Buchanan, a
Scottish writer celebrated for the elegance and purity of
his classic style. He was tutor to King James VI. of Scot¬
land (afterward James I. of England), the son of Mary
Queen of Scots and of her murdered husband, Lord Darnley.
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
69
CHAPTER XII.
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
HE age of Elizabeth was rich in translations. Among
the many poets who undertook this kind of work
may be mentioned especially Sir John Harington
(1561-1612), who has been already named, translator
of Ariosto's " Orlando Furioso ; " Edward Fairfax, who
rendered into musical English verse Tasso's "Jerusalem
to the verses of the French contemporary poet. Du Bartasj
and, greatest of all, George Chapman, translator of Homer.
In respect to history, England owes a debt of gratitude to
the indefatigable antiquarian, John Stow (1525-1605), who
rescued from oblivion many priceless memorials of older
times which were perishing by neglect or given up to
wanton destruction. The tales told by eye-witnesses of
the wilful waste of precious manuscripts on the suppres¬
sion of the monasteries by Henry VIII. and the conse¬
quent scattering of their treasures, almost defy belief, and
remind us of the story about the Caliph Omar and the
Alexandrian Library.
Stow was the son of a humble tailor and was brought up
to his father's trade ; but his zeal for collecting antiquities
was such that everything else gave way to it. He had some
well-to-do friends, who helped him to live during the forty
years in which he was composing his " History of England,"
a work now lost ; but he outlived them all, and in his last
days was forced to apply to King James for a license to beg
"in churches or other places." His "Survey of London,"
a work on which all succeeding descriptions of the city have
been based, was published during his life-time, as were
also some condensations made by himself from his history.
70
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
More fortunate than Stow was John Speed (1550-1619),
also a tailor's son and a zealous antiquarian. His " History
of Great Britain," in which he presumed to doubt Brute
the Trojan, and to cast grave discredit upon Albion the
giant, was gladly received by students of history, and he
found no difficulty in securing abundant appreciation of
his labors.
William Camden (1551-1623), a man of great learning
and of high position among students, was likewise inspired
with a desire to search out the past, and, as Speed puts it,
"blew away sixty kings with one blast." Camden's reputa¬
tion for scholarship stood so high that he was selected by
Lord Burleigh as the fittest person to write the "Annals of
Queen Elizabeth." For this purpose the Lord Treasurer
put at his disposal a great mass of state papers, over which
Camden labored for eighteen years, in the intervals of other
employment, before it was ready for the press. The principle
on which he wrote may be inferred from his favorite extract
from Polybius:
Take from history why, how, and to what end a thing hath been
done, and whether the thing done hath been according to reason; and
whatsoever is else will rather be an idle sport than a profitable instruc¬
tion; for the present it may delight, but for the future it can not profit.
Ralph (or Raphael) Holinshed was another painstaking
and laborious chronicler of the time, from whose pages
Shakespeare drew largely in writing Macbeth and other plays
founded on English history. Richard Grafton's Chronicle,
published earlier, is not considered very valuable, being
mostly patchwork from other writers.
In the stirring times of adventure, travellers naturally had
their share of literary interest. A "Discourse" by Sir Hum¬
phrey Gilbert (1539-83), on the possibility of a northwest
passage to China, was published (without his knowledge) by
Gascoigne, the poet already mentioned ; but the prince of
geographers in the sixteenth century was Richard Hakluyt
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
71
(1553-1616), whose book entitled "The Principal Naviga¬
tions, Voyages, Traffics and Discoveries of the English
Nation," perpetuates his name. He also translated books
of travel from the Spanish.
Hakluyt's work was continued in the next century by
Samuel Purchas (1577-1628), who published his researches
under the name of "Purchas his Pilgrimage." Several books
of a similar kind followed, one at least of which was founded
on manuscripts left him by Hakluyt.
Having thus passed in review various writings which have
special interests for their motive power, we return to litera¬
ture proper, of which the function is to entertain and elevate,
and not, except incidentally, to instruct or exhort.
Of the writers characteristic of Elizabeth's reign the first
to be considered is John Lyly, author of "Euphues," a
singular book which, under the mask of much it^nious
playfulness and plotting, strives to reform and make serious
the foppish youth of England. To effect this Lyly adopted
a style full of quaint conceits and far-fetched allusions, which
became the fashion among courtly people, and continued to
infiuence, far into the next century, the style of those who
wrote merely to please. "To talk euphuism" became an
accomplishment. A writer of the century says, "that beauty
in court that could not parley euphuism was as little regarded
as she which now there speaks not French." Lyly reminded
the rich and fashionable that " it is not great manors, but
good manners, that make the gentleman,"— a phrase appro¬
priate in all ages.
Shakespeare ridiculed euphuism in the character of
Armado, a boastful fellow in " Love's Labour's Lost," and
Sir Walter Scott has made it amusingly absurd in the mouth
of Sir Piercie Shafton, in his novel of "The Monastery."
Lyly had all the fame he wanted, but little profit. He
depended on patronage and, one would think, with reason,
since the rich and great were vying with each other in
72
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
following the fashion he had set them; but we find him
writing to Queen Elizabeth in this doleful strain :
Thirteene years your highnes servant, but yet nothing; twenty
freinds, that though they saye they wil be sure, I find them sure to be
slowe. A thousand hopes, but all nothing ; a hundred promises, but
yet nothing. Thus casting vpp the inventory of my friends, hopes,
promises and tymes, the summa totalis amounteth to lust nothing. My
last will is shorter than mine invención ; but three legacies,— patience to
my creditors, melancholie without measure to my friends, and beggerie
without shame to my family.
Lyly was also a dramatist of considerable merit. His
most graceful play is "Campaspe."
Next in order comes the "mirror of knighthood"—the
courtier, the soldier, the man of letters, the gentleman—so
fondly mourned in his own times and remembered in all
times—Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86). There have been
others as noble, as gentle, as brave; but few had Sidney's
advantage of combining with these qualities such literary
ability as will carry down a name for centuries among the
ranks of a country's most distinguished authors.
Everything was done for Sidney's education that wealth
and affection could furnish. After having gone through the
usual course of intellectual training in England, he lived for
a while in Paris, where he chose only the best and loftiest
society. Being driven from that city by the massacre of
St. Bartholomew, he travelled elsewhere on the continent,
and brought home with him an added knowledge of other
lands, united with a knowledge of men's hearts and motives
which strengthened his ability to help direct the affairs of
state. With this journey, which closed when he was twenty-
one year's old, Sidney's education may be considered
finished. On his return to England he sprang into such
sudden popularity as few men of his age have enjoyed.
His fine manners, grace of carriage and personal beauty,
together with elegant accomplishments and a playful wit,
made him the observed of all observers. Queen Elizabeth
MISCELLANEOUS WE/TEES.
73
instantly received him with the highest favor and used
jokingly to call him her Philip, as distinguished from the
Pope's Philip—Philip II. of Spain, who had for a few
disastrous years been the husband of her sister Mary. When
he was three-and-twenty she entrusted him with a difiS-
cult and delicate mission to the Emperor of Germany.
When he returned he was received by the queen with warm
commendations. She was more than satisfied with the
manner in which he had carried out her wishes, appointed
him to the coveted office of cup-bearer, and gave him a
lock of her hair. The great queen knew how to appreciate
good sense and manly worth, especially when they were
united to personal attractions.
It was now his turn to bestow favors as well as to
receive them. People of all ranks flocked to the open
doors of the youth of wealth and position, and the dedi¬
cations of books, poems, etc. which he received were almost
innumerable. About this time his friend Gabriel Harvey
made him acquainted with the poet Edmund Spenser, and
thus was formed a friendship honorable to both. Spenser
passed many happy hours with his friend at Sidney's country
seat of Penshurst in Kent, and the two pursued together
those studies in which their souls delighted.
Sidney's principal literary work, the " Arcadia," he com¬
posed for his sister's pleasure, and called it "The Countess
of Pembroke's Arcadia." It is a prose-poem, where the
characters are lords and ladies living in the country and
enjoying its pleasures, without laying aside the elegance and
refinement of courtly life. The moral tone is the highest
possible, and the characters discourse to one another on
topics both lofty and deep. It is to this romance that we
owe the noble phrase, "They are never alone who are
accompanied by noble thoughts." The story is, to our
modern taste, tedious, and some of the " conceits" far-fetched
and labored ; but these were the faults of the age. Many
74
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
beautiful passages can be selected from the "Arcadia," and
Cowper has expressed no more than the truth when he
speaks of "Sidney, warbler of poetic prose."
A work more in accord with modern ideas is the "Apol¬
ogie for Poetrie," in which Sidney (who was knighted by
Queen Elizabeth in 1583 and must henceforth be called
Sir Philip) warmly defended his favorite art against the
attacks of the Puritan, Stephen Gosson, who wrote a book
called "The School of Abuse" against plays and poetry,
thinking the one mischievous, the other at least useless.
Sidney's answer is the first piece of modern literary criti¬
cism, and is written in clear, readable English, while he
especially condemns the affectations in language common
at that time, and makes the shrewd remark, "It is not
rhyming that maketh the poet, no more than a long gown
maketh an advocate."
Sidney's poetry consists mostly of sonnets, written to a
lady whom he calls Stella (a star), while he figures him¬
self under the name of Astrophel (lover of a star). The
Stella of his muse is supposed to have been Lady Penelope
Devereux, daughter of his old friend the Earl of Essex.
His own wife was a daughter of Elizabeth's minister. Sir
Francis Walsingham. The sonnets are graceful and musical,
and in each one there is some pleasing thought or quaint
conceit. In one of them occurs the well-known expres¬
sion, addressed to himself when he did not know what
to say, "Fool! Look into thine heart and write!" His
fame, however, rests upon his prose, which was beyond
that of any other English writer up to his time.
While Sidney was thus amusing his leisure hours with
literature, he was at the same time busy with public affairs,
and was from time to time employed in the queen's service.
He wished to go with Drake on one of his enterprises
against the West Indies. He had made all of his prepa¬
rations secretly, for fear of being forbidden, when Drake
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
75
sent a hint of his intentions to the queen, who laid her
commands on him to stay where he was, saying she could
not afford to risk "the jewel of her times" in such an
enterprise. He was bitterly disappointed, and Elizabeth
consoled him, as far as she could, by making him governor
of Flushing, in the Netherlands, a town which was to be
the basis of operations against Spain. The Earl of Lei¬
cester, Queen Elizabeth's favorite and Sidney's uncle, was
military governor of the Netherlands, and Sidney joined
him there hoping for a brilliant campaign.
There is little more to tell. In an ill-planned and rash
expedition against Zutphen, in Holland, Sir Philip, whose
generosity had made him take off his cuishes and give
them to an old officer whom he observed to be without
them, was wounded in the thigh and carried off the field
to die after a few weeks of acute suffering. His well-
known action on the battle-field need not be repeated
here; * it belongs to history and is repeated wherever
knightly generosity and self-sacrifice need an illustrious
example.
We have spoken of Sidney as the first literary critic.
A writer of the same period, George Pattenham (ancestor,
no doubt of the modem Putnams), wrote an elaborate work
called "The Arte of English Poesie," in which he says
that his aim is "to help the courtiers and the gentle-women
of the court to write good poetrie, that the art may become
vulgar to all Englishmen's use." We see here the old and
literal meaning of "vulgar"—i.e., common to all. This
explanation is interesting as showing the interest felt by
the fine ladies and gentlemen of Queen Elizabeth's reign
in the comparatively new art of "poetrie." They had not
yet quite emerged from the feeling that writing was not
an occupation for fine court people, but should be left to
* See "A Short History of England," page 234.
76
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the lower class. Neither Sir Philip Sidney's "Arcadia," nor
his "Defense of Poesie" was published during his life-time.
Queen Elizabeth, whose active mind made her desire to do
a little of everything, wrote some verses about the trouble
Mary, Queen of Scots was giving her; and was the first to
apply to that much-discussed person the felicitous phrase;
" The daughter of debate."
CHAPTER XIII.
SPENSER AND LESSER WRITERS.
HE four men who rank highest among English
poets of past centuries are unquestionably Chau¬
cer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. We have
already made some study of Chaucer, who died in 1400,
and from whose life those of Spenser and Shakespeare are
separated by an interval of more than two hundred years,
while Milton comes some fifty years later.
It was a pretty conceit of the time to call Spenser "The
Sunrise" as Chaucer had been called "The Day-Star" of
English poetry. Edmund Spenser was born (it is supposed)
in 1553, the year in which Queen Mary came to the throne.
His early career, and the story of the last sad months of his
life are shrouded in obscurity; but of the time in which his
work was done we have details quite full considering that he
wrote no letters that have been preserved, and had no
Boswell. His friends have left on record many proofs of
their love and admiration, but the little home-touches
which would show his domestic life are wanting.
Spenser was always the man of letters and the friend of
men of letters. His one point of contact with every-day life
seems to be his faithful secretaryship to the military gover¬
nor of Ireland. Like many poets before and since, he
SPENSER AND LESSER WRITERS.
77
began his work by translating from foreign tongues into his
own. His first original production was "The Shepherd's
Calendar," containing twelve eclogues or pastoral poems; in
which he assumes the name of Colin Clout, which he used
afterward, in various works, in speaking of himself. He was
in temper and disposition a Puritan and was recognized as
such by the chiefs of the Puritan party; they seeing in his
allegory a purpose to forward the glory of God as interpreted
by their ideas.
Spenser was appointed — probably through Sidney's influ¬
ence—private secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, who went
to Ireland as Lord Deputy of that distracted and unhappy
country. There he wrote his only prose work, "A view of
the present State of Ireland." In this we do not find, as we
might expect from his nature, a gentle and merciful policy
recommended in dealing with the savage islanders. The
opinion he expresses of the native Irish coincides with the
brutal saying setting forth the views held by certain western
frontiersmen concerning the American savage; namely:
"A good Indian is a dead Indian."
It was in the intervals of his work as secretary to the
Lord Deputy, that he wrote the first three books of the
"Faërie Queen." He was living in Kilcolman Castle, an
abode which had been assigned to him from the confiscated
estate of the Earl of Desmond, in a lovely spot on the
bank of the picturesque river Mulla. Raleigh visited him
there and heard him read part of the "Faërie Queen"; and
on the strength of his admiration for its wonderful beauty
and interest, prevailed on its author to go back to England
with him, to "push his fortune at court." Nothing came
of it—nothing except the often-quoted stanza of fine vitu¬
peration directed against patronage, which in these days is
represented by "office-seeking":
Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:
78 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
To lose good days that might be better spent;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed today, to be put back tomorrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her peers';
To have thy asking, yet wait many years;
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart with comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run.
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
Unhappy wight, bom to disastrous end.
That doth his life in so long tendance spend!
The world of Elizabeth's time was quick to recognize
the quality of the " Faërie Queen," and to bestow on it that
praise to which no writer is indifferent. The great critic
Hallam says of it that it became at once "the delight of
every accomplished gentleman, the model of every poet,
the solace of every scholar." Probably no poem ever took
the literary and social world so completely by storm; with
the possible exception of Byron's "Childe Harold." Spen¬
ser wrote a gay, spirited account of his trip, "Colin Clout's
Come Home Again," in which, in his assumed character of
a shepherd, Colin tells how Raleigh, shepherd of the ocean,
caused him to "wend with him, his Cynthia for to see." In
Cynthia one recognizes Elizabeth, who was sun, moon, and
stars to her admiring courtiers. He describes England, the
queen herself, many celebrated persons in public life, and
some living poets. Among the latter he introduces Shake¬
speare, whose name, he says, like himself, doth heroically
sound.
Between the publication of the first three books of the
"Faërie Queen" in 1590, and the next three in 1596, he
married; and at this time we have his epithalamium and
eighty-eight sonnets or "amoretti," as love-songs were then
called. We can not doubt that he had a happy home, for
every allusion—and there are many—which his verses make
to the joys of an ideal family circle, gives the impression
SPENSER AND LESSER WRITERS.
79
that Spenser's was one which satisfied all his heart's desires.
But the peaceful, gentle, dutiful, poetic course of his life
was doomed to feel a terrible, heartrending blow; a catas¬
trophe which perhaps caused or hastened its ending. A
bloody rebellion broke out in Ireland, and Kilcolman Castle
was naturally a main point of attack. It was carried "by
storm," a phrase of war which means that all within was at
the mere mercy of the stormers, whereas a capitulation
without final assault carries terms of mitigation of the
horrors of defeat. It was sacked and burned, with cir¬
cumstances from which the imagination shrinks in horror.
Spencer with his wife and two sons escaped during the
tumult; but, according to a tradition which is generally
accepted as truthful, an infant child perished by violence
or by fire.
If, as is supposed, Spenser had been occupied during the
last preceding years in writing the remaining six books
planned in the scheme of the "Faërie Queen," the precious
lines were lost in the catastrophe. We have only the first
six. The silence of despair seems to have come upon the
grand and gentle poet; and even his friends have left no
sign whereby to do more than guess at the closing scene.
He died in 1599, it is said, of a broken heart His bones
were laid (by his own request) in Westminster Abbey, near
to those of "Father Chaucer," where his tomb may still be
seen in the sacred "Poets' Corner."
The plan of the "Faërie Queen" included twelve books,
displaying the twelve moral virtues. The six he treated
were holiness, temperance, purity, friendship, justice, and
courtesy. He even speaks, in his preface,of twelve other
books, to treat the twelve "political virtues," whatever that
may mean—probably loyalty to the powers that be, whether
worthy or otherwise; battle-courage in whatever cause; un¬
questioning adherence to the established faith, etc.; such
being the ideal of good citizenship in Spenser's age and
station.
80
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Doubtless the volumes grew in bulk, in the writing,
beyond the author's original idea of length; for even the
six books finished are of a voluminousness going far beyond
our latter-day standard. Spenser's use of language was so
lavish—though so admirable—as to lead us to think of the
modem slur which finds expression in the epithet "wordy."
Yet this would be a flagrant injustice when applied to so
great a work as Spenser's. It has been well said that he
created not only his characters but the very ground they
stand on; his scene is independent of all time and space; he
has nothing to do with history or geography; the whole
world of imagination is his theatre of action. We must
indeed imbibe some drop of his spirit before we are capa¬
ble of flying with its flight; that done, he lifts us to the
skies and, like a true Merlin, carries us whither he will.
Popular laziness has led to popular neglect of the
"Faërie Queen." Men look at the splendid stmcture as a
beautiful edifice of labyrinth, wherein they enter, not for
fear of losing their clue and wandering whither they know
not. Hazlitt says; "Some persons look at the allegory as
if they thought it would bite them. . . . This is very idle.
If they do not meddle with the allegory, the allegory will
not meddle with them." In truth the gorgeous descrip¬
tions, the plaintive tendemess, the exquisite adaptation of
sound to sense, are themselves "a thing of beauty and a
joy forever," while the portrayal of the loathsomeness of
sin and the beauty of holiness; the tales of adventure, so
thrilling that one almost loses breath in the reading; all
these have their worth quite outside any allegorical unity
which served the poet as a thread whereon to string his
gems of thought.
Among the poets of lesser note in Spenser's time was
William Wamer, whose "Albion's England" is a lively poeti¬
cal history of England from the Deluge (!) down to Warner's
own time. It is not a great poem, but it is full of incidents,
SPENSER AND LESSER WRITERS. 81
true or imagined, and was very popular in its day. Toward
the end of the century, Samuel Daniel—"well-languaged
Daniel," as he was called in his own time—wrote a "His¬
tory of the Civil Wars between York and Lancaster," in
smooth but not very interesting verse. A better poem, in
the form of a dialogue in defence of learning, is his "Mu-
sophilus." A third poet, whose writings show more power
than those of the two last mentioned, and who outlived
them both, is Michael Drayton (1563-1631), author of the
"Polyolbion." This is a long poem about England, with
a little of everything in it; antiquities, minute descriptions
of places, legends, scraps of information of all sorts. The
poem takes a sort of ramble over England, photographing
the scenery (in words) and picking up whatever the writer
thought would be of interest to his readers. We find it
tedious now, and it had little success even in its own day,
for by that time (1613) Spenser and Shakespeare and Ben
Jonson had raised the standard of poetry and given its aims
a new direction, and the many thousand verses of the
"Polyolbion" (Professor Tyler says that the word means
" Many-way s-happy ") were out of date; something to be
admired, but not read. Drayton wrote many years earlier,
a poem called "The Barons' Wars."
When we are asked to name the author whose prose shed
most glory on the sixteenth century, we answer without a
moment's hesitation, Richard Hooker (1554-1600). He
was born in 1553—within the lustrum* which gave birth to
Spenser, Sidney and Raleigh, the decade which produced
Bacon, Daniel and Drayton, and eleven years before the
birth-year of Shakespeare and Marlowe. It was an age of
great men, and Hooker's name stands out among the rest
as the writer of the best English his country produced.
Hooker's personal history is interesting. Born of poor par-
• A period of five years.
6
82 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
ents, he showed early so remarkable an aptitude for study
that he was sent to Oxford by the assistance of friends
among the clergy, and rewarded their kindness by becoming
one of the most learned men of his time. After finishing his
university course, he became a clergyman of the Church
of England and soon afterward committed the great mis¬
take of his life. We have the account in the words of his
biographer, Isaac Walton, who says that when Hooker
arrived in London from Oxford, wet and weary, he was
received with so much kindness by his landlady that he
thought himself bound in conscience to believe all she said.
She persuaded him that as he was of a weak constitution
he ought to have a wife that would take care of him and
perhaps thus prolong his life, and he, being too simple-
minded to suspect deceit, authorized her to select one for
him. The person she chose was her own daughter, des¬
cribed by Walton as a "silly, clownish woman and withal a
mere Xantippe," whom Hooker was too honorable to reject,
feeling himself committed to the marriage. This foolish,
unmannerly and ill-tempered person made his life wretched,
and the whole story is told in the narrative given by two
college friends who went to visit him. They found him—the
scholar, the rector, the gentleman—tending sheep with a
volume of Horace in his hand; and when the scene was
transferred to his house, his wife called him away from his
friends to rock the cradle while she went about some other
business. The account goes on to say that they received
little entertainment except from his conversation, and the
whole situation was so depressing that they returned to the
inn instead of finishing their visit.
His greatest work was "The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity"
—a defence of the system of the Church of England. This
is admired, even by those who do not agree with the author's
sentiments, for his power of thought and beautifully clear
method of arrangement. His discreet and orderly character
ELIZABETHAN DRAMATIC PERIOD. 83
and conduct and his faultless literary judgment have earned
for him the name of "The Judicious Hooker."
CHAPTER XIV.
ELIZABETHAN DRAMATIC PERIOD.
HE modern English drama, after its first appear¬
ance in the comedies of "Ralph Royster Doyster"
and "Gammer Gurton's Needle," and the tragedy
"Gorboduc," grew rapidly. The craving for amusement
which had called up these entertainments demanded more,
and a host of writers sprang up to meet the want. The
theatres of the sixteenth century had little in common with
the superbly-decorated buildings in which modern lovers of
the drama assemble to see their favorite performances. They
had indeed passed the stage when the players acted their
parts in temporary sheds, set up in some inn-yard, to
be pulled down as soon as the play was over. But the
first permanent theatre opened in London, the Blackfriars
—so called from the part of the city where it stood—was
simply a round wooden wall without a roof,* at one side of
which was the stage, covered with thatch, so that players'
clothes might not be spoiled. Eor the safety of the spec¬
tator's finery no provision was made.
The other appointments were in keeping with these
arrangements. A rough gallery, high enough to clear the
heads of the actors, ran across the back of the stage, serving
the purpose of a castle-wall, a balcony or a high window,
* This explains the expression in one of the preludes to Shake-
spear's "Henry V.":
Or may we cram
Within this wooden O, the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt
84
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
and to this the characters mounted when their turns came
to speak from those lofty eminences. The audience was
never in doubt as to the spot where the action was sup¬
posed to take place, for the name of the town, castle or
forest was painted on a board hung in full view. The
scenery was of a description that would not be tolerated now
in a tenth-rate theatre. Shabby, faded draperies, absurd
expedients for the suggestion of thrones, banquets, camps,
forests, rocks, seas, ships, etc., these (without side-scenes,
flies, or traps) were the stage-fittings of those simple-hearted
times ; and in spite of the smallness of the stage, part of
its space was given up to favored nobles, gallants and
others who sat, stood and walked about to the serious
inconvenience of the performers. In truth no well-dressed
and decent person of either sex could venture into the
" pit" with its crowd of low, ribald boors. It was well that
this "pit" was roofless, for otherwise the air would have been
pestilential. Even so it was polluted beyond description.*
The performance began at one o'clock in the day and was
over by four; and when the play was going on, the fumes
of ale and tobacco filled the space, while conversation—
that is, shouting and quarrelling, mingled with card-playing
—went on unchecked.
Time wore on and things began to change for the better;
and as the taste of the age did not allow ladies to enter
the play-house, the plays sometimes took place in the hall
of some nobleman's house, where the players were rewarded
* The social position of the player was in keeping with the character
of the play-house. As late as the fourteenth year of Queen Elizabeth's
reign (1572, when Shakespeare was eight years old), an act was passed
"for the punishment of vagabonds," which included in this class
"common players in interludes, and minstrals, not belonging to any
baron of this realm." And by statute of 1597, the punishment of the
"vagabond" was "to be stripped naked from the waist up, whipped
till bloody, and sent from parish to parish to the place of his birth. "
ELIZABETHAN DRAMATIC PERIOD. 85
with a few pence apiece and a supper. All female parts
were played by boys, the sense of decorum at that day
not allowing women thus to exhibit themselves in public.
The earlier Elizabethan dramatists, though noted in their
day, are little more than names to us now, for there is not
in their plays that world-wide applicability to human nature
which makes the works of Shakespeare so real to us. In
their time, however, they had great popularity. Among them
may be named Lodge, Peele, Lyly (author of "Euphues"),
Kyd, Nash and Greene, the last of whom is remembered
as much for the misfortunes brought upon him by his own
indiscretion and self-indulgence as for the merit in his
works. He is said to have been the first person in England
who actually made his living (or tried to make it) by writing,
and to have died of want. The latter may not be literally
true; but we have his own word for it that he wasted his
substance in riotous living, and was indebted to the charity
of a poor shoemaker for a roof to die under. Shortly before
his death he wrote to his long-forsaken wife concerning a
bond for ten pounds which he had given the shoemaker:
Doll, I charge thee, by the love of your youth and by my soules rest,
that thou wilt see this man paide ; for if hee and his wife had not
succoured me, I had died in the streets.
Greene has earned most attention in a curious way. He
had some quarrel with Shakespeare, and wrote a bitter
attack on him, calling him a plagiarist, and one strutting
in the plumes of his betters!
All sixteenth-century writers who had not means of
their own, were supported up to this time (so far as our
records go) either by pensions, public offices or private
liberality; or else like Shakespeare, they made their living
in other ways than by the pen; often as actors. But the
sad truth is that the money earned by the dramatists of
that age was spent at the tavern and in low company.
86
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Improvidence and recklessness seem to have been the char¬
acteristics of the brotherhood.
Christopher Marlowe (1564-93) was the son of a shoe¬
maker. Like many other dramatic writers of the time, he
received a university education; probably by the assistance
of some well-to-do friend who discerned his genius. He
was the first to venture on a play composed entirely in
blank verse, the authors before him having written their
dramas in rhyme, or in prose, or in a mixture of the two.
Marlowe's plays, which are all tragedies, are noted for
their power of depicting intense passion and suffering. The
first was "Tamburlaine the Great,"* which was followed by
"The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus" (the subject made
immortal in Goethe's "Faust"), "The Jew of Malta," and
"Edward the Second." The malignant passions are de¬
picted by him with terrible power. He lost his life at the
age of twenty-nine in a tavern brawl; a waiter whom he
was attacking seizing Marlowe's dagger and turning it upon
its owner. The point entered his eye, and he died soon
afterward of the wound.
Here, if we followed strict chronological order, the name
of Shakespeare should come in; but as it is necessary to
give him a chapter to himself, we will finish the list of those
who are classed together as Elizabethan dramatists, reserv¬
ing his life and writings for separate consideration.
It is not generally known that among the authors of
Elizabeth's reign were many novelists, whose works are no
longer of interest to us, having been thrown out of sight by
the greater dramatic brilliancy then dawning. A French¬
man, M. Jusserand, has written an entertaining book on
this subject, in which, beside the well-known romances of
Sidney and Lyly, he enumerates those of a dozen other
authors, giving sketches of their plots and specimens of
• The same person as "Timour the Tartar."
ELIZABETHAN DRAMATIC PERIOD. 87
their style. The book is translated into English by Eliza¬
beth Lee.
"Oh, Rare Ben Jonson!" Such is the phrase which we
are accustomed to associate with the idea of the dramat¬
ist who comes next after Shakespeare in the estimation ot
literary critics. Some friend gave a stone-cutter eighteen
pence to cut it on a slab in the wall near his tomb (he was
buried upright), and there it will remain, probably, until
Westminster Abbey is spoken of as a thing that was; like
its neighbor, St. Margaret's churchyard.
Jonson (1573-1637) seems to have been marked out in
his early years for the contradictions of fate. His father, a
clergyman, died at about the time of his birth, and his
mother afterward married a bricklayer, who took him from
the university, where the kindness of friends had placed
him, and set him to handling the trowel. This not being
to his taste, he ran away and enlisted in the war against
Spain in the Netherlands, a few years after Sir Philip Sidney
met his death upon the field of Zutphen. In the army he
saw the rudest form of life, and its effects were visible all
through his career in a certain disposition to swaggering
and boastfulness, and a roughness of manner which never
left him.
Returning to England penniless, he studied for a short
time at Cambridge, but being forced to do something to
earn his living, he took up the trade (for such it was con¬
sidered in those days) of actor, at the same time assist¬
ing established playwrights in writing their dramas. On
the stage he was a failure, and when one reads the descrip¬
tion of his huge, ungainly figure, his heavy features and his
awkward gait, the result of his histrionic efforts is not sur¬
prising. Disappointed in this means of making money,
he set out in earnest to write dramas; and at the age of
twenty-two had already made his mark in stage literature.
He had also killed another actor in a duel; and, having
88 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
written something disrespectful about the Scotch, was in
danger of having his right hand chopped off, according to
the fashion of those days, by the Scuitish king, James I. (of
England). Nothing came of it, however, and his mother
cheered him by showing him some poison she had prepared
for him in case the sentence had been carried out.
Jonson wrote both comedies and tragedies, beginning
with the first. "Every Man in his Humor" contains char¬
acters— Captain Bobadil, for instance —which are used as
types to this day. It is interesting to find the name of
William Shakespeare cast as an actor in the first perform¬
ance of this comedy. "The Alchemist" has the character
of Sir Epicure Mammon, whose peculiarities are indicated
in his name. Only two other comedies are reckoned as
first-rate, "Volpone, or the Fox," and "The Silent Woman."
His tragedies are "Catiline" and "Sejanus"^—dark, cruel,
and terrible as the periods of Roman history in which the
scenes are respectively laid.
For many years Jonson lived a chequered life. He was
made poet-laureate—the first of an unbroken series which
has continued down to the present time—and received a
pension; but he could not keep out of quarrels, and had a
miserable controversy with some of his brother dramatists
which embittered his life and kept him always in an ill-
humor. During his easy years he composed many court
masques—a kind of spectacular play much in request by
the rich and great, and well paid for. These were the
rollicking years when much time was spent at the "Mer¬
maid"; a favorite tavern frequented by the wits of the day,
at which met the "Mermaid Club" (said to have been
founded by Sir Walter Raleigh), where Shakespeare, too,
was among the guests.
The closing years of Jonson's life were very dreary ones.
Always in debt (for, like many of his brother poets, he had
little self-denial), tormented by painful illness, and yet still
ELIZABETHAN DRAMATIC PERIOD. 89
obliged to work in order to support himself, he toiled on
after his pen had lost its vigor and his works were no longer
welcomed. Still he had good fiiends who did what could
be done to cheer his declining days. He survived his
friend Shakespeare more than twenty years.
Jonson was, like all the best dramatists, a poet as well
as a play-writer. Some exquisite songs are scattered through
his plays, and at the time of his death he was engaged on
a pastoral play called "The Sad Shepherd," which shows
that the poetic faculty had not deserted him, though he
could no longer write plays which pleased the public. His
prose criticisms are forcible and expressed in good English.
There is reason to believe that all the great play-writers
of Shakespeare's day were familiarly acquainted with each
other; but at that time there were no "interviewers," nor
was it thought decorous—perhaps not interesting—to report
private conversations and convivial gatherings. A single
glimpse of the social life of the age reaches us through
Thomas Fuller (of whose own writings we shall hear later),
and who wrote thus in 1662, forty-six years after the death
of Shakespeare and twenty-five after that of Jonson. He
is speaking of Shakespeare:
Many were the wit combats between him and Ben Jonson; which
two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-
war. Master Johnson, like the former, was built far higher in learn¬
ing; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the
English man-of-war, lesser in bulk but lighter in sailing, could turn
with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the
quickness of his wit and invention.
Such a word-picture as this is worth volumes of conjecture.
After Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, the next place is
generally conceded to Francis Beaumont (1584-1616), and
John Fletcher (rs79-i625), two dramatists who wrote
together and formed the first recorded literary partnership.
Fletcher outlived his co-laborer, and wrote many plays
90
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
alone, both after Beaumont's death and during the time
of their joint production; but the idea of such a friend¬
ship is so pleasant to dwell upon that the first thought
of either brings up the name of the other. Their works,
like those of all the playwrights of the time, were very
unequal; they contain passages of beautiful poetry inter¬
mixed with much that is tame and flat; and their characters,
beside being grossly immoral, are untrue to nature. The
style, also, is more artificial than that of either Shakespeare
or Jonson. Of their joint works the most original is "The
Knight of the Burning Pestle," the first English burlesque,
intended as a travesty of the high-flown romances of the
period, as the "Don Quixote" of Cervantes ridiculed them
as they existed in Spanish literature. Of their serious
works, the most important is "The Two Noble Kinsmen."
Among Fletcher's individual plays, "The Faithful Shep¬
herdess" may be especially mentioned.
Some beautiful songs are given as the joint work of the
companion poets, though they were probably the work of
Fletcher alone. As an example, see the "Song to Mel¬
ancholy,'' beginning "Hence, all ye vain delights," and
closing with the oft-quoted line:
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.
Of the remaining dramatists of this rich and full period,
we can give little more than the names. Philip Massinger
wrote many plays, of which one, "A New Way to Pay
Old Debts," is played to this day. John Webster excelled
in representing the horrible, in such plays as "The Duchess
of Malfi." A long list of contemporary writers follows,
the chief of whom are Middleton, Dekker, Marston, Ford,
Chapman (the translator of Homer), and Shirley. The last
named, although only seven years old at the time of Queen
Elizabeth's death, is reckoned among the Elizabethan
poets. He has not the force and originality of the earlier
ELIZABETHAN DRAMATIC PERIOD. 91
ones, but possesses more refinement. Better known than
his dramas is his beautiful poem beginning:
The glories of our earth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things.
Shirley espoused the king's part in the great civU war, and
afterward, when his dramas failed to support him, philo¬
sophically took up school-teaching for a living. The
Restoration did not mend his fortune. His home was
burned in the great fire of London (1666), and soon after¬
ward his wife and he died on the same day. And so ended
the Elizabethan dramatists.
CHAPTER XV.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
HERE has probably never been another man about
whom so much has been thought, written, and
said, of whom we really know so little as we
do of Shakespeare. To the people of his own time he
was not the great man he appears to us; he was simply
first an inferior actor, then one of the proprietors of one
of the theatres in London, then the writer of dramas, more
or less popular, and of a few poems. No one, therefore,
thought it worth while to collect and treasure up anecdotes
about him, or to make out a connected story of his life. It
was reserved for later ages to discover his vast knowledge of
human nature, his wide sympathies, his artistic skill, his
wonderful power of depicting character; and also as we can
not help suspecting, to find sometimes in his works a mean¬
ing of which the poet was himself unconscious. He often
wrote, no doubt, " better than he knew," and we have the
benefit of it.
William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon,
92
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
in Warwickshire, in April, 1564. The exact day is not
known; but as his baptism is recorded as taking place
on the 26th, it has been found convenient to assume that
he was born on April 23d, St. George's Day, which was also
the day of his death. His father, John Shakespeare, is
variously stated to have been a butcher, a wool-comber,
and a glover. Perhaps he was all three, as the occupations
might have been easily combined. The maiden name of
Mistress Shakespeare was Mary Arden. She came of what
is called in England "a good family," meaning one which
could trace back its descent through several generations.
We know nothing further about her, but as it is generally
acknowledged that sons inherit the brains of their mothers,
we are disposed to think well of Mary Arden.
Of Shakespeare's education, we know little except from
the indications afforded in his writings that he was a man
of wide reading. He was undoubtedly taught at the gram¬
mar school in Stratford ; one of those foundations or
restorations of Edward VI. to which the England of that
century was so deeply indebted. Ben Jonson says of him
that he had ''small Latin and less Greek," but Jonson
was rather proud of his own scholarship and probably had
a higher standard than was generally accepted in that age.
Of Greek, Shakespeare may well have been ignorant; but
Latin, taught at every grammar school (often at the expense
of English), must almost necessarily have been among
his pursuits. His father, who had been made a prosperous
man by his marriage with Mary Arden, became deeply
entangled in debt when William was about fourteen years
old, and this occasioned his removal from school at an
earlier age than that at which the sons of well-to-do persons
usually left it. Where or how the son picked up the great
variety of knowledge shown in his writings, we do not
know; but it is probable that, like most geniuses, he occu¬
pied himself with many topics. His great acquaintance
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
93
with technical law-terms gives rise to the supposition that
he studied in a lawyer's office. Aubrey, a gossipy writer oí
the seventeenth century, says that he taught school, which
in itself is a means, of learning. In some way or other,
he certainly obtained an acquaintance with several sciences,
with history, and with the romance-literature of his own
country, France, and Italy. His Roman plays show that
he knew Plutarch. \Ve imagine him to have been, like
Scott, an omniverous reader, and to have possessed a
memory which held with a tenacious grasp whatever was
committed to it.
A tradition, as vague and unsubstantial as such things
usually are, represents Shakespeare in his youth as joining
with some other wild young fellows in stealing deer from
the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, a neighboring magistrate
who, as is said, had the offender arrested and prosecuted.
The story is not more improbable than that of George
Washington and the cherry-tree; and some disrespectful
verses, addressed to the knight by the alleged criminal,
certainly imply that Shakespeare had a grudge against Lucy
to pay off.
At the age of eighteen the future poet married Anne
Hathaway, the daughter of a "substantial yeoman" living at
Shottery, a village about a mile distant from Stratford. Of
her, as of the mother of Shakespeare, we know little, except
that she was nearly eight years older than her husband, he
being but eighteen at the time of his marriage. Four
years afterward, we hear of him in London, in connection
with the theatre; and from this time to that of his final
retirement to his native village, his life is cast among dram¬
atists and literary men generally. Tradition tells us that
he at first made a few pence by holding the horses of the
gallants who frequented the theatre. If he did, it was not
long before he found other work to do. We hear of him
as first adapting plays to the stage, then producing some of
94
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
his own; making a living as stage manager and constantly
advancing in prosperity until he became part-owner, first
of the Blackfriars theatre and afterward of the Globe. He
was an actor, too, during the first part of his career; a
very poor one probably, as we hear that the ghost in
"Hamlet," and Adam in "As You Like It" were his favorite
parts. By all together, however, he earned a handsome
competence, being the first man of letters in England who
did so; and this was due, not to his writings, but to the
sums paid for admissions to the Globe theatre. For com¬
panions, he had the leading writers of his day, and never
lacked for good company. The queen, who was very fond
of amusements, enjoyed seeing his plays acted, and on at
least one occasion suggested a subject to him. Not only
actors, but to some extent dramatists also, were then consid¬
ered an inferior class, being placed below the level of
tradesmen. Our author, therefore, did not have access to
what was considered "the best society"—namely, the court
circle ; but the friendship of great men for one another does
not depend upon rank or riches.
No manuscript of Shakespeare's is known to be in exist¬
ence, nor even any scrap of his hand-writing except four
extremely rough and dissimilar signatures appended to the
four pages of his will. The document was executed during
his last illness and the only explanation of the existence of
such scrawls from the hand of a practised writer is the
suggestion that they are made either by a hand in the
extremity of illness or by one held and guided by another
hand. This circumstance has been seized upon by those
who deny to Shakespeare the authorship of the plays bear¬
ing his name, as a support to their unbelief; as has also
been the fact that in this will, though directing the disposi¬
tion of his "second-best bed," etc., he makes no mention
of his ownership of any plays, in manuscript or otherwise,
albeit many of the greatest dramas were not printed until
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
95
six years after his death. But the world believes that the
immortal work could not, falsely, have passed as his for
centuries, unchallenged; and that the difhculties urged
against that belief are trivial.*
Shakespeare's first published work was the poem of
"Venus and Adonis," dedicated to his young friend Lord
Southampton. The poem enjoys the high praise of great
critics; but at this day it is valueless to the general reader
from its length, its rambling nature and the coarseness of
its plot. Several of his plays had been acted before this
time, but it was for the interest of the managers that new
plays should not be published, for fear of lessening the
popular interest in them, or having them "pirated" by other
theatres; It is not within the scope of the present "Short
History" to discuss the order in which the plays of Shake¬
speare were written, nor the genuineness of those the
authorship of which is questioned. It is enough to say that
they may be broadly divided into comedies, tragedies, and
histories, or historical plays; though in several cases the
drama may be described by more than one of these
terms. To the first class belong "As You Like It," "Much
Ado About Nothing," "The Merchant of Venice," "The
Winter's Tale," "Twelfth Night," "A Midsummer Night's
Dream "and "The Tempest," with others of minor note.
To the second, "King Lear," "Othello," "Hamlet" and
" Macbeth," together with the romantic mediaeval drama of
"Romeo and Juliet." To the third, the Roman plays of
"Coriolanus," "Julius Caesar " and "Antony and Cleopatra";
the legendary British play of "Cymbeline," and that won¬
derful series of scenes from English history beginning with
* The slur of Greene (already mentioned) calling Shakespeare a
plagiarist and "one strutting in the plumes of his betters," also affords
an argument to many who maintain that Bacon wrote the best of the
plays called Shakespeare's, and was debarred by his lofty station from
acknowledging their authorship.
96
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
"King John" and ending with "King Henry the Eighth."
The latter have been justly described as one great drama,
of which "King John" shall be the prologue; the eight
intermediate plays, so wonderfully dovetailed together and
reaching from "Richard the Second" to "Richard the
Third," the acts; and "Henry the Eighth" the epilogue.
Eor such a drama we do not wonder that the author desired
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.
The best preparation for thoroughly enjoying and profit¬
ing by Shakespeare's historical plays, is a good knowledge
of the period in which the action is laid. A great general
once said that all the English history he knew was learned
from Shakespeare; but if this was literally true his knowl¬
edge niust have begun late and ended early, had many gaps
in it, and been often incorrect. A poet-or a dramatist does
not profess to give the literal truth of history. He uses its
facts as far as they serve his purpose ; he transforms them
by the magic of his imagination from dry statistics into
living, breathing realities; but there his province ends.
The student should first make himself acquainted with
history as it happened, and then forever fix it in his mind
by giving himself up to the charm with which it is invested
by the genius of the dramatist.
Beside the poem already mentioned, Shakespeare wrote
"The Lover's Complaint," some poems in a collection
called "The Passionate Pilgrim," and one hundred and
fifty-four sonnets, or rather short poems of fourteen lines,
mostly on the subject of friendship. Much controversy has
arisen in regard to the person to whom these sonnets were
addressed, but it would not be profitable to detail it here.
Many of them are very beautiful.
Shakespeare remained in London, visiting his home at
Stratford perhaps yearly, perhaps more frequently, until
1612, when he retired to the place of his birth to spend the
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
97
four years of life that yet remained to him. Of his life
in London we have only an occasional gleam in the writings
of his contemporaries. One of these said, in a book called
"Wit's Treasury," published in 1598, when the poet was
thirty-five years old, that William Shakespeare was the chief
living poet and dramatist of England. Spenser called him:
The man whom nature's self hath made.
To mock herself, and truth to imitate.
Ben Johnson, who knew him well, called him:
Soul of the age;
The applause, delight and wonder of our stage:
and names him "The Sweet Swan of Avon," saying that he
was "not for a day, but for all time." Milton, outdoing
the rest in hyperbole, closes the poem addressed to him thus :
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving.
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving ;
And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie.
That kings, for such a tomb would wish to die.
To collect what has been written about Shakespeare since
his own time would be to make, as has been well said, not a
volume, but a library. The whole reading world has com¬
bined to do homage to his greatness.
Shakespeare retired to his native town a rich man for
those days, bought a handsome residence called the New
Place, and—we may imagine, for nobody knows—lived the
free-and-easy life of a country squire. His only son,
Hamnet, died at eleven years old. This son and Judith,
his twin sister, were named after a baker and his wife,
Hamnet and Judith Sadler. An older daughter, Susanna,
and his daughter Judith, survived him. Both were married
and left children, but the family died out before the end of
the century.
The old house in Henley street where the poet was bom
has been wisely bought and preserved by the British
7
98
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
government, and is still the resort of pilgrims from all
quarters of the world. The "New Place," a handsome
house and grounds where he spent his latter years, fell
into the hands of a vandal who, not wishing to live in it,
pulled it down that he might not have to pay the taxes
on it. Westminster Abbey has a monument to Shake¬
speare, but his dust lies beneath the pavement of the
parish church at Stratford-on-Avon, with the well-known
lines carved on the stone :
Good friend, for lesus' sake, forbeare
To digg the dust enclosed heare.
Blest be ye man yt spares these stones,
And curst be he yt moves my bones. *
These words may be the expression of a wish expressed
during the poet's lifetime, but can scarcely be received as
the product of his muse.
CHAPTER XVI.
RALEIGH. BACON.
EFORE passing on to the literature which belongs
wholly to the seventeenth century, we must go
back to the two great prose-writers whose lives
were spent almost equally in the sixteenth and seventeenth,
although their writings place them in very different cate¬
gories. These are Walter Raleigh and Francis Bacon.
Of the many-sided Raleigh (1552-1618), the "Shepherd
of the Ocean," as Spenser quaintly calls him, we can give
but a few details, sufficient, it is hoped, to induce the
young reader to seek the records of that brilliant life in
larger works. He came from an old, though not a noble
* The letter in the Saxon alphabet which represents the sound of
"th" is nearly identical with our letter "y. "
No-thwe8t«m
University
Library
RALEIGH. BACON. 99
family ; was early brought to the notice of the queen,* and
lived for many years in the full splendor of prosperity. His
adventurous spirit sent him more than once to the New
World, where he founded two separate colonies, neither of
which became permanent. The members of the first, poor
and starving, were rescued and taken back to England by
Captain Francis Drake; those of the second were supposed
to have fallen under the Indian tomahawk, for no trace
of them could be found when, three years after their settle¬
ment, a ship was sent to seek them out. It was Raleigh
who gave to the Atlantic coast the name of Virginia, in
honor of his royal mistress, the Virgin Queen ; and it was
he, as is reported, who first brought to the knowledge of
English people the useful potato and the soothing tobacco
plant. Raleigh impoverished himself in these expeditions,
but by prudence and careful husbanding of his resources
and the help of grants from the queen, he became again
possessed of ample means. His subsequent career was as
varied as his early one. He commanded a land-force at
the time of the Spanish Armada; he joined various expedi¬
tions against the Spaniards, always gaining laurels and often
solid plunder; he explored the Orinoco River and wrote a
brilliant account of the wonders of South America, and he
continued during Elizabeth's reign to be the recipient of
her bounties.
After James I.'s accession (1603), Raleigh's affairs took a
different turn. He had enemies at court, made such, per¬
haps, by his arrogance and ostentation while standing high
in the favor of the great queen; and he was accused of
being concerned in a plot to dethrone James I., the
Scottish king so much disliked by the English people, and
place Lady Arabella Stuart, cousin of James, on the throne
* The famous story of Raleigh's throwing his rich cloak down over a
muddy place in the path for the queen to step upon, is used by Sir
Walter Scott in "Kenilworth," chapter XV.
100 HISTOR Y OF ENGLISH LITERA TURE.
in his stead. A base wretch whom Raleigh had befriended
swore away his life, and a capital sentence, which seems to
us most unjust and uncalled for by the evidence, was pro¬
nounced against him. He was then committed to the
Tower, where he lay for twelve years in prison, and employed
himself in writing his most extensive work, "The History
of the World." The subject was too large for any man,
and Raleigh began as if he were to have a hundred
years to work upon it. One follows him through one hun¬
dred and forty pages before he leaves the Garden of Eden,
and many superfluous questions are discussed which have
no interest for us. Still, there are passages of great beauty,
and it would be hard to find a finer apostrophe to Death
than that which closes the volume:
Oh, eloquent, just and mighty Death ! whom none can advise, thou
hast persuaded ; what none hath dared, thou hast done ; and whom all
the world has flattered, thou hast only cast ^out of the world and
despised: thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all
the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with
these two narrow words: Hie j(uet.
Sir Walter is best known to us as a prose-writer, but he
was also the author of several graceful poems, which show
that he had poetic talent of no common sort. Of these
"The Nymph's Reply"—an answer to Marlowe's "Come
live with me and be my love"—is the most esteemed.
Another called "The Lye" is full of spirit.
During his long imprisonment his wife was allowed to be
with him, and Prince Henry, James's oldest son, often
visited him. In the thirteenth year of his imprisonment he
told the king of a gold mine in South America which he
could probably obtain for his majesty. James at once
released him, without, however, pardoning him, and Raleigh
set out for the Orinoco with the old sentence still hanging
over his head. The expedition was unsuccessful; Raleigh's
oldest son was killed in an action against the Spaniards;
RALEIGH. BACON.
101
the gold mine was not reached, and he returned a disap¬
pointed and practically a ruined man. This mean-souled
king was at that time anxious for friendship with Spain;
and when the Spanish ambassador demanded the death
of Raleigh, James tried at first to find some excuse
for his prosecution in the circumstances of the alleged
offence. As that could not be done without revealing his
own share in the matter, he ordered the soldier, author,
statesman, to be executed on the old unproved charge of
treason—a lasting shame to the memory of James the First.
Raleigh met death bravely and philosophically.
With respect and interest amounting almost to awe,
we come to the consideration of a man of mighty mind;
Francis Bacon (1561-1626). The first question usually
asked by young people on reaching this name is, "Was
he a relative of Roger Bacon?" Probably not. Roger
Bacon, the first English scientific writer, lived and died a
monk, and was, therefore, childless; and though the second
great Bacon may have had some remote relationship with
the first through what is called collateral descent, there
is no connection traceable between them.
Sir Nicholas Bacon, the father of Francis, was Queen
Elizabeth's Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, a post of high
responsibility and honor, which office he held for twenty
years. That he did not lack the quickness of wit which
was possessed by so many of Elizabeth's courtiers, is
shown by his answer when the queen remarked that his
house was too little for him. "Not so, Madam," he replied;
"your majesty has made me too great for my house." And
as a pendant to this we may quote the answer of Francis
to the queen when he was about eight years old. "How
old are you, my little man?" she inquired. To which the
future courtier promptly replied, "Just two years younger
than your majesty's happy reign." The queen used to call
him, in jest, her little Lord Keeper.
102
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Of course Francis was finely educated. He is said to
have taken a dislike to Aristotle (or rather to the Aristo¬
telian system) at school; a fact worth remembering when we
come to study his own system. He left college at sixteen,
and accompanied the English ambassador, Sir Amyas
Faulet, to Paris, in order to be trained as a diplomatist.
When he had been there about two years, his father died,
having neglected to make any provision for him (Francis
was the younger son of a second wife), and at eighteen he
was obliged to return to England and seek some means of
supporting himself. He selected the law, and after the
necessary study was admitted to practise. He was soon
elected to parliament, in which body he sat for several
years, and on one occasion warmly opposed a measure on
which the queen had set her heart. This displeased her,
and the next year, when the office of attorney-general fell
vacant and Bacon was àn applicant for the post, she deci¬
ded to give it to Sir Edward Coke, author of the famous
law-commentary now called "Coke upon Littleton." The
Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's favorite after the death
of Leicester, urged her to grant his suit, and when his
efforts proved fruitless, gave Bacon, to console him for his
disappointment, the beautiful estate called Twickenham
Park which he afterward sold for a large sum.
It is sad to be obliged to mention here that failing
which was the cause of all Bacon's subsequent misfor¬
tunes, and ended in his downfall—his extravagance. He
lived constantly beyond his means, and of course ran in
debt, and the result was that he was continually harassed
by demands which he could not meet, and which still did
not prevent him from indulging in new expenditures.
In 1596, when Bacon was thirty-five years old, he was
given the office of Queen's Counsel, a position both impor¬
tant and lucrative.
Before the end of the century, Bacon published ten of
RALEIGH. BACON.
103
those essays which are known wherever the English lan¬
guage is read. They are crowded with thought, expressed
in strong though not always elegant English. In diction,
Hooker was his superior, but in variety of range and depth
of thought. Bacon was excelled by no man of his century.
The man who wrote "Reading maketh a full man; con¬
ference [conversation] a ready man, and writing an exact
man," enriched our language with a sentence on which a
volume might be written without exhausting its meaning.
In his preface he hopes that these essays "will come
home to men's business and bosoms." A collection of his
apophthegms (short, pithy sentences into which a great
deal erf meaning is compressed) is valuable reading for
young and old. " A man that is young in years may be old
in honor, if he have lost no time." "Some books are to be
tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed
and digested." Again, "Men fear death, as children fear to
go in the dark." "Revenge is a kind of wild justice." "He
that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune."
Hallam, one of the best authorities on English classics,
remarks, "It would be derogatory to a man of the slightest
claim to polite letters, were he unacquainted with the
'Essays' of Bacon."
Bacon wrote also a philosophical romance entitled "The
New Atlantis," and a "Life of Henry VIIL," in which the
first attempt is made in English literature to write history
according to the modern conception of it—that it should
be so written as to show the development of the people
of a nation; not merely the acts of its kings and warriors.
Among the charges brought against Bacon is that of
ingratitude, because it was his business, as Queen's Counsel,
to jnosecute his fiiend Essex for treason (i6oi). This
does not, however, seem just. Essex was a man so rash,
so headstrong, that it was impossible for any fnend to
influence him for good or to save him from the conse-
104 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
quences of his folly; and during the trial, Bacon dealt as
gently with him as he could. When it was over and he
was commanded to prepare a statement of the case, he
used so much moderation toward Essex that the queen
exclaimed angrily, "I see old love is not soon forgotten!"
With the accession of James I. (1603), Bacon's fortunes
improved. He was knighted, with some three hundred
others, and became Sir Francis. He was married in the
same year. Later he was appointed to various offices in
the gift of the crown, reaching the highest when he was
made Lord Chancellor (1618). He was created success¬
ively Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans, and just at
this point, when he had attained to a position so proud
that it seems as if he could have desired nothing further,
he became a disgraced and ruined man.
No one, probably, could have been more surprised than
was Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans and Lord Chancellor
of England when he was suddenly accused of having
accepted money from a litigant while a suit was in progress
—in other words, taken a bribe. Many departments of
the government were notoriously corrupt, and the taking
of bribes had grown to be so much a matter of course
that it seemed almost like the regular order of things.
Bacon had not done this to any great extent, and had
not always given Judgment in favor of the person who
thus tried to corrupt him; but he had enemies who pushed
the charges against him, and the public, having a general
impression that things were going amiss, demanded a
scape-goat. Bacon could not deny the facts, although
he asserted his innocence of any evil intention; and a
sentence of terrible severity was passed upon him. He
was condemned to a fine of _;¿'4o,ooo, to be imprisoned
during the king's pleasure, to be dismissed from all his
offices, deprived of the power of sitting in parliament, and
forbidden to come within the limits of the court A more
RALEIGH. BACON.
105
dreadful, sudden fall, short of a death sentence, has seldom
been witnessed. The crushing penalty was carried out
only in part. The king remitted the fine and released
Bacon from imprisonment, and after a time he was allowed
again to come within the verge of the court; but he never
again held any office or sat in parliament. Perhaps no¬
where in human history has the folly of living beyond
one's means received such a signal rebuke. Large as had
been his income, his immeasurable extravagance had gone
beyond it, and like an overbalanced tower the great struct¬
ure fell in ruins.
He retired into private life, and employed his remaining
time in prosecuting investigations in science, in adding to
the number of his admirable "Essays," and in carrying
on toward perfection the vast system of philosophy that
had for many years engrossed his attention in the inter¬
vals of other business which alone was enough to exhaust
all the strength of even the greatest of his fellow-men of
any age or race.
His death, which occurred five years after his down¬
fall and one year after Charles I. came to the throne, was
brought about directly by his devotion to scientific research.
It had come into his mind that perhaps meats might be
preserved by being kept cold—in those days refrigerators
had not been dreamed of—and he determined to try the
effects of stuffing a fowl with snow. Impatient to make the
experiment, he stopped his carriage at a cottage by the
roadside, bought his fowl, and stood on the cold, damp
ground to see that his directions were carried out. This
brought on a sudden chill, and instead of going home, he
drove to the house of his friend, the Earl of Arundel, which
happened to be near by. Here his illness rapidly increased,
and in a few days he breathed his last (1626), congratulating
himself that the snow experiment had succeeded "excel¬
lent well."
106 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Bacon's aims in his literary and philosophical work were
always of the noblest. A touching passage in his will
says, "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations,
and to mine own country after some time has passed over."
He was right in judging that time would soften the remem¬
brance of his faults among his countrymen, and that his
real greatness would be remembered and cherished by them.
It is not possible here to give an account of his services
to science, or to explain his philosophy farther than to say
that it is a mistake to suppose that Bacon invented or dis¬
covered any new system. He attempted only to show the
correct method of making investigations; and adopted and
advocated (though he did not originate) the "inductive" as
opposed to the "deductive" system: That is, the plan of
taking known facts as a starting point and thence working
backward toward a cause, instead of assuming a cause and
seeking for conclusions which should follow in logical
sequence. It may be called the system based on experi¬
ment and experience instead of on speculation. Since his
time this has been called the "Baconian" method in contra¬
distinction to the "Aristotelian;" seeing that Aristotle*
started with certain postulates or syllogisms, whence followed
endless metaphysical discussions, barren of benefit to the
race, while Bacon turned his attention to the arts and
sciences which might benefit mankind and expand the
realm of knowledge to embrace the earth beneath and the
universe around us.
' It is not to be supposed that Aristotle did not also employ obser¬
vation and induction as a necessary part of his system.
SEVENTEENTH- CENTUR Y ESSA YISTS.
107
CHAPTER XVIT.
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYISTS.
E may now fairly leave the sixteenth century behind,
and enter on that which is not inferior to it in
strength; and, in variety, even excels it. In the
seventeenth century we have Shakespeare still with us for
sixteen years and Bacon for twenty-six. Milton was the
contemporary of Shakespeare for eight years, and Dryden
closes the century.
In naming the writers of the seventeenth century, we
must not omit the prince of pedants. King James I., who
followed Queen Elizabeth (1603-25). The king honestly
considered himself the wisest man in his dominions. His
poetry (or rather rhymes), his criticism, and his theolog¬
ical disquisitions, have ceased to interest us. Only one of
his works, "A Counterblast to Tobacco," is at all amusing,
and of that most persons know only one sentence; that in
which the fragrant weed, not being to the king's taste, is
described as "loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose,
harmful to the brain, and injurious to the lungs." *
The language of Queen Elizabeth's time had already
grown antiquated, and the scholarship of the early trans¬
lators of the Bible was open to question; so King James
ordered a new translation made, which is known to us as
the "Authorized Version," and is still in use. This was
finished in 1611, and in English Bibles one reads even
now the dedication "To the most high and mighty prince
James, By the grace of God King of Great Britain, France,
and Ireland, Defender of the Faith," etc. This translation
* This sentence is full of tautology (repetition), seeing that loalhsonu
and hateful mean the same thing, and so do harmful and injurious.
108 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
was meant to be final; but in our own day a "Revised
Version" of the Bible has been issued (finished in 1884),
which, while it is superior in correctness to the one oí
King James's time, has not as yet taken hold of the
hearts of English-speaking readers bound up in love and
reverence for the earlier one.
Two distinguished theological writers of this period, excell¬
ing all others of their time in knowledge of church-history
and of early C hristian writers, were Launcelot Andrews
(x5S5-i626),Bishop of Winchester, and James Usher (1580-
1656), Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland. The former was
one of the translators of King James's "Authorized Version;"
the latter formed a "Chronology of the Bible" which held
its ground for two hundred years.
The most generally learned man in England in the first
half of the seventeenth century was probably John Seiden
(1584-1654), lawyer, statesman and author. Of his many
writings, the most curious is the "Mare Clausum" (Closed
Sea), in which he claims the exclusive right of the English
to the ocean for a certain distance around England. After
his death his secretary published, from recollections of his
conversations, a volume called "Selden's Table-Talk."
An author who has hardly received his due share of atten¬
tion is James Howell, a Welshman (1590-1666), the author
of many works now obsolete, and of the first collection of
English letters intended by their author for the press.
Howell was a great traveller, and has left in his "Letters"
and his "Instructions for Foreign Travel," a series of pictures
of the European life of that day, full of acute observation
and interesting as bringing up comparisons with our own
time.
To go back to the great prose-writers whose names adorn
the first part of the seventeenth century, those of most note
who come after Bacon and Raleigh and were contemporary
with Milton, are Isaac Walton, Thomas Fuller, Jeremy
S£ VENTEENTH - CENTUR Y ESSA Y/STS. 109
Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne; each distinguished by
special excellence in his own department Of these Walton
was bom the first and lived the longest, dying at the age
of ninety.
The lives of all these men embrace the period of the
Civil War, the great events which led to it and those
which followed it. It was a time of religious, intellectual
and political upheaval, and while some writers (Milton,
Bunyan, etc.) show the deepest and most enduring marks
of the moral turmoil about them, one wonders that the
others could have lived and written and not shown greater
traces of its influence — sometimes quite ignoring it.
Isaak Walton (1593-1683) kept a linen-draper's shop
in London until he was past fifty years old, then retired
to the country to spend the rest of his life in the enjoy¬
ment of nature and of the society of men of letters, who
found him a delightful companion. At sixty, he gave to
the world his "Complete Angler," a book in which fishing
as a fine art furnishes only the foundation for a series of
exquisite pictures of rural life and scenery, quaint bits of
old-world learning, tender moralizing, and daintily graceful
reflections on all sorts of subjects such as might come
into his head while sitting with a rod in his hand by the
side of some lovely rippling brook, with the summer breeze
making music among the leaves overhead, and the air
filled with delicious odors.
A second work of Walton's, in a different strain but
equally charming, is the "Lives" of five of his friends;
the poet Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Richard Hooker, the
saintly George Herbert, and Bishop Sanderson. The last
of these, a learned and excellent divine, would not be
known to us in literature but for Walton's sketch of his
life; the others we have already been interested in. In
these lives, the transparent simplicity of Walton's style
engages our admiration; and the gentle reverence with
110
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
which he handles the memory of his dead friends is both
touching and instructive.
Thomas Fuller (1608-61) is called the "Church Histo¬
rian," the title of the work by which he first became known
being " The Church History of Britain, from the Birth of
Christ to the year 1648." The most popular of his works
is his "History of the Worthies of England/' a book in which
he not only deals with the personal memoirs of noted men,
but takes the opportunity of scattering through it all sorts
of information—historical, botanical, architectural and
antiquarian—of the counties where they happened to live.
The epithets "quaint" and "witty" are those most often
connected with his name. He wrote at a time when the
fiercest passions were aroused by the difficult relations
between church and state; but he never loses his good-
humored gayety, or for a moment becomes ill-natured in
his partisanship. He was a clergyman of the Church of
England, and as such was the object of some persecution
in the civil war. Being driven from his pulpit he became
a chaplain in the royal army and on one occasion, being
left in charge of a castle garrison which was attacked by
the Roundheads, drove away the besiegers with loss.
Beside the two books mentioned. Fuller wrote many
others, all full of droll conceits, earnest piety, a shrewd
knowledge of the world and an unfailing kindness of
disposition.
Among the many learned divines of the time we are
now considering, Jeremy Taylor (1613-67) is perhaps the
only one whose purely religious works continue to be read
and even studied in our own day. He is called "the poet
among preachers." His rich fancy, eloquence and imagin¬
ation add a charm to his writings which attracts those who
might be insensible to his deep and fervent piety. This
omateness is carried even to a fault, and sometimes seems
to weary the imagination by over-stimulating it; but Taylor
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ESSAYISTS. Ill
succeeds in enchaining the attention of his reader, and
mingles many grains of profound thought with the lighter
and more fanciful exuberance of his pages. His books on
"Holy Living" and "Holy Dying" are still closet-compan¬
ions to many a pious mind which finds nourishment and
gratification in his discourses.
Taylor had to suffer even more heavily for his loyalty to
the king than did Fuller. From being a favorite and suc¬
cessful preacher he suddenly found himself, on account of
the Civil War, without a living, and like Fuller became a
chaplain and took an active share in the operations of the
army. His rectory having been sequestrated by Parliament
he retired to Wales and occupied himself in school-teaching.
Here he married a lady with some property, and gave
up his teaching, but was occupied industriously with
his pen. He was too prominent not to be a mark for
Puritan resentment, and repeatedly suffered fines and im¬
prisonment in consequence. He took charge of a small
parish in Ireland, and after the restoration was made Bishop
of Dromore. He did not find this an easy or tranquil
position, for the Irish Catholics about him were as bitterly
opposed as the Puritans to the Established Church; and
after seven years of toil he died, at the age of fifty-five.
Among Taylor's many books on the subject of religion,
the one most widely known in his own time was "The Lib¬
erty of Prophesying," a most eloquent plea for toleration in
religion. "Prophesying" is here used in the sense of
"preaching," which meaning we often find given to it in the
Bible.
William Prynne (1600-69) is famous not so much for his
literary achievements as for the misfortunes which sprang
from them. He was a Puritan of the Puritans, and pub¬
lished a book called " Histrio-Mastix," directed against
theatrical performances of every description. For this
book he was sentenced by the Star Chamber (1632-3) to
112 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
pay a fine of ;^5,ooo; to be expelled from the University
of Oxford and the legal society to which he belonged; to
stand twice in the pillory, each time losing an ear; and to
be imprisoned. Aftei being released he published other
writings still more violent, and judged libelous by the court,
which then pronounced sentence of another fine equal to
the first, in addition to which he was to be branded on
both cheeks, have the remainder of his ears (spared by
the mercy of the first hangman) shaved off, and be impris¬
oned for life.
Still more ill-fated was Dr. Alexander Leighton, a Scottish
clergyman who, for writing against episcopacy, received the
same punishment as Prynne, besides having his nose slit
and being whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. Both these
men were released by the Long Parliament, and received
such reparation as was possible, Prynne ending his life in
the public service under Charles II.
Among the prose-writers of this time should be mentioned
the name of Robert Burton (1576-1640), whose "Anatomy
of Melancholy" is found to be really an antidote for melan¬
choly, by virtue of the fine wit and wisdom with which
it adorns that dreary-sounding subject. It is full of curious
learning, drawn from books which few men even read; and
some later writers are accused of stealing their aphorisms
and witticisms from its pages. Burton himself was subject
to fits of melancholy, to relieve which, it is said, he wrote
his famous book. It became a great favorite with the read¬
ers of his day. A short extract may give some idea of
its lighter style:
A painter's shop, a flowery meadow, is not so gracious an aspect
in Nature's storehouse as a young maid, nubilis ptiella, that looks for
a husband ; or a young man that is her suitor ; composed look, eom-
posed gait, clothes, gestures, actions all composed; all the graces,
elegancies in the world are in her face. . . . They are beyond
all measure coy, nice and too curious on a sudden No
sooner doth a young man see his sweetheart coming but he smugs
SE VENTEENTH- CENTUR Y ESSA YISTS.
113
up himself, pulls up his cloak now fallen about his shoulders, ties
his garters, points, sets his band, cuffs, slicks his hair, twires his
beard, etc.
It was in the seventeenth century that the delightful form
of literature known as the essay became a recognized means
of expressing the writer's ideas on some particular subject,
in a shorter fashion than by a treatise, or entire book. It
seems to have occurred first to Bacon thus to set down in
few words his thoughts on topics of general interest, and
he was followed by many others, the most notable of whom,
in the period we are now discussing, was Sir Thomas
Browne (1605-82). He was a highly-taught essayist in the
paths of science. He was a botanist, mineralogist, mathe¬
matician, horticulturist, philologist and linguist. These
deep themes so fully occupied his mind that though he
lived in the times of the Rebellion, the Commonwealth and
the Restoration, one reads his calm and labored paragraphs
finding no marks of consciousness that his king was brought
to the block, a Protector placed in control of all England,
the order of things again upset, and finally another king
enthroned at Westminster. Yet he was no self-inclosed
Dryasdust, for he possessed a fresh and racy quality of
mind and power of expression that give almost the charm
of romance to his writings and make them readable even
now, after the lapse of two hundred years. No scientific
fact is too high for his discourse, and none too small.
Neither is his clear view confined to things about him; it
also can discern what is to come; for in an essay entitled
"A prophecy concerning the future state of several nations"
he predicts that America will be the seat of the "Fifth
Empire," the Assyrian, the Persian, the Macedonian and
the Roman being the first four.
The essay of that day was very far from being what it
later became and still is; a polished and perfected jewel
of thought, an edifice of words built up to set forth a
8
114
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
certain fact or opinion in its best and completest shape.
It was of old more what its name implies, an effort or
experiment, a throwing together of suggestions for the reader
to arrange and digest. Sir Thomas Browne's essays were
of this character, and he generally managed to say some¬
thing which is still worth reading, though it must be
admitted that the grains of wheat are often buried in a
rather large heap of chaff. In the days of the Charleses
and Cromwell, readers were used to solid discussions on
politics and religion, and what we should call dry and tedi¬
ous histories; while science was almost unknown as a topic
for popular treatment. So it comes that sundry crude and
absurd notions of existing things prevailed; and Browne's
best-known book was "Pseudoxia Epidemica," or inquiries
into vulgar (popular) errors. Among those he exposes is
the notion "That an elephant hath no joints; and that,
being unable to lie down, it sleepeth against a tree; which
the hunters observing, do saw the tree almost in two; where¬
on the beast leaning, by the fall of the tree falls also down
itself and is able to rise no more and so is easily taken."
This and other pardonable errors of fact the learned doctor
voluminously refutes by quotations from the classics and
otherwise.
Among such "old gray-headed errors" (as Sir Thomas
himself puts it) is also the notion that a man becomes
dumb if a wolf sees him before he sees the wolf. He sug¬
gests that this may spring from "a vehement fear, which
produceth obmutescence." Another is the alarm felt at the
ticking of the "death-watch." He describes the harmless
little insect and says that he that could explain the phenom¬
enon would extinguish " many cold sweats in grandmothers
and nurses."
But alas ! The learned doctor himself discards and ridi¬
cules the idea that the earth moves while the sun stands
still ! This may remind us of the fact that even after the
EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY POETS. 115
earth was admitted to be a round ball, many years elapsed
before its relations with the other heavenly bodies were
understood.
The fondness of the learned for making words out of the
Latin and Greek, which marked (among countless others)
Milton himself in that century and Johnson in the next, is
highly exemplified in Browne. They have a certain interest
in that they show how in the formation of our tongue, words
were thrown upon the current to sink or swim as their
nature and degree of usefulness might decide. It was not
till a full century afterward that the protest arose which
turned men's taste back to Chaucer as "the well of English
undefiled," and gauged the worth of a writer's style not by
its classicality but by its tendency to the old English idiom.
CHAPTER XVIII.
EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY POETS.
T is time now to take up the poets whose names
are identified with the first half of the seventeenth
century, which brings up the period to the execu¬
tion of Charles I. and the estabhshment of the Common¬
wealth. None of them, if we except Milton, whose earlier
poems were written at this time, can be called great; though
much of their work is pleasing, abounding in fancy, and
distinguished for smoothness of rhythm ; yet often marred
by quaint and affected diction. Some of this class of wri¬
ters have received the inappropriate name of metaphysical
poets —not because the science of the mind occupied their
attention in any way, but because their far-fetched " con¬
ceits" came from the intellect and not from the heart. The
earliest and one of the most noted of these was John
Donne (1573-1631), whose verses, in spite of awkward
disfigurement caused by straining after effect, show some
116
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
poetic feeling. His satires, the best known of his works,
are coarse and vigorous, and were much admired in their
day. Donne's personal history is more interesting than his
poetry. He fell in love with the daughter of Sir George
More and married her without her father's consent, where¬
upon Sir George took her away from him and caused
Donne and the friend who had given the bride away, to be
thrown into prison. They were soon released, but Donne
was obliged to have recourse to a long and expensive law¬
suit to get his wife again, and for some years they were on
the verge of starvation. A kind friend gave them a home
and it would seem that the poet's family was welcome every¬
where, for at a later time, when they were in distress, another
friend insisted that Donne with his wife and their eleven
children should live at his house. Donne went abroad
with his patron, and during his absence he and his wife
wrote each other every day. After some years of estrange¬
ment, Mrs. Donne's father was reconciled to the marriage,
and made his daughter and her husband an allowance,
which the latter voluntarily relinquished after his wife's death.
Donne had long been importuned, by the king and others
who knew his talents, to enter the church. He hesitated
from fear of unfitness, but at last yielded and became a
"fashionable" preacher. From this time he lived in comfort.
His poems are unequal in merit. One of the most
charming of his many love-songs is that addressed to his
wife when she pleaded against his leaving her to travel on
the continent. It begins :
Sweetest love, I do not go for weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show a fitter love for me.
Though Shakespeare still lies at Stratford where he was
originally buried, he has a monument in the crowded
"Poet's Corner" of Westminster Abbey ; and Donne, in a
fanciftil plea for room in the sacred corner for the bones of
the greatest of poets, penned these touching lines of appeal
EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY POETS. 117
that the elder tenants should make place for their later
brother :
Renownèd Chaucer, lie a thought more nigh
To rare Beaumont; and learned Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare, in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
When Donne drew near his end he ordered a coffin to
be made, in which was placed a board of the length of his
body. He next caused himself to be wrapped in his
winding-sheet as if he were dead. Being then placed up¬
right in the coffin, he had enough of the winding-sheet
unwound to show his thin, death-like face, and causea an
artist thus to paint his portrait. This picture he kept in
sight as long as he lived.
The day after Donne's burial some unknown person
wrote with a coal on the wall above his grave:
Reader, 1 am to let thee know,
Donne's body only lies below:
For could the grave his soul comprise.
Earth would be richer than the skies.
Another satirist, contemporary with Donne, was Joseph
Hall (1574-1656), Bishop of Norwich, who is also distin¬
guished for his sermons and other religious writings. His
prose-style is rich in imagery. The following extract will
give an idea of his satires, and at the same time a vivid
picture of life and manners in his time :
A gentle squire would gladly entertaine
Into his house some trencher-chapelaine,
Some willing man that might instruct his sons.
And that would stand to good conditions :
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed.
Whiles his young master lieth o'er his head;
Secondly, that he do, on no default.
Ever presume to sit above the salt;
Third, that he never change his trencher twice ;
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies.
118 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Sit bare at meals, and one hälfe rise and wait:
* * « « *
All these observed, he would contented be
To give five marks, and winter liverie.
Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639), whose life, by Isaak
Walton, makes him in his private character so interesting
to us, must be classed among the poets, though he wrote
but little verse. Like Sackville, he was too much occupied
with state afíairs to give much time to authorship. He
was frequently sent on foreign missions, and was devoted
with chivalrous affection to the daughter of James I., that
unfortunate Electress Palatine who was for a single winter
Queen of Bohemia. To her are addressed the beautiful
verses beginning:
Ye meaner beauties of the night:
Still finer is the poem called "A Happy Life," which closes
the description of an ideal Christian gentleman with the
words ;
This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself though not of lands.
And having nothing, yet hath all.
George Wither (1588-1667) was one of the few poets
who belonged to the Puritan interest. In his satire "Abuses
Stript and Whipt," he declaims boldly against the vices of
the age, which was that of James I. For this he was thrown
into prison, but he kept on with his writing and after a
while was released. When the Civil War broke out (1642),
he raised a troop of horse and fought against the king.
Being taken prisoner he was in danger of being hanged as
a rebel; but Sir John Denham, a brother poet and a
royalist, good-naturedly interceded for him, saying that he
wanted to have the pleasure of knowing that there was one
man in England who wrote worse verses than he did. This
joke probably saved WithePs life, and he lived on to a good
EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY POETS. 119
old age. Whatever Denham might say, we can not deny
the name of poet to the man who wrote the song containing
the often quoted words;
Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
******
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?
The name of William Browne (1590-1645), author of
"Britannia's Pastorals," must be included among the poets
of this epoch. He is scarcely more than a name to us,
and his "Pastorals" have made no great impression on the
literature of his country. The descriptions of natural
scenery are good, and Browne seems to have caught from
Spenser such inspiration as he possesses.
Of poets, Giles and Phineas Fletcher come next in order
of time. They were brothers, and cousins of John Fletcher,
the dramatist who wrote with Beaumont. The first-named
wrote religious allegories; the second is best known by a
poem called "The Purple Island," which island is man's
body.
A fine Scottish poet of the same time is William Drum-
mond of Hawthornden (1585-1649). He had a delicate
fancy and strong religious feeling, and his "Flowers of
Zion" are still readable. He wrote also some good sonnets.
The greatest of the religious poets of the seventeenth
century was George Herbert (1593-1633). He belonged
to the noble family of Pembroke and was, therefore, con¬
nected with Sir Philip Sidney, the "mirror of knighthood."
It is not difficult to trace in both cousins the character¬
istics which distinguished this illustrious family. Sincerity,
consideration for others, uprightness, loyalty both to sover¬
eign and to principle (not always easy to practise, in the
days of Elizabeth and James I.), disinterestedness, gener¬
osity—all these were to be found equally in the gallant
120 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
soldier and the meek divine. In the writing of each we
see the delicacy, the refinement, the sentiment of a true
poet, together with the quaint forms of expression which
belonged rather to the age than to the individual. At
Cambridge, Herbert did himself so much credit that King
James declared that he took him to be "the jewel of that
university." It is curious to remark that at this time the
young man's heart was somewhat set upon worldly vanities.
Even his admiring biographer, Isaak Walton, says: "His
genteel humor for clothes seemed to prove that he set
too much value on his parts and parentage, and if he
showed any error it was that he kept himself too much
retired and at too great a distance from all his inferiors.''
As may be supposed, this youthful characteristic entirely
disappeared when he became the saintly man whose
memory all delight to honor.
At thirty-three, Herbert resolved to devote himself to
the church. After some years, he became rector of the
little parish church at Bemerton (the next to the smallest
in England), where the last three years of his life were
passed. Here he wrote his "Temple," a collection of
short poems connected with the religious life, in which
there is the true poetic feeling, marred by the affectations
which seem to have been inseparable from the verses
written during the early years of the seventeenth century.
We should be the poorer, however, without "The Temple,"
which is full of noble thoughts, and contains many fine
images. Here are some detached verses:
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky.
The dews shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.
Judge not the preacher, for he is thy judge.
* * « « *
The worst speak something good ; if all want sense,
God takes a text and preacheth Patience.
EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY POETS. 121
Herbert's marriage reminds us of Hooker's—with a
difference. A friend of his, named Danvers, told Herbert
he should like to have him marry one of his nine daugh¬
ters; whichever one he chose, but Mr. Danvers wished ii
might be Jane. A meeting was arranged between Her¬
bert and this young lady; the rest of the story is best
told in his own words:
At this time a mutual affection entered into both their hearts, as
a conqueror enters into a surprised city, and made there such laws
and resolutions as neither party was able to resist; insomuch that
on the third day from this first interview Jane Danvers changed her
name into Herbert.
She made an excellent wife, and Herbert, though marry¬
ing in haste, did not repent at leisure.
The end of so much goodness and sweet contentment
came only too soon, the poet-preacher dying of consump¬
tion at the age of thirty-nine.
Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648), an older brother
of George, was a statesman of distinction in the reigns
of Elizabeth and James I. and a writer of philosophical
and historical works. Among the latter there are a historic
biography of Henry VIH. and an autobiography which
throws much light on the history of his own time.
Next to Herbert, Francis Quarles (1592-1644) holds
the highest place among the religious writers of the day,
and his "Divine Emblems" are still found among the well-
read books in old-fashioned libraries. Being on the royalist
side he was ruined in the Civil War, and his death is
thought to have been hastened by the destruction of his
choice books and rare manuscripts, which became the prey
of the Puritans.
Richard Crashaw (1613-50) who belongs to a somewhat
later period, may be mentioned here as a religious poet,
making a triad with Herbert and Quarles. He was brought
up in the English Church, but afterward became a Roman
Catholic.
122
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
His "Steps to the Temple" show great sweetness and a
fine ear, although in richness and variety they are inferior to
Herbert's "Temple." Crashaw wrote also secular poems,
among the most graceful of which is the one addressed to
an imaginary lady-love, beginning:
Whoe'er she be,
That not impossible she
That shall command my heart and me:
He wishes her
A face that's best
By its own beauty drest
« •)(■«« «
Sidneian showers
Of sweet discourse, whose powers
Can crown old Winter's head with flowers.
Days, that need borrow
No part of their good morrow
From a forespent night of sorrow.
»«■»**
Life that doth send
A challenge to its end
And when it comes, say "Welcome, friend."
Then if the reader knows
Her, that dares be
What these lines wish to see,
I seek no further; it is she.
In the verses of Robert Herrick (1591-1674), we find
a singular mixture of the secular and the religious spirit.
Some in the former style are marvels of grace and airy
fancy; others might better never have been written. He
was a clergyman, and in later life repented of these latter
and would gladly have blotted them out. His religious
poems show deep feeling, but he could never shake off
the habits of thought of his frivolous days. There is a
story that he once threw his written sermon down among
the congregation, abusing them for their inattention. Per
EARL Y SE VENTEENTH- CENTUR Y POE TS. 123
contra, it is said that he was "much beloved by the gentry."
Probably none of the gentry were present when he thus
gave way to his temper. In 1648, the year of Cromwell's
triumph and the beginning of the Commonwealth, being a
royalist, he was turned out of his living, and went to
London, where he had better company, but less to live on.
Here he published a collection of short poems (many of
them gems), which he named "Hesperides," because they
were written in the west.* His religious poems he pub¬
lished under the title, "Noble Numbers."
As a lyrical poet, Herrick stands unrivalled by any of
his contemporaries, and, as many critics think, by any
English writer. His songs, "Gather ye roses while ye may,"
"To Blossoms," and "To Daffodils," find a place in every
collection and will never grow out of date. Herrick lived
to be eighty-three years old; a circumstance very remark¬
able when it is remembered that no other poet of note,
bom about the same time or within the thirty years follow¬
ing, lived much beyond middle life, except George Wither,
who died at the good old age of seven ty-nine.t
Thomas Carew (1589-1639) wrote many pretty lyrics, of
which those best known are the two following:
Ask me no more where Jove bestows
When June is past, the fading rose, etc.
He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires, etc.
Most of his poems, however, though graceful, do not rise
above mediocrity. They were great favorites at the court
of Charles I.
Sir John Suckling (1609-42), a younger poet, was also
* Hesperia was the old Greek name for any unknown land lying
to the westward.
t Carew died at 50; Quarles at 52; Herbert at 39; Suckling at 32;
Denhara at 53 ; Crashaw at 37 ; Lovelace at 40.
124 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
read and quoted by the same gay set of pleasure-lovers.
He had a lively fancy and some humor, the latter quality
showing itself in his "Ballad on a Wedding," where he
describes the impressions made on a rustic by the sight of
London festivities ; and in his lines beginning :
Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prythee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her.
Looking ill prevail?
Sir John, an exception to most of the poets of his time,
was born to a fortune, but this did not save him from
adversity when his hour came. Two accounts exist of his
probable end; one says that he committed suicide on
being driven from England in 1641 on account of his
loyalty to the king, and the other that his death was owing
to the malice of a servant who had robbed him, and,
wishing to delay pursuit, left a penknife in Sir John's boot
which inflicted a wound in the heel causing his death.
Either way, it was a tragic end for one who had been the
centre of a brilliant society and noted for his wit, gayety'
and liberality. A stanza from the "Ballad on a Wedding"
will give an idea of its quality. The countryman is de¬
scribing the bride;
Her feet beneath her petticoat
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light :
And oh ! she dances such a way I
No sun upon an Easter day
Is half so ñne a sight.
The song quoted before is from one of Suckling's dramas.
We can not better close the list of "cavalier poets" than
with the name of Richard Lovelace (1618-58), a type of
the entire class. Of extraordinary personal beauty, with a
university education, living a gay, thoughtless, social life
until his loyalty to Charles I. brought him into trouble, we
follow him through many vicissitudes until we see him
SE VENTEENTH- CENTUR V POE TS. 125
dying, poor, neglected and dissipated, in an alley near
Shoe Lane.
Lovelace, being an ardent royalist, was selected by the
county of Kent to deliver a petition to the Long Parliament
praying that the king might be restored to his rights. For
this he was thrown into prison, where he wrote the beautiful
song entitled "To Althea, from Prison," in which occur
the lines ;
Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage.
He was released on heavy bail, and spent his fortune in
vain efforts to help the royal cause. When this became
hopeless he left his country and took service in the French
army, being wounded in the battle of Dunkirk. It was
before setting out on this enterprise that he wrote the
exquisite lines "To Lucasta,"(his lady-love), excusing him¬
self for leaving her. We give the last verse:
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you, too, shall adore :
I could not love thee, dear, so much.
Loved I not honor more !
Alas! A false rumor that he had died of his wounds
reached the ears of his Lucasta (Lucy Sacheverell), and she
married another person. On his return to England he was
again imprisoned. Released after the king's death, but
disappointed in his love, shorn of his fortune, and broken
in health and spirits, he sank miserably into the grave,
a sad contrast to his brilliant early prime.
In considering these "minor poets," we must keep in
mind, as a grim background to a variegated picture, the con¬
dition of the times they lived in ; times of political upheaval,
revolt against misgovernment, civil war, the beheading of a
king, the establishment of parliamentary supremacy followed
by a dictatorship, and the final restoration of monarchy in
a modified and limited form. The wonder is, not that there
126 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
was so little intellectual activity during those troublesome
years, but that there was so much; especially as the tri¬
umphant party, the Puritans, were quite out of sympathy
with such trivial matters as secular poetry. They chanted
the Psalms as they marched to battle; but sentiment they
looked upon as a snare of the devil.
Yet the bold, freedom-loving Englishmen kept on in their
way, refusing to be carried away by bigoted enthusiasm or
awed to silence by fear of the consequences of their
utterances.
CHAPTER XIX.
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY POETS, CONTINUED.
N trying to preserve some order of time among
writers of a century whose diiferent parts were so
widely separated in interest by the period of the
Commonwealth and the years of struggle preceding it, the
clearest method has seemed to be the grouping together of
those most known and talked about at the same time.
William Davenant (1606-68) wrote a long, tedious poem
called "Gondibert," but is better known by his efforts to
revive the drama, which had languished under the Puritan
Commonwealth. He is regarded as the connecting link
between the Elizabethan dramatists and those of Charles
II.'s time. He was imprisoned for being a royalist, but
when he was released he returned to his old business as
play-writer and theatre manager, and actually contrived
to have plays acted even in the face of the strict Puri¬
tan laws, by blending music with them and calling them
operas. Italian opera had lately been introduced into
France, where it had become very popular; and Davenant's,
although but a far-away imitation of it, passed muster as a
musical entertainment.
SE VENTEENTH- CENTUR Y POE TS.
127
After the Restoration, Davenant was again in favor. He
had been made poet-laureate in 1637, on the death of Ben
Jonson; this office was now restored to him, and he was
appointed manager of a company called "The Duke of
York's Players." In his patent a clause was inserted, stating
that "Whereas the women's parts in plays have hitherto
been acted by men in the habits of women, at which some
have taken offence; we do permit and give leave for the
time to come that all women's parts be acted by women
on the stage."
It is said that Davenant's life was saved by the inter¬
cession of Milton under the Puritan rule, and also that the
former returned the favor after the accession of Charles
II. when the greater poet was a fugitive. The anecdotes
may or may not be true; but it is pleasant to fancy these
political opponents meeting on the common ground of
interest in literature and treating one another as brothers.
Davenant seems to have regarded blank verse not as a
rhythmic and splendid structure of words, having all the
charm of poetry without the melodious fetters of rhyme,
but as a mere dividing up of poor prose into wretched and
formless lengths. Here is a specimen:
How did the governors of the
Severe house digest the employment my
Request did lay upon their gravities?
Think of this awkward balderdash, as the work of a
poet-laureate!
Edmund Waller (1605-87) wrote many pretty songs—
"Go, lovely rose," "To a Girdle," and some others; but
his character does not command our respect, and its
shallowness shows itself in his writings. He could be equally
flattering to King and Protector; and when Charles H.
laughingly told him that his verses on the death of Crom¬
well were better than the address of congratulation to
himself on his accession, the writer met him with the ready
128
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
answer: "Poets succeed better with fiction than in truth,
your Majesty." Waller's mother was a sister of John
Hampden, and his sympathies would naturally have been
given to the popular side; but although he espoused this
cause at first, he was constant to none, and changed his
allegiance as often as suited his convenience. He lived
to be eighty-two years old, and shortly before his death
wrote the poem in which these fine lines occur:
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries :
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks which time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become.
As they draw near to their eternal home;
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view.
That stand upon the threshold of the new.
Of Waller's excellence as a critic, we may form some
idea by his remarks about Milton. He says: "The blind
old poet hath published a tedious poem on the fall of
man. If its length be not considered as a merit, it hath
no other."
Sir John - Denham (1615-68), the good-natured poet
whose joke saved the life of his political opponent. Wither,
wrote a long descriptive poem about "Cooper's Hill" (a
beautiful place near Windsor), which received high praise
from Dryden. Posterity, however, has not borne out this
good opinion, finding the verses cold and fortual. One
quatrain certainly deserves to be remembered. It occurs
in an address to the river Thames:
Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme !
Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull ;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing, full.
Denham wrote a poor tragedy called "The Sophy,''
founded on a Turkish story.
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY POETS.
129
Henry Vaughan (1621-95), ^ Welshman and one of the
minor poets, wrote many devotional poems, collected under
the title "Silex Scintillans," some of which are equal to
Herbert's in purity of feeling and beauty of imagery. Here
is a beautiful stanza on the departed:
He that hath found some fledged bird's nest, may know
At first sight, if the bird be flown;
But what fair dell or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
Abraham Cowley (1618-67), a precocious boy who pub¬
lished a volume of poems at the age of thirteen, was thought
by many persons of his own day a better poet than Milton.
Time has reversed this judgment, though Cowley's poems
still read well in comparison with those of most of his
contemporaries. He has no delicate little gems such as
we find in the verses of Herrick, Waller or Lovelace ; but
his pieces have a sustained quality, and some of them
are very pleasing. He is a votary of the "metaphysical"
school which Donne made fashionable, and even his love-
poems show no depth of feeling. His most ambitious
work is the "Davideis," an unfinished poem intended for
an epic on the life of David, king of Israel. It is written
in heroic verse (ten-syllabled iambic metre), and shows a
correct ear, but the execution is dreary and the treatment
uninteresting. His fame as a poet must rest on his
shorter pieces.
It is as an essayist, however, that Cowley takes his stand
among the best writers of his day. Without the terseness
of Bacon, and on the other hand without the prolixity and
affectation of Browne, he gives us a foretaste of the grace
and versatility of Addison. The essays are still interesting,
and show the author to have been a man of learning,
refined tastes and good sense.
Cowley was, like most of the poets of his day, a staunch
royalist, and proved the sincerity of his attachment to
9
130 HISTOR Y OF ENGLISH LITERA TURE.
the cause by accompanying the royal family into exile in
France. Upon the Restoration, he naturally expected some
recompense for all this labor; but Charles II. preferred
to spend his money on new favorites rather than to reward
old services, and Cowley was suffered to end his life in
poverty. When he died, the king paid him the compliment
of saying that he had not left behind him a better man in
England, and the poet was honored with a tomb and
monument in Westminster Abbey, where he lies buried
near Chaucer and Spenser. "He asked for bread and they
gave him a stone."
Andrew Marvell (1620-78), at one time assistant-secretary
to Milton while the latter was employed by Cromwell's
government, was one of the few poets on the Puritan side.
He is most famous as a satirist, not sparing, in his keen
ridicule, either the king or the royal party^ generally. If
Charles II. had not been good-natured as well as profligate
he would not have endured couplets like these:
Ah Tudor ! Ah Tudor ! of Stuarts enough ;
None ever reigned like old Bess in the ruff.
But canst thou devise when things will be mended?
When the reign of the line of the Stuarts is ended.
The court-party would gladly have secured for their own
side one who wielded so sharp a pen, and Lord Danby, the
Lord Treasurer, was sent by the king with offers of money
and position if Marvell would come over to his side. It
was all useless; the old Puritan stood firm, and continued
to satirize the government, in prose and verse, to the day
of his death.
Marvell closes the short list of Puritan poets. Although
his name and that of Wither pale beside the mighty one of
Milton, all three did good service to their cause.
The most celebrated satirist on the royalist side, in fact,
almost the only one, was Samuel Butler (1612-80), author
of "Hudibras." He was the son of a farmer, and picked
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY POETS.
131
up a good education without going through a college course,
though he studied for a short time at Cambridge. While
still young he entered the service of Sir Samuel Luke, a
Puritan justice-of-the-peace, whom he is supposed to ridi¬
cule in his verses. After the Restoration, Butler gave vent
to his long suppressed feelings in the famous satire, which
instantly became popular though it brought him no money.
Charles II. carried about a copy of it in his pocket and
often quoted from it, but he did nothing for the author, who
died in poverty and obscurity a year or two after the pub¬
lication of the last part of his poem.
"Hudibras" (which the writer rhymes with ass, thus set¬
tling the pronunciation of the name) is a pompous Presby¬
terian knight who starts out with his squire, Ralpho, to seek
adventures and put down cavaliers. The idea is evidently
suggested by the story of Don Quixote and Sancho
Panza. They have many encounters with the Cavalier
party, generally coming out worst; and the overflowing wit
and bubbling humor prevented the nine cantos from becom¬
ing wearisome to the earliest readers. It is impossible to
give an idea of the fun which appealed to the readers of
that time; but a few couplets will show the keen wit of the
author:
What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was proved true before
Prove false again? Two hundred more.
Ah me ! what perils do environ
The man who meddles with cold ironl
I am not now in fortune's power;
He that is down can fall no lower.
To swallow gudgeons ere they're catched,
And count their chickens ere they're hatched.
For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain.
He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still.
132
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XX.
JOHN MILTON.
N a strictly chronological arrangement, the name
of John Milton (1608-74) would have taken its
place before several of the poets already men¬
tioned; but Milton stands so emphatically alone in his
generation, belonging to no group and to be compared
with no other poet, that it has seemed best to consider him
separately. Although not an aged man when he died,
his life falls naturally into three parts, each marked by
literary achievements which of themselves would have
been enough to fill the record of an ordinary man and
win for him enviable renown.
Milton is classed by all critics in all lands as one of
the world's great poets. Macaulay ranked his and Bun-
yan's as the only two creative minds of the eighteenth
century; and most authorities would consider this coup¬
ling of the names together as a greater compliment to
the latter than the former, great as was the "inspired
tinker." Both were "Non-comformists"; that is, in a cer¬
tain sense Puritans; but Milton was so much a lover of
liberty that he disclaimed absolute subjection even to
Cromwell's government; as witness his refusal to apply
for a license to publish his pamphlet on divorce, or his
"Areopagitica" or plea for entire freedom of the press,
which was, in fact an attack upon the Puritan parliament
itself. He was an Independent to the uttermost.
It is one of the curious anomalies of the time that Mil¬
ton's grandfather was a rigid Roman Catholic, and disinher¬
ited John, the Puritan poet's father, because he became an
Episcopalian. The latter took up the business of scrivener,
or writer of law-papers; but he must have had peculiar
JOHN MILTON.
133
ability or some capital now unknown, for he was also a
professional money-lender, and was able to educate hissons
handsomely, to retire with a competence, and to make the
poet an allowance sufficient to supply his moderate needs.
Milton's life, up to thirty, was spent in leisure and tranquility;
at school, at Cambridge University, at his father's pleasant
country home in Horton, and in Continental travel. This
is the time of the production of the lighter and more grace¬
ful of his poems; themselves of a quality fit to make his
name infmortal, even if he had not lived to write "Paradise
Lost." The second period of his life includes the time of
the Civil War and the Commonwealth; from the opening of
the Long Parliament in 1640 to the restoration of monarchy
in 1660. During this time he wrote chieñy political and
theological works; he being a supporter of the Puritan cause.
He lived fourteen years after the Restoration; and to this
period of blindness, old age and comparative neglect we
owe (beside some exquisite sonnets) " Paradise Lost,"
" Paradise Regained" and the grand drama of "Samson
Agonistes," or the dying Samson.
He was born in Bread Street, London, and received the
most careful training. As a boy he was an eager student, a
leaning which his father never checked, even when it led
him (at twelve years old) to pore over his books habitually
till after midnight. This, considering the wretchedness of
the candles and lamps of those days, seems to account for
the failure of his eyesight, which led to total blindness thirty
years later. At sixteen he entered Christ's College, Cam¬
bridge, where he passed eight studious years. His fellow-
students nicknamed him " the lady," to which he retorted
that he wished they could as readily doff their ass's ears as
he could get rid of whatever of the woman there might be
in him. There is a portrait of him at twelve years old
which is only the first of many, all showing beauty and
grace, and those of his late years, a majestic dignity.
134
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
He indicates in one of his sonnets, that though his eyes
are sightless they are not disfigured.
Milton was among the writers called precocious; and in
his case (as seems to be the universal rule) precocity showed
itself in poetry. At twelve he wrote the admirable versifi¬
cation of the one hundred and thirty-sixth Psalm, beginning:
Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord, for he is kind;
and before he was twenty-one, his beautiful hymn on the
Nativity. He spent , six more years of study living at
home with his father, who would have liked to see John
take up some specific occupation; yet never let his not
doing so interfere with their loving relations. The father
was an accomplished musician, and from him the son took
that taste for melody and harmony which was a delight and
solace to the end of his life.
" The Masque of Comus," the best known of Milton's
early poems, is one of the spectacular plays, popular in those
days, which were played and sung at country-houses, out of
doors or within, by hosts and guests dressed to assume
allegorical characters. A sadder subject brought out a
still more beautiful poem. "Lycidas," the most famous
death-song in our language, was written on the occasion of
the drowning of his friend Edward King while crossing the
Irish sea.
Milton's younger brother had now married and was living
with their father; which, greatly to his delight, left John
free to travel abroad. At Florence, he visited old Galileo,
still under ban for the heresy of sapng that the earth
moves.
The Civil War broke out while Milton was abroad; and
patriotic duty turned his steps at once homeward, where he
served the cause of freedom with a pen which was more
effective than any sword or matchlock wielded at Edgehill.
His father and brother had moved away from Horton, and
JOHN MILTON.
135
their new home was too far from the centre of activity;
therefore he hired humble lodgings in London, and took
several pupils to teach; all children of his own friends.
His school was of the most toilsome and painstaking kind,
and one of the scholars has left a picture of the vast mass
of knowledge which was forced upon them by their exacting
master. "Hard study and spare diet" was the plan, and
seven days' work each week the stint; for Sunday was
given up to theology.
At the same time he was writing stoutly against prelacy
and tyranny; and his powers of vituperation were great. Not
long afterward he married a girl of seventeen (half his own
age), whose maiden name was Mary Powell. She was the
daughter of a staunch royalist; and as was the fashion
among the Cavaliers, her home had been one of great
gayety. Mistress Milton quickly tired of domestic duty
and dullness, "plain living and high thinking," and almost as
soon as the honey-moon was over she went off on a visit
to her own people. Milton, absorbed in his work, did not
miss her very much ; but when the time set for her return
passed, and his repeated letters asking her to come home
brought no answers, he began to see that his wife wished to
make the separation final. At this time he wrote certain
pamphlets on divorce, advocating a change in the laws
which should provide a remedy for such injuries as his.
In 1645, two years after the marriage, the battle of
Naseby put the royalists at the bottom and the inde¬
pendents at the top of affairs; a state of things having
among its consequences the return of Mistress Milton,
and, after a short interval (the Powell mansion having
been sold for debt) the arrival of the whole family, who
were quartered on the long-suffering son-in-law. A letter,
written by him to a friend in Rome, clearly shows the
dreadful nature of the infliction. At his house (which
stood in Barbican, a street in London), Mr. Powell died;
136
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
and a few months later Milton's own lovable and beloved
father. Mrs. Powell saved what she could from the wreck
of the family estate, and in course of time found another
home, leaving Milton once more alone in his own house
with his wife and his little girls. The school had prob¬
ably been given up on the return of Mrs. Milton, if not
before.
Milton's help had already been of great worth to the
Commonwealth, and he now wrote continually in its sup¬
port Beside his political pamphlets he wrote a few son¬
nets; and for the first time a collection of his poems was
made and published; including, among some less import¬
ant, "Comus," "Lycidas," "L'AllegroJ' and "11 Penseroso."
He also began to frame the scheme for "Paradise Lost,"
as is shown by some memoranda he has left suggesting
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
After the beheading of the king, Cromwell's government
became stable and recognized, and it was then that Milton
was appointed to the office of Foreign Secretary and found
use for his elegant accomplishments, the knowledge of
Latin and several continental tongues. His controversial
writings of the period show an acrimony, a coarse abusive-
ness, that seem inconsistent with his refined and gentlemanly
nature; and we can only attribute it to the violence and
bitterness of the time. One of these belligerent utterances
was the proximate cause of his blindness. His sight had
long been failing, and his physician told him that if he
persisted in his task of writing a certain pamphlet (a
reply to an attack by Salmasius of Holland) he would
risk total blindness, but persist he did and the blindness
followed. In one of his sonnets he glories that he lost
his eyes in liberty's defence.
His better-known sonnet on his blindness is perhaps
the grandest production of that form of verse in any
language.
JOHN MILTON.
137
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent, which is death to hide.
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask: But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, ' ' God doth not neea
Either man's work or Plis own gifts: Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed.
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who, only stand and wait.
He Still remained Latin-secretary to Cromwell; helped
(among others) by his brother poet and warm friend Andrew
Marvell. A year or two later his wife died, leaving him with
three young daughters, the oldest only seven years old. He
engaged a teacher for them, but refused to have them taught
any other language than English, saying that one tongue
was enough for a woman. The cruelty and wrong of this
became apparent later; for when the girls were called upon
to read aloud to their blind father, for hour after hour, page
after page of Latin, not understanding a word of what they
were reading, human nature could not bear it, and the
love that should have bound father and daughters together
was lost. It is a pity to have to give up the pleasant
tradition that " Paradise Lost" was written by his daughters
at the blind poet's dictation; but it is only a fiction. The
records left of the daughters' conduct—especially that of
the two elder—is shocking; and in his wDl their father
speaks of them as his "unkind children," "they having been
very undutiful to me." (He was then living with his third
wife, and the will was in her favor.) After some years of
unhappiness the daughters went away to learn embroidery,
whereby they maintained themselves. They never married.
138 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
and therefore (as seems usual with poets) the line came to
an untimely end.
At the restoration of Charles II., Milton's name is known
to have been on the proscribed list, and it is supposed that
his life was only saved by the intervention of some one
having influence at court (whether Davenant or another)
who had love for Milton or poetry. It would be hard, one
would think, to lead a helpless blind poet to the block; yet
Milton's words against the Stuarts had been so many, so
bitter and so powerful, that the poet himself must have
been surprised at flnding his life spared. In fact, only a
few were beheaded except those personally concerned in
the condemnation and death of Cfiarles I.
His third wife was a very capable woman, who made the
last eleven years of his life quite comfortable; in spite of an
extreme narrowness of means, caused by a heavy fine ex¬
acted at the Restoration, and the loss of his house in the
great fire of London in 1666. We can not but fancy that
there was a knot of the old Puritan worthies, bound together
by a community of memories, of principles and of misfor¬
tunes, who stood manfully together in adversity as they had
in battle and triumph; and that in such a society, John
Milton could never be forlorn though sightless, in misery
though poor. Indeed, we learn that he had several devoted
friends, both old and young, who came and sat with him,
read to him, wrote for him, so that he complained no more
of loneliness.
His older works may have given him some income at
this time; but for "Paradise Lost"—one of the world's
greatest sun-bursts of poetry — he received just ^^'5 in
hand and more for each additional 1500 copies; pay¬
ments which reached ¿20 in all!
It would be impossible to describe "Paradise Lost" and
superfluous to praise it. It simply may be said that no
English education, no cultivation attained by any English-
BUNYAN. THE DIARISTS.
139
speaking person, can be held to approach completeness
which ^oes not include the knowledge of that greatest of
English poems.
CHAPTER XXL
BUNYAN. THE DIARISTS.
OHN BUNYAN (1628-88) holds a dual place in
the world's regard; first as a martyr—almost an
apostle—of religion and morals; second, as a
genius in literature. He was bom at Elston in Bedford¬
shire. His father was a tinker, which in those days was
nearly synonymous with vagrant, for tinkers in general
were disreputable wanderers like the gypsies, if not like
them beggars and pilferers. But Bunyan's father seems
to have had a home of his own, and to have sent his son
to the village-school—at the serious outlay of fourpence
a month, for in those days education was a rare luxury
to the poor.
Bunyan early felt a strong religious bent ; as was shown
by fits of morbid remorse for trivial faults, and strenuous,
though often ineffectual, attempts to cure them; yet the
chief sins from which sprang this remorse were dancing,
ringing the church-bells, playing "tip-cat" (a harmless
boyish diversion) and reading the "profane" romance of
Sir Bevisof Southampton; a fabulous knight whose exploits
were like those of the better known myth Guy of Warwick.
The last-named sin we are prone to pardon—if not praise
—for two reasons : In the first place the world in general
has long since ceased to condemn the reading of fiction
as such, provided it contain nothing debasing to morals
or destructive to piety; and, second, it must have been
the power gained in this way that enabled Bunyan to
140
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
construct, in later years, the immortal allegory of the
"Pilgrim's Progress."
As to the "ringing," there is something significant and
almost pathetic in that. It was not any unlawful or
outrageous practice. It was merely a joyful peal on the
church-bells given out on holidays and Sunday evenings,
as a kind of serenade to the retiring people. But to the
Puritans (of whom Bunyan was one) all amusements were
sinful, undevout, worldly, and therefore unworthy of God's
people. So poor Bunyan, torn between natural gayety and
imposed restraint, says ;
Before this I had taken much delight in ringing, but my conscience
beginning to be tender, I thought such practice vain, and therefore
forced myself to leave it ; yet my mind hankered ; wherefore I would
go to the steeple-house and look on, though I durst not ring.
At about seventeen he enlisted as a soldier in the parlia¬
mentary army that was fighting against Charles I., the
Roundheads against the Cavaliers. This experience was
another help to his pen in later years. His pages abound in
camps and fortresses, and drums and trumpets calling Chris¬
tians to arms; as well as giants, dragons, lions and enchanted
caves and castles. In his "Holy War" (which it is said would
be the best allegory in literature if he had not also written
the "Pilgrim's Progress"), his description of the losing and
retaking of the city of Mansoul shows the thoughts, knowl¬
edge and experience of a soldier in Cromwell's army.
After the end of his military career he married, at about
nineteen, the woman who became the good genius of his
life. Whatever was best in him she fostered, and from all
that was evil she weaned him by the charm of her gentle¬
ness and purity. We lose our regret at his giving up the
dancing, tip-cat and bell-ringing when we learn that he was
not so much driven from them by his own bigotry as
drawn from them by her gentle influence. At about this
time he experienced such a spasm of pious fervor as
BUNYAN. THE DIARISTS.
141
amounted nearly to what is known as "religious mania,"
and almost unsettled his reason, although this did not show
itself in regard to the common affairs of life; in them his
conduct was uniformly discreet. He felt as certaih of the
ph5«ical presence of the devil as did Luther in his prison
on the Wartburg. He thought himself another Judas; and,
as he tells us in his autobiography, expected to burst asunder
in the midst like his prototype. Spiritual peace followed
the storm, but it was years before^iis mind recovered its tone.
His pastor in the Bedford cháj)el (Baptist) dying, Bun-
yan, who had shown himself powerful in prayer and
exhortation, unwillingly became a preacher; and his intense
fervor made him a power in the work. Illiterate he was
—but so were his hearers, and zeal more than atoned for
all deficiencies.
The law forbade any man to preach who had not been
regularly ordained, and the poor tinker, the self-taught,
self-made exhorter, though during the Commonwealth he
had been unmolested, fell under the royal ban in the first
year of the restoration. The king forbade him to speak,
but his conscience forbade him to keep silence; brute
force prevailed over mere conscious rectitude and Bunyan
spent nearly twelve years in Bedford jail. His prison
stood upon a bridge, and his cell was said to be damp
enough "to make the moss grow upon the prisoner's
eyebrows." It was so dark that it was only by long habit
he could work. Yet work he must to support his wife
and children. As the tinker's trade was impossible in
confinement, the kind jailor helped him to an expedient
through which a pittance might be earned; it was the
putting tags on stay-laces; and the poor prisoner furnished
yearly many thousands of these to the hawkers or peddlers.
What made his case the harder was that one of his children
was blind; a thought that added the last pang of anguish
to his imprisonment Said he; "Poor child! I can not
142 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
bear that even the wind should blow on thee; and now
thou must suffer cold and hunger, thou must beg, thou
must be beaten—and yet," he added, "I must do it."
This is pathetic, tear-compelling, even after the lapse of
centuries.
Bunyan could not be idle. He drew his fellow-prisoners
together in a religious society in which he was pastor,
and labored to do them good. He had for his only reading
a Bible, Fox's "Book of Martyrs," and one or two other
religious books ; these he read over and over until he knew
them almost by heart. His one relaxation was indulged in
by stealth; a recreation which proved also an immortal
creation; the writing of the first part of the "Pilgrim's
Progress."
His own account of the way in which his book grew is
most interesting. He says :
When at first I took my pen in hand
Thus for to write, I did not understand
That I at all should make a little book
In such a mode. Nay, I had undertook
To make another, which, when almost done,
Before I was aware, I this begun.
And thus it was. I writing of the way
And race of saints in this our gospel-day,
Fell suddenly into an allegory
About their journey and the way to glory
In more than twenty things which I set down;
This done, I twenty more had in my crown
And they again began to multiply
Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly.
Looked at from any point of view, the "Pilgrim's Pro¬
gress" is one of the most remarkable works of imagina¬
tion ever produced. That a man who had read so little
should show such varied invention was strange; but that
he should be capable of a sustained flight of creative
fancy, where nothing is forced or out of place, and where
BUNYAN. THE DIARISTS.
143
each illustration has the aptness usually found only in a
practised writer, is wonderful indeed.
When his book was finished he showed it to several
of his pious friends. Some liked it, perceiving at once
its unique merit; while others were shocked at it. The
Lord's people, they thought, ought not to wish truth offered
to them in so frivolous a form, nor enjoy it when it did
not come in the shape of sermons, psalms and pious dis¬
sertations. But the work was done; the lamp was lighted
and burns on, now and forever.
In 1672, a law was passed by which the restrictions on
irregular preaching were removed or modified, and he
stepped out of the dismel jail to light and life; even in
a few years to ease and renown. Yet nothing disturbed
the even tenor of his way. He kept on preaching, talk¬
ing and working for good. He published in all sixty
books, large and small. He went constantly from place
to place, stirring up the people to well-doing; and showed
himself especially strong in the ending of quarrels. It
was while engaged on one of these errands of righteous¬
ness that he brought on the illness that caused his death.
He rode a long distance to plead with an angry father the
cause of a disinherited son; he prevailed; then he rode
back home in a pouring rain which drenched him to the
skin. A fever followed, of which he died in a few days.
So passed away one of the most striking, large-hearted, ad¬
mirable, lovable figures in literary history. The picture of that
humble, unlettered worker, soldier, preacher, prisoner; "The
Shakespeare of Theology," as some enthusiast has called
him, toiling and preaching in his jail, tagging the staylaces
for the few pence it would earn for the dear ones at home,
thinking now of the blind darling out of his sight as he
was out of hers, now of the haps and mishaps of Christian
and Hopeful, and always of his duties to God and his fellow-
men—the picture once impressed upon the soul can never
144
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
be effaced; and one feels a glow of thankfulness that his
life ended in peace and honor, instead of what is, alas, more
usual, martyrdom.
About 1650 some new kinds of writing became popular;
for instance the "diary," a personal record of current events.
This gave rise to a class of writers known as "the diarists,"
of whom John Evelyn (1620-1706) and Samuel Pepys*
(4633-1703) were the chief exemplars. Each of them was
a man of good social standing, each wrote several books of
which all but one are now forgotten, and each wrote one
(quite worthless when written) which will endure for ages,
growing in value as the years pass. Then, too, of each it
maybe said "a better man might be better spared"; several
greater writers would have caused less of a blank in litera¬
ture if they had left their works unwritten.
The reason of this seeming paradox is to be found in the
diarists' choice of a subject, accidental as that choice was
in each case. Neither of their diaries was written with any
idea of publication. The choice happened to fall upon
the common things about them, the actual occurrences of
every-day life—things too trivial for the attention of poet,
essayist, dramatist, historian or scientific writer. In our
day this photographic view of life and manners is embalmed
in the realistic novel; but that is the invention of a later
time than the age of "the diarists," and if they had not
(unconsciously) caught and transcribed the scenes they lived
in, those scenes would have perished from the world with
the actors in them. Of such writers as Evelyn, Pepys and
Boswell it may again be said, "They builded better than
they knew."
Evelyn's life extended over eighty-six years, and included
the greater part of the space filled in history by James I.,
* This name is now pronounced "Peps" though the fact that some¬
body in that day wrote it ' ' Peeps, " would tend to show that the latter
gives more nearly the colloquial sound.
BUNYAN. THE DIARISTS.
145
Charles I., the Commonwealth, Charles II., James II. and
Queen Anne. He was an active man and a great traveler,
spending at one stretch twelve years abroad. The larger
part of the first volume of his diary is taken up with a
description of his journey on the continent. In Holland he
saw, for the first time, an elephant, and his naïve wonder
and quaint description are amusing. His portrayal of
continental life and manners is interesting, particularly that
of the wretched galley-slaves, chained to their seats and
their oars. At home he gives a glimpse of what was called
" sport"—a horse baited to death with dogs, cock-fighting,
dog-fighting, etc., and adds; "I was heartily weary of the
rude and dirty pastime."
Near Tunbridge Wells he was set upon by foot-pads,
robbed, and left bound to a tree, from which after long
efforts he worked loose his swoUen hands. One of the rob¬
bers was afterward captured, but he would not appear
against him, being unwilling, as he says, to hang the fellow.
He stayed manfully in London through the great plague of
1665, but unfortunately leaves little note of it save dreary
statistics; deaths 2,000, 4,000, 5,000, and 10,000, weekly.
Of the great fire of 1666 he gives a vivid description.
Being like most other literary men of his time, a staunch
royalist, he called Cromwell always "The Usurper," and said
of his burial; "It was the joyfullest funeral I ever saw. No
one cried but the dogs!"
Samuel Pepys, the second "diarist" (whom by the way
Evelyn speaks of as an "extraordinary ingenious and know¬
ing person"), was a less respectable character and far more
amusing and valuable chronicler than was the other. How
astonished would both have been could they have known
that their names would go down to posterity linked
together I
Pepys was a strange conglomeration of quite discordant
elements, but on the whole, the most disreputable personage
10
146
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
who ever betrayed himself by posthumous confessions. He
was the son of a tailor, and though in that day a trade was
recognized as a bar to possible reception in high society,
yet he, through his tact and cleverness, found himself among
almost the highest. He was a marvel of vanity, simplicity,
gluttony, self-control, affectionateness, brutality, faithlessness
to domestic ties, faithfulness to every other trust and duty
he assumed, extravagance and economy, ignorance and
scholarly tastes, generosity and meanness, piety and utter
immorality, and withal of power to gain and keep public
respect. He kept his journal largely in cipher; changed
the cipher from time to time and wrote much of it in Span¬
ish, to complete the disguise in which he had wrapped
up his record. It was not deciphered until within the
present century.
We first make his acquaintance when he is very poor,
just married to a beautiful young girl and having nothing
wherewith to support her. He had, however, a "patron,"
Lord Sandwich (a connection of Mrs. Pepys), who, early
in their married life gave the young couple a little room
in his house, wherein, Pepys says, his wife washed his
soiled linen. In the midst of this uncertainty as to daily
bread, he was offered the position of secretary to some
naval officer, which he accepted with joy and filled with
ability. The very next day he received a letter addressed
"Samuel Pepys, Esquire" (he had before been only "Mr.")
of which he says "God knows I was not a little proud."
Upon taking this office he employed a ship's mate to
teach him "mathematics," and one of his journal entries
reads: "Up at 4 o'clock and at my multiplication-table
hard, which is all the trouble I meet with in my mathé¬
matique." His advance was now steady—even rapid—
and great. He became not in name, but in effectiveness,
the chief power in English naval affairs; and brought the
navy from a corrupt ruin to a comparatively respectable
BUN Y AN. THE DIARISTS.
147
institution. At the same time he enriched himself by pec¬
ulation; and even in his diary there exists a significant
entry which records a new arrangement for the victualing
of Tangier, which will save the king jr^\,ooo and gain
Pepys ;¿^3oo a year. Again; he would not be "bribed to
be unjust," though he was "not so squeamish as to refuse
a present after."
The contents of Pepys's diary, the picture it presents of
morals and manners in the last days of the Stuart dynasty,
belong rather to a history of England than to a history
of English literature. In style the work has the charm—
also the imperfections—of absolute, unstudied, artless frank¬
ness. Looking toward no reader, he made a confidant of
himself. The growth of the language in its colloquial
form is well illustrated; as all his talk is of clothes, food,
drink, visiting and other common matters. At a tavern where
a party had ordered supper he says "we found a sallat and
two or three bones of mutton for ten of us, which was very
strange." At another time he remarks " I did send for a cup of
tee, a China drink which I never had drank before." Again:
"This morning observing some things not to be laid up as
they should be by my girl, I took a broom and basted her
till she cried extremely, which vexed me; but before I
went out I left her appeased." Being unexpectedly invited
to a large dinner he says: "I not being neat in clothes,
which I find a great fault in me, could not be so merry
as otherwise, and this makes me remember my father's
rule for a gentleman, which was to spare in all things
rather than that." (A very natural principle for a tailor!)
At his cousin's house they had "a little breakfast and a
very poor one, such as I could not feed on because of
my she-cozen's gouty hands." Another entry reads: "Went
to the burial of my Aunt Kit, where beside us and my
Uncle Fenner's family there was none of any quality, but
only poor and rascally people."
148
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Pepys had a salary attached to his ofBce, but, as his
biographer remarks; "Public men must have starved if
they had not taken fees, for the king had no idea of
wasting his money paying salaries." At the time of his
death there was owing to him 8,000, not a penny of
which was ever paid; and the original vouchers or acknowl¬
edgments of indebtedness remain in the family to this
day. So we know that Samuel maintained his family, and
accumulated a fortune beside, by "fees" extracted from the
public by a salaried (?) officer.
Before we set the old fellow down as an unmitigated
snob and fraud, we must consider the corrupt and shame¬
less age in which he lived; and remember that he, this
tailor's son, uneducated except by his own efforts, collected
a curious and valuable library, and left it to Magdalen* Col¬
lege, Oxford, where it exists to this day as "The Pepysian
Collection."
CHAPTER XXII.
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
HE one contemporary historian of the Common¬
wealth is Edward Hyde (1608-74), afterward
Earl of Clarendon, a most notable figure in the
history of the time. Born of an ancient though not noble
family, he belonged of right to the highest social circle,
and enjoyed the society of the best minds of his time. He
was bred to the law, and had already attained some distinc¬
tion in his profession, when, in April, 1640, he took his seat
in the Short Parliament, and during its session of three
• Pronounced ' ' Maudlin, " a word which has been added to our
language through the fact that the Magdalen was always represented
weeping.
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS. 149
weeks distinguished himself as an advocate of reform. In
the Long Parliament, which met in September of the same
year, he was equally zealous for the popular cause, and
strong in his condemnation of ship-money; but when Epis¬
copacy was threatened with downfall, he changed to the
royalist side and was from that time forth one of the king's
firm supporters.
After the king's cause was hopelessly lost, Clarendon
occupied himself in writing his "History of the Rebellion,"
of which only four books were finished when he was called
upon to join Prince Charles (afterward Charles II.) in his
exile in France. During the years that passed before the
Restoration, Hyde was constant in his efforts to provide for
Charles's support, often a difficult task, and he shared in the
home-coming in 1660.
He was now both Lord Chancellor and Chancellor of
the Exchequer, and was soon created Earl of Clarendon.
His daughter Anne married the king's brother James, Duke
of York. Hyde, as minister of Charles IL, sold Dunkirk to
France, that the ever-grasping king might have more money
at command. This was a political mistake, for it touched
the national pride, and the earl was impeached by the
Commons and only saved himself by voluntary exile. He
spent the rest of his life in France, completing both his
history and his autobiography, which together form a valu¬
able contribution to the records of his time.
As a historian he is not impartial, but there is no doubt
of his honest desire to tell the truth, though his predilec¬
tions naturally cause some bias in favor of the royal
partisans.
Of the Noncomformist preachers of England during the
seventeenth century, none is so widely known as Richard
Baxter (1615-91), author of "The Saints' Everlasting Rest,"
and "A Call to the Unconverted," both of which hold their
place on the shelves of our religious libraries. Baxter
150
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
began life as a clergyman of the Established Church ; he was
a friend of monarchy, and incurred the displeasure of
Cromwell by his assertion of the king's rights; but he could
not conscientiously take the oaths required of all clergymen
after the Restoration, and felt it his duty to cast in his lot
with the Dissenters. When he was seventy years old, a
passage in one of his books complaining of the severities
practised toward Dissenters was held to be seditious, and
he was brought to trial before the infamous Judge Jeffreys,
the perpetrator of "The Bloody Assizes." At the trial,
Baxter and his lawyers vainly endeavored to speak in his
defence. The Judge would not listen, but silenced their
attempts at an answer by roaring out, "Richard, thou art
an old knave! Thou hast written books enough to fill a
cart, and every book is as full of sedition as an egg is
full of meat. Dost thou think we will let thee poison the
court?" Before such a judge it was useless to try to plead.
Jeffreys imposed an enormous fine which it was impossible
for Baxter to pay, and he was thrown into jail, where he lay
for a year and a half, being finally released at the inter¬
cession of a friend. He lived to see the downfall of the
vile magistrate, and died full of years and honors, having
the satisfaction of seeing his brother Dissenters again in
the enjoyment of that freedom for which he had contended
so valiantly.
William Penn (1644-1718), the well-known Quaker or
Friend whose name is so pleasantly connected with the
settlement of our own country, wrote several religious books,
the most popular being one written in prison—"No Cross,
No Crown." He also published "A Brief Account of the
People called Quakers," for the information of the public,
who were strongly prejudiced against the Friends on
account of the intemperate conduct of some of their num¬
ber. This body suffered much persecution, very severe
penal laws being directed against them, both in old and
New England.
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS. 151
Robert Barclay, of Ury in Scotland, whose name is made
familiar to us by Whittier's fine poem, was another Friend
who "bore witness to the truth." At one time he was shut
up, with others, in a prison so dark that unless the keeper
left the door open they could not see to eat the food
brought to them. Barclay wrote several books, the most
important one being an "Apology [Vindication] for the
people called in scorn, Quakers," and a spirited setting
forth of their doctrine.
Of the sermon-writers who form so brilliant a galaxy
during the reigns of Charles II. and William III. we can
do no more than mention the names. Isaac Barrow,
Robert South, Edward Stillingfleet, William Sherlock,
Thomas Ken (Bishop of Bath and Wells), and John Til-
lotson (Archbishop of Canterbury), were all eloquent preach¬
ers. Bishop Ken wrote some beautiful hymns. Their
sermons collected and published, have passed into literature.
Sir William Temple (1628-99), Clarendon, was both
a statesman and a man of letters. He negotiated, on the
part of England, the celebrated Triple Alliance, and arranged
the marriage, productive of such benefit to his country, of
the Princess Mary and William of Orange, afterward the
"William and Mary" of English history. In the intervals
of a most active life, he still found time for writing his
graceful "Essays," and for practising with great success
his favorite recreation of gardening. He lived at Moor
Park, in Surrey, where we shall hear of him again as the
patron of Jonathan Swift. His "Memoirs," or recollections
of the public events in which he had taken part, are instruc¬
tive and interesting.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), scholar, philosopher and
man of science, is one of the most remarkable figures of
the seventeenth century. Born in the year of the Spanish
Armada, he lived for ninety-one years a busy intellectual
life, continuing to write until within a very few years of his
152
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
death. His writings are chiefly political, and are founded on
a singular conception of the nature of government. He sets
out with the idea that the groundwork of all human actions is
selfishness, and argues that to keep the ferocious and selfish
horde in order, a strong government is necessary ; if strong,
then the stronger the better, a despotic monarchy being the
best of all. The work in which these theories are pro¬
pounded is called the "Leviathan."
His first work was a translation of Thucydides, intended
to show his countrymen the evils of a government by the
people. At eighty he wrote the "Behemoth," a history of
the Civil War, of course from the royalist point of view.
His works were most displeasing to religious people, and to
those inclining toward republicanism, but were applauded
by those of the monarchical party.
The age was, naturally, rich in political writers. Sir
Robert Filmer upheld the cause of monarchy to an extent
that to us seems absurd. According to his theory, the king
alone should make laws, the business of the parliament
being only to carry out his decisions and to give advice and
assistance when asked to do so.
James Harrington Í1612-77), ^ political work called
"Oceana," claimed that all government was based on prop¬
erty. This pleased neither royalists nor republicans, and
Cromwell ordered the publication of it to be stopped. Mrs.
Claypole, the Protector's daughter, interceded for Harring¬
ton and the book was published, Cromwell at the same time
remarking that what he had won by the sword he should
not allow himself to be scribbled out of.
Another writer on the Republican side was Algernon Sid¬
ney (1622-83), a connection of Sir Philip's family. Though
belonging to the aristocracy, he had always been a hater
of tyranny. On the false testimony of a worthless poli¬
tician, he was convicted of a share in the Rye-House plot
(for dethroning Charles II.) and sentenced to the block.
SEVENTEENTH -CENTURY WRITERS. 153
where he suffered at the same time with Lord Russell,
who was beheaded with as little reason. In connection
with the latter we have the name of Lady Rachel Russell,
his heroic wife, whose "Letters" give her a niche in English
literature, as her character and conduct place her in the rank
of England's noblest women.
We may mention here the other two women whose names
figure among the writers of the seventeenth century. Mrs.
Catherine Phillips, known among her contemporaries as
"The Matchless Orinda," and highly praised for her lovely
character and domestic virtues, wrote verses that were
published after her death.
Mrs. Aphra Behn (died 1689), the first woman novelist
of England, was taken when very young to Surinam, in
Dutch Guiana, and there witnessed some of the horrors
of negro slavery, which she represented in her novel of
"Oroonoko," a sort of forerunner of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
Mrs. Behn was also a dramatist. Strange to say, her dramas
are extremely coarse ; a fault doubly surprising in a woman,
and possibly springing from an ambition to vie in forcible-
ness with the stronger sex.
Anthony à Wood (1632-95) is one of the most frequently
quoted writers of the period. He was an enthusiast about
antiquities; a collector of all sorts of scraps of information,
especially about Oxford. Now that all the manuscripts
and other sources of knowledge of the earlier centuries may
be supposed to have been explored, we can scarcely esti¬
mate our debt to the men who made it their business to
hunt up what but for them would have passed out of sight
and remembrance.
Sir Roger L'Estrange (lóió-ryoq) was a writer of some
repute in his day, and one of the first persons to publish a
newspaper. He began with "The Public Intelligencer"
(1663), stating in his first editorial that he disapproved of
newspapers. "I think it makes the multitude too familiar
154 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
with the actions and counsels of their superiors, too prag¬
matical and censorious, and gives them a kind of colorable
right and license to be meddling with the government."
Still he is willing to do what he can "to redeem the vulgar
from their mistakes and illusions." In 1666 he established
the "London Gazette," which still exists.
The very first so-called "newspaper" or "news-letter"
printed in English was the "Weekly News," begun by Sam¬
uel Butters, May 23, 1622. Butters had been in the
employ of the nobility and gentry for many years as a
gatherer of news which he dispatched in written sheets
from London to the country. We hear of him in
1611 as printing occasionally a news-slip, and in 1621 he
published one or two numbers of "The Courant or Weekly
Newes from Forein Parts." This seems to have died untimely,
but to have been followed by the sheet first mentioned.
The first daily was the "Daily Courant," published in 1703,
and the first penny-daily, the "Orange Postman," in 170g.
On the continent there had been efforts in the way of peri¬
odical news-distribution for a long time; tradition telling
of a printed sheet in Nuremburg in 1457.
Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury (1643-1715), was
bom in Scotland. He wrote a "History of the Reformation
of the Church of England" which received the thanks of
Parliament. He was not in favor with the English Stuart-
kings because his tendencies were too Republican; but he
was on intimate terms with William and Mary in Holland,
and accompanied them to England at the Revolution.
At his death, he left in manuscript the valuable "History
of His own Time," which was not published until many
years after.
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS. 155
CHAPTER XX III.
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SCIENTIFIC WRITERS.
N the departments of mental and physical science,
the seventeenth century possessed two great
minds which alone would have made the age
famous—John Locke and Isaac Newton; the former by
his treatise on the mind of man, and the latter by his
"Principia" and other works.
John Locke (1632-1704) belonged to a family which,
in the great civil strife of 1640-60, took sides with the
Parliament, so that a belief in freedom of thought was
a part of his inheritance. He studied first at Westminster
School and then at Oxford; and it was in those venerable
halls that he learned, as Bacon had done at Cambridge, to
dislike the method of Aristotle, and desire to substitute
for it in the intellectual world, as Bacon had done in the
physical, experiment for hypothesis.
He made choice of medicine as a profession, but, for¬
tunately for the world, his health proved too delicate for
the hard work of a physician's life, and he devoted him¬
self to more purely intellectual pursuits. After some diplo¬
matic employment, he entered the family of Lord Ashley
(afterward the first famous Shaftesbury) as tutor to his
son, and there met habitually the greatest men of the
day. When Lord Shaftesbury "fell from power" (the expres¬
sion in England for being dismissed from the king's council),
Locke accompanied him in his exile, living for several years
in Holland, where he met the first scholars of the day, and
devoted himself to work on the "Essay'' that was to make
his name famous. The idea of writing this suggested itself
to him when he was talking after dinner with some friends
in London. They were discussing some topics connected
156
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
with morality and religion, and found themselves hampered
by difficulties in getting at a clear idea of the subject.
Locke remarked that it would be well to examine their own
capabilities, and see what objects their understandings were,
or were not, fitted to deal with. He thought when he
began that the solution of these difficulties might be con¬
tained on one sheet of paper. But the more he thought
about it, the longer it grew, and twenty years of toil resulted
in the work entitled "An Essay on Human Understanding."
In this he contends that man, though gifted with reason, has
no ideas which are born with him; that he must receive
into his mind impressions from without, in other words
sensations, and by reflection and observation form his ideas
concerning them. He follows the Baconian method so far
as to insist that men should gain their knowledge from a
study of nature, or of things themselves, before attempting
to state the laws which govern them, or to form theories
about them. This system makes observation the test of
correctness. His dictum on the true means of becoming
well-informed ought to be learned by heart by every student.
"Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowl¬
edge ; it is thinking which makes what we read our own."
Locke's noble "Letters on Toleration" are in advance of
his age; for men were yet only slowly learning that the
suppression of others' opinions is insulting to humanity,
which is entitled to freedom of thought. He also wrote
two treatises on government, wherein he urged the right of
all men to liberty, political as well as religious; thus enforc¬
ing the principles of "The Glorious Revolution of 1688";
principles that have since become the acknowledged founda¬
tion of all government in England.
In Locke's "Thoughts concerning Education" may be
traced many of the ideas now universally accepted among
educators, but which were then new to the English people.
Locke was engaged with Lord Shaftesbury on the prepara-
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS. 157
tion of a plan of government for the province of Carolina
in America, which was found impracticable from the fact
that although abundant provision was made for an aristoc¬
racy, the common people who were to support its dignity
were not forthcoming. His last days were spent in a
delightful retreat, the country-house of Sir Francis and
Lady Masham, where, true to his independent spirit, he
declined to go except upon condition that he should render
a quid pro quo for his living. Here he enjoyed the society
of congenial minds, and faded gently away, reaching the
age of seventy-two, notwithstanding the delicacy of his
constitution.*
Isaac Newton (1642-1727), called the greatest of natural
philosophers, was born of a good though not a wealthy
family in Lincolnshire, and from his childhood showed a
strong bent for study of all sorts, especially for that of
mathematics. At twenty-three he wrote his first mathemat¬
ical work, "The Theory of Fluxions," which proved an
important help in calculating the movements of the heavenly
bodies. His next branch of study was optics, where again
he made valuable observations in regard to light. His
discovery of the law of gravitation was made long before
it was published to the world in the "Principia." Researches
in science only deepened Newton's religious feelings, and
he spent much time in the study of the Bible. To some
one who was lost in wonder at his vast and constantly
increasing stores of knowledge, he said, "To myself I
seem to have been like a child picking up pebbles on
the sea-shore, while the great ocean of truth lay unex¬
plored before me."
He lived thirty years after writing his "Principia," being
• On one occasion he sends for a pound of tea from Holland
(probably as a medicine). He must have it, he says, and commis¬
sions his friend to give forty florins a pound for it if necessàry—
equal to at least $50 of our money.
158
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
occupied during a large part of this time in government
service, in control of the mint. He was knighted in 1705,
and died at a great age in the same year with King George
I., namely 1727. He was never married.
Like many men of genius, Newton is reported to have
had no great fondness for school-study. He cared quite as
littlè, however, for boys' sports; and amused himself with
mechanical inventions, like windmills, clocks, sun-dials, etc.,
and is said to have made a wheeled carriage to be moved
by the person riding in it, a precursor of the modern bicycle.
When he first looked into Euclid, he found the propositions
so self-evident that he threw it aside and looked about
for something more difficult to study. Having once found
out what was the bent of his mind, he became an intensely
hard student, and let no subject go until he had mastered
it thoroughly. At one time, for some reason not under¬
stood, his mind became slightly affected, and for a year
or two he was not himself.*
Anecdotes abound illustrative of Newton's simple-heart¬
edness and utter absence of self-consciousness. His relative,
Humphrey Newton, who served him five years (1683-89)
writes about him as follows;
His carriage was very meek, sedate, humble, never seemingly angry,
of profound thought, his countenance mild, pleasant and comely. I
can not say I ever saw him laugh but once, which was at that passage
which Dr. Stukely mentioned in his letter to your honour. The pas¬
sage was as follows: 'Twas upon occasion of asking a friend to whom
he had lent Euclid to read, what progress he made with that author
and how he liked him; he answered by desiring to know what use and
* We must give up, though with regret, the pretty story of Newton
and his dog, Diamond, which runs thus: While Newton was absent
from his study, the little dog overturned a lighted candle among his
papers, destroying in a few moments the work of years. Mr. New¬
ton (not then Sir Isaac) only gave vent to his feelings in the mournful
remark, "Oh, Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest the mischief
thou hast donel" Later authorities deny the whole story.
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DRAMATISTS. 159
beneñt in life that study would be to him. Upon which Sir Isaac was
very merry.
One of the men of science whose works give them a
place in the history of literature was Robert Boyle (1627-
91), a celebrated chemist and natural philosopher, who
lived a little earlier than Locke. He wrote many works
on philosophy and some on religion; the latter subject
seeming to have interested the minds of the philosophers
of that age and to have been inseparably connected with
their researches in science. Locke, Newton and Boyle
were all profoundly religious men.
CHAPTER XXIV.
LATER DRAMATISTS. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
MONG the most characteristic of the writers of
the seventeenth century were the later drama¬
tists, who have been purposely left until now
that they might be spoken of together. James Shirley, who
died in 1666, has been mentioned as the last of the Eliza¬
bethan dramatists. Dryden, who died in 1700, was the
central figure of a new set of play-writers, who, to great
power and versatility, added a love of what was immoral
and unworthy in fiction, and who reflected only too faithfully
the tastes of Charles II.'s court, and furnished such plays
as pleased its members. Dryden, the greatest poet and the
most original thinker of the century after the death of
Müton, deserves his full share of the blame attaching to
these perverters of public morality; but his great gifts were
also used in other ways, and we have to consider him not
only as a dramatist, but as poet, satirist, essayist, translator
and critic.
John Dryden (1631-1700) had the usual education of
160
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
a gentleman's son, going first to Westminster School* and
then to Cambridge. He seems not to have written any¬
thing for print until he was twenty-seven years old, when
he published "Stanzas on the Death of Cromwell," as
laudatory as were all poems written in that time on that
subject. Eighteen months afterward he welcomed the
return of Charles II. in a long poem called "Astraea
Redux." After producing several pieces of no great merit, he
tried his hand at play - writing. His first play, strange to
say, was a failure. Then, in conjunction with Sir Robert
Howard, he wrote another, called "The Indian Queen,"
and this being better received he went on by himself,
and for the next thirty years plays continued to come
from his industrious pen. These abound in passages of
great beauty and power, though Dryden had no creative
imagination, and his dramas have not kept the stage as
have Shakespeare's. They are poorly fitted for acting,
from their licentiousness, which offends the taste of an age
of greater refinement. Another reason may be found in
the fact that Dryden had the idea that rhyme was essential
to poetry, and wrote many of his plays in rhyme. This
to the ears of modern critics, weakens their effect, though
his verse is always rhythmical and polished. He did more
than any other man of his time to form a taste for what is
called the artificial school in poetry; that in which the
desire for following exact rules, especially as to rhythm,
overtops the necessity for grand thoughts. His first long
poem, after those in praise of rulers, spoken of above, was
called "Annus Mirabilis," or the "Year of Wonders," being
a description in verse of the great events which came
• Here he studied under the famous Dr. Busby, who might have
been called the Knight of the Birch from his fondness for using that
instrument, and who refused to take off his hat in the king's presence
for fear the boys should think there was a greater man in the world
than himself.
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DRAMATISTS. 161
almost literally within a year—the Great Plague (1665),
the Great Fire (1666) and the Dutch War. The last of
his noted poems, written thirty years later, was "Alexander's
Feast," or "Ode on Saint Cecilia's Day," which he himself
pronounced to be "the best ode ever written in English."
Those who admire Milton's "Ode on the Nativity" may
not agree with him; but Dryden's has stood the test of
nearly two hundred years' reading.
As a translator, Dryden is open to criticism. He allowed
his own individuality to predominate over his author's,
and one can not help feeling that it is Dryden, and not
Chaucer or Ovid, Homer or Virgü, who is before us.
Dryden's first great satire, "Absalom and Achitophel,"
appeared in 1681, and was directed against the Earl of
Shaftesbury (Achitophel^, who was supposed to have inci¬
ted Charles II.'s son, the Duke of Monmouth (Absalom),
to rebel against the king, his father. The finest piece of
character-painting in this is directed against the Duke
of Buckingham;
A man so various, that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by turns, and nothing long.
The next year appeared "Mac Flecknoe," a satire against
several of the minor poets, some of whom had offended
Dryden in their writings, and especially against Shadwell.
The spirit of this may be discerned in the lines:
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence.
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Dryden had been appointed poet-laureate on the death
of Sir William Davenant, and as literature was beginning to
be paid, though poorly, he received enough from the sale of
his dramas and from his pension as "Historiographer Royal"
to live comfortably. His marriage with Lady Elkabeth
Howard, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire proved un¬
it
162 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
happy. He did not find her congenial, and she, desiring
more of his attention and companionship, wished she were
a book, because then he would care for her.
Soon after the accession of James II., Dryden changed
his religion and went over to the Roman Catholic faith.
This has of course been severely commented upon as
showing a desire for worldly profit. Biographers in deal¬
ing with the subject take opposite sides according to
their political bias, and after much discussion the question
is still unsettled as to whether it was or was not a matter
of conscience. His satire on "The Hind and the Panther,"
the two animals representing the Roman and Anglican
Churches, is an able defence of his position, though not
equal in force and conciseness to "Absalom and Achit-
ophel." In these years came the Revolution, and on the
accession of the Protestants, William and Mary, Dryden was
dismissed not only from the post of Historiographer Royal
which he had held for nearly thirty years, but also
from the lamreateship, and had the mortification of seeing
the despised Shadwell appointed to the latter in his
place. This made the last twelve years of his life a time
of comparative poverty, but his days were tranquü and
dignified to the end.
Dryden's prose, while small in quantity compared with
his poetry, is noted for its vigorous, idiomatic English, its
good sense and its manly statement of the writer's ideas.
These prose-writings are numerous, though short, and con¬
sist mainly in essays or prefaces to his various poetic works.
Among Dryden's best-known plays are "All for Love,"
"The Conquest of Granada," "The Indian Queen," "Don
Sebastian," and "Aurungzebe."
The last glimpses we have of Dryden are very picturesque.
They represent him as a ruddy-faced old man, going every
day to Will's Coffee-House, then the resort of wits and
men of letters, where he had his special easy-chair, in the
S£ VENTEENTH- CENTUR Y DRAMA TIS TS. 163
most comfortable comer by the fireside in winter and in
front of the open window in summer. There he sipped his
port and uttered his opinions, sure of being listened to with
respect and admiration. The poet Pope was once taken
to see the old king of letters, and through life retained
a pleasant memory of the incident, though he could have
been only a young lad, as Dryden died when Pope was
twelve years old. He lies buried in Westminster Abbey.
It was shortly before the end of Dryden's life that Jeremy
Collier, a clergyman of the Church of England, published a
severe attack on "The Immorality and Profaneness of the
English Stage," which created great excitement among the
play-writers, and was the occasion of much ill-feeling. There
is no question but that the scolding was well deserved, and
Dryden acknowledged its justness, though he added that
Collier himself had offended against good manners in his
language. Collier had, in fact, used very intemperate ex¬
pressions in his zeal for good morals; but he had stirred up
the poisonous flood of licentious play-writing and a general
purification of its waters was the result. All Englishmen
of the better class acquiesced in the necessity for a change;
and no such undisguised or half-concealed immoral sugges¬
tion has ever since appeared on the English stage as dis¬
graced it during the latter half of the seventeenth century.
It is not necessary in a book like this to give a detailed
account of each of the dramatic writers who make up the
great company of Dryden's time. A few words on each
must suffice, and readers who wish to know more about
them must go to Professor Tyler's valuable "Manual of
English Literature," or to special biographies and essays.
The list is headed, in time though not in importance, by
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (1627-88), the witty
favorite of Charles II., whose burlesque, "The Rehearsal,"
is a wonderfully clever take-off on the kind of dramatic
writing then in vogue. It is full of fun from beginning to
164
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
end, and is still good reading, as is shown by the many
quotations from it to be found in modem authors. It has
the further merit of being more free from indelicacy of
dialogue than any other play of its time.
Sir George Etherege (c. 1636-89)* wrote dramas of a
light, gay order, and was himself a wit about the court of
Charles II. He was possessed of a handsome fortune.
This he gambled away and then married a rich widow to
replenish his purse. His best plays are "Love in a Tub,"
and "Sir Fopling Flutter." He was sent as minister to
Germany, and, according to tradition, broke his neck falling
down stairs while dmnk.
William Wycherley (1640-1715) is said to have introduced
the "Prose-Comedy of Manners"—in other words, to have
been the first to represent real modem life on the stage.
The life of his own day was probably represented only too
truly in his ingenious and lively but highly immoral plays, of
which the "Country Wife" is usually considered the best.
Mrs. Aphra Behn (1642-89), who has already been
mentioned as the writer of "Oroonoko," also wrote several
plays, of which "The Rover, or the Banished Cavalier," was
the most popular.
Thomas Otwayt (1652-85) is almost exclusively a writer
of tragedy, and occupies a much higher plane than most of
his contemporaries. His tragedies of "The Orphan" and
"Venice Preserved" show an unusual power of depicting
distress and suffering, and the latter is still occasionally
acted. Like many of the dramatists of his day, he tried
• c. stands for circa—about.
+ His name is connected with Dryden's in an amusing way: They
lived on different sides of the same street; and on one occasion Otway
wrote on Dryden's door:
Here lives Dryden, a poet and a wit.
When Dryden saw it he let it stand; but added directly underneath:
There lives Otway, opposite.
SE VENTEENTH- CENTUR Y DRAMA TISTS.
165
his hand at acting, but he soon abandoned it. He led a dissi¬
pated life, became miserably poor, and died in a tavern
where he had taken refuge to avoid a debtor's prison.
Nathaniel Lee {c. 1657-92) was the son of a clergyman.
He wished to be an actor, but meeting with no success in
this art, he tried writing plays, the most popular of which
was "The Rival Queens." At one time he became insane,
and was an inmate of Bedlam for several years. Some one
said to him there, "It is easy to write like a madman."
"No," »aid Lee, "but it is easy to write like a fool." He
recovered and was again able to write; but died poor, like
most of his tribe.
In Thomas Southern (1660-1746) we have an agreeable
variation from the story of misery and poverty. His plays
were not great, but they were of purer morals than most
others then written, and two of them "The Fatal Marriage,"
and "Oroonoko" are much commended. The latter, founded
on Mrs. Behn's novel, added strength to her protest against
slavery.
Sir John Vanbrugh (1666-1726) was famous both as an
architect and a dramatist. "The Provoked Wife" is called
his best play, while Blenheim House, (the palace built by
the English people for the Duke of Marlborough) and
Castle Howard are his most ambitious buildings. He built
many other country residences for the aristocracy, in a
somewhat ponderous style, which caused some wit to pro¬
pose as his epitaph;
Lie heavy on him, earth, for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee.
William Congreve (1670-1729) was one of the most
successful dramatists of the age. His comedy of "Love
for Love," and his tragedy "The Mourning Bride" (the
only one he wrote), had equal success. He was also a
devotee of society in the time of Queen Anne and George
I.; was courted and caressed by the gay world and pre-
166
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
ferred to be known as a man of fashion rather than as a
writer. He died rich, bequeathing his fortune to the
young Duchess of Marlborough, who did not need it,
rather than to his own kindred who did; and was buried
in Westminster Abbey. It seems incredible, but is related
on good authority, that the volatile duchess had an ivory
image of Congreve made after his death, which was always
placed at table with her, and a wax one in a bed-chamber,
with gouty feet which she had regularly blistered and rubbed
by her doctors, as had been done to the poet's in his life¬
time. He was blind for several years before his death.
Colley Gibber (1671-1757), the son of a sculptor of
considerable repute, was one of the most successful actors
of his day, and wrote several plays, besides altering and
adapting some of those he acted. It was he who inserted
into Shakespeare's "Richard III." various lines which many
suppose to have belonged to the original; for instance:
Now, by Saint Paul, the work goes bravely on!
The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome
Outlives in fame the pious fool that raised it.
Off with his head! So much for Buckingham!
Richard's himself again!
A weak invention of the enemy.
In 1730, he succeeded the Rev. Laurence Eusdon as
poet-laureate, and retired from the stage, except for an
occasional appearance.
Pope, being angry with Gibber for some remarks about
the Roman Catholics, dethroned Theobald from his seat on
the throne of Dulness in the "Dunciad", and put Gibber in
his place; an absurd change, for Gibber was anything but
dull. The latter took it very good-humoredly, and his only
revenge was to publish "A Letter to Mr. Pope, Inquiring
into the Motives that might Induce him in his Satirical
Works to be so Frequently Fond of Mr. Gibber's Name,"
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DRAMATISTS. 1«7
Of the two, we are inclined to think that the lesser man
appeared to the greater advantage.
Nicholas Rowe (1673-1718) was the first editor of the
works of Shakespeare. (They had been printed several
times.) What Rowe did was the ordinary task of an
editor, namely to revise and correct the original work by
the light of the best information to be obtained on the
subject, and to give, in addition, an account of the author's
life. Rowe's "Life of Shakespeare" is interesting as giving
the traditions current in his time; beyond this it has no
especial value.
Rowe was himself a dramatist, and produced, among
others, two tragedies which continued for a long time favor¬
ites with the public—"The Fair Penitent;" and "Jane
Shore." He was created poet-laureate after Nahum Tate,
a composer and collector of hymns, who had occupied the
position since the death of Shadwell. In connection with
Nicholas Brady, Tate made a metrical version of the Psalms
of David which superseded that of Sternhold and Hopkins,
written some two hundred years earlier.
George Farquhar (1678-1707), the third of a brilliant
group of painters of the manners of society (the other two
being Vanbrugh and Congreve), was the son of a clergyman.
Smitten by the desire to become an actor, he tried his for¬
tune on the stage for a short time in Dublin, then obtained
a lieutenancy in the army, and before he was twenty pro¬
duced his first comedy, "Love and a Bottle." His last
comedies were the best—"The Recruiting Officer," and
"The Beaux' Strategem,"—the latter written at the age of
twenty-nine, while he was slowly dying of want and dissipa¬
tion. His was a sad story. A woman who was in love
with him entrapped him into marrying her by pretending to
have a fortune—a bait at which he, being in need, eagerly
caught. She had nothing, and he toiled to support a family
without ever reproaching her for the deceit
168 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XXV.
JONATHAN SWIFT.
AVING now finished the list of Dryden's contem¬
porary dramatists and immediate successors,
which has taken us far into the eighteenth cen¬
tury, we will go back to a name belonging almost equally
to both centuries.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), better known to us by the
title of Dean, was a genius, a wit, a great writer and a
most unhappy man. He was bom in Dublin, though his
parents and ancestors were English and he never showed, as
most Irishmen do, any pride in the country cA his birth. His
father died before Jonathan could know him, leaving Mrs.
Swift so poor that she was compelled to accept the aid of
charity for the expenses of the funeral. The boy himself
was of a proud and haughty spirit, and poverty touched
him in his tenderest point by making him dependent on
others. He was sent to school and to college by the
generosity of an uncle, who, however, as Swift imagined,
gave his assistance grudgingly, and instead of gratitude
the young man always cherished bitter feelings toward
him. Bitterness, indeed, continued to be the predomina¬
ting characteristic of his life, and though capable of strong
affections, he went through the world with his heart full
of hatred. He did himself little credit at college and
obt^ed his de^ee "by special grace," which meant that
he did not deserve it. In the year of the Great Revo¬
lution (1688) when he was twenty-one years old, his uncle
became incapable of supporting him further, and he went,
by his modier's advice, to ask employment of Sir Wäliam
Temjde, whose wife was a distant connection of Mrs.
Swift's. Here again the young man was focced to eat
JONATHAN SWIFT.
169
what he called "the bitter bread of dependence," for
although Sir William took him as his secretary, the great
man's manner toward him was supercilious, and he occu¬
pied a position but little above that of a servant, while
feeling himself entitled to rank as a gentleman. During
his college-life he had been an assiduous reader, though
not prominent in the studies required for a degree, and
he brought to the service of Temple a mind well stored
with information of a fragmentary kind, and a zeal for
study which induced him to spend in reading all the time
that could be spared from his duties. He was not ad¬
mitted to his patron's table, and the accounts of his rough
and often insolent behavior in later life make us readily
believe that to the courtly and fastidious Sir William his
manners must have been highly displeasing.
After a while Swift quarrelled with Temple, and following
most mistaken advice, became a clergymanj he with his
heart full of contempt and loathing for all mankind, took
the solemn vows which bound him to teach the religion
of "Peace on earth; good-will to men." He received the
"gift" as it is called in England, of a small country parish
in Ireland; but finding the dulness intolerable he returned
to Moor Park and remained in Temple's service until the
death of the latter (1699). During this period, the baronet
and the secretary got on better together, and Swift seems
to have been received into the family on the footing of a
friend. Temple desired him to be his literary executor, and
Swift edited the works of his patron with a dedication to
King William.
As no advancement of any kind followed this act of
courtesy. Swift set about devoting himself seriously to litera¬
ture, at the same time holding two livings (parishes) in
Ireland. The first work which drew public attention to him
was bis ingenious "Battle of the Books," in which he
attempts to i»ove the superiority of Greek and Roman
170 HISTOR y OF ENGLISH LITERA TURE.
classics to the works of modern writers. Then came the
"Tale of a Tub," a work partly political and partly religious,
in which he represents the three warring Churches under the
names of Peter (the Roman Catholic), Jack (Calvin the
Presbyterian), and Martin (Luther, who stood for the Church
of England). It has been said that but for the "Tale of a
Tub," Swift would have died a bishop. The book is not
immoral in its tendency, but contains so much coarse wit at
the expense of all three of the Churches it discusses, that
Swift never obtained higher promotion than to be Dean of
St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin; a stately edifice in which
he is buried.
Of Swift's two loves,—the "Stella" and "Vanessa" of his
writings,—the former appeals more to our interest, the latter
to our sympathy.
He married "Stella" secretly (she was a lowly-bom
beauty), and always refused her entreaties that the marriage
should be made public. The other, "Vanessa" (a Miss
Vanhomrigh), fell deeply in love with him, and they visited
and corresponded for years, until the lady heard of his inti¬
macy with "Stella" and wrote the latter about it. "Stella''
disclosed the marriage and put Swift in a furious rage
with "Vanessa," whom he visited once more, only to
throw down her letter before her and depart without a
word. Poor "Vanessa's" heart was broken and she died
within a few weeks. Stella lived five years after this ; and
left him a hopeless mourner at her death. His letters to
her, under the form of a journal, are full of interest, and
show that the savage Dean could be as playful as a kitten
where his affections were engaged. He had but one soft
spot in his heart, and when the object of his tenderness
was removed a hardness came upon him which continued
to the end of his life.
The number of political pamphlets that came from Swift
is almost incredible. He began by being first a fierce whig.
JONATHAN SWIFT.
171
and became a tory when the measures of the other party
no longer pleased him; in each case writing against his
opponents with a pen steeped in gall. He won the hearts of
the Irish people by bitter attacks on England, especially in
"Drapier's Letters"—a series of articles against "Wood's
half-pence," * which raised his popularity almost to idolatry.
These were followed in about two years by "Gulli¬
ver's Travels," perhaps the most famous satire ever published.
To us who know it chiefly in its abridged form as a fairy-
story, it seems harmless enough; but to the people of the
time, who understood its allusions and its hidden meanings,
it was the acme of bitterness.
This was Swift's last great work. He grew more and
more morose, became very deaf, and was subject to ñts of
giddiness which were the precursors of a disease of the brain
that ended in imbecility. For three years before his death
he did not speak, but would walk up and down his library
for ten hours a day, looking at the backs of the books he
could no longer read or understand, never even sitting
down to take his meals, but snatching a few mouthfuls in
passing, from the plate left for him by his attendant. Before
the madness came on, he had a dreadful premonition of his
fate, and left by will the greater part of his fortune to found
a hospital for idiots and insane persons, which remains a
monument to his memory.
Addison describes Swift as "the most agreeable compan¬
ion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of the age."
There must have been somethinfy very lovable about the
man to secure for him the devotion of two superior women,
and the good words of many of his own sex, who would
have characterized him as warmly as did Addison.
Some good sayings of Swift's, possibly not generally
known to be his, are worth quoting:
* See "A Short History of England," p. 324.
172
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The two noblest things, which are sweetness and light.—Battle of
the Boohs.
The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young
ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.
He gave it for his opinion that whoever could make two ears of
corn, or two blades of grass, grow where one grew before, would
deserve better of mankind and do more service to his country than
the whole race of politicians put together.—Gulliver's Travels.
Bread is the staff of life.—Tale of a Tub.
CHAPTER XXVI.
POPE AND OTHER POETS.
ESERVING the highest rank for the English poets
whose domain was among the sublimities rather
than the humanities of literature; and assigning
to the second place those whose verses were inspired by
wit and ingenuity rather than by originality, grandeur and
majesty of thought; we have no hesitation in placing Pope
at the head of the latter class. Perhaps no writer who
ever lived has given more quotations to the world; some of
them having passed into the rank of proverbs; "the wisdom
of many expressed in the wit of one."
Alexander Pope (i688-r744) was bom in London, of
Catholic parents. His father was a respectable linen-draper
(dry-goods merchant), a fact of which Pope had the weak¬
ness to be ashamed, under the aristocratic traditions which
make any useful and profitable industry a badge not of
honor but of degradation. His mother, was, however, of
"good family," an accident the son made the most of. He
was very small, very weak, somewhat crooked, and extremely
infirm in health; circumstances that furnished gall to his
pen and wormwood to his life. He himself says :
The muse just served » « •
To help me through this long disease, my life.
POPE AND OTHER POETS.
173
The sadly misshapen back he inherited from his father;
though both his parents seem to have been healthy and
both lived to old age. The boy had so sweet a voice that
they nicknamed him "the nightingale"; and he is said to
have been gentle and winning. Dr. Johnson says of him,
"the weakness of his body continued through life, but the
mildness of his mind ended with his childhood." To his
honor be it said that he was devoted to his parents through
their whole lives.
The anti-Catholic laws during his forming years (in the
reign of Queen Anne) prevented the children of Romanists
from getting the same education as other boys got, and
Pope's teaching was of the most desultory kind. An aunt
taught him his letters and he picked up most of the rest of
his knowledge by himself. This he afterward held as an
advantage, seeing that he read for the sense whereas others
gained only the words. He taught himself to write by
copying the printed letters, and was always proud of his
ability at writing in this fashion; but his usual handwriting
was cramped and ungraceful. He learned a little Latin
from the parish priest and probably a little Greek from a
Catholic school he attended at Twyford. There he wrote a
lampoon or satirical poem on his master; for which the
punishment was a whipping, and this brought about his
removal from the school by his father. His next school
was in London, where he made a sort of drama which was
acted by his school-fellows; assisted by the gardener, who
took the part of Ajax. So early did Pope give proof of
fondness for Homer; with whom his name was later famously
connected by his translation of the classic author's works.
When Pope was about twelve, his father retired from
business with a comfortable fortune, and bought a country-
place to which he removed, and where his brilliant son lived
at home, carrying on his cultivation by an enormous quantity
of desultory reading. Among the rest he knew Dryden's
174
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
poetry well, and he one day got a friend to take him to
Will's Coffee-House where he met the old poet; for the
only time in his life probably, as Dryden died not long
afterward.
His home seems to have been happy and congenial;
himself the bright particular star and ruling spirit. While
living with his father he always carried to him his verses;
and when the elder was not satisfied with them he returned
them as "not good rhymes," an ordeal very favorable to the
high standard of accuracy and verbal perfection which marks
all his work. At this time he says that poetry was his only
business and idleness his only pleasure. He confesses that
he then thought himself, at sixteen, "the greatest genius that
ever was."
He started on his poetic career with the advantage of a
clear perception of what should be his aim. He once
remarked to a friend: "It seems not so much the perfection
of sense to say things that have never been said before as
to express those best which have been said oftenest."
At seventeen, he claimed and secured the standing of a
man of letters. He frequented Will's Coffee-House, and
his "Pastorals" were published by the well-known printer
Jacob Tonson. These are graceful poems on the four sea¬
sons; old-fashioned and sometimes fantastic, yet full of
promise. But before he was twenty-one, he published
the "Essay on Criticism," which took London by storm
and which to this day we read with pleasure. There is noth¬
ing very profound about it. Profound, Pope could never
be; but it says indisputable things in so clever a way that
they seize our fancy and fascinate us in spite of our stricter
judgment. Here is an extract from the poem; wherein
the author laughs at the rhymesters called poets who grind
out their verses as if by machinery:
Then they ring round the same unvaried chimes
With sure returns of still-expected rhymes:
POPE AND OTHER POETS.
175
Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze,"
In the next line it "whispers through the trees.''
If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep,"
The reader's threatened (not in vain) with "sleep".
Then at the last and only couplet fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
His next achievement was the mock-heroic poem called
" The Rape of the Lock," a work which most critics place
highest among his writings. Like Cowper's "Task" and
Milton's "Comus," it had an incident in real life for its basis,
and upon that slight foundation the poet went on to build
a charming superstructure of fun, wit, beauty, and romance.
Mistress Arabella Termor, from whom the lock of hair had
been stolen, and Lord Petre who had stolen it, were recon¬
ciled by the verses. Everybody was thrown into good
humor except one Sir George Brown, who had used his
powers, fruitlessly, to settle the quarrel, and who was
offended by the following unflattering portraiture of himself;
a sketch which illustrates both the poem and the manners
prevalent in the high life of the day:
Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain.
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.
With earnest eyes and round, unthinking face.
He first the snuff-box opened, then the case.
Pope had now, at twenty-six, nearly reached the height
of his success. He was in the society of the best minds
of the age; Swift, Addison, Steele, Gay, Bolingbroke, Mary
Wortley Montagu and a host of others who made illustrious
the reigns of William and Mary, Anne, and George I. A
quaint little figure he must have been; scarcely four feet
high, his misshapen body encased in stiff stays without
which he could not stand; and, over these, several garments
of different sorts which swelled out his meagre form to
something like the normal breadth of man. He had to be
176
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
dressed and undressed like a child, and his three pairs of
stockings, worn one over the other, were patiently drawn on
by the maid-servant. We do not read that he was especially
brilliant in his talk; the place he held in society must have
been due partly to his far-famed power with the pen, and
partly to his standing as a man of fashion and fortune; for
on his father's death he inherited a large estate, to which he
added considerable earnings in literature. (For his transla¬
tion of the Iliad and Odyssey he received nearly ;^8ooo.)
He was twenty-nine when, with his widowed mother, he
moved to Twickenham (on the Thames, opposite Richmond)
where he lived through the rest of his life; making that
place famous as the home of wit and genius.
With pen in hand. Pope could be a strong friend or
a bitter enemy. By his misfortune or his fault—or, as is
usual, a combination of both—the last thirty years of his
life were full of strife with those who had been his friends.
It was the era of personal vituperation, and Pope was a
champion in the dealing of foul blows. Many persons
know "The Dunciad" by name; none need wish to know
more of it than the name. It is a scurrilous satire at the
expense of Pope's contemporaries; not only the eminent,
but also the insignificant; persons who would never be
heard of by posterity if they were not pilloried in these
verses. There are a few bright conceits in "The Dun¬
ciad"; for instance:
Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.
« « *
While pensive poets painful vigil keep,
Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.
* « ■»
Poetic justice, with the lifted scale,
Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.
* h
The right divine of kings to govern wrong.
Pope himself thought the "Essay on Man" his best
POm AND OTHER POETS.
177
work. He put much labor on it, polishing each couplet until
it suited his fastidious ear, and published it anonymously,
curious to know what people would say about it; and
then took the rude plan of asking his friends for their
opinion before announcing his authorship. Doubtless he
was, on the whole, satisfied with its reputation; but later
writers do not set it, as a whole, high in the scale of
philosophy. One critic described it by travestying a line
it contained which speaks of Creation as : "A mighty maze,
and not without a plan," which he applied to the poem
—substituting "quite" for "not."
The essay consists of four "Epistles" to Lord Boling-
broke; the first lines reading;
Awake my St. John!* leave all meaner things
To low ambition and the pride of kings.
Its best aspect is as a string of gem-like couplets rather
than as a solid fabric. Wherever the eye lights, some
glittering generality fastens the attention. Here are a few
instances :
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be, blest.
>k * *
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.
« « «
All are but parts of one stupendous whole.
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
* * «
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite.
One truth is clear: Whatever is, is right.
•N- « «
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
* Pronounced "Sinjen."
12
178 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The young disease that must subdue at length,
Grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength.
•K- * *
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face.
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
* * *
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
ft * «
Order is heaven's first law.
* * ^
Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
# # *
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
* * ♦
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
« « *
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd.
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind!
* * It
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road.
But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.
•ft « -ft
Formed by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.
The books which earned Pope his highest meed of instant
praise and profit were his translations from Homer—the
very work which time has retired because better transla¬
tions of Homer have followed it. In this he was helped
by Fenton and Broome, who, however, received but a small
share of the profits. It had the advantage of the already
eminent fame of its translator, and also of having been
looked forward to with interest through all the six years
during which Pope had been working on it. Its beauty was
in the exquisite diction, phraseology and versification of
which Pope was master; its fault was in the fact that Homer
POPE AND OTHER POETS.
179
was disguised and lost sight of. Most later translations
have had the advantage of freedom from the shackle of
rhyme—witness Bryanfs majestic rendering into blank
verse; and still later, Lang's and Butcher's, which is mere
strong."sounding prose; all versification being sacrificed to
literalness of interpretation; almost word for word.
Pope's life came to a gently quarrelsome close at Twick¬
enham. His friends were always near by and his enemies
a little farther away. To some one who had complimented
him on retainifig the poetical spirit he answered, "I am fast
sinking into prose!" A few weeks before his death he
sent copies of his "Epistles" to certain intimates, saying,
"I am like Socrates, dispensing morality to my friends on
my death-bed." When his doctors remarked on his better
appetite, or stronger pulse, or some such favorable aspect
of the case he answered: "Here I am, dying of a hundred
good symptoms." The end came at last so quietly that
the fiiends at his bedside did not know when he ceased
to breathe. The poor misfitted sheath had carried its sharp,
bright blade for fifty-six years.
The age of Queen Anne (1702-14) was not a pro¬
pitious one for poets. Beside Pope, only two rose above
mediocrity—Prior and Gay. Of the host of their verse-
writing contemporaries, but little more than the names
is now remembered.
Matthew Prior (1664-1721) was first brought into notice
by the Earl of Dorset, himself a poet of whom Macaulay
says that his few songs and satires sparkle with wit as
splendid as that of Butler. Dorset found young Prior
reading Horace for amusement in the "Rummer Tav¬
ern," kept by the boy's uncle; and becoming interested in
him, sent him to Cambridge, where he graduated with
honor. Not long afterward he wrote, in connection with
Montague (another titled poet, who afterward became Eari
18« HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of Halifax), a satire on Dryden's "Hind and Panther,'
caUed "The City Mouse and Country Mouse." His gay
verses and ready wit soon brought him into favor at court,
and he was appointed by King William III. ambassador
to The Hague. On his way thither he visited Versailles
and was shown room after room filled with paintings repre¬
senting the victories of Louis XIV. (It must be remembered
that this was during the life-time of that monarch.) Some
Frenchman asked him whether King William's palace had
any such decorations. "The monuments of my master's
actions," said Prior, "are to be seen everywhere except in
his own house." The year before William's death he
"ratted," as the English call it, to the tories, and so was
quiet for some years, being sent as ambassador to France
when they again came into power. We give below a few
of his stanzas:
Nobles and heralds, by your leave.
Here Kes what once was Matthew Prior,
The son of Adam and of Eve;
Can Boorbon or Nassau daúa higher?—Epitaph on himself
Be to her faults a little blind,
Be to her virtues very kind;
Let all her ways be unconfined.
And clap your padlock—on her mind,—Aétrice to a Husband.
That air and harraony of shape express,
Rae by d^ees, and beautifully less.—Henry and Emma.
John Gay (i68S-i732.), whom Pope has described as
being "In wit a man, simplicity a child," was another
poet wbo fived a comfortable, easy life through the kind¬
ness and generosity of fiiends. His serious poems have
long since been foigotten ; but his spaiküng ballads and
his "B^gaPs Opera" still afford delight to readers. Gay
was a good-humored satirist, and gave such ofifence to the
court-party that his "Polly," a sequel to the "Beggar's
Opcca," was not allowed to be put on the stage; but on
POPE AND OTHER POETS.
181
this very account the sale of it was immense, and the
author was handsomely paid by his publishers. Of his
ballads, "Black-eyed Susan" is the most picturesque and
well sustained. His "Fables"—mostly versifications of
sop's, adapted to modern conditions—are pleasii^ and
rhythmical.
Gay's friends included almost every one who knew him.
Pope was strongly attached to him, and the list contains
many other well-known names; but since Thackeray deliv¬
ered his lectures on "The English Humorists," it has been
imp€)ssible to dissociate from the name of Gay his sentence
describing the lattePs position under the roof of the Duke
and Duchess of Queensberry, who took care of him for
several years before his death. "With these kind, lordly
folks Gay Kved, and was lapped in cotton, and had his
plate of d«Hcen, and his saucer of cream, and frisked, and
barked, and wheezed, and grew fat, and so ended."
In the poem of "Trivia, or the Art of Walkii^ the
Streets of London," Gay gives a description of the London
of his day, as valuable as that of Lydgate's "London
Lykepenny."
Of the lesser poets of Anne's time, "The Augustan Age
of English Literature," Thomas Parnell is remembered
chiefly for his poem of "The Hermit." He was an Irishman
by birth, entered the Church, lived mosdy in London (dis¬
liking Ireland as his countryman Swift had done), and was
known as a man of learning and agreeable qualities. "The
Hermit" is written in heroic couplets, smoothly versified,
and is an excellent specimen of the serious poetry of the
age. A few lines will show its character :
The pair arrive; the liveried servants wait;
Their lord receives them at the pompous gate;
The table groans with costly piles of food.
And all is more than hospitably good.
Then, led to rest, the day's long toil they drown,
Deep sunk in sleep, and silk, and heaps of down.
182
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
A poem called "The Splendid Shilling," by John Phillips,
gained its author much reputation. Ambrose Phillips, a
friend of Addison, wrote pastorals. Thomas Tickell helped
Pope with his translation of Homer, and also wrote poems
of his own. Addison wrote some beautiful hymns; also a
poem called "The Campaign," in honor of Marlborough's
victories; but his fame as essayist eclipses that which he
enjoys as poet. Of the poem just mentioned, two lines
have become historical. They refer to the Duke:
And pleased the Almighty's order to perform.
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.
Of his hymns, that beginning.
The spacious firmament on high,
is grandest in its imagery.
CHAPTER XXVII.
ADDISON AND STEELE.
HE early part of the eighteenth century was not
rich in poets, but it produced two essayists such
as the world up to that time had never seen—
Addison and Steele. These two wrote together, in a
literary partnership which was the more remarkable because
they were of such different temperaments. Addison was
calm, stately, somewhat cold in disposition, gracious and
courteous in manner; a man to be admired rather than
loved. Steele, on the other hand was warm-hearted, impul¬
sive, reckless, regularly sinning and repenting by turns,
loved and pitied, helped and still not despicable; a strange
"bundle of contradictions," yet always faithful to Addison.
Addison himself was described by Bernard Mandeville (a
moralist and essayist of the time), as "a parson in a tic-
ADDISON AND STEELE.
183
wig"; * thus giving the idea that he had the gravity and
decorum of a clergyman while leading a secular life.
The literary circle of the wits of Queen Anne's reign
and the ten years following it, has probably never been
surpassed. Fancy a company composed of the writers of
that age; what an assembly it must have been! The dark,
strong, overmastering Swjft; the keen, sharp-witted little
Pope; the courtly, gracious Addison; the irrepressible
Dick Steele; the stately Bolingbroke; the witty Congreve,
and the gentle Gay. All these made up a company such
as the world does not often see ; one whose strongly marked
individualities have become almost impossible since the
general smoothing off of manners to a recognized type.
We can but glance at a few of the most noted among the
brilliant group.
Joseph Addison (1672-1718) was the son of a clergy¬
man. He was sent to the famous Charter-house school
as a private pupil, and there met Steele, who entered it on
the charitable foundation, at the nomination of a friend.
A poem by Addison in praise of King William and
the peace of Ryswick, drew attention to the young man
and obtained for him a pension of ;¿^3oo a year—fully
equal to $3000 now. Addison made good use of it
while he liad it. It ceased to be paid at King William's
death. He traveled abroad, charming every one he met
(and he took care that his acquaintances should be of
the best) by his polished manners and elegant scholar¬
ship. He never stopped studying, being as earnest in
cultivating that rich field, his mind, as if he had still
been at college preparing for a degree.
When his pension stopped Addison returned to Eng¬
land, with old college debts still unpaid and without a
* Tie - wigs were at this time used only by men of fashion ; whereas
"parsons"—i.e. clergymen—wore the more dignified full-bottomed wig.
184
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
profession; for in that day literature alone had scarcely
begun to be considered in the sense of something by which
to make one's living. A pension, a government office,
or some paying occupation, was necessary to eke out an
author's income if he had no private resources.
In a previous generation Dryden had written, bitterly,
ill asking for the payment of arrears of his own pension,
"It is enough for one age to have neglected Mr. Cow¬
ley, and starved Mr. Butler" (author of "Hudibras").
And Otway, who at length died for want of sufficient
food, wrote:
Tell 'em how Spenser died, how Cowley mourned,
How Butler's faith and service were returned.
It was considered then the duty of the public in general
to take care of all authors; and as "what is everybody's
business is nobody's business," the duty was often left
unperformed.
A man so brilliantly gifted as Addison was not long in
finding something profitable to do. He wrote "The Cam¬
paign," already mentioned, and was rewarded with an office
which the next year was exchanged for that of Under
Secretary of State, after which there was no more trouble
about money matters.
It was not Addison, but Steele, to whom came the idea
of the first purely literary periodical; an idea which, later,
resulted in the "Spectator." Defoe had already tried the
experiment of mingling light reading with the heavy politi¬
cal articles which formed the staple of his "Review"; but
Steele's "Tatler" (begun 1709) was, firom the first, mainly
devoted to social topics, though giving the news in a
gossiping way. It was a penny-paper, issued three times a
week, and soon became popular, Addison joining in it. In
less than two years the Tatler came to an end, giving
way to its more celebrated successor. The Spectator.
The latter journal came out daily, and was read by thous
ADDISON AND STEELE.
185
ands at the breakfast-table with the eagerness that is now
reserved for the morning newspaper. Addison had found
his strong point; wit, humor, grace, the finest shades of
criticism, the most delicate satire, flowed from his pen;
while, strange to say, it was Steele, the rollicking, dissipa¬
ted, always needy co-laborer, whose papers show the deepest
tenderness and reverence for woman, and the truest testi¬
mony to the beauty and sanctity of home.
Addison's aim, in his contributions to the delightful peri¬
odical, may be best learned from his own words :
It was said of Socrates that he brought philosophy down from
heaven to inhabit among men; I shall be ambitious to have it said of
me that I brought philosophy out of closets and libraries to dwell in
clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses.
As we can not read everything, and so many great and
charming writers are constantly demanding our attention,
the names of a few of Addison's essays in the Spectator
are given,"* which it may be well to read first, to get an idea
of his style and to encourage a taste for going farther.
In reading the Spectator, note that Addison's papers are
distinguished from Steele's by being signed with one of the
four letters, C. L. I. O., these denoting either the name of
the muse of history, or one of the four places, Chelsea,
London, Islington and the Office where the articles were
written.
The numbers of the Spectator telling the story of Sir
Roger de Coverley, a delightful imaginary character invented
by Steele but continued most gracefully by Addison, have
of late years been published as a separate book. Doctor
Johnson says:
* Number CLIX., ""Vision of Mirza;" LXXXIII., "Visit to a Picture
Gallery;" CII., "On the Management of the Fan;" CLXV., "Against
the Use of Foreign "Words;" xvill.,"On Italian Opera;" III., "Vision
of Public Credit;" also the papers on "Milton," beginning with
CCLXVII. and continuing for eighteen successive Saturdays.
186
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse,
and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the
volumes of Addison.
Addison, who to us is known best by his essays, was to
his contemporaries more celebrated as a successful drama¬
tist. After the "Spectator" had died down, he wrote the
tragedy of "Cato," a somewhat formal though polished
drama founded upon the old Roman story. The play came
out at a time of great political excitement, and was raptur¬
ously applauded by the whigs, who professed to discover in
it attacks on the tories, their enemies. We find it rather
dull reading now, though it has some fine and even grand
passages. Cato's soliloquy on immortality, uttered the night
before his suicide, beginning;
It must be so! Plato, thou reasonest well;
is worthy of being committed to memory; and the lines:
'T is not in mortals to command success.
But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it;
contain within themselves the whole philosophy of life.
Addison's conduct toward Steele, his playmate at the
Charter-house, his college-friend, the companion and liter¬
ary associate of his prosperous years, has been severely
censured; but we think without reason. Poor Steele, a
borrower by profession, always in debt, always in trouble,
had borrowed of the frugal and careful Addison a thousand
pounds, giving him as security a mortgage on his house at
Hampton. Steele lived as if he had the purse of For-
tunatus; gave splendid dinners when, as a biographer
says, he had not money to buy bread and cheese; set
up a carriage and pair for his wife and a riding-horse for
himself; took and furnished a handsome house in London
while he was still in debt for one at Hampton; and
plunged deeper and deeper into extravagance until finally
Addison, whose patience was fairly worn out, sold the
ADDISON AND STEELE.
187
house and furniture, paid himself, and handed the rest
of the purchase-money to Steele. Even a friend is justi¬
fied in refusing to pour money into a leaky receptacle
like Dick Steele's pocket.
At forty-four years of age Addison married the Countess
Dowager of Warwick, to whose son he had been tutor.
The marriage did not prove a happy one ; the lady was
haughty and condescending, apparently thinking she had
done the man of letters great honor in marrying him,
and treated him as if he were beneath her; and Addi¬
son's pleasantest hours were spent away from home. He
frequented Button's Coffee-house, which seems to have
been a successor to Will's, where Dryden used to sit;
and there he met agreeable companions, and drank more
wine than was good for him. Drinking was the vice of
the age, and it can not be denied that it was Addison's
weakness. He died three years after his marriage, leaving
a daughter, who died unmarried. Holland House in Lon¬
don, the town-residence of the Earls of Warwick, where
Addison spent his married life, still stands in its shady park,
and has been the resort of many pilgrims and the dwelling-
place of much elegance and cultivation.
When Addison found his end drawing near, he sent
for his step-son, the Earl of Warwick, who was a worth¬
less young man and an evil liver, saying to him, "I wish
you to see in what peace a Christian can die." The Earl
did not long survive him.
Richard Steele (1672-1729) was born (in Dublin) in the
same year with Addison, and was the son of an Irish
attorney. A part of his story has already been given.
He left Oxford without a degree, contrary to the wishes
of his friends, in order to enter the army, which he did as
a private soldier. His whole life is shadowed forth in
a remark of his own: He said that when he mounted a
war-horse and planted himself behind King William III.,
188 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
against Louis XIV., he lost the succession to a good estate,
from the same humor which he had preserved ever since,
of preferring the state of his mind to that of his fortune.
Steele, according to the fashion of the day, tried his
hand at writing comedies. His first, "The Funeral,"
ridiculing the hollow parade which takes the place of grief,
was well received; one or two others had indifferent suc¬
cess, and the last, "The Conscious Lovers," in which he
takes strong ground against duelling, was immensely
applauded. Steele's comedies were all comparatively pure
in morals, being in singular and noble contrast to those
by authors of the school of Dryden who were still writing
for the stage. Public taste was undergoing a change for
the better, and such periodicals as the "Tatler" and the
"Spectator" did much toward cultivating a higher Hterary
standard in keeping with the rebound of morals and maimers
which marked the close of the Stuart dynasty in England.
Steele was twice married, each wife bringing him money,
which makes his improvidence the less excusable. His
second wife, the "Dear Prue" of his four hundred notes
and letters, seems to have been a thrifty person, and, not¬
withstanding his real affection for her, often to have been in
want of the guineas which he was spending all too freely
on wine and company. These notes are written from all
sorts of places, mostly from taverns and coffee-houses,
and now and then from the inside of a debtor's prison.
Sometimes he encloses a guinea or two for his wife, or a
little present of some tea or a few walnuts, ^ile she,
poor woman, is constantly dunned by the baker and
the shoemaker, and is dining frugally at home with
her children. Many of the notes are excuses for not
coming home, sometimes real ones, and then again, as
we can not but suspect, made up for the occasion; and
once he says, after excusing himself on the score of dining
with a friend, "Dear Prue, do not send after me, for I
ADDISON AND STEELE.
189
shall be ridiculous." He probably had his small trials, as
she had her great ones.
Steele was, as might be expected, a zealous whig poli¬
tician, and as the condition of parties was changeable, he
found himself sometimes on the top, sometimes at the
bottom of Fortune's wheel. He rushed frequently into print,
and on one of these occasions was expelled from the House
of Commons for libel. In speaking of the many journals
begun by him after "The Tatler," "The Spectator"and
"The Guardian" (for each of which Addison wrote), one
of his biographers says, "So ready was Steele at this kind
of enterprise, that apparently whenever he felt strongly
on any subject he at once started a journal to give vent to
his feelings." The same writer gives a list of eight of these
periodicals, beside the three mentioned above. When the
whigs came into power with the accession of George I.,
Steele's fortunes improved; he was knighted and received
a profitable appointment, but the more he had the more he
spent. To avoid his creditors he was at last obliged to
retire into Wales and live on an estate his wife had owned
there.* She had then been dead for some years, but his
daughters were with him. Friends who visited him describe
him as keeping his sweet cheerfulness to the end, in spite of
paralysis, and one of our latest pictures of him is of his
being wheeled out on the lawn to see the village sports, and
pencilling an order to the mercer for a new gown to the best
dancer.
*One anecdote about Steele's palmy days has been told many times.
He had built himself a private theatre, and to try whether the hall
was well adapted for hearing he placed himself in the most remote part
of the gallery, and begged the carpenter who had built the house to
speak up from the stage. After a moment the carpenter began in a
voice perfectly audible: "Sir Richard Steele! For three months past
me and my men have been a-working in this theatre, and we've never
seen the color of your honor's money; we will be very much obliged if
you'll pay it directly, for until you do, we won't drive in another
naU!"
190
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Steele was the author of the felicitious phrase, used in
speaking of an admirable woman: "To love her was a lib¬
eral education."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
AGE OF ANNE. LESSER ESSAYISTS.
HEN Addison and Steele have been named, and
Swift, having been discussed, is set aside, it seems
as if there could not be much more to say of the
essayists of the Augustan Age, as the first part of the
eighteenth century has been called. And yet there were
others who exercised a powerful influence. Dr. Arbuthnot
(1675-1735), a friend of Pope, wrote a powerful political
satire called "The History of John Bull," intended to
bring into ridicule the interference of England in the War
of the Spanish Succession, and directed especially against
Marlborough. Later he became a member of the Scrib-
lerus Club, which included most of the wits of the day,
and began, in connection with Pope, the "Memoirs of
Martinus Scriblerus." It was of him that Swift said, "If
the world had a dozen Arbuthnots, I would burn my [Gul¬
liver's] Travels!"
Sir Samuel Garth (died 1710) was also a distinguished
physician, and wrote a mock-heroic poem called "The
Dispensary," which ran through many editions.
John Dennis (1657-1734), called in his own day "The
Critic," wrote many short essays on various subjects, and
some poor poetry. He used one expression which has
passed into a proverb. He had invented a new kind of
stage-thunder (the same as is still used in theatres), and
once, after the failure of one of his plays, he was attending
a representation of "Macbeth," and heard his own thunder
used in the scenes. In a rage he exclaimed, "See how the
AG£ OF ANNE. LESSER ESSAYISTS. 191
rascals use me! They will not let my play run, and yet
they steal my thunder!"
Louis Theobald (1691-1744) was a writer of unsuccessful
plays, a translator, and an editor of Shakespeare. In the
last capacity he did best, and thereby excited the anger of
Pope (who had also tried his hand at the same work), to
such a degree that he was made the first hero of the "Dun-
ciad;" Colley Gibber's name being substituted for Theo¬
bald's at a later period.
Matthew Henry (1662-1714) was the author of an
excellent commentary on the Scriptures.
William Warburton (1698-1779), Bishop of Gloucester, a
man of immense learning and a noted theological writer,
was one of the many editors of Shakespeare. The great
dramatist, after being comparatively neglected for a hun¬
dred years, was brought into notice, as it were, by a
continuous line of editors and commentators, lasting down
to the edition of Dr. Johnson (published 1765), after which
the subject was allowed to rest until a new interest was
awakened in it during the nineteenth century.
The most learned man of the eighteenth century, and
one who has been called the finest classical scholar England
ever produced, was Richard Bentley (1662-1742.) His
editions of the Greek and Latin poets attested his prodig¬
ious learning, but the crowning proof of his superiority was
given in the discussion on the so-called "Epistles of
Phalaris."*
George Berkeley (1685-1753), Bishop of Cloyne in Ire¬
land, was a man of varied talents and of a rare charm of
character. Even the unsparing satirist, Pope, ascribes
To Berkeley, every virtue under heaven.
* This was a book attributed to a Sicilian tyrant living in the sixth
century B.C., the same Phalaris who caused a brazen bull to be made
in which he roasted his unfortunate victims alive. The letters, really
a production of a thousand years later, or thereabouts, gave rise to the
192
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
As a man of science he wrote "The New Theory of
Vision"; as a metaphysician, "The Principles of Knowl¬
edge"; as a theologian, "Alciphron." In opposition to the
materialistic tendencies of the time, he maintained what is
called the "idealistic theory," namely, that the qualities
which we attribute to matter exist only in our own minds.
The materialists said that the existence of mind could not
be proved; he tried, without much success, to show the
same as to the existence of matter. His life is to us now
more interesting than his works. Always eager to benefit
his fellow-creatures, he formed a plan for establishing "A
College for Savage Indians in America," for which he
collected large subscriptions, and obtained the promise
of ;^20,ooo from government. He then set sail for
Newport, Rhode Island, to wait there for the promised
grant. The money never came,and Berkeley after spending
two years in vain expectations, returned to England. Dur¬
ing his residence in Newport he was constantly occupied in
doing good, and made himself beloved by all classes of
people.
It was in view of his proposed undertaking in America
that he wrote the famous poem of which the last verse
runs:
Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is his last.
One of the most remarkable religious works ever written
fiercest literary quarrel of modern times. They were accepted as
genuine by many well-known writers, Sir William Temple and Dean
Swift among others. Dr. Bentley's doubts concerning them being
attacked by Bishop Atterbury and Charles Boyle (nephew of the great
chemist), Bentley utterly used up his assailants in a scathing reply in
which he proved them to be both ignorant and arrogant. They could
not retort, but the angry feelings excited ceased only with the lives of
the combatants.
AGE OF ANNE. LESSER ESSAYISTS. 193
belongs to the eighteenth century. This is the "Anal¬
ogy of Religion, both Natural and Revealed, to the Con¬
stitution and Course of Nature," by Joseph Butler (1692-
1751), Bishop of Durham. Of this work, Sir James Mack¬
intosh says, "It is the most original and profound work
extant, in any language, on the philosophy of religion."
Butler's was not a speculative mind; he brought every
subject to the test of the strictest reasoning, and produced
a train of argument of wonderful coherence and exactness.
He left, besides, a volume of admirable sermons.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748), author of hundreds of hymns
and "Divine Songs," was a dissenting clergyman. He
wrote, beside hymns and sermons, various treatises on
education and other subjects. His gentle and kindly dis¬
position made him many friends; and on going to make
a short visit to Sir Thomas and Lady Abney, the inter¬
course proved so mutually agreeable that he remained
with them until his death, a period of thirty-six years.
Some of Watts's hymns are still to be found in every
collection.
Dr. Philip Doddridge ^ 1702-51) also wrote some beau¬
tiful hymns, and many sermons. He composed what Dr.
Johnson called one of the finest epigrams in the English
language. It is a paraphrase of Doddridge's family motto,
"Dum vivimus vivamus"-.
Live while you live, the epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the present day.
Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies.
Lord, in my views let both united be;
I live in pleasure when I live to Thee.
The brothers John and Charles Wesley, the founders
of Methodism, have a place in literature from their fine
hymns. John Wesley (1703-91), wrote also "A Plain
Accoimt of the People called Methodists," and some
13
194
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
religious works. With them was associated George White-
field, famous for his impassioned pulpit oratory. All these
came to America and labored for some time in Georgia,
then a comparatively new colony. Whitefield's sermons
were published after his death. With money collected
by himself he founded in Savannah, an orphanage for
boys which is still (1892) prosperous and useful, after
more than a hundred and fifty years of existence.
It has been customary in framing lists of the eighteenth-
century novelists, to include among them the name of
Daniel Defoe (1661-1731). As a writer of fiction, this
author undoubtedly did much to foster the taste for
stories of imaginary persons, places and occurrences;
but the word novel in its modern sense as a picture of
real human life and death, joy and sorrow, love and hate,
is in no wise applicable to the stories of Defoe.
This remarkable man was the son of James Foe, a
prosperous London butcher, and himself prefixed the "de"
to his name after he had reached middle life. He got a
good elementary education from Charles Morton, a dis¬
senting preacher who, being driven from England by
persecution, came to America and was afterward made
vice-president of Harvard College. It is mentioned of this
teacher that he "included English among school-studies"—
an indication that such an addition to the course was not
a common one. Possibly Defoe's strong, clear, idiomatic
English style may be owing to his father's fortunate selection
of a master for him.
In politics, he was generally on the losing side. He
took part in Monmouth's rebellion (1685), but escaped the
clutches of Kirke and Jeffreys, and later wrote several
political tracts against James II. After wandering abroad
for some years, he went into business in London, failed
for a very large sum, made a compromise with his creditors,
and afterward most honorably paid them in full.
AGE OF ANNE. LESSEE ESSAYISTS. 195
In his first published book, "Essay on Projects," Defoe
took the part of a social reformer, advocating savings-banks
for the poor, the founding of insurance companies, improve¬
ment in public highways (then in a disgraceful condition),
abolition of the press-gang, and a college for the higher
education of women. This last it was reserved for the
nineteenth century to carry into effect. In urging it, Defoe
says, "A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with
the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behavior,
is a creature without comparison She is all
softness and sweetness, love, art and delight." A staunch
whig, he was strongly in favor of William III., and his
satire called "The True-born Englishman" (1698) was
read, even by the king's enemies, with delight, on account
of its broad humor and manly sentiments. Defore says
that eighty thousand copies of it were sold in the streets.
Of monarchs false to their great trust he says :
When kings the sword of justice first lay down,
They are no kings, though they possess the crown.
Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things;
The good of subjects is the end of kings.
During the latter part of the reign of William III., Defoe
was at the height of his prosperity. With the reign of Queen
Anne his fortunes changed. Indignant at a bill in Parlia¬
ment aimed against the Dissenters, he wrote a pamphlet
called "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters," advising
that their ministers should be hung or burned, and the
congregations banished. This satire was considered by the
government a libel, and the author was sentenced to fine,
imprisonment and the pillory.*
* When the officers were looking for him, he was advertised as "a
middle-sized spare man, about forty years old, of a brown complex¬
ion, and dark-brown hair, though he wears a wig, having a hook
nose, sharp chin, gray eyes, and a mole near his mouth."
1%
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Pope, a political opponent, has a fling at him in regard
to the latter punishment:
Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe—
but there was no question of cropping of ears, and the
satirist had little reason to be abashed. He was sur¬
rounded by an admiring crowd, who drank foaming tankards
of ale in his honor, and threw bouquets at him instead
of the customary stones and rotten eggs. He even found
means after the ñrst day's exhibition to write and have
published some bold verses called a " Hymn to the Pil¬
lory," which the government apparently did not dare to
suppress. After standing three times in the pillory and
paying his fine, he was taken to Newgate prison, where he
remained for more than a year (1703-4).* While there
he edited and published his "Review" (already spoken of
as the prototype of the Tatler and Spectator). Much of
his work is rough and unpolished, but some of his ideas
anticipate those of modern philanthropy. Such are the
essays entitled "Giving Alms no Charity," and another
against national workshops.
Defoe's first work of pure fiction is a pretended "Appari¬
tion of Mrs. Veal," a ghost-story told with such wonderful
naturalness that it imposed on nearly everyone who read
it.+ &ich writing Defoe excelled in. His simple, collo¬
quial English, coupled with his ability to throw himself
into the character he was portraying, gave a verisimilitude
to his narratives such as had never before been attained by
any writer.
In spite of the success of this book, Defoe seems to
* During this time his wife and six children were supported by
charity.
t The story goes that this was written for the purpose of selling a
dull work called " Drelincourt on Death," to which it was prefixed,
with the result of selling off the whole edition. Some discredit has
been thrown on this statement, but there seems no reason to doubt it.
THE FIRST NOVELISTS.
197
have dropped fiction entirely until after the accession of
George I. (1715). Three years later, when the author was
fifty-seven years old, appeared the matchless "Robinson
Crusoe," founded on the adventures of a real sailor, Alex¬
ander Selkirk. The name Crusoe was borrowed, being
that of an old schoolmate of Defoe. From this time he
poured out tales in rapid succession: "Memmrs of a
Cavalier," "Moll Flanders," "Journal of the Plague-Year,"
"History of Captain Jack," etc. The cavalier story imposed
upon Lord Chatham, and the history of the plague upon
everybody. It is hard to this day to read the latter book
without the impression that the author is telling his personal
experience, but we know that he was only five years old
in 1666.
Defoe stands singularly apart from the great writers of
his time. Of all others we say, "he was a fnend of so-and-
so," but Defoe, from the peculiarites of his character, seems
to have had no friend. There is a mystery about the
closing years of his life, but it is pretty well ascertained that
he died in hiding, trying to escape from his creditors.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE FIRST NOVELISTS.
F the novelists, properly so called, whose writings
belong to the beginnning of the eighteenth
century, Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) comes
first. He was the son of a joiner and was bred a printer
in the old-fashioned way; served an apprenticeship of seven
years, learning his trade thoroughly; married his master^
daughter, and set up for himself in the same business. He
had from boyhood had a special aptitude for letter-writing,
and when thirteen years old was employed by some young
198 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
women of his acquaintance to write their love-letters for
them. When he was near the age of fifty, a bookseller pro¬
posed to him to prepare a sort of "Complete Letter-Writer,"
by means of which unlearned people would be able to com¬
pose that difficult thing, a letter to a friend. Richardson,
improving upon the idea, thought he might throw these
letters into the form of a connected story; and the result
was the famous novel "Pamela."*
In this story, the heroine is a young servant girl from the
country, who takes a place in the household of Squire
Booby, and relates, in letters to her friends, her varied ex¬
periences. The friends answer her, giving advice, and thus
the story is told. This is the first English novel having
love for its main interest. "Pamela" had such success that
the author was encouraged to try another novel, also in the
form of letters, and wrote "Clarissa Hariowe," which is
considered by many persons his finest work. Here the
heroine is in good society, though not the highest. When
Richardson complained that the ladies were too much inter¬
ested in Lovelace, the villain of his second novel, they
answered that he had given them nothing else to like. Upon
this hint he wrote his last work, "Sir Charles Grandison,"
the hero of which has become a synonym for courtliness,
propriety, dignity, and if we must say it, insufferable tedi-
ousness. Sir Charles is Richardson's ideal gentleman; and
as the author himself was not "to the manner born," it
was natural that he should overdo the matter in describing
those who were. "Sir Charles Grandison," however, has had
its admirers even in more recent years ; and when one falls
in with a volume of it in some old-fashioned library, it is
well to spend an hour over its pages, so as to understand
what kind of reading delighted the readers of the last
century.
Richardson himself is described as being "a stout, rosy.
* Pronounced Pam'ela.
THE FIRST NOVELISTS.
199
vain, precise little man, carrying himself with sensitive
dignity," and considerably elated by the prominence into
which his newly-found talent raised him. Ladies made a
pet of him, and constantly urged him to write more stories
for their entertainment; but he kept on quietly in his own
path, and having written his three novels of low, middle,
and high life, withdrew into the country and passed his
remaining years in the enjoyment of a prosperity earned
by many years of steady industry.
One trial, however, Richardson had. A gay, dissipated
young man of the town, not liking the virtuous conduct of
the older man's heroines and the sobriety and correctness
of his "Sir Charles," wrote a novel expressly to ridicule all
that had been held up to respect and veneration in Rich¬
ardson's work.
The young man was Henry Fielding (1707-54), whose
"Joseph Andrews" was begun with the aim of caricaturing,
particularly, "Pamela," though the work grew under his
hand to a degree of excellence which cast its original pur¬
pose into the shade. This was his first novel, though not
his first work, by many; and its success turned the bent of
his genius toward romance-writing, wherein he gained the
high place he holds as the originator of the novel of real
life in English literature.
Fielding's was a younger branch of the family of the Earls
of Denbigh. His father was General Fielding, a man of
much distinction of the convivial sort, who, when his son
had finished his law-studies, made him an allowance of
;^2oo a year "which anybody might pay," as Fielding
expressed it, to indicate that his father did not pay it. Pov¬
erty drove him to depend on his pen and his wits, and he
employed them in writing for the stage. He wrote some
twenty-four comedies, farces, and extravaganzas in the years
between 1732 and 1743, some of them translations or
adaptations from the French, and others original satires on
200 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the people and things about him. None of them "held the
stage" beyond his own day (though succeeding writers used
them largely), yet they gave him occupation and support
and paved the way for his subsequent eminence.
He married (1735) Miss Cradock, a belle of Salisbury,
who had of her own; and on his succeeding, at
the death of his mother, to a small estate in Dorsetshire,
they went to live there. Fielding took up the character of
a country squire, with servants, horses, dogs, etc., in playing
which part his slender means were soon used up. Then he
returned to London, where he passed the rest of his days in
much activity, some solid distinction and not a little extrava¬
gance and dissipation. He was called to the bar and had
a fair practice; but never ceased the industrious use of his
pen; writing one valuable law-book and contributing to
journals, political and literary. Eight years after marriage
his lovely and loving wife died; a blow which is said to
have threatened to deprive him of reason. He was appointed
justice of the peace, an office which he filled with credit
and success, using the position to put an end to certain gross
abuses that had prevailed in that office. Later, he became
Chairman of the Sessions, which necessitated his attendance
at the bMich. These experiences brought from his pen
"An inquiry into the increase of thieves and robbers,"
and other valuable tracts on serious subjects. They also
gave him the particular knowledge requisite for depicting to
perfection, as he did in his novels, the ruffianly element then
rampant in English low-life.
Although possessed of these solid qualities, his inherited
tendency to dissipation, and the prevailing fashion of high
living, brought about their inevitable results, debility and
fatal disease. (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu described him
as one who forgot every evil when he was before a venison
pasty and a flask of champagne).
The warfare he waged on the gangs of desperate ruffians
THE FIRST NOVELISTS.
201
then infesting London was too much for his wasted forces
and he was compelled to retire from his official duties. In
1754 he sailed for Lisbon in search of health, arriving after
a stormy passage of which he (a worker to the end) left
an account, published after his death. He died there at the
comparatively early age of forty-eight; dropsy, jaundice and
asthma being the dreadful immediate means of his tak¬
ing off.
Passing by the theatrical experience already mentioned
(wherein, by the way, he became at one time manager of
a company) we come to the work through which he achieved
his great renown. His first novel was "Joseph Andrews,"
as we have seen. Its success was immediate. It intro¬
duced the real into the domain before possessed by the
ideal. The world recognized it as the greatest work of
fiction yet produced in England. The age of Arcadian
romance seemed to be at an end, and the more difficult
achievement of interesting reáders with the common life
about them was at last shown to be possible. The humor
is akin to that of Cervantes, and "Parson Adams" is the
Quixote of the book. His " History of Jonathan Wild
the Great," is able and valuable, but repulsive; being a
description of low profligacy with only a foil of moral
excellence. "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling,"
is his greatest work, and often called the greatest of Eng¬
lish novels. It has a long, complicated and ingenious
plot wherein virtue is rewarded and vice punished — yet
the sympathy of the reader is left, often, with the offender.
Therefore its influence is not in the direction of virtue;
for as has often been said (and should always be remem¬
bered), the tendency is bad of any novel which leaves the
heart of the reader on the side of the wrong-doer; even
though the latter may be punished and the unloved exem¬
plary person carry off all the rewards at the author's
disposal.
202
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
"Tom Jones" is quite unfit for general reading in our
more decent day; as indeed are all Fielding's works.
In his third and last novel, "Amelia," the heroine is
said to be drawn from the character of his lovely first
wife. This was also a very great novel, judged by the stan¬
dard of his times.
Of late years it has become almost a fashion to rank
Fielding as the greatest of English novelists. If this be
true, it is with vast allowances for the time in which he
wrote. He was perhaps the most original and courageous,
inasmuch as he discovered the new realm of fiction; was
the Columbus of a new Indies of wealth, grandeur and
magnificence not even yet fully explored. As to his being
the greatest novelist in the sense of having written the
greatest novels, that can scarcely be maintained. There
are hundreds of tales written since his day, by scores of
novelists, each of which, judged by its intrinsic merit,
must be placed above any one of Fielding's. Scott, Dick¬
ens, George Eliot and many others have given us works
each in some respects and some in all respects greater
than "Tom Jones," or any other novel of a past century.
Thackeray wrote, in his generous, whole-souled way:
What a genius! What a vigor! What a bright-eyed intelligence and
observation! What a wholesome hatred for meanness and knavery!
What a vast sympathy ! What a cheerfulness ! What a manly relish
of life! What a. love of human kind! What a poet is here!
. . . . It is wonderful to think of the pains and misery that
man suffered; the pressure of want, illness, remorse which he endured,
and that the writer was neither malignant nor melancholy, his view
of truth never warped and his generous human Jcindness never sur¬
rendered.—Lectures on the English Humorists.
We read with a quiet smile this enthusiasm on the part
of one, himself the writer of novels more noble than those
he is praising. "Hatred for meanness and knavery" 1 "Love
of human kind"! "View of truth never warped"! "Gener¬
ous human kindness"! All these things do not describe
THE FIRST NOVELISTS.
203
fun which is found in the discomfiture of the helpless by
the hand of insolent roystering strength. Nor does it
comport with rational ideas of "hatred of meanness and
knavery" to glorify the giving away to fnends of money
that should be paid to creditors. These are Fielding's
notions of " sympathy," and the best that can be said in
their defence is that they have prevailed in England even
to this day. It is not uncommon in English fiction (and
perhaps in fact) to regard the creditor, the "dun," as an
enemy. He who has trusted you with his money or goods,
which you have used and not returned as promised, is
sacrificed to a "friend" in need, and the act is admired !
You have been generous with the money of somebody else,
and yet are not marked as a thief but as a hero ! Happily
this absurdity is almost unknown in the literature of the
more logical, working, debt-paying portion of the race. But
it is characteristic of Fielding and his heroes.
Tobias Smollett (1721-71) was, like Fielding, of a good
family (Scottish) and, also like him, was early in life obliged
to depend on himself. After travelling about the world as
surgeon's-mate on board a vessel in the royal navy, he, too,
found wherein his forte lay, and began to write novels.
Among these are "Roderick Random," "Peregrine Pickle,"
and "Humphrey Clinker," the latter written many years
after the others, and generally thought to be his best. He
also wrote a "History of England," which has not kept its
ground against the standard work of Hume, written at
about the same time; though the latter part, from the
period where the greater historian broke off (1688) to 1765,
is occasionally to be found in libraries as a supplement to
Hume's.
Among the progenitors of the modern novel, Smollett is
third in time and in estimation ; Richardson being first in
date and in decency, and Fielding first in power. Smol¬
lett's pen was both bitter and foul. He was of an unhappy
204
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
temper, and found, as such persons do, an unfriendly world
to live in; for as has been well said, mankind is like a mir¬
ror, in that it gives back smile for smile and frown for
frown.
His coarseness seemed to be an inherent part of his
being, a thing loved by the writer for its own sake rather
than forced upon him by his devotion to truth to nature
and the times of which he was telling.
The best work he did was in describing life in the navy;
and the race of British sailors of the old day found in his
writings a passport to immortality. They have already
passed away, but their memory is embalmed forever in
Smollett's romances.
The last of the group of novelists we have mentioned
(although he is scarcely entitled to that name) is Laurence
Sterne (1713-68) who was born in Ireland, son of an army
officer, and grandson of an Archbishop of York. He was
a clergyman, though one would not guess it from his writ¬
ings. His "Tristram Shandy" depicts, with great humor,
characters whose individuality gives them an imperishable
place in our literature. "Uncle Toby" and "Corporal
Trim" are no more to be forgotten than are Cromwell and
Barebones. The airy creations of fiction will live as long as
the solid characters of history. In "The Sentimental
Journey," satire is exchanged for sentiment and, although
coarseness is not far to seek, it is subordinated to a vein of
tender philanthropy, benevolence, and pity for all suffering
which palliates if it does not excuse the other. True,
Thackeray maintains that the sentiment is forced and
affected, and much of it merely a cunning mask for indeli¬
cate suggestion; but that has not been the conclusion of
readers in general.
His story of the imprisoned starling has drawn many
tears, and has become an English classic :
"I can't get out!" said the starling, and to every person who came
EARLY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS.
205
through the passage it ran fluttering to the side toward which he
approached it with the same lamentation of its captivity, "I can't
get out!" said the starling. "God help thee!" said I, "but I'll let
thee out, cost what it will;" so I turned about the cage to get the
door. It was twisted and double-twisted so fast with wire there
was no getting it open The bird flew to the place
where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head
through the trellis, pressed his breast against it as if impatient. "I
fear, poor creature, I can not set thee at liberty." "I can't get
out, I can't get out!"said the starling.
Perhaps it is characteristic of Sterne's superficial and
ineffectual sentiment that, the wire being so obstinate, the
poor starling remains a prisoner through all the ages during
which the story shall remain a part of literature.
The well-known and often-quoted phrase "God tempers
the wind to the shorn lamb," is not taken from the Bible,
but from Sterne; a fact about which there is a very general
and very natural mistake.
CHAPTER XXX.
EARLY EIGHTEENTH - CENTURY POETS.
N grouping together the poets who followed Pope,
we do not give them in order of merit, but of
date of birth. The earliest, Edward Young,
(1681-1765) was a clergyman and wrote, beside much
other verse, "Night Thoughts," a long religious poem in
nine books, of which the main subject is the immortality
of the soul. Dr. Young had much to sadden his life in the
loss of friends, and his principal poem is tinged with a
melancholy which does not necessarily belong to the
subject. The didactic style of Young is now out of fash¬
ion; but his poem contains many fine lines, which are
worth some little search to find. We subjoin a few of
these;
206 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep !
«
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss.
» » «
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour.
« « *
Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer.
* -it »
Procrastination is the thief of time.
* * «
All men think all men mortal but themselves.
* * *
He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.
« *
Who does the best his circumstance allows,
Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
-N- * -N-
How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
* * «
Wishing, of all employments, is the worst.
* « *
Man wants but little, nor that little long.
« -N-
Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven.
«■ * «
Like our shadows.
Our wishes brighten as our sun declines.
« « «
Death loves a shining mark.
* * *
Pigmies are pigmies still, though perched on Alps;
And pyramids are pyramids in vales.
Allan Ramsay (1686-1758), son of a Scottish peasant
in Lanarkshire, rose from an apprenticeship at wig-making
to be a bookseller in Edinburgh, and reached middle
life before he published his first volume of collected verse.
Later, his pastoral play of " The Gentle Shepherd," written
partly in dialect, gave him at once a recognized place
among poets, and drew the best society of the town to
his humble shop. The scene-painting of the " Shepherd "
is of homely life, enlivened by homely sentiment and over¬
flowing humor. The play is interspersed throughout with
graceful songs, among which "l^ochaber no more," and
"The Yellow-haired Laddie" are deservedly popular. The
EARLY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS. 207
"Gentle Shepherd" is said to be the only Scotch pastoral
poem ever written.
Ramsay had various ups and downs of fortune, preserv¬
ing through them all the sunny cheerfulness which appears
in his writings, pleased with his success and the appreciation
of cultivated people, and very happy in his home-life.
Of Richard Savage (1698-1743) we should probably
have heard but little had it not been for Dr. Johnson's
generous and friendly "Life." His biographer sums up
his history by saying that he was "doomed to poverty and
obscurity, and launched upon the ocean of life only that
he might be swallowed by its quicksands or dashed upon
its rocks." If Savage had been a great poet we might
relate his misfortunes in detail; but as he did not rise above
mediocrity it is enough to say that his life was a wretched
and unhappy one, whose vicissitudes were embittered by
his own ill-regulated passions and vicious excesses. One
of the interesting facts connected with it is that he and
Dr. Johnson used sometimes to walk the London streets at
night together, when neither one had the means to pay for a
lodging and the supper which should have preceded it.
One couplet of Savage's will live:
He lives to build, not boast, a generous race;
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.
A curious instance of the ideas prevailing at that time is
afforded by Savage's expectations from Queen Caroline (wife
of George II.). When he had killed a man in a tavern brawl
and was under sentence of death, she procured his pardon,
and he afterward wrote a birthday ode addressed to her,
calling himself her "Volunteer Laureate," for which he
received a present of fifty pounds. Colley Cibber, the
actual laureate, remonstrated against having his laurels thus
borrowed or stolen; but Savage paid no attention, and once
a year sent the queen a poem in return for which he
received the same gift. The drollest part of it all is that
208 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Savage was indignant because the queen did not give him a
handsome pension, sufficient for his support; arguing that
since she had saved his life, it was her duty to preserve it.
James Thomson (1700-48), the son of a Scotch Pres¬
byterian minister, went, at the age of twenty-five, to seek
his fortune in London. He was handicapped from the
start by the failure of remittances which he expected from
home, and by losing all his letters of introduction, which
were stolen from his pocket as he was carrying them along
the street carefully tied up in a corner of his handkerchief.
His first paying occupation seems to have been teaching a
child to read. His poem of "Winter" was sold to a book¬
seller for three guineas; and Thomson, having had the
worldly wisdom to dedicate it to Sir Spencer Compton (one
of George I.'s ministers), received a present of twenty guineas
more. The reading world at once perceived the merit of
"Winter," and in the course of two or three years the poem
received the addition of Summer, Spring, and Autumn,
and became the fine completed poem called "The Seasons."
He was the first poet in whom love of nature overshadowed
interest in man, and many of his descriptions of natural
scenery are exquisite. The "Hymn to the Seasons," ap¬
pended to the longer poem, is an epitome of the whole.
The line to Spring :
Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness come,
is very often quoted; sometimes in serious delight at the
season's beauties; often er in sarcastic allusion to its trying
and afflicting vagaries. In one canto occur the famous lines ;
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought.
To teach the young idea how to shoot.
Thomson, of course, tried his hand at dramatic writing.
Almost everybody did so in those days. His tragedy of
"Sophonisba," founded on the old Numidian-Roman story,
was marred by one unlucky line:
O Sophonisba! Sophonisba O!
EARLY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS. 209
Upon hearing which, some wag in the gallery called out:
O Jemmy Thomson! Jemmy Thomson, O!
and roars of laughter turned the tragedy into a farce.
The objectionable line was afterward altered to:
O Sophonisba! I am wholly thine,
but the play was voted better for reading than for acting,
and for burlesquing than either.
Thomson was incurably lazy, but his poetic gifts stood
him in good stead, and he obtained from time to time
such employment as was well paid and at the same time
left him leisure for literary work. At one time he lost a
sinecure office which yielded him a comfortable income,
because his indolence prevented him from making the
necessary application for its renewal. Poets, however,
were scarce in those days, and he soon obtained another
office, that of Surveyor General of the Leeward Islands, for
the duties of which he employed a deputy, pocketing
;¿'3oo per annum—at least $3,000 of our present money—
in addition to what he paid the deputy.
His "Castle of Indolence" is his finest and most artistic
poem. This, however, has never attained the popularity of
the "Seasons." The former has an admirable moral, well
worked out in Spenserian verse. Here is one stanza:
I care not, Fortune, what you me deny;
You can not rob me of free nature's grace;
You can not shut the windows of the sky.
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You can not bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve;
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave;
Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave.*
* It is worth while to observe, here, the extra metrical foot which
lengthens the final line from a pentameter to a hexameter. This,
which is the kind of line called "Alexandrine," gives a much admired
variation to the stanzas where it occurs.
14
210
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
John Dyer (1700-59), a Welshman, wrote a pretty de¬
scriptive poem called "Grongar Hill," in the octosyllabic
metre made afterward so popular by Scott. A longer poem,
"The Fleece," about sheep and their products, is, from the
prosaic nature of the subject, unattractive.
Robert Blair (1700-46), a Scottish clergyman, was the
author of "The Grave," which has been called, by high
critical authority, an imitation of Young's "Night Thoughts."
Of this charge it is a sufficient refutation to say that "The
Grave" was written before "Night Thoughts," and has no
other resemblance to that poem than being long, written on
a serious subject, and in the form of blank verse. It is well
sustained, and has some noble passages; for instance :
Sure, the last end
Of the good man is peace! How calm his exit!
Night - dews fall not more gently to the ground,
Nor weary, worn - out winds expire so soft.
Behold him ! In the evening tide of life,
A life well spent, whose early care it was
His riper years should not upbraid his green:
By unperceived degrees he wears away.
Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting.
Robert Blair must not be confounded with Dr. Hugh
Blair (1718-1800), a well-known critic and writer on
Rhetoric.
William Shenstone (1714-63) was the author of "The
Schoolmistress," a really bright and readable sketch of the
old-time "dame" school-teacher, but disfigured by an
affectation of archaisms. His "Pastoral Ballad" is much
more agreeable reading:
My banks they are furnished with bees.
Whose murmur invites one to sleep;
My grottos are shaded with trees.
And my hills are white over with sheep.
And so one is rocked, as it were, by the soft swaying
of the verse, and almost ready to weep with the shepherd
when his Phyllis turns out to be faithless.
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS.
211
CHAPTER XXXI
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS CONTINUED.
ITH the name of Thomas Gray (1716-71), a host
of tender associations press upon us. We find
ourselves, in fancy, in the "Country Church¬
yard," looking on the scene of the "Elegy." The glim¬
mering landscape fades upon our sight; we hear the drowsy
tinkling of the sheep-bells; the heaving turf reminds us
of the generations gone before whom no cheerful sound
shall ever more rouse from their lowly bed. Then we think
of Wolfe, on his last night, as the boat dropped softly,
with mutfled oars, down the St. Lawrence, and hear him
repeat to a brother-officer.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power.
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave.
Await alike the inevitable hour;
The paths of glory lead but to the grave:
and say that he would rather be the author of that poem
than to take Quebec—he at the moment on a path of
glory that led him on the morrow to the grave.
We are surprised to read that the father of young Gray
was of a harsh and violent disposition, and made his wife's
life so wretched that she was obliged to separate from him
and support herself and her son by keeping a shop in
Cornhill, London. By his mother's, efforts Thomas received
a university education at Cambridge, though he left college
without a degree. While there he formed a friendship with
Horace Walpole, and the two set out for a tour on the con¬
tinent, Walpole paying all expenses. They turned out to
be uncongenial companions, and after a quarrel in Italy,
for which Walpole at a later day took all the blame upon
himself. Gray returned to England. Soon after this his
father died, leaving some property, but not enough to
212
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
enable the son to enter the law, as he had proposed
doing. He therefore settled down for life at Cambridge,
where he would have the best opportunities for study.
It was while he was here that most of his poems were writ¬
ten, though the first one of importance, the "Ode on a
Distant Prospect of Eton College," (where Gray was pre¬
pared for Cambridge), he kept by him five years before
he gave it to the public. He became a proficient in
every branch of learning he undertook (he did not study
mathematics), was a fine Latin and Greek scholar, was
familiar with the literature of several modem languages,
and was profoundly versed in the natural sciences, as well
as in architecture, archaeology and music. And from all this,
the only benefit we of the nineteenth century have is a half-
dozen exquisite poems, a dozen or so of others of less
merit, though all carefully finished, and a volume of delight¬
ful letters; for, like others of that leisurely time. Gray was
an admirable letter - writer. It is pleasant to think that
his devoted mother lived to read the Elegy and to enjoy the
appreciation which the public gave it. It instantly became
popular and has stood the test of time, being felt to this
day, by perhaps a majority of readers, to be the most
perfect poem in the language.
Three years before Gray's death, the professorship of
modern history at Cambridge was bestowed upon him ; a
tardy recognition of his great claims. This made him easy
as to money matters (he had always before been poor), but
his health was beginning to fail and he had not much enjoy¬
ment of the new distinction. He died of gout, the same
disease which had carried off both his father and mother;
and was buried at Stoke Pogis, the churchyard of the
"Elegy," in the same tomb with his mother. His epitaph
on her is touching in its simplicity. It runs thus :
Beside her friend and sister here sleep the remains of Dorothy Gray,
widow, the careful mother of many children, one of whom alone had
the mbfortune to survive her.
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETS.
213
Gray was refined and delicate in his tastes, even to
fastidiousness. He possessed the art and industry to give
that last touch to labored composition, the touch which
removes all trace of labor. In the "Elegy," there is not
a fault of thought, of diction, of rhyme or of rhythm; and
yet it reads as if the lines had flowed spontaneously from
the Gastaban spring, the words falling gently to their places
without the intervention of a mortal hand.
Of Gray's other poems, the favorites are the "Ode on a
Distant Prospect of Eton College," "The Bard," "Ode to
Adversity," and "The Progress of Poesy." In the latter
are the grand lines describing Milton :
Nor second he, that rode sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of ecstasy,
The secrets of the abyss to spy.
He passed the flowing bounds of space and time;
The living throne, the sapphire blaze.
Where angels tremble while they gaze.
He saw; but blasted with excess of light.
Closed his eyes in endless night.
Gray was offered the laureateship on the death of Colley
Gibber (1757), but declined it. It was then bestowed on
William Whitehead, a poet and dramatist of no great merit
When Dr. Burney visited Voltaire at Ferney, the great
Frenchman inquired what poets were then living in Eng¬
land. Dr. Burney replied, "We have Mason and Gray."
Posterity has decided that one of these should be known
in later centuries as far as the English language is spoken,
and the other utterly forgotten except as a name in the
list. William Mason (1725-97), in his day called "one
of the most eminent of living poets," is now remembered
chiefly as having been the friend of Gray.
A sad interest hangs about the name of William Collins
(1721-59), whose poems, few but most exquisite, bear the
stamp of true genius. His ode beginning:
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
214
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
and the lofty and sustained "Ode to the Passions," are
among the finest examples of such poetry in our language.
Strange to say, these beautiful poems, published with other
odes, "fell flat" on the public taste of his own day; and
the author, who lacked steadiness of purpose and noble
aims, became dissipated and despondent. He had gone to
London, full of high hopes and strong in the confident
possession of genius, and the neglect of his work took
away his spirit and his hope and he plunged into the
deepest excesses. Once only after this melancholy deteri¬
oration had begun, did he light up for awhile, and he then
wrote the beautiful ode on the death of Thomson:
In yonder grave a Druid lies;
but soon sank again into mental inaction. After years of
struggling with poverty an uncle died and left him what to
the poor author was a fortune; but too late for him to
enjoy it. He paid to the bookseller all the money the
latter had lost in publishing the "Odes," and then, collect¬
ing all the copies he could find, threw them into the fire.
He lived for ten miserable years longer, in a state of
mental incapacity—sometimes of violent mania—almost
forgotten by the world; and when at last death released
him, no notice was taken of the event.
Of Mark Akenside (1721-70) it is not necessary to say
much. He was the son of a butcher in Newcastle. Being
desirous of entering the Presbyterian ministry he received
assistance from a fund established for use in such cases ; but,
changing his intentions, he resolved to study physic, and at
once repaid the sum which had been contributed.* He
became a physician, and at twenty-three wrote the one
poem with which his name is connected, "The Pleasures of
* A couplet from a poem written at this time exhibits his aim in life :
Still true to reason be my plan,
Still let my actions speak the man.
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
215
Imagination." This work, smooth in rhythm and correct
in imagery, was favorably received by the reading public
of his day, but has fallen into neglect in ours, when we
have so much that is grand and noble to read that we do
not feel disposed to spend much time on the utterances of
mediocrity.
CHAPTER XXXII.
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
HE great Dr. Johnson! Such was the name com¬
monly given to Samuel Johnson (1709-84) by
his contemporaries. Those who knew him late
in life have described his rolling gait, his untidy wig, his
seamed and scarred face, his peering, near-sighted eyes,
until we feel as if we had seen him in the flesh, so strongly
is his image impressed upon our minds. We watch him
twitching and tossing his large ungainly body from side
to side as he walks the streets, carefully touching every
post along the road, going back to complete the cere¬
mony if by chance he had missed one: we see him sawing
violently backward and forward as he sits reading a book
on the open common, and we wonder what there is about
this strange being to render him an object of veneration
and of profound interest.
Johnson was born in the old cathedral city of Lich-
fleld, and was the son of Michael Johnson, a learned
bookseller. Being scrofulous, his parents took him to
London to be "touched" by Queen Anne for the " King's
Evil"; and among his earliest recollections was one of
being taken before a tall lady in a long black hood and
a stomacher covered with diamonds. The royal touch,
however, produced no effect, and the miserable inheri¬
tance of disease threw a cloud over his whole life. It
216
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
made him inert and melancholy; though when roused in
any intellectual dispute, he easily overtopped his compan¬
ions. His father, who was poor and always growing poorer,
managed to send him to college, but could not equip him
properly, so that while the professors were amazed at his
wonderful powers and great attainments, the students
made themselves merry over his ragged clothes and dirty
linen. He used to shuffle along in by-paths to avoid
showing the holes in his shoes; but when some kind per¬
son left a new pair at his door he pitched them out of the
window, enraged at being considered an object of charity.
When Johnson had been three years at Oxford, his father
died, leaving barely enough to provide for his widow the
necessaries of life, while the son struggled onward, trymg
all sorts of things, school - teaching among the rest. But
few would wish to send their boys to a person of whom
it could be written, "He has such a way of distorting
his face (w*^ though he can't help), y® gent, think it may
affect some young ladds." This want of control over his
muscles was one of the many fearful results of scrofula,
and one of the symptoms of a mental disease, verging on
insanity, against which he strove all his life.
Two of Johnson's three pupils were the sons of his
old friend Captain Peter Garrick, and one of them, a
rosy-cheeked lad, was destined to a fame comparable
to that of his great teacher. When in a few months the
school failed, master and pupil went up to London to¬
gether to seek, each, his fortune. The younger became
the greatest actor of the century; the elder the literary
despot to whom all the world of letters looked up with
unquestioning submission.
At twenty - five years old, while still in Lichfield, Sam¬
uel Johnson married a widow of nearly double his age,
in whom his friends saw only an ill - looking, ignorant and
affected person, with children as old as Johnson himself;
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
217
but whom he really loved, retaining his affection for her
as long as she lived.
In London, Johnson picked up such literary work as
he could find to do. He made translations, wrote pre¬
faces, furnished short articles for the "Gentleman's Mag¬
azine," and offered his one dramatic effort, the tragedy of
"Irene," to the booksellers. "You might better buy a
porter's knot and go to shouldering trunks," said one of
them to him, looking at his broad shoulders and big,
awkward, figure. He often went hungry in these days,
and once signed himself, in writing to a publisher, im-
pransus — without a breakfast, or fasting. He used to
boast that he got a better dinner for eightpence than
his friends did for a shilling. "I give sixpence for meat
and a penny for bread, and a penny to the waiter," said
he; "while they drink wine and give the waiter nothing."
During these years of miserable privation we hear little of
his wife, who lived sometimes in London and sometimes
at or near Lichfield, according to their circumstances. At
one time Johnson was occupied in writing out, in his
own language, the debates in parliament. (These debates
it was then illegal to publish). A listener reported the
speeches to him and they were published under feigned
names, the whole being styled, "Debates in the Senate
of Lilliput." About this time Johnson had a gleam of
success in the acceptance by a bookseller of his poem
of "London," for which he received ten pounds. This was
an imitation of a satire of Juvenal, a Latin poet, but
Johnson made it his own by such lines as these:
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed :
Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
In a poem written ten years later on the "Vanity of
Human Wishes," he bids us
Mark what ills the scholar's life assail:
Toil, envy, want, the patron and the gaol.
218
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
In this last poem occur the well - known lines :
He left the name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
"London" had an immediate success, and brought the
author into notice; but many weary years were to pass be¬
fore he would earn a comfortable living. In 1750, he began
" The Rambler," a periodical modeled somewhat on Addi¬
son's "Spectator." It was not very popular, though it
added something to his income. It died down after awhile,
and at a later time he started a similar periodical under the
name of "The Idler," which had a history quite like that
of the "Rambler". He also contributed to like ventures
undertaken by other men.
Meanwhile he had begun and was busy upon the great
work of his life; namely, the first complete Dictionary of
the English Language, a book which occupied him for
seven years, and is a monument of labor. During its pro¬
gress his wife died, sincerely mourned by him; and some
years afterward he lost his old mother, who lived to the age
of ninety. Being without money to pay the expenses of
his mother's funeral, he wrote, in the evenings of a single
week, the tale of "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia," in a kind
of diction that Macaulay styles "Johnsonese"—a stately
use of dignified Latinized language, which suggested Gold¬
smith's good-humored remark that if Dr. Johnson should
undertake to write a fable about little fishes, he would make
them talk like whales. Toward the end of Johnson's life,
however, his style became simpler, though always having a
certain quality about it which may be called grandiose.
Dr. Johnson wrote good letters, and one of his to Lord
Chesterfield is so celebrated that a sketch of his life is
incomplete without some mention of it. The Earl, rich,
fashionable and courted, was known as a friend of letters,
and Johnson, in his early struggling days, sacrificed his pride
so far as to ask him to become a patron of his dictionary,
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
219
that laborious work to which so many years of his life were
given. Chesterfield apparently took no notice of the
appeal, but, when the work was finished, signified in some
way to Dr. Johnson that he should like to have the work
dedicated to himself. In reply the great lexicographer
addressed him one of the most scathing letters on record.
The following extracts show its style and tenor:
February 17th, 1775. My Lord: I have been lately informed, by the
proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is
recommended to the public, were written by your Lordship. . . .
Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward
rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been
pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to com¬
plain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without
one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour.
Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.
.... The notice you have been pleased to take of my labors, had
it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indiffer¬
ent, and can not enjoy it; till I am solitary and can not impar it; till I
am known and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity
not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received; or to be
unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron,
which Providence has enabled me to do for myself. .... I have
long wakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted myself
with so much exultation, My Lord, your Lordship's most humble, most
obedient servant, Sam. Johnson.
Chesterfield did not reply to Johnson's bitter words, but
always kept the letter open on his table where all might
read it; and it was Johnson who afterward published it.
Chesterfield at the time was deaf and went little into soci¬
ety; he said he would have turned off the best servant he
ever had if he had known that he denied him to a man who
would have been always more than welcome. Therefore it
seems that the neglect complained of by the "great bear"*
* One of Johnson's nicknames was "Ursus Major," but Boswell
says (referring to his kindness of heart) that he had nothing of the
bear but the skin.
220
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
was more accidental than intentional, if not more apparent
than real.
Turning for a moment to the Dictionary itself, we easily
perceive its many excellencies and its few defects. Among
the latter is the fact that the range of authors whom John¬
son quotes as authority is extremely limited, and that he
leaned toward the classic rather than the Saxon element
of the tongue.* Another thing which would be a fault if
it were not rather a bit of brightness, lightening up the dull
sameness of lexicography, is to be found in the Johnsonian
personality which occasionally puts itself in evidence. The
best known instances are in the following definitions:
The first is introspective; "Lexicographer: A writer of
dictionaries; a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing
the original and detailing the signification of words."
The second is suggestive of his irrepressible dislike of
the Scotch ; " Oats : A grain which in England is generally
given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."
The third is an expression of contempt for those who
live on public bounty. "Pension: An allowance to any
one without an equivalent. In England it is generally
understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for trea¬
son to his country."
• Mrs. Richardson says: The Johnsonian style is in pompous and
long-syllabled words, many of them words of Latin origin. He under¬
rated the value of strong, homely English, and when he had expressed
himself in plain, direct words, he was apt to translate himself into a
more verbose style. Boswell gives some good instances: Speaking of
one of the comedies of the time of Charles II. he said, " It has not wit
enough to keep itself sweet," and immediately changed this to "it had
not enough vitality to preserve it from putrefaction." Macaulay finds
a still better instance: When he was travelling in the Hebrides he
writes: "When we were taken up stairs, a dirty fellow bounced out of
the bed in which we were to lie." Afterward, when he printed the
journal of these travels, he gives the account thus: "Out of one of
the beds in which we were to repose, started up at our entrance, a
man black as a Cyclops from the forge. "
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
221
The latter definition is of course utterly indefensible; for
the idea of pensions (whether always the ruling motive or
not) is that they are given as late pay for foregone public
service. It becomes doubly absurd in the light of the fact
that Johnson himself,, when old and poor, received from
the government a pension of ^£300 a year.
From the year (1762) in which Dr. Johnson began to
receive his yearly allowance we have no more dismal nar¬
ratives of battling with poverty. That sum in addition to
his earnings meant to him luxury and comfort. He did
not feast the rich and entertain the great; his table was
shared with several poor dependents, none of them par¬
ticularly agreeable, whose only claim on him was that they
were in want of kindness. A poor blind woman, a helpless,
worn - out surgeon, two or three destitute ladies whom no
one else befriended — such were the people with whom he
surrounded himself as sub - pensioners, while he had the
rare tact to make them forget that they were such, and to
treat them on a perfect equality as friends.
The most brilliant men of the day were his familiar
companions, and they met, as was fitting, at the Literary
Club, which was founded by Sir Joshua Reynolds. There
met together such men as Burke, Goldsmith, Sir Joshua,
Garrick, Sheridan, Gibbon, Adam Smith—but the list grows
much too long. In the midst of this circle sat Dr. John¬
son, rolling, puffing about in his chair, contradicting, laying
down the law, and yet none the less eagerly welcomed in
the splendid assernbly. There must have been some magic
about the conversation of such a person to make his pecu¬
liarities tolerated by the class of men who surrounded him.
It was also after the king's pension was granted him that
Johnson first saw James Boswell (1740-95), a Scotchman,
who v/as to play so important a part in his life and bring
that life before us almost as vividly as if we had been
observers of it. Boswell was a hero-worshiper; knowing
222
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Johnson by reputation, he never rested until he was pre¬
sented to him ; and from that time forth was his shadow
whenever he could leave his own home and his business in
Edinburgh. To Boswell we owe one of the most complete
biographies ever written. He is so bent on shedding lustre
upon his idol that he does not at all shrink from throwing
the same strong light on his own weaknesses and failings,
but gives us the full benefit of the photographic pen-and-
ink picture. One would not wish to have a Boswell of one's
own, but it is a gain to the world that there should have
been one to record the sayings of Samuel Johnson. Bos-
well's life of Johnson stands side by side with Pepys's
autobiography ; both are marvels of frank and faithful per¬
sonal portraiture.
Among Johnson's warmest friends was Mrs. Thrale
(1741-1821). She was the wife of a rich brewer at Streat-
ham, near London, of a literary turn herself, and very fond
of brilliant company. At her house Dr. Johnson always
found a warm welcome, delightful company, and an unlim¬
ited number of cups of tea, which he swallowed to the
amazement of all beholders. It is said that he was known
to drink nineteen at a sitting.
After Mr. Thrale's death his widow married an Italian
gentleman named Piozzi, and as Dr. Johnson chose to be
displeased at the match he quarrelled with her, and an
estrangement was the end of a friendship of many happy
years. Mrs. Thrale wrote a pretty fable called "The Three
Warnings," and late in life published .an autobiography.
Her book, "Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson,"gives many amus¬
ing glimpses of him as he lived. After receiving his pen¬
sion Johnson wrote but little, and when he did write it was
mostly by fits and starts.
His edition of Shakespeare, prefaced by a memoir, did
not add to his reputation as a critic. Criticism, in fact, was
not his forte, which lay rather in observation and reflection.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
223
Of his political pamphlets, the one entitled "Taxation no
Tyranny," is very amusing to us Americans, as it defends
the policy of George III. in the war of the Revolution. His
"Journey to the Western Islands" (the Hebrides), taken in
company with Boswell, is an interesting description of a coun¬
try then little known. His last work, "Lives of the Poets,"
was finished three years before his death. This book is
not a safe guide for young people's information, for Dr.
Johnson was a man too prejudiced to see always fairly,
and, as has been said, his strength lay elsewhere than in
criticism.
After a long period of ill - health, having outlived most
of those who had been his house - mates, and many of his
intimate friends, Johnson died. His mind remained un¬
clouded to the last, and he left behind him group of
sincere mourners, not the least of whom were the poor
whom he had befriended.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
IDE by side with the burly figure of Dr. John¬
son, in the mind's eye, appears a short gentle¬
man whose plain, good - natured face is much
pitted with small-pox, and whom the great Doctor addresses
by the familiar name of "Goldy." This is Oliver Goldsmith
(1728-74), a man of abilities so varied that we scarcely
know whether to class him among essayists, poets, dram¬
atists, novelists or satirists, for he appeared in all these
characters and played each with credit. His life was a
strange medley of brilliant successes and wretched fail¬
ures; his character a strange compound of gentle and
noble traits with faults so pitiable that one always thinks
of him as "Poor Goldsmith!"
224
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
His father was an Irish protestant clergyman, whom he
describes as being "passing rich with forty pounds a
year." The boy was sent to Trinity College, Dublin,
as a "sizar" — a student who was boarded and taught
gratuitously, but who (at that time) was expected to per¬
form many duties in return which are usually done by
servants. He gained little credit in college either for
scholarship or conduct, and barely secured a degree. In
the meantime his father had died, leaving a mere pit¬
tance to support his widowj and Oliver was obliged to
look out for himself. Now begins the sad tale of his
throwing away his opportunities, his utter lack of self-
control, and his incurable wastefulness. He tried nearly
all the professions in turn and succeeded at none; then
determining to emigrate to America, his friends made up
a purse for him, and had the mortification to see him
return in six weeks, having squandered his money, sold
the horse they had provided for him, and allowed the
ship to sail without him. Next, his uncle having given
him money with which to pursue his studies on the con¬
tinent, he lost it all one night in a gambling - house before
starting. A purse was again made up for him, with the
contents of which he stayed awhile at Edinburgh, profess¬
ing to study medicine but really idling away his time.
From there, after a year or two, he went to Leyden and
did the same thing again. Being unable, because of his
lack of application, to obtain a doctor's degree, he decided
to travel on the continent; but before setting out, he was
tempted by the sight of some rare Dutch tulips, and spent
the money on which he was to travel in buying them
as a present for his uncle. So he started, according to
his own account, with a guinea in his pocket, a single
shirt in his wallet and a flute in his hand, to make the
tour of Europe. He played for the peasants (who gladly
gave him a bed or a supper), and was often entertained
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
225
at the gates of convents. Having thus seen France and
Italy, and having, as he asserted, obtained a doctor's degree
from the University of Padua, he returned to England
(penniless, of course), and after trying a half - dozen ways
of getting along, settled down at his true vocation — that
of a writer. At first it was all drudgery; he was not
known, and had to do such odds and ends of work as
the publishers would give him. Even then his great talent
would have earned him a competence, but for his abso¬
lute incapacity to keep a shilling. He could not meet
a beggar in the street, without emptying his own pockets.
His owing the money he thus lavishly flung away made
no difference to him; it gave him pleasure to give, and
while he was gratifying himself, the claims of those who
had trusted him were as nothing. When he went to be
examined for a position as surgeon's mate, a friend lent
him a suit of clothes, that he might make a respectable
appearance. Meeting on his return some one who told
him a tale of distress, he pawned the clothes. His whole
biography bristles with such irritating anecdotes.
Goldsmith wrote several "Histories"—slight compendi-
ums of the annals of Greece, Rome, and England, in
which he did little more than translate into his own
flowing language facts picked up in various quarters with¬
out much pretension to accuracy and none to research.
These books were what would now be called "pot¬
boilers"— productions put out merely to supply his daily
needs. Yet the books are most readable, and did more to
popularize the study of history and make it attractive to
young people than any others written in his own age or for
some generations afterward. An attempt to interest the
young in science was not so commendable. In his "Ani¬
mated Nature," a book on natural history, his mistakes are
so glaringly absurd as to excite laughter; and putting them
forth seriously, as he did, and sending them into the
15
226 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
world as statements of fact was little better than literary
swindling.*
Beside the two principal poems we have mentioned —
"The Traveller" and "The Deserted Village"—Goldsmith
wrote some shorter pieces, the best of which is "Retaliation."
Here are some beautiful lines from "The Deserted Vil¬
lage." The poet is speaking of the village pastor (believed
to represent his father) :
As some tall cliflf that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World" consists of a series
of essays professing to be written by a learned and well-
bred Chinaman who finds himself in London and writes
home to his friends, in a strain of gentle satire, his impres¬
sions of English society. His novel, "The Vicar of Wake¬
field" was shown to Dr. Johnson while Goldsmith was
locked up in his room arrested for debt by his landlady.
The kindly Doctor took it out to a bookseller, and returned
with sixty pounds, with which Goldsmith paid his rent,
scolding his landlady heartily for having used him so ill.
To such persons, a demand for the payment of a debt is
either a good joke, or an insult. His comedy of "The
Good-natured Man" had a fair success; while the more
brilliant "She Stoops to Conquer," is a favorite to this day.
Goldsmith's chief hold on the attention of posterity lies
in his one novel, "The Vicar of Wakefield." It is a simple.
* Macaulay says of him {Encyc. Brit.)\ "He relates, with faith and
perfect gravity, all the most absurd lies which he could find about
gigantic Patagonians, monkeys that preach sermons, nightingales that
repeat long conversations. 'If he can tell a horse from a cow,' said
Johnson, 'that is the extent of his knowledge of zoology.' ... In
defiance of the evidence of his own senses, he maintained obstinately,
and even angrily, that he chewed his dinner by moving his upper jaw. "
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
227
pastoral story, told (in the first person) by an English coun¬
try vicar, and presenting the most perfect picture ever
drawn of the manners and customs of rural life in those
days; and at the same time it teaches an immortal lesson of
piety, charity, nobility of character, purity in life, and cour¬
age under misfortune. All this is lighted up with a wealth of
wit, humor, pathos and sentiment which combine with its
other qualities to make the book a classic of the English
tongue for all times.
His receipts, though they had been large, did not justify
the extravagance of his living, and his debts pressed
heavily upon him. He died of a kind of low fever, after a
short illness, and was mourned alike by rich and poor.
Dr. Johnson wrote the Latin epitaph for his tomb in West¬
minster Abbey, a part of which has been thus translated:
He left scarcely any kind of writing untouched, and touched nothing
that he did not adorn. * » » jjis memory is cherished by the love
of Companions, the faithfulness of Friends, the reverence of Readers.
CHAPTER XXX/F.
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
F miscellaneous writers, this century had its full
share, being a period of great mental activity
and of a high condition of general cultivation.
Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696-1782), a Scottish judge,
wrote a work on "Elements of Criticism," which was, until
the middle of this century, used as a text - book in schools.
Dr. George Campbell (1719-96), a Scottish divine, wrote,
beside books on theological and other subjects, a "Phil¬
osophy of Rhetoric," which is still considered a standard
work. The two brothers Warton were both poets and liter¬
ary critics. Joseph Warton (i722-1800), published an essay
on the "Genius and Writings of Pope," taking a view of
228
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
his position as a poet which is now accepted as the correct
one. Thomas Warton (1728-90) wrote an admirable "His¬
tory of English Poetry," on which he was engaged for many
years, and which shows scholarship, fine judgment and
enormous research. In 1785, he succeeded William White¬
head as poet - laureate. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92),
the most famous artist of his day, has a place in literature
as the author of "Discourses on Painting." Gilbert White
(1720-93), a clergyman, wrote "The Natural History of
Selborne"— a delightful description of the plant and animal
life he found in his own parish ; doing for the observation of
nature what Isaac Walton had done for angling. Every
object which engaged his attention he touched with a
loving hand. Sir William Blackstone (1723-80), an emi¬
nent jurist, wrote "Commentaries on the Laws of Eng¬
land," which have the merit of being written in such clear,
simple English that even those unlearned in the law can
read and profit by them. An unknown writer published
(1769-72) a series of sarcastic articles, reflecting severely
on the government and attacking many prominent officials
by name. These letters were signed "Junius," and though
every effort was made to discover the offending author, his
name remains a secret to this day. The preponderance
of evidence points to Sir Philip Francis, a well-known
politician of the time.
Edmund Burke (1730-97), the distinguished parliamen¬
tary orator and statesman, was born in Dublin, and was
the son of a thriving Irish attorney. In respect to the
extent and versatility of his powers, he has been com¬
pared to Francis Bacon. As a man of letters he takes
a very high rank; as a patriot not even the breath of
envy has ever sullied his fame. His "Reflections on the
French Revolution" is a masterpiece of political wisdom.
His speeches on our war of the Revolution are fervent,
eloquent appeals to reason and justice, which, imfortun-
MISCELLANEOUS WRLTEKS.
229
ately for the British government, were uttered in vain.
In the domain of pure literature, the "Essay on the Sub¬
lime and Beautiful" is the best known of his works.
Thomas Reid (1710-96), a Scottish philosopher, insti¬
tuted a reactionary movement directed equally against
the idealism of Berkeley and the materialism of Hume,
which has been called "The Philosophy of Common Sense."
He was followed by his countryman Dugald Stewart (1753-
1828), who had as a student attended his lectures, and
who improved upon his methods, while following out the
same general lines of thought. The third member of this
distinguished trio was Thomas Brown (1778-1820), who
had been a student under Professor Stewart, and is best
known by his essay on "Cause and Effect." He succeeded
Stewart as professor of moral philosophy at the University
of Edinburgh.
William Cobbett (1762-1835) was a political writer of
great vigor, and acquired immense popularity with the
working classes by the rough energy with which he abused
the government. He edited a periodical called "The
Register." He spent some years in this country, where
he was repeatedly tried for libel, and in one of the cases
was fined $5000 for saying that the celebrated Dr. Rush
of Philadelphia killed nearly all the patients he attended.
Returning to England, he was repeatedly fined and im¬
prisoned, but he never ceased publishing his paper, even
while he was in America, which he again visited; this
time to avoid being arrested for debt. While here he
wrote an "English Grammar;" a work apparently so much
needed that ten thousand copies were sold in a month.
Adam Smith (1723-90), also a Scotchman by birth,
claims a place among the philosophers by reason of his
"Theory of Moral Sentiments," but is better known as.
the founder of the science of political economy, as dis¬
cussed in his book, "The Wealth of Nations;" still a
230
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Standard treatise and the best known work on its theme.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was the apostle of utili¬
tarianism. He began life as a lawyer, but his intense
disapproval of English law, as it then existed, made it
impossible for him to identify himself with it, and for
forty years he was the fierce and active opponent of the
whole system. Among his many works the best known is
the "Theory of Legislation." His ideas may be summed
up in the expression that what is to be sought for in
all law - making is " the greatest good of the greatest num¬
ber." Thomas Paine (1737-1809) passed much of his
life in America, was a warm advocate of its separation
from Great Britain, which he supported in his pamphlet
entitled "Common Sense," and later wrote a popular book,
called "The Rights of Man," in defence of the French
Revolution. William Godwin (1756-1836) wrote a work
on "Political Justice," which did much toward shaping
the thought of the time, and awakening attention to the
rights of the people, as distinguished from the demands
of the privileged classes. In his novel of "Caleb Williams"
he urges the same ideas, and has succeeded in making a
most interesting story, not only without love, but almost
without a female character. His wife, Mary Wollstone-
craft Godwin (1759-97J, a woman of great ability, wrote
(before her marriage to him), "Thoughts on the Educa¬
tion of Daughters," and "A Vindication of the Rights of
Women." Many of her ideas on these subjects, though
considered revolutionary at the time, are now commonly
accepted.
Among theologians the most noted (after Bishop Butler)
is William Paley (r743-i8o5), an acute thinker and powerful
writer. "The Principles of Moral and Political Philoso¬
phy," "A View of the Evidences of Christianity," and
"Natural Theology" are his principal works.
Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), an eminent Unitarian min-
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS. 231
ister, was also an explorer in the domain of physics, and is
especially known as the discoverer of oxygen, a revelation
which opened the way for an immense advance of knowl¬
edge in the direction of natural science. He was a man of
great learning, and a fearless seeker after truth. Espousing
the side of the French Revolution, he incurred the enmity
of an ignorant mob in Birmingham, who burned his house
and chapel, and with them all his most valuable possess¬
ions. He and his family escaped, and afterward came to
Pennsylvania, where he spent the last ten years of his life.
The eighteenth century was rich in good letter - writers.
There was a leisurely tone about life, for all who were ,not
obliged to work for their daily bread, which encouraged
this graceful accomplishment.
Of these famous letter - writers, the earliest was Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu (1690-1762), daughter of the Duke
of Kingston. She began her social life almost in her baby¬
hood, her father sending to bring her from the nursery at
the close of his dinner - parties, when he would make her
stand on the table and recite or chatter for the amusement
of his guests. She married Edward Wortley Montagu, and
spent some years in Turkey, where he was ambassador,
bringing with her from that country into England the sys¬
tem of inoculation for small-pox. Her letters, both when
abroad and at home, are full of gayety, wit and good
sense, and are written with that ease and naturalness which
are essentials to good letter - writing. She was for some time
the friend of Pope, but when he injudiciously made love to
her, she laughed at him and so made him her bitter enemy.
The poet Gray, of whom we have already spoken, wrote
beautiful letters, as did Cowper, of whom we shall speak
later. The most illustrious of the group was Horace Wal-
pole (1717-97), son of Sir Robert Walpole, so long Prime
Minister of England. Though not born to fortune, he
lived "on the fat of the land," having a large income from
232
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
government posts given him by his father. Being fond of
literature, his taste and knowledge were cultivated in every
possible way; by travel, study, and intercourse with the
best minds of his time, at home and abroad. He built at
Twickenham a Gothic villa called Strawberry Hill, on which
he lavished money and taste until it became one of the
curiosities of England, and it was shown as such until late
in the present century. His "Letters," which fill nine large
volumes, touch upon almost every point of interest in the
political and social life of the time, and are written in racy,
sparkling English which puts him in the front rank among
the authors of his century. He tried his hand at only one
fiction, "The Castle of Otranto," a wild Gothic romance
which is interesting mainly because he wrote it. His
"Anecdotes of Painting in England," with sketches of the
lives of artists, is a standard work on the subject.
The letters written by Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) to
his son, may be included among the achievements of this
letter - writing century. They are intensely worldly, and
might have been the work of a Pagan in the time of Cicero,
but they are witty, brilliant and polished, showing great
knowledge of the world and remarkable powers of observa¬
tion. Lord Chesterfield was also a statesman of ability.
CHAPTER XXXV
THREE GREAT HISTORIANS.
HE principal historians of this period form a group
by themselves. Hume, Robertson and Gibbon
(the first two Scotchmen) were a triad not often
to be found in contemporary history, though more than
equalled in our own century. Writing in different styles
and on widely different topics, they were still all historians;
THREE GREAT HISTORIANS.
233
and each succeeded in giving to the time of which he wrote
an interest until then unknown on any similar subject.
David Hume (1711-76), bom at Edinburgh of an old
Scottish family (who before him spelt the name Home),
was a philosopher as well as a historian. He began his
literary career with a "Treatise on Human Nature," and
wrote essays on political, moral, and literary subjects. His
principal work, the "History of England," was written in
a curiously irregular way. He began with the first two
Stuart kings (1603-49), writing from a strongly royalist
point of view. This did not agree with the prevailing
ideas of the time, and so few copies were sold during
the first year that the author thought seriously of aban¬
doning his country and exiling himself to France, under
a feigned name, to conceal his mortification. After a
while, however, the tide turned, and when he published
the next instalment of his book, continuing the history
to the Revolution (1688), it was better received. Next
he wrote the story of the Tudors, and last of all he began
with the time of Julius Caesar and completed the whole.
It was the first philosophical history of England that had
ever been written, and made its author famous. The style
is beautifully simple and clear, graceful and yet vivacious;
but Hume is no longer regarded as an authority as to
facts. He took statements as he found them with too
little discrimination, and later and more painstaking histor¬
ians have noted innumerable inaccuracies in his work.
Still, there is no one, history that will take its place. Many
admirable books deal with different portions of the history
of England, but no one continuous account of equal value
exists covering that period of seventeen hundred years,
so that Hume's history will for the present hold its place.
Smollett's history is usually printed as a continuation of
Hume's and brings the narrative down to 1765, the year
of the American Stamp-Act.
234
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
In religion, Hume was a skeptic; in philosophy a
materialist. He was a subtle thinker and reasoner, and
was bold and original in his ideas. In private life he
thus describes himself in his posthumous book,"My Own
Life":
A man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open,
social and cheerful humor, capable of attachment, but little susceptible
of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions.
Hume's friends bear out this favorable self - portraiture,
and add that he was a charming companion, full of gay-
ety and of a delicate humor which never transgressed the
bounds of good taste. He spent most of his life in
Edinburgh.
William Robertson (1721-93) was also a Scotchman but
of a very different type of mind. He was the son of a
clergyman and himself took orders; and his writings are
pervaded by a religious spirit. His "History of Scotland"
brings down events in that country to the beginning of
the reign of James I. in England (1603), and is a carefully
written work, though without the marks of genius which
makes Hume's "England" so attractive. Robertson's
greatest work is "The History of the Emperor Charles V.,"
which involves almost every country in Europe, and gives
opportunity for much picturesque detail. It is written with
conscientious care, and is as accurate as the means at the
writer's disposal would allow. The history has since been
edited by Prescott, and much new material added which
was inaccessible to Robertson. The fault of the latter
was that he glorified his subject too much. The emperor
seemed to be, so to speak, always on his throne, wearing
his crown and sceptre; whereas the real man had at
least his share of human weakness, and was by no means
an ideal hero. Robertson's last work of importance was
a "History of America," written with the same pains¬
taking earnestness which distinguishes his other books.
THREE GREAT HISTORIANS.
235
Edward Gibbon (1737-94), the last and greatest of the
three writers we have been considering, was born near
London, and studied at Oxford. Of his attainments, he
tells us that he possessed "a stock of erudition that would
have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which
a school-boy would have been ashamed." This means
that on account of ill - health he had studied irregularly,
while his reading had been omniverous and enormous.
Becoming a Roman Catholic, he was obliged to leave
college, and was sent by his father to a protestant clergyman
at Lausanne, Switzerland, with whom he remained five
years, becoming a proficient in French and gaining a good
knowledge of Latin. While there he returned nominally
to the Protestant Church, though there is reason to be¬
lieve that he had become and ever afterward remained
an infidel at heart. In the course of a continental tour
he found himself at Rome, and there, musing among the
ruins of the capitol, as he tells us in his highly interesting
and piquant " Memoirs" (his autobiography), he first con¬
ceived the thought of writing a history of the "Decline
and Fall" of that stupendous power whose relics he saw
scattered around him. He was then twenty-seven years
old. Eight years were to pass by before the great history
was begun, and twenty-three before the last words should
be written. In the meantime. Gibbon travelled much and
lived in various places. At one time he would be a mem¬
ber of parliament in his own country; at another, shut up
in his library at Lausanne, where, in his fifty -first year, the
book — a monument of industry — was at last completed.
The amount of research required had been prodigious. He
used no translations, but went directly to the originals of
the books from which he drew his materials, and never
rested until he had verified every statement. It has been
said that the "Decline and Fall" is "the largest historic
painting ever executed by a single hand." The conception
236
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
is grand, the mode of treatment masterly. In particular,
the historian excels in perspective—the art of giving to the
different parts of his story their due proportion and impor¬
tance. Nothing was too large and nothing too small to
engage his attention, but he knew the relative value of
each branch of his subject, and whether he was raising an
arch of philosophic theory or laying a tesselated floor of
florid description, his workmanship remains unrivalled.
His style is open to criticism. Massive and magnificent
as it is, it is sometimes almost oppressive from its won¬
derfully balanced evenness of structure, with the same
cadence, the same rhythmic rise and fall, so frequently
recurring. It is a style to admire, but not to imitate.
The most serious objection to the original work is its
attitude toward Christianity. Candid on all other subjects,
toward this he betrays a bitterness of feeling entirely at
variance with the dispassionate utterances of the unpreju¬
diced historian. Fortunately for young people, who in
these busy days might not have time to read the whole
of the voluminous record, an excellent abridgement exists
in the "Student's Gibbon," in which all objectionable expres¬
sions are omitted, and the great mass of information is
compressed into a space which makes it not impossible
to attack.
CHAPTER XXX FT.
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
HE latter half of the eighteenth century was, with
one magnificent exception, as poor in dramatic
works as its early part had been brilliant. After
the death of Congreve in 1729, the short list of David
Garrick (1716-79), Samuel Foote (1720-77), Richard Cum¬
berland (1732-1811), George Colman (1733-94). George
MISCELLANEOUS WELTERS.
237
Colman the younger (1762-1836), this (omitting the name
of Goldsmith, which has been already mentioned) brings us
to the great master of modern comedy, Richard Brinsley
Sheridan (1751-18x6)).
Sheridan came of a noted Irish family, of which he
was the third in direct descent who showed remarkable
talents. His grandfather, Thomas Sheridan, an author and
a wit, was the friend of Swift; his father, also named
Thomas, was an actor as well as an author, and stood next
to Garrick in his profession. His mother wrote both plays
and novels; and so the boy had a literary inheritance to
start with. He left school with the reputation of being a
dunce; but this must have been only from laziness, for
he showed in after life that he could learn what he chose
to learn. He acquired information mainly by reading, for
he was through life a pleasure - lover, and liked no form
of hard work. He made a secret marriage with the beau¬
tiful Miss Linley, a popular public singer, and daughter
of Thomas Linley, the famous musical composer. The
marriage proved a very happy one. Sheridan, although
extremely poor at the time, and possessing scarcely any¬
thing but a small marriage-portion brought by his wife,
would never allow her to sing in public or for money.
Her fine voice was to be heard only at home or in friends'
houses. Depending on success yet to come, Sheridan
took a house in a fashionable quarter, and drew around
him a brilliant circle, attracted by his wit and good-fel¬
lowship and his wife's many charms. His first comedy,
"The Rivals," was produced in 1775, and, strange to say,
was considered a failure. This was owing partly to its
great length, and partly to the poor acting of one of the
principal characters. On the second night a good actor
replaced the inferior one, and although little enthusiasm
was shown, the play gradually grew in favor and the
author had the satisfaction of seeing it established as one
238
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of the standard comedies of the English language. Bob
Acres, Sir Lucius O'Trigger, Mrs. Malaprop, and Lydia
Languish are types which the stage could not afford to be
without.
Sheridan's next venture of importance was "The Duen¬
na," an opera, for which his father-in-law, Mr. Linley,
furnished the music. It was immensely popular, having
a longer run than had even Gay's "Beggar's Opera." "The
School for Scandal" followed, and afterward "The Critic,"
one of the most amusing burlesques ever written. The
four pieces, with some minor ones, were produced within
the space of four years. From this time he abandoned dra¬
matic writing, except for one tragedy, "Bizarro," and betook
himself to parliamentary life.
Here he proved himself greater as an orator than he had
been as a dramatist. His splendid rhetoric and impas¬
sioned eloquence carried, while he was speaking, every¬
thing before him. For thirty - two years he sat in the
house, filling meantime with credit several government
positions. During all this time he had been living extrav¬
agantly, and though as an M.P. he could not be arrested
for debt, when this protection was withdrawn he was con¬
stantly harassed by creditors and his house repeatedly
occupied by bailiffs. He had, also, some unavoidable
misfortunes, for Drury Lane Theatre, in which he had
bought out Garrick's interest, was twice burned down
during his proprietorship. Still, after making every allow¬
ance for him, we must regret that his magnificent talents
were not accompanied with a sense of pecuniary honor,
and that present enjoyment always seemed better to him
than permanent good. When troubles began to press upon
him he fell into intemperate habits which brought on
disease, and his last days were as wretched as his earlier
had been brilliant. He was arrested for debt while
dying, and his creditors were only pacified by the kind-
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
239
ness of a friend who advanced the money necessary to
allow him to draw his last breath in peace. When he
could no longer be gratified by attention, it was showered
upon his lifeless remains; royal dukes were among the
pall-bearers, and a place in the Poets' Corner of Westmin¬
ster Abbey was with much difficulty found for his grave.
With the exception of Mrs. Aphra Behn, in the seven¬
teenth century, we have not as yet met with the name of
any woman novelist in England. The reading-world was
surprised, one day in 1778, by the appearance of a novel
called "Evelina," by an unknown author, whose secret was
so faithfully kept that even the publishers were ignorant
of the writer's identity. At length it turned out that the
new star was Miss Frances Burney (1752-1840), daughter
of Dr. Charles Burney, himself the author of a "History
of Music," and an eminent musician. The young lady
had had the plan of the book in her mind for ten years
before finishing it. It gained an instant popularity, being
the first novel of society written by a person in society;
and it is, as we are assured, true to the life of the time.
It is amusing now to read how the greatest literary men
of the day were carried away with it. Dr. Johnson
thought some parts of it as good as anything in Richard¬
son; Edmund Burke sat up all night to read it, and Sir
Joshua Reynolds could not be tempted to lay it down,
even to eat his dinner. Her second novel, "Cecilia," was
also very popular. Some years after writing this, she was
appointed one of the keepers of the robes to Queen Char¬
lotte, a post monotonous in itself and extremely distasteful
to her, which the ambition of her father induced her to
keep for five weary years. She was thirty-nine years
old when she was at last released, with a pension, and
two years later she married General D'Arblay, a French
refugee, driven from his country by the Revolution. Her
"Journal and Letters," describing a period of seventy-two
240
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
years, are now more interesting to us than her novels.
She is a sort of Boswell to herself, and gives us a minute
description of the dreary life at the court of George III.,
which Macaulay has immortalized in his brilliant essay,
"Madame D'Arblay." Her friendship with Dr. Johnson
was a marked feature of her early years, though in later life
she knew almost all the distinguished literary men of the
time, and was a favorite with all. It will be encouraging,
to those who think there is no hurry about teaching chil¬
dren to read, to be told that at eight years old she did
not know her letters.
Mrs. Elizabeth Inchbald (1753-1821), a popular London
actress, wrote several plays, and two novels, one of which,
"A Simple Story," may be said to have introduced the
novel of passion. It is very highly commended by the
critics of her own time, as is also her second story, "Na¬
ture and Art." Mrs. Inchbald was possessed of great
personal beauty and an unblemished character.
William Beckford (1760-1844), a wealthy and eccentric
Englishman, was the author of "Vathek," an Eastern
romance, which is one of the most extraordinary pro¬
ductions of its kind. His imagination, which ran riot
amid the scenes of Oriental splendor, found a more prac¬
tical expression in the superb piles of building which he
successively erected for his residence. Beckford wrote
accounts of his travels in Italy, Spain and Portugal, which
are full of brilliant description and clever sarcasm.
Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (1760-1844) led the way in the novel
of romance and wild adventure. Her "Flowers of the
Forest" and "Mysteries of Udolpho" are examples of such
elaborately woven plots as had never before been em¬
ployed in any kind of fictitious writing. Whoever loves
the terrible and the marvellous will enjoy Mrs. Radcliffe.
Until the eighteenth century no one had thought of
writing especially for children. They read "Robinson
MISCELLANEOUS WELTERS.
241
Crusoe," "The Pilgrim's Progress," and such romances
and poetry as they could lay their hands on, but their
range was limited. Mrs. Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-
1825) opened the vast field, which is now so well cov¬
ered with perennial harvests of juvenile literature of all
sorts and qualities, by publishing her "Hymns in Prose
for Children," and "Early Lessons"—these last for little
ones. These became at once very popular. Later, she
contributed many articles to "Evenings at Home"—a
book by her brother. Dr. John Aikin, intended to bring
scientific truths within the reach of unlearned readers, and
especially of the young. Both Mrs. Barbauld and her
brother were industrious writers, on historical, scientific and
literary subjects, and Dr. Aikin's daughter, Miss Lucy
Aikin (1781-1864) wrote several historical biographies—
notably one of Queen Elizabeth.
Hannah More (1745-1833), distinguished for her piety
and learning, wrote moral essays and dramas, many in the
form of short stories, among which "The Shepherd of
Salisbury Plain" has been most widely read. "Cœlebs in
Search for a Wife," a religious novel, is her only attempt at
sustained fiction. She wrote admirable letters, was clever
and witty in conversation, and collected around her, even to
extreme old age, the best society of her time. In her later
years she became known as a practical philanthropist, and
was unwearied in her efforts to improve the condition of
the miserable, neglected children in the neighborhood. She
was never married; though called "Mrs.," that being the
equivalent for "Mistress," a title considered due to all
mature women whether married or single.
Thomas Day (1748-89) is best known as the author of
"Sandford and Merton," a story for boys which was the
pioneer in that kind of literature. Leigh Hunt says of
this book:
The pool of mercenary and time-serving ethics was first blown over
16
242
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
by the fresh country breeze of "Sandford and Merton," a production
that I shall ever feel grateful for.
Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831), born at Edinburgh,
author of a novel called "The Man of Feeling," was much
admired in a day when there were but few novels. He
was editor of "The Mirror," and "The Lounger," period¬
icals after the plan of "The Spectator,"and wrote a lifo
of John Home, author of the tragedy of "Douglas." He
was an important person in literary society, and his opin¬
ion is often quoted by Scott, who looked up to him with
much respect. He lived to be eighty-five years old, and
to the last kept his place among writers and critics, taking
an interest in all that was going on in the world of books,
and prized as almost the sole survivor of the circle so
intimately connected with the intellectual life of the
eighteenth century.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
LITERARY FORGERIES.
ETWEEN fiction, published with or without an
assumed name, artfully contrived to look like
fact; and literary frauds and forgeries, it is hard
to draw the line. The latter may be said to include such
writings as are seriously and permanently ascribed by their
author to another writer, and are represented to have fallen
by accident into the possession of the one who gives them
to the world. If the pretence is so obvious as to deceive
no one, or if it is but temporary, and finally acknowledged
by the free act of its originator, then it incurs no blame.
But there are cases where it was perpetrated with the delib¬
erate intention of deceiving the world, and these are the
ones now to be described.
LITERARY FORGERIES.
243
The chief persons whom history has indicted as literary
impostors are James Macpherson (1738-96), Thomas Chat¬
terton (1752-70) and William Henry Ireland (1777-1835).
Macpherson was a Scotch author of some repute who
professed to have discovered the original poems of Ossian,
a Gaelic bard who is said to have lived in the second cen¬
tury of the Christian era. Macpherson's story was that
these poems had been handed down in Gaelic among the
Scottish Highlanders, and that he had taken them down
from the lips of old men and women who had learned them
from their ancestors; and now gave them to the world
translated into English prose. Their high quality, joined
with their alleged romantic origin, caused them to be
received with wonder and delight. The literary world
made much of Macpherson, and naturally wished to pursue
the search in such an interesting field; but when he was
asked for his authorities he would say nothing, and resented
any demand for proof of his claims. Then a "Highland
Society" was formed of persons determined to probe the
matter to the bottom under the pretext of seeking further
material. The Highlands are not large nor the Highlanders
many; and the search failed to show a trace of the oral
poetry or tradition.
Macpherson was of gentle birth and good education and
standing; and to the end of his days he persisted in the
fiction of having taken these poems from the lips of persons
who had in their youth heard them from their Gaelic fore¬
runners. No such persons were ever pointed out by him
or found by the careful searches for truth. So the world
has come to the unwilling conclusion that the verses are no
older than the day of their writing by Macpherson.
The poems were really full of wild and weird power
such as would be the natural product of the age and place
to which they were attributed. As a specimen we take the
closing strain of "The Songs of Selma."
244
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Such were the words of the bards in the days of song when the
king heard the music of harps, the tales of other times ! The chiefs
gathered from all their hills and heard the lovely sound. They praised
the voice of Cona, the first among a thousand bards ! But age is now
on my tongue, my soul has failed ! I hear at times the ghosts of bards
and learn their pleasant song. But memory fails on my mind.
I hear the call of years ! They say as they pass along. Why does
Ossian sing? Soon shall he lie in the narrow house, and no bard shall
raise his fame. Roll on, ye dark - brown years ; ye bring us joy on
your course ! Let the tomb open to Ossian, for his strength has failed.
The sons of song are gone to rest. My voice remains, like a surf that
roars, lonely, on a sea-surrounded rock after the winds are laid. The
dark moss rustles there; the distant mariner sees the waving trees!
The story of Thomas Chatterton, whom Byron calls "the
marvellous boy who perished in his pride," is more remark¬
able and far more pathetic than that of the well - born and
prosperous Macpherson. Chatterton was the descendant
of a family of sextons who had cared for the old church
of St. Mary Redcliff, at Bristol, England, for more than a
century. Thomas was placed at school at five years old,
but was sent back to his widowed mother as being too dull
to be worth teaching. He was of a masterful temper; and
it is said that when asked what device should be painted
on a plate which a friendly potter was making for him, he
answered, "Paint me an angel with wings and a trumpet,
to trumpet my name through the world!" His mother
was fain to try to do sometliing for her " stupid " son,
and herself taught him until, at eight, he was admitted to
a charity school.
As soon as he could read he got on rapidly; yet he took
no part in the verse-making contests of his school. His
first verses were made at eleven, and compare well with
Pope's at twelve and Cowley's at thirteen; while Chat¬
terton had not the advantages of the others, for he had to
make his own way in a line foreign to the family habits
and traditions. At fourteen he entered on a seven years'
apprenticeship to a lawyer to learn to be a scrivener or copy-
LITERARY FORGERIES.
245
ist of law-papers. Here he used his ample spare time
in desultory reading; getting books from a circulating
library and dipping into one study after another as if each,
in turn, was to be the passion of his life.
St. Mary Redcliff had a "muniment-room" where there
were six antiquated chests or coffers, which of old were
locked and double-locked; but during the time of Thom¬
as's father had been broken open and the ancient docu¬
ments exposed; and the old man (then schoolmaster as
well as sexton) had helped himself to them unsparingly,
using the parchment as book-covers in his school. The
father having died at about the time of Thomas's birth,
the latter had now easy access to the old muniments
or documents, and conceiving the idea of taking them for
his own use, removed all that were left to his room at
the lawyer's house.
The next scene in the Chatterton tragedy was at the
opening of a new bridge in Bristol, when there appeared
in the Bristol "Journal" a description of the opening of
the old bridge in the thirteenth century and the friars
passing over it. The article was wonderfully well - written,
but the printer could give no account of its origin, further
than that the remarkable document had been left at the
office by a boy. Chatterton was asked about it, but not
liking the manner of the question — put to him as if
he were a mere boy—he would say nothing. More artful
persuasion induced him to speak, and he said he had
got the manuscript with others, from his father, who had
found them in the old chest before mentioned.
Then followed other manuscripts; chiefly poems ascribed
to an imaginary monk named Rowley, said to have lived and
written in the flfteenth century. The poems were not good
enough to gain praise by their own merit; but as bits of
antiquity they were highly prized; and poor Chatterton was
on the top of the wave. He generally said that the docu-
246
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
ment was destroyed; but he did occasionally show a
parchment-fragment that he had cut from some old deed;
and written upon, and smoked and smirched into the
appearance of antiquity. At the same time he produced
and gave out without disguise some poems of his own which
were very good, considering his age and opportunities.
A morbid vanity took possession of the unhappy boy;
he thought he had fame and fortune in his grasp, and would
promise his mother and sister great things as a part of his
own future. Unfortunately his ambition led him to tire of
his humble Bristol home and to cast longing eyes on Lon¬
don. He wrote to Horace Walpole offering services, asking
help and enclosing specimens of the "Ancient" poems.
Walpole (who had just been victimized by the "Ossian"
fraud) replied kindly, advising him to stay at home, and
saying that there was a suspicion that the poems were
not genuine. Chatterton replied in such a tone that Wal¬
pole sent him back his letters and poems without a word.
Chatterton sacrificed his business in Bristol and went to
London, had a time of flattering though shallow success,
then fell into adversity and want. Even now he retains a hold
on our sympathy, for he sent home to his mother and
sister and grandmother presents which he could ill afford.
His fierce pride never waned, and he starved rather than
eat the food which kind friends, seeing his wan looks,
pressed upon him. On the very day of his death he was
offended at his landlady's urging him to share her dinner,
and that night he took poison and died, alone in his room.
He was not quite seventeen years old.
A favorable specimen of Chatterton's verses is the fol¬
lowing, written when he was sixteen years old:
To Miss Hayland:
Count all the flowers that deck the meadow's side
When Flora flourishes in new-born pride;
Count all the sparkling orbits in the sky;
LITERARY FORGERIES.
247
Count all the birds that through the ether fly ;
Count all the foliage of the lofty trees
That flies before the bleak autumnal breeze,
Count all the dewy blades of verdant grass ;
Count all the drops of rain that softly pass
Through the blue ether, or tempestuous roar;
Count all the sands upon the breaking shore ;
Count all the minutes since the world began ;
Count all the troubles in the life of man ;
* » *
More are the beauteous charms that make my nymph excel.
The third member of this trio of literary impostors was
William Henry Ireland, who, shortly before the year 1800,
professed to have discovered some original and unpublished
plays of Shakespeare. He was the son of a dealer in old
books and prints who was a Shakespeare enthusiast; and
William Henry, at about seventeen years old, presented his
father with a forged autograph of the poet. This imposture
succeeded so well that he was led on to other inventions
which were generally accepted as valuable additions to the
scanty stock of knowledge about Shakespeare. Growing
bolder he produced an entire play which he called " Vor-
tigern," and attributed to Shakespeare. Richard Brinsley
Sheridan, himself a dramatist, went into raptures over the
event, bought the play for his theatre (Drury Lane) and put
it upon the stage, where its worthlessness was at once seen,
and Ireland was loaded with the contempt which was his
due. As is often the case, punishment fell, not on the
wrong-doer but on the innocent; for Ireland's father, who
had published the spurious works, was overwhelmed with
shame and died not long afterward; while the son, after
giving out a shameless account of his performances, became
an ordinary "literary hack," or hired writer, and lived on
well into the present century.
248
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
LATER MISCELLANEOUS POETS.
H REE poets of the latter years of the eighteenth
century have been classed together from their
common love of humanity and disregard of old
poetical traditions. Two of these, Cowper and Burns, are
reserved for a separate chapter; the third was George
Crabbe (1754-1832). Bom in poverty, he knew the trials
and privations of the humble poor, and has depicted
them with a truthfulness which would, in these days, be
called realism, and which was utterly new in the world of
letters.
Crabbe had a fairly good school education, and at the age
of fourteen was apprenticed to a surgeon, in which posi¬
tion he had a hard life. He had his consolations, too; for
while as a boy at home he had hoarded every scrap of
poetry he could cut out of old newspapers, he now began
to write it for himself; and, in the intervals of compound¬
ing drugs, filled a drawer with his attempts. At last he
had the good fortune to gain a prize offered by a mag¬
azine; and considering his vocation to be plainly marked
out, he determined, as did all country boys who wanted
to be poets, to go to London. Once there, he was at
his wits' end, and starvation stared him in the face.
A letter to Edmund Burke brought a kind reply. The
great statesman looked over the manuscripts, made sug¬
gestions, took the poems himself to Dodsley, the famous
bookseller, and Crabbe's fortune was made.
Burke's kindness did not stop here. He invited the
young man out to his country - house and introduced him
to men of distinction in literature who perceived his
merits and admitted him into their circle. At a later
LATER MISCELLANEOUS POETS. 249
time he entered the Church, and being "presented", as
the English phrase is, with a small living, passed the rest
of his quiet life as a country clergyman, employing his
leisure in writing, and leaving to the world a collection
unique in its literary value. The English poor, in all
their various needs and interests, were his theme; their
miseries, their pleasures, their struggles with poverty, their
weaknesses and sins, all came out strongly depicted by his
vigorous pen.
Though forcible, Crabbe's writings have defects of taste
which have prevented him from becoming a popular poet.
His descriptions are often repulsive; his diction is harsh
and lacks polish. He is so determined to present things
as they really are, that he becomes too minute, and we
weary of his details, while recognizing their force and cor¬
rectness. Sir Walter Scott, that generous and large-minded
lover of all that was good, thought very highly of Crabbe,
and in his last illness said to his attendant, "Read me
some amusing thing — read me a bit of Crabbe." The
most amusing thing to us in the connection of the two
names is that when Crabbe read Sir Walter's imitation of
him in an anonymous poem called "The Poacher," the
former remarked of Scott, "This man, whoever he is, can
do all that I can, and something more" This is credit¬
able both to his humility and his perceptive power.
Crabbe's first published poems — those which gained
the approbation of Burke — were "The Library," and "The
Village." Soon after this he produced "The Newspaper,"
and then wrote no more for twenty years, being occupied
with the duties of his parish. After this came "The Par¬
ish Register," "The Borough" (considered by many persons
as his best work), "Tales in Verse," and "Tales of the
Hall." It has seldom fallen to the lot of a poet, in our
own century, to be so much admired by his contempo¬
raries and so entirely neglected by succeeding generations.
250
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The minor poets of the latter half of the century we
have been considering, do not require much space. John
Home (1724-1808), a .Scottish minister, wrote a tragedy
called "Douglas," which with little change might have
been made into the most unobjectionable narrative poem;
but its being in the form of a drama so offended his
brother - clergy that, to avoid being deposed from the
ministry, he resigned his charge. After this he wrote
several dramas, and a history of the Stuart rebellion of
1745. His chief claim to continued remembrance arises
— half accidentally, one might say — from a certain speech
contained in his tragedy of "Douglas" already mentioned;
a bit of blank verse which happens to lend itself kindly
to youthful declamation; and therefore was extensively
studied and spouted by thousands of boys during the time
it remained the fashion. It begins:
My name is Norval. On the Grampian Hills
My father feeds his flocks; a frugal swain
Whose chiefest care was to increase his store
And keep his only son, myself, at home.
Thomas Percy (1729-1811), afterward Bishop of Dro-
more, was the son of a grocer. He did a great service to
English literature by collecting the old ballads, from Chevy
Chase down, which were fast slipping from people's memo¬
ries or were being thrown away as rubbish. His "Reliques
of Ancient English Poetry" is a valuable storehouse of these
ancient poems, and has inspired many a young student with
a love for poetry. Bishop Percy also wrote original poems
of much merit.
Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), a physician, who has been
called the poet - laureate of botany, wrote a long poem
called "The Botanic Garden." He was the grandfather of
Charles Darwin, author of "The Origin of Species."
James Beattie(1735-1803)demands more than a passing
notice. Born in humble life, he secured for himself an
LATER MISCELLANEOUS POETS.
251
education which enabled him to take rank with men of
letters, and he was gifted by nature with the poetic faculty.
His longest work, "The Minstrel," contains poetry of no
mean order; a shorter one, "The Hermit," is (or was) in
many school collections. The following beautiful stanza is
from "The Minstrel":
Oh, how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields.
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves and garniture of fields ;
All that 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 forgiven !
Sir William Jones (1746-94) was the great Orientalist of
his century, and one of the greatest England has ever pro¬
duced. His translations of Hindu law and literature opened
the eyes of Englishmen to the wonders to be found in the
study of the Asiatic languages in which he himself was so
great a proficient. His claim to rank among poets is small ;
but his noble ode entitled "What Constitutes a State?" is
worthy of being committed to memory by every patriotic
citizen.
There are in every age (and in none more than in our
own nineteenth century) vmters of what is called "occas¬
ional poetry"— a few fine songs which touch the popular
heart and are sung long after their authors' names are for¬
gotten. Of such writers are Lady Anne Barnard (1750-
1825), who wrote "Auld Robin Gray"; Miss Jane Elliot,
author of the Scottish song quoted so effectively in "Mar-
mion," called "The Flowers of the Forest"; and Lady
Nairne (1766-1845), whose subjects extend from "Caller
herrín'" and "The Laird o' Cockpen," to the exquisite
"Land o' the Leal." The list might be much extended, did
space permit.
252 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Robert Bloomfield (1766-1823) was the son of an Eng¬
lish tailor in Suffolk. While he was apprenticed to a shoe¬
maker in London, he wrote the very remarkable poem
called "The Farmer's Boy," which was then compared with
the work of Theocritus. Its excellence was recognized at
once, and it was translated into French, Italian, and Latin.
Though 26,000 copies of this poem were sold, the author
died in poverty.
Robert Fergusson (1750-74) possesses a special interest
as being the person from whom Robert Burns, to a greater
or less degree, drew his inspiration. In the circumstances
of his life he differed from Burns, he having been born and
bred in Edinburgh, and also never having been obliged to
struggle with severe poverty. He was endowed with bril¬
liant conversational powers, and had such a charm of
manner that he was only too welcome in society; and,
yielding to the temptations which social life brought with
it, became dissipated and after a time partially insane.
Fergusson's poems give more promise of excellence than
actual performance. Several of them are so evidently the
prototypes of poems by Burns on similar subjects that we
can well believe the generous acknowledgment of the
latter that to Fergusson he owed his earliest inspiration to
verse - making.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
COWPER AND BURNS.
WO poets, whose names awaken in our minds feel¬
ings of tenderness and gentle, pathetic interest,
remain to be mentioned before we close the rec¬
ord of the rich and varied eighteenth century. These are
Cowper and Burns. With them came the new idea in
poetry—that man, as man, and independent of worldly
COWPER AND BURNS.
253
circumstances, is entitled to respectful consideration. Be¬
fore their time, the poor had sometimes been spoken of
as objects of charity when their lot was especially hard,
but not as being made of the same clay with ourselves and
sharing with us a common humanity. The lowly, in England,
were looked on as a "class," and nowhere in the world
was the distinction of classes more marked than there. The
upper regarded the lower as from another sphere; individ¬
uals to be humanely—^rather than humanly—treated; and
persons to whom the greatest kindness lay in teaching them
to "know their place;" that is, to be contented with inferi¬
ority. Pity was their due, not affection or sympathy. Now
was dawning the day when riches were to be recognized as
the gift of fickle fortune, and aristocracy as the accident of
birth. As Burns says :
The rank is but the guinea's stamp;
The man's the gowd for a' that.
Of the poets named we will take the younger, reserving
for a later page the one whose life closes the century.
Robert Burns (1759-96) was born to poverty. His father
was a peasant of Ayrshire, Scotland, and had hard work to
find bread for the mouths of his children, who were obliged,
from their earliest youth, to share in the wearisome labor
which scantily supported the family. He did not, however,
neglect to give them the best education in his power, and
Robert and his brother Gilbert used to be sent to school
"week about" during the busy season when they could not
both be spared from home. Of their religious training.
Burns tells the story in that fireside classic, "The Cotter's
Saturday Night." Of himself he says that his first inspira¬
tions toward poetry came from the singing of a young girl
who was working with him in the harvest - field. He felt
the power of song in himself, and labored long with it
in secret before any one else knew what was struggling in
his brain. After the death of the father, the brothers took
254
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
a farm together at Mossgiel, and the old toil went on. The
farm was not very successful, but the poetry kept growing
in volume and fire, and Robert, whose appetite for knowl¬
edge was insatiable, spent every moment he could find in
poring over books, and became a better read man than
many a one of his age who had passed the same number
of years at a university.
When the poet's fortunes were so low that it seemed
useless to hope to make a living at home. Burns thought of
going to Jamaica to try his luck, but had not the money to
pay his passage nor any way to earn it ; when by a happy
thought some one suggested that his poems should be
printed. A bookseller at Kilmarnock undertook to publish
them, and Burns received twenty pounds for his share
in the venture. With this he bought a steerage-passage to
Jamaica and sent off his chest to the ship. It was with
bitterness of spirit that he set out on foot for Greenock,
where he was to take ship, leaving his dearly loved Ayrshire
behind him, to try a possibly hopeless venture in a strange
land. But on the way he was overtaken by a letter from the
blind poet Dr. Blacklock, urging him to have a second edi¬
tion of his poems issued, and prophesying that they would
have "a more universal circulation than anything of the
kind" yet printed. This changed the course of affairs.
The Jamaica project was given up and the young farmer
of twenty-seven went to Edinburgh to find himself a "lion."
His fame had preceded him, and people of all ranks
were eager to invite him to their houses. He knew noth¬
ing of the ways of fashionable society, but his manly self-
respect made his rustic plainness attractive. His appearance
at this time was not without dignity, though hard work
had bent his back and roughened his hands.
Walter Scott, then a boy of fifteen, once saw him, and
thus describes him: "There was a strong expression of
sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone.
COWPER AND BURNS.
255
I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament.
It was large and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say liter¬
ally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest I
never saw such another eye in a human head."
This happy time came to an end only too soon. Burns,
who had already contracted that taste for drink which was
to be his ruin, was tempted to still greater indulgence;
and when he returned to country life, and, after an unsuc¬
cessful attempt at farming, settled down as an exciseman
in Dumfries, there is little to tell except of a sad decline.
The business of exciseman (taxer of spirits) ministered
to his fatal taste; and its influence led him to vices of
other kinds. Before this he spent a second winter at
Edinburgh, as much neglected as he had been courted
during the first. His proud soul rose in rebellion at this
change, and many bitter expressions in his letters tell how
he felt it. The poetic fervor did not fail him; the same
pen which had written :
O wad some power the giftie gi'e us
To see oursel's as others see us !
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
And foolish notion :
wrote also "To Mary in Heaven," "Tam o' Shanter," and
"John Anderson, my Jo." But life was a disappointment.
The poet's education, while it raised him far above the
humble peasants and dissipated officials who were again
his companions, had not fitted him to enter the fine
society of that highly polished circle which he had learned
to enjoy; and in the latter his pride continually met with
mortifications which embittered and depressed, though they
did not humiliate him. His few remaining years dragged
out painfully. He had married a young woman of his
own rank in life; the "bonnie Jean" of his early days;
and while she made him a faithful and admiring wife,
there could be between them none of the companionship
256
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
founded on community of tastes. He failed in health and
spirits; he had been too generous to his brother to lay
up anything for himself; and in debt and poverty he passed
away at the age of thirty - seven.
For several reasons, it is difficult to give a really illus¬
trative quotation from Burns. His most characteristic
poems are in Scottish dialect, so broad as to require a
glossary with every verse; and they are, besides, so coarse
as to be beyond the bounds of proper reading. Many of
them are in praise of drink; the fatal vice which has
dragged thousands of his countrymen to destruction, which
drove him out of good society (where he was at first wel¬
comed) and utterly ruined his whole life and caused his
untimely death. Other poems are wild and ribald attacks
aimed at religious narrowness and bigotry which, in their
scurrility, come quite to the border of blasphemous assaults
on religion itself.
Here is a single poem that shows the bard's hatred of
cruelty:
On Seeing a Wounded Hare Limp by me.
Inhuman man ! Curse on thy barbarous art,
And blasted be thy murder - aiming eye :
May never Pity soothe thee with a s^h.
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart !
Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field,
The bitter little that of life remains :
No more the thickening brakes and verdant jilains
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.
Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest—
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed !
The shelt'ring rushes whistling o'er thy head,
The cold earth with thy bloody bosom press'd.
The life of William Cowper (1731-1800), which began
twenty-eight years before that of Bums and lasted four
years after it, is a mingled thread of joy and sorrow. No
one who reads his lines on receiving his mother's picture
COWPER AND BURNS.
267
can fail to call up the image of the carefully tended boy,
wrapped in his scarlet cloak by a fond parent and drawn to
school in a mimic coach by the gardner Robyn, his rosy
face shining with health and pleasure, and a sweet biscuit
clasped in his little hand. At the next picture, our hearts
burn with indignation. The now motherless child of six
is sent to boarding-school, where for two years he is tyran¬
nized over by a brutal boy of fifteen whose "fag'' he is,
and who singles out the delicate, helpless little fellow
to vent his ill - temper upon. Of him Cowper says in his
later years, "I conceived such a dread of him that I well
remember being afraid to lift my eyes higher than his knees ;
and that I knew him better by his shoe-buckles than by
any other part of his dress."
A little later he was sent to Westminster School, where
he passed seven years of his life. As the law was to be his
profession, he was articled to a solicitor and nominally lived
in his house, but really spent much of his time at the home
of his uncle, Mr. Ashley Cowper, whose daughters were
nearly of his own age. He writes in after-life to Lady
Hesketh, one of these daughters:
There was I and the future Lord Chancellor [Thurlow] constantly
employed from morning till night in giggling and making giggle,
instead of following the law. Oh fie, cousin! how could you do soi
Unfortunately he fell in love with another of the girls,
his cousin Theodora; her father objected to the match
and he resigned himself very quietly to a bachelor life.
He was a member of the "Nonsense Club," composed of
several gay young men of his own circle, and, altogether,
his life seems to have been a sufficiently easy and pleas¬
ant one.
On the death of his father (as anything which we call
work seems never to have occurred to people of his stamp)
his friends resigned themselves to the situation, and gener¬
ously supported him for the rest of his life.
17
258 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
A period of religious mania made it necessary to place
him under medical care; and when he left the asylum which
had been his home for two years, he settled down as a
boarder in the family of the Reverend William Unwin, at
Huntingdon. He had been the subject of very deep relig¬
ious impressions; and while the piety and affectionate
kindness of his new friends commended them to him, he
became a welcome inmate of their family on account of
his fine tastes and his literary accomplishments, the friend¬
ship with them ending only with life.
Upon the death of Mr. Unwin, who was killed by a
fall from his horse, his widow removed to Olney, to which
place Cowper accompanied her; and there he passed the
rest of his days. It was here that he became acquainted
with the Reverend John Newton, and together they wrote
the "Olney Hymns," many of which are still used in devo¬
tional collections. In 1773, Cowper had a second attack
of insanity, in which he for the second time attempted
to take his life. Upon his recovery, his good friend Mrs.
Unwin recommended to him to occupy his leisure with
poetry, and acting on her suggestion he wrote several
grave satires which the more attractive works of his later
time have caused to be almost forgotten. His first volume
of poems was published when he was fifty years old.
One of his friends and neighbors at Olney, Lady Austin,
to relieve his melancholy, told him the story of "John Gil¬
pin," which he turned into verse so easily that she pressed
him to try another style, abandoning the heroic couplet in
which his first poems were written, and composing some¬
thing in blank verse. "What shall I take for a subject?"
"Oh, write upon anything," she replied. "Write upon this
sofa!" Thus began his most famous poem, which he called
"The Task," because he undertook it at the command of a
lady. The evolution of the sofa from a three - legged stool
is told with much ingenuity and some humor; then the poet
CüWPER AND BURNS.
259
congratulates himself on not needing the languid repose
afforded by a sofa while he has the strength and spirits to
enjoy the open-air life of nature, tramping over hill and
field and drinking in all the glorious freshness of the sum¬
mer morning. His description of natural objects is breezi-
ness itself, and fell upon the ears used to the formal couplets
and quatrains of the previous age, like the voice of the lark
after the singing of a caged canary-bird. He was a born
lover of nature and wrote of it from the heart, with the
observant eye of a painter, the musical ear of a poet, and
the simplicity of one untrammelled by conventionalities.
Nothing in English poetry had as yet rung out like his
"Apostrophe to Winter":
Oh, Winter, ruler of the inverted year,
Thy scattered hair with sleet like ashes filled,
Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Tinged with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels.
But urged by storms along its slippery way;
I love thee, all unlovely as thou seemst
And dreaded as thou art !
Cowper has been called the forerunner of Wordsworth,
some of whose descriptions strongly resemble passages in
"The Task."
The tranquil life at Olney was favorable to composition
of all sorts, and especially to one beautiful branch of it in
which Cowper excelled—letter-writing. His biographer,
Southey, calls him the best of English letter-writers. He
writes to his cousin. Lady Hesketh, when arranging for a
visit from her:
I will not let you come till the end of May or the beginning of June,
because before that time my green - house will not be ready to receive
us, and it is the only pleasant place belonging to us. When the plants
go out, we go in. I line it with nets and spread the floor with mats,
and there you shall sit, with a bed of mignonette at your side, and a
260
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
hedge of honeysuckles, roses, and jasmines ; and I will make you a
bouquet of myrtle every day.
In another letter he says, "Occurrences are as scarce as
cucumbers at Christmas." We can imagine the pleasure of
the winter evening from his well - known description :
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round.
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each.
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
Having finished "The Task," Cowper was again in need
of literary occupation, and some friend suggested a transla¬
tion of Homer. This was good for the poet, as it furnished
something to keep his brain from preying upon itself; but
it did not add very much to the literary possessions of
the world. The Odyssey is more interesting than the
Iliad; but neither has the spirit and life of the later transla¬
tions which have made the grand old Greek familiar to us.
As compared with Pope's translation, Cowper's is the less
polished, and the more exact and faithful; a difference to be
expected from the fact that Cowper freed himself from the
trammels of rhyme by choosing blank verse; that is, ten-
syllabled rhymeless lines.
Not long after the completion of this work, Mrs. Unwin,
his faithful friend and helper through many years of mingled
trouble and happiness, was stricken with palsy, and, losing
her mind, became in turn the object of his tender care.
But the strain upon him was too great. After her death he
sank into hopeless melancholy, and in this pitiable condi¬
tion dragged out the remaining years of his life. With his
death in 1800, we bring our sketch of the literary men of
his century to a close.
WORDSWORTH. COLERIDGE.
261
CHAPTER XL.
WORDSWORTH. COLERIDGE.
E have already spoken of Cowper, Burns and
Crabbe as inaugurating a new school of poetry
more natural and more human than the formal or
artificial one which preceded it. In William Wordsworth
(1770—1850) we find the humanitarian school joined to the
philosophical, and bringing in the element of genius (which,
except in the case of Bums, had been lacking in the preced¬
ing generation of poets) to illumine the new development.
The second group of contemporary writers, Wordsworth,
Coleridge and Southey, have been improperly classed to¬
gether as "The Lake Poets," until many persons are under
an impression that they belong to one another from similar¬
ity of mind or style, instead of the unimportant fact that
their dwellings were comparatively near each other on
the Westmoreland lakes, and that they were friends. They
have even been called by an amusing misnomer, "the
lake school" of poets. However these names arose, they
can not now be separated from the original subjects, and
"the lakers" will go down to posterity together.
Wordsworth was bom in Cumberland, another of the
lake counties, and therefore not far from the scene of his
later celebrity. He was early left an orphan, and was sent
to college, as so many poets have been, by the kindness
of relatives. After graduating at Cambridge he went to
Paris, where the French Revolution was in full progress
(1792-3). He was intensely interested in the republic,
which he at first felt to be identified with the cause of
human freedomj after a time he sympathized more with
the moderate party, the Girondists, and probably escaped
the wholesale destruction which overtook them in 1793,
262 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
only by a timely retreat from the country. At a later time,
when the excesses of the revolution revealed its worst
side, he become a conservative as to everything regarding
church and state.
When Wordsworth was twenty-six, the smallness of his
means made it necessary that he should do something to¬
ward getting a living; and his friends were much disgusted
to find that he could not be induced to adopt any of the
professions, nor any kii d of business offered him, being
determined to devote himself to poetry. This appeared
to them rank perverseness; though, as his mother was
said to have pronounced him "stiff, moody and violent
in temper" as a child, they were the less surprised at it.
One person, however, stood by him; his sister Dorothy,
a lovely, sensitive creature, herself of a highly poetic nature,
who devoted herself heart and soul to his service. Words¬
worth adhered to his determination to be a poet and
nothing but a poet; and when his means were about
exhausted, a friend whom he had nursed in his last illness
left him a legacy of saying that he did this in
order that Wordsworth might devote himself to a literary
life. The brother and sister felt that they had inherited a
fortune. Dorothy had ^loo of her own, and on the income
of these united sums they chiefly lived, thanks to her
excellent management, for several years. They kept house
in the humblest way, first at Racedown in Dorsetshire, and
then, in order to be near Coleridge, whose acquaintance
they had lately made, at Alfoxden in Somersetshire. The
two poets published together a volume of "Lyrical Ballads,"
which contained such incongruous material as Coleridge's
"Ancient Mariner" and Wordsworth's "Idiot Boy." The
public laughed at both, and did not buy the book very
freely, but the twenty guineas which fell to Wordsworth's
share made it possible for him to take his sister to Germany,
where they spent a quiet winter. Here he began what is
WORDSWORTH. COLERIDGE.
263
considered his most profound work, " The Prelude," a his¬
tory of the growth and workings of his mind up to the
point where he had matured his plan of life, and felt him¬
self ready to begin what he took as his peculiar task—the
development of a new standard in poetry. "The Prelude"
was not completed for several years, and was not published
until after his death—more than fifty years from the time
of its commencement. It was dedicated to Coleridge.
On their return from Germany, the brother and sister
settled at Grasmere, in Westmoreland; a place still so full
of the associations of their lives that one seems almost to
see and hear them while going over the little cottage. This
is kept with pious care as a memorial of those beautiful
days. " Plain living and high thinking," as Emerson calls
it, was the order of the day; and to the many choice spirits
who visited the poet's home, this was more agreeable than if
the adjectives had been reversed. Thither Wordsworth
brought his bride, the gentle Mary Hutchinson, and the
three lived together in the closest of friendship during
their lives.
From this time there was little variety in the poet's life.
A sum of money due Wordsworth's father, which had been
withheld through obstinacy on the part of the debtor, was
paid, principal and interest, on the death of the latter, by his
son. Lord Lonsdale; and the family from that time lived in
comfort, without any puzzling questions as to ways and
means.
Through Lord Lonsdale's influence, Wordsworth was
appointed to the office of distributor of stamps, which gave
him an additional ;¿^5oo a year of income, with very light
duties to perform, so that he could give his mind entirely
to composition and to the study of natural things. He has
been called a high-priest of Nature; he was rather one
of her humble worshippers. By constant endeavor to know
her secrets, he arrived at the closest communion with her
264 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
that man can enjoy; and his delight in her companionshii.
never flagged for a moment.
Mingled with this reverence was a lofty sense of the dig¬
nity of man; and the two ideas are blended in the magnifi¬
cent poem called "The Excursion," the work of some of
his ripest years of thought and observation. There are
few reflective poems so abounding in quotable passages;
and though at times its diffuseness makes it appear tedious,
the general impression it gives is, as has often been said,
like that of organ music.
Jeffrey, the dreaded critic of the "Edinburgh Review,"
began his famous notice of the "Excursion" with the words,
"This will never do!" But the thinking world, even in
Wordsworth's own day, discovered that it would do,
and posterity has sustained the verdict. It is a poem writ¬
ten only for those who are able to reflect; to the frivolous
it presents no attractions. The "Excursion" was meant to
be only one of the three parts of a great life-poem, of
which the "Prelude" (which name, by the way, was given
to it by his wife after his death) was to be the first. The
plan, however, was too vast, and the work was never com¬
pleted. How slowly the world appreciated it is shown by
the fact that the first edition of five hundred copies lasted
six years, and the second, of equal size, still longer.
Wordsworth had some severe sorrows. The loss of two
children in youth, of his sister, who overtaxed her more
delicate frame in trying to keep up with his mountain-
climbing, and of his beloved daughter Dora, Mrs. Quillilan,
weighed heavily upon him, and he sank into apathy during
the last years of his life. But his work was done; and
every poet who has written since it began owes a debt
of gratitude to Wordsworth.
Regarding his shorter poems, the " Ode on Intimations of
Immortality," "The Daffodils," "Ode to Duty," "Tintern
Abbey," and the exquisite sonnets,—we can only advise the
WORDSWORTH. COLERIDGE.
265
reader to study them until he feels them and imbibes their
spirit A mere reading is not enough.
Wordsworth wrote little prose except some excellent let¬
ters; but his "Essay on Poetry" embodies many exalted
and elevating ideas. He was made poet - laureate on the
death of Southey (1843) ^.nd retained the position until his
own death, when he was succeeded by Tennyson.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was by nature and
habit a dreamer. This must be kept in mind in endeavor¬
ing to set in order the events which made up that strange
life, in the course of which we are constantly trying to make
excuses for its subject. He was the son of a clergyman,
and was a precocious child; read his Bible at three years
old and the "Arabian Nights" at six; was entered as a
charity-boy at Christ's Hospital School (the "Blue-coat"),
London; studied for two years at Cambridge; and then,
mortified at owing a debt of ;^ioo which he could not
pay, he left college and enlisted as a private in a regiment
of dragoons. A young man passing through the town rec¬
ognized him, and informed his friends, who soon obtained
his discharge. We next hear of him at Bristol, where he
formed with Southey and Robert Lovell(the latter also
a poet) a plan for emigrating to America, and there, on the
banks of the Susquehanna, founding a social colony, where
all property was to be in common, and where the labor of
two hours a day was to supply all needs. The government
was to be a pantisocracy, or equal rule of all, and the
funds — well, it was not so clear where the funds were to
come from, but they thought so trivial a matter as the lack
of money would not be a serious drawback to their plan.
They invited a bookseller and publisher of Bristol, Joseph
Cottle, to join their party, and he has preserved a delightful
account of their simple-minded scheme in his "Reminis¬
cences of Coleridge and Southey." Without absolutely
discouraging the visionaries, he quietly watched their pro-
266 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
ceedings, bought their poems, gave them good advice and
suggestions, to which they paid no attention, and was
finally much relieved when they came to him to borrow
money to go into lodgings, for that meant that the panti-
socracy was, for the time at least, given up.
It had been a condition of the pantisocracy that all who
participated in the scheme should be married. Lovell had
already married Miss Fricker of Bristol^ Southey made a
secret match with her sister Edith ; and Coleridge, without
secrecy, for there was no one to oppose him, married the
third sister, Sarah.
The old question of ways and means was still an import¬
ant one. Coleridge gave lectures, which were well attended,
but to which he sometimes forgot to go; he began the
publication of a paper called "The Watchman," but soon
stopped it for want of subscribers; and in the year after his
marriage he removed to Nether Stowey in Somersetshire,
and devoted himself entirely to writing. It was while here
that he made the memorable call on Wordsworth and his
sister, which made the two poets friends for life. Dorothy
Wordsworth, the lovely and gifted sister of the poet, has
left a pen - portrait of Coleridge at the time. He was "thin
and pale, the lower part of the face not good, wide mouth,
thick lips, not very good teeth, longish, loose, half-curling,
rough, black hair." But the moment he spoke, everything
else was forgotten in his magical utterances. His conver¬
sation, to the end of his life, had a charm which fascinated
all who met him. As has been said, he and Wordsworth
published together the volume of "Lyrical Ballads," which
included Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." In 1798 some
members of the Wedgwood family (of pottery fame) pre¬
sented him with an annuity which enabled him to realize
the wish of his heart and visit Germany, whither he went
in company with the Wordsworths. He mastered the
language with wonderful quickness, and on his return trans-
WORDSWORTH. COLERIDGE.
267
lated Schiller's "Piccolomini," two dramas of which Wallen¬
stein is the hero. He continued to write, producing, amid
some indifferent poetry, some of the most exquisite gems
of which our language can boast.
For the first fifteen years of this century, the life of Cole¬
ridge is a miserable story of slavery to opium. He had
been, as a young man, advised to take it as a medicine,
which he did with the most satisfactory effect, and having
thus acquired the taste for it, he had not strength of mind
or will to break away from the habit of using it. He wan¬
dered from place to place, restless and unhappy, making
now and then a brief return to social life. During these
intervals he would give lectures, and enchant every one
about him, as of old, with his wonderful conversation; then
disappear again into mysterious obscurity, leaving his wife
and family, meanwhile, to be supported by the generous,
industrious Southey, whose house and heart were ever open
to them. In 1810, Coleridge abandoned his family entirely,
and five years later had the good fortune to be taken into
the family of Mr. and Mrs. Gillman, at Highgate, who
devoted themselves to him for the remaining nineteen years
of his life. Mr Gillman was a medical man, and succeeded
in restraining his patient's unfortunate propensity within
such bounds as left him to some degree master over him¬
self, and enabled him to live and die in tolerable comfort.
Here he received his friends and indulged in the endless
monologue to which all were so delighted to listen. There
had not been such a talker since the days of Dr. Johnson;
there has probably not been one since. Among his visitors
was Thomas Carlyle, who has left a lifelike portrait of him
in the "Life of John Sterling":
Brow and head were round, and of massive weight ; but the face
was flabby and irresolute. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as
full of sorrow as inspiration; confused pain looked mildly from them,
as in a kind of mild astonishment. * * * A lady once remarked.
268
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
he never could fix which side of the garden walk would suit him
best, hut continually shifted, in corkscrew fashion, and kept trying
both. A heavy-laden, high-aspiring, and surely much-suffering man.
Although most of his friends listened without criticism
to his dissertations, there was occasionally one who took
the liberty of quietly laughing at him. Hazlett says of him :
"He did not cease [talking] while I stayed, nor has he
since, that I know of." And Charles Lamb, when Coleridge
asked him whether he had ever heard him preach, answered,
"I never heard you do anything else!"
Coleridge's prose works are far more voluminous than
his poetry, and are mostly of a highly philosophical cast.
"The Friend" (a periodical), "Aids to Reflection," and "Bi-
ographia Literaria" are among the best-known of his prose
works. His oldest son. Hartley Coleridge, a man of genius,
a thinker and a poet, was ruined by intemperance. The
second son, the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, wrote a memoir
of his brother Hartley, and some theological works. Sara
Coleridge, the poet's only daughter, who inherited much
of his genius, wrote both prose and verse. She married
her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge, who was, like the rest
of his family, devoted to literature. He undertook a me¬
moir of S. T. Coleridge, but dying before it was completed,
it was finished by his widow. She was also the author of
"Phantasmion," a prose fairy-tale, and of several other
graceful literary works.
CHAPTER XLI
SOUTHEY. CAMPBELL. MOORE.
OBERT SOUTHEY was not a great poet, but he
was a fine prose - writer, and so admirable a man
that one can scarcely separate what he did from
what he was. In the midst of constant and engrossing
SOUTHEY. CAMPBELL. MOORE. 269
occupation, he, like Scott, always found time for the claims
of friendship, charity and civilityj and his hospitable house
was the constant resort of visitors, beside furnishing shelter,
year after year, to his wife's widowed sister, Mrs. Lovell
(who came, with her child, to live with him), and to the
neglected family of his fellow-poet, Coleridge. Laborious,
earnest and conscientious, his life was one of the busiest
recorded among the literary brotherhood; and when at last
his overtaxed brain gave way and the sad end came, we
feel that his had been, like Scott's, a life nobly used.
Southey was the son of a linen-draper in Bristol, and was
sent, at the expense of an uncle, to Westminster School,
from which he was expelled, four years later, because
he had taken part in the writing of an article against flog¬
ging. Afterward he spent two years at Oxford, where,
according to his own account, he learned but two things—
to row and to swim. While there he composed his first
epic poem, "Joan of Arc," for which the generous book¬
seller, Cottle, gave him fifty guineas. His marriage, and
the wild scheme of "pantisocracy," have already been spoken
of in the sketch of Coleridge.
At the time of his apparently imprudent marriage, the
same kind relative who had helped him before, remarked
that he saw in him "everything you could wish a young
man to have, except common sense and prudence;" and
we, who see through to the end, know that these qualities
were developed later.
A volume of poems, written jointly by Southey and his
brother-in-law, Lovell, had appeared sometime before the
emigration plan was thought of. Southey now produced
" Thalaba," an oriental epic, and soon after settled at Greta
Hall in Keswick, on one of the Cumberland lakes, not
far from Wordsworth, where he spent the rest of his
long life. In addition to the epics already mentioned,
he wrote "Madoc," founded on a Welsh legend, and "The
270 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Curse of Kehama." These long poems are now little read.
Several of the short ones are still popular, such as "The
Cataract of Lodore" (a burlesque), "My Books," "The
Inchcape Rock," and "The Battle of Blenheim." The
amusing fairy tale of " The Three Bears," so great a favorite
with children, is of his invention.
The main part of Southey's work was in prose, in which
his style was clear and vigorous, though he himself pre¬
ferred his somewhat dull and feeble poetry. The list of his
works includes writings on so many topics that we will not
try to name them all. Biographies of Cowper, Wesley and
Lord Nelson, histories of Portugal and the Peninsular War,
the "Book of the Church," many volumes of essays, and a
curious medley called "The Doctor," are only a part of his
multifarious labors. A friend to whom he had been giving
a list of his daily occupations asked, "But tell me, "Southey,
when do you think ? "
In addition to the ordinary employments of a literary
man, Southey was a scrupulous and voluminous correspond¬
ent. He made it a rule to answer, before going to bed at
night, every letter received during the day ; and as his kind¬
ness and obliging disposition were well known, he was sub¬
ject to a continual drain on his time and strength, which a
more selfish person would have managed to escape.
In 1813, he was appointed to the laureateship; an office
which had been declined by Gray and Scott, and filled,
since CibbePs time, by Whitehead (1757-85), Warton (1785
-90), and Pye (1790-1813).
He was offered a baronetcy, but declined it on account
of the expense attending it. Bitter sorrow saddened his
life. The loss of his only son, and of a daughter who is
described by him as "the most radiant creature I ever
beheld," seemed to take away his hope and spirit, and
Greta Hall, the gay and hospitable home, became silent.
This was not the heaviest trial. His wife, his beloved
SOUTHEY. CAMPBELL. MOORE. 271
Edith, the faithful companion of forty years, became insane ;
and after lingering for several years in this pitiable condition
died, in 1837. Two years later he married Caroline Bowles,
(a friend of twenty years' standing), whose poetical works
are published under her name of Caroline Southey. A few
months afterward, partial paralysis overtook him; the tire¬
less hand and brain gave way, and a slow decay set in from
which death came as a relief.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) was born to comparative
poverty, but had a good education, and grew up an unprac¬
tical, sensitive, deep - feeling youth, quite dependent on love
and friendship; the ideal nature for the development of a
poet of his class. He served in various tutorships, and
made his first serious effort in authorship in Edinburgh,
a city always hospitable to literature, whither he carried his
"Pleasures of Hope" and where it was well received. Scott,
not yet famous, helped him to fame — and to the £,(>0
that the poem brought. About 1800, he visited the con¬
tinent and saw Hohenlinden and other battle-fields which
inspired some of his splendid ballads; "On Linden when
the sun was low," "The Soldier's Dream," "Ye Mariners
of England," etc. He did not appreciate the value of these.
Scott said to Washington Irving:
There's that glorious little poem of Hohenlinden—after he had
written it he did not seem to think much of it — "drum and trumpet
lines. " I got him to read it to me and I believe that the delight I felt
and expressed had an effect in inducing him to print it. The fact is,
Campbell is a bugbear to himself. The brightness of his early success
is a detriment to all his future efforts. He is afraid of the shadow his
own fame casts before him.
Campbell tried editing, but was not successful. He engaged
to do work for publishers at set times, and when the time
came the work was not even begun. He could not live on
fame and social popularity—especially seeing that he had
married and that a son was born to him—and naturally got
into difficulties which even a pension of £200, given him in
272
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
1806, failed to relieve. Then his wife died, and his son,
in whom he had placed high hopes, lost his mind and be¬
came the inmate of a madhouse. So he fell into a state of
continual melancholy and wrote very little poetry during
the last twenty years of his life. His friends thought him
the victim of an incurable indolence; but perhaps the vein
was worked out. He delivered a course of "Lectures on
Poetry," which were deservedly popular, and wrote two or
three biographies, beside the addresses which his election
as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow made neces¬
sary. His social qualities were very brilliant, and he was
always welcomed in the circle of wits and wise men, but as
age drew on he shrank from society, partly from depression
caused by domestic losses, partly from a feeling that his
day was over — a sad waste of intellectual possibilities
when we think of the fresh, vigorous men who at eighty
are as delightful company as they were at forty. After
a lingering illness, Campbell died, in Boulogne, at the age
of sixty-seven. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Campbell's principal poem, "The Pleasures of Hope,"
is written in the heroic rhymed couplet of Pope, and shows
an ear perfectly attuned to the melody of rhythm. Lord
Byron pronounced it "one of the most beautiful didactic
poems in our language." Here are some of the passages
most frequently quoted :
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
«- » «■
Without the smile from partial Beauty won,
Oh what were man? A world without a sun.
« * «
The world was sad, the garden was a wild,
And Man, the hermit, sighed till Woman smiled 1
* « #
Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of Time.
Thy joyous youth began — but not to fade.
When all the sister planets have decayed,
SOUTHEY. CAMPBELL. MOORE. 273
When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow,
And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below;
Thou, undismayed, shall o'er the ruin smile,
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile!
Campbell's next longest poem, "Gertrude of Wyoming,"
is a narrative of the massacre perpetrated by Indians and
their tory instigators in the Valley of the Wyoming, Penn¬
sylvania, during our Revolutionary War. The poem was
received with great enthusiasm. His fame must rest,
however, on his unsurpassed lyrics, especially "Ye Mar¬
iners of England," "Hohenlinden," "Lochiel's Warning,"
"Lord Ullin's Daughter," "The Battle of the Baltic," and
"The Soldier's Dream," which will be read as long as our
language endures. Scarcely less admirable are the reflec¬
tive poems, "To the Rainbow," "The Last Man," "Field
Flowers," "The Exile of Erin," "To the Evening Star," etc.
"A Thought Suggested by the New Year," contains the
substance of a volume:
The more we live, more brief appear
Our life's succeeding stages;
A day to childhood seems a year—
A year like passing ages.
Heaven gives our years of failing strength
Indemnifying fleetness.
And those of youth a seeming length
Proportioned to their sweetness!
Thomas Moore (1779-1852) claims attention rather be¬
cause of his success than of his eminence. Some one has
shrewdly said "let me make the ballads of a people and I
care not who makes the laws;" which is another way of ex¬
pressing the idea that spontaneous poetry and what is called
"folk-lore" operates on national character more than do its
statutes. The ballad literature of a country, in this sense of
the word, can not be restricted to the writings of any one
man, but must include all the traditional verse which is
the common heritage of the people. Still, each song has
IS
274 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
some author, known or unknown ; and some of the rhyme¬
sters have written or rewritten many which go to swell
the burden of "popular song." Such men are Béranger
in France and Thomas Moore in Ireland.
Moore was born in Dublin, the son of a grocer. He
went to Trinity College, where he made some progress
in classics, and fitted himself for the study of the law;
and at twenty went over to London to "keep terms," i.e.
study law, in the Inner Temple. He had already made
a translation of Anacreon, which he wished to publish by
subscription; and such was his personal charm that his
subscription list was easily filled, and included the rank
and fashion of the town. He is described as the most
fascinating of youths, his company sought and prized
ever)rwhere, and his sweet voice and charming songs (to
his own accompaniment on the piano) the delight of old
and young, high and low alike. The world seemed wait¬
ing for such a brightening, sweetening, softening influence,
and fame and fortune flowed in upon him.
He began in 1807 his writing of words to fit old music,
and for a very long time got for "Irish Melodies," from
one publisher, ;¿'5oo a year. For "Lalla Rookh" he received
_;¿'3ooo, and for other works — his "Life of Byron," etc.
—correspondingly handsome payment. He also obtained
a profitable office from the government, that of Registrar
in Admiralty in the Island of Bermuda, and he visited
the United States on his way to that colony. He soon
tired of his residence in the West Indies, his life in Lon¬
don having spoiled him for such an out - of - the - way
place; so he left the office to a deputy, and contented
himself for the next fourteen years with about ^£400 a
year profit on its income.
Moore's warm, close and faithful friendship for Lord
Byron was a marked feature in his career. Being made
the greater poet's literary executor; and receiving Byron's
LORD BYRON.
275
memoirs with the leave to publish them, he consulted
friends of taste and judgment, and, guided by their advice,
decided that they were too scandalous to be preserved
and therefore burned them all.
He certainly was a warm lover of Ireland. Neverthe¬
less, the more earnest, serious and thoughtful patriots, who
stayed at home instead of following his example of giv¬
ing themselves up to London gayeties, are very far from
ranking him among Erin's worthy sons; and think that his
trivialities did his mother - land harm rather than good —
made it beloved and pitied but not respected.
CHAPTER XLII.
LORD BYRON.
F the question were to be asked, "Who is England's
greatest poet?" the answers would vary as widely
as the points of view from which such a subject
can be approached; but if an inquiry should be made as
to which of her writers of verse presents the most poetic
personality, the general voice would probably be in favor
of the handsome, lawless, brilliant, unfortunate Byron.
George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) inherited
his turbulence with his title, for the grand-uncle from whom
the title descended had killed his neighbor and relative,
Mr. Chaworth, in a drunken brawl, and well earned the
name of "the wicked Lord Byron," His father was a profli¬
gate officer who married Catherine Gordon, the poet's
mother, only for her fortune, and left her as soon as that
was used up. Byron's better qualities seem to have come
through his grandfather. Admiral Byron, who is said to
have had the virtues without the vices of his race. Among
the things told of the family are the circumstances that
276
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
seven brothers fought in the battle of Edgehill, and that
a later lord patronized literature and wrote verses.
Add to all these formative influences the fact that the
family means had been wasted by the family spendthrifts
(leaving nothing but the unprofitable estate of Newstead
Abbey to support the title), and that the last lord, our
poet, was born with a club-foot—all these things being con¬
sidered, a part at least of his personality is fairly accounted
for.
At the time of Byron's birth (which occurred in London)
his father had squandered the maternal dowry, and Mrs.
Byron, a fitful, passionate woman, went with her "lame
brat," as she sometimes called him, to live in Aberdeen. At
ten years old, the boy fell so violently in love with his
cousin, Mary Duff, that when six years later he heard of
her marriage, he " nearly went into convulsions." At fif¬
teen he fell in love more seriously with Miss Chaworth,
whose grandfather his great-uncle had killed in a duel.
Her rejection of him was a matter of enduring grief, as
testified in his poem "The Dream." He studied during this
time at different private schools, making some progress in
the classics and reading much general literature.
The drilled, dull lesson, forced down word by word,
was not to his taste. Nothing could be so that savored
of law or authority. His later utterance,
Then farewell Horace, whom I hated so,
Not for thy faults, but mine—
shows that he at least understood the cause of his repug¬
nance. After five years at Harrow he went to Cambridge,
where he stayed three years but took no degree. Still,
he learned much beside the "swimming, riding, fencing,
boxing, drinking, gambling and other occupations of idle
undergraduates," which he says occupied his time.
The deformed foot, after many tortures, was at last so far
LORD BYRON.
277
reduced that he was able to put on a common boot; yet
an incurable lameness remained n bitter mortification. His
poverty might have been cured by the large earnings of his
genius, but unfortunately his unbridled extravagance and
dissipation made any accumulation of wealth impossible.
Debts, duns, flight from creditors and all the other incidents
so common in English "high life" and so rare in American,
were his constant miseries as long as he lived.
Byron had written verses while at Harrow; he wrote
more during a year spent at Southwell during his college
course, and had even printed a volume for private circu¬
lation; and in 1807, he put forth publicly (though of
course anonymously) " Hours of Idleness," which was
honored with much praise and also with a bitter and con¬
temptuous critique in the "Edinburgh Review." This he
met with the celebrated satire "English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers," which brought him at once prominently before
the public. It was a general assault on everybody worth
assaulting. Scott was "Apollo's venal son," a "hireling
bard," etc. Southey was "ballad-mongering Southey,"
producing "annual strains to take the field like armies."
"Vulgar Wordsworth" is "the meanest object in the lowly
group," with "verse of all but childish prattle void;" Cole¬
ridge, "the laureate of the long-eared kind." "Smug
Sydney" is Sydney Smith. "Blundering Brougham" is he
who afterward became the lord and prime minister. The
few names he excepts from his slurs are as significant as
the victims:
Come forth, oh, Campbell! Give thy talents scope;
Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope?
And thou, melodious Rogers! rise at last,
Recall the pleasing memories of the past.
ft * It
Restore Apollo to his vacant throne,
Assert thy country's honor and thine own.
What! Must deserted Poesy still weep
Where her last hopes with pious Cowper sleep?
278
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Yet still some genuine sons 'tis hers to boast,
Who, least affecting, still affect the most :
Feel as they viTite, and write but as they feel—
Bear witness Gilford, Sotheby, Macneil.
In other words the furious satirist puts not only Campbell
and Rogers, but Gifford, Sotheby and Macneil, above
Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge ! In later years
he did what he could to atone for some of this, and the
magnanimous Scott not only forgave the younger poet but
asserted his superiority to himself.
In 1809, Byron traveled on the continent; departing in
deep dejection, feeling friendless and alone as such un¬
friendly and unrestrained persons are apt to feel. His
travels gave rise to his greatest poem, "Childe Harold."
The profound melancholy that marks that poem reflects
faithfully the state of the poet's soul, but he denies the
imputation that its hero is, in truth, himself. Poverty,
increased by revolting extravagance and dissipation, and
made more trying by high rank (which he could not forget),
exposed his pride and vanity to continued friction, and
kept him in a state of morbid irritation which is wearying
to read about and must have been still more unpleasant to
meet with.
He assumed his place in the House of Lords and took
part in the debates, having at this time some ambition fora
political career. But, to use his own words, "I awoke one
morning and found myself famous." This expresses the un¬
expected nature of the success of "Childe Harold," of which
the first two cantos were published in 1811. Mrs. Oliphant
says: "It is not too much to say that the public mind was
moved by it to a sort of sudden ecstasy of interest such as
is almost incredible in our calmer days. The first edition
was sold out at once and a universal ferment of interest
about the author flew through that society which, up to
this time had known and cared nothing about him."
This put a sudden stop to his political views, which never.
LORD BYRON.
279
in truth, had any grave or stable aim, being a mere specula¬
tion as to how he would appear to the world: "Lord H.
tells me I shall beat them all if I persevere, and Lord G.
remarked that the construction of some of my periods is
very like Burke's."
He now concluded that his easiest way to "beat them
all" was through his poetry; yet he rested for a while on
his "Childe Harold" laurels, during which period he was
the lion of London, the friend and intimate of the Prince
Regent and all the fashionable circle which revolved around
him, in which Tom Moore was the minstrel and Brummell
the dandy. Then he resumed his pen, and put forth,
within eight years, "The Giaour," "The Bride of Abydos,"
"The Corsair," "Lara," "Siege of Corinth" and "Manfred."
Many others, produced in the following three or four
years, have the same fierce strength and fervid beauty that
marks those named.
In 1815 he married Anne Isabella Milbanke, a lady of
fortune, with whom he lived for about a year, during which
his debts were pressed for collection with renewed vigor,
nine executions being levied in the house within that time.
After the birth of a daughter. Lady Byron went on a visit
to her father, and a few days later Byron received a letter
from the father saying that she had resolved never to return
to him, and a formal deed of separation followed. The
causes of this separation have never been made clear, but
they are easy to guess. There had been no love to begin
with, on either side; on his side were indifference, perver¬
sity, selfishness and a brutal disregard of the ordinary
courtesies of family life, while she seems to have been coldly
correct, unsympathetic and unyielding. Her appreciation of
his fame and glory can be judged from her asking him when
he meant to give up his bad habit of writing verses!
After Byron's separation from his wife and his infant
daughter, he sold Newstead Abbey and took a final leave
280
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
of England, and by living abroad escaped the measures
which his creditors took to collect what he owed them —
measures which his biographers gravely call "indignities ! "
He lived at many places; always without the morality,
decency and sterling honesty which have made illustrious
the names of most of his brother poets, from Chaucer to
Tennyson. Look at his insolent disregard of the rights of
those who had trusted him, and compare it with Scott's
noble self-martyrdom in the payment of debts from which
he had drawn no gain!
In 1823 he gave his services to the cause of Grecian
independence and entered heart and soul into the war with
Turkey. While preparing for the siege of Lepanto he con¬
tracted the fatal illness which ended his life at Missolonghi,
April 19, 1824.
Being so marked a figure, personally, we must make a
place for his portrait as drawn by Lady Blessington, a year
before his death ;
I had fancied him taller, with a more dignified and commanding air.
. . . His appearance is, however, highly prepossessing, his head
finely shaped, his forehead open, high and noble ; his eyes are grey
and full of expression, but one is visibly larger than the other; his
mouth is the most remarkable feature in his face, the upper lip of Gre¬
cian shortness and the comers descending, the lips full and finely cut.
In speaking he shows his teeth very much, and they are white and
even, but I observed even in his smile — and he smiles frequently —
there is something of a scornful expression in his mouth that is evi¬
dently natural and not, as many suppose, affected. . . . He is
very slightly lame, and the deformity of his foot is so little remarkable
that I am not now aware which foot it is. . . . Were I to point
out the prominent defect of Lord Byron, I should say it was flippancy,
and a total want of that natural self-possession and dignity which ought
to characterize a man of birth and education.
If one might venture to characterize in a few words so
vast a genius as that set forth in Byron's poems, it may be
said to be the embodiment of self ; to show passion rather
than affection, volcanic fire rather than homely warmth,
SHELLEY. KEATS. HOOD.
281
noon and midnight without twilight, wit without genial
humor, strength without sweetness, grief without sympathy,
and joy without contentment.
CHAPTER XLIII.
SHELLEY. KEATS. HOOD.
ERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822) has
been called " the poet of poets." In his ethereal
fancies he seemed to soar with sustained flight,
like his own skylark, in a region which common mortals
rarely reach and soon abandon, sinking toward earth again
from the rarer air above. Unhappily this delicately crea¬
tive mind was marred by a lack of capacity to follow the
path of morality and religion, a lack showing itself on the
one hand in his irregular life, and on the other in the athe¬
istical tendency of his writings.
Shelley was not, like so many of our poets, bom to poverty.
His father was a baronet. Sir Timothy Shelley, and expected
his son to grow up into a respectable, commonplace person
like himself; but nature, in endowing the boy with a sensi¬
tive and unmanageable soul, frustrated the father's inten¬
tions. Shelley was the victim of some tyranny and ill-usage
at school, which increased his inborn hatred of law and
control; and his life was one long rebellion against the estab¬
lished order of things, under whatever form it presented
itself. After writing a pamphlet on atheism, for which he
was expelled from college, and a poem in the same spirit
entitled " Queen Mab," he brought his father's displeasure
to a climax by a mnaway marriage with Harriet Westbrook,
the daughter of an innkeeper, a girl of seventeen, he him¬
self being then still under twenty. Sir Timothy did not
disown his son for this act of insubordination, but desired
no more of his company, though he made him a small
282
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
allowance to live on. After a time Shelley grew tired of
Harriet—she "could not feel poetry or understand phil¬
osophy," he said—and, abandoning her and her two children,
he went off to Italy with Mary Godwin, another girl of
seventeen, daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William
Godwin, who both entertained the same ideas in regard
to marriage as did Shelley and the younger Mary. In
the next act of this tragic drama poor Harriet drowns
herself, and Shelley marries Mary Godwin. As one of his
kindest biographers has said, " the fact that he ought to do
a thing was enough to make Shelley set himself against
it." The indulgence of the moment's desire was the only
duty he acknowledged. A few years brought his strange,
wayward life to a close. He was at Spezia, in Italy, and
had gone out with his friend Williams, and a sailor boy,
for a sail on the bay. A squall came up, the boat cap¬
sized, and all three were drowned. After much search,
Shelley's body was found, and Lord Byron, with other
friends, burned it upon the sea-shore, according to the old
Grecian custom. In a pocket was a volume of Keats,
who had died the year before, and to whose memory Shel¬
ley had written the exquisite poem of "Adonaïs." The
ashes were laid in the Protestant cemetery at Rome. At
the time of his death, Shelley was not quite thirty years old.
In the airy grandeur of his imaginings and the melody
of his verse, Shelley has perhaps never been surpassed.
His writing is unequal. Some of the longer poems, like
"The Revolt of Islam," and "Alastor," are exceedingly
obscure; "Prometheus Unbound," the most splendid effort
of his genius, is marred by the impious daring of its senti¬
ments; "The Cenci," a work of tremendous power, is repul¬
sive from its subject; but the lovely "Skylark," the "Cloud"
and the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" are pure poetry.
Shelley's personal appearance was in harmony with his
mental graces. He was tall and slender, with wavy dark-
SHELLEY. HEATS. HOOD.
283
brown hair, deep blue eyes and youthful face full of spirit¬
uality. His biographer, W. M. Rossetti, says of him:
"He was generosity, unworldliness and disinterestedness
personified," a dictum which his treatment of heartbroken
Harriet Westbrook Shelley scarcely bears out.
John Keats (1795-1821) was the youngest of the group
we have been occupied with, and the first to depart. Of
humble origin (which meant then exclusion from the ranks
of that higher class where culture is a matter of course), he
was apprenticed to a surgeon, and tried bravely to do his
duty in an uncongenial task. Poetry, however, was in his
nature and would find its way out. His first collection of
poems, published at twenty-two, contained nothing remark¬
able, except the glorious sonnet "On first looking into
Chapman's Homer." The second, "Endymion," which came
out the next year with a modest preface, gave early promise
of a finer flight than it, as a whole, displayed, though it
contained much that was admirable. In the third and last,
the world saw a full-fledged poet, worthy to stand among
the noblest.
To return to his early endeavors. Having published
some poems in Leigh Hunt's " Examiner," Keats was
brought to the notice of literary men who recognized his
merit and made him welcome among them. The drudg¬
ery of the mortar and pill-box was exchanged for more
congenial occupation; and he devoted himself to writing
poetry with the eagerness which characterized everything
he did.
The great reviews attacked " Endymion" with fierce and
contemptuous abuse, and the story was long current that
the article in the "Quarterly " hastened Keat's death. He was
undoubtedly deeply wounded and discouraged by it; but
he came of a consumptive family, and his early death may
not be chargeable to the strictures of "Blackwood" and the
"Quarterly."
284
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
He answered the criticisms on his youthful work with a
quiet dignity which must have put his savage critics to the
blush :
J. S. is perfectly right in regard to the "slip-shod Endymion." That
it is so is no fault of mine. No! though it may sound a little paradox¬
ical to say so, it is as good as I had power to make it myself. • • *
I have written independently withoui judgment; I may write inde¬
pendently and with judgment hereafter. The genius of poetry must
work out its own salvation in a man. It can not be matured by law
and precept, but bytsensation and watchfulness. * * In Endymion
I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better
acquainted with the soundings, the quicksands and the rocks, than if I
had stayed upon the green shore and piped a silly pipe, and taken tea
and comfortable advice.
And then he went on to write the noble poem of "Hyper¬
ion," which remains a fragment because he felt unable to
do the subject justice. Next followed in quick succession
the terribly picturesque "Lamia," and "Isabella;" the "Eve
of Saint Agnes," a poem perfect in its exquisite melody and
tenderness; the "Ode to a Grecian Urn," breathing the
very spirit of classic refinement and dainty grace; the "Ode
to a Nightingale," almost overpowering in its intensity of
feeling; several lovely sonnets, and much more that makes
us regret that so fair a fruitage should be nipped and blasted
before it arrived at its prime. At the age of twenty, the
symptonis of consumption appeared. He went to Rome,
hoping there to find at least some alleviation of his disease;
but the change did him no good, and after a few months of
suffering he was laid to rest, "Within the shadow of the
pyramid of Caius Cestius."
On the tomb, by his own direction, are inscribed the
words, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."
Shelley said of his burial-place, "It makes one in love with
death to think of being buried in so sweet a place,"
— little thinking how soon all that remained of his own
mortal tenement would be laid beside him. Keats said,
while lying in his last illness, "I feel the daisies growing
SHELLEY. KEATS. HOOD.
285
over me;" and those who visit his tomb now, find it covered
with daisies and violets.
The last of the group of poets of whom Wordsworth was
the first in poetic rank and Rogers the first in order of
birth, was Thomas Hood (1798-1845). The death of his
father left the family poor, and it was by his own choice
that the son went early to work rather than burden his
widowed mother with his education. At twenty-one he
became sub-editor of the "London Magazine," for which
(beside doing other work), he concocted humorous "An¬
swers to Correspondents," etc. This soon developed into
regular literary work in the magazine, which numbered
among its contributors such men as Lamb, Hazlitt, De
Quincy, Coleridge and others well-known.
At twenty-six Hood married. It was a love-match; not
smiled upon by the young lady's family, yet productive of
great happiness. The wife had literary taste and judgment,
and was the valued critic of all his later work. He grew
so dependent on her that he could hardly write unless she
was at hand. The charming little jeu d'esprit entitled
"Parental Ode to my Son, aged three years and five
months," shows, incidentally, his habits in this respect.
Hood's first book, published a year or two after his mar¬
riage, was a collection from his scattered pieces, called
"Whims and Oddities." For seven years he produced
yearly the "London Comic Annual," and during this time
wrote his one entire work, "Tylney Hall," a novel. The
rest of his collected works consist of poems, stories, trav¬
els and isolated bits of prose and verse, each good in its
time and place, but not adapted to continuous reading.
They seem, as they flash out from the pages of a periodical,
like successive discharges of fireworks at a fête; but col¬
lected in a mass and read at one sitting they somewhat
resemble the several pieces all ignited at once.
Hood's mind, being attuned to this species of composition.
286
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
seems to have run always toward jokes and puns. Nothing
could meet his eye which was not instinctively scanned for
its adaptability to a quip; he was the one great verbal
humorist. Mrs. S. C. Hall says of him:
I remember the first time I met him was at one of the pleasant
soirées of the painter Martin ; for a moment I turned away — as many
have done—disappointed, for the countenance, in repose, was of mel¬
ancholy rather than of mirth; there was something calm, even to
solemnity, in the upper portion of his face, which in public was seldom
relieved by the eloquent play of the mouth or the occasional sparkle
of an observant eye. . . . Theodore Hook, perhaps, liked his
celebrity. . . . He [Hood] was too sensitive, too refined to endure
it; the dislike to being pointed at as "the man who is funny," kept
him out of a crowd, where there were always numbers who honored
his genius and loved him for his gentle domestic virtues
Although "social" in all his feelings, he never sought to stimulate his
wit by the false poison of draughts of wine; nor was he ever more
cheerful than when at his own fireside he enjoyed the companionship
of his dear and devoted wife.
Hood was so great as a punster, a rhymester and a wit,
that one is apt to forget that he was also a poet and a phil¬
anthropist. The same hand which penned "Morning Med¬
itations," gave the world also the " Song of the Shirt," and
the " Bridge of Sighs." Even in some of the poems most
thickly strewn with Jokes, like "The Tale of a Trumpet,"
and " Miss Kilmansegg," he had a lesson to teach, and
taught it well. Some of his sonnets, notably the one on
" Lear," are pure pathos, and many of his shorter poems
have a sad undertone which shows that the sources of laugh¬
ter and of tears are not far apart.
The close of the long poem " Miss Kilmansegg and her
Precious Leg " is interesting as a feat in rhyming as well
as for its moral:
Gold! gold! gold! gold!
Bright and yellow and hard and cold.
Molten, graven, hammered and rolled ;
Heavy to get and light to hold;
SHELLEY. KEATS. HOOD.
287
Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold :
Spumed by the young, but hugged by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mould;
Price of many a crime untold :
Gold! gold! gold! gold!
Good or bad a thousand fold!
How widely its agencies vary—
To save — to ruin — to curse — to bless—
As even its minted coins express.
Now stamped with the image of good Queen Bess,
And now of a Bloody Mary!
The "Tale of a Trumpet" contains, in spite of its stern
lesson, some delightful bits of fun. A peddler is recom¬
mending his ear-trumpet:
There was Mrs. F.
So very deaf
She might have worn a percussion-cap
And been knocked on the head without hearing it snap;
I sold her a horn, and the very next day
She heard from her husband at Botany Bay!
From the lighter efforts we turn to the more serious
strains of this tender-hearted, pitying, loving, lovable man;
to the lines by which he himself asked to be remembered;
for at his wish the record of one of his humane poems
is inscribed on his tomb in the simple phrase, "He wrote
the 'Song of the Shirt'."
With fingers weary and worn.
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags
Plying her needle and thread.
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the "Song of the Shirt"
« » *
Work — work — work
Till the brain begins to swim!
Work — work — work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
288 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam.
Till over the buttons I fall asleep
And sew them on in my dream.
Less known, though scarcely less worth knowing, is
"The Lady's Dream." A single stanza near the close
gives its key-note:
The wounds I might have healed!
The human sorrow and smart!
And yet it was never in my soul
To play so ill a part:
But evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart.
Late in life. Hood received through the influence of
Sir Robert Peel an annual pension of ;¿^ioo. This was
continued to his widow; who, with two children, was left
unprovided for at his death, except by the pension. It is
a sad commentary on the distribution of the world's rewards
that service like his is so poorly paid — that those who,
with the pen, lead the thought of the world, are so often
left behind in the distribution of its bounties. A subscrip¬
tion was started for the benefit of Hood's family, the appeal
for which opens with these words :
This distinguished writer, who has for upwards of twenty years
entertained the public with *. constant succession of comic and humor-
istic works, in the whole range of which not a single line of immoral
tendency or calculated to pain an individual can be pointed out, whose
poems and serious writings rank among the noblest modern contribu¬
tions of our national literature and whose pen was the ever ready and
efficient advocate of the unfortunate and the oppressed (as recently,
for instance, in the admirable "Song of the Shirt, "which gave so
remarkable an impulse to the movement in behalf of distressed needle¬
women), has left by his death a widow and two children in straitened
and precarious circumstances.
Some relief was afforded by this friendly effort; and when
Hood's son grew to manhood he became, like his father, a
laborer in the world of letters, and made it the means of
gaining an honorable livelihood.
SOME MINOR POETS.
289
CHAPTER XL IK
SOME MINOR POETS.
HARLES DIBDIN (1748-1814) excelled as a
writer of sea-songs, which he set to music.
Thomas Dibdin (1771-1841), son of the above,
is said to have written more than one thousand songs, but
none of them attained the popularity of his father's.
It is not often given to a poet to be a millionaire, but
such was the case with Samuel Rogers (1763-1855). Born
to a fortune, and increasing it by his business as a banker,
his house became a centre of entertainment for all the lit¬
erary celebrities of the day. Nor did he confine his good
offices to the exercise of hospitality; his purse was always
open for the encouragement of struggling authors, and
many such an one has owed his relief from distress and
encouragement to effort to the generosity of Samuel Rogers.
Of his own contributions to literature, the first was "The
Pleasures of Memory," written in the last century, and in
the style of that age. Polished and pleasing, and abound¬
ing in graceful thoughts, it lacks fire, and is now read
mainly as a matter of literary history. His poem on
Italy is a series of pen-pictures of that lovely country,
mingled with legends and rich in historical illusions. "Hu¬
man Life," and "The Voyage of Columbus," are his only
other long poems. Some of the shorter ones are very
charming.
Rogers lived to the good old age of ninety - two, preserv¬
ing his faculties almost to the end. The art - treasures with
which his house was filled were chosen with faultless judg¬
ment, and he possessed a remarkably fine library. He was
never married.
As the world grows older and larger, the number of wri-
19
290 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
ters in each department of literature increases; and so it
happens that in poetry several names of minor lights must
be added to the list of eminent men already mentioned as
flourishing near the beginning of the nineteenth century.
James Montgomery (1771-1854) was born in Scotland,
though there is nothing about his poems to indicate the
fact. His verse is mostly of a religious cast, "The World
Before the Flood" being his principal long poem. He wrote
several beautiful hymns, and all his writings show depth
and tenderness of feeling, as well as a very agreeable power
of description.
The opening of the reconstructed Drury Lane Theatre,
after it was burnt in 1812, gave an opportunity to the
brothers Horace and James Smith to do an excellent bit
of burlesque. The managers had offered a prize for the
best poetical address (to the audience) sent in on the occa¬
sion, and afterward the Smiths published a volume of pre¬
tended "Rejected Addresses," in which the st>'les of Cole¬
ridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Scott, Crabbe, and other well-
known writers are so cleverly reproduced that some of the
persons "taken off" declared they could scarcely believe
that they did not write the verses themselves. Horace, the
younger brother, wrote also many historical novels, some
essays and a few poems, of which the best are, "Address
to a Mummy," and "Hymn to the Flowers."
The verses to the mummy have always been great
favorites :
And thou hast walked about (how strange a storyl)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago.
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.
* « «
Perhaps that very hand, now pinioned flat.
Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a half-penny in Homer's hat;
Or dofled thine own, to let Queen Dido pass;
SOME MINOR POETS.
291
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great temple's dedication.
* * *
Since first thy form was in this box extended
We have, above-ground, seen some strange mutations;
The Roman empire has begun and ended—
New worlds have risen—we have lost old nations;
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.
Ebenezer Elliott {1781-1849) is the poet of the people.
To apply his own words:
His teachers were the torn heart's wail,
The tyrant and the slave.
The street, the factory, the jail,
The palace — and the grave!
His "Corn-Law Rhymes," vehemently urging the repeal
of the duty on grain, produced a great eflfect in England
during the long political agitation which preceded the
repeal of the ancient "protective" statutes framed to en¬
hance the price of food.
Henry Kirke White (1785-1806) was a poet of much
promise, whose short life came to an untimely end through
over study. He was the son of a butcher in Nottingham,
and after various efforts to earn a living in other ways,
decided to cultivate poetry. A volume of his poems
attracted the notice of Southey, who was very kind to him,
and with other friends helped him to enter college. There
he worked so hard, being determined to win honors, that
his health gave way, and he died at the age of twenty-one.
Southey edited his poems, with a kindly and appreciative
memoir.
Reginald Heber (1783-1826), Bishop of Calcutta, wrote
the prize poem, "Palestine," while an undergraduate at
Oxford. He wrote a great number of hymns, many of
which are of remarkable beauty. Appointed to the Diocese
of Calcutta in 1823, he traveled extensively in India, and
his "Journal through India, with notes on Ceylon," was
292
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
pronounced by Lord Jeffrey to be the most instructive and
important work that had up to that time been written on
the condition of the British Empire in India. Bishop
Heber's personal qualities were charming. With all his
learning and elegant acquirements, he was remarkable for
his modesty, tolerance, and the most scrupulous considera¬
tion for others. He lived but three years after his arrival
in India, and his death was deplored as a national loss in
that country.
Another English divine of piety and learning, noted as
being one of the leaders in the "Tractarian" or "High-
Church" revival at Oxford (1833) was the Rev. John Keble
(1792-1866), author of the series of devotional hymns
known as "Christian Year," which has already passed
through more than fifty editions. The latest of the colleges
in Oxford, Keble Hall (opened 1870), testifies to the rev¬
erence felt for his memory.
Among the lesser poets whose pleasant writings diver¬
sified the early part of the century was Bryan Waller Proc¬
ter (1787-1874), better known to us by his mm de plume
of "Barry Cornwall." His bright, breezy song beginning.
The sea! The sea! The open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
has given pleasure to many thousands of readers. It is
somewhat singular that in his long life of eighty-seven
years his poetical work should have been confined to about
fifteen years, closing when he was little more than forty
years old. He wrote, beside poems, "Dramatic Scenes," a
tragedy called "Mirándola," and several essays and literary
biographies.
Adelaide Anne Procter (1825-64), a daughter of "Barry
Cornwall," was also gifted with poetic talents, and left a
volume of poems entitled "Legends and Lyrics," some of
which are very beautiful. When about twenty - five years
old Miss Procter became a Roman Catholic. An earnest
SOME MINOR POETS.
293
tone pervades her works, corresponding to her character,
which was of the loveliest type of womanly excellence.
Among the poets whose names were familiar to readers
of the early part of this century is Felicia Dorothea He-
mans (1794-1835). Her versification is pleasing, possess¬
ing simplicity and melody, though without any great depth
of thought; and her expression is often singularly felicitous.
Such poems as "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers," "The
Graves of a Household," and " Casablanca," are not likely
soon to go out of date, though Mrs. Hemans's long poems
are already almost forgotten. Lord Jeffrey calls her poetry
"infinitely sweet, elegant and tender." Something more
than sweetness, elegance and tenderness must be accorded
to her verses on the landing of the Pilgrims:
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stem and rockbound coast;
And the trees against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed.
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o'er,
When a band of pilgrims moored their bark
On the wild New England Shore.
* * »
Amidst the storm they sang
And the stars heard, and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rutg
To the anthem of the free.
The poems of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802-38),
better known by her sobriqud of L. E. L., were very much
the fashion in the early part of the century. Though far
inferior to Mrs. Hemans as a writer, she enjoyed a great
popularity in London literary society. She married the gov¬
ernor of Cape Coast Castle, Africa, and died from an over¬
dose of prussic acid, a drug which she was accustomed to
take for headache.
William and Mary Howitt, husband and wife for fifty - six
years, were more closely connected in literary work than
294 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
often falls to the lot of members of the same family. They
were married in 1823, when he was twenty-eight and she
nineteen years old, and their first joint work, "The Forest
Minstrel," a volume of poems, was published in the same
year. From that time until the death of Howitt in 1879,
literature was the main business and pleasure of their lives.
The husband wrote mostly prose. Among his works are,
"The Aristocracy of England," and "The Homes and
Haunts of British Poets." He wrote also several books of
descriptive travel. Mrs. Howitt was the first to bring to the
notice of English readers the novels of Fredrika Bremer,
which she translated, as well as the works of Hans Chris¬
tian Andersen. Her "Tales for Children," are still popular,
and many of the poems are great favorites with the little
people. Mrs. Howitt survived her husband nine years,
dying in 1888.
Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802-39) was a writer of
graceful vers de société, and especially of poetical charades.
His poems abound both in fun and wit, and are expressed
with elegance and propriety. The following charade (on
the name Campbell) is a good specimen of them :
Come from my First, ay, come !
The battle-dawn is nigh,
And the screaming trump and the thundering drum
Are calling thee to die !
Fight as thy father fought.
Fall as thy father fell.
Thy task is taught, thy shroud is wrought.
So — forward! and farewell!
Toll ye my Second ! toll !
Fling high the flambeau's light;
And sing the hymn for the parted soul
Beneath the silent night!
The wreath upon his head.
The cross upon his breast,
Let the prayer be said and the tear be shed:
So take him to his rest.
SOME MINOR POETS.
295
Call ye my Whole, ay, call
The lord of lute and lay;
And let him greet the sable pall
With a noble song to - day :
Go, call him by his name;
No fitter hand may crave
To light the flame of a soldier's fame
On the turf of a soldier's grave.
Caroline Elizabeth Norton (1808-77) was one of the
three lovely daughters of Thomas Sheridan, son of Richard
Brinsley Sheridan. They were called "The Three Graces."
Mrs. Norton's poems show smoothness of versification,
and an uncommon wealth of illustration. The principal
long ones are "The Sorrows of Rosalie," "The Undying
One," and "The Child of the Islands." She also wrote
several novels, of a somewhat gloomy tendency. Her mar¬
ried life was unhappy, and she was for many years separated
from her husband. Two years before her death she was
left a widow, and the next year married Sir W. Stirling-
Maxwell.
Richard Monckton Milnes (1809-85), afterward Lord
Houghton, was an author both in prose and verse. His
"Memorials of a Tour in Greece" are a record of his travels
in that country; he edited "The Life and Letters of Keats,"
and wrote "Monographs, Personal and Social." His prin¬
cipal volumes of verse, "Palm Leaves," and "Poems of
many years," contain very graceful and pleasing pieces. "I
Wandered by the Brookside" is the best of his songs.
Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810-89) was a poet whose
enormous success (so far as an immense sale of his poems
betokens success), it is difficult to account for except on the
supposition that the great mass of humanity loves the com¬
monplace. His " Proverbial Philosophy"—a series of some¬
what trite observations couched in irregular blank verse—
ran through forty editions in his life - time, and is always to
he found on booksellers' counters. His other works are
296
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
not worth mentioning, except a pretty story called "The
Crock of Gold."
Charles Mackay (1812-89), a Scottish poet and song¬
writer, was born in Perth. His songs are vigorous, and his
voice was always raised on the side of freedom and the
rights of the poor. His most popular song is "There's a
good time coming!"
William Edmonstoune Aytoun (1813-65), a Scottish
poet and miscellaneous writer, is best known by the Bon
Gaultier Ballads," humorous satires on popular follies, and
"Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers," spirited mementos of the
persecutions of Covenanters in Scotland. He was son - in -
law of John Wilson (Christopher North), and for many
years contributed regularly to "Blackwood's Magazine."
He was professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at the Uni¬
versity of Edinburgh.
Arthur Hugh Clough (r8i9-i86i) was an English poet
who chose Scottish characters and scenery for the subjects
of his verse. He tried a "new departure" in the "Bothie
of Tober-na-Vuolich," a Highland legendary poem which
received warm praise from the critics, and which is written
in hexameters, somewhat in the style of Longfellow's
"Evangeline," but without the smooth and correct rhythm
of that delightful poem. Various shorter poems and some
prose pieces have been published since his death.
Coventry Kearsey Dighton Patmore (1823-83) was for
many years assistant librarian in the British Museum. "The
Angel in the House," a domestic poem in four parts, is the
favorite among his poetical works.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82), one of a singularly
gifted family, was by profession an artist, but is known in
literature by his "Early Italian Poets" (prose), and by his
two volumes, "Poems," and "Ballads and Sonnets." His
poetry, like his art, is full of the loftiest romance and
sentiment.
SOME MINOR POETS.
297
Alexander Smith (1830-67), a Scottish poet, was, like
Bums, a native of Ayrshire. When very young he pub¬
lished "The Life Drama," a poem which was at first over¬
praised, and then correspondingly abused, with charges of
spasmodic writing, plagiarism, and so forth. The truth was
that having had access to but few books, he had studied
Keats and one or two other poets until his style produced
the effect of an echo. Had he lived longer, it is probable
that he could have done better work. His prose-works,
"Dreamthorpe," "A Summer in Skye," etc., are written with
a picturesque vigor and a delicate sympathy with nature
which betray the poetic spirit. He was a close friend of
Sydney Dobell (1824-74), himself a poet of no mean order,
and they published together a volume of war-sonnets called
forth by the Crimean War.
It is now generally known that "Owen Meredith" is only
the pseudonym of Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton (I83I-
92), son of the celebrated novelist, and himself in later life
Lord Lytton. His chief poem is "Lucile," a romantic tale
written in anapaestic verse, perhaps the most popular single
poem of its class since Scott's. His shorter poems are
marked by strong passion expressed in melodious verse.
Most of his life was passed in diplomatic service.
Travelers have been busy during this stirring century,
and have left most interesting accounts of the wonders they
saw. Of the great number who might be mentioned, we
select a few as typical ones. David Livingstone (1817-73),
a native of Scotland, was up to his time the greatest of
African travelers. He began life as an operative in a
cotton-factory, and obtained his early education in an eve¬
ning-school. Afterward he studied both medicine and
divinity, and in 1840 was sent to Africa as a medical mis¬
sionary. His "Missionary Travels and Researches" belong
to this period. The details of his later work are to be
found in his very interesting "Last Journals," which include
298 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
his wanderings and discoveries in Eastern Africa from
1865 to within a few days of his death. He was buried in
Westminster Abbey.
CHAPTER XLV.
WALTER SCOTT.
ANY great writers have we passed in review, feel¬
ing for them interest, gratitude, admiration, rever¬
ence, wonder and delight; now we greet one with
a glow of all these sentiments and, in addition, a rare
personal affection. His poetry entranced our early years;
his romances delighted our maturer taste; his personal char¬
acter and history claim our undying sympathy and respect.
Walter Scott (1771-1832) was born in Edinburgh, both
his parents being of "gentle" though not "noble" birth.
An illness of his infancy left him partly paralyzed, and
though he recovered his general health, he remained lame
through life; a trial made the greater through his being by
nature of active temperament and much bodily strength.
He made the best of his lameness—as he did of all troubles
—and by his wonderful vigor pushed his way through the
world in a fashion that left behind many a man whose limbs
were free from any defect.
He became a great walker, and in his prime often tramped,
with his stout stick, twenty or thirty miles a day. In youth
he was sensitive about his disability, but not morbid, as is
shown by the fact that when the play of Richard III. was
acted by the young folks he volunteered to take the part of
Richard, saying that the limp would do well enough to rep¬
resent the hump.
He was, as in duty bound, a sturdy Briton, and at five
years old, heard of Washington's defeat at Long Island with
WALTER SCOTT.
299
keen delight. At school he learned but little, lacking the
perseverance and self- denial for hard study. He did how¬
ever, shadow forth his future greatness in one way; he was
a good story - teller. His fine memory helped him out with
his lessons, but it was "easy come, easy go," and he never
became an exact scholar in any branch. He was an omniv-
erous reader and describes himself as "driving through a
sea of books like a vessel without pilot or rudder."
Scott entered the University of Edinburgh, but, as his
college course was interrupted by a severe illness, he began
the study of law (his father's profession) without taking a
degree. After serving his apprenticeship to his father, a
"Writer to the Signet," he was admitted, at twenty-one, to
the bar. Five years later he married Charlotte Carpenter,
the daughter of French parents living in England. They
began their married life at Lasswade, where they were poor
but happy, Mrs. Scott proving a loving and lovable wife,
though by no means the wisest and noblest of her sex.
Their winters were passed in Edinburgh.
Scott seems to have developed into an author very slowly.
When he was twenty-five years old, a lady friend to whom
he showed some pieces he had written had occasion to tell
him that it sounded odd to say "the little two dogs," instead
of the "two little dogs." Yet his style in later years, though
far from faultless, was quite up to the standard of his time.
His first publications, translations of Biirger's "Lenore,"
and "The Wild Huntsman," produced a marked sensation
in Edinburgh. The Scottish people had just lost their
national bard, Robert Burns, and were ready to welcome a
new light whenever it should rise.
The first work worthy to foretell Scott's future in any
degree was his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," in which
he did for Scotland all that Bishop Percy had done for the
ballad poetry of England in his "Reliques," by rescuing
from fast - following oblivion a mass of folk-lore of unmis¬
takable value and interest.
300
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Scott was thirty - three (1804) when he moved to Ashes-
tiel, a lovely place on the Tweed, where a small farm gave
him the rural life so dear to his nature as long as he lived.
There his first original work took shape. It was the splen¬
did poem, "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." The reading
public was familiar with poetry in many styles, but a poet
of historic romance was still unknown, and the enthusiasm
was boundless. "Marmion" and "The Lady of the Lake"
followed in quick succession, and, as Macaulay says, all
the world, from the peer in his ermine to the beggar in his
rags, went wild over the new departure in the world of
letters. It would have turned the head of a less well-
balanced man, but Scott was only surprised and gratified
by it ; not unreasonably elated. When his daughter Sophia
was about eleven years old, a gentleman asked her how she
liked the "Lady of the Lake." ¡She said, very simply, " Oh,
I have not read it. Papa says there is nothing so bad for
young people as reading bad poetry."
The poems poured forth, volume after volume, until 1813;
then as if one matchless triumph were not enough for one
man, the novels began to appear. "Waverley," "Guy Man¬
nering," "The Antiquary," were only the beginning of that
splendid series which continued to be written and printed,
year after year, until "Count Robert" and "Castle Danger¬
ous" closed the long list, and the life of this world's wonder
ended, itself the greatest romance of all. Beside the novels,
the mighty master gave forth histories, biographies and
essays, attended to his official duties, performed all social
obligations, including that of a generous hospitality, and
kept up a most onerous correspondence.
Before Scott began to make literature the business of his
life, his friendship for James Bailantyne, an old schoolmate,
induced him to lend some money to establish him in the
printing business in Edinburgh. This led to a secret part¬
nership, which later included Scott's publisher, Archibald
WALTER SCOTT.
301
Constable. It was, on Scott's part, a fatal step, seeing that
he had no business capacity or education. As time went
on he began to feel as if his income was inexhaustible, and
■to act as the possessor of millions might do — but seldom
does. His ordinary living-expenses, though liberal, would
never have troubled him; but in an evil hour his love of
nature and the romance of antiquarianism led him to buy
an estate on the banks of the Tweed, near the lovely ruins
of Melrose Abbey, which purchase afterward expanded into
the country-seat of Abbotsford, and cost its owner, in the
end, more than $325,000 of our money. The overwhelming,
heart - rending, ruinous bankruptcy which ended this dream
of delight is generally attributed to the ill - advised specu¬
lations of Constable and Ballantyne.
It is hard to tell now just how much of the blame rests
with each actor in the sad drama; but the fact remains that
Scott's visions of wealth and splendor had vanished forever
and a mountainous load of debt had taken their place.
How he met this blow we shall learn hereafter.
The consideration of these sordid matters has led us away
from the strictly literary part of Walter Scott's life. It was
just when "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" was in its fresh
burst of fame and popularity that he wrote the first few
chapters of the novel now called "Waverley," embodying, as
he says, some of his recollections of Highland scenery and
life. Its original title was, "'Tis Sixty Years Since;" and
as it was written in 1805, that places its scenes in 1745 —
the year of the last Stuart rebellion. He showed these
chapters to a friend, and meeting an unfavorable judgment
on them, laid them away in a drawer and forgot them. Nine
years later, as he himself tells, he found the original frag¬
ment while rummaging through an old cabinet, took the
fancy of finishing it, and wrote so fast that the last two
volumes were written in three weeks. He withheld his
name, partly for fun, to see what people would say of it.
302
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
and partly to evade the notoriety which was already becom¬
ing burdensome to his busy, modest habits of life. The
general public did not recognize his hand in the work,
though a few personal friends saw through the mystery.
The sale of " Waverley" was enormous, almost an edition
a month being called for; but Scott's well - balanced mind
was not disturbed by the praise which resounded on all
sides. When he found that "The Lord of the Isles," the
last of his great poems, was not as well received as the
others had been, he merely said that it was wonderful that
his popularity had endured even so long, adding, "Since
one line has failed, we must just stick to something else."
He at once began "Guy Mannering," which was finished
in the incredibly short space of six weeks. It was
received with the same wild enthusiasm as the other, and
"The Great Unknown," as the novelist began to be called,
had an assured future before him. He wrote his first poem
at thirty - four, and his first novel at forty - two ; and it adds
to our wonder to consider how comparatively late in a not
long life he entered on his monumental work.
The methods which made it possible for him to keep up
the tremendous speed of his production can not be des¬
cribed here, but must be sought for in the delightful memoir
written by his son-in-law. Lockhart; a book of the great¬
est interest and value.
On the death (1813) of the poet - laureate, an obscure
person named Pye, the laureateship was offered to Scott
by the prince regent. He declined it, but when, some
years later, the prince (then King George IV.) offered him
a baronetcy, he thought best to accept, for the sake of his
wife and children; so he became "Sir Walter Scott."* He
was by nature a "Tory"—that is, an adherent of kingly
* In pronouncing this and all similar names, good usage requires
that the word "Sir"' should not be accented. Well-bred people say
"S'r Walter Scott," "S'r Robert Peel," etc.
WALTER SCOTT.
303
power with all the prerogatives sanctioned by history and
tradition—and thus it appeared to him that an acquaintance
with the prince regent was the crowning glory of his life,
though we should feel that the glory of such a friendship
flowed the other way.
In 1825 he began to keep a diary. The little book,
withheld until lately out of respect to the feelings of the
families named in it, has been almost completely trans¬
cribed and published within the last two or three years.
At almost the same time with the commencement of the
diary began the financial storm which was to overwhelm
him, and among the saddest things in all the biography are
the early entries marking the advent of trouble. The acme
of pathos is reached when he asks, wonderingly, if, when
he dies, some one will take the diary out of the ebony cabi¬
net at Abbotsford, and friends will whisper to each other,
"Poor old gentleman! A well-meaning man—nobody's
enemy but his own ; thought his talents would never wear
out. Family poorly left. Pity he took that foolish title!"
He records also his gratitude toward those who showed
him sympathy in the hour of his distress, and they were
many. All offers of assistance were declined with heart¬
felt thanks, and at fifty-five he started on the stupendous
work of paying off the mountain of debt (;^i50,000) by
his own labor. And when he drew his last breath the
task was essentially done.
Troubles and sorrows overshadowed his path. His
wife was taken from him after a close companionship of
nearly thirty years; his darling grandson, John Hugh Lock-
hart (to whom the fascinating "Tales of a Grandfather"
were addressed, under the name of Hugh Littlejohn, Esq.),
son of his daughter Sophia, sickened and died; his unmar¬
ried daughter Anne lived on, a hopeless invalid, and sur¬
vived him but a few months; his own strength began to
show the effect of the terrible draughts he had made upon
it—but yet thé ceaseless labor never flagged!
304
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
In 1830 there came a slight paralytic shock from which
he partially recovered, but rheumatism in the hand made
it needful that he should have a permanent amanuensis,
and he kept him at work from six in the morning until
six at night, stopping only for meals. When friends and
doctors protested against this extravagance of toil, he only
said, "As for bidding me not work, Mollie might as well
put the kettle on the fire and say, 'Now, don't boil!"'
A second paralytic stroke followed in a year after the
first, and his speech became so much impaired that even
his friends could scarcely understand his words; and in
this condition the last "Tales of My Landlord," "Count
Robert of Paris," and "Castle Dangerous" were finished!
These with some other completed works, closed the list,
closed his life, and closed his account with the world ; for
the last penny for which he was liable, directly or indirectly,
was paid from the proceeds of his writings within a few
years after his death. He himself had the satisfaction of
believing, at his last moment, that the whole load of debt
had been already cleared off by his exertions; and his
friends did not disturb the pleasing illusion.
When further resistance to the inevitable became im¬
possible, the English government put a naval vessel at
Sir Walter's disposal, to enable him to spend in Italy the
winter of 1831-2.* At the close of the winter he was
• It is in memory of the journey that Wordsworth's exquisite son¬
net "On the departure of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford for
Naples," was written. "Eildon"is a three-peaked mountain (said
to have been divided by magic), visible from Abbotsford; "Parthen-
ope" is the old name for Naples.
A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain,
Or of the setting sun's pathetic light
Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height.
Spirits of power, assembled there, complain
Of kindred power departing from their sight;
And Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain.
WALTER SCOTT
305
seized with a feverish desire to see home once more, which
increased as, traveling through Venice, Switzerland and
Germany, he approached his native land. On the way he
had an attack of apoplexy, and in journeying northward
from London he lay in a stupor most of the time, but when
he neared Abbotsford and saw the familiar towers, it was
hard to keep him in the carriage. Months of slow decay
followed, during which the most noticeable thing about
Scott was his habitual courtesy. As Lockhart says, "the
gentleman survived the genius." His last words were,
"God bless you all."
So peacefully passed away this great-hearted man, on
September 21, 1832, in the sixty-second year of his age.
His two sons died without issue, and now the only sur¬
viving descendants are a granddaughter of his daughter
Mrs. Lockhart, and her children. Her husband, Mr. Max¬
well, took the name of Scott on his marriage, and the
family still own Abbotsford.
The only way to gain an estimate of Scott's vast and
varied genius is to read, and read largely, his illustrious
prose and poetry. To his work is familiarly applied a
couplet in which he himself described the power of magic,
witchcraft, necromancy, which forms so large a part of his
romance. He says its touch can make
A nutshell seem a gilded barge,
A shieling [cottage] seem a palace large.
In keeping with this suggestion is his best known sobri¬
quet, "The Wizard of the North."
Saddens his voice again, and yet again.
Lift up your hearts, ye mourners, for the might
Of the whole world's best wishes with him goes;
Blessings and prayers in nobler retinue
Than sceptred king or laureled conqueror knows.
Follow this wondrous potentate. Be true
Oh winds of ocean, and thou midland sea.
Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope.
20
306 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Partly for their literary importance, and partly for the
lesson they teach of unflagging industry and heroic devo¬
tion to a noble object, a list of the works which the world
owes to the pen of Walter Scott is given below. The
magnitude of the array will strike every reader; but it is
only those who have written and published a book, and so
have learned by experience the toil, mental and physical,
which it involves, who can come to anything like an appre¬
ciation of Scott's colossal achievements.
Poetry: "Lenore," "The Wild Huntsman," "Goetz von
Berlichingen," etc. (translations). "The House of Aspen"
(a tragedy), "Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," "Lady
of the Lake," "Vision of Don Roderick," "Rokeby," "The
Bridal of Triermain," "The Lord of the Isles," "Harold
the Dauntless," ballads, songs, lyrical pieces, etc.
Novels: "Waverley," "Guy Mannering," "The Anti¬
quary," "The Black Dwarf," "Old Mortality," "Rob Roy,"
"The Heart of Midlothian," "The Bride of Lammermoor,"
" The Legend of Montrose," " Ivanhoe," " The Monastery,"
"The Abbot," " Kenilworth," "The Pirate," "Fortunes of
Nigel," "Peveril of the Peak," "Quentin Durward," "Saint
Ronan's Well," " Redgauntlet," " The Betrothed," " The
Talisman," " Woodstock," " Chronicles of the Canongate "
(including "The Fair Maid of Perth"), "Anne of Geierstein,"
"Count Robert of Paris," "Castle Dangerous."
Works of History, Biography, etc.: "Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border" (compilation, with copious notes), "Paul's
Letters to his Kinsfolk," "Life and Works of Dryden," "Life
and Works of Swift," "Lives of the Novelists," "Life of
Napoleon," "Letters of Malachi Malagrowther," "Tales of
a Grandfather," "History of Scotland," and "History of
France." To these might be added a large number of
essays and contributions to the reviews.
THE MINOR NOVELISTS.
307
CHAPTER XLVI
THE MINOR NOVELISTS.
FTER naming Scott, all contemporary novelists
seem to shrink into very small dimensions, and
yet there were others who wrote good novels,
notably three ladies, of whom Sir Walter Scott said, "Edge-
worth, Eerrier, Austen, have all given portraits of real
society far superior to anything vain man has produced
of like nature."
Maria Edgeworth (1759-1849) was born in Berkshire,
England, but early removed with her father to his ances¬
tral home in Edgeworthstown, Ireland, where she lived
during the greater part of her life. She did not begin
her career as an author with novels, but published first
a "Treatise on Practical Education" and an "Essay on
Irish Bulls," both of which were highly successful. Her
first novel (iSoi) was "Castle Rackrent;" after which ap¬
peared "Belinda," "Patronage," "Helen," and others. Her
collection of short stories called "Moral Tales," has de¬
lighted thousands of children since her day; and her
"Parents' Assistant," with its charming stories of "Simple
Susan," "Waste Not, Want Not," and a score of others,
is a welcome addition to any child's library.
Richard Lovell Edgeworth, father of the authoress, was
a writer on various scientific and practical subjects.
Jane Austen (1775-1817) was the daughter of a clergy¬
man, and lived a life so simple and retired that there is
not much to be said of her. She began writing when
she was a mere child, though her first novel, "Pride and
Prejudice," was not published until she was twenty-one.
"Sense and Sensibility," and "Northanger Abbey," which
followed, could not at first find a publisher; the latter,
308
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
with "Persuasion," were not printed until after her death.
Her remaining novels were "Mansfield Park," and "Emma,"
published, like all those which came out in her life-time,
anonymously. Scott said of her, "That young lady had
a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and
characters of ordinary life, which to me is the most won¬
derful I ever met with. The Big Bow - wow strain I can
do myself like any now goingj but the exquisite touch
which renders common things and characters interesting
is denied me. What a pity so gifted a creature should die
so young!"
Susan Ferrier (1782-1854) was born in Edinburgh. Three
novels, "Marriage," "The Inheritance," and "Destiny,"
were all that came from her pen, and were published
anonymously. She was a keen satirist, but showed up the
follies and vices of society more from an overpowering
sense of humor than from any intention to be a reformer.
Her pictures of contemporary Scottish life and character
are most amusing. She, like Miss Edgeworth, was a per¬
sonal friend of Scott, and visited him at Abbotsford. He
calls her "a most gifted person," and says she was the least
exacting of any female author he had ever seen. He
quotes from one of her novels the advice, given by an old
lady, never to let a visit exceed three days— "the rest day,
the dressed day, and the pressed day."
Mrs. Opie (1769-1853), born Amelia Anderson, married
the distinguished artist James Opie, and afterward wrote
several novels, "Father and Daughter," "Temper," etc.
Her most popular work, however, was a collection of tales
called "Illustrations of Lying," written after she became a
member of the society of Friends. After that, she wrote
little except one or two religious works.
Jane Porter (1776-1820) was born at Durham, but early
removed to Edinburgh, where she became acquainted with
the young Walter Scott; and thus, perhaps, nourished the
THE MINOR NOVELISTS.
309
taste for tales of war and romance which led to her writing
"Thaddens of Warsaw," and "The Scottish Chiefs." She
wrote many other novels, but no others that have kept the
public favor. Her sister, Anna Maria Porter, was the
author of nearly twenty novels, the best known of which is
" Don Sebastian." Their brother. Sir Robert Ker Porter,
is famous for his books of travel.
Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818), familiarly known
among his friends as "Monk" Lewis, was the author of a
romance called "The Monk," of no great merit, but suffi¬
ciently original to give the author a literary reputation in
those days, when literary reputations were more easily
earned than they were later. He was intimate with most
of the celebrities of the day, and his genial nature and
real kindness of heart made him welcome everywheré. He
was rich and fashionable, and made a journey from Lon¬
don to Edinburgh with the Duke of Argyle in the duke's
landau. In Edinburgh he met Walter Scott, then newly
married, and only a dabbler in letters. Scott describes
him as a "martinet in rhymes and numbers," and adds
that his criticisms were "severe enough, but useful event¬
ually." So they were, if they influenced Scott's poetry,
the flrst bits whereof ("The Eve of St. John," "Glenfinlas,"
etc.), were kindly included in Lewis's next book, "The
Tales of Wonder."
John Gait (1779-1839), one of the most characteristic
of Scotch novelists, was an unsuccessful man of business,
who at last found a more congenial sphere in writing.
His characters have a sharply - defined personality, and
the pictures of Scottish life portrayed in his novels are
remarkably true to nature. The best among them are
"The Ayrshire Legatees," "The Annals of the Parish,"
"The Entail," and "Lawrie Todd"—the latter showing the
Scotchman in America, where Gait spent several years in a
vain search after fortune.
310 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Theodore Hook (1788-1841), a brilliant wit and humor¬
ist, endowed with a wonderful faculty for improvisation, was
for many years the delight and marvel of London society.
Asa dramatist he had an instantaneous success. His novels,
popular in their day, are mostly forgotten; but it is impos¬
sible to take up any book connected with the literary men
of his time wherein he does not figure as the life of the social
circle where he happens to be; scattering puns, practical
jokes and drollery of all sorts from an apparently exhaust-
less treasury. His name was coupled with that of Thomas
Hood, as a humorist, though the fine honesty and purity of
the latter shows more of contrast than of likeness to the
loose and conscienceless character of Hook. Hook gained
large sums by the immense popularity of his writings and
of the magazine, "John Bull," which he published (and in
which he was shamefully distinguished as the scandalous
detractor of the unfortunate Queen Caroline), yet he left
his debts unpaid; and died, as he said near the end, "done
up in purse, in mind, and in body too, at last"—a victim
to drink. His books were numbered by the score; and are
all absolutely lost sight of.
Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866), a writer whose
works have lately risen into notice after a long period of
comparative neglect, can scarcely be ranked with the nov¬
elists, although it is customary to speak of "Headlong Hall"
and "Nightmare Abbey" as novels. They are rather a
series of brilliant imaginary conversations and discussions
strung on the lightest thread of narrative. Peacock was
a friend and benefactor of Shelley when the latter was
in trouble in early life, and is said to have sketched
the poet's character, as it appeared to him, in that of the
hero of "Nightmare Abbey." Peacock's other novels were
"Crotchet Castle," "Melincourt," "Gryll Grange," etc. For
many years he held an important position in the India
House — the same great commercial office in which so
much of Charles Lamb's life was passed.
THE MINOR NOVELISTS.
311
Lady Morgan (1786-1859), the daughter of an Irish
actor, wrote several romances, of which "The Wild Irish
Oirl" was the most popular. The Countess of Blessington
(1790-1849), also an "Irish Girl," wrote several novels, and
"Conversations with Lord Byron." She was noted for her
beauty and accomplishments; and her residence. Gore
House, Kensington, was for many years the resort of culti¬
vated people, both English and foreign.
A noteworthy literary curiosity is the tale of "Franken¬
stein," unique in its conception, and most remarkable as
having been written by a girl of seventeen. Several friends,
among whom was " Monk" Lewis, were gathered together,
one rainy day, in Byron's villa near Lake Geneva, and,
after amusing one another with ghost-stories and the like,
it was proposed that each of the party should write a story,
making it as horrible as possible. Byron began one called
"The Vampyre,'' which was afterward finished by his phy¬
sician, Ur. Polidori. The only other person who carried
out the plan was Mary Godwin, afterward the wife of the
poet Shelley. She produced the story of "Frankenstein,"
where a student, anxious to fathom the mysteries of life,
forms and causes to live a creature with the form of man,
who, by circumstances, becomes a terror to others and a
burden to himself, and whose creation is described with a
hideous realism that has no exact parallel in literature.
Mrs. Shelley wrote several novels, and after Shelley's un¬
timely death (1822) she edited his poems with explanatory
notes by her own hand.
Samuel Lover (1797-1868) was a man of varied talent,
being an artist, musical composer, and poet, as well as a
writer of novels. In the latter capacity he wrote "Legends
and Stories of Ireland," and the inimitable "Handy Andy,"
while "Rory O'More," "Molly Bawn" and "The Low-
backed Car" attest his skill as a song-writer.
George Payne Rainsford James (i801-60), was one of
312
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the most successful writers of historical novels. From the
time when he published "Richelieu," at the age of twenty-
four, until he was well past fifty, he wrote between seventy
and eighty books, most of them being in the form of the
English three-volume novel. Without attaining a very
high rank even among second-class novelists, James's novels
have always commanded a great sale for circulating libra¬
ries, and are still eagerly sought by the omnivorous novel-
reader. He had a pleasing gift of narrative, and contrived
always to interest the reader in his personages, though they
lack the reality which we have in later years grown accus¬
tomed to demand from writers of fiction. James spent
several years in America, as consul at Richmond, and after¬
ward filled a similar position at Venice up to the time of
his death. He is said to have had reason to complain that
his name was given to books which he never wrote and
which were unworthy of and even discreditable to him.
Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848) is a name dear to
the heart of every schoolboy who has ever felt the magic
of his portraitures of boy-life. "Peter Simple," "Jacob
Faithful," "Japhet in Search of a Father," "Mr. Midship¬
man Easy," "Masterman Ready," "Settlers in Canada,"
"The Children of the New Forest," and "Snarley-Yow,'"are
only a few of his two dozen stories, all written within
twenty years. Many of his works are sea tales. He had
a passion for the sea, and, after having tried several times
to run away, was allowed at the age of fourteen to enter
the navy. In the wars with Napoleon, he was present at
more than fifty naval engagements, and often received
"honorable mention" for his gallantry. His novels are full
of fun, incident, adventure and feeling, and have a fresh¬
ness which, at the time he wrote, was unknown to the
novel-reading world. His "Diary in America" (1839) was
unpopular in this country from the excessive severity of
his criticisms.
THE MINOR NOVELISTS.
31S
The literary life of Benjamin Disraeli (1805-81), better
known now as Lord Beaconsfield, is divided into two widely
separated parts. From his twenty-second to his twenty-
seventh year he produced half a dozen novels, including
"Vivian Grey," "The Young Duke," and "Contarini Flem¬
ing," beside other works. He then entered political life,
and for nearly forty years wrote nothing further except
parliamentary speeches and state-papers. At the age of
sixty-five he again tried his hand at novel-writing in "Loth-
air," and ten years later published his last work of fiction,
"Endymion." It is as a statesman rather than as an au¬
thor that Lord Beaconsfield will be most honorably remem¬
bered. He was the son of Isaac Disraeli (1766-1848), an
essayist of the preceding generation, whose name will be
found in a later chapter.
William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-82) was a prolific
writer of fiction. He chose for his early novels "Rock-
wood" and "Jack Sheppard," heroes from the criminal
classes. The later tales, among which are "Admirable
Crichton" and "The Tower ofLondon," are less objection¬
able in subject and sentiment. Whatever is of a histor¬
ical nature in his novels shows great research and industry.
Charles Lever (1806-1872), a native of Ireland, was a
brilliant and successful novel-writer, taking for his subjects,
mainly, the depicting of Irish character. His early novels,
"Harry Lorrequer" and "Charles O'Malley," are full of stir¬
ring incident and boisterous fun j the later stories are more
subdued in tone and show more refinement. Lever was for
several years editor of the "Dublin University Magazine."
Dr. Samuel Warren (1807-77) was a distinguished phy¬
sician, and wrote, beside many short tales, the extremely
popular novel of "Ten Thousand a Year." He had
few of the higher qualities of a novelist, but excelled in
caricature, of which his characters, " Tittlebat Titmouse"
and "Oily Gammon" are specimens. His "Mr. Quick-
314
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
silver" is said to have been intended for Lord Brougham.
Among his shorter stories, those collected under the title of
"Diary of a Physician," are the most powerful. They were
published anonymously, and were written with such evi¬
dent medical skill that the unknown author was accused
by the faculty of betraying the secrets of their profession.
Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-65) was one ot
the most distinguished of England's women novelists. Her
mother died at the time of her birth, and her studies were
pursued under the direction of her father, who was a man
of cultivation. After his death she lived with an aunt un¬
til her marriage to the Rev. William Gaskell of Manches¬
ter. In her new position she was a most efficient help to
her husband, devoting herself to ministrations among the
poor, and interested in everything that concerned the fac¬
tory-hands, especially the young girls. It was to relieve
the depression caused by the loss of her only son that
(urged by her husband) she began to write, in order
to turn her thoughts from her own grief. After one or two
short stories she produced "Mary Barton," a tale of Man¬
chester life. It sprang at once into favor and has always
held its place as a standard work of fiction. The pub¬
lisher to whom it was first sent rejected it without read¬
ing; the next one kept it a year without acknowledgment,
and then gave her ;^ioo for the copyright. It was pub¬
lished anonymously, and she was entertained by hearing
the various opinions expressed in Manchester, for and
against it. After the appearance of "Mary Barton" (1848)
she visited London, and became acquainted with many of
the great authors of the day—among others with Charlotte
Bronte, whose biographer she was afterward to become.
From this time her pen was never idle; "North and South,"
"Cranford," and "Wives and Daughters," (which last she
was just finishing at the time of her sudden death) are gen¬
erally considered the best of her novels; while her "Life of
THE REVIEWERS.
315
Charlotte Brontë," who was for years her dear friend, is as
interesting as a novel, and may be called one of the most
fascinating biographies ever written.
CHAPTER XL VII.
THE REVIEWERS.
HE first of the great quarterly reviews to be estab¬
lished was the "Edinburgh," begun, in 1802, by a
company of dashing young writers, who said
what they thought without caring whom they pleased or
offended. Among the original contributors were Sydney
Smith, Jeffrey, Scott, Brougham and Horner. All (except
Scott) were liberals, and they enjoyed cutting and slashing
away at their opponents. Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850) was
the sharpest critic, and was its first editor (except for a very
brief term of Sidney Smith), continuing to hold that posi¬
tion for twenty - seven years. He was a Scotch advocate,
afterward raised to the bench and peerage as Lord Jeffrey,
by which name he is now known. He had a quick eye for
seizing the weak points of an author, and great power of
sarcasm; but he was not so ready to acknowledge excellence,
and sometimes made woful failures in judgment. What
he wrote was always readable, however, and he was not
behind the others in creating the popularity of the " Edin¬
burgh."
Henry Brougham (1779-1868), afterward Lord Brough¬
am, is known as an orator and statesman as well as an
author. His versatility was amazing. Physical science,
international law, educational reform, biography, all engaged
his attention and had been made the subjects of deep
thought and study. His prodigious industry is shown by
the fact that as lord chancellor of England he left not a
316
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
single case, when he retired, in arrear for judgment. His
contributions to the Edinburgh Review, political, histor¬
ical and miscellaneous, have been published by themselves.
Francis Horner (1778-1817), a distinguished lawyer,
orator and statesman, was the fourth member of the bril¬
liant group whose names have been associated with the
first quarterly periodical. His career was cut short by
ill health, and his articles in the Edinburgh, chiefly on
political economy, form his only contributions to literature.
The Edinburgh was not begun as a strictly political review;
but its whig tendencies after a time became so prominent
that Scott, who was himself always a tory, and at first was a
contributor to it, induced a set of conservative writers to
set up (1809) an opposition review, the "Quarterly," in
order to counteract its tendencies. The first editor was
William Giffbrd (1757-1826), who in the previous century
had produced two satires, the "Baviad" and the "Maeviad,"
aimed respectively at the "Delia Cruscan"* writers and the
corruptions of the drama. He was for a time editor of the
"Anti-Jacobin," for which Canning, one of its contributors,
wrote the famous satire, "The Knife - Grinder." As a critic
he was acrid, delighting in abuse rather than praise, though
perhaps scarcely deserving the saying of Southey, that he
regarded authors "as a fishmonger regards eels, or as Isaac
Walton regarded worms, slugs and frogs." He retired in
1824, and was succeeded by Sir John Taylor Coleridge, the
eminent jurist, nephew of the poet; and he, in 1826, by J.
G. Lockhart, of whom we shall speak hereafter. Before this
time, however, the Scotch tories had started a magazine of
* So named from the Delia Crusca Academy in Florence, after
which certain verse-makers living there called what they tried to
erect into a "School of Poetry." They published their inanities in
the "Florence Miscellany," and actually found admirers and imita¬
tors for some of the most absurd, affected, insipid amd fantastie
bathos that ever appeared in verse.
THE REVIEWERS.
317
their own, the famous "Blackwood's" (1817). The first num¬
bers were dull, but from the next year, when the contribu¬
tors' staff was joined by Lockhart, the poet Hogg, and John
Wilson, the world was electrified by such a display of wit,
satire and brilliant personal attacks, as far exceeded any¬
thing the Edinburgh had been able to show. The mag¬
azine, which included articles of a lighter and more sparkling
kind than its older competitor, sprang at once into popular¬
ity and has held its own ever since.
John Wilson (1785-1854), better known to us under his
pen-name of Christopher North, was, like Jeffrey, Brough¬
am, and Horner, a Scotchman. Having inherited a for¬
tune he bought a place at Lake Windermere, where he
enjoyed the society of the "Lake Poets." Here he wrote
his first poem, "The Isle of Palms," which was followed
after several years by "The City of the Plague." Having
lost most of his large fortune through the dishonesty of a
relative, he went to Edinburgh (though without giving up
his home at Elleray), and applied himself to earning a liv¬
ing. His literary labors did not bring much pecuniary
reward, but he entered the law, and political influence
secured him the professorship of Moral Philosophy in the
University. His varied abilities and splendid physical
health enabled him to accomplish an immense amount of
work. The "Noctes Ambrosianae" are his contributions
to Blackwood, in which, under the form of conversations, he
poured out witty and brilliant thoughts on almost every
imaginable subject, beside writing special essays on some
of the poets. His "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life,"
and "The Trials of Margaret Lindsay" are his main efforts
in fiction.
John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854), the fellow country¬
man and son-in-law of Scott, was a fine scholar and a
most attractive man. He was one of the noted contributors
to Blackwood; wrote "Peter's Letters to his Kinsman," a
318
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
pungent satire on the Scottish society of the day, and "Val¬
erius," a classical novel, and made an admirable translation
of the best "Spanish Ballads." He was editor of the
Quarterly from 1826 to 1853, and, as his crowning piece
of work, has left us that inestimable "Life of Sir Walter
Scott," which IS a precious possession to all lovers of litera¬
ture. Lockhart was no Boswell; he did not photograph,
with laborious minuteness, every feature of his idol; he
wrote of him tenderly, reverently, truthfully, dwelling on
what was great and noble and neither obtruding nor sup¬
pressing the imperfections inseparable from all human lives.
Lockhart's domestic life was checquered by keen sorrows.
His eldest son, the "Hugh Littlejohn," for whom Sir Walter
wrote "The Tales of a Grandfather," died first, and the
deaths of Sir Walter, Miss Anne Scott and Mrs. Lockhart
followed in the course of five years. Some fifteen years
later, the loss of his surviving son. Waiter, broke down
what remained of his once high spirits and keen enjoyment
of life. He left a daughter, Mrs. Hope Scott, the mother
of the present Mrs. Maxwell Scott of Abbotsford.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) was one of the wits of the
early part of the nineteenth century. Son of a country
gentleman of ability and eccentricity, he was carefully
educated and ultimately became a "fellow" (salaried
instructor) of New College, Oxford. His fellowship not
being sufficient to support him while reading for the bar, he
was compelled, against his will, to enter the church, and all
through his life to be a clergyman rather in spite of him¬
self than by natural bent. While curate in a small parish
on Salisbury Plain he chanced to be invited to dinner by
the squire of the parish, who was surprised and captivated
— as men always were—by the charm of his talk and man¬
ners. The squire engaged him as traveling tutor to his son,
and the two started for Weimar; but they were turned back
by threatenings of war on the continent (1797) and found
THE REVIEWERS.
319
themselves in Edinburgh, where Smith, as usual, began to
make numberless friends. Among the number was Francis
Jeffrey (afterward Lord Jeffrey), and Henry Brougham (after¬
ward Lord Brougham), and after some years spent there
they together established the "Edinburgh Review," of
which he was editor for one number and contributor for
the next twenty - five years. His articles were the very life
of the great magazine; not merely brilliant and readable
but solid, serious and consistent. So gay and good-natured
was he even as a controversialist that his opponents as
well as his friends laughed with him. He is perhaps the
most brilliant of reviewers, though not the greatest.
In 1803 he went to London, where he was highly prized
as a preacher, a lecturer and a social favorite. There was
often not standing-room in his church; and when he lec¬
tured on moral philosophy at the Royal Institution, the
London world crowded to hear him. When the whigs came
into power in 1806, he was presented with the living of
Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire, and in 1809 most reluctantly
moved from the gay metropolis to this out-of-the-way place,
where he was embargoed by muddy roads and was, as he
says, "twelve miles from a lemon."
Nevertheless, he served there for twenty years with the
utmost cheerfulness and efficiency. Then his high qualities
won preferment, even from an adverse government, the
tories, against whose tenets he had always used his trench¬
ant pen. He became a canon of Bristol Cathedral and ex¬
changed Eoston for Combe Florey. Either because of his
reputation as a humorist and wit, or because of his uncom
promising spirit, of which persons having partisan ends to
gain were afraid, he was never made a bishop, much to the
surprise and regret of his friends.
His best-known book is "Peter Plymley's Letters on
Catholic Emancii)ation" whereof he was a warm advocate.
His sermons aie also much read; but the delightful "Life
320
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
and Letters," edited by his daughter, will always be the
favorite reading for those who wish to know the man "in
his habit as he lived."
One of the innumerable "good things" attributed to him
—some doubtless without reason—is a reply said to have
been made by him to a friend who suggested that he should
sit for his portrait to Landseer, the celebrated animal-
painter; "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?"
CHAPTER XLVIIL
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
ILLIAM WILBERFORCE (1759-1833), the phi¬
lanthropist who spent his life in efforts to pro¬
mote the abolition of slavery in the British
colonies, belongs to literature only as the author of a
"Practical View" of the contrast between real and pro¬
fessed Christianity, which passed through five editions in
six months, and was translated into four foreign languages.
His life was written by his sons, of whom Samuel
(1805-73) became successively Bishop of Oxford and Bishop
of Winchester, and was the author of several ecclesiastical
works, notably a "History of the American Church." He
was an eloquent preacher, as is shown by his published
sermons, and a man of great breadth and activity of mind.
He died in consequence of a fall from his horse.
The sermons of Robert Hall (1764-1831), a Baptist
minister, rank among the most perfect specimens of pulpit
oratory. An eloquent writer has remarked that what Hall
said of Burke might be applied to himself—"his imperial
fancy laid all nature under tribute," and that "he col¬
lected riches from every scene of the creation and every
work of art."
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
321
Of the religious writers of this age, the number is so great
that we can only glance at them. John Henry Newman
(1801-90) studied at Oxford, entered the Church of Eng¬
land, and was one of the leaders of the Tractarian or
High Church movement at Oxford in 1833. Twelve years
after this, he was formally received into the Roman Cath¬
olic Church, and he was made a cardinal in 1879. He was
the author of a great number of theological works, both
before and after his withdrawal from the Anglican Church,
and of several fine hymns.
John Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-72), and Fred¬
erick William Robertson (1816-63) were among the lead¬
ers of what is called the Broad Church movement, were
preachers of remarkable eloquence, and both have left vol¬
umes of sermons. To the same school belong Arthur
Penrhyn Stanley (1815-81), Dean of Westminster, and
author of the "Life of Dr. Arnold" already mentioned, and
Charles Kingsley (1819-75), who will again be noticed
among the novelists of the century. Dean Stanley, besides
many religious books, wrote a book on "Sinai and Pales¬
tine," "Lectures on the Jewish Church," "Essay on Church
and State," and "Historical Memorials of Westminster
Abbey,"—the latter invaluable as a companion while going
through that home of the great dead. Dean Stanley may
be considered the leader of the Broad Church party, and
he ranked high in the opinion of all bodies of Christians,
from his large charity, great acquirements, and generous,
sympathetic spirit.
Dr. Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), one of the most
learned and distinguished of Scottish divines, was also a
man of science. His "Political Economy," and "Astronom¬
ical Discourses" (the latter of which had a larger sale than
any volume of sermons, before or since), are his principal
works in these directions. His theological and ecclesiastical
works are very numerous, his " Institutes of Theology" bc-
2L
322
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
ing among the most prominent. He was at the head of the
movement which broke up the National Church of
Scotland and resulted in the establishment of the Free
Church.
"Guesses at Truth," by the brothers Hare, Augustus
William (1793-1834) and Julius Charles (1796-1855) was an
extremely popular work. Its authors were both clergy¬
men of the most liberal or Broad Church party. Each of
the brothers wrote other books, though none which
achieved the success which attended their joint-effort. The
younger brother wrote "Memorials of a Quiet Life" which
relates to the Hare family.
John Foster ([770-1843), a Baptist clergyman, was an
essayist of great power and originality. His essay on
"Decision of Character" and that on "The Evils of Igno¬
rance" (a plea for the education of the masses) attained
great celebrity. He was for many years the principal writer
in the "Eclectic Review." His "Life and Correspondence"
is extremely interesting.
John Payne Collier (1789-1883) one of the earliest
commentators and critics on Shakespeare of the present
century, is best known for those commentaries and criti¬
cisms; but his most valuable work is unquestionably the
"History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of
Shakespeare, and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration."
He began his literary career with "The Poetical Decame¬
ron," a work of no great merit.
Isaac Disraeli (1766-1848) was a man of large wealth,
who chose to devote himself to literature. His special in¬
terest was in personal anecdotes connected with authors,
and his titles, "Curiosities ot Literature," "Calamities of
Authors," "Quarrels of Authors," and "Amenities of Litera¬
ture," sufficiently indicate the nature of his works. Of these
the first named is the most interesting, and has passed
through many editions. Lord Byron says of himself that he
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
323
had read Disraeli's works "oftener than perhaps those of
any English writer whatever."
Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-86), Archbishop of
Dublin, is well known in America for his delightful critical
volume "On the Study of Words," of which twenty-two
editions were printed in this country within a dozen years
of its first appearance in England. The companion work
"English, Past and Present" is in its way equally valuable,
and the lectures "On the Lessons in Proverbs," originally
delivered before societies of young men, is excellent read¬
ing. He wrote also several theological works, and published
two volumes of poems, some of which have been widely
copied and circulated.
Mrs. Anna Jameson (1797-1860), the most important
art-critic of her sex and time, was the daughter of Robert
Murphy, an Irish artist. Early in his life, they removed to
England, which was thenceforward her home. At sixteen
she became governess in a family, and in a tour with one of
her pupils she spent some time in Italy, giving the results
of her observation, later, in the "Diary of an Ennuyée."
Her marriage with Mr. Robert Jameson, a barrister, was not
a happy one, and after a few years she separated from him.
Her first work of importance was "The Characteristics of
Shakespeare's Women," in which she displayed a fine criti¬
cal insight and great delicacy of handling. Her style is
remarkable for its elegance and simplicity. After a journey
to Canada, in which a reconciliation with her husband was
fruitlessly attempted, she turned her attention to art, and
after much study began a series of works on "Sacred and
Legendary Art" which extended over many years and of
which the last volume was completed after her death by
Sir Charles Eastlake. Not less valuable in its way was her
book on "The Relative Position of Mothers and Govern¬
esses," a subject which she was able, from her own exper¬
ience, to treat with knowledge and discrimination. She
324
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
was especially interested in all that concerned the well-
being of women, though every form of philanthropic effort
claimed her hearty sympathy, and the memory of her devo¬
ted labors is still kept green in many of the charitable
institutions of London.
Douglas Jerrold (1803-58), was a dramatist, a novelist,
a humorist and a wit. His "Black-eyed Susan" still holds
the stage, though, like most of the old-fashioned come¬
dies, it is now seldom played. He wrote several novels
and character - sketches ; among them the "Chronicles of
Clovernook," "St. Giles and St. James," and the world-famous
"Caudle Lectures;" the last having become classic as a
satirical fling at the relations of weak-minded husbands with
strong-minded wives. It was first published in "Punch,"
of which he was one of the original writers and a long-time
brilliant light.
His son, William Blanchard Jerrold, was a noted writer
in London newspapers and periodicals, and after his fathePs
death edited an excellent and amusing biography of him.
He also wrote several novels, not particularly noteworthy;
and some books of travel and sketches of social life, partic¬
ularly among the poor in large cities.
Sir Arthur Helps (1817-75) was an essayist somewhat
after the pattern of Lamb and Leigh Hunt, though thor¬
oughly original in thought and matter. His "Friends in
Council," and "Companions of my Solitude" were seized
upon eagerly by the reading world, which saw in them the
native humor, delicate satire and polished grace of style
which had distinguished the earlier essayists, combined with
greater depth of thought and seriousness of purpose. These
books make excellent fireside company. "Realmah"— a
singular work of fiction attempting to describe life in one
of the old lacustrine cities*—has not the charm of the
* Cities built over certain European lakes, wherein their remains are
now to be found.
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
325
others, but is full of inspiring thoughts. Ruskin, in speak¬
ing of Helps, in connection with others, as "a true thinker,
who has practical purpose in his thinking," says that he is
"in some sort a seer, and must be always of infinite use in
his generation." Beside the works already mentioned.
Helps wrote the tragedy of "Catherine Douglas," and some
other dramas, and several historical works in relation to the
Spanish Conquest in America.
CHÀPTER XLIX.
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
OANNA BAILLIE (1762-1851), ranked by her
contemporaries as among the chief dramatists
of her day, was born in Scotland. Being left
an orphan in early life, she and her sister Agnes removed
to Hampstead, near London, to be with their brother. Dr.
Matthew Baillie, a distinguished physician and writer
on medicine. Miss Baillie's dramas, "Plays of the Pas¬
sions," "The' Family Legend," "De Montfort," and others,
while showing great poetic talent and being highly ap¬
plauded by the first critics of the age, proved not very
successful as acting plays. Her poems show fine feeling
and will probably be read longer than will her tragedies.
Her house at Hampstead was the centre of a delightful
circle of friends, whom she charmed by her simple good
breeding and unaffected dignity. She lived to the age of
eighty-nine, retaining to the last her faculties and her
power of pleasing.
The plays of James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862) were
eminently suited for acting, and were for many years ex¬
tremely popular with the public. Like his relative, Sheridan,
he was bom in Ireland and went on the stage. His first play
326
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
he produced at twelve years old. At fourteen he wrote a
ballad called "The Welsh Harper," which, being set to
music, became a popular favorite and procured for him the
acquaintance of such men as Hazlitt, Lamb and Coleridge.
He was educated for a physician, but preferred to become
an actor. His first published plays, "Leo," and "Brian
Boroihme," drew crowded houses, but he made so little
money by acting and authorship that he was glad to betake
himself, for a time, to school - teaching, first in his father's
academy at Belfast, and afterward at a school of his
own at Glasgow. His most successful pieces were, "Gains
Gracchus," "Virginius," "William Tell," "The Hunchback,"
"Love," and "The Wife," several of which still hold the
stage. In later years he became a Baptist preacher.
Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854), lawyer, drama¬
tist and essayist, is best known as the author of the exqui¬
site drama of "Ion," and as the loving biographer of Charles
Lamb. In "Ion" he has caught wonderfully the spirit of
the old Greek tragic poets; and in reading it one is car¬
ried back to the times when the oracle was a power in
the land and a relentless fate disposed of the destiny
of men.
Talfourd wrote other plays which were not so successful,
and many essays for the reviews and magazines. Having
attained some distinction in the law and on the bencli
he entered Parliament, where he was for several years a
hard-working member. His chief speeches were made
on the copyright bill; and, in his law- practice, whatever
pertained to literature he worked at with especial zeal.
His death took place while he was sitting in the court
as judge.
The lines from "Ion" given below have been often
quoted, appealing as they do to a feeling deep - seated in
human nature:
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
327
'Tis a little thing
To give a drop of water; yet its draught
Of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips,
May give a shock of pleasure to the frame
More exquisite than when nectarean juice
Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.
Sir Henry Taylor (1800-86) is, like Talfourd, better known
as a dramatist than as a poet, though he figures in both
capacities. His beautiful tragedy, "Philip Van Artevelde,"
takes a high rank in English literature, although not suited
to dramatic representation. "Edwin the Fair," a drama of
which St. Dunstan is the hero, is full of historical interest,
and contains carefully studied historical portraits.
Mary Russell Mitford (1786-1855), like so many other
writers destined to win fame in prose, began by writing
verse. She read, early in life. Bishop Percy's "Reliques"
of early English poetry; and her later education seems to
have been of a desultory kind, likely to lead to poetic
.efforts. She had a face of the utmost intelligence and
sweetness, but without beauty, being too fat to be comely;
yet there are few women who have won so much love and
admiration. Her letters to her family, preserved in a
memoir, are full to overflowing with fun, goodness and
affection.*
It was in 1808, when she was twenty-two, that her verses
were first mentioned, and in the next year she wrote some
lines on the burial of Sir John Moore which are pleasing
and spirited. They close as follows :
A hurried grave thy soldiers' hands prepare;
Thy soldiers' arms the mournful burden bear;
The vaulted sky to earth's extremest verge
Thy canopy; the cannon's roar thy dirge!
* They have many journeys about England in the early stage-coaching
days, and to read them seems like a sojourn in the land of Pickwick
and Sam Weiler.
328 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The poor girl had a gambler and spendthrift for a father,
and all through her early life was writing bright, loving
letters to the man who was slowly but surely wasting the
little fortune his wife had brought him, together with all the
dutiful daughter could earn with her pen ; and at last, in
1820, when Mary was thirty-four, she and her mother were
in actual want of bread.* They moved from their fine home,
yet she writes gaily from the little cottage they have rented :
My objection to a small room is its extreme unbecomingness to
one of my enormity. I really seem to fill it, like a blackbird in a
goldfinch's cage! The parlor looks all me.
In 1823 we find her selling a play to Charles Kemble,
for which she gets £,220 — a much-needed help. At the
same time she is writing acceptably for the "Lady's Maga¬
zine," and, as she describes it, is chained to the desk, eight,
ten, twelve hours a day.
From this time forward she supported herself by her pen;
and never was there shown a more captivating sight of
unquestioning, uncomplaining filial devotion—largely unde¬
served, as the reader can not help perceiving. Having
nothing to stake, her father could no longer gamble, but he
could live on through years, accepting the self-sacrificing
devotion of his daughter; she, meanwhile, not only loving
but admiring him to the end.
Her best work was a delightful book called "Our Village;"
three volumes of narrative, incident and description, based
on so simple and homely a theme as a country village with its
surrounding walks. It ran through many editions and is
still ranked among the classics of the "naturalistic" school
Agnes Strickland (1801-74) was an industrious historical
writer, who did much to bring the lives of great people
* His gambling was not unknown at home; for we find Mary writing
to him (when he complained of being cheated at whist) urging him at
least to play only at a certain club where he " would meet only
gentlemen."
INTERMEDIATE HISTORIANS.
329
within the range of the young. She was so enthusiastic an
admirer and partisan of royalty that her "Lives of the
Queens of England" must be received with some allowance;
but she made careful studies from history of the manners
and customs of the times represented, and her various
books contain many interesting personal details.
Harriet Martineau (1802-76) wrote on so many subjects
that it is difficult to place her in any class. Her own
favorite among her writings was a series of tales entitled
"Illustrations of Political Economy." Of her novels, the
best known are " Deerbrook," and "The Hour and the Man,"
the latter a historical fiction of the negro insurrection in
St. Domingo (1791-1801), of which Toussaint L'Ouver¬
ture, the patriot and liberator, is the hero. Miss Martineau
spent two years in the United States (1835-37), visiting
among other places, Chicago, then a mere village, and on
her return, published "Society in America," a book con¬
taining many hard hits at the crudities which she observed
here, but written on the whole with candor and fairness.
Some charming tales for children — " Settlers at Home,"
"Feats on the Fiord," "The Crofton Boys," and others —
are from Miss Martineau's pen. She wrote in all more than
a hundred books, many of them, however, being scarcely
more than pamphlets. All topics connected with political
and social reform interested her. Her "Autobiography,"
written many years before her death, was published after it.
CHAPTER L.
INTERMSailATE HISTORIANS.
HE first name on the long list of historians who
succeeded the brilliant triad, Hume, Robert¬
son and Gibbon, was William Roscoe (1753-
1831), a native of Liverpool. His father was a market-
330
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
gardener, and at twelve years old young Roscoe, having
learned all that his master knew, left school and worked
with his father in the garden, giving his spare hours to study.
In looking back to this time, he says, "If I were now asked
whom I consider to be the happiest of the human race, I
should answer, those who cultivate the ground with their
own hands." In the course of time he became a banker,
and showed the world one of those examples of the "mer¬
chant prince" who uses his money in the service of art and
letters, and his leisure for intellectual pursuits. He had the
courage to write and talk against the slave - trade at a time
when much of the wealth of his own city came from it.
His studies were largely in the direction of Italian lit¬
erature and history; and in 1796 he published his "Life of
Lorenzo de' Medici, called the Magnificent," which at once
took its place among the standard historical works of the
English language. The Italian historian Fahreni, who had
written the life of Lorenzo in Latin, was about to translate
it into Italian, when he saw Roscoe's work, and he engaged
a friend to make an Italian version of Roscoe's book instead
of his own. The "Life of Leo X.," a natural sequence to
that of Lorenzo, is not quite as interesting; but both together
form a valuable contribution to our literature.
After many years of prosperity, Roscoe, through the fault
of others, lost his property. His costly library and the
works of art with which his house was filled, were sold;
but his friends bought the books he most cared for, and
placed them in a public library in Liverpool, where he could
still have access to them.
The charming little poem called "The Butterflies' Ball,"
which has delighted thousands of children, was written by
Roscoe. He had four sons, all of whose names figure as
authors in Lippincotfs "Cyclopedia of Biography."
Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832), was born in Scot¬
land, but spent most of his life in England, or in India,
INTERMEDIATE HISTORIANS.
331
where for seven years he held the office of Recorder of
Bombay. His chief works were the "History of England
to the Establishment of the Reformation," " Dissertation on
Ethical Philosophy," and the "Vindiciae Gallicie," a defence
of the French Revolutionists. Mackintosh was a man of
immense learning and of brilliant conversational powers;
a peculiarity which has been characteristic of many his¬
torians.
John Lingard (1771-1851), a Roman Catholic priest,
wrote a History of England up to the abdication of James
II. The work is interesting as being the only one of the
kind written from a point of view hostile to the Reforma¬
tion. Its style is calm and dispassionate, and there is
much valuable information in regard to the Anglo - Sa.xon
period. Lingard remained voluntarily, all his life, in the
humble position of a Catholic village priest; and is said
to have declined a Cardinal's hat with the remark, "It
would quite put a stop to the progress of my history!"
James Mill (1773-1836), a philosopher and writer on
political economy, gained a place among historians by his
great work, "A History of British India." Beside many
articles of great weight in the reviews, he wrote " Elements
of Political Economy," "Analysis of the Phenomena of the
Human Mind," "Law of Nations," etc.
Henry HaUam (1778—1859) has been called "the most
judicial of our modern historians." His "View of the State
of Europe during the Middle Ages" is remarkable for its
insight into the development of that complex period. The
"Constitutional History of England from the Accession of
Henry VII. to the Death of George II." shows immense
industry, acuteness and impartiality. His third great work,
"Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, i6th
and 17th Centuries," the Edinburgh Review called the
most important contribution to literary history received by
English libraries for many years.
332
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Three histories of Greece appeared during the first half
of our century. That of William Mitford (1744-1827I is
quite spoiled by his almost insane hatred of democ¬
racy, which makes valueless his undoubtedly studious
research. Dr. Connop Thirlwall (1797-1875), Bishop of St.
David's, wrote an excellent history, but was cramped in his
work by having engaged to bring it within a certain com¬
pass, required by "Lardner's Cyclopedia," for which it was
furnished. It was reserved for George Grote (1794-1871)
to produce a really complete history of that fascinating
country, with no limitations as to space except as his own
sense and taste exacted. Impartial, scholarly and philo¬
sophical, his work remains a standard one among those
treating the entire subject, though many most instructive
books exist dealing with certain portions or aspects of it.
Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868), Dean of St. Paul's,
was a poet, historian and divine. His two principal works
are the "History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to
the Extinction of Paganism," and the "History of Latin
Christianity," both valuable storehouses of information.
As a poet, he is best known by his tragedy of "Fazio."
He wrote also some fine hymns.
For thorough investigation of the Anglo-Saxon period
of our history we are indebted to Sharon Turner (1768-
1847) and Francis Turner Palgrave (1788-1861).
Col. Sir William Napier (1785-1860) is the historian of the
bloody Peninsular War (that wherein the British helped
Spain to throw off the Napoleonic yoke), he having him¬
self taken part in the struggle. As a military historian he
has been compared to Thucydides and Caesar, both of
whom, like himself, had been soldiers in the wars they de¬
scribe. Napier worked with intense fervor and spirit, and
re-wrote the first volume of his history six times in order to
insure accuracy as to details. He wrote also the life of his
brother. Sir Charles James Napier, "the acknowledged
hero of a family of heroes."
INTERMEDIATE HISTORIANS.
333
Patrick Fraser Tytler (1791-1849) wrote a "Universal
History," for many years a standard text-book until more
modern methods of dealing with that vast subject super¬
seded his work.
Sir Archibald Alison (1792-1867), son of a Scottish cler¬
gyman, was the author of a "History of Europe from the
Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restora¬
tion of the Bourbons, 1815," a work which commanded a
great sale by reason of the fullness of its details, dealing,
as it did, with a subject up to that time imperfectly treated
by historians—the wars of Napoleon. More recent re¬
searches have discovered many and glaring mistakes in the
book; the style is faulty, and the author's conservative bias
prevents him from being impartial.
A continuation of the history, carrying it on for the
forty years succeeding the Bourbon restoration, did not
meet with the same success as the earlier part.
Dr. Thomas Arnold(i795-i842) was a man about whom
much might be said, and it is with regret that we are forced
to treat the subject so briefly as is necessary in "a short
history" of an illimitable subject. As a historian, his "His¬
tory of Rome," (which he had carried only through the Sec¬
ond Punic War when death overtook him) is his greatest
work. This, as weU as his "Lectures on Modern History"
and "Manual of English Literature," grew naturally out of
his occupation as a teacher. For fourteen years he was
head-master of Rugby School, familiar to most of our
young readers as the scene of Thomas Hughes's "Tom
Brown's School-days," in which Dr. Arnold flgures. It is
not too much to say that, while occupying this position,
Arnold changed the character of boys' schools throughout
England. By putting his pupils upon their honor instead
of watching them, and by living before them a life of utter
devotion to duty, he gained such an influence over them as
no master had ever had before. Those who wish to know
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
the whole story of that grand, symmetrical life, should read
the memoir of it by Dean Stanley.
Dr. Arnold was appointed, a few months before his
death, to the professorship of modern history at Oxford, a
post exactly suited to his abilities and tastes.
Five volumes of Dr. Arnold's sermons have been pub¬
lished, and he wrote much for reviews and periodicals
that has not been preserved. \\'hatever affected the well-
being of his fellow-creatures was of interest to him, and
his work in every good cause that presented itself to him
was untiring, while at the same time his methods were
so practical that every effort told in favor of the object
for which it was put forth.
CHAPTER LI.
LORD MACAULAY AND OTHER HISTORIANS.
^^HOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800-59)
was born ai Rothley Temple, Leicestershire,
ilaPrfli England, son of Zachary Macaulay, a well-known
philanthropist, and grandson of the Rev. John Macaulay
who is mentioned by Dr. J hnson in his "Tour to the He¬
brides." His mother was of Quaker descent. He was a
precocious boy and his remarkable character and attain¬
ments attracted the notice of Hannah More, who mentions
them in her letters. At eighteen he entered Trinity Col¬
lege, Cambridge, where he made a brilliant record, gaining
medals and scholarships almost at will. He did not care
"or mathematics, but read deeply in classics and literature.
At twenty-four he wrote his fine poems "Ivry," and "The
Spanish Armada," and at twenty-five made his mark as a
master of critical writing by his article on Milton, published
in the Edinburgh Review. He read law and was admit-
LORD M AC AUL A Y AND OTHER HISTORLANS. 335
ted to the bar, but never practised, having determined on
politics as a profession. He entered Parliament as a pro¬
nounced liberal, and his first speech was in favor of remov¬
ing the disabilities of the Jews in England; his second in
favor of abolishing slavery in the British West Indies. He
favored the great Reform bill of 1832. He was sent to
India by the Government to reform the courts of law, and
while holding his office there he kept up his historical
studies and wrote many brilliant articles for English mag¬
azines. Returning to England he was made, at forty, a
member of the Cabinet, or governing council of England.
Even in these great trusts his ability was not fully em¬
ployed, for at this very time he wrote and published his
stirring "Lays of Ancient Rome," which will move the
hearts of English readers as long as the language exists.
From the ballad " Horatio at the Bridge," a stanza or two
will give the style and the sounding swing of the poet's verse ;
Now from the rock Tarpeian
Could the wan burghers spy
The line of blazing villages,
Red in the midnight sky.
The fathers of the city
They sat all night and day,
For every hour some horseman came
With tidings of dismay.
* «' *
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The captain of the gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?
Later in life he gave himself up to his greatest work
"The History of England." His plan of writing historj-
was almost the direct opposite of Carlyle's, for as the latter
always kept the heroes and the great in view, Macaulay set
336
HISTORY OR ENGLISH LITERATURE.
himself avowedh.' the task of recording the condition and
disposition of the larger mass of the people, their manners,
their progress and their well - being.
He gloried in the practical, and held Lord Bacon the
greatest of philosophers, because he cared nothing for
abstract theories; everything must come to the test of actu¬
ality. The following fierce denunciation of Charles II. and
James II. illustrates his hatred of baseness in high places,
and shows also the eloquence of his prose as compared with
the music of his verse :
The government had just ability enough to deceive, and just religion
enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the scoflF of every
grinning creature, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning
dean. In every high place, worship was paid to Charles and James,
Belial and Moloch; and England propitiated those obscene and cruel
idols with the blood of her best and bravest children. Crime suc¬
ceeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till the accursed of God and
man was a second time driven forth to wander on the face of the earth,
and to be a byword and a shaking of the head to the nations.—Essay
on Milton.
A main feature in the history is its clearness. His style is
lucidity itself, and his method is the statement and re-state¬
ment of what he wants his reader to understand, so often
and so variously that he can not help comprehending it.
On this great matter of literary style, Macaulay himself
speaks with no uncertain sound: "How little the all-import¬
ant art of making meaning pellucid is studied now ! Hardly
any popular writer except myself thinks of it."
By all these means he makes his immense history as
interesting as any novel. Of the second volume 30,000
copies were ordered before publication.
The best and most impartial critics now say that Ma¬
caulay was too fond of dramatic and pictorial statements;
that he used only the brightest of lights and deepest of shad¬
ows. When he wished to condemn a man who deserves
blame, he painted him of an unnatural blackness, without
LORD MACAULAY AND OTHER HISTORIANS. 337
any redeeming feature; while for his heroes, no praise was too
great; and if a flaw appeared it must be palliated, excused
or explained away. This criticism is no doubt true, for no
thing or person is ever quite one-sided. Good and bad exist
everywhere, with all gradations between them.
In 1857 he was made a peer of England, under the title
of Baron Macaulay of Rothley; and consequently is prop¬
erly spoken of in history as Lord Macaulay. No doubt he
was proud of the title, though one is apt to think that he
reflected more honor on the peerage than he received from
it. As he left no children, dying unmarried, his peerage
died with him. He lies buried in Westminster Abbey.
In social life he was immensely admired. There seemed
no subject on which he did not have some knowledge; for
his study was broad and his memory prodigious. He talked
readily and fluently, casting into the shade nearly every
other talker in every company. One of the friendly critics
acknowledged his splendor and supremacy; but added with
some bitterness : " Macaulay would be faultless if he would
only give us a few brilliant flashes of silence!"
Most of the great historians of the present century
(always excepting Macaulay) are Americans, and therefore
do not come within the scope of the present work.
The "Popular History of England," by Charles Knight
(1791-1873), a richly illustrated work, gives an excellent
idea not only of historical incidents, but of the manners,
customs, constitutional changes etc., of the country up to
the time of finishing the history (i860). Mr. Knight was a
most industrious writer and compiler, and as he was also a
publisher, he was able to do much to promote extensive
popular reading. The "Library of Entertaining Knowl¬
edge," the "Penny Magazine," the "Penny Cyclopedia,"
with many similar undertakings, came from his press, and he
devoted himself to the spread of literature with an unselfish
enterprise which merits the highest praise.
22
338
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The lamented Edward Augustus Freeman (1823-92), who
has but just passed away from among us, made most valua¬
ble contributions to historical literature, mostly in the way of
studies of detached portions of it. The subjects which
came under his attention were extremely varied. Immense
learning and perfect accuracy of statement are his strong
points; diffuseness and unnecessary multiplication of details
his weak ones. Whatever he wrote, however, is worth
reading.
The finest piece of philosophical writing which takes in
the whole history of England, is that of John Richard
Green (1837-83), whose "Short History of the English
People" has already become a standard work. More than
a hundred thousand copies of it were sold in England,
during the author's life, and nearly as many in the United
States. Encouraged by this reception he added to his
materials, broadened the scope of his work and produced
the "History of the English People," in four volumes. He
afterward wrote "The Making of England,"and at the time
of his death was engaged upon "The Conquest of England."
Mr. Green achieves, more perfectly than did Macaulay,
the task which the latter set for himself; namely, the depict¬
ing of the life of common people. He says in his preface:
It is with this purpose that I have devoted more space to Chaucer
than to Cressy; to Caxton than to the petty strife of Yorkist and
Lancastrian; to the Poor-Law of Elizabeth than her victory at Cadiz;
to the Methodist revival than to the escape of the Young Pretender.
His English style differs broadly from the flowing periods
of Macaulay, with their splendid display of contrast, anti¬
thesis and strong lights and shadows. Mr. Green deals in
extremely short sentences, the paragraph devoted to a
single event being so broken up by periods as to seem
almost "jerky." Yet this, if a fault, is better than its oppo¬
site, for the short phrases are simple; more easy to read, to
comprehend and to remember.
SOME GREAT ESSAYISTS. CARLYLE. 339
CHAPTER LIT.
SOME GREAT ESSAYISTS. CARLYLE.
ALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (1775-1864) was a
poet and a prose - writer, great in both charac¬
ters but admirable to brother poets and prose-
writers rather than to the world at large. He inherited
a large fortune and was educated with the utmost care
at Rugby and Oxford. Latin was as familiar to him as
English. Yet he was of so rebellious and intractable a
nature that he disdained to compete for college honors,
and (like many of the literary men of his generation) left
Oxford without completing his course, being expelled for
some insubordination. He and other fiery young enthu¬
siasts were interested in favor of liberty, and much nioved
by the dawning of free government in America and by the
French Revolution, Wigs and hair-powder were the mark
of the old order of conservative gentlemen, while the revo¬
lutionists wore their own hair, long and powderless; and
Landor boasted of having been "almost the first student
who wore his hair without powder."
Soon after leaving college he wrote the first — perhaps
the best — of his poems, "Gebir;" and his utter indiffér¬
ence to popular appreciation is shown by the fact that he
wrote it partly in Latin. It is so overloaded and involved
in style and thought as to be extremely obscure, and Southey
likens the more comprehensible passages to "flashes of
lightning at midnight." No wonder that scarcely a hundred
copies of it were soldi He afterward wrote another poem,
"Count Julian," which the publisher to whom he offered it
declined to publish even at LandoFs expense; which so
excited his rage that he threw in the fire a third which he
had begun.
340 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Mrs. Oliphant describes his life thus :
The career of Lander was full of storm and tumult, and, it must
be added, of the strangest sincere braggadocio, vanity, generosity and
extravagance throughout . . . He quarreled with all his sur¬
roundings and did everything that in him lay to make the neigh¬
borhood too hot to hold him. . . . After throwing away the
greater part of his fortune he went off in profound offence and bit¬
terness to Italy, where he lived for most of the remainder of his life.
. . . He married, rather, apparently, because he had been lucky
enough to find a perfectly unsuitable person than for any other motive.
Landor was about forty when he went to Italy, and while
there he wrote the best known of his works — the " Imag¬
inary Conversations." These are fanciful talks in which
the author puts into the mouths of dead great men speeches
supposed to be characteristic of them. They require, there¬
fore, much scholarship in the reader to appreciate their
aptness. To the average reader, the most charming of his
writings is his " Pericles and Aspasia," which consists largely
of letters supposed to be written from Athens by Aspasia to
a friend at home, and breathes the very spirit of classic
Greece.
The poet lived to a great age, and the end of his life was
filled with the love and respect of younger men of letters.
Near the end of the eighteenth century, a gentle, pathetic
presence comes upon the scene; that of Charles Lamb
(1775-1834). He was of the humblest origin, his father,
John Lamb, having worn livery as "servant companion" to a
London dignitary; while Charles himself got his education
as a " Blue-coat boy," or inmate of Christ's Hospital, where
he was schoolfellow of the poet Coleridge, who became his
lifelong friend. At eighteen he began a service in the
accounting office of the great East India Company which
lasted thirty - three years. The hundred thick business vol¬
umes which he filled with his delicate hand - writing in this
long service he used to call his true "works ;" his few pub¬
lished essays and poems bearing to them but a very small
proportion.
SOME GREAT ESSAYISTS. CARLYLE. 341
While living at home with his family, consisting of his
invalid father, mother and aunt, himself, and his elder
sister Mary (the latter the unwearied care-taker of them all),
a dreadful calamity fell upon them. Mary, who had already
had slight attacks of insanity (as had Charles also) but who
was supposed to be quite free from danger of mania and
was the tenderest and gentlest of persons, suddenly became
seized with madness, and snatching a knife from the dinner-
table stabbed her helpless mother to the heart. The poor
Mary was placed in a mad-house, where she would have
passed the rest of her days but for the fact that her brother,
with the help of influential friends, obtained her release on
condition that he would be answerable for her safe - keeping
for life. Afterward, for nearly forty years, they lived together;
she subject to relapses which he always watched for and
foresaw; on which occasions she and he wended their way
together to the asylum which she willingly entered and where
she stayed until the return of her poor senses.
This necessarily ' changed, governed and saddened
Charles's whole life. He was engaged to Miss Alice Win¬
terten, but gave up the hope of marriage, and devoted his
life, cheerfully, to the duty which had thus come upon him.
Both he and his sister being endowed with ñne literary fac¬
ulty, they worked together or separately in producing the
books that bear their names.
The "Tales from Shakespeare," are the product of their
joint labor. "Mrs. Leicester's School" was Mary's alone.
" The Essays of Elia," all by Charles alone, were written
for the "London Magazine," and became at once noted and
popular. They remain now the main source of his fame,
and will be so, probably, in the future.
Lamb was of delicate frame and feeble health; and
among other small infirmities, made puns and stuttered in
his speech. As a letter-writer he was almost inimitable.
His letters and memoirs were published by Thomas Noon
Talfourd.
342
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
After thirty years of service in the India House, Lamb
retired on a pension of about ;¿^45o. His deprivation of
the constant employment which had been his so long was a
direct loss to him; and he did nothing in the literary way
during the rest of his life. His tendency to indulgence in
stimulants grew upon him and he died of erysipelas brought
on by a fall; his sister, then hopelessly mad, outliving him
some ten years.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830), one of the most distin¬
guished of English critics and essayists, was the son of a
Presbyterian minister, and formed one of the intellectual
circle of which Coleridge, Lamb, Leigh Hunt and Godwin
were members. At the outset he determined to devote
himself to art, and studied it sufficiently to make himself a
renowned art - critic, though he never made any success
as an artist. He was also deeply interested in metaphysics,
a somewhat incongruous line of thought ; but his remark¬
able boldness and acuteness of mind were to appear
neither in art nor in abstract musings, but in critical,
suggestive and instructive essays on literature, men and
manners. All subjects touched by him he treated with an
ingenuity and felicity of illustration and expression never
surpassed. As has been said, "Other men speak like
books, but Hazlitt's books speak like men."
His private life was as eccentric and discreditable as his
literary course was distinguished and admirable. He seems
to have lacked good common sense, and his last years were
clouded, and his death perhaps hastened by anxieties and
disappointments about money.
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) has a curious, discord¬
ant, anomalous place in literary biography. He was a
profound and brilliant essayist, an almost unequaled master
of the English tongue, and a recorder — the only recorder
— of the phenomena of opium-eating from the point of
view of the victim to the fatal vice.
SOME GREAT ESSAYISTS. CARLYLE. 343
Bom to a competency, he read and studied under the
most advantageous circumstances and became almost a
prodigy of classical learning. His mastery of Greek was
phenomenal; as one of his teachers said: "That boy could
harangue an Athenian mob better than you and I could
address an English one." Wild and erratic, he twice ran
away from school; the second time hiding himself in Lon¬
don where he stayed for a year or more and then became
reconciled to his guardians. At nineteen he went to Oxford,
where he studied five years, but, unruly as usual, went away
without his degree.
While at college he became enamored of the poetical
movement which owed its being to what are called the
" Lake Poets"— Wordsworth, Southey and Coleridge. He
showed his appreciation of them by giving the latter ;^3oo
through Cottle, the Bristol publisher; Coleridge being, as
usual, in want, and De Quincey not having yet dissipated
his patrimony. Soon afterward he took up his abode in
that haunt of poverty and poetry. Grasmere, where he lived
eleven years.
The most famous of De Quincey's works is the "Confes¬
sions of an Opium-eater." He had begun the use of opium
during his college course, to allay neuralgic pains, and, be¬
ing ungoverned and self-indulgent, the taste grew to a habit,
the habit to a passion, and the passion to a consuming vice.
The drug was beside him at meals in a decanter, and he
drank it by the wineglassful, as others did wine. As one
result of this suicidal course he was what Mrs. Oliphant calls
" an odd, sensitive, abstract little man, light and shivery as
a bird upon the bough, full of dreams and visions, a being
with as little fiesh and blood as possible—sufficient and no
more to house his soul in." Speaking of himself he says: "1
can not face misery, whether my own or not, with an eye of
sufficient firmness, and am little capable of surmounting
present pain for the sake of any recessionary benefit." In
344 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
spite of economical habits and great industry, he managed
to make away with his patrimony, and died, almost un¬
noticed, at the age of seventy-five.
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), son of a West-
Indian minister by an American wife, was a "blue-coat boy,"
that is, a pupil at Christ's Hospital, London. He began his
literary life as a writer for the London Examiner, and was so
" liberal" in politics and so unbridled in his treatment of
"the powers that be " that he brought himself under the ban
of the law, and was imprisoned for two years and heavily
fined for one of his articles which called the prince regent
"a fat Adonis of fifty." His imprisonment was not very
hurtful, as it made him a kind of martyr to a pohtical perse¬
cution, and he was the object of popular sympathy. "He
hid the prison bars with flowers, and received visits from
B)uron, Shelley and Keats."
After putting forth his first volume of poetry, containing
"The story of Rimini," and " Abou Ben Adhem," he did little
for many years but struggle with want and ill-health and
quarrel with his friends and relatives. He went to Italy, with
Byron and Shelley, to establish a quarterly magazine for
English readers. Shelley was drowned, Byron went to Greece,
and the magazine lived but a single year. He had a lawsuit
with his brother and this brought him back to England,
where he had the bad taste to publish "Lord Byron
and His Contemporaries," a bitter attack on men who
had been his firiends and benefactors. The book contained
wholesome truths, but such as should have found some other
narrator.
He was an industrious worker, but always at a disadvan¬
tage; he having no business ability and no tact in dealing
with his fellow men. At last, when he was sixty-three, the
Shelley family came to his rescue with an annuity of
and, three years later. Lord John Russell procured him a
pension of ¿200. Fortunately he had still enough of vital-
SOME GREAT ESSAYISTS. CARLYLE. 345
ity to write and publish his most charming books, "Wit and
Humor," "Imagination and Fancy," "Men, Women and
Books," etc.; and an admirable autobiography which por¬
trays him in all his unconscious weaknesses.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was the son of James Car-
lyle, a village mason. He was born at Ecclefechan in
Annandale, Scotland, and began his education at that small
hamlet. Later he was sent to a grammar-school, and when
he was fourteen he entered the University of Edinburgh
with a view of becoming a minister of the Scotch Presby¬
terian Church, a purpose which was never carried out. He
studied irregularly, but with amazing eagerness, and the
stories of his immense reading are almost incredible. For
a while he tried teaching, from time to time writing articles
for the magazines; also translating Legendre's Geom¬
etry, mathematics having been his favorite branch of
study. His " Life of Schiller" and his translation of Goethe's
"Wilhelm Meister," showed indications of the tower¬
ing genius he was afterward to make so conspicuous;
but it was in a series of essays called "Sartor Resartus"
(the Patcher Re-patched), that his strength and the peculiar
novelty of his style made itself fully felt. The title is a rough
translation of that of an old Scottish song, "The tailor done
over." The book has been well called an indescribable mix¬
ture of the sublime and the grotesque. He was at heart a
cynic, regarding mankind always as on the downward
path; and in his "Sartor" he storms and scolds at poor
humanity under the cloak (and other garments) which it
wears. He asks:
To the eye of vulgar Logic what is man? An omnivorous Biped that
wears Breeches. To the eye of Pure Reason what is he? A Soul, a
Spirit, and divine Apparition. Round this mysterious Me, there lies,
under all these wool-rags a Garment of Flesh (or of Senses) contex-
tured in the Loom of Heaven, whereby he is revealed to his like and
dwells with them in Union and Division ; and sees and fashions for
himself a Universe, with azure Starry Spaces and long Thousands of
Years.
346
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
His next book (the first that bore his name) is his
" History of the French Revolution;" more interesting than
the other, because it treats of the doings of certain men
instead of making a general assault on all mankind. He looks
upon that awful reign of terror as the work of Nemesis
(Fate), which in the fullness of time destroys the falsehoods
and avenges the wrongs of centuries. This was followed by
papers of less mark, and they again by his " Heroes and
Hero Worship," wherein he upholds the right of strong men
to use their strength whether for good or ill, and defends the
tendency of the weak to worship them for so doing. The
saying,
O it is excellent
To have a giant's strength, but tyrannous
To use it like a giant :
he agrees with only as to its first part; disregarding the second
and more humane sentiment.
This tendency of his mind is manifest in all his later
works. He collected Oliver Cromwell's letters and speeches
and connected them together by a most able and valuable
narrative of the events of the great revolution of which Crom¬
well was the hero. The last and most striking and cele¬
brated of his historical books was his "History of Frederick
II. called the Great;" a monument of laborious research, of
brilliant imagery and of impassioned language.
At the age of thirty-one years, Carlyle married Jane
BaiUie Welsh, and after living at several places in Scotland
(among others for seven years at Craigenputtock, a moorland
farm in Dumfriesshire), they settled down in London at
Number Five Cheyne* Row, living there during the rest of
their married life, and he afterward until his death.
Turning now to the memoir of Mrs. Carlyle, written by
Mr. Froude but included in the "Reminiscences" left by
Carlyle to his friend Froude to be edited, we find much of
* Pronounced ' ' Chaney. "
SOME GREAT ESSAYISTS. CARLYLE.
347
interest, chiefly sad. Miss Welsh was bom in Haddington,
Scotland, in 1801. She was a charming little genius, excel¬
ling all about her in beauty, wit and spirit. She wanted to
leam Latin "like a boy," and when that painful privilege
was denied her she got some boy to teach her a noun of the
first declension, and then hid herself under the dinner-table
when supposed to be in bed. " In a pause in the conversa¬
tion a little voice was heard, Penna, a pen; Pennœ, of a pen;
etc., and as there was a hush of surprise, she crept out and
went up to her father saying, 'I want to learn Latin ; please
let me be a boy ! ' " This is only one of many such anec¬
dotes, all tending to make us love the brilliant and happy
little girl—and deplore the fate which married one genius to
another.
Their married life was long and childless, and marred by
dyspeptic iU - humor and neglect on his part, invalid quer-
ulousness on hers. He grew to be a great and much courted
man—a distinction which she naturally did not always fully
share—and their domestic unhappiness was no secret to
their most intimate friends. Mrs. Carlyle died suddenly
and almost unaccountably (1866) in her carriage in Hyde
Park, and Carlyle spent the rest of his life in agonized self-
reproach for his conduct toward her; evidently exaggerating
its character, as was his habit regarding everything in life.
If the world rolls on very much as of old, in spite of
Carlyle's lurid prophecies of impending chaos, it seems
likely that many of his utterances will be forgotten, or kept
alive only as curiosities of literature.
348 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
CHAPTER LIII.
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
F scientific writers, our century has had a vast array;
concerning whom a history of literature can not
have much to say, except so far as their works
enter into general reading. First comes Mary Somerville
(1780-1872), the wonderful scholar of whom Laplace said
that she was the only woman who understood his works.
She was born in Scotland and was the daughter of Admiral
Fairfax. Her parents thought that a very little education
was enough for a woman, and discouraged her wish for the
more advanced branches; but she took the matter into her
own hands and studied mathematics by herself, in secret,
without a teacher. She was twice married, and her second
husband. Dr. SomerviUe, entered with zest into her aspira¬
tions and did everything he could to facilitate her studies.
She translated and popularized Laplace's great work under
the title of "Mechanism of the Heavens," upon which she was
at once elected a member of the Royal Astronomical Soci¬
ety. Of her other scientific works the best known are "The
Connection of the Physical Sciences" and "Physical Geog¬
raphy." Her delightful " Personal Recollections," written
in old age, looking back over a life which lasted for ninety-
two years, are excellent reading for old and young.
Sir David Brewster (1781-1868) was one of those men who
know how to make science attractive to the non-scientific.
Of his claims to attention as a natural philosopher we can
not here speak. His "Letters on Natural Magic," "Mar¬
tyrs of Science," "More Worlds than One," and "Life of
Sir Isaac Newton," are valuable contributions to literature.
Archbishop Whateley (1787-1863), a native of Dublin,
was the author of treatises on logic and rhetoric, which for
MISCELLANEOUS WELTERS.
349
many years were the received text-books on those studies.
He wrote also "Lectures on Political Economy," and a
handbook of " Christian Evidences," which has been trans¬
lated into more than a dozen languages.
Sir Charles LyeU (1797-1875), one of the greatest geolo¬
gists of modem times, is chiefly known in literature by his
"Travels in North America," which, though primarily devo¬
ted to the science of which he was a master, contain much
of interest to the general reader. Another work, " A Second
Visit to the United States," is especially interesting from its
just appreciation of American institutions. His other works
are exclusively geological.
Hugh Miller (1802-56), was bom at Cromarty in Scot¬
land, and worked there as a mason, in a quarry of the geo¬
logical formation known as the "old red sandstone." He
studied constantly, and after engaging in various occupa¬
tions became editor of a religious paper. His book called
"The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field,"
established his reputation both as a geologist and a writer.
"There was nothing in his works," says the Edinburgh
Review, "which so much surprised the public as their
mere literary merit. Where could this Cromarty mason
have acquired his style ? "
Miller afterward published " Footprints of the Creator,"
" My Schools and Schoolmasters," and other works. Exces¬
sive study caused his brain to give way, and in a paroxysm
of insanity he killed himself. He had just flnished a pow-
ful book called "The Testimony of the Rocks."
Charles Darwin (1809-82) was the boldest and most
noted naturalist of his century. He gave his name to a
theory, not absolutely novel, but never before so ably
stated and argued out. It is called "The Darwinian theory
of the origin of species," and teaches that the various orders
of plants, and animals have spmng not from special acts of
supernatural creation but from changes, wrought in a single
350
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
original type of being, by the various agencies in which, in
the succession of uncounted ages of time, it has been
placed. "Natural Selection," according to Darwin, has
caused "the survival of the fittest;" that is to say, any indi¬
vidual (animal or plant) which happens to be best adapted
to thrive in the particular circumstances which surround it,
is the one most likely to live and grow strong, and perpetu¬
ate its like in other individuals inheriting like peculiarities.
Darwin followed, of course, the Baconian method of phil¬
osophy; that is, he observed facts and from them deduced
theories. In his observance of natural phenomena he was
perhaps the most humble, patient and industrious seeker
after truth who ever lived. He was graduated at Christ Col¬
lege, Cambridge, at twenty-two, and at once started (as nat¬
uralist) in H. M. S. Beagle, on a scientific voyage around the
world ; concerning which he wrote several books. But the
work which made him famous and attached his name to one
whole branch of scientific speculation is, " The Origin of
Species by Means of natural Selection ; or the Preservation
of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life." He did not
even except humanity itself from his general tracing of the
characteristics of every race to its surroundings; and a
subsequent book "The Descent of Man; and Selection in
Relation to Sex" stated still more emphatically the doctrine
that the human race, like all others in the animal kingdom,
has progressed from lower forms to higher, instead of hav¬
ing degenerated from higher to lower. " Darwinism " has
become a name for the system embodied in his researches
and reasonings of progress from cause to effect.
Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856), one of the greatest
metaphysicians of modern times, may be considered in some
respects as a successor of Reid, Stewart, and Brown, though
superior to all of them. He was, like them, a Scotchman,
and for the last twenty years of his life he was professor in
the University of Edinburgh. His chief works are his lectures
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
351
on logic and metaphysics, and "Discussions on Philosophy
and Literature, Education and University Reform."
John Hanning Speke (1827-64), at one time an officer in
the India service, was the first white person to see the great
Victoria Nyanza, the lake later known as the source of the
Nile. His books, "What Led to the Discovery of the Nile,"
and "Journal of Discovery," tell the story of his travels and
adventures. He was killed in England by the accidental dis¬
charge of his gun, while out shooting.
Alexander William Kinglake (1802-91), a prosperous law¬
yer, made a tour in Syria and other Oriental countries,
which he described in a vivacious book entitled " Eothen, or
Traces of Travel Brought Home from the East." His other
important work is a history of the "Invasion of the Crimea,"
prepared during the twenty-five years following 1862. It is
written with a strong prejudice against the French emperor;
perhaps too strong to allow the history to rank as an authority.
George Barrow (1803-81),author of "The Bible in Spain,"
has given in that book a very entertaining description of the
country, while relating his personal adventures, imprison¬
ments, etc., experienced in the attempt to distribute the
books confided to him by the Bible Society. His next work
was "Lavengro," which is generally supposed to be autobio¬
graphical, though with a large infusion of fiction. "The
Romany Rye," a sequel to "Lavengro," though widely read,
did not add to his reputation.
John Stuart Mill (1806-73), the son of James MiU, author
of a history of India, was educated at home, and spent some
time in France studying languages and political economy;
that is, the general laws governing the relations of man¬
kind. At seventeen he went into the service of the Eng¬
lish East India Company, and began as a clerk in the India
House, London. His branch of duty was the political, which
had to do with the transactions between the company and
the native East Indian rulers. At fifty he became head of
352 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
that department, and so continued untü, two years later,
after the great and terrible Sepoy mutiny, the control of East
Indian affairs was transferred from the company to the Brit¬
ish government. After this he became a member of parlia¬
ment, being classed among the liberals; those who pay
especial attention to the interests of common people rather
than to those of the privileged classes—crown, nobility,
gentry and capitalists.
Most of his works appeared first in the shape of essays in
the "London and Westminster Review" (of which he was an
editor and proprietor), and various other periodicals. His
first noted book was a system of logic, which remains a
standard work. Then came two on certain branches of
political economy and one on liberty, and later one on
the subjection of women; all these being more or less asso¬
ciated with the study of political economy. No writer on
this class of subjects holds a higher place than does Mr.
Mill. He left, also, an autobiography which is a model
of interesting personal annals.
George Henry Lewes (1817-79) was a writer of most
varied abilities. His " Life of Goethe" is perhaps the most
widely read of his works. If he had been either exclusively
an editor, scientist, novelist, essayist, dramatist or historian,
instead of being all these, he would have made a more per¬
manent and conspicuous mark in literature; but probably
would have been less noted and popular in his own day and
generation. Although he worked in so many fields, he was
excellent in each. A happy and discriminating characteri¬
zation of 'Mr. Lewes is that given in the " International
Cyclopaedia
An intellect clear and sharp, if not remarkably strong; a wit lively
and piquant, if not very rich; sympathies warm, if not wide; and a
style as firm as it is graceful, made Lewes one of the best of critics and
biographers,
Mr. Lewes's connection with Marian Evans, "George
MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.
353
Eliot," and her overshadowing genius, have associated his
name with hers in a way that perhaps puts him at some dis¬
advantage.
Matthew Arnold (1822-88) was a noted writer of our
own times. He was the son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, head
master of Rugby, and after going through that school and
Balliol College, Oxford, he was elected a fellow of Oriel, and
later was for ten years professor of poetry at Oxford. His
poetical works came first (as is so often the case with men
who write both poetry and prose) and we may cite "Tristram
and Yseult" as the best known of his poems. In prose he
published many books; chiefly lectures on certain scholarly
subjects, collected into book form after use in his course of
college-instruction. At about fifty, however, he subjected
himself to much criticism through a new departure in religious
writing in an essay called "Literature and Dogma;" which
subjected theology to criticism from a new point of view.
He traveled in America (quite late in life) and lectured;
attacking, among other things, the system of governing by
popular majorities. His last three books are all on Ameri¬
can subjects.
Henry Thomas Buckle (1822-62) is one of the very few
writers who have earned an enduring place in history by the
production of only a single book. He was a delicate youth
and got his education by his own efforts. He came into a
large fortune when only eighteen years old, and at once
devoted himself to literary pursuits; getting together one of
the finest libraries in the world. At the age of thirty-five he
published the first volume of his " History of Civilization in
England" and after a few years his second; the two being
only the beginning of a work which death cut short before
any more was done. The book, so far as finished, is really
an essay on history in its reference to civilization, rather than
a statement of the steps by which Englishmen became civil¬
ized. Therefore it is not possible to say that the narrative
23
354
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
comes down to such or such a date. There is no sequence
of dates; it merely goes a certain way toward exhausting
the subject, and stops short of doing so.
The untimely death of this admirable and praiseworthy
writer occurred at Damascus, where he chanced to be,
having journeyed so far in search of health.
CHAPTER LIV
NINETEENTH-CENTURY NOVELISTS. THACKERAY. DICKENS.
N the brilliant Victorian period of English litera¬
ture the names of Dickens and Thackeray are
closely and constantly connected. In the earli¬
est of their novels appear the very last of the wearers of
hair-powder and small-clothes, and they were both still
writing when the war of the American Rebellion was fought.
Thus their scenes embrace the emergence from the old and
slow things to the new and rapid; from stage - coaches and
wooden sailing-vessels to steamboats, railways, telegraphs
and ironclads, not to speak of friction matches, penny-post-
age and postage-stamps, gas-lights, power printing-presses,
and a thousand things more or less connected with life and
literature.
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) was bom in
Calcutta, and was the son of an officer in the East India
Civil Service. His father dying, his mother married Major
Smyth, and during Thackeray's childhood the family moved
to England. He was sent to the Charter-House School,
afteward made famous in "The Newcomes"as "Gray Friars."
Of his recollections about this a schoolfellow remarks :
His change of retrospective feeling wàs very characteristic. In his
earlier days he always spoke of the Charter House as Slaughter House
and Smithfield. As he became famous and prosperous his memory
softened, and Slaughter House was changed into Gray Friars, where
Colonel Newcome ended his life.
THA CKERA Y. DICKENS.
355
The unlucky breaking of his nose, which spoiled his
good looks and marked him for life, occurred in one of the
school - fights which were in those days (perhaps are still)
a recognized part of a boy's experience at great English
schools. At seventeen he was entered at Trinity College,
Cambridge, but stayed there less than two years. During
this time he wrote for a Cambridge periodical called "The
Snob," thus early turning his attention to a subject pursued
afterward in his "Book of Snobs."
After leaving college, while his mother and step - father
were living in Devonshire, he went to Weimar and Paris;
his aim being to make himself an artist. He achieved no
success except in caricaturing; and even this he did not do
well enough to rely on it for a living. In looking over the
sketches with which he illustrated his earlier works, one
wonders whether it was that his mental picture was not
clear, or that his hand did not answer to his imagination.
It was probably the former, as all his figures have the same
faults; and none of them look exactly like human beings;
yet after all, they do give the feeling of the text, and at any
rate, so associated are they with his beloved personality that
one prizes them as they are and would not exchange them
for the best work of the art illustrative.
When he succeeded to his fortune — about ;^5oo a year
— he very promptly lost it, interest and principal. Per¬
haps this was really a blessing in disguise, for the rule seems
almost invariable that the highest literary achievement must
spring from the stony ground of necessity. At about this
time, Dickens, already on the high wave of success (he being
then twenty-three and Thackeray twenty-four), received a
call from the would-be artist, who brought a portfolio of his
sketches and vainly sought the privilege of illustrating
Dickens's next publication.
Thackeray's literary life began in London, at about the
same time when Dickens refused his drawings. He wrote
356 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERA TURE.
short stories for various periodicals—among them "The
Great Hoggarty Diamond," and "The History of Samuel
Titmarsh"—and (as he told long afterward) met with so little
appreciation that the editor warned him that the latter story
was running too long; it must be shortened!
He married at twenty-six, showing by this assumption
of new responsibilities, a certain degree of confidence in
the future. It certainly added to his chance of success by
giving a spur to counteract his lifelong tendency to indo¬
lence and procrastination.
"Punch" was Thackeray's main source of income for the
ten years following 1843; and though his work on it was
necessarily anonymous, his name gradually became identi¬
fied with the "Thackeray" style of humor, which embodied
fun and philosophy, satire and sense. During this period
appeared "Vanity Fair, a Novel without a Hero," published
in twenty-four weekly numbers. The first publishers to
whom it was offered declined it; Bradbury & Evans (the
owners of "Punch") took it up, and it made fortune for
them and fame for him.
The serial method of publication, necessitating as it
does sharp and continuous attention to the interest of
articles each coming to the test of public approval at the
end of the week which gave it birth, was doubtless of im¬
mense worth to Thackeray, and helped to give the uni¬
formity of value to "Vanity Fair," "Pendennis," and the
"Newcomes." In such work there could be no more of the
old prosaic methods; though they did very well in the
early days of fiction when a dull and spiritless chapter
could be atoned for by its fresh and vigorous successor.
The "Punch" articles, the Snob papers and ballads, furn¬
ished also excellent material for later publication in book
form, when the greater books had given their author a name
under which any word was sure of an audience.
"Vanity Fair" (though not a caricature) is essentially 3.
THA CKERA Y. DICKENS.
357
satire, and therefore an exaggeration. We turn from it with
pleasure to "Pendennis," "Esmond," and "The Newcomes,"
where satire is only an incidental ingredient and exagger¬
ation unneeded. The novels were incomparable; the appear¬
ance of each number was an event in the reading world;
the chief catastrophe in the last-named book the finest bit
of pathos in English prose. To many readers, these novels
mark, to this day, the high tide of fiction.
It was in 1851 that Thackeray entered upon a course of
public readings, unlike those of Dickens, because he did
not read from his published works, but prepared entirely
new lectures, with infinite care and study. The researches
needed for his historical novel of " Henry Esmond," paved
the way for the course upon "The English Humorists of the
Eighteenth Century;" and in the same general line of explor¬
ation came the material for that treating of "The Four
Georges." Both were highly profitable in England and
America. "The Virginians" is a sequel to "Henry Esmond,"
carrying on the lives of its characters, and varying the scene
to the Virginia of the colonial period. It should be, there¬
fore, of the highest interest to American readers.
At forty-eight he became editor of the "Comhill Maga¬
zine," and contributed to it "Lovel the Widower," and "The
Adventures of Philip." But he was too tender - hearted to
be a good editor. The rejection of manuscripts, with the
consequent pain given to contributors and reflected on the
editor, he called "thorns in the cushion," and made them
the subject of one of his delightful "Roundabout Papers."
Thackeray's verses — poems he would never call them
unless in jest—were written at various times and as fancies
struck him or the call for "copy" found him at a loss. The
pieces were chiefly ballads — if that name can be applied
to verses not intended for singing. Sometimes they were
fun, pure and simple; sometimes written to kill, by sharp
ridicule, some abuse, imposture or imposition. The most
858 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
effective are those where humor gives way to pathos; there
they touch the line of true poetry.
"The White Squall" is one of the best bits of meteor-
logical descriptions ever penned, in fun or in earnest. After
several scores of short seven - syllable lines, ingeniously
rhymed and queerly conceived, descriptive of a steamer's
deck in a sudden squall, he suddenly changes his tone
and ends:
And when, its force expended,
The harmless storm was ended.
And as the sunrise splendid
Came blushing o'er the the sea,
I thought, as day was breaking
My little girls were waking,
And smiling, and making
A prayer at home for me.
Thackeray was engaged on a new novel, "Dennis Duval,"
when he died. On a December morning, in 1863, he was
found dead in his bed, from apoplexy. He had been for
ten or twelve years subject to spasms of pain of which he
made as little as possible.
He had more than replaced, in his manhood, all he had
lost in his youth; and left to his daughters property yielding
£lS° ^ y^3.r. The elder one, Anne, became Mrs. Ritchie,
and, following in the footsteps of her father, ranks among the
best of English novelists since his time. The younger,
Harriet, married Leslie Stephen (also of the literary guild),
and died after a few years of married life.
However jaded and dulled by the multiplicity and variety
of literary subjects already presented, our hearts warm as
we come to the name of Charles Dickens (1812-70). With
all his imperfections, he has taken a hold on the hearts of the
readers of English such as perhaps no writer of any time or
quality has ever exactly matched. Humor, Pathos, Philan¬
thropy, Comedy, Tragedy, Farce and Melodrama all joined
THA CKERA Y. DICKENS.
359
hands in a circle around him as he wrote, and his quick eye
glanced from one to another, catching inspiration from each
in turn J most frequently and fondly accepting from Humor
a smile and from Pathos a tear — often blending them
together as he penned the thought they suggested.
Charles was the son of John Dickens, a clerk in the navy
pay-department at Portsmouth, and later a parliamentary
reporter for a London daily. The family was poor and
embarrassed, the father at one time in the debtor's prison
at Marshalsea, and the boy pasting labels on blacking-boxes
for about a shilling a day. The circumstance has been
made the occasion of a good deal of maudlin sympathy ;
although to the thousands of self-made men, from Abraham
Lincoln down to the ordinary run of successful toilers who
started without fortune, it seems to be quite in the course
of nature. His biographer, Forster, calls it his "humiliation."
His parents he later caricatured in the "Micawbers" of
"David Copperfield," making them to rank among the great¬
est fools that can possibly be imagined. Yet they seem to
have tried quite hard — however unwisely — to furnish him
such education as came within their power.
In his early youth he was small and sickly, and played
little with other boys. He found somewhere the novels
of Fielding and Smollett, the "Vicar of Wakefield," "Don
Quixote," "Gil Bias" and "Robinson Crusoe," which, with
the "Arabian Nights," formed the basis of his general read¬
ing. At about fourteen he wrote some small stories which
a small club of boys read and circulated, and also took part
in some youthful theatricals, all of which shows the forma¬
tive character of his early experiences. After leaving school
he studied short-hand, the difficulties of which are com¬
ically set forth in " David Copperfield," said to be to some
extent a recounting of his early life. Then he began report¬
ing for the newspapers, and as it was just at the end of the
old coaching days and the old inns that belonged to them.
360
HISTORY OR ENGLISH LITERATURE.
he gained an intimate knowledge of the peculiarities of life
on the road that make "Pickwick" so delightfuL
His first published article (not paid for) was in the old
"Monthly Magazine" for January, 1834. After this, he
became a contributor to various papers under the name of
"Boz," that being an abbreviation of the nickname "Moses"
(Boses), which he applied to his brother Augustus.* Later
he collected the "Boz" sketches into two volumes, and be¬
gan the publication, in shilling numbers, of the "Posthumous
Papers of the Pickwick Club." The success of these was
so great that he gave up reporting and turned his attention
to literature. In the meantime he had married Miss Cath¬
erine Hogarth, daughter of one of his newspaper friends
and fellow - laborers.
Of the first number of "Pickwick" the binder prepared
400 copies: of the fifteenth number, 40,000. "Oliver Twist"
was coming out at the same time, and before that (or even
"Pickwick") was finished he had begun "Bamaby Rudge,"
both published in the "Miscellany," of which he was editor.
His stories possessed him in a remarkable fashion, the
characters being self-constructive, as it were, and seeming
to have an individual existence independent of the brain
which gave them birth. This perhaps partly explains why
and how he was able to keep so many going at once.
"Nicholas Nickleby," as a serial, followed "Oliver" in the
"Miscellany," and reached a sale of 50,000 on the day of
its publication.
His manner of life at this time—and always—was con¬
vivial; though perhaps not yet particularly so. He worked
with speed and energy and took his mental rest in great
* Augustus Dickens ("Boz") spent the closing years of his life in
Chicago, where (1855-60) he filled an humble office in the land
department of the Illinois Central Railway. He shared some of his
brother's characteristics, but none of those which made Charles a
genius. The convivial bowl was his invincible enemy.
THA CKE RA Y. DICKENS.
361
bodily activity; walking and riding many miles almost daily;
often in company with Mr. Forster, afterward his biographer.
Nearly every road leading out of London must have been
familiar to his footsteps, and the hostelries where the best
chops, wine and ale were to be had were always kept in
view. Even as a child he regarded his beer as one of the
necessaries of life, though the cost might lessen the sum
that should be spent for food; and at twenty-six, after one
of his numerous illnesses, he says: "You will imagine how
queer I must have been when I tell you that I have been
compelled for four-and-twenty mortal hours to abstain
from porter or other malt liquor ! 1! I have done it though
— really."
In all his earlier works, unforced, spontaneous humor
was the mainspring; and it seems really doubtful if in the
history of literature so much of genuine, irresistible fun ever
flowed from human pen. True, it was not like anything on
earth. Dickens created the characters and inspired them
with the breath of life. No such people have existed or
ever will exist; but if they did they would be so funny!
Mrs. Nickleby with her love - scenes vanquished even the
disapproving Sydney Smith and he writes: "Nickleby is
very good. I stood out against Mr. Dickens as long as I
could, but he has conquered me." The humor, too, was
usually — not always — good; directed against shams and
abuses, and when it was so aimed it was apt to be fatal.
The workhouse, the cruel school, the debtors' prison and
other plague-spots found their St. George in Charles
Dickens.
"Master Humphrey's Clock" was a series of tales in
which the "Old Curiosity Shop" led the way. "Little Nell"
was always one of his favorite creations — creatures, they
became to him. In our younger days she drew floods oí
tears from our eyes; but to our maturer judgment the inten¬
tion to draw tears becomes manifest, and the eyes weep no
362
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
more. As some wit has phrased it, "Dickens is always
raising an altar to Pathos, and sacrificing a kid upon it!"
In 1842 came Mr. Dickens's famous visit to the United
States. The whole American people "went wild" over him,
and many made themselves troublesome and ridiculous. A
greater man than Dickens might have excused the annoy¬
ance for the sake of the cordial love for his writings which
underlay it. But Mr. Dickens saw only the surface of the
strange, informal, inelegant, democratic society; a society
imperfect, but growing better by its own strength, then as
now. Of the "American Notes," published after his
return, he learned to be ashamed; of the anger they excited
among Americans we learned to be ashamed ; there¬
fore they may well be forgotten, bright though the "notes"
were and many the unpalatable truths they told. When
he came again, twenty-five years later, he was again received
with cordial welcome, and his readings from his own works
were extremely profitable, the amount cleared by thirty-four
of them being near 1,000. One can not but rejoice at
this as being in some sort, though imperfectly, an offset to
the fact that the millions of his books sold in America had
yielded him no income, because of the absence of interna¬
tional copyright. This righteous measure, fruitlessly urged
by Mr. Dickens upon the American people and government,
has at last, forty years after his visit, been enacted, and is
the law of the land.
Unfortunately, Mr. Dickens's health was unequal to the
strain of such a campaign as that of his lecturing winter.
As to his manner of living, it may be judged from a letter
to a friend in which he speaks of having been "reduced,"
by ill-health, to such a regimen as the following:
At seven in the morning, in bed, a tumbler of new cream and two
tablespoonsful of rum. At twelve, a sherry cobbler and a biscuit. At
three (dinner-time) a pint of champagne. At five minutes to eight
an egg beaten up with a glass of sherry. Between the parts [of
THA CKERA Y. DICKENS.
363
his reading] the strongest beef-tea that can be made, drank hot At
a quarter past ten, soup and any little thing to drink that I can fancy.
Indeed the matter of drink is continually cropping up, in
all his letters.
After the first American tour came "Martin Chuzzlewit,"
a poor and weak recalling of the trip; next "Dombey
and Son," with its rather grim pathos, and then "David
Copperfield," the most artistic work he ever did; the most
natural, heartfelt and satisfactory ; the favorite among all his
novels. "Bleak House," and "Little Dorrit" were written
before the memorable year when he removed to the fine
Gadshill property; a change which reminds one painfully
of Scott's taking up the fatal burden of Abbotsford. The
occasion was simultaneous with his separation from his
wife; they afterward living apart, the children being free
to come and go as they pleased.
It was in this year (1858) that he finally took up the
long - considered plan of giving public readings for his
own profit; the cost of Gadshill drawing heavily upon
him. The place itself was far from costly, but his living
expenses were large and his benevolent outlays most
generous. He seems to have supported his parents almost
entirely, and other members of his family largely; and
every charitable and philanthropic work that appealed to
his sympathy was the recipient of boundless help. The
receipts at his readings for charity were enormous.
"The Tale of Two Cities," which appeared about this
time, showed much of Dickens's old power, but was lacking
in the humorous — a sad deficiency. This novel, "The
Uncommercial Traveller," and "Our Mutual Friend," all
appeared serially in "AU the Year Round" (a periodical
with which he was then connected), before being issued
in book form. He wrote nothing more except the unfin¬
ished "Edwin Drood." Paralysis was near. He had to
^ve up dinner-parties. At the last meeting between
364 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
him and Mr. Forster they recalled their old jolly compam
ions, now all gone, and as he said "none beyond his six¬
tieth year, very few beyond fifty."
He died at Gadshill on June 9, 1870, aged fifty-eight,
evidently a victim to the pace at which he lived. He
may be said to have burned his candle not only at both
ends but also in the middle. He walked hard, wrote much
and lived fast.
Few men have ever written who moved the minds and
hearts of their fellow - men as greatly as did Charles Dick¬
ens. And his voice was in favor of charity, justice, benev¬
olence, manliness, brotherhood, morality. If one could add
temperance, the circle of beneficent influence would be
complete. But to those who find in drink the fruitful
source of aü evil, the feeling intrudes itself (even while
wondering at and admiring the boundless power and
kindly impulses of the man) that his constant reference to
the delights of convivial excitement, making it the insep¬
arable companion if not the absolute foundation of joy
and gladness, has been and must remain a fatal defect in
the fabric of his teachings.
CHAPTER LV
BULWER. READE. COLLINS. THE TROLLOPES.
HE earlier writings of Edward George Earle Lytton
Bulwer-Lytton (1806-73), Baron Lytton, appeared
under the writer's family name of Bulwer, and
by that name he is better known than under his title of
Lord Lytton.*
He was one of the most versatile of men; novelist,
* He was over sixty when, in reward for political services, he was
raised to the peerage.
BUL WER-L YTTON.
365
dramatist, poet, essayist and politician. Poetry was his
earliest ambition; he published a volume of poems at
fifteen, and at twenty won a prize for a poem on sculp¬
ture. His first noteworthy novel was " Pelham," which was
very successful, and is a remarkable production for a young
man of twenty-two. From this time until the rise of
Charles Dickens, ten years later, he may be said to have
been the leading English novelist, writing in that time "The
Disowned," "Devereux," "Paul Clifford," "Eugene Aram,"
and "Godolphin." The most noted is "Eugene Aram,"
written to illustrate how a man of fine nature may be led,
step by step, into the deepest villainy.
His greatest and best work is " The Last Days of Pom¬
peii," a historical novel, its time being the first century of
the Christian era, and its place the Roman city buried
during the terrible eruption of Vesuvius in the year 79 A.D.
It is by far the most popular and most valuable English
novel dealing with times so remote, and has become and
will remain an English prose classic.
As a playwright, Bulwer is greater than as a novelist. He
achieved the rare success of writing three plays—"The
Lady of Lyons," "Richèlieu," and "Money,"—which hold
the stage to this day. This is more than any other modem
playwright has done who was not himself an actor; and it
is said that the great actor, Macready, helped him to make
the plays what they are.
After Bulwer's earlier novels, several of which are open
to the charge of great immorality, a change came over the
manner of his writing, and his later works, "The Caxtons,"
" My Novel," "What Will He Do With It?" and others, are
entirely free from this blemish. In his first novels, also, he
seemed to write for the purpose of inculcating a theory rather
than telling a story; later, he tried to meet the popular
demand for real-life pictures; and if we had not had such
humorists as Dickens, such satirists as Thackeray, such
366 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
realists as Anthony Trollope, and such character-painters as
Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot, he would have stood at
the head of the English novelists of his generation. His
greatest deficiency was the lack of a sense of humor. Other¬
wise, he had many of the requisites of a successful novelist.
His training was perfect, his aim exact, and his industry
untiring. In his fifty productive years he published at least
fifty separate books, and beside all the work mentioned, he
was a politician, a parliamentary orator and a member of the
British cabinet.
Charles Reade (1814-84) has been characterized by
Trollope as "almost a genius." If it were true, as is alleged,
that "genius is only infinite capacity for work," he would
take rank as not almost but quite a genius, for he was one
of the most painstaking and indefatigable of writers. He
called "no day without a line," the eleventh commandment.
Like many another man destined to make a name with
his pen, he took to it only after trying in vain to succeed in
other lines. The law (for which his fine education espec¬
ially fitted him) and playwriting having both failed him,
he took his rejected drama, "Masks and Faces," and after
succeeding in producing it by the help of the dramatist, Tom
Taylor, he worked up the same plot and characters into the
romance of "Peg Wofiington," which established him as a
novelist. He followed this up by "Christie Johnstone."
At this early stage in his career, he maps out its course in
a diary, thus :
June 20. The plan I propose to myself in writing will, I see,
cost me undeniable labor. I propose never to guess where I can
know. For instance, Tom Robinson is in gaol. I have therefore
been to Oxford gaol and visited every inch, and shall do the same
at Reading. Having also collected material in Durham gaol, what¬
ever I write about Tom Robinson's gaol will therefore carry (I hope)
a physical exterior of truth.
George Fielding is going in a ship to Australia. I know next to
nothing about a ship, but my brother Bill is a sailor. I have com-
CHARLES READE.
367
missioned him to describe, as he would to an intelligent child, a
»hip sailing with the wind on her beam — then a lull — a change of
wind to dead aft, and the process of making all sail upon a ship
under that favorable circumstance. Simple as this is, it has never
been done in human writing so as to be intelligible to landsmen.
. . . Now, I know exactly what I am worth. If I can work
the above great system there is enough of me to make one of the
great writers of the day; without it, no. no.
The information obtained by these laborious methods, he
embalmed in voluminous notes, and used with scrupulous
exactitude. His books abound in facts and truths, medical,
surgical, nautical, agricultural, financial, industrial, educa¬
tional, historical, political, economical, statistical, theologi¬
cal— in short nearly all the adjectives ending in al. The
most marked of his works beside the two already mentioned
are "Never too Late to Mend," "Love Me Little, Love Me
Long," "The Cloister and the Hearth," "Hard Cash," "Put
Yourself in His Place." The novel called "Foul Play," writ¬
ten in connection with Dion Boucicault, was aptly character¬
ized by some newspaper in the following jingle:
If you wish me to say
What I think of "Foul Play,"
I can very conveniently do so;
It's a simple re-hash
Of " Very Hard Cash, "
With a seasoning of " Robinson Crusoe. "
Reade himself preferred dramatic writing, and made
some success in that line; while his novels, beside being
instructive and picturesque, are essentially dramatic in
their treatment.
Personally he was one of the most quarrelsome of
men. When he was unfavorably reviewed he rushed into
print to defend himself, and into libel - suits to punish his
critics. When he thought himself wronged in business he
appealed to the courts under the copyright laws and others.
Like other men of that stamp, he made himself extremely
368
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
disliked by enemies, and to a corresponding degree loved
and admired by friends. And it must never be lost sight
of that he was strongest in defence of the weak and most
pronounced in aid of those who can not speak for them¬
selves. He never, in his writings, glorified drink; and
(considering his times and surroundings) was a temperate
man. He lived in generally rugged health to the allotted
limit of three score years and ten, and died leaving many
loving and mourning hearts behind him.
William Wilkie Collins (1825-89), usually called Wilkie
Collins, was bom in London, the son of a distinguished
landscape painter. His first literary work was a well-written
memoir of his father, which he followed up by several
romances of which the best known are "After Dark," "The
Dead Secret," "The Woman in White," "No Name," "Arm¬
adale," and "The Moonstone."
His particular characteristic is- intricacy of plot. He
made his denouement a secret, and covered it up with such
a mass of deceptions that the reader is at a loss to guess
the outcome until the very last chapter is reached. In these
days, those who read "The Dead Secret," or "Armadale"
(which is also a "dead secret") can simply turn to the final
chapter for its solution; but when the books came out in
weekly numbers, as was the fashion forty years ago, we can
fancy the regret with which a thrilling chapter was laid
down and the impatience with which the next was waited
for. Concerning this characteristic, Anthony Trollope says:
Of Wilkie Collins it is impossible not to speak with admiration,
because he has excelled all his contemporaries in a certain most difficult
branch of his art; but as it is a branch which I myself have not at all
cultivated, it is not unnatural that his work should be very much lost
upon me individually. When I sit down to write a novel I do not
at all know, and I do not very much care, how it is to end.
This very clearly indicates the difference between the
novel of intricate plot and the novel of the development
of characters.
WILLIAM WILKIE COLLINS.
369
Collins was the intimate friend of Charles Dickens, and
his co-worker in editing "All The Year Round" which he
continued after the death of Dickens.
Anthony Trollope (1815-82), the most luminous and
voluminous of English romancers, was bom in London, of
parents possessing ability, industry, bad judgment and bad
luck. His childhood was passed at Harrow, at a farm¬
house which he has described in "Orley Farm." He spent
fifteen years in pursuit of an education, mostly in the great
Harrow School and at Winchester College; an outcast
among his cmel school-mates and bmtal teachers by reason
of his poverty of mind, body and purse; longing for love,
esteem, popularity, and getting none. His delightful auto¬
biography (published in 1883) tells the story of the family
struggles and his own childish anguish, and is most pitiful.
Nothing in all his wonderfully tmthful pictures of fictitious
life is more powerful in pathos than his simple story of the
actual facts in the heroic self-sacrifice of his mother(Frances
Milton Trollope) on the altar of family affection.
The last of the family's stmggles (before they were
forced to fly before creditors) was the strangely foolish
experiment of establishing Henry Trollope in business as
a merchant in Cincinnati. In furtherance of this plan
Mrs. Trollope and her son came to America and built a
"bazaar" in that city! Naturally the investment was a
dead loss, and Mrs. Trollope's " Domestic Manners of
the Americans"—a book compared with which Dickens's
"American Notes" is almost flattering—was more a pic¬
ture of what she felt than what she saw. Its only good
result was the eaming of ^800 by that devoted and long-
suffering woman; a success which turned her to travel-
writing and novel-writing as a means of feeding her help¬
less flock, and perhaps indirectly led her son Anthony to
that course which gave the world "Framly Parsonage,"
"The Small House at Allington" and all that delightful
24
370 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
literature of English well-bred realism which forms, one
may say, a new school of English fiction. As Anthony
says, his mother, his brother and himself have written
more books than any other family in the world.
In 1834, the elder Trollope fled to the continent to
escape imprisonment for debt. Abroad, their home became
a hospital, where died sister, brother and father, after linger¬
ing illnesses; the brave old mother always tending the sick
and at the same time writing books for bread and burial
expenses. She wrote in all one hundred and fourteen vol¬
umes ; the first after she was fifty and the last after she was
seventy-six. We forgive her caricature of the West — if
indeed there was anything to forgive.
When, in his twentieth year, Anthony went to London
and applied for a clerkship in the general post-office, it was
shown that he could not write or spell common English, and
did not know the multiplication-table, in spite of the so-
called education of school and college! He got his clerk¬
ship, however, and made a very poor clerk for seven years
—disliked, suspected, in debt, and somewhat dissipated,
unconscious of any power and utterly hopeless. The
post-office sent him away from his desk to do out-door work
in Ireland, where he remained eighteen years and emerged
from shiftless idleness into decency and manliness. His
nature was evidently a sturdy plant, sour and uncouth while
green, and late in ripening.
It was in Ireland that he began novel-writing. For
the first three novels he received nothing. Then he wrote
"The Warden," and "Barchester Towers," the first of that
memorable series in which, as he says, he "added another
county to England"—-Barsetshire—Salisbury with its cathe¬
dral sitting for the portrait of "Barchester." In his fortieth
year he received the first money ever paid him for literary
work — ;^9 8s. 8d.
Trollope visited America twice in his life, once during the
THE TROLLOPES.
371
war for the Union.* His second visit was in 1868, with
the object of making a postal treaty, which happily suc¬
ceeded, and with a further commission to make an effort
in behalf of international copyright, which unhappily failed
for that time, only to succeed a generation later.
He wrote a book embodying his first journey, and of it
the autobiography says :
The book I wrote expressed an assured confidence—which never
quavered in a page or in a line — that the North would win. This
assurance was based on the merits of the Northern cause, on the
superior strength of the Northern party, and on a conviction that
England would never recognize the South and that France would
be guided in her policy by England. The South had provoked the
quarrel . . . and had fought gallantly; and a feeling, based on
misconception as to American character, that the Southerner is a
better gentlemen than his Northern brother, did create sympathy here.
Trollope's statement of his literary method, in his auto¬
biography, is one of the most curious disclosures ever made
by any writer. Writing, as he knew he was, from beyond
the grave (for he left the book unpublished during life), he
conducts his readers through his fiction-factory with a quiet
humor, an unmistakable candor and frankness, unparalleled
in the world of letters. He says :
I was told that the surest aid to the writing of a book was a piece
of cobbler's wax in my chair. I certainly believe in the cobbler's
wax much more than I do in inspiration. I had long since con¬
vinced myself that in such work as mine the great secret consisted
in acknowledging myself to be bound by rules of labor similar to
those which an artisan or mechanic is forced to obey
It had at this time become my custom to write with my watch before
me, and to require from myself 250 words at least every quarter of
an hour. I have found that the 250 words have been forthcoming
as regularly as my watch went.
Trollope criticises his own books with much severity
and much naïve praise. One thing he is ashamed of ; his
* The writer chanced to meet him at this time; a hearty, kindly,
short, stout, London gentleman, silent and observing.
372
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
many heedlessnesses of grammar and construction. But
his industry can never be questioned. He wrote more
book-pages of fiction than any other Englishman who ever
lived. His published stories number fifty, while his other
ten books—travels, biographies, etc.—bring his total pen-
work up to 30,000 printed pages, or a million and a half of
words 1
He rates his novel-writing contemporaries in the follow¬
ing order as to merit: Thackeray, George Eliot, Dickens,
Bulwer, Charles Lever, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Reade,
Wilkie Collins, Anne Thackeray, and Rhoda Broughton.
He also names Disraeli, but only to disparage him bitterly
—unjustly. "Hair - oil and false jewels."
However readers may disagree regarding his relative
place as to general eminence, all will admit that he stands
at or near the head of the realistic school. He quotes
with pride what Nathaniel Hawthorne said of his novels,
before they became generally known :
Have you ever read the novels of Anthony Trollope? They pre¬
cisely suit my taste —just as real as if some giant had hewn a great
lump out of the earth and and put it under a glass case, with all its
inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that
they are being made a show. ... I should think that human
nature would give them [the novels] success everywhere.
What would we not give for a Trollopean novel of the
twelfth century or any earlier age? History itself tends
toward becoming a life-like record of common folks'joys
and sorrows, rather than of the result of wars and the suc¬
cession of kings. So long as readers like to have romance
made to seem like reality, and reality to seem like romance,
so long will such novels as Trollope's be cherished. How
long will that be? Judging the future by the past, no
bound can be set, short of the day when words, written and
spoken, shall perish in a perishing world.
CHARLES KINGS LEY.
373
CHAPTER LVI.
CHARLES KINGSLEY. THE BRONTES. GEORGE ELIOT.
HARLES KINGSLEY {1819-75), clergyman, poet
and novelist, was the son of an English clergy¬
man, and on his mother's side a descendant ol
generations of West-Indian slave-holders. He was finely
educated, and graduated (with high honors) at Magdalen
College, Cambridge. After being eighteen years rector of
the parish of Eversley, in Hampshire, he was appointed
professor of modern history in Cambridge University. His
culture was wide and varied and his powers great; he being
(like Sydney Smith and many other Church-of-England
clergymen) distinguished for wit as well as learning and
piety; and for remarkable conversational powers.
His large-heartedness tended to make him sympathetic
with the interests of the lower classes, and he was one of
the few churchmen who espoused what was called " Chris¬
tian Socialism;" which not only sided with the poor but
attacked the rich and the system of social order which
produced, or at least countenanced, the chasm that divides
the two. He spent much time and strength in the effort
to ameliorate and Christianize the working people, and to
establish cooperative industry; that is, work wherein the
laborer shall share the profit.
It was at this time that he wrote his most striking and
memorable novels; "Yeast," and "Alton Locke, Tailor and
Poet"; works which created the greatest interest and
exercised immense influence; which interest and influence
are still alive, and are impelling the minds of men to
results which can not yet be fully foreseen or even guessed
at. In one of his novels ("Two Years Ago") he shows
knowledge of and sympathy with the negro race that may
374
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
have had something to do with the slave-holding traditions
of his family.
His next most marked book was "H)rpatia3" a historical
novel treating of the times of early Christianity in Egypt, and
the martyrdom of a grand and lovely Greek Pagan woman
forms the tragedy of the book. In most of his novels the
plot is very simple; and in all of them the reader has the
impression that he had something to say for which the story
serves only as a vehicle. His book of travels in the West
Indies, however, is charming and delightful for its own
sake, giving a picture so lifelike as to place the reader in
the midst of the scenes the writer describes.
Charlotte Brontë (1816-55) was the third child of a poor
clergyman settled in Haworth in Yorkshire, and most of
her early life was spent at that small country town. She
was one of six children, five girls and one boy. Three of
the girls, Charlotte (whose pseudonym was Currer Bell),
Anne (Acton Bell), and Emily (Ellis Bell), afterward became
writers.
The mother fell into ill-health, and the children were left
to themselves, and so grew up rather quiet, delicate and
reserved. They were brought up on a vegetable diet, their
father not considering flesh - meat, as he called it, to be
good for them. He had the theory, then very common,
that exposure and privation made children grow up strong
and hardy, and he enforced it with cruel and destructive
determination.
Mrs. Brontë soon died, and the children lived more alone
than ever, rarely meeting any one out of their own family.
Each was sent, at about twelve years old, to a boarding-
school, which Charlotte afterward described as "Lowood"
in "Jane Eyre," and from the poor food and well-meant
cruelties of which she suffered all her life. The girls walked
two miles over a shelterless country to church, even in the
coldest weather, carrying a cold dinner with them, and
THE BRONTES.
375
there attended morning and afternoon service in an utterly
cold building. Charlotte's two elder sisters, delicate before
they went to "Lowood," died within three years, in conse¬
quence of the treatment they received there. This left
Charlotte the eldest of the family, and she devoted her
life, with grave sweetness, to the care of the rest
At fourteen we find her producing stories, essays, dramas
and poems, which she wrote in an extremely minute hand
in twenty-two small volumes of sixty to one hundred pages
each. At fifteen she is described as a little, short-sighted,
nervous, wise, beloved, set, antiquated girl, quiet in manner
and quaint in dress. She was now sent to another school.
Miss Wooler's, which was a delightful contrast to the dread¬
ful place where she had suffered so much. She stayed there
one happy year, then went home to educate her sisters. At
nineteen she returned to Miss Wooler's as a teacher, and
remained there several years. She next became a private
governess, at the pitiful salary of ;^i6 a year! All these
experiences helped to mould the literary work which was to
occupy herself and sisters, as did also her residence in
Brussels, whither she and her sister Emily went to study in
preparing themselves to set up a school of their own.
When Charlotte was twenty-eight, her father lost his
sight for a time and (her brother having died a wretched
drunkard) the entire care of the family fell upon her. At
thirty she and her sisters published at the authors' cost a
volume of poems by "Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell." They
paid the entire expense of the publication and got back
almost nothing. Then they published, on joint-account with
the bookseller, three volumes containing three tales, one by
each of them. This also failed to win popular favor. Next
she offered "The Professor" for publication, but it was
declined. Nothing daunted, she began and persevered in
writing the book which was to bring to her fortune and
lasting fame; the wonderful novel "Jane Eyre." She was
thirty-one at this time.
376 HISTOR Y OF ENGLISH LITERA TURE.
The welcome to "Jane Eyre" was not sudden or tumul¬
tuous; but it was such as to yield a little money just when
that was most sorely needed, and to call within a year for
a second edition; in which its author wrote a dedication
to Thackeray.
Emily Brontë, author of "Wuthering Heights," died in
1847, Anne, author of "Agnes Grey" and "The Tenant
of Wildfell Hall," in 1849. The deaths of her brother
and both her sisters had occurred while Charlotte was wri¬
ting "Shirley," and it was published in the latter year, when
its brave writer was thirty-three. Up to this time the secret
of authorship had been kept; now it became known and
Charlotte might have been, if she had chosen, "a liter¬
ary lion;" but she would none of it. She did go a little into
London society, and there she met Thackeray, who gives an
interesting account of the occurrence. For herself, she says
she never could tell whether he was speaking in jest or
earnest; and remarks; "I felt sufficiently at my ease with
all but Thackeray; with him I was fearfully stupid." As to
her supposed effect upon others, she says, "I believe most
of them expected me to come out in a more marked, execu¬
tive, striking light. They desired more to admire and more
to blame." She returned to her country parsonage-home
with relief and content. But her fame followed her and the
post came loaded with letters. Other women had written
books, but no woman books so manly as hers. "Mental
Equality of the Sexes" was proclaimed by the reviews.
Her sisters' books are not without conspicuous ability;
but scarcely comparable with Charlotte's, though she, in
her sisterly love, was disposed to make them out her equals
if not her superiors. Emily's "Wuthering Heights" may be
called really great, but its atmosphere of gloom and horror
is unnatural. In 1854, when thirty-eight years old, she
married Mr. Nicholls, her father's curate, who had long loved
her—as did every one who ever knew her. This was the
GEORGE ELIOT.
377
happiest year of her life, and the last; for she died early in
1855-
Mary Ann Evans (Lewes) Cross, "George Eliot" (1819-
80), the most distinguished of woman novelists, was the
daughter of Robert Evans, in earlier life a carpenter, and
at the time of her birth the agent or superintendent for the
owner of an estate in Derbyshire. He is understood to be
shadowed forth in several of the noble low-bom characters
which are marvellously depicted in the author's novels;
"Adam Bede," " Caleb Garth," etc. The mother may also
be traced in the daughter's fiction; not in portraits but in
bits of portraiture wherein housewifely precision, industry
and method are displayed. Her farm-work was done by
nine in the morning, when she would sit down to her loom.
Mrs. Poyser is a masterpiece of art. Her sharpness of
speech is suggested as a memory of Mrs. Evans, and the
probable origin of Mary Ann's own mother-wit and pointed
plain speaking, but the novelist's "faculty of taking pains"
which is an element of genius, is traceable to the father.
Mary Ann, or Marian, as she grew to be called, had as
good education as the provincial neighborhood afforded,
and early took on staid, womanly looks and ways, more
like those of a teacher than a scholar, at the same time
liking to have about her all the refinements and delicacies
of luxurious appointments. Her culture was not limited to
her school-days; she devoted herself to the more advanced
studies as the years went on, and never found herself too
old to learn. She continued to be a student, in every
sense, to the end of her life.
When thirty years of age she lost her father; and, her
mother having died many years before, she suffered much
from her lonely position, though happy in the possession of
many and valued friends. She made the tour of Europe,
and spent about a year abroad. She had, before leaving
home, translated Strauss's "Life of Jesus;" but her serious
378
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
entry upon literary life may be said to date from her return,
when she began to write for the "Westminster Review"; an
early article being on Margaret Fuller, the American writer,
of whom she says: "We are at a loss whether to regard her
as the parent or child of New England transcendentalism."
Another article, noteworthy in view of her later writings, is
"Silly Novels by Lady Novelists."
Her first work of fiction, "Scenes of Clerical Life," of
which "Amos Barton" was the opening tale, was published
in Blackwood's Magazine, when she was thirty - eight
years old. The success, though satisfactory, was not start¬
ling. The authorship was a secret, and, as a name was
needed, George Eliot was adopted, and afforded room for
much discussion as to the sex of the author; though Dick¬
ens expressed himself strongly in favor of the hypothesis
of feminine authorship.
Two years later appeared "Adam Bede," which widened
and strengthened the fame of its writer. It was accepted
as the most perfect realism ever attained in fiction. People
were continually recognizing in its characters the reproduc¬
tion of living persons. It was said to hit the mark which
Dickens only aimed at; he merely giving the outward
shell of his low-life characters, while George Eliot pierced
through fiesh and blood and gave the heart and soul.
"The Mill on the Floss" kept up undimmed the name of
George Eliot, and it also made her known in her real per¬
son; and a great joy was experienced by all advocates of
. the equality of the sexes on the revelation of the fact that
a woman was doing such masculine work as this.
The well-known and almost unrivalled books which now
fiowed from this author's pen in rapid succession need
only to be mentioned to recall them to the minds of all
philanthropic readers of fiction. "Silas Marner," "Rom-
ola," "Felix Holt, the Radical," "Middlemarch," "Daniel
Deronda," complete the marvellous list. Each had an
THE BROWNINGS.
379
object; but the story always carried on the object—not the
object the story. Nowhere does there appear the sermon¬
izing, didactic tone which says, "Be good, be brave, be
kind, be true"; but one rises from reading each with a new
love for goodness, courage, mercy and truthfulness.
"George Eliot" was also a poet; "The Spanish Gipsy,"
a drama, and some shorter poems in blank verse, bearing
her name. These contain fine passages, but it is not as a
poet that she will be longest remembered.
CHAPTER LVII.
THE BROWNINGS.
WONDERFUL companionship is among the
noteworthy events of the nineteenth century.
Two great, poetic spirits whom nature seems to
have intended for one another by their gifts, their tastes
and their power of intense mutual affection. Robert Brown¬
ing (1812-89), and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1809-61),
will go down to posterity linked together, and surrounded
by a halo of admiration and love. Mr. Browning was bom
in London, of parents who were cultivated and accom¬
plished, and were persons of unusual strength of character
and mental ability. The elder Browning inherited from his
mother a sugar-plantation in St. Kitts, but abandoned a resi¬
dence there from hatred of slavery (which then existed in
the British colonies), and became a clerk in the Bank of
England. Robert Browning numbered among his imme¬
diate ancestors Germans, Scots, and West - Indian creóles,
beside the English blood inherited from his father, which
diversity of race may partly account for the variety and
scope of his mental endowments. He had a careful school
and home education, but did not take a university course.
380 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
preferring to complete his studies by travel. After returning
home, he devoted himself seriously to authorship (he was
then about twenty-five) and published "Paracelsus," "Straf¬
ford" and "Bordello," all poems having the dramatic form.
The last is said to have been its author's favorite. His
"Bells and Pomegranates," a collection of poems which
included "Pippa Passes," was the means of making him
acquainted with Miss Elizabeth Barrett, who paid a tribute
to his genius in her poem of "Lady Geraldine's Courtship."
Or from Browning some "Pomegranate"
Which if cut deep down the middle,
Shows a heart within blood-tinctured.
Of a veined humanity.
This led to a correspondence which, after two years,
resulted in marriage, when she was in her thirty-seventh
year and he in his thirty - fourth.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the daughter of an Eng¬
lish country gentleman and seems to have always been
marked out for a poet. She began to write when she
was a mere child, having the good taste, however, never
to wish her juvenile poems published, nor to have them
seen by any one except her father, whom she calls "my
public and my critic." Miss Mitford, who knew her well,
speaks of her as having at this time "a slight, delicate
figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on each side of a
most expressive face, large, tender eyes, richly fringed by
dark eye-lashes, and a smile like a sunbeam." Miss Barrett
soon became a fine scholar, thoroughly acquainted with
Latin and Greek, and, as a matter of course, with all the
best literature of her own language. Her frail health obliged
her to live very quietly, and added to her natural inclination
for the seclusion which deep study requires. When she was
twenty-six years old, the bursting of a blood - vessel in her
lungs left her life hanging long by a slender thread. For
seven years after this she was an invalid, confined to her
THE BROWNINGS.
381
couch, with the prospect of remaining so through life.
During this long time of enforced retirement her sole
resource was reading; and an amusing instance of her
evading her physician's desire that she should discontinue
her severe studies is shown in her having her Greek Plato
bound to look like a novel that it might not excite his sus¬
picions.
Her first volume of poems, containing "A Drama of Ex¬
ile," "The Cry of the Children," "Lady Geraldine's Court¬
ship," and other expressions of intense feeling and deep
sympathy with humanity, established her position as a poet,
and as has been said, resulted in her marriage with Robert
Browning. The exquisite "Sonnets from the Portuguese,"
written during her engagement to him, though not published
until long afterward, have never been surpassed for delicacy
of tone combined with the utmost intensity of emotion.
Mr. Browning took his wife at once to Italy, where the
mild climate undoubtedly did much to prolong her life.
Both of them felt the deepest sympathy for the new Italy
just rising into being under Victor Emanuel and Garibaldi,
and many fine poems owed their inspiration to this source.
At Florence (which they made their home), Mrs. Browning
wrote her "Casa Guidi Windows," and her longest poem,
"Aurora Leigh." The latter is partly of an autobiographical
nature, and is very interesting as throwing light on her early
life. A new translation of "Prometheus Bound," of which
she had made a somewhat unsatisfactory one before her
marriage, was also among her labors, and a volume of
prose, "Essays on the Greek Christian Poets," and "Book of
the Poets," the latter on English writers. Fifteen years of
beautiful married life were passed in Italy, the last fourteen
in Florence; then her health gradually failed, and she
passed away calmly and without pain, in the very year
(1861) and week which saw Victor Emanuel acknowledged
king of a united Italy.
382 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The house (called "Casa Guidi") occupied by the Brown¬
ings during their residence in Florence, has a tablet on the
front, placed there by the city to her memory.
Mr. Browning published, during the fifteen years of their
married life, several volumes of collected poems, one of
which, entitled "Men and Women," contains a series of
character - sketches, and some beautiful lyiics. After his
wife's death he wrote "Dramatis Personse," a work of the
same nature; "The Ring and the Book," an epic poem,
dealing with the passions; "Balaustion's Adventure," which
includes a free translation of the "Alkestis" of Euripi¬
des, and many other books. His last volume "Asolando,"
a collection of short single poems, was happily completed
just before his death.
It is needless here to attempt a criticism of Browning's
writings. The "Browning Societies" scattered through our
country show that a vast number of the poetry-loving people
of the present day regard him as the greatest poet of the
century. Another hundred years will decide his place
among the writers of the world. His greatness is indispu¬
table, his failings almost equally conspicuous. The former
is chiefly in the thought expressed ; the latter in the manner
of expression, which is often obscure—almost incomprehen¬
sible — and sometimes grotesque, if not absurd. He might
be called a Carlyle among poets; or turning to the sister
art, be compared to a Wagner.
Mrs. Browning's gifts of lofty poetic feeling, thrilling ten¬
derness, exquisite delicacy and fervency of expression com¬
bined with rare intellectual powers and great acquirements,
are more easily expressed. Her defects are, too great
fluency, occasioning an undue use of words, and a careless¬
ness about rhyme which mars some of her finest rhymed
work.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
383
CHAPTER LVIII.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
T has been the plan, in preparing this brief account
of England's noteworthy writers, to exclude from
the list all the living. To this number belonged,
until now, the poet - laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson. As
the last sheets of our Short History are passing through the
press, we hear of his death (October 6, 1892). Though it
is a painful task to speak of one long and lately with us as
having now no part in this busy life of ours, the work will
not be complete without a few words on the man who for
many years has filled so important a place in the hearts
of his countrymen and of the English-speaking world.
Alfred Tennyson (born in 1809) was the third of a family
of twelve children. His father, George Clayton Tennyson,
was rector of Somersby in Lincolnshire, where the poet was
born. After a home and school training under the superin¬
tendence of his father, Alfred went to Cambridge,* where
he obtained his first laurels (1819) in the shape of the Chan¬
cellor's medal for a poem in blank verse called "Timbuctoo."
This the laureate never acknowledged, or allowed to be
printed among his works; but as it was unearthed and
"pirated" by American publishers, we are enabled to judge
from its lines whether any gleams appear in it of the genius
which afterward made its author famous. The writer sup¬
poses himself to be standing on the heights of Gibraltar
and gazing across "Calpe's Straits" into Africa; a region to
which he gives the general name of "Timbuctoo;"
I stood upon the Mountain which o'erlooks
The narrow seas, whose rapid interval
* Like many other great authors, he left the university without
taking a degree.
384 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Parts Afric from green Europe, when the sun
Had fall'n below the Atlantic, and above
The silent heavens were blench'd with fairy light.
Uncertain whether fairy light or cloud,
Flowing Southward, and the chasms of deep, deep blue
Slumber'd unfathomable, and the stars
Were flooded over with clear glory and pale.
***** Then I raised
My voice aùd cried, "Wild Afric, doth thy sun
Lighten, thy hills enfold a city as fair
As those which starred the night of the elder world?
Or is the rumor of thy Timbuctoo
A dream as frail as those of ancient time?"
It is not difficult to recognize in lines like these, the
promise afterward fulfilled in "The Lotos Eaters," and
"Œnone." They are certainly creditable to a young man
of twenty. This, however, was not his first poetic effort.
While still at school he had published, in connection with
his brother Charles (who later added Turner to his family
name), a volume of their joint composition entitled " Po¬
ems by Two Brothers." Little notice was taken of this
youthful effort, though Coleridge said that the verses signed
"A. T." gave promise of a coming poet These also were
ignored by the writer in later life.
In 1830, Tennyson put forth a volume called "Poems,
Chiefly Lyrical." As successive editions were published he
added new pieces, and omitted such of the old ones as he
thought unworthy of preservation, until the volume con¬
tained all the poems we now find preceding "The Princess"
in the general edition of his works. This collection placed
him at once in the front rank of poets. The favorites
among them are, perhaps, beside "Œnone" and "The Lotos
Eaters," already mentioned, "Love and Death," "The
Lady of Shalott," "The Palace of Art," "Lady Clara Vere
de Vere," " The May-Queen," "A Dream of Fair Women,"
" Morte d'Arthur," " Locksley Hall," and " Break, break.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
380
break." A fine specimen of his early manner is given in
"The Deserted House:"
Life and Thought have gone away
Side by side,
Leaving door and windows wide:
Careless tenants they!
All within is dark as night;
In the windows is no light,
And no murmur at the door.
So frequent on its hinge before.
» * »
Come away, for Life and Thought
Here no longer dwell:
But in a city glorious—
A great and distant city—^they have bought
' A mansion incorruptible:
Would they could have stayed with us!
It is difficult to characterize the charming poem called
" The Princess, A Medley," on account of its inequality. In
spite of unquestionable diffuseness, it contains passages
which have been quoted until they are " household words,"
and some daintily-tender songs such as "The splendor falls,"
" Tears, idle tears," and others, which fasten themselves on
our imagination as much by their music as by the thought
contained in them.
The splendor falls on castle walls.
And snowy summits old in story.
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying;
Blow, bugle; answer echoes, dying, dying, dying.
Among other quotable passages are the following :
Jewels five words long.
That on the stretched forefinger of all time
Sparkle forever.
* • *
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns.
And sweet as English air could make her.
25
38e
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
The moan of doves in immemoñal elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
To these must be added the grand passage beginning :
For woman is not undeveloped man.
But diverse.
" In Memoriam," Tennyson's next separate work (pub¬
lished 1850), is rather a collection of short poems than one
long one ; being composed of groups of quatrains written
at intervals, upon one subject, through a period of seventeen
years. The whole was a tribute to his friend Arthur Henry
Hallam (son of Hallam the historian), who died in Vienna
in 1833, and whose loss the poet mourned with an unending
regret. This, the most famous death-song in our language
since Lycidas, is an elegy of wonderful grandeur and tender¬
ness, coming from a full heart and inspired with the loftiest
poetic sentiment. It has been called a journal of sorrows.
In 1851, on the death of Wordsworth, Tennyson was cre¬
ated poet-laureate ; an office which the occupancy of Southey
and Wordsworth had redeemed from the low estimation into
which it had previously fallen. The first poetical effort the
new laureate was called on to make was the " Ode on the
Death of the Duke of Wellington." This poem, while con¬
taining much that is good and noble, appears labored, and
is, to our thinking, inferior as a finished picture to the
beautiful stanzas which our own Longfellow wrote on the
same occasion.*
It is perhaps fortunate that modem custom does not
require, of the laureate, verses made to order on each event
that takes place in the royal family. The poet is allowed
to use his own judgment as to the occasions when he snail
call upon his muse for a contribution, and both Wordsworth
• A mist was driving down the British Channel;
The day was just begun;
And through the window-pane, on floor and panel,
Streamed the red autumn sun; et seq.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
387
and Tennyson were exceedingly chary of this effort. In
"The Charge of the Light Brigade," Tennyson scored a
success. We may say of "A Welcome to Alexandra " (The
Princess of Wales), that the first lines are the best part of it:
Sea-kings' daughter from over the sea,
Alexandra !
Saxon and Norman and Dane are we,
But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee,
Alexandra !
In 1845, appeared "Maud," a poem which puzzled the
critics not a little, and which does not even yet occupy a
fixed place in popular estimation. In meaning, though not
in diction, it is obscure, a fault so fare in Tennyson that
one is almost inclined to think the poem a sort of experi¬
ment; something to test the perspicacity of the public
mind. Be this as it may, " Maud " contains many passages
of rare beauty, and others of fervidly intense feeling.
Beside some pieces written in his capacity as laureate,
several other poems were published with " Maud," of which
"The Brook, an Idyl," and "Will," have remained the great¬
est favorites.
Oh, well for him whose will is strong!
He suffers, but he will not suffer long;
He suffers, but he can not suffer wrong.
The " Idyls of the King," Enid, Vivien, Elaine, Gueni-
vere — supplemented in after years by "The Passing of
Arthur" and other poems on similar subjects, were named
by their author an "Arthurian Epic," but the title "epic"
seems questionable. The tales are fragmentary, and therefore
contrary in their nature to the idea of an epic ; which, strictly
speaking, is a sustained and connected poem on one subject.
Individually, however, they are very beautiful.
"Enoch Arden" with its pathetic story of homely fidehty
and self-sacrifice, sprang instantly into general favor. In
187s appeared the first of Tennyson's dramas—"Queen
388 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Mary," which was followed by " Becket " and " Hajold," and
lastly, in the year of his death (the eighty-third of his life),
" The Foresters." Seldom has a poet attempted, at such an
age, so difficult a task as that of writing a play for acting ;
more seldom still has the effort been crowned with success.
"The Foresters" has not yet been published, but it has taken
well upon the stage, and seems to have done no discredit
to its author's fame.
Two more volumes, named respectively "Tiresias, and
other Poems," and " Demeter and other Poems," close the
list of Tennyson's collected works. A complete, uniform
edition of his writings is still lacking.
In 1883, the poet was created Baron Tennyson of Aid-
worth, in Sussex, and Freshwater, Isle of Wight; a clumsy
title, which the short formula "Lord Tennyson" replaces
for common use.
When Tennyson's first noteworthy book was published
(1842), Wordsworth, then the greatest of living poets, had
ceased to write. The latter had never been a poet of the
people, his lofty strains reaching only minds raised above
the ordinary level. But all could appreciate the warm
humanity of the younger poet, the faultless music of his
verse, his rich fancy, his glowing imagination. These sup¬
plied a need which till then had existed without being
recognized. His exquisitely delicate observation of nature
no poet has ever surpassed or perhaps even equalled. His
moral is always of the highest, and he does not forget to
emphasize it. For example, in speaking of the source of
Wellington's eminence he desires that the great soldier's
example may stand.
Till in all lands and through all human story
The path of duty be the way to glory.
Tennyson's poetic gifts are apt, at first sight, to throw into
the shade the evidences of his wide reading and extensive
acquaintance with classical and other literature. His poems
ALFRED TENNYSON.
389
are filled with allusions which show that what had been
of old thought and written was as familiar to him as were
the things about him. Never obtruding his learning, he
makes use of it in a manner so unforced and natural that
we do not even notice the proofs of it until, when our atten¬
tion is called to it, we perceive how richly stored must
have been the mind which could use its wealth of illustra¬
tion with so lavish a hand.
Personally, the laureate was one of the most unapproach¬
able of men. Unlike Scott, who considered it a part of his
duty to receive with courtesy the hosts of "lion-hunters"
who intruded on his privacy, Tennyson resented such curi¬
osity, and pushed his resistance to it to the verge of rude¬
ness. The friends to whom he was personally attached
were devoted to him and he to them; but with the general
public he had no patience. This habit of seclusion, which
lasted many years, had the effect of withdrawing his interest
somewhat from matters affecting the world's progress, and
restricting it to a narrower field. It may also have produced
the pessimistic tendency visible in his poem " Locksley
Hall Sixty Years After." Here are some typical verses :
Chaos, Cosmos ! Cosmos, Chaos ! Who can tell how all will end?
Read the wide world's annals, you, and take their wisdom for your
friend.
Hope the best, but hold the Present fatal daughter of the Past,
Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hour
will last.
Ay, if dynamite and revolver leave you courage to be wise:
When was age so cramm'd with menace? madness? written, spoken
lies?
The closing scene was ideal in its beauty. The dying
poet lay at midnight in his lovely home (at Aldworth in Sus¬
sex), with no light in the room except from the moon which
shone in at the open window, a volume of Shakespeare
open in his hand at a page of "Cymbeline," and thus faded
390 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
gently away, surrounded by his nearest and dearest, and
perfectly conscious to almost the very end.
And so we must leave him,
As he stands on the heights of his life, with a glimpse of a height
that is higher.*
How he himself looked forward to his passing is best
told in his own words when he wrote in anticipation of it:
Crossing the Bar.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar.
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too fiill for sound and foam.
When that which drew from out the boundless deep.
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell.
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark.
For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
We bid farewell, for a time, to the immeasurable theme of
English literature. From far-away old Gildas, almost
invisible through the mist of ages and almost inaudible
through the roar of events as the great world spins
Forever down the ringing grooves of change,
to Tennyson, the newly dead, the deeply mourned, who
shone bright
In the white light that beats upon a throne,
we have followed, step by step, the wondrous story;
* "By an Evolutionist."—Tennyson.
CONCLUSION.
391
more and more prone, as we go on, to think that England's
splendor, after all, is not in her feats of arms, nor in her
material progress, but in her moral and intellectual
advance, of which her towering literature is at once
cause and effect. Freedom, light, humanity, morality; all
these and every other immaterial glory have climbed up
hand in hand with the thought of her intellectual giants,
made immortal in the words of their writings.
Is a greater height possible ? It seems hard to believe
it, yet before Chaucer and Spenser, Shakespeare and Mil¬
ton, Tennyson and Browning, the world thought in each
case that the summit had been gained. It may be that
years will bring other revelations as startling as were
these, but our imaginations fail to grasp the possibility.
We can only wonder and wait
INDEX.
Addison, Joseph, 183-7
Aiken, John, 241
Aiken, Lucy, 241
Ainsworth, William Harrison, 313
Akenside, Mark, 214
Alcuin, 16
Aldhelm, 14
Alfred, King, 17;
Alfric, 18
Alison, Sir Archibald, 333
Andrews, Launcelot, 108
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 19
Arbuthnot, John, 190
Arnold, Matthew, 353
Arnold, Thomas, 333
Ascham, Roger, 61-3
Asser, 18
Augustan Age of English Litera¬
ture, i8l
Austen, Jane, 307
Aytoun, William Edmonstoune,
296
Bacon, Francis, 101-6
Bacon, Roger, 24
Baillie, Joanna, 325
Barbauld, Anna Laetitia, 241
Barbour, John, 31
Barclay, Alexander, 50
Barclay, Robert of Ury, 151
Barnard, Lady Anne, 251
Barrow, George, 351
Barrow, Isaac, 151
' ' Barry Cornwall, " 292
Baxter, Richard, 149
Beaconsfield, Lord, 313
Beattie, James, 250
Beaumont, Francis, 89
Beckford, WTlliam, 240
.Bede, the Venerable, 14
Behn, Aphra, 153, 164
Bentham, Jeremy, 230
Bentley, Richard, 191
"Beowulf," 13
Berkeley, George, 192
Bemers, Juliana, 41
Berners, Lord, 59
Bible, Authorized Version, 107
Bible, Revised Version, 108
Blacklock, Thomas. 254
Blackstone, Sir William, 228
Blackwood's Magazine, 317
Blair, Hugh, 210
Blair, Robert, 210
"Blind Harry," 39
Blessington, Lady, 311
Bloomfield, Robert, 252
Boswell, James, 221
Boyle, Charles, 192
Boyle, Robert, 159
Brewster, Sir David, 348
Bronte, Anne, 374-6
Bronte, Charlotte, 374-6
Bronte, Emily, 374-6
Broome, William, 178
Brougham, Henry, Lord, 31.5
Brown, Thomas, 229
Browne, Sir Thomas, 113-15
Browne, William, 119
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett,
379-83
Browning, Robert, 379-83
Brunne, Robert de, 25
Buchanan, George, 68
Buckhurst, Lord, 64-6
Buckingham, Duke of, 163
Buckle, Henry Thomas, 353
Bullokar, 40
Bulwer, Sir Edward Lytton, 364-6
Bunyan, John, 139-44
Burke, Edmund, 228
Bumet, Gilbert, 154
Bumey, Charles, 239
Bumey, Frances, 239
Bums, Robert, 253-6
Burton, Robert, Ii2
(393)
39é HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Butler, Joseph, 193
Butler, Samuel, 130
Butters, Samuel, 154
Byron, Lord, 275-281,311
Caedmon, 12
Camden, William, 70
Campbell, George, 227
Campbell, Thomas, 271-3
Canning, George, 316
Canute, King, 20
Carew, Thomas, 121
Carlyle, Thomas, 345-7
Caxton, William, 42-4
Chalmers, Thomas, 321
Chapman, George, 69, 90
Chatterton, Thomas, 244-7
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 32-6
Cheke, Sir John, 68
Chesterfield, Lord, 218, 232
"Christopher North," 317
Chronicle, Anglo-Saxon, 19
Cibber, Colley, 166
Clarendon, Lord, 148
Clough. Arthur Hugh, 296
Cobbett, William, 229
Coleridge, Derwent, 268
Coleridge, Hartley, 268
Coleridge, Henry Nelson, 268
Coleridge, Sir John Taylor, 316
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 265-8
Coleridge, Sara, 268
Colet, John, 54
Collier, Jeremy, 163
Collier, John Payne, 322
Collins, William, 213
Collins, William Wilkie, 368
Colman, George, 236
Colman, George, the Younger,
236
Congreve, William, 165
Cottle, Joseph, 264, 269
Coverdaie, Miles, 58
Cowley, Abraham, 129
Cowper, William, 256-60
Crabbe, George, 248
Cranmer, Thomas, 67
Crashaw, Richard, 121
Cumberland, Richard, 236
Cuthbert, 16
Daniel, Samuel, 81
D'Arblay, Madame, 240
Darwin, Charles, 349
Darwin, Erasmus, 250
Davenant, Sir William, 126
Davies, Sir John, 66
Day, Thomas, 241
Defoe, Daniel, 194-7
Dekker, Thomas, 90
"Delia Cruscans," 316
Denham, Sir John, 118, 128
Dennis, John, 190
DeQuincey, Thomas. 342
Diarists, The, 144-8
Dibdin, Charles, 289
Dibdin, Thomas, 289
Dickens, Charles, 358-64
Disraeli, Benjamin, 313
Disraeli, Isaac, 322
Dobell, Sydney, 297
Doddridge, Philip, 193
Donne, John, 115-17
Dorset, Earl of, 179
Douglas, Gawain or Gavin, 49
Drama, The, 83-5
Drayton, Michael, 81
Drummond, William, of Haw-
thornden, 119
Dunbar, William, 49
Dryden, John, 159-63
Dyer, John, 210
Edgeworth, Maria, 307
Edgeworth, Richard Lovell, 307
Edinburgh Review, 315.
"Eliot, George," 377-9
Elizabeth, Queen, 76
Elliot, Jane, 251
Elliott, Ebenezer, 291
Elyot, Sir Thomas, 59
Erasmus, 54
Erigena, John Scotus, 16
Etherege, Sir George, 164
Eusdon, Lawrence, 166
Evans, Mary Ann, 377-9
Evelyn, John, 144
Fabyan, Robert, 59
Fairfax, Edward, 69
Farquhar, George, 167
INDEX.
3»5
Fenton, Elijah, 178
Fergusson, Robert, 252
Ferrier, Susan, 308
Fielding, Henry, 199-203
Filmer, Sir Robert, 152
Fletcher, Giles, 119
Fletcher, John, 89
Fletcher, Phineas, 119
Foote, Samuel, 236
Ford, John, 90
Fortescue, Sir John, 40
Foster, John, 322
Fox, John, 68
Francis, Sir Philip, 228
Freeman, Edward Augustus, 338
Froissart, Jean, 60 '
Fuller, Thomas, no
Gait, John, 309
Garrick, David, 236
Garth, Sir Samuel, 190
Gascoigne, George, 66
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 314
Gay, John, 180
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 21, 45
Gerald of Wales, 22
Gibbon, Edward, 235
Gifford, William, 316
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 70
Gildas, the Wise, 10
Godwin, William, 230
Godwin, Mary Wollstonecrart,230
Godwin, Mary, 311
Goldsmith, Oliver, 223-7
Gosson, Stephen, 74
Gower, John, 30
Grafton, Richard, 70
Gray, Thomas, 211-213
Green, John Richard, 338
Greene, Robert, 85
Grocyn, William, 54
Grote, George, 332
Hakluyt, Richard, 70
Hall, Edward, 59
Hall, Joseph, 117
Hall, Robert, 320
Hallam, Arthur Henry, 386
HaUam, Henry, 331
Hamilton, Sir WUliam, 350
Hare, Augustus William, 322
Hare, Julius Charles, 322
Harington, Sir John, 63, 69
Harrington, James, 152
Hawes, Stephen, 50
Hazlitt, William, 342
Heber, Reginald, 291
Helps, Sir Arthur, 324
Hemans, Felicia Dorothea, 293
Henry of Huntington, 22
Henry the Minstrel, 39
Henry VIII., King, 59
Henry, Matthew, 191
Henry son, Robert, 39
Herbert, George, 119-21
Herbert, Lord, of Cherbury, 121
Herrick, Robert, 122
Hey wood, John, 60
Higden, Ralph, 26
Hobbes, Thomas, 151
Hogg, James, 317
Holinshed, Raphael, 70
Home, Henry, 227
Home, John, 250
Hood, Thomas, 285-8
Hook, Theodore, 310
Hooker, Richard, 81-3
Hopkins, John, 64
Horner, Francis, 316
Houghton, Lord, 295
Howell, James, 108
Howitt, Mary, 293
Howitt, William, 29^
Hume, David, 233
Hunt, Leigh, 344
Hyde, Edward, 148
Inchbald, Elizabeth, 240
Interludes, 60
Ireland, William Henry, 24/
James I. of Scotland, 38
James I. of England, 107
James, George Payne Rainsford,
3"
Jameson, Anna, 323
Jeffrey, Francis, 315
Jerrold, Douglas, 324
Jerrold, William Blanchard, 324
John of Salisbury, 21
396
HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
John de Trevisa, 31
Johnson, Samuel, 215-23
Jones, Sir William, 251
Jonson, Ben, 87-9
Junius, Letters of, 228
Jusserand, M., 86
Karnes, Lord, 227
Kaye, John, 41
Keats, John, 283-5
Keble, John, 292
Ken, Thomas, 151
Kinglake, Alexandèr William, 351
Kingsley, Charles, 373
Knight, Charles, 337
Knowles, James Sheridan, 325
Knox, John, 68
Kyd, Thomas, 85
Lamb, Charles, 340-2
Lamb, Mary, 341
Landon, Letitia Elizabeth, 293
Landor, Walter Savage, 339
Langland, William, 28
Latimer, Hugh, 67
Layamon, 22
Lee, Nathaniel, 165
Leighton, Alexander, 112
Leland, John, 59
L'Estrange, Sir Roger, 153
Lever, Charles, 313
Lewes, George Henry, 352
Lewis, Matthew Gregory, 309
Linacre, Thomas, 54
Lindsay, Sir David, 49
Lingard, John, 331
Livingstone, David, 297
Locke, John, 155-7
Lockhart, John Gibson, 302, 317
Lodge, Thomas, 85
Lord's Prayer (Saxon), 28
Lovelace, Richard, 124
Lover, Samuel, 311
Lydgate, John, 37
Lyell, Sir Charles, 349
Lyly, John, 71, 85.
Lytton, Lord, 364-6
Lytton, Sir Robert Bulwer, 297
Macaulay, Thos. Babington, 334-7
Mackay, Charles, 296
Mackenzie, Henry, 242
Mackintosh, Sir James, 330
Macpherson, James, 243
Malory, Sir Thomas, 44
Mandeville, Bernard, 182
Mandeville, Sir John, 26
Map, Walter, 23
Marvell, Andrew, 130, 137
Marlowe, Christopher, 86
Marston, John, 90'
Martineau, Harriet, 329
Maryatt, Frederick, 312
Mason, William, 213
Massinger, Philip, 90
Matthew Paris, 24
Maurice, Frederick Denison, 321
"Metaphysical" poets, 115
Middleton, Thomas, 90
Mill, James, 331
Mill, John Stuart, 351
Miller, Hugh, 349
Milman, Henry Hart, 332
Milnes, Richard Monckton, 295
Milton, John, 132-9
Minot, Lawrence, 25
Miracle Plays, 23
Mitford, Mary Russell, 327
Mitford, William, 332
"Monk" Lewis, 309, 311
Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 231
Montgomery, James, 290
Moore, Thomas, 273-5
"Moralities," 60
More, Hannah, 241
More, Sir Thomas, 53-8
Morgan, Lady, 311
Morton, Cardinal, 55
"Mysteries," 23
Naime, Lady, 251
Napier, Sir William, 332
Nash, Thomas, 85
Newbury, William of, 45
Newman, John Henry, 321
Newspapers, 154
Newton, Sir Isaac, 157-9
Newton, John, 258
Norton, Caroline Elizabeth, 295
Norton, Thomas, 64
INDEX.
S97
Occleve, Thomas, 37
Opie, Amelia, 308
Odericus Vitalis, 2l
Orm (Ormin), 24
Otway, Thomas, 164, 184
"Owen Meredith," 297
Paine, Thomas, 230
Paley, William, 230
Pal^ave, Francis Turner, 332
Paris, Matthew, 24
Pamell, Thomas, 181
Paston Letters, 41
Patmore, Coventry, 296
Peacock, Thomas Love, 310
Pecock, Reginald, 39
Penn, William, 150
Pep3ts, Samuel, 145-8
Percy, Thomas, 50, 250
"Phalaris, Epistles of," 191
Phillips, Ambrose, 182
Phillips, Catherine, 153
Phillips, John, 182
Piozzi, Mrs., 222
Polidori, Dr., 311
Pope, Alexander, 172-9
Porter, Anna Maria, 309
Porter, Jane, 308
Porter, Sir Robert Ker, 309
Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, 294
Priestley, Joseph, 230
Prior, Matthew, 179
Procter, Adelaide Anne, 292
Procter, Bryan Waller, 292
Prynne, William, ill
Purchas, Samuel, 71
Puttenham, George, 75
Pye, Henry James, 302
Quarles, Francis, 121
Radcliffe, Ann, 240
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 98-101
Ramsay, Allan, 206
Reade, Charles, 366-8
Reid, Thomas, 229
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 228
Ridley, Nicholas, 67
Richardson, Samuel, 197-9
Robert of Brunne, 25
Robert of Gloucester, 23
Robertson, Frederick William,
321
Robertson, William, 234
Roger of Wendover, 22
Rogers, John, 67
Rogers, Samuel, 289
Rolle, Richard, 25
Roscoe, William, 329
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 296
Rowe, Nicholas, 167
Russell, Lady Rachel, 153
Sackville, Sir Thomas, 64-66
Savage, Richard, 207
Saxon Chronicle, 19
Scott, Sir Walter, 249, 254, 298
-306, 308-9
Scotus, John (Erigena), 16
Seiden, John, 108
Shakespeare, William, 91-8
Shakespeare's plays, list of, 95
Shelley, Mary, 311
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 281-3,3'"
Shenstone, William, 210
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 237-9
Sherlock, William, 151
Shirley, James, 90
Sidney, Algernon, 152
Sidney, Sir Philip, 51, 72-5
Skelton, John, 47
Smith, Adam, 229
Smith, Alexander, 297
Smith, Horace, 290
Smith, James, 290
Smith, Sydney, 318-20
Smollett, Tobias, 203, 233
Somerville, Mary, 348
South, Robert, 151 ^
Southern, Thomas, 165
Southey, Robert, 268-71
Speed, John, 70
Speke, John Hanning, 351
Spenser, Edmund, 7^80
Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 321
Steele, Sir Richard, 186, 187-90
Sterne, Laurence, 204
Sternhold and Hopkins, 64
Stewart, Dugald, 229
Still, John, 60
398 HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Stillingfleet. Edward, 151
Stow, John, 69
Strickland, Agnes, 328
Suckling, Sir John, 123
Surrey, Lord, 51-2
Swift, Jonathan, 168-72
Sylvester, Joshua, 69
Tate and Brady, 167
Talfourd. Sir Thomas Noon, 326
Taylor, Sir Henry, 327
Taylor, Jeremy, 110
Temple, Sir William, 151, 169
Tenn3rson, Alfred, 383-91
Tennyson, Charles, 384
Thackeray, William Makepeace,
354-8
Theobald, Louis, 191
Thirlwall, Connop, 332
Thomson, James, 208
Thrale, Hester, 222
Tickell, Thomas, 182
Tillotson, John, Ijl
Tottel's Miscellany, 64
Trench, Richard Chenevix, 323
Trevisa, John de, 31
Trollope, Anthony, 369-72
Trollope, Frances Milton, 369
Tupper, Martin Fsrquhar, 295
Turner, Charles Tennyson, 384
Turner, Sharon, 332
Tusser, Thomas, 61
Tyndale, William, 51, 58
Tytler, Patrick Fraser, 333
Udall, Nicholas, 60
Jsher, James, 108
Vanbrugh, Sir John, 165
Vaughan, Henry, 129
Vitalis, Ordericus, 21
Wace, 22
Waller, Edmund, 127
Walpole, Horace, 231, 246
Walter Map, 23
Walton, Isaak, 109
Warburton, William, 191
Warner, William, 80 ,
Warren, Samuel, 313
Warton, Joseph, 227
Warton, Thomas, 228
Watts, Isaac, 193
Webster, John, 90
Wesley, Charles, 193
Wesley, John, 193
Whateley, Richard, 348
White, Gilbert, 228
White, Henry Kirke, 291
Whitefield, George, 194
Whitehead, William, 213
Wilberforce, Samuel, 320
Wilberforce, William, 320
William of Malmesbury, 21
William of Newbury, 45
Wilson, John, 317
Wilson, Thomas, 63
Wither, George, 118
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 230
Wood, Anthony à, 153
Wordsworth, William, 261-65,,
3°4
Wotton, Sir Henry, n8
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 51
WycliflFe, John, 28
Wycherley, William, 164
Wyntoun, Andrew, 39
Young, Edward, 205
Miss Kirklands
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